Sky Sentinels

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 have not spoken since your American guests from Iraq arrived in your country,” Gomez said in a lighthearted voice.

Azria laughed, knowing the other man meant the American hostages who’d been kidnapped near the border. “No, sir, we have not,” he said into the receiver. “I believe they are resting at the moment.”

“Yes,” Gomez said. “I sometimes forget that night here is day in your country. An afternoon nap, no doubt?”

“Probably,” Azria said. “They really have little to do but sleep and worry.”

“Very good,” Gomez stated. “I have a ship en route to your country even as we speak. And I trust that the shipment which is coming my way is on schedule, as well?”

“Yes,” Azria continued. “It will arrive quite soon, in fact.”

“Very good again,” Gomez said. “Actually, that was the only reason for my call. Your other actions in America and Israel are having the desired effect, according to my intelligence operatives. The United States is focused on the Pasdarans you snuck across their borders and the hostage situation.” He paused to cough, and Azria realized he, too, was smoking a cigar. Probably the same brand and size as the ones he had sent to the Iranian president.

When Gomez had quit coughing, he added, “The Israelis are being forced to rivet their attention on your increase in suicide bombings. And, in addition to the newsmen hostages, the Americans are focusing on the small strikes of your Pasdarans inside their very borders. These diversions are allowing our true objective to…” He paused for a second, searching for the right words. “To fly under the radar. Yes. I believe that is the slang term the norteamericanos use.”

“If it means my shipment to you and yours to me is going unnoticed, then, yes, I believe you are correct.”

“We must speak again when the ships have arrived,” Gomez said.

“We will,” Azria agreed, and then hung up the phone.

Javid Azria had to draw in hard on his cigar, which had almost gone out during the conversation. But after a couple of weak puffs of smoke, it returned to its former fully lighted state. Azria sat back in his chair again, stuck the cigar between his lips and smiled.

By either confusing or sometimes flat-out refusing to allow U.N. inspectors to do their job in his nuclear plants, he had successfully completed his program and now had several dozen nuclear warheads at his disposal. In addition to that, he was about to broker another deal for F-14 fighter plane parts from another source. There had been a time when his country still had many serviceable F-14s in their arsenal—purchased by the Shah before Iran and the United States became such bitter enemies. But now, the majority of these fighters had been grounded. And without the U.S. to provide new parts, they had been forced to cannibalize the few that remained to keep others running.

But that would change shortly, too. And the scope of suicide bombers would expand far beyond what the world had ever seen. He was even now shipping several of his nuclear warheads to Venezuela. President Gomez had promised to coordinate the timing with Iran’s own attack, equipping his own airplanes with the nukes and having them flown the much shorter distance from Venezuela to the United States. Of course the Venezuelans were not Muslim, and the pilots could not be induced to kill themselves with the ridiculous and childish visions of gardens and virgins. So Azria had sent his own suicide men along with the nukes.

Javid Azria chuckled and his chest shook back and forth. At the same time, an Iranian aircraft carrier would fly the flag of some neutral nation, smuggling his newly restored F-14s within flying range of the U.S. Azria would send other nuclear-warhead-equipped F-14s directly into Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other Israeli cities. He would concentrate particularly on Christian and Jewish religious sites.

It would be a three-pronged attack, Azria thought as he smiled and took another draw on the Koran-forbidden cigar. At almost the same exact second, the U.S. and Israel would find themselves the recipients of several dozen nuclear kamikaze strikes, and both nations would be crippled beyond comprehension.

Azria’s grin slowly left his face and turned into a frown of determination. The timing was crucial. He had to make sure that the F-14s launched from the Iranian aircraft carrier coincided with those from Venezuela. And the F-14 strikes on Israel should come at almost the same instant, while both the Americans and Israelis were still in shock and their attention diverted.

The Iranian president drew deeply on the cigar, remembering Fidel Castro’s words that the “second half of the cigar is always better.” The Cuban dictator had meant it as a metaphor, he knew. But it was true in a literal sense, as well.

As he continued to smoke, Javid Azria’s eyes fell on the copy of the Koran on the corner of his desk. All in all, Islam was the perfect religion for a man like Javid Azria to use to control his people. He didn’t have to believe in it himself, and he didn’t. But it would keep the common Iranians in line during the inevitable retaliation the U.S. would heap upon his country, and keep public opinion on his side as thousands, or perhaps even millions, of his own people died.

Azria made a mental note to remind the people of Iran that they would go straight to Paradise if killed by U.S. or Israeli bombs. He’d have it written into his next televised speech.

Azria’s smile turned into outright laughter as he thought about it. The masses were so easy to control. Just include the word “Allah” in every other sentence and you had them bowing and scraping at your feet. Personally, he believed in a god about as much as he believed in the Western ideas of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

There was no Allah. And Muhammad had been dead for hundreds of years.

There was only Javid Azria.

As he glanced again at the painting on the wall, he wondered if he might not change his title from President to Cyrus the Second when the smoke cleared and he returned Iran to the Persian Empire it had once been.

He would have to ponder the idea.

It had merit.

S LOWLY, ALERTLY , the Kurds came down the mountain path toward the plateau. David McCarter and the other men of Phoenix Force had risen from behind the boulders. Still hesitant, a dark-skinned, broad-shouldered man of average height, wearing a soiled white turban and a much-patched-and-repaired robe, stepped forward. In a thick leather belt around his waist, McCarter saw what looked like a much-used Western bowie knife and an ancient ball-and-cap revolver.

The rest of the Kurds were similarly armed with a mixture of old and newer weapons that could have filled a museum.

“Name’s Abbas,” the Kurd leader finally said after carefully scrutinizing the men of Phoenix Force. His words were almost shocking, because instead of the Middle Eastern accent McCarter would have expected, they came out in a south-Texas drawl. But before the Phoenix Force leader could comment, the Kurdish leader transferred the battle-scarred bolt-action rifle he held to his left hand and extended his right. “I reckon this is the way you people in the West greet each other.”

McCarter grasped the man’s hand in a firm grip. “It is,” he said. “And I’m McCarter. Your English is excellent, by the way. But curious. Where did you learn to speak the language?” Somehow he didn’t think this Kurd who had taken to the mountains to escape the Iranian government had grown up in the American South.

Abbas shrugged his shoulders. “From an American I know,” he said simply.

McCarter made a mental note to inquire about the man’s accent later, if they had time. But now, he quickly introduced the rest of Phoenix Force. Only then did he notice that Adel Spengha seemed to have disappeared. “Where’d the Rat go?” he asked no one in particular.

“The Rat?” Abbas said. “You talking about Adel Spengha?”

McCarter turned back to the Kurd. “I am. You know him?” In his peripheral vision, he saw Spengha rise from where he had remained hiding within the rocks and walk timidly forward. “Hello, Abbas,” he said uncertainly. “It is good to see you again.”

The corners of Abbas’s lips turned downward in what could only be called a sneer of contempt. “Where are my camels?” the Kurd demanded.

“I am sorry about that,” the Rat said, looking at the ground and wringing his hands. “I needed one to ride out of the desert. The other, I am afraid, I was forced to eat in order to survive.”