Aghajari Oil Refinery
Iran
June 16, 4:56 a.m.
The refinery was a crazy house of people. It seemed like thousands to me, running, yelling, pounding up and down metal staircases, moving pallets of fifty-five gallon drums. For them, it was just another day.
There were so many people, and our intel about the daily operations of the refinery were so good-thanks to the now deeply bitter Abdul-that we were able to vanish right into the human herd of petroleum workers. Bug, at Mr. Church’s direction, had hacked into the operations computers here and inserted our work records, IDs, and other data. If someone didn’t recognize us and went to check, they’d find out that we were either just transferred from another rig or had been there for a while but in another part of the massive Aghajari complex. No one took the risk of questioning security officers. Too many of the ordinary cops on rigs like this were actually members of Rasouli’s secret police. This wasn’t Stalinist Russia, but it wasn’t tremendously far away from it, either.
Before we left the storage room where Abdul uncrated us, we synched up and ran through the game plan. We had miles of the refinery to cover. The photo of the nuke showed a poured concrete floor and rock walls, which meant that we didn’t have to crawl around up in the pipes looking for it. However, there was a basement and four subbasements that included endless corridors, storerooms, offices, closets, and even staff quarters, as well as rooms dedicated to water, sewage, electricity, fire systems, alarms, and more. We divided the place into three sections, checked the function of our digital Geiger counters, tapped our earbuds to make sure everyone was on the team channel, and then went to work.
“Okay,” I said as everyone crouched down, “combat call signs from here out. Everyone on coded channel one-eight. Warbride, Ghost, and I will do a sweep of the north half of the lower level. Dancing Duck, you and Chatterbox take the upper levels. Shouldn’t take you long.”
That was true enough. Although a bomb does more damage in an air burst-which could be approximated by mounting it high on the rig-the likelihood of it being there was small. It would be spotted and it wouldn’t do as much damage to the oil, and the oil was a more likely target than a refinery stuck out in the middle of a desert. The upper-deck sweeps were necessary for certainty, though, even if they felt like time wasters.
“Sergeant Rock and Green Giant, sweep the lower levels. If either or both teams come up dry, then rendezvous with me down under. Rasouli’s picture showed a cavern or underground chamber.”
“What if we meet the fearless vampire hunters or those Red Knight goons?” asked Lydia.
“They’re not Iranian nationals,” I said. “No grace for them. So that means one person on each team has a nonlethal gun for diplomacy and the other has live rounds for deal-closing. Chatterbox, Sergeant Rock, and Warbride are the best shooters, so you get to play with the grown-up toys.”
“Hooah,” they acknowledged.
I unslung the bag I carried and opened it. We had used most of the garlic powder and oil according to Jonatha Corbiel-Newton’s instructions, but there was some left. Everyone held their hands up and I filled their palms with powder.
Bunny’s face was screwed up in distaste as he choked his down. “Never eating Italian food again,” he complained. He washed it down with a mouthful of water. We’d been following this ritual for hours now, and I felt like my stomach was churning from all I’d swallowed. I passed around my pack of gum and everyone took a stick.
I used the last of the powder on Ghost, working it into his fur. He absolutely hated it, and it probably reduced his sense of smell by two-thirds, but I was the pack leader and he endured it. Pretty sure he was going to crap in my shoes first chance he got.
Before we broke the huddle I added a final note. “This is a shit job and we all know it. We’re rolling on squeaky wheels here as far as intel goes and we know for a fact that we have more enemies than friends. Watch your asses, trust no one, and do not get taken.”
“Yeah,” said Warbride, “and don’t take candy from strangers.”
Everyone grinned, and it seemed for a moment as if they were all at peace with this. Maybe, I thought, it was the kind of warrior’s calm that sometimes happens when soldiers know that they’re walking into the valley of the shadow of death and that there’s no real way out.