Strike Force

“What do you think the others in his network are doing while he’s in Doshan Tappeh getting ‘dried out,’ Master Sergeant?” Buzhazi asked angrily. “Do you expect them to be sitting around waiting to get caught? They are long gone by now.”

“We must conduct an investigation nonetheless, sir,” Fattah said, “so we will continue using a rapid-detox protocol which includes high doses of sedatives and naltrexone to alleviate the withdrawal symp…”

“I’ll show you the proper treatment protocol for a heroin addict, Master Sergeant,” Buzhazi said…and drove his right hand into the man’s throat, splitting his trachea and cracking his vertebrae. The man’s eyes bugged out until they looked as if they’d pop out of his head, then rolled up inside his skull, and he hit the floor like a bag of rotten pomegranates.

“General, no!” Master Sergeant Fattah shouted. He pushed Buzhazi away and bent down to examine the nearly decapitated body.

As he was being pushed away, Buzhazi grabbed Zhoram and pulled him close. “Do you expect to get your command back once the Pasdaran completes its investigation of the attack, General?” he whispered urgently.

Zhoram hesitated, shocked at the sudden flurry of action around him, but the shock lasted only moments. “I’ll be dead or in prison, General,” he said simply. “If I’m lucky, I’ll be simply discharged and returned to my family penniless and disgraced.”

“As will I,” Buzhazi said. “So. Will you fight or will you submit?” Zhoram hesitated again, looking away, but Buzhazi’s grasp and urgent growl locked his eyes back on Buzhazi’s. “Answer me, Zhoram — fight or submit?”

“Fight,” Zhoram said. “The Pasdaran doesn’t want answers — they want someone to blame, and the sooner the better. I want the ones that attacked my rocket forces.”

“I’ll come for you,” Buzhazi said. “Join me and you will get your fight. Cross me, and I’ll cut your guts out with a spoon.”

“Free me, and I’ll fight with you, General,” Zhoram said. “I swear on the eyes of Allah.”

Buzhazi grabbed Zhoram’s crotch. “You’ll be swearing to me by these, General — because if you cross me, I’ll make you eat them.”

“I swear, General. Free me and I’m your man.”

“Good.” He turned to Kazemi, who was watching the two generals and not paying any attention to the dead officer. “What about you, Kazemi? Are you Pasdaran?”

“Air Corps, yes, sir.”

“Are you a smuggler?”

“Only when my squadron’s supplies are siphoned off by the regional headquarters at Shīrāz, sir,” Kazemi said. “I was tired of losing my men to cold and hunger and flew some helicopters to the border to trade with nomads and black marketeers. I find it faster and easier to trade with Afghan nomads than confront corrupt Pasdaran supply officers. If you’re getting out of here, sir, take me with you.”

“I don’t trust thieves, no matter how noble their reasoning.”

“I stole only for my men and their families, sir, not for myself,” Kazemi said. “I’d do it again if necessary.” Buzhazi hesitated. “If you won’t take me, sir, then do me a favor and shoot me on your way out,” Kazemi added, “because I’d rather die at your hands than be turned into a drooling blubbering vegetable by these Pasdaran goons — and they’ll do it, because I’m not implicating my men or the Afghans that helped me. I’ll bite off my own tongue before I talk.”

“Brave words, Captain…”

“You…sir, you have killed him!” Master Sergeant Fattah exclaimed. “He’s dead!”

“Exactly what he needed to cure his heroin addiction,” Buzhazi said proudly. He looked at Kazemi but said nothing. “Get that piece of human garbage out of my sight, Master Sergeant, and let me get back to…”

“To what, General Buzhazi?” a voice asked. Buzhazi looked up and saw a Pasdaran three-star general standing in the doorway, hands casually behind his back. “Do you think you’re going somewhere?”

“General Badi,” Buzhazi said, choking down a shiver of panic, “how good to see you.” Lieutenant-General Muhammad Badi, commander of the Pasdaran-i-Engelab, or Islamic Revolutionary Guards, was about Buzhazi’s height but several kilos heavier, with slick-backed dark hair, a thin moustache, and a thick jowly neck. He wore a black Pasdaran battle dress uniform, high-topped black riding boots, and a web belt with a large Belgian or Austrian-made pistol in its holster. Badi wore an amused smile as he surveyed the scene in the conference room, but Buzhazi knew it was a crocodile’s smile — Badi was as dangerous and unpredictable as they came in the Iranian military forces. “I was expecting you.”

“And you prepared a gift for me — a prisoner with a broken neck? How touching, Hesarak.” Badi felt comfortable calling Buzhazi by his first name because to him Buzhazi was nothing but a disgraced, incompetent officer that should have been eliminated years ago.