Strike Force

“The moment is now,” Buzhazi said. “Everyone out. If the men have to drop them to escape, so be it.”

“Yes, sir.” As he issued the evacuation orders, they heard sounds of turbine engines spooling up. They turned toward the flight line and saw pilots and crew chiefs running toward the attack helicopters parked below. “Fire in the hole!” Zhoram said, and he activated the remote-control detonators for the explosives they had planted on the choppers. But only two of the six detonators activated. After a few moments of confusion, the Pasdaran crewmembers started heading back to the undamaged helicopters, with security forces frantically scanning the area with assault rifles, looking for the source of the attack.

“Damn it, four detonators didn’t go off,” Zhoram swore. “My men picked the wrong time to screw up.” Buzhazi wondered about that: his saboteurs had been nothing short of miraculous up until now, planting devices in the most unreachable yet vital spots with very little apparent difficulty. Now with this, their most important mission, four crucial explosives fail to operate…? “You’d better get out of here, sir.” Zhoram signaled to his security man, who lifted a grenade launcher, loaded a 30-millimeter anti-personnel round, and fired one at the closest helicopter. He managed to scatter the crewmembers for that chopper only, but the other three helicopters still made preparations for takeoff.

“Don’t stay up here too long, Kamal,” Buzhazi said, scrambling for the ladder.

“Don’t worry, Hesarak — I’ll be right behind you,” Zhoram said.

Security forces on the flight line were already returning fire, forcing Zhoram’s guard to scramble for cover. Zhoram picked up his own grenade launcher and fired a round at the Pasdaran guards, but more defenders were on the way and returning fire, and the helicopters were almost ready for takeoff. He adjusted the grenade launcher’s sight for maximum range, aiming for the helicopter that seemed the most ready for takeoff, and fired. But he was a missileer, not an infantryman. It had been years — no, decades — since he had fired a grenade launcher, and he had never fired one like this, and his round flew far from the mark. Moments later the helicopter, a Russian-made Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter, lifted off.

Damn, he swore at himself, they were too late. Zhoram could see the quad 12.7-millimeter machine gun in its remote-controlled chin turret turning back and forth, active and looking for targets — namely, whoever had been lobbing grenades onto the flight line. Zhoram couldn’t tell what kind of weapons were on its stubby weapon pod wings, but he assumed they were even nastier than that machine gun. Time to get off this roof and out of this area. He shouted, “Get going! Get off the roof! Now!” His guard wasted absolutely no time — he was across the roof and sliding down the ladder in the blink of an eye. Zhoram slung his grenade launcher over one shoulder, looped the bandolier of grenades over the other, and ran as fast as he could toward the…

From less than a kilometer away, the machine gun’s bullets arrived before the sound did, and with an extremely accurate eye-pointing telescopic sight slaved to the pilot’s helmet, he could not miss. Over four dozen rounds pierced Zhoram’s body in less than half a second, killing him before his body fell to the hangar roof. A bullet then hit one of the grenades Zhoram was carrying, obliterating whatever was left of his body.

Buzhazi knew that he had probably lost Zhoram the second he heard the smooth, deep-throated “BRRRRRR!” sound of that attack helicopter’s cannon behind him and the blast that followed. He turned and saw the big attack helicopter hovering over the hangar, pedal-turning and looking for more targets, then lining up directly on him. There was no time to run, no place to hide…

But seconds later a grenade round came out of nowhere, exploding right on the helicopter’s tail rotor. Smoke started pouring from the chopper’s transmission, and it turned, wobbling back toward the flight line for an emergency landing. Buzhazi turned and saw Zhoram’s security officer running toward the flight line, his smoking grenade launcher in his hands. They waved at each other, and the security officer took cover behind a concrete guard shack and motioned to the general that there was no sign of pursuit.

Buzhazi nodded and put his radio up to his lips: “Rat units, report.”

The voice on the channel made a cold chill zip up and down Buzhazi’s spine: “R…Rat One, Rat One…sir, they’re gone, they’re all gone…sir,” someone from the first warehouse raiding team radioed frantically, “sir, help me, help me, I’ve lost my right leg, it’s gone, sir, help me…”

“Hold on, son, hold on,” Buzhazi said. “Help is on the way. Rat Two, report.” No response. “Rat Three.”

“Three is almost out, heading to rendezvous point Beta,” someone responded. Buzhazi heard the sounds of gunfire and men screaming in the background.