had been back at the church.
“AT-1 to KBI-1,” Lyons said into the mike. “What’s your 10–20?”
“We’re set up at the edge of the parking lot, north side,” the surly voice came back. “There’s a place where you can land over here, and I’m ordering you to do just that right now!”
Grimaldi turned to the Able Team leader again. “Want me to land?” he asked.
Lyons nodded. “I’m not sure this clown’s ego could take it if we didn’t.”
Grimaldi laughed and turned the chopper that way.
A few seconds later they were coming down on the asphalt parking lot next to one of the SWAT vans parked around the mall. Lyons saw the same hectic activity that he’d seen outside the church in Oklahoma City, with flashing lights and sirens blaring, with every SWAT team and other unit anxious to get started but not knowing how or where.
As the chopper’s rails met the ground, a man in a dark blue shirt and bright red tie approached with a look of anger on his face. He reached out and opened Lyon’s door with one hand, and would have grabbed the Able Team leader by the arm and dragged him out if Lyons hadn’t intercepted his other hand first. Twisting the man’s wrist into a classic jujitsu hold, the Able Team leader watched the anger on the man’s face turn to a grimace of pain as he exited the chopper on his own.
“Well, we’re certainly off to a great start, aren’t we, Mr. KBI-1?” he said as he finally released the man’s hand.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation director was too proud to rub his wrist where it had come close to snapping, so he stood upright and at attention as he said, “Okay, you’re under arrest for resisting an officer.” He turned to look at Schwarz and Blancanales as they exited the helicopter behind Lyons. “What happens to you two remains to be seen.” He ran his eyes up and down the blacksuits all three Able Team warriors wore, looking for any trace of a patch or insignia.
But, of course, he found none.
“What in the hell kind of dress-up is that?” he demanded. “Who do you represent, anyway? You’re not Missouri cops. The chief would have called me himself.”
Lyons had faced such irritating bureaucrats throughout his entire former career as a LAPD officer. He had never had any patience for pompous little jackasses like this man then, and if there had been any change in his attitude at all, he had even less now. “I get one phone call, don’t I?” he said sarcastically, pulling the satellite phone from its case on his belt. Quickly he tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm. “Since you didn’t get a call from the Missouri chief, I’ll let you talk to our chief.”
“Right,” said the Kansas director with the same sarcastic tone the Able Team leader had used.
It took less than ten seconds for Lyons’s call to be transferred to Hal Brognola.
The man in the red tie frowned in confusion as he took the phone from Lyons. It didn’t take long for Brognola to read the riot act to the KBI director. “Yes, sir,” was all he said before his face turned red and he handed the instrument back to Lyons.
“Thanks, Hal,” the Able Team leader said, and then disconnected the line again.
“All right,” said the man Lyons knew only as KB-1. “My name is Markham. Bill Markham. What are your plans and how can we help?” The words sounded as if they hurt coming out of his mouth.
“You can give us a rundown of exactly what’s going on,” Lyons said. “Then, unless one of my men or I tell you different, you can stay out of our way.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Iranian president Javid Azria rolled up his prayer rug, nodded to the staff with whom he had shared afternoon prayers and returned to his office, closing the door behind him. Alone and out of sight, he tossed the rug carelessly onto a padded armchair as he moved behind his desk. As he dropped down into his chair, he felt a grin creeping across his face.
The entire United States, including their president, was still in shock. The Americans simply couldn’t fathom the fact that a country such as his own was openly defying and attacking them at will.
And rather than denying the attacks or blaming them on terrorists, Iran was taking credit for them.
Azria opened the humidor on his desk and took out a long, thick, Cuban cigar. Snipping off the end with a tiny guillotinelike cutter, he stuck the cigar in his mouth and picked up the heavy marble lighter on his desk next to the phone. The cigars had been a gift from his most recent ally, and although smoking was forbidden by the Koran, he liked the Cubans and indulged in one every afternoon and another in the evening. The rest of his staff studiously ignored this small transgression on his part.
As he circled the end of the cigar around the flame in front of him, Javid Azria’s eyes caught sight of the painting on the wall to his left. It depicted Cyrus the Great in battle, a long scimitar in his right hand as he beheaded what was obviously a Jewish peasant. The painting was, of course, an artist’s rendition. Photography had still been centuries away when Cyrus had ruled the Persian Empire, so no one really knew exactly what the man had looked like.
Azria was fairly sure he knew, however. He saw Cyrus’s face every time he looked in a mirror.
He was in the process of starting the first real jihad the world had seen since the days of the Crusades. But this war was going to make those of the past look like an American Girl Scout meeting.
Turning the end of the cigar toward his eyes, Azria saw that it had lit evenly and set down the lighter. Contentedly, he puffed away as he awaited an eagerly anticipated phone call. His mind drifted back in time to his college days. He had been a dean’s list student at Yale when the Shah had been dethroned and Ayatollah Khomeini had taken over Iran. And he had not returned until long after that initial regime had taken control of the country. For a while, the theocracy had ruled Iran with an iron fist, beheading offenders of even the smallest Islamic laws just like Cyrus the Great was doing in his painting. But with the Ayatollah’s death, things had gradually loosened up. Students in favor of separating religion from government were now even allowed to demonstrate in the streets. The only thing that had not changed was what he perceived as an almost countrywide hatred of the Jews, and a certain amount of dependence on the United States and other countries in the Western world.
Azria leaned farther back in his chair. It was his mission in life to change all that. He could have felt it in his soul.
If he’d believed in souls.
He was halfway through the long Cuban when the buzzer on his phone finally sounded. “President Azria,” the voice of his secretary said in Farsi. “I have President Gomez on the line for you.”
Azria answered in the same language. “Put him on,” he said.
The Iranian leader pressed the receiver closer to his ear as he heard a click. Then, an accent far different than his own spoke in English—the one language they had in common and therefore the one they always used. Ironically, he thought, it was the language of their common enemy.
“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” said Raoul Gomez, the president of Venezuela.
“And the same to you,” said Azria.
“We
