Dead Shot by USMC (Ret.) with Donald A. Davis Gunnery SGT. Jack Coughlin

because we were part of the educated, moderate class. I will tell you everything I can in exchange for political asylum. I know that if I return to Iran, I may be killed, but we must go back.”
    “Why?” asked an interrogator.
    “I know of another facility, such as the one from last night, and my brother may still be alive there.”
    “Just tell us where and we will send in another team.”
    She shook her head negatively. “No. It is near my home village in the north, and I can lead you there. You cannot find it on your own.”
    The officer gave her a slight smile. “Believe me, Miss Tabrizi, when I say that our technology and satellites can find almost anything, anywhere.”
    Delara returned the mirthless smile. “So, have you found it yet? No. You didn’t even know it existed until I just told you.”
    The officer studied the young woman. Stubborn. Determined.Knows that if she is caught by the Iranians, she will be killed, and yet she is willing to lead a raid back into the country. “Let me discuss it with my bosses and see if they want to put together a mission. Meanwhile, we will put you up in a safe location and let you rest and clean up while we work this out.”
    Delara said, “I want the same team that was used before.”
    “We may not be able to do that. A fully capable and fresh team probably will be chosen.”
    “No substitutes,” she insisted and turned to look at Rawls and Hughes, both of whom were nodding agreement. She remembered not only the rescue in Iran but also the confrontation at the helicopter. “I trust these men to bring me back alive.”
     
    In another room in the same building, Kyle Swanson and Rick Newman were being debriefed, going over the mission step by step. Swanson handed in the bag of flesh samples he had cut from the dead body, and it was transferred to a secure biohazard container. The digital cameras with their documentation were sent off to be copied and analyzed.
    “The place was burned to a crisp,” he told the intel officers. He described the construction of the underground laboratory complex. “Everything was destroyed. Looked as if they flooded it with gasoline or something, then popped some thermite grenades to set it all off. The heat would have been tremendous, certainly enough to burn off any evidence of chemicals or biologicals being produced there.”
    “You found prisoners in there?”
    “What remained of them. Way back in individual cells at the end of the tunnels. The poor bastards were probably guinea pigs for experiments and were disposed of like everything else.”
    Newman described the sudden arrival of soldiers at the site and the ensuing ambush, and how Master Gunny Dawkins had been wounded. Swanson gave his version of the same subjects. The intelligence officers were running out of questions when one asked, “Why do you think the scientist who was assassinated in Baghdad gave up this site?”
    Kyle gathered his gear. “That’s for you intel guys to figure out. Maybe the girl that we brought in can shed some light on it. My wild guess is that the scientist figured that everything connected with the place was going to be eliminated, including him. So he ran. He just didn’t run fast enough.”

9
    PARIS
    L EAFY VINES TANGLED LIKE thick ropes around the bars of a big wrought-iron gate that had stood open day and night for almost ten years on a quiet street in the Nineteenth Arrondissement. The property owner had tired of having to open and close it. Thieves came over the walls, despite embedded shards of sharp glass and alarm systems, so what was the point? Then a new owner had arrived and there still was no need to close the gate, for hard-eyed men stood guard, and word spread among the footpads of Paris that it was better to prey on targets that would not cost them their lives. The house now belonged to al Qaeda.
    The neighborhood in the northeast section of Paris was in an inevitable transition toward a gentrified future, but pockets of the