119: Chapter 116 Iran-Iraq Border

March 28, midnight, the Iran-Iraq border.

Four men crossed the border from Kermanshah Province in western Iran.

They wore Iraqi civilian clothes and carried forged identification documents. Weapons and explosives were hidden beneath the chassis of an Iraqi-licensed truck—seized from Basra, it still bore its original Iraqi military license plates.

Ali drove. Daoud sat in the passenger seat. Farhad and Hussein were hidden among the cargo in the back.

There were no inspections during the crossing—the Iraqi outposts along this section of the border had been withdrawn after the war began.

"We're in," Ali whispered.

It was a straight-line distance of three hundred and fifty kilometers from the border to Samarra. Taking the roads would be about four hundred kilometers, requiring seven to eight hours. If all went well, they would reach the outskirts of Samarra before dawn.

But something went wrong.

At 3:00 AM, at a checkpoint eighty kilometers south of Baghdad, Iraqi military police stopped their truck.

"Out of the vehicle. Identification."

Ali handed over the forged ID—his false identity was that of a vegetable wholesaler from Baghdad, originally from Tikrit, a Sunni.

The military policeman looked at the ID, then at his face.

"Your accent doesn't sound like someone from Tikrit."

Ali's heart raced, but his face remained expressionless.

"I grew up in Basra and only moved to Tikrit last year."

"Basra?" The policeman's gaze shifted. "Basra is occupied by the Iranians now. Are you a refugee?"

"Yes. My whole family moved to Tikrit."

The policeman hesitated, then took the ID and walked toward the checkpoint hut. Likely to verify it.

Daoud whispered from the passenger seat, "What do we do?"

Ali glanced at the checkpoint. Two military police: one on the phone in the hut, one standing by the road smoking. No armored vehicles, no heavy weapons. The roadblock was just a few oil drums.

"Wait for him to come back. If he lets us through, we go. If not—"

The smoking policeman walked to the back of the truck and patted the side. "What's the cargo?"

"Vegetables," Ali said.

The policeman reached out and pulled back the truck's canvas cover.

The bed was filled with crates of vegetables. Farhad and Hussein were hidden behind the innermost crates, completely out of sight.

The policeman looked for a few seconds, patted the truck again, and turned away.

The policeman from the hut emerged with the ID.

"Alright, move along."

Ali took the ID, started the truck, and slowly drove through the roadblock.

He didn't breathe a sigh of relief until the checkpoint vanished from the rearview mirror.

March 28, 7:00 AM, Samarra.

The truck stopped at an abandoned brick kiln outside the city of Samarra.

The four men got out and took cover in the kiln. They couldn't move during the day—Samarra's Chemical weapons base was north of the city, surrounded by Iraqi military patrols. Approaching during daylight was too dangerous.

"We move at night," Ali said. "Rest for now."

He took out a shortwave radio and sent an encrypted message to Ahvaz: "Arrived in Samarra. Moving tonight."

Ahvaz replied quickly: "Copy. Jassim is on the night shift tonight, East Gate of E-7 Ammunition Depot. He will unlock the East Gate at 2:00 AM. You have thirty minutes."

Thirty minutes.

In, plant the explosives, out, detonate. Thirty minutes.

Ali rehearsed every step ten times in his mind.

"Daoud," he said, "are the explosives ready?"

"Ten kilograms of C-4 plastic explosives. Timed detonator, fifteen-minute delay. Enough to blow the munitions depot to the sky."

"Don't use the timer; use remote. I want to detonate only after confirming we've left."

"The effective range of the remote detonator is five hundred meters."

"That's enough. If we detonate from five hundred meters away, we'll survive."

"What if the mustard gas leaks?"

The wind is blowing from the northwest. The munitions depot is on the east side of the base. We'll evacuate to the west, so the wind will blow the toxic gas eastward. As long as we stay upwind, we're safe."

"As long as the wind doesn't change."

"God willing, the wind won't change."

March 29, 1:45 AM, outskirts of the Samarra Chemical weapons base.

The four men crept up to the eastern perimeter wall of the base.

The wall was three meters high, topped with barbed wire. On the inside, there were watchtowers every hundred meters, equipped with searchlights. But Jassim had provided a tip: there was a blind spot between two watchtowers on the eastern wall—a section about twenty meters wide that the searchlights didn't reach.

At 1:55 AM, Ali saw two flashes of a flashlight from the direction of the East Gate.

Jassim's signal.

"Go."

The four men climbed over the wall and slipped through a gap in the barbed wire—Jassim had cut it beforehand with pliers.

When they landed, Jassim was already standing by the East Gate of E-7 Ammunition Depot.

"Hurry," Jassim whispered. "The patrol comes by every twenty-five minutes. You have twenty-two minutes left."

Ali pushed open the iron door of the munitions depot and stepped inside.

The interior of the depot was larger than he had imagined—about forty meters long, twenty meters wide, and five meters high. Hundreds of munitions were stacked neatly inside. Markings in Arabic were printed on the grayish-green shells—'MG-152' for mustard gas and 'SN-200' for Sarin.

There was a faint, strange odor in the air. Ali wasn't sure if it was psychological or a genuine trace leak. He instinctively tightened his gas mask.

"Daoud, plant the explosives. Center of the munitions pile, two points. Farhad, keep watch at the door. Hussein, stay outside with me and keep an eye out for the patrol."

Daoud walked into the aisles between the stacks of munitions, carefully wedging the C-4 explosives into the gaps between two crates. His hands were steady—a tremor in a place like this would be fatal.

Five minutes in, the first explosive charge was set.

Seven minutes in, the second charge was set.

Daoud connected the remote detonator and exited the depot.

"Done."

Ali checked his watch: 2:08 AM. Fourteen minutes left.

"Evacuate. Back the way we came."

The four men climbed back over the wall and retreated westward into the darkness. Jassim stood outside the East Gate of the depot for a few seconds before also vanishing into the night—he had to return to his post to establish an alibi.

At 2:15 AM, Ali reached a point five hundred meters outside the base.

He stopped and looked back toward the base.

The lights, the walls, the watchtowers—everything looked calm.

He pulled the remote detonator from his pocket.

"Ready?"

The three men nodded.

Ali pressed the button.

Two seconds later, E-7 Ammunition Depot exploded.

First came a dull thud—the C-4 detonating. Then came the chain reaction—the mustard gas munitions and Sarin warheads were triggered by the intense heat, creating a massive secondary explosion. A fireball erupted through the roof of the depot, soaring fifty meters into the air. The shockwave spread outward like a wall, blowing the barbed wire off the perimeter fence like scraps of paper.

Alarms blared throughout the entire base. Searchlights swept frantically. From a distance came the shouts of men and the roar of vehicle engines.

"Run!"

The four men ran for their lives in the darkness. Behind them, the night sky over Samarra was lit up halfway across by the orange-red glow of the fire.

3:00 AM, Ahvaz.

Karimi rushed into Reza's office.

"Your Highness! A massive explosion has been detected in the direction of Samarra! Satellite thermal imaging shows a violent blast in the eastern sector of the Chemical weapons base; the fire has already spread across the entire sector!"

Reza stood up from his chair. "What about Ali's team?"

"Out of contact. The shortwave radio signal went dead after the explosion."

Reza stood there, motionless.

"Wait," he said. "Wait for them to contact us."

At 4:17 AM, the encrypted shortwave channel finally received a message.

Just four words: "Mission accomplished."