Exit Plan (16 page)

And she would call Lowell, and see what he knew about Guthrie. She wanted to tell him about Jerry, as well, but that would mean telling him about the mission.

And the waiting was not over yet.

~ * ~

Ramey ordered Lapointe to keep watch along the highway to the west. The petty officer split off from the group to take up a flanking position. The lieutenant sent Fazel to the east.

Jerry hurried with the others down to the car. It might have started out as a pale blue, but the sun had faded the upper surfaces to mottled white. There were dents in the grille and rear fenders. But it was transport, and his immediate thought was to get as far away from this place as possible.

The two Iranians, Yousef and his wife, were speaking softly in Farsi and looking at the car, then the SEALs, and back to the car. Finally, Shirin said, “You cannot all fit inside.”

Ramey didn’t hesitate. “Three guys go in the backseat, and two ride outside. We keep our weapons, but anything bulky goes in the trunk.” After a pause, he added, “With your concurrence, XO.”

Again the edge, but Jerry just said “Fine.” This was not the time or place. “Is that all right with you?” Jerry asked the Iranian couple.

“What else can we do?” Shirin replied. “If we split up, the Basij or VEVAK can still find us. And I do not wish them to find us.”

The team leader explained, “There’s an access road five and a half klicks west of here. It leads north to a high-voltage transmission tower. We should be able to go to ground there.”

Yousef asked a question in Farsi, and Shirin translated. “How far off the highway is the tower?”

“A little over two kilometers,” Ramey answered.

Yousef opened the trunk, then headed for the driver’s seat, calling to Shirin. Ramey spoke into his headset, recalling the flankers. “XO, you’re in the middle.” That made sense. Not only was Jerry one of the shortest, but he wasn’t a shooter. “Fazel and Lapointe are inside, Phillips and I will ride outside. There could be traffic down the highway at any time. Move.”

Moving quickly, Jerry put his canteen and knapsack in the trunk, but kept his pistol. He climbed into the backseat of the small sedan. The space was claustrophobic enough, but the car had rear-wheel drive. The hump in the floor for the drive shaft pushed his knees up almost to his chin.

Clunks and thuds behind him meant the other team members were stowing their gear. Fazel piled in first on the left, behind Yousef, and Jerry didn’t realize how far he’d moved to the right until Lapointe tried to get in from the other side. Jerry had to scrunch even closer to the medic, both pulling their elbows and shoulders in until it hurt. Ramey helped Lapointe position himself, then pushed the door shut. It jammed them together even more, but showed it was possible to fit three full-grown adults into the back of a Peykan.

They’d rolled down the windows on both rear doors before closing them. That was good, because there was no way Fazel or Lapointe could work them now. The two SEALs’ weapons lay across their laps, barrels pointed out, but Jerry wondered how well they’d be able to shoot from such a cramped position.

Ramey and Phillips hopped up, putting their feet in through the open window and holding onto the edge of the door along the roof. Jerry found the space in front of him filled with boots and legs. Serving as “leg space coordinator,” he pulled Ramey’s feet in slightly and Philly’s away so they didn’t collide.

Once they’d settled, the two men slung their rifles over their shoulders. “We’re ready,” Ramey announced. The loading had taken less than a minute.

Yousef put the car in gear and started forward at a creep. Inside, Jerry felt the car lurch and tilt. He wondered if the shock absorbers had any play left in them at all. They were certainly overloaded, but hopefully not dangerously so.

The car rocked and wobbled across the uneven ground onto the shoulder, then up onto the smoother pavement. Yousef accelerated quickly and smoothly.

“The dirt road will be on the left,” Ramey called to Fazel, who translated for Yousef. The Iranian nodded, his eyes ahead, accelerating. Shirin fiddled with her GPS device, but quickly announced, “The road is not on the map.” Jerry thought that was a good thing.

How long would it take to drive five-plus kilometers? They all watched the road and the black landscape, except for Jerry, who could see little but the car’s upholstery and combat boots. The enforced inactivity gave him time to think—and to remember: Higgs’s disfigured body on the deck, his own sense of failure as the ASDS went down, and the long, cold swim to an unfriendly beach.

All he had to do was pilot the SEALs to a point off the beach, wait, and then take them back to
Michigan.
There had been no way to predict the battery fire, or any way to save Higgs. But it was his boat and Higgs had been his responsibility.

Jerry was still trying to shake off the thought when Ramey called, “There!” and pointed ahead and to the left.

Yousef held his speed as long as possible, then braked smoothly and turned onto the gravel access road. Thankfully, the car quickly slowed to a fast walk, making the ride bumpy but not bone-shattering. Jerry heard Ramey say, “Lights,” with Fazel repeating it in Farsi, but Yousef was already turning off the headlights as he spoke. What little light they’d had was replaced with a single narrow beam from Ramey’s flashlight. Although the SEALs had night-vision gear, Yousef did not, and Ramey kept the beam centered on the road in front of them. Yousef slowed the car even more.

Still pinned in the backseat, seeing only blackness out the windows, Jerry could only wait as the car crept forward on the access road. He could tell when the gravel stopped after a short while, giving way to a rougher dirt track, either poorly maintained or never more than crudely graded.

“There’s the tower. Let’s stop here.” Ramey hopped down from the car as it rolled to a stop, his rifle already sweeping half the horizon. Phillips repeated the lieutenant’s actions on his side. They were both using their night-vision scopes.

They opened the rear doors, and Jerry and the two SEALs almost tumbled out of the backseat, gratefully stretching. The SEALs quickly found their gear in the trunk and reequipped themselves. Jerry, still unfamiliar with the equipment, fumbled in the darkness for a moment before getting it right.

Phillips reported, “There’s a cut in the hill off the right. It looks like a good spot to hide the car.”

With his scope, Ramey completed a quick sweep of the terrain. He couldn’t make out a lot of detail, but what he could see told him the ground was rough, hilly, and rocky. There were numerous dunes and shadowy gullies interspersed with more solid-looking rock outcrops and tufts of vegetation.
Good ground,
he thought to himself. Turning, he looked where Phillips was pointing. “Good, and there’s level ground leading up to it. Keep a watch to the south, Philly.”

Phillips trotted off in the direction they’d come from, while Ramey and Fazel walked over to speak with the two Iranians. Jerry hurried over to join them, but Ramey didn’t wait for him. “Doc, tell him we can hide the car here and look for cover. This is a good location. We won’t have to break cover until the CRRC’s halfway to the beach.”

While Fazel translated for Yousef, the lieutenant turned to Jerry. “I’m going to take Doc and Pointy and scout for a good hiding place for us, away from the car. Phillips will keep watch to the south, and I’d like you to stay here with the two civilians. Just back the car as far as you can into that notch in the hillside. Then sit tight.”

“Of course,” Jerry acknowledged. “Should we cover up the car?”

“No,” Ramey answered sharply. “You’d just make a bigger mess. My guys will take care of it when we get back from scouting.” Jerry bristled at the rebuke. Of course the SEALs could do a better job, but the lieutenant’s hostility was unnecessary.

Three of the SEALs disappeared into the darkness, and with Phillips on watch to the south, Jerry was alone with the two Iranians. The woman, Shirin, looked at him expectantly, and after a moment, he turned on his own flashlight.

With Shirin translating Jerry’s directions, Yousef backed the battered sedan slowly into the crevice. While relatively level, the ground was uneven enough to require care, or the Peykan might have gotten stuck, or worse.

At its opening, the cut was almost twenty feet wide, made by water in the steep slopes of a barren hillside. Jerry tugged and rolled a few large rocks out of the way to clear a path for the car, but the gap was deep enough so that the car was completely inside, with almost a full car length separating it from the front.

Once he’d made sure they could still open the doors and that there was a clear path out, Jerry stood near the opening, staring into the dark and hoping that he wouldn’t see anything. Behind him, Yousef folded a blanket to make a place for his wife, and helped her sit. She drank some water from a bottle he carried, then leaned back against the wall of the crevice.

Still watching, Jerry picked his way over to where the two sat. He asked Shirin, “Are you hungry? I have some MREs.” Seeing her expression, he explained, “Some field rations—food.” Taking off his backpack, he found a plastic package and offered it to her.

She looked over to her husband and spoke. He answered by nodding, and she said, tentatively, “I am a little hungry.”

Jerry had to open the outer package with his knife. Working by feel, he found something that felt like an energy bar and tore open the wrapper. She accepted it, and tasting it, nodded her appreciation. Jerry handed the rest of the package to Yousef, who sorted through the contents, asking Shirin and Jerry about the labels and ingredients.

A few minutes later, Jerry thought he heard something, but before he could react the three SEALs were back. Instead of a scouting report, Ramey asked, “What are they eating? Is that one of your MREs?” His tone was harsh, like a parent catching a child in some offense.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Jerry emphasized the second word slightly, “I thought it might be good for them to eat something.”

“No ranks, sir,” Jerry heard Ramey’s emphasis on the last word. “We can’t leave any trace of our presence. A piece of an MRE package would be a dead giveaway we were here. Please police the area carefully. The only thing I’m willing to leave behind is our footprints, and I wish I could avoid that.”

“Right,” Jerry replied, being careful to keep his voice neutral. “Did you find a place?”

“It’s about a kilometer from here, but it’s ideal. It’s a small cave, but it’s big enough for all of us. It’s got overhead cover and has a good view of the approaches.”

The SEALs went to work hiding the car. Each carried a section of camouflage netting. They combined these into a single piece large enough to cover the car, then added brush and rocks to break up its outline.

Yousef and Shirin stood to one side. She was leaning on him, and although their expressions were hard to see, his arms encircled her protectively. Jerry could also sense defensiveness in his posture, his watchfulness of not only the activity with the car, but the other SEALs as well. He didn’t trust them, not yet anyway.

Ramey took his time to step back and check their work from several directions, but they were still done in a few minutes. “Let’s get away from here,” he ordered over the headset. “Diamond formation.”

Jerry and the two Iranians were quickly corralled in the center of the formation, following Ramey. The other SEALs screened to the back, and both sides. They set off at a brisk pace, but had to slow when first Jerry, then Shirin, stumbled on the uneven surface. Grudgingly, Ramey promised to follow a smoother path.

There was enough starlight to see the ground, but not enough to reveal every obstacle. Yousef was especially solicitous toward his wife after her near fall, but she waved him off.

It was impossible to gauge distance in the dark. Jerry thought of counting footsteps, but his stride across the landscape was too irregular. He decided it would be best to just concentrate on watching Ramey ahead of him and picking his footing based on how he moved.