The Ares Decision

  “I don’t care who’s who!” Daei shouted. “You’re to eliminate anyone who isn’t actively helping you. Was that not clear?”

  “It was, sir, but—”

  “There are no excuses, Major! Follow your orders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His commander’s reticence was understandable under the circumstances. What he didn’t know, though, was that heavy bombers were on their way and that, upon Daei’s orders, Avass would be obliterated with Arfa and his forces still in it. The remaining paratroopers would create a wide perimeter, cutting off any fleeing residents, and, in the end, forfeiting their lives, too. The area would be completely sterilized.

  “Have you captured a parasite victim yet, Major?”

  “We’ve made two attempts, but they’re much faster and stronger than we anticipated. One was killed in a fall and we were forced to shoot the other.”

  Daei slammed a fist angrily against the C-130’s fuselage as he continued up the road. The sound of approaching air cover became audible behind him, but he didn’t bother to look back.

  “I want to be perfectly clear, Major. If I arrive in Avass and you haven’t secured a specimen, not only you but your family will pay the price. Am I being clear?”

  Arfa responded, but between the static and the approaching jets, his words were impossible to understand. Daei spun angrily, looking into the sky at a tight formation of fighters barely visible in the moonlight. What in the name of Allah were they doing?

  “Repeat your last transmission, Major. I—”

  He fell silent when one of the fighters broke formation and began to climb, displaying an unmistakable profile against the black sky.

  Daei dropped his radio and ran for the open desert. “Get away from the plane!” he shouted at the startled scientists watching him sprint across the loose sand. “Find cover!”

  * * *

  THE BLOW SEEMED to come out of nowhere, lifting Smith off his feet and knocking the gun he’d been so carefully aiming from his hand. He tried to twist himself out from beneath the man who had jumped him but realized there wasn’t time and instead braced for the impact with the rocky ground.

  He ignored the soft crunch of at least one of his ribs and threw a hand out for the loose weapon. It was pointless, though. The man on top of him had both superior position and a fifty-pound weight advantage. He was going to get to it first.

  “Peter! The g—”

  There was a brief flash of blond hair in the darkness and suddenly the weight was gone. Smith rolled and grabbed the pistol, ignoring the excruciating pain in his side as Sarie began losing her wrestling match with the man she’d tackled. The scales swung back in her direction, though, when Smith pressed the gun against the back of the man’s head.

  He pulled her away, examining the moonlit faces around them over the sights of the pistol. The group of refugees they’d joined during their escape from Avass had dwindled to about twenty-five individuals, four of whom were definitely infected. Three were still in the confusion stage, but the other had just turned on two boys helping him walk.

  Farrokh had immediately waded in, shouting in Persian and waving his machine gun, but the scene quickly turned to chaos. Some people fled, pushing and tripping over each other, while others tried to control the screaming, bleeding man and protect the boys from what Smith assumed was their father.

  Howell had taken over the attempt to put the man down but was facing the same problem of a shifting crowd and dim light that Smith had been contending with. Finally, the infected man escaped the person trying to hold him and presented his chest for a split second before he could turn again on his fallen sons.

  It was a stunning shot—barely missing no fewer than four people before impacting center of mass. The man went down on his back, thrashing wildly and howling like a wounded animal.

  By the time he went still, all eyes were on Howell and the gun still smoking in his hand. None of the people fully understood what was happening or why there were three Westerners with them, but they’d tolerated their presence. Now, though, a British stranger had just shot an unarmed man they’d known all their lives.

  Farrokh tried to take advantage of the ominous silence to offer an explanation, but no one seemed to be listening. He hadn’t been lying about his credibility in this part of Iran—it wasn’t much better than theirs.

  The boy whose life Howell had saved jumped to his feet and shouted at them, his accusations falling on what appeared to be sympathetic ears.

  “I think we’ve worn out our welcome here,” Smith said. “Time to go.”

  Farrokh ignored him, continuing his pointless explanation and barely managing to sidestep a much older man’s lunge. More and more people approached, hurling epithets and insults that even Smith’s nearly nonexistent Persian could decipher.

  Finally, Farrokh faced reality and squeezed off a quick burst over the crowd’s head before joining their retreat. They kept their weapons trained on the mob, dodging hurled rocks and not stopping until they’d put a good five hundred yards between them.

  “The other three are going to go fully symptomatic in less than an hour,” Sarie said. “We can’t just leave those people. We’re the only ones who’re armed.”

  “The guns don’t matter,” Smith said. “They’ve turned against us. There’s nothing more we can do.”

  “Nothing more we can do?” she responded, the fear and despair twisting her voice into something very different than what he remembered from their first meeting. “The Iranians aren’t going to be able to control this. These people have no idea what they’re facing.”

  “She’s right,” Farrokh said. “You said the Americans were going to help us, Jon. Where are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You spoke with them.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “And?”

  He looked at Howell, but there was no help there.

  “I told them to wipe out the entire area.”

  “What do you mean ‘wipe out’?” Sarie said.

  “We have a nuclear submarine off the coast. I told them to use it.”

  There was a brief silence before Farrokh spoke. “I don’t understand. By nuclear submarine, you mean a nuclear-powered submarine armed with conventional weapons—”

  “I mean a submarine armed with nuclear missiles.”

  Smith saw it coming but didn’t bother to defend himself, instead taking a rifle butt to the center of the chest and falling painfully to the ground. Howell’s hand hovered over the gun in his waistband, but beyond that he didn’t seem to want to get involved. Sarie just stood in dumbfounded silence.

  “You told your people to attack my country with nuclear weapons?” Farrokh shouted, aiming his rifle at Smith’s head. “I trusted you. My men died for you!”

  “Farrokh…,” he started. It was hard to get the words out with his cracked ribs and the weight of what he had done trying to suffocate him. “What choice did I have? I couldn’t risk—”

  An explosion flashed to the west, followed a moment later by a deep rumble that shook the ground. They all turned and saw a wall of flame at least a hundred feet high spring up from the main road about fifteen miles south of Avass.

  The planes over it broke formation and began spreading out, their outlines gaining detail in the glow of the fire until Smith could positively ID them. American F-16s.

  It took him longer than it should have to process what was happening. The prospect of certain death had dulled his sense of the here and now, bogging him down in past regrets.

  “Castilla’s not going to do it,” he said finally. “He’s not going to use the nukes! Farrokh, give me your phone again. If I can call in our position, there’s a chance I can get us the hell out of here.”

  Epilogue

  Central Iran

  December 9—1618 Hours GMT+3:30

  SMITH STEADIED HIMSELF ON A bracket supporting the Humvee’s computer system as Randi Russel
l launched the vehicle across a washed-out section of road. They’d run into each other the day before at a UN-staffed mobile hospital where he was giving a briefing on the effects of the infection. She was part of a CIA team charged with preventing grassroots insurgencies from popping up and interfering with efforts to head off a pandemic.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going, Randi? All I see out here is rocks and sand.”

  “Farrokh’s a man who likes his solitude and anonymity,” she shouted over the roar of the engine. “But now that we know who he is, you can count on the fact that we’ll be keeping close track of him.”

  Sarie leaned up between the seats. “Is he all right?”

  “Oh, he’s fine. I think he’s just milking a last little bit of peace and quiet before he has to jump into the middle of the chaos he’s created.”

  Farrokh’s people had uploaded hours of raw video depicting what had happened at the lab facility and Avass, effectively turning the entire world against Iran. The Russians and Chinese had finally seen the light and committed to heavy sanctions, Al Jazeera had turned into a twenty-four-hour-a-day anti-Iranian rant, and the United States was being publicly criticized by the Arab League for not just flattening the entire country.

  “Is our position still that we’re not going to jump in after him?” Peter Howell asked from the back.

  “That’s the agreement the politicians made,” Randi replied. “Though it feels more like a Mexican standoff at this point.”

  She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, pointing to what looked like a goat trail winding its way up a boulder-strewn slope. “That’s where you’ll find him.”

  “It looks really steep,” Sarie said apprehensively. “And it’s dead in the sun.”

  Her leg was mildly infected, and between the antibiotics, the fever, and the twenty-hour workdays, she was a little less spry than normal. Despite that, though, she let Howell help her to the ground and then came alongside the open driver’s window. “It was good meeting you, Randi.”

  “Likewise. Now, are you sure you want to walk all the way up there? I’d be happy to drop you with a patrol on my way out.”

  “No, I want to say good-bye.”

  “Your call. I’ll have someone here in two hours to pick you all up.”

  Sarie smiled and tapped the windowsill before limping off after Howell, who had already made it to the trail’s first switchback.

  “Don’t want to join us?” Smith said.

  She shook her head. “I think I’d rather keep a little anonymity where Farrokh is concerned. He’s the West’s darling today, but things have a way of changing. And when they do, a lot of times I’m the one who gets the call.”

  “Still the insufferable cynic.”

  Her lips curled into an enigmatic grin. “Be nice, Jon. You owe me.”

  “What—for the ride? It was only a few miles, and, as near as I can tell, you stole the Hummer.”

  She gazed thoughtfully into the desert. “Ever hear of Sepehr Mouradipour?”

  “Iranian mercenary, right? Last I heard, he was operating in the Balkans or something.”

  “Your information is out of date. He was operating in Iran on Larry Drake’s dime. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have walked right into his ambush.”

  Smith’s expression went blank. He’d been given a sketchy briefing on Drake’s betrayal and the suspiciously timed helicopter crash that he’d died in, but it was made clear that no questions on the subject would be entertained. This was a Covert-One operation—how the hell would Randi have learned about it, let alone gotten personally involved?

  She seemed to be enjoying his distress and let the silence drag on for a while before speaking again. “Fred Klein says ‘Hi,’ by the way.”

  Smith let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, surprised at the intensity of the relief he felt. “I’m glad you’re finally in, Randi. It’s been hard keeping this from you.”

  She scowled. “Keeping what from me? I mean, you’re just a simple country doctor, right?”

  He opened his mouth to speak but she held up a hand. “You’ll have plenty of time to grovel when you get back to the States and take me out to an incredibly expensive dinner.”

  “Can we split the wine bill?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said sternly and then pointed through the windshield at Sarie lurching up the steep slope. “Looks like your little girlfriend could use some help.”

  It was clearly a dismissal and Smith threw the door open. Before he slid out, though, he grabbed Randi’s hand and gave it an exaggerated kiss. “You’re a goddess among women. A pillar of virtue and beauty—”

  “Good start,” she said, shoving him through the door and leaving him laughing to himself in a cloud of dust and gravel. Dinner would probably run the better part of a paycheck, but it would be worth it. She was the best in the business, and with both her and Peter Howell watching his back, he might just live long enough to see his next birthday.

  It took him longer than he expected to overtake Sarie, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, more because he liked being close to her than because of any illusion he could help. In truth, he wasn’t in much better shape than she was. Army doctors had taken an embarrassingly wide swath from his hair, and white gauze covered the thirty-five stitches it had taken to close the bullet graze on his scalp. Much worse, though, were the three cracked ribs that wouldn’t allow him to take in more than a half breath before the pain became overwhelming.

  Sarie pointed at Howell, who was picking his way nimbly through the boulders above them. “Why is it that we both look like we were run over by a truck and he looks like he just got back from golf ?”

  Smith smiled through a split lip. “Believe me, you’re not the first person to ask that question. How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

  “I’ll live. But I don’t think I’d want to do this kind of thing every day.”

  They finished the climb in silence and found Farrokh sitting cross-legged on the edge of a tall cliff. Howell was a few feet away, gazing into the valley at its base.

  “I have to hand it to you,” the Brit remarked as Smith came up behind him. “It’s a hell of an operation.”

  Another example of Howell’s gift for understatement. What it was, was nothing less than a miracle.

  Below, the sun reflected off the greatest concentration of military and medical technology ever assembled: three mobile level-four labs, a temporary airstrip that had been built in less than seven hours, and a constant flow of transport planes dropping off supplies and equipment. Overhead, attack choppers from no fewer than twelve countries patrolled the desert floor. Farther up, spy satellites and surveillance planes from Russia, Europe, and the United States were using heat imagery to track every warm-blooded animal within a two-hundred-mile radius.

  To the east was a massive city of tents emblazoned with red crosses and surrounded by temporary fencing—a holding area for anyone who’d been in contact with victims of the parasite but hadn’t yet been cleared.

  Machine-gun placements and razor wire had been set up at every known entrance to the canyons, along with thousands of buried mines. Every surrounding town and village had a contingent of coalition forces and their coordinates were locked into the navigational computers of redundant missile batteries. If an outbreak was reported and ground troops couldn’t quickly gain control, even the most remote population centers could be completely incinerated in a matter of minutes.

  “I normally object to politicians overriding the recommendations of men in the field,” Howell continued. “But in this case…”

  Smith frowned perceptibly. He agreed that any day aboveground was a good day, but it had been a reckless decision on Castilla’s part. The consequences of guessing wrong would have been almost too devastating to imagine.

  But it appeared that the president hadn’t guessed wrong. The last contact with a parasite victim had been forty-eight hours ago when an infected man ch
arged a Belgian special forces team clearing a cave system to the north. Fortunately, he’d had a broken femur and the injury slowed him down enough to allow the soldiers to take him out before he got within fifty feet.

  “I suppose you think I should thank the American people for not irradiating a third of my country,” Farrokh said.

  “Don’t be too hard on Jon,” Sarie replied. “If I’d been the one on the phone to the Americans, I might have told them the same thing.”

  The Iranian continued to look down at the coalition forces occupying his land. “And what is he telling them now? Why is it that we haven’t received even the level of assistance given to the Libyans?”

  Smith considered lying but knew that Farrokh would see right through it.

  The video his people had posted to the Internet hadn’t just shocked the outside world; it had created a massive backlash in Iran—allowing the formation of an unlikely alliance among secular liberals, moderates, and even conservative followers of a few imams who had pronounced bioweapons un-Islamic. The size and dynamism of the demonstrations erupting across Iran were so far beyond what had come before, the government was forced to immediately enlist the military in a last-ditch effort to cling to power.

  “It was a complicated situation, Farrokh. We—”

  “Can I assume those complications are the reason that over three thousand of my people have died at the hands of the Iranian army in the last forty-eight hours?”

  Smith sighed quietly. “Nobody wanted this. But you have to understand what we’re dealing with here: more foreign militaries and UN forces than even I can keep track of, press, international observers, and organizations like WHO and the CDC. Khamenei has access to modern missiles, and if even one or two made it through our defenses, the whole operation might have fallen apart. Then you could have seen this infection in Riyadh, or Cairo, or Damascus. There was no way we could take that chance.”

  “So you made a bargain with the devil.”

  “We told Khamenei that if he left us alone, we’d do the same. But we also made it clear that if so much as a firecracker goes off within a hundred miles of one of our people, we’ll take out his entire military and impose a no-fly zone until we get color eight-by-tens of him dangling from a rope.”