"I don't know how they tagged him here, but our spook in Tehran reports that they picked up his scent the day before yesterday. The agent gathered the intel after the team had already been dispatched from Tehran — they left within two hours after learning of the general's whereabouts. They've probably been in D.C. most of today, reconnoitering and setting up the operation.

"This won't be their first hit, either. The team is led by a man named Karim Yazid, who made quite a bloody rep for himself with the Cherikhaye Fedaye Khalq— People's Sacrifice Guerillas — in Iran before the revolution. The group was trained by Libyan military personnel, financed by a radical Palestinian group, and was the toughest in the Mideast. Yazid drew from the Cherikhaye Fedaye Khalq when he put his present outfit together.

"So far, they've racked up a total of thirty kills in the past three years of Khomeini enemies around the world. Four in the Mideast, ten in Europe and sixteen — count 'em, sixteen — here in America. That's what's got the CIA and the other agencies asking us for help. We've advised Nazarour of our intel, and he's gone stone hard. He's been paranoid as hell the whole time he's been here, and I got the feeling after talking to him on the phone that he suspects this of being some sort of American trick.

"He's refused to allow any of our troops or security personnel onto the grounds. But he has agreed to allow Colonel John Phoenix to act in an advisory capacity to his own security staff.

"As I say, he has his suspicions, but he's not taking any chances in case our information is on the level. He's aware of this hit team, of course, and fully appreciates their capabilities. He's being guarded by a private security agency provided by one of these big-money friends of his, but he must know that better security than he's got hasn't kept Yazid's outfit from hitting effectively in the past. And he certainly knows that his 'protection' wouldn't stand a chance against this team in the dark.