The large-caliber slug penetrated both sides of the drum and hit the terrorist square in the center of his chest. The man screamed and stood up, both hands clasping a hole in his chest you could put a fist in.

As he fell backward, one of his cohorts peeked out from behind the well strut he was hiding behind, and Harley fired again, his slug hitting the man just at the bridge of his nose and blowing the back of his head off.

He dropped back out of sight like a sack of potatoes.

While Harley was picking the two men off, Hammer pulled a flash-bang concussion grenade from the webbing on his chest and lobbed it in the direction of the well. The concussion grenade, which contained white phosphorus and no shrapnel to speak of, was safe to use in the vicinity of the bomb affixed to the well.

Hammer and Harley both ducked and closed their eyes against the brilliant white flash and loud noise of the flash-bang.

When it went off, it lit up the surrounding desert like a miniature sun and sounded like a large mortar round going off.

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Several of the terrorists, blinded and deafened by the concussion, dropped their weapons and staggered from cover, their hands over their eyes and ears.

Harley stood up and, holding his Desert Eagle in the cla.s.sic two-handed grip, proceeded to shoot them as fast as he could pull the trigger.

Hammer also got to his feet and with the MP-10 on single fire, began to fire repeatedly as he walked calmly toward the rest of the terrorists.Those brave or stupid enough to try to return his fire were soon lying on their backs in the sand bleeding profusely.

Three of the terrorists, deciding enough was enough, threw their weapons down and stepped out from cover with their hands held over their heads.

Hammer didn't hesitate. He thumbed the MP-10's lever to full auto and gave the men a quick burst, killing them where they stood. "Sorry boys,"

he said in a harsh voice. "You invade a country and try to take over the world, you got to pay the price."

When they were sure the area was secure, Harley and Hammer dismantled the bomb mechanism attached to the well and separated the plutonium container from the package of C-4 inside the bomb itself. Hammer disconnected the wiring from the C-4, making it safe from explosion, and then put the plastique in his pocket along with the fuse he'd taken out of it. He grinned at Harley. "Never know when some of this will come in handy," he said.

"Roger that!" Harley agreed.

Once the well was safe from explosion, they dragged the bodies of the terrorists into a pile and removed all of 168.

their weapons and ammunition, placing it in a separate area.

Sporadic and intermittent gunfire could be heard all around the area as the remainder of the Scouts a.s.signed to Buddy's team did much the same thing to the wells nearby. In less than three hours, the entire oil field was deemed to be secure. Over twenty bombs had been removed from the wells and deactivated by the troops.

Many of the terrorists, when they saw they were defeated, ran off into the desert rather than die at their posts. The Scouts didn't chase them, as their primary responsibility was to make the wells safe.

Major Jackson Bean and his Scouts were having a little trouble locating the terrorist headquarters in Tehran. The largest city in the country, with over five million inhabitants, Tehran stretched over many square miles.

Bean, figuring the terrorists would want to be in close proximity to the airport, centered his search for their headquarters there.

He spread his men out, dividing them into squads with Willie Running Bear, Samuel Clements, and Sue Waters as squad leaders. Each was told to search a different quadrant around the airport area and to check back by radio if they hit pay dirt.

It took almost two hours before Sue Waters and her squad came upon a three-story building near the northern section of the airport. Unlike surrounding buildings in the area, whose windows were dark, this building was lit up like a Christmas tree. Additionally, Sue could see several large jeeplike vehicles parked next to the structure that were painted with desert camouflage. "That's got to be the place," she whispered to her radioman, Mike 169169.

Nugent. "Give Major Bean a buzz and tell him we think we've found the nest."

While she was waiting for Bean and the other squads to arrive, Sue watched the building through her night-vision scope. Sure enough, she began to see armed sentries moving around on the roof, as well as men patrolling the adjacent areas on foot.

When Bean arrived, she filled him in on what she'd seen, and he agreed with her that this was most likely the place they'd been looking for.

"You want to go in soft or hard?" Sue asked, her tone making it clear she preferred hard.

"Let me check with Buddy before we do anything," Bean said. "I don't want to go barreling in there until Buddy has secured the wells. They might set them off at the first sign of an attack."

Nugent began to fiddle with some dials and after a few moments, he grinned up at Major Bean. "General Raines is on the line, sir."

"Buddy," Bean said, "this is Jackson. We've found the main building housing the terrorists and we need to know is it safe to take it out."

"Roger, Jackson," Buddy Raines answered. "My men report all of the wells have been cleared of bombs. You are free to proceed with all due dispatch."

"Thank you, General. That's just what we wanted to hear."

"And Jackson," Buddy added.

"Sir?"

"If at all possible, try to take any officers alive if you can. Mike Post and his boys at Intel would dearly love to have a couple of live ones to interrogate."

"Roger that, sir," Bean said.

He turned to Sue Waters. "Spread the word among 170.

your troops. The general wants some of the officers taken alive if at all possible. Intel wants to talk to them."

Moments later, Sue and her squad, along with the other squads, were moving silently through the night toward the terrorist headquarters.

Sue's orders were to go in through the front door, while Sam Clements's squad took the rear door and Willie Running Bear's squad concentrated on taking out the sentries as silently as they could. This was the sort of a.s.signment Willie lived for. He liked nothing better than to stalk and kill the enemy with his knife. He said it was much more satisfying to look into a man's eyes when you slit his throat than it was to kill him at long distance with a rifle or bomb.

Sue held her squad back for a moment to let Willie Running Bear and his men do their work on the guards. His squad was so expert at this, Suedidn't even see them moving toward the building. After about five minutes, she saw Willie Running Bear stand up near the front door and motion her forward with his arm.

When she and her squad got to the front door, she saw Willie Running Bear wiping his knife on the shirt of a dead guard. She also noticed that a significant portion of the man's scalp was missing, but she decided not to remark on that. Willie Running Bear had strange ideas about taking souvenirs from his victims. Sue had always wondered what he did with the scalps he collected, but had never had the nerve to ask him.

"Remember," she cautioned her squad, "shoot low if the target looks like an officer."

One of her men, named Barney, gave a low chuckle. "All them ragheads look alike to me."

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"The officers will be the ones hiding behind their desks sending the grunts out to get killed," Waters remarked. "The Arab headmen have always been high on letting others be the martyrs."

Sue jerked the loading lever back on her Uzi and put her left hand around the silencer on the barrel as she crouched and moved toward the doorway, her men spread out behind her.

Just inside the door was an alcove with a desk in the center. A young Arab-looking boy was dozing behind the desk, his head resting on his hand with his elbow on the desk.

Sue moved silently toward him, noting that his rifle was leaning against a nearby wall out of his immediate reach. She handed her Uzi to Barney, and pulled her a.s.sault knife from its scabbard.

She slipped behind the sleeping boy, grabbed his hair, and yanked his chin up and back. Pressing the razor-sharp blade against his throat, she whispered in his ear.

"Do you speak English?"

The boy gulped once and nodded his head, his eyes wide with fear as sweat began to run down his face.

"Where are your leaders?" Sue asked, moving the knife slightly so a thin trickle of blood oozed from his neck.

"If I tell you that, they will kill me?" the boy pleaded, his voice almost a sob.

Sue moved quickly, putting her left arm around his neck and pulling his chair back from the desk. She put the point of the knife in his lap against his genitals. "And if you don't tell me, I will cut your b.a.l.l.s off and make you eat them!" she growled. "Do you understand?"

"They're all on the third floor," the boy whimpered, his face as pale as the stucco walls of the room.172 "Thank you," Sue said. She flipped the knife around and used the steel hilt to knock the boy unconscious with one sharp blow to the back of his head.

She holstered the knife and held out her hands. Barney pitched her Uzi to her and she bounded up the stairs.

On the second-floor landing, three men walked from a room, their Kalashnikovs in their arms. Sue didn't hesitate for a second. She loosed a quick burst at the men, spraying them across the chest with a stream of 9mm parabellum slugs.

Barney and two other men didn't have to be told. They vaulted over the bodies and ran into the room the men had just come out of. Sue heard the soft coughs of their Uzis as they killed the rest of the men in the room.

Jerking her head for the remainder of the squad to follow her, she ran lightly up the last flight of stairs. A closed door was at the head of the stairs, and was the only door on the floor.

Sue raised her right leg and kicked the door, which splintered and disintegrated into small pieces.

Baltazar Garzon was sitting at a table, talking rapidly into a radio to Abdullah El Farrar. When the door exploded and Sue Waters walked through the doorway, he screamed something into the radio and grabbed for an old Colt .45 on the desk next to the radio.

Sue shot from the hip, emptying her clip into the radio, and then moving her aim slightly to center on Garzon's hand, which was picking up the .45.

Three bullets. .h.i.t the back of his hand, nearly taking it off at the wrist and sending the Colt spinning across the room.

Garzon screamed again as he grabbed his shredded hand, and rolled out of his chair onto the floor just as 173.

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two more men came from an adjoining room brandishing a.s.sault rifles.

Barney dropped to one knee and triggered off a quick burst, aiming low.

The two men's legs shattered and folded and they fell to the floor, screaming and moaning in pain.

Sue quietly ejected the spent magazine from her Uzi and replaced it with a full one. "Some of you get tourniquets on those men," she ordered. "We wouldn't want them to bleed to death, now would we?"

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Corrie twiddled with the dials on the SOHFRAD radio, and finally managed to contact Harley Reno. She looked up and nodded at Buddy, who picked up the microphone attached to the radio.

"Harley, this is Buddy Raines. How goes it?""So far so good, Boss," Harley replied into his headset. "The squad leaders of the rest of the Scouts tell me they've managed to gain control of all of the wells they've found that have bombs attached, and have disconnected the C-4 packages from the plutonium cases. Unless we've missed a couple of wells with bombs, we should be in good shape."

"Are you facing much resistance?"

"Not so far. According to the Scouts, most of the terrorists that are still alive have taken off into the desert. They may be trying to regroup there, but I think most of their leaders have been killed, so I doubt it's a credible threat."

"Good job, Harley. I'm here in a tent where the leader of the oil field group was holed up. I've disabled his remote detonator, so we shouldn't have to worry if you've missed any bombs. Tell the men to hold their positions until I check in with Major Bean and find out the status 175.

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of the terrorist headquarters in Tehran. I'll get back to you soonest."

"Will do, Boss Man," Harley answered, and clicked off the radio.

Buddy spoke to Corrie. "See if you can raise Major Bean on this thing, would you?"

After another few moments fiddling with the dials, Corrie grinned up at him. "Go ahead. Major Bean's on the line."

"Jackson, Buddy here."

"Yes, sir," Bean answered.

"What's your status?"

"We've taken control of the terrorist headquarters building," Bean answered. "And even managed to capture a couple of the officers-relatively undamaged."

"That's great news, Jackson. I'm here in the fields and we've got them secured. There's a jeep nearby and I'm gonna head your way right now.

I'm sure Ben will want us to find out everything the officers can tell us."

Bean chuckled. "I'll keep them on ice for you, Buddy. The headquarters building is right next to the airport. It's the only three-story building in the area. I'll alert the sentries you're on the way so they won't take any potshots at you. See ya soon."

Buddy broke the connection. "Corrie, get that radio packed and get in the jeep outside. We're going for a little ride."

It took Buddy less than half an hour to make the journey from the oil fields to the outskirts of Tehran. He found the airport with no problem, and pulled up right next to the building Bean had indicated.

The guards posted waved him in and Corrie followed.176 A guard in the main foyer stood up and saluted. "Major Bean is on the third floor, sir. He's waiting for you."

"Thank you, soldier," Buddy said, flipping him a quick salute as he jogged up the stairs.

Major Bean was sitting behind a desk on the third floor, and got to his feet when Buddy and Corrie entered.

Buddy glanced around the room at the bullet holes and blood that covered the walls and floor.

"Looks like you had a little excitement here, Jackson."

Bean shrugged. "Oh, not too much."

"Let me check in with Ben and then we'll talk to the prisoners," Buddy said, nodding at Corrie to set up her radio.

After a few minutes, she had Ben on the line.