Strike Force

Buzhazi motioned to Ardakan, and the sergeant stuck his AK-74 out the doorway without aiming it and fired down the street at the approaching Revolutionary Guards. The return gunfire abruptly stopped. “Now!” Buzhazi yelled, and he and Tabas scurried out of the bank building and into the street, hiding behind disabled and abandoned cars. Buzhazi took aim and fired at the first squad he saw, nearly hitting the squad leader in the forehead with the smoke grenade. The exploding grenade burst right in the midst of the Pasdaran infantrymen, knocking one unconscious and scattering the others. Buzhazi quickly loaded another smoke round, tracked the direction Tabas was shooting, and found the second squad. His second grenade round sailed over their heads and exploded behind them, but it frightened and confused them long enough for Tabas, Ardakan, and the soldiers from Second Company to dispatch them.

Buzhazi loaded a high-explosive grenade into his “blooper” and fired at the first armored vehicle he saw, a Russian-made BMP infantry combat vehicle — with the driver and vehicle commander sitting up in their seats, heads poking out of their hatches, watching the gunfight like a couple of spectators! Buzhazi fired his grenade launcher. The round struck the steeply angled front deck of the APC, deflected upward off the engine compartment exhaust louvers, and exploded on the 73-millimeter smooth-bore cannon barrel, killing the crew instantly and starting a small fire atop the engine compartment. Moments later, hatches opened up on the second APC, and the crew jumped out and ran off.

Allah be praised, Buzhazi rejoiced to himself as he loaded another HE round in his grenade launcher, the damn plan might actually work! “First Company, move out and take those BMPs!” Buzhazi shouted over his shoulder to his men in the bank. “Let’s go, let’s…!”

He heard a roar of rotor blades behind him and turned, raising the blooper…but it was too late. Before he could fire, an Mi-24 attack helicopter raced in from the south, stopped just south of the avenue a few hundred meters away, then unleashed its entire load of one hundred and twenty-eight 57-millimeter rockets point-blank on the bank building before any of his men could get out. The entire building and both buildings on either side of it disappeared in a terrific cloud of fire, smoke, and debris. Buzhazi ducked behind the cars clogging the avenue just before the shock wave, searing heat, and hurricane-force blast of flying stone, steel, and glass plowed into him.

“Don’t move!” he heard above him. A Revolutionary Guards soldier was aiming his rifle at him. The air was thick with dust, debris, and smoke, and Buzhazi found it difficult to catch his breath. He could hardly hear because the roar of the Mi-24 hovering less than a hundred meters away was deafening. Buzhazi raised his left hand, trying to hide the “blooper” in his right hand, and another soldier yanked him up by it, nearly breaking his fingers in the process. “Allah akbar, it is him! It’s Buzhazi!” the first soldier shouted gleefully. “The old man himself led this raid! The general will be very pleased.” His sidearm, ammo, and grenade launcher were stripped away from him. “Take him to…”

The soldier was interrupted by the crash of some small object against the windshield of a nearby car. Buzhazi hardly noticed it in all the other confusion of sounds and smells around them, but the Pasdaran soldiers were suddenly distracted. When Buzhazi could see clearly, he saw a very loud crowd of citizens marching up Setam-Gari Avenue toward them, less than a block away now. He couldn’t hear what they were shouting, but they didn’t look one bit happy.

“Take him!” the first Pasdaran soldier shouted, and the second soldier pinned Buzhazi’s arms behind him. The first soldier lifted his AK-74 rifle and fired two shots over the crowd’s head, waving at them to get back. No dice — the crowd, at least a couple hundred people and growing larger by the second, kept coming. More rocks, bottles, and pieces of blown-apart buildings started to rain down on them. Fear filling his eyes, the first soldier fumbled for his portable radio. “Susmar air unit, Susmar air unit, this is Gavasn Seven-One, I am at your ten o’clock position, approximately one hundred meters. I have General Buzhazi in custody. Requesting fire support on that mob heading toward me! We are outnumbered! Acknowledge!”

“Acknowledged, Gavasn,” the reply came. “We have you in sight. Stay where you are.” The big helicopter gunship pedal-turned to the left, hovering just a few dozen meters in the air near the air base boundary fence across the avenue. The 12.7-millimeter cannon slewed downward, zeroing in on the advancing crowd, and then…