“Oh, yeah,” Vinnie shouted. “I love it.”
Two Israelis took bombs into the last bunker. Sergeant Per used his radio. “Commander, any luck with the visitors?”
“They gave up and took off for home,” Murdock said. “No action from up ahead of us for five minutes.”
“We’re three bunkers down, one to go. Hold your spot and we’ll move that way after the final boom-boom. Any casualties?”
“No cuts or scrapes here, Sergeant.”
“Good. See you in about five. After this next blast, give us some flashes with your torch, if you would. Oh, flashlight.”
“That’s a roger.”
Sergeant Per saw the two Israelis run out of the last bunker, and he pointed to Vinnie and they all ran in the direction that Murdock had gone. They were thirty yards away from the last bunker when it blew.
The explosion jolted the four men ahead six feet, and then drove them to the ground. The gushing, roaring blast disintegrated the roof of the bunker and its three feet of dirt cover, showering the mass into the air and driving some of the debris a hundred yards away. It kept roaring and exploding, and then small-arms rounds began cooking off in the fire, and the four attackers leaped up and charged away from the area as fast as they could run.
They overshot Murdock by fifty yards, but he and Ching kept up with them. They were all panting when they dropped to the ground and caught their breath.
“What in hell was in that one?” Sergeant Per asked.
One of the Israelis grinned. “Sarge, should have warned you. We found two open cases of C-4. Must have been fifty pounds to the box. Dumped out the quarter-pounders and set our small contribution on top and lit the fucking fuse. Nice bang, what?”
As the secondary explosions died down and the small arms kept cracking, they could hear half a dozen choruses of dogs howling.
“Hurt their ears,” Per said. “Surprised we haven’t run into any dogs before now. The Arabs like to keep them on their sites as watchdogs. These are wild ones, roam in packs, and can kill a man if he isn’t well enough armed to fight them off.”
He looked around. “Anybody hurt, injured, sprained ankle, anything?”
Nobody responded.
“Good.” He took out his radio. “Seekyou, Seekyou. This is twelve far south. A knockout here. Anyone close want help?”
“Yes, twelve. We’re ten south here, I figure about a mile north of you. We saw and heard your work down there. Good fellows. We ran into about fifty terrs on a night-training problem. Evidently it is a live-round firing test and they have caused us serious problems. Could you put a run due north and say twenty degrees to your left?”
“On our way. We have one twenty. Do you have one of the big ones?”
“No twenty here, would have been a huge help. Actually, they have us pinned down. Our mission was the pumping station, the water tanks, and the wells. Quite a sophisticated setup. Look Russian to me but no names on equipment. We were here and set to get started when a pack of dogs attacked us, and when we fired on them, that brought in the terrs. Don’t know how well trained they are, but we’re now about a hundred yards from the target and in a wadi with good cover, but no chance we can take on fifty of their AKs and come out ahead.”
“We’re moving up. Should be there in about eight minutes. Put a star shell over the hostiles and radio us where you are from them. We’re gone.”
Everyone had heard the radio talk. Sergeant Per led the run to the north and twenty degrees to the left. They covered the first half mile quickly, then came to a series of wadis. They had to dip into the wadis and climb up the other sides. It slowed them.
Per used the radio. “Pinned, give us another three minutes. Damned wadis are killing us.”
“Looks like the terrs are organizing some kind of an attack. I can hear them moving units to each side of us. Any speed will be appreciated.”
“Star shell now on them,” Per said. They had just climbed up on a wadi ledge, and Per motioned to Murdock. “When that star shell goes off, send a round up that way. Could be a half mile. Let them know more trouble is coming for the students.”
Murdock nodded and watched to the north. When the bright flare lit the sky to the north, it wasn’t as far as they’d figured. Murdock lasered on the star shell itself and fired. He didn’t know if that would send back a response on the laser. He waited a second, then two, and saw his round airburst somewhere near the flare. He got off another shot before the flare burned out. They ran up a small rise, and could see the shadows of some small buildings ahead and lights around a large round water tank. To the north of that they spotted some muzzle flashes.
Murdock sent one round that way, and then counted his ammo.
“Hey, twenty, that indeed is a tremendous weapon. One of your rounds burst right over the biggest group. They hadn’t bothered to disperse, and that round must have put twenty men wounded or dead. The men to the sides have been pulled back. They are increasing their small-arms fire, but that can’t hurt us. How is your ammo supply?”
Per looked at Murdock.
“I’m down to ten. Don’t know where they went.”
“The terrs know,” Per said. “Let’s find the wadi our mates are in and work up it to find them. Look alive now; we could start taking fire at any moment.”
They ran another hundred yards north, and could see the fire from the terrorist students. Murdock wanted to fire again, but that would give away his position and they were in the open. Another fifty yards and they found a good-sized wash that led to the left.
“Could be it,” Per said. They ran along it out of sight for a hundred yards. It petered out to the surface. There was no sign of the other men.
“Light sticks,” Murdock suggested. “Do any of the other squad’s men have light sticks they could break and show just to the rear?”
Sergeant Per sent the radio message, and a moment later they spotted three blue light sticks one more wadi ahead and again to the left. They charged up there, radioing where they were and that they were coming in.
“No friendly fire, mates. This is the squad that’s come to help you.”
They found the six, three Israelis and Senior Chief Sadler, Bill Bradford, and Mahanani.
“Where’s your Bull Pup?” Murdock asked Sadler.
“Hell, I didn’t rate one. Must be two of them in another squad. Glad you made it.”
Murdock and Per talked to Lieutenant Moshie Hadera. He had been in the planning group.
“Commander. We’ve got one wounded man. They evidently sent out a pair of scouts to check out this facility they must have been making a mock attack on. Caught us by surprise and one of my men took a round through his leg before we got under cover. Thanks for the twenties. Really shook them up. They must think we have a tank in here somehow.”
“Glad to help. I need to discourage them some more. I’ve got ten rounds. I can use up three more. That should do it.”
The lieutenant nodded, and Murdock moved up to the top of the wadi bank where he could see the occasional muzzle flash. When he spotted the next one, he lasered it and fired. The round exploded only two hundred yards away. In the flash, Murdock could see the troops in a shallow wadi. He could hear screams of pain when the sound of the round died.
He fired again and then waited. Lieutenant Hadera came up and used his binoculars.
“Yeah, looks like they are moving out. Maybe some damn cadre will form them up into a company and march them away.”
“Let’s hope,” Murdock said.
They waited.
“How about a star shell?” Murdock asked.
The lieutenant nodded and fired one from his rifle. It burst two hundred yards downrange and began to float slowly to the ground. Murdock knew he had twenty seconds. The terrorists had not formed into a company, but were in what looked like squads that were not dispersed the way they should be. He saw a group of three seven- or eight-man squads, and fired a round over them. It exploded with a devastating effect.
He sighted in on another group of two squads and fired again.
He got off one more shot as the flare faded. He thought he saw some silver bars on the collar of one of the men just as he fired. It was a direct-impact round and hit five yards in front of the squad, and the shrapnel sprayed them with deadly effect. With the flare, the men in the squad beside him with long guns had been firing as well, cutting down more of the terrorists.
“Let’s go get them,” Sadler said. He looked at the Israeli Mistaravim officer.
He nodded. “We’ll leave my wounded man here and come back and blow up this facility. Spread out in a line of skirmishers ten yards apart. We’ll go at a steady jog. No firing until we run into them. At the site they stayed at, we’ll look for wounded to dispatch. Let’s go.”
At the shallow wadi they found ten packs, a rifle, eight dead bodies, and two wounded who were put out of their misery.
“Ten down, we estimated fifty of them. Forty to go, with a bunch carrying your shrapnel and in no mood to fight. Let’s catch them.”
The attackers ran then with their weapons at port arms. Within a hundred yards they caught two stragglers limping. They were gunned down without a missed step as the eleven men charged forward.
Another hundred yards and Bradford stopped them. “Listen,” he said. They did.
No sound of movement ahead. “I heard bolts clicking on rifles. They have stopped running and are in a wadi waiting for us. Scouts?”
He looked at Lieutenant Hadera. The Israeli pointed to his two men, who slid out of the group and worked ahead silently. The rest of the raiders settled down in a four-foot-deep wadi out of harm’s way and waited.
“Fifty yards and all clear,” the Motorolas chirped.
“A hundred yards, yes, voices ahead. I can see the wadi. It’s a deep one and long, almost straight. We could cut fifty yards to the right and hit the wadi. I’ll be there waiting. Then we take them from the flank. They’ll have no protection.”
“Will do,” Lieutenant Hadera said. He motioned to the rest of the men. “Absolute silence. No talking, coughing. At a walk.”
They moved like shadows in the faint moonlit night. First they went to the right fifty yards, then turned north. They found the wadi and the two Israelis waiting for them.
“The troops are up there about forty yards,” the scout whispered. “A little bend, then we can see them.”
The lieutenant arranged his firepower. He put Murdock in the middle of the twenty-foot-wide wadi, then ranged men on each side of him, some to stand, some prone so they all could fire at once. They crept forward, careful not to make a sound.
A murmur of voices came to them; then they were at the bend and Per gave the order with a whisper into his mike. “Now.”
The men fired at once. Murdock got off two 20mm rounds, then switched to the 5.56 barrel and emptied a magazine. Around him men were firing. A few return rounds came; then the survivors stampeded down the wadi to a bend and out of sight. Murdock put another twenty round at the bend in the wadi, and hoped he had some shrapnel angling up the channel where the men must still be running.
They moved up slowly on the killing field. Two wounded were dispatched with single shots. They counted twenty-four bodies. There were thirty backpacks abandoned. Murdock checked out one. They held only clothing and a meal carton.
Lieutenant Hadera gave the order quietly. “Pick up all weapons and ammo you can find. We’ll put it in the next fire we set. Let’s move back to our target.”
By the time they had scoured the area, they had twenty-six AK-47’s and over three hundred rounds of ammo. They divided up the weapons and marched back to the watering hole.
Lieutenant Hadera had worked out his assignments on blowing the water facility before they left. Now he made the duties known, and the men went to work planting charges. They worked the cover off the well. It was a six-inch drilled well, and they couldn’t get into the pipe. They set charges to mangle the pipe and blow up the diesel engine that powered it. The pumping station took several charges to demolish the pumps and the engines that ran them. They set off the pump charges first. The diesel blew and caught fire, and when the diesel fuel spilled out, it began burning. The men threw the AK-47’s into the fire to ruin them.
The pipeline from the water tower was hit next with charges pasted on the big pipe downstream a hundred yards, then each twenty yards up to the tank. The blasts were set off in sequence. The terrorists would have to lay a whole new pipeline through this stretch toward the main facility.
Mahanani helped set charges on the pair of huge water tanks. He had no idea how much water they would hold, but he had seen smaller tanks on standpipes in good-sized towns in Mid America. They put charges on one side, under the legs on the far side, and then two more charges, setting up both tanks the same way. The men activated the charges on signal by the radio, each set for thirty seconds; then they all ran uphill so they wouldn’t be caught in the flood of water.
“Damn shame to waste the water,” Lieutenant Hadera said. “But there’s no way we can get it to the Israeli settlers who need it.”
The explosions came then, sharp cracks of brilliant sound and light. The big tanks wobbled; then the water gushed out of them at four ruptures on each one. When the water was gone, flooding downhill into a wadi, the tanks tipped all the way over and rolled down the slope a hundred yards as the twelve men cheered.
Hadera used the radio. “Water pump squad. Done here. Anyone need help?”
“Well done, water pump. You’re too far down there to be of help to us. We’re nearest you. Things in hand here. Report back to your transport and get out of town before they report this raid to their highway units. Go.”
Murdock looked north. He had ten more men up there somewhere. He wasn’t going to be able to do a damned thing to help them.
Lieutenant Hadera thanked them and said he would see them back at the Army base. Sergeant Per gathered his men and they began their hike back to their car.
“About two miles, so shouldn’t be a strain,” he said. When they were a half mile from the spot where they’d left the car and well past the blown-up bunkers, Murdock touched the sergeant’s sleeve.
“Maybe it would be good to send a scout out and check around the car.”
“Good idea,” Sergeant Per said.
“I’ll go,” Van Dyke said. He waited until the rest of the men had dropped to the ground, then jogged forward, careful not to make any noise. He slowed as he came to within fifty yards of the car. Then he stopped and studied the area. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. He couldn’t see much, but there seemed to be no black bulges around the car where there shouldn’t be.
Van Dyke moved forward slowly, one easy step at a time. He made sure his foot did not break a twig or kick a rock before he put his weight on it.
He was thirty yards away when he heard a man near the car cough. Then he saw the glow of a cigarette at what could be the other end of the car. Two of them. It had to be a roving patrol outside the fence. They must have heard the explosions half a mile away. Van Dyke knelt on the sandy soil deciding what to do.
16
Van Dyke knew two terrorists waited for them at the car. There was no cover or concealment. He went to the ground silently, turned his head away from the car, and whispered into the mike, “Skipper, two visitors at car. Hold there.”
Van Dyke remembered a fringe of stunted brush on both sides of the narrow road where they’d parked the car. He lifted up and faded at a forty-five-degree angle away from the car and toward the brush. It would put him about thirty yards from the car. He watched every direction, made sure he didn’t make any noise when his feet hit the sand and stones. The men at the car didn’t move. He saw the cigarette glow again, and the cougher hacked four more times. Good.
Van Dyke made it to the fringe and stepped into the concealment. It was sparse. The two men should be watching the area in front of the car toward the border fence.
After five minutes of hard and c
areful movement, Van Dyke reached the dirt road forty yards behind the car. He slid in and out of the brush along the road as he advanced. He could see neither of the terrorists. One was near the rear wheel. The cougher must be at the front of the sedan. Which way would he be looking? Outward, toward the fence. That was what he protected.
Van Dyke moved faster then. He held his MP-5 at port arms, ready to bring it down and fire quickly. He wanted to do it all silently if possible. When he was ten feet from the front of the car, he could see the coughing guard clearly. He had one foot on the front bumper staring toward the fence. Van Dyke drew his KA-BAR fighting knife and held it in his teeth as he took the final six quick steps.
The terrorist guard turned just before Van Dyke got there, but he was too late. The butt plate of the MP-5 was already six inches from his skull and descending rapidly. It hit with a ripe-melon sound and the man collapsed. Van Dyke grabbed the fighting knife from his mouth by the blade, drew it back, and threw it at the smoker, who had turned at the sound the first man made when his head banged against the fender on his way down.
The chest was the perfect target and Van Dyke’s throw sailed true, turned over halfway, and the blade plunged six inches into the startled terrorist’s chest. It entered just below his heart. He tried to yell, but couldn’t. He held onto the door handle for a few seconds, then sagged as a large severed artery coming out of his heart pumped all of its blood into his body cavity, and sank to the ground, both hands grabbing at the big knife.
Van Dyke butt-stroked the unconscious man at the front of the car a second time, smashing in his skull, then dragged his body into the brush. When he got back to the smoker, he ground out the still-burning butt on the ground, withdrew his KA-BAR from the dead man’s chest, wiped it clean on his shirt, and pulled the body behind some low-growing shrubs.
Van Dyke used the radio. “All clear. I have a sedan leaving from this point to Ramallah in four minutes. Hustle, you guys.”
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