Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

“Shoot him again,” Mottaki shouted. “You missed the first time.”

The tank was rocking back and forth, the visible gun barrel vibrating from the efforts of the tank crew to drive it out of the pile of rubble, which was still growing.

The barrel got longer… then the front of the tank appeared, and the barrel began to swing toward them.

“Let’s get with it,” Joe Mottaki growled.

The words were no more than out of his mouth when the howitzer vomited out another round, rocking the vehicle as the muzzle blast broke windows up and down the street, those that were still intact.

The tank was hidden in a fireball that grew and grew.

“Driver, any old time.”

The vehicle jerked into motion. In seconds it was clanking right along, working up to its top speed of over forty miles per hour.

The driver turned a corner and aimed the vehicle down a narrow street lined with parked cars on both sides, heading away from the ministry. The howl of the diesel engine in the tracked vehicle filled the urban canyon with thunder as curious people leaned out their windows to see what was happening. Two police cars rounded the corner ahead and slammed to a stop, blocking the street.

Revving the motor to the redline, the driver drove right through the police cars, smashing them out of the way as the Iranian cops ran for cover.

With my backpack in one hand and the Ruger in the other, I ran for the office with the open window, and my rope. I wanted out. Unfortunately, that was about the time I realized that the Targeting Office, with twenty pounds of virulent C-4 about to explode, was only a couple of doors down, on the floor immediately underneath the room where I had entered. Can I do it to myself, or what?

I threw open the door and charged in, right into an ambush. Five people launched themselves at me. I got off one shot before they piled me, rifle butts swinging. I went out under the onslaught.

The building was visibly on fire, with heavy smoke rolling out, when G. W. Hosein rolled into the street beside the Defense Ministry and coasted to a stop directly beside the broken window where Tommy Carmellini had made his entry. Haddad Nouri was at the wheel of the car behind him, with Ahmad Qajar riding shotgun.

Ahead of Hosein, on the cross street in front of the main entrance, he could see fire trucks rolling in and police cars with sirens moaning and lights flashing.

“Tommy?” he called on the radio. He received no answer.

When I came to-I don’t know how long I was out; probably no more than a few seconds-the room was lit with flashlight beams darting about. One was on my face. Someone had ripped off the night vision goggles, I guess, because they were gone.

I tried to move, but there was a man sitting on each arm and leg.

“Well, well, well, Mr. Carmellini,” I heard a woman’s voice say, filling the heavy silence, which reeked of gunpowder. “We have you at last. Oh, I am going to enjoy getting to know you, Mr. American Spy. I am going to enjoy watching you die.”

Shit! It was that bitch Hazra al-Rashid.

She started to say something else, but didn’t get it out, because the C- 4 in the Targeting Office went off with a mighty crash and the wall blew in, filling the air with dirt and dust and the stink of explosives. I felt the floor sag, and thought we were going to the basement, but we didn’t. The guards lost their flashlights, dropped and probably broken-I don’t know-and the solids in the air glowed from what little light there was coming through the window.

People went tumbling, some on top of me. I fought with all my strength to get loose. I felt bodies moving, and then I was on my knees, then onto my feet, although I was having a hell of a time breathing with all the crap in the air.

Someone aimed a rifle butt at me, and I took it on the shoulder.

I heard Hazra shouting in Farsi and realized she was telling her men not to kill me. I launched myself at her. Or what I thought was her-I couldn’t see much, let me tell you. I smashed my head into her face, felt her going down with me on top. I got my right hand up and was strangling her when three or four of them jerked me off her.

They swarmed me. There were just too many of them. They cuffed my hands behind my back and finally yanked me to my feet. Someone shined a flashlight right in my face.

“Oh, yes,” I heard Hazra whisper, forcing the words out. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

G. W. Hosein was looking at his watch when the C- 4 in the Targeting Office exploded. Glass blew out of windows in the floor above, and smoke and plaster dust were ejected, as if from mini-volcanoes. Carmellini had been in the building for fifteen minutes.

He glanced at the broken windows and the crap spewing out of them, just in time to see someone stick a rifle barrel out.

Bullets thudded into the sedan, and the windows shattered as G. W. popped the clutch and jabbed the accelerator to the floor.

The guy in the passenger seat of the second sedan hosed off a poorly aimed burst at the window as G. W. threw the car into a U-turn and accelerated away in the other direction. The second sedan was right behind him.

G. W. kept the pedal to the metal as he shot along the nighttime streets of Tehran with the wind rushing in through the shattered windshield. The sedan with his two colleagues followed faithfully a hundred feet behind. G. W. knew precisely where he was going; he and Joe Mottaki had a rendezvous.

Police cars were converging on the area. G. W. saw one racing in from a side street with siren blaring and slowed to let it cross the intersection ahead of him. It went through from left to right and kept going. The traffic light changed, and G. W. ran it anyway.

At the top of the boulevard he saw a tank and two police cars. As he approached, the tank blew up. Pieces showered the street. A big piece of the turret flew lazily through the air in his direction-and G. W. Hosein swerved just in time as it crashed into the street and shattered into three pieces.

He glanced in the mirror. The other car made it by, too.

Ahead were the police cars, both out of action. Iranian police were bailing from the car as he raced up and threaded his way through the wreckage. Behind him, several of the police decided to shoot at Nouri and Qajar, who leaned out the windows and hosed them with several bursts from a submachine gun.

Then both cars were through and running as fast as their drivers could make them go.

When they topped a gentle rise, they saw the howitzer trundling along. Then it turned left, onto a smaller street.

G. W. swung the car into a high-speed turn onto a parallel street. Nouri stayed with him.

Suddenly a police car roared up alongside Nouri and Qajar. Qajar aimed his submachine gun at the front tires and squeezed off a burst. The driver fought the wheel, then crashed into a parked car.

At the next big boulevard G. W. swung right and found himself right behind the Raad-2 howitzer. One of the crewmen was standing up, manning a tripod-mounted machine gun.

They didn’t have far to go. The streets were narrow and lined with parked vehicles. The sidewalks were also narrow, with buildings towering three or four stories over them.

The howitzer slowed and turned into an alley. G. W. and Nouri pulled in right behind it. All the men bailed out.

In front of the howitzer were two old SUVs, a Land Rover and a Chevrolet. Joe Mottaki jumped behind the wheel of the Land Rover, which was in front, and G. W. got in beside him. Ahmad Qajar got in the rear seat; the other men got into the Chevrolet. In seconds they were out of the alley on the other end and driving at normal speeds through the streets.

“They got Carmellini, I think,” G. W. said.

Joe Mottaki muttered an expletive as Qajar handed G. W. the rucksack containing the satellite phone.