The Protectors (22 page)

CHAPTER 40

A
spotlight fired up behind one of the tanks, blinding me. I let the drape fall and backed away from the window.

“What?” Lyla asked.

I barely heard her; my body was going in five directions at once.

Gotta run. Can’t run. Hide. Can’t hide. Shit . . . shit . . . SHIT.

“Scott! What’s out there?”

“The entire Iranian army. Set up like a goddamn firing squad. They know we’re here.”

The tiniest squeak came from Lyla’s throat before she returned to stabbing at the buttons of her cell phone. She brought the device to her ear, only to pull it back.

“It’s not working. No signal.”

The phone dropped from her hand and landed on the carpet with a soft thump. “Who betrayed us?” Her voice was flat, almost emotionless. She sounded a lot less scared than I felt.

“Isn’t it obvious? The United Fucking States of America, that’s who.”

A loudspeaker blared from the courtyard. Lyla translated, but she didn’t have to. I knew what was coming.

“. . . there is no escape. Lyla Ravzi, you will exit the building immediately. You will not be harmed. Scott McAlister is to remain in the palace. If he leaves the palace or approaches our perimeter, he will be shot. No negotiation. You have five minutes to comply . . .”

“Why me only?” Lyla asked.

“Because they want you alive. Knockout, on the other hand, they
don’t want anywhere near them . . . that’s why the soldiers are set up so far away. Outside my range.” I buried my face in my hands. “They capture you, then turn the tanks loose. Demolish the palace with me inside.”

“No!”
She rushed to the master bed, pulling frantically at the mattress and box springs. “Help me barricade the windows. Move that dresser in front of the doors.”

Useless. Tank versus mattress wasn’t a fair fight. My sense of futility, though, quickly surrendered to rage. I used the gauntlet to access Tucker’s secure line. Five times. He didn’t pick up. Lyla scrambled around the room behind me, trying to move furniture. I focused my dwindling attention on the small screen.

“Why are you wasting time with that?” Lyla snapped. “It won’t work. Help me!”

Didn’t have time to explain: the device used a network of satellites, not conventional cell towers. It couldn’t be jammed. And even if Tucker didn’t pick up, he couldn’t stop a text message.
PICK UP U COWARD MOTHERFUCKER
was the best I could offer.

It worked so well, he actually called me.

“Mr. McAlister. What can I do for you?” It was voice only. The betrayer apparently didn’t want to look at the betrayed.

“You miserable lying fuckwad . . .”

“Now, now. Anger is counterproductive.”

A stampede of thoughts pounded through my skull. We were screwed, obviously, and that sort of thing makes it a little hard to concentrate, but one word managed to fight its way through the rage and disbelief. The only word that mattered.

“Why?” slithered out from between my clenched jaws.

“I’m disappointed in you, Mr. McAlister . . . you’re the strategic prodigy. Surely you can answer your own question.”

I couldn’t focus on anything other than Tucker’s body being ripped apart at the joints. When I didn’t forward a theory, he spoke like a disappointed teacher lecturing a student.

“When we first met, what did I say was the primary reason the world was still in one piece? Compromise, Mr. McAlister. The most effective
form of diplomacy, really. Two enemies working together—cheaper than war, more binding than a treaty. And you and Ms. Ravzi paved the way. The Ayatollah’s own people turn against him—his president, one of his highest-ranking generals—not the sort of thing a world leader takes well. Meanwhile, the Agency has two operatives who simply can’t be trusted. So we compromised.”

“You helped him solve his problem, and now he’s cleaning up yours,” I muttered.

“Precisely. The Supreme Leader promises not to slaughter his own people in a civil war, throws in a few democratic reforms, and I don’t have to refinance my mortgage to put gas in the SUV. In return, we hand over the source of all his pain: the two of you. He gives up some of his power and we give up some of ours. Diplomacy at its finest.”

I raised my head to look at Lyla. Oblivious to our conversation, she was attacking the dresser like a blocking sled, hips down low, pushing it toward the suite door.

“They want Lyla alive. Was that part of your compromise, too?”

He sighed. “No, it wasn’t. You’d think the Iranians would have learned their lesson last night. I recommended they level your entire hotel.”

The words made my jaw go slack. “Jesus. The Takavar. They didn’t find us. You
told
them where we were?” The implications made me dizzy. I braced myself against the suite wall with my free arm.

“As soon as you reported your stunning success, the satellite link gave us your position. You should be thankful for the extra day—I wanted to launch a Tomahawk right then, but the director felt a two-dollar phone call to the Iranians was a cheaper alternative than a million-dollar cruise missile. Cutbacks and such. But you managed to squirm out of the Takavar’s grasp anyway. Alas, you’re more resourceful than I give you credit for. Ms. Ravzi’s mischief with President Nikahd this morning just gave us an opportunity to hand-deliver you to a more . . .
formidable
executioner.”

“You . . . you wanted us dead
before
Nikahd? Why? Why kill us after we did exactly what you wanted . . . We accomplished your mission!”

“Yes. As I said, a stunning success. Thank you.”

“
Thank you?
You thank us, then throw the CIA’s most powerful weapons in the goddamn garbage?”

“Calm yourself, Mr. McAlister. This course was inevitable. Ms. Ravzi sealed her fate the moment she left for North Korea, and you guaranteed yours when you agreed to go after her. You’re so obsessed with why . . . you really shouldn’t be. Disarming the Koreans and the Iranians explains why. It only reiterates what I’ve been telling the director for weeks . . .” Tucker’s voice grew softer. “You’re too powerful. Both of you. A weapon is only useful if you can control it . . . and the two of you weren’t going to stroll onto the Langley campus and ask for your IDs back. Like I said in Colorado, if I can’t have a safe world, I’ll settle for a reliable one. With you two gone, the world gets more reliable.”

“No!” I yelled. “You don’t understand . . . we were just going to disappear, live our lives. You don’t have to do this!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. McAlister, but it’s out of my hands now. If it’s any consolation, know that your demise will usher in the dawn of a new age. Former enemies forging alliances, cooperating for the good of mankind. That was the whole marketing pitch for the Protectors all those years ago . . . and you’re finally delivering on it. Congratulations!”

His preening, fake cheerleading was more than I could take.

“Listen to me, you little piece of shit,” I hissed. “I’m glad they’re taking her alive. Lyla will figure out a way, she’ll escape. And I promise, the first thing on her vengeance to-do list will be to make you
suffer
for what you’ve done. You, the director . . . everyone who betrayed us.”

A deep chuckle rolled out of the gauntlet’s speaker. “I wouldn’t put all my eggs in that basket. If I know the Iranians, ‘alive’ is a figure of speech. They’ll gouge out her eyes, cut off her tongue . . . the Ayatollah can use her heavenly pheromones to interrogate prisoners in exchange for food, for all I care. Meanwhile, your lovely Ms. Ravzi will be at the mercy of any prison guard with an erection and a gas mask. Not exactly a storybook ending for the Goddess of Love, is it?”

I looked back at Lyla. The loudspeaker outside shook her attention away from the makeshift barricade, and she translated, “One minute.”

Tucker heard her. “You may wish to consider using what little time
you have remaining to ensure Ms. Ravzi doesn’t end up in that cell. It’s really the only heroic option you have left.”

“You motherfu—”

“As much as I’ve enjoyed our brief relationship, it appears our time is up. You may not believe this, but I am disappointed. How unfortunate for godlike power to be granted to such a shortsighted moron. Alas . . . parting . . . sweet sorrow . . . all that.”

“Son of a
bitch
!”

Tucker waited to respond, letting me sweat. Then his voice came back over the comm, nastier than before.

“Nighty-night, Knockout.”

The call terminated. I screamed and ripped the gauntlet from my forearm.

Lyla yelled, “Give it to me!” Just as I did, the first tank shell exploded against the palace façade, launching both of us across the room.

Guess they were serious about the five minutes. So much for wanting Lyla alive.

More surprised than injured, I called out.

“Here!” Her small hand poked from beneath the mattress, which the tank round had sent flying on top of her. She crawled out and hid behind the dresser, coughing and motioning for me to join her. The dresser was expensive and heavy, but wouldn’t last long. A second round destroyed the outer wall of the suite, leaving it bare to the night sky. Spotlights now streamed over what was left. Plaster and concrete dust swirled in the air around us.

I grabbed Lyla’s hand and we sprinted through the open doorway into the hall, leaving the raw destruction of the bedroom behind. Machine gun fire chased us as we went. It sounded like every gun in the courtyard at the same time. Once in the hallway, though, the gunfire was ineffective, thanks to the buffer zone of rooms between us and the outer wall.

The tank gunners took care of that in a hurry.

Shot after shot impacted the outer facing of the palace. The doors to the rooms protecting us on our right blew off their hinges. If I’d been standing next to one, my insides would have been turned to cherry
pie. Lyla dragged me into one of the rooms to the left, as far from the guns as possible. She closed the door behind us, and in a moment of obsessive-compulsive insanity, locked it.

“Thanks. We should be safe now,” I deadpanned.

“Shut up and help.” She was pulling the mattress off the bed inside, trying to yank it upright to form a lean-to against the wall for shelter. Outside, the bombardment picked up. The tanks and APCs couldn’t see us anymore, so they were taking their frustration out on the entire length of the massive structure. The blasts receded as the shells aimed farther away, then got louder as the cannons worked their way back toward us. When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, a powerful explosion bounced us off the floor. The mattress shimmied and bent from all the debris, but it held. The shelling stopped.

“Maybe they ran out,” I said, coughing from the dust. Lyla must have been deafened by the onslaught because she didn’t punch me for being a smart-ass.

I heard a shuffling noise and peeked around the corner of our fluffy shield. A tank shell had destroyed the hallway wall of our room. The rooms on the other side of the hall were . . . gone. The front of the palace was no more than ruins: mangled wood, concrete, and brick. Even more surprising, though, the shuffling came from a lone figure treading over debris in the remnants of a hallway now exposed to the open air.

Ahmadi.

His bonds were no longer secure; although his hands were still cuffed, the thick rope around his torso now hung in a bundle around his waist. He noticed me and stumbled into our room, tripping on a chunk of plaster. I ducked out and pulled him back to our insubstantial fort.

“I am sorry,” he said. He could barely open the eyes of his beaten face. “Use the rope. Go out the back.” He nodded toward the blown-out window behind me. The first halfway-good idea I’d heard in the last five minutes.

“Get up, let’s take the rope off you.”

He got to his knees in front of the window. I saw a flash of red light,
and the general’s face jerked back as I heard the rifle fire. Ahmadi was dead before he slammed into the ruined carpet.

“Dammit!”

Thick plaster dust was everywhere now, and it refracted the red laser light perfectly in the gloom. Twin beams pierced through the open window; snipers tracking, hunting for targets. As long as we stayed tucked to the side of the opening, they wouldn’t find us, but still—we wouldn’t be leaving through the back.

Hell, we wouldn’t be leaving at all.

I turned to face Lyla, to tell her things that need to be said at the end, expecting to look into tearful golden-green eyes. Instead, she feverishly worked the gauntlet, trying to make a call. She yelled something into the comm just as more shelling began, this time focused on the building’s lower levels. The entire floor shook beneath us as the whole palace lurched toward collapse. We didn’t have enough mattresses to survive that.

Lyla lowered the gauntlet. She didn’t look ready to say goodbye.

“Fahrook can’t help us now,” I said.

The corner of her mouth curled upward.

“I didn’t call Fahrook.”

In the silence between cannon rounds, I heard the first crack of thunder.

Diego.

Blaster.

PART THREE

CHAPTER 41

D
iego Mendoza asks, “Why did you come here?
”

His English is heavily accented despite the fact that he’s lived in America since he was ten. A big part of me thinks the accent is bullshit; he just adds the Venezuelan twist because he thinks American women love it. And they do. Course, having more power than a nuclear reactor doesn’t hurt, either.

His eyes are narrow slits. Like most people sequestered by the government, Diego has trust issues. Plus, he’s not my biggest fan to begin with. Not since Lyla started staring at me in team meetings.

“Dude, I’m bored,” I say. “Thought I
’d see how real power works.” The compliment defuses his suspicion in a blink. If Diego has a weak spot, it’s his supercharged ego.

“Then watch and learn, Jefe.” His last word is coated in sarcasm. He didn’t exactly vote for me as team leader.

We’re standing on a small ridge overlooking a training ground bigger than three football fields squeezed together. The flat expanse has no trees, only grass and burnt-out sections of plain dirt. Scattered throughout are abandoned vehicles. At first I think they’re derelicts, but a closer look reveals sunlight reflecting off unbroken windshields and the glint of shiny aluminum wheels. At the far end of the grounds is the real surprise: a perfectly functional M-1 Abrams battle tank. Feels nice to see the muzzle isn’
t pointed in our direction.

Diego turns to the training ground and focuses. He hunches over and balls his fists in front of his chest. As he concentrates, a hum fills the air around us.

I can’t resist.

“Hey! If those were hybrid cars, could you, like, turn them on from here?”

The interruption pops his concentration bubble, and his energy fizzles. “What? No! What kind of question is this?”

“I don’
t know, I just figured since you’re the master of electricity, that’d be something you could do.”

“Well, I cannot.”

“Can you control traffic signals? Or turn off the lights in your room without hitting the switch?” I mimic the expression of the scientists when they ask me something unintentionally ridiculous. Diego scrubs his hand over his buzz-cut scalp. The bald spots have grown in. Mostly.

“Why does everyone ask me such stupid things? I can summon lightning from my fists—isn
’t that enough?” He stomps around the ridge in a mini-tantrum.

“Sorry, man. Just curious.” It’s clear he doesn’t understand I’m messing with him. After taking some deep breaths, he walks over and speaks slowly, as though to a child.

“When you piss, can you make the pee climb the wall and paint a picture?”

“Not the last time I checked.”

“Well, my power is no different than pissing. I control two things.”

“Which are?”

“What direction and how hard.”

To demonstrate, Diego spins toward the field and fires.

I’
ve read about his power before, but seeing the full juice is different. Pumping a billion volts of electricity out of your fist is kind of a big deal. The current ionizes the surrounding air, turning it to plasma, and plasma is hot. Thirty thousand degrees hot. Don’t bother asking Fahrenheit or Celsius, because when there’s a comma in the number, it doesn’t matter. The superheated air expands faster than the speed of sound with a resounding “crack.” Call it thunder, call it a sonic boom . . . both are correct. Three feet from Diego’s side, I call it “a fucking shock wave” because it blows me off my feet.

The origin of his firing process is so badass, the destination pales by comparison. A Toyota Camry explodes and another patch of grass burns
down to the dirt. While I lie on the scratchy weeds of the ridge, Diego fires three more bolts. Each finds its mark. Two of the cars flip over in protest. The last only smolders, refusing to give the executioner the satisfaction of an epic death. He hits it again for spite. Watching his expression makes me think Diego has plenty of spite to go around. I smell burning gasoline, see flames lick at the grass.

Satisfied with the automotive carnage, he bends down and extends a hand. “Sorry. Sometimes I get fired up.” The accent loses some of its bite.

My palm grips his. As usual, I’m shocked . . . but figuratively, not literally this time. For once, he doesn’t intentionally buzz me.

“No problem,” I say, brushing off my pants. “Impressive.
”

He nods like he’s used to the compliment. Then, a change. The eyes flash, white teeth peek out from behind the lips in a rare smile.

“Do you want to see something really cool?” he says.

“Always.”

He points to the Abrams. “I had the general bring her in fully loaded: fuel, ammunition, the works.
”

“Have you ever hit one of those before?”

He scrapes at the ground with his foot, getting set. “No. They’re supposed to be shielded against lightning, but the natural kind lasts less than a second.” He looks like an eight-year-old on Christmas Eve. “Want to see if the tank can handle ten seconds?”

“More than anything.”
Holy shit, do I mean it.

Diego breathes deep and says, “Get behind me so you don’t go flying.”

I lope back a few steps.

He bends over, summoning whatever primal force turns him into a god. Before he lets go, Diego speaks once more in a low voice.

“Cover your ears. It’s about to get loud.”

—

Tucked behind the mattress, it was impossible for me to see the beginning of the light show. I sure as hell heard it. Damn, anyone within twenty miles heard; exploding tank shells are loud but thunder is louder. The blasts were almost constant. In between strikes, when the reverberation slowly died, you could hear a dim chorus in the
background.

Screaming.

Sporadic gunfire still hit the remnants of our room, so I tried to keep Lyla in my grip behind the mattress. It was harder than expected, because she
really
wanted to watch. When her greased-pig imitation finally defeated me, it didn’t matter. None of the soldiers cared about us anymore.

By the time we peeked through the third-floor rubble, two of the old Soviet tanks were already fiery wreckage. The turret of another rotated away from the palace, the gun crew trying to find a target. Diego found them. A bolt hit from above—I couldn’t see the source—but instead of vanishing in a millisecond, it kept on hitting. The lightning was a constant jagged beam, lancing into the vehicle. Within three seconds, electricity fried the air around the tank, then the air
inside.
When the plasma made contact with the ammunition magazine, the armored monster blew apart in a ball of orange flame. The explosion formed a dot at the bottom of Blaster’s heavenly exclamation point.

The Abrams lasted six seconds. Up yours, Ivan.

Diego operated on the heavy equipment first and I have to admit: he was a goddamn surgeon. Extended strikes rained from the sky; before long, the Iranians figured out anything with armor or a gun was best avoided. Then he moved on to the transports and all-terrain vehicles. All the big stuff was near the perimeter of the complex, so the explosions forced the troops away from the gate and the wall. Most of the men retreated toward the center of the courtyard, where officers did their best to rein in the panic.

In the past, Blaster’s power had always emanated from his hands. Incredibly cool, but in our current predicament, that left him wide open for retaliation from any grunt carrying a rifle. You can’t watch three hundred guys at once. But lightning from the sky? That was a different animal altogether. Nobody (including me) could tell where the assault came from, which made it difficult for the Iranians to fight back. Eventually someone in the courtyard got smart and ordered suppressing fire in a huge arc away from the palace. Hundreds of AK-47s fired at once, ripping bullets in all directions. Thousands of rounds
sprayed out of the courtyard in a barrage that lasted longer than Diego’s tank-killing. Finally, an order circulated to hold fire. The lightning had stopped.

Lyla whimpered. “You don’t think . . .”

I shook my head. “No, he’s gotta be in a safe spot. He wouldn’t expose himself unless he had to.” The words were more prayer than statement.

The remaining soldiers on the fringe of the complex, many of them injured, took advantage of the pause. They ran, hobbled, and even crawled back to the main group in the courtyard. Hundreds of scared, angry soldiers stared out at the blackness, searching . . . waiting. As the seconds ticked away, I wondered how long it’d be before they remembered their original targets.

Then, like a comedian who waits just long enough to deliver the punch line, Diego incinerated the command tent with a salvo of lightning bolts. The soldiers responded with everything they had. They didn’t stop until their magazines were empty.

The final strike came from directly above the group, but Blaster didn’t hit them. Instead, his bolt split into hundreds of smaller branches a hundred feet off the ground. The branches spread out in a ring as they descended—forming a cone of electricity around the terrified Iranians. The bolts stayed in place rather than dissipate, sizzling and pulsating while they danced in small circles on the stone surface of the courtyard.

“Hmm. That’s a new trick,” I said.

“He’s full of them.”

Before I could tell her what else Blaster was full of, the floor shifted. The repeated earthshaking blasts were making our perch more dangerous. We crawled from behind the wreckage with the intention of making it back to the steps. The tank barrage, however, had turned the third-floor landing into a balcony. A piece of slanted flooring hung off the lip and Lyla was able to slide down to the more intact second level.

Before I joined her, I looked at Blaster’s lightning cone and saw it
move.
The soldiers scrambled as a group, keeping their distance from the deadly bars of their cage. The electric structure maintained size and shape as it crept toward the palace, the Iranians bustling within like
trapped cattle. Realizing the opportunity, I joined Lyla on the second floor and dragged her to the cracked front wall so she could see.

“What’s he doing?” she asked.

“Herding them. Moving the soldiers closer.”

“Closer to what?”

I smiled. “Me.”

When the crackling edges of the cone almost touched the outer wall, Blaster had done enough. I grunted. The blanket wipe passed over them in a wave, soldiers falling like a disk of dominos knocked over from a single point. When the final domino fell, the electricity fizzled out, leaving a pile of unconscious bodies and the sharp smell of ozone in its wake.