At the end of the fifty, they slowed and looked around a bend in the trail. The vehicle, resembling a mini-tank, sat thirty yards down the trail, stopped for the moment. The heavy gun was aimed away from them, and they couldn’t estimate how large it was.
“Don’t want to know the size of that shooter,” Lam said. “Want him to keep it pointed the other way.”
“Any rear portholes or firing slots on these things?” Murdock asked.
“Don’t know, but we’ll find out.” Lam took off down the smashed-flat trail directly at the APC. He took out a quarter-pound of TNAZ and popped a timer/detonator in the soft puttylike explosive that was fifteen percent stronger than C-4 plastic.
Murdock did the same as they jogged forward. The big machine started to move ahead again, and they could see no firing slots in the rear. The APC could hold up to eight combat troops. Murdock hoped there weren’t that many inside this one.
The armored vehicle stopped suddenly, and a side door slid back and four armed rebels charged out of it. Murdock and Lam fired from the hip as they charged, one on each side of the cleared path, and dove into the jungle growth. The troops ahead fired on the run.
Murdock hit the ground, rolled, came up with the Bull Pup on the 20mm barrel, and fired one shot. He didn’t have time to laser it. The contact round hit a tree beside the APC and shattered the area with shrapnel. Lam got off a pair of three-round bursts and one rebel, not quite to cover, lifted higher, threw his weapon away, and staggered backward, then crumpled to the ground.
Murdock took more time, lasered a round on the side of the APC, and had an airburst right over it. He heard some screams, and the rig jolted forward. Murdock fired two contact rounds with the twenty, but both rounds exploded on the hard shell of the armored rig and did little damage. He wondered if the side door was still open. He lasered a round on the trunk of a tree just at the side of the vehicle, and watched it explode as the APC ground past.
Murdock took some return fire from at least one of the rebels still alive where they had run into the brush and vines. He sent another contact round into a tree at about where he had seen the rebels last, and watched it explode and shatter the area with deadly shards of metal.
“Can’t see him,” Lam said on the radio.
“He’s on my side,” Murdock said. “You’re free over there. Charge through the cover and try to catch that APC. I’ll move up and clear this area one way or the other and catch you.”
“Need any help out there?” Jaybird asked on the radio.
“Lots of it, but you’re too slow and too far away,” Lam said. He carried the ready-made bomb as he ran, making sure he hadn’t activated the detonator/timer when he rolled in the carpet of green growth.
Lam’s shout came over the radio a moment later.
“Look out, Murdock. He’s turned around and has his big gun pointing back our way, at you. Find a big tree to get behind it.”
Just as he finished talking, the long gun on the APC fired.
“That’s bigger than a damned forty,” Lam said, and he kept on charging through the heavy growth in cover as he moved to cut off the APC.
27
Murdock heard Lam’s shout on the radio, looked up, saw the big gun swinging around on the APC, and dove into the woods and scrambled for the largest tree he could see. He had just straightened up behind a mid-sized mahogany tree when the blast of the cannon went off. The round slammed into the tops of trees in front of his protection and detonated. Shrapnel blasted down into the greenery like jet-propelled hail, shredding shrubs and vines, stripping all the leaves off others, some of the steel fragments jolting into the trunk of the tree he stood behind.
“Got to be a forty at least,” Murdock told his radio.
“I’m moving up beside him in the cover,” Lam said. “Got to find a blind spot and get this joy-putty on his tracks. If we can get him dead in the water, we’ve got him.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Murdock said just before the APC gunner got off a second round that blasted into the trees again, this time detonating thirty yards behind Murdock, all of the shrapnel cascaded away from the SEAL.
“No fun getting shot at with one of those bastards,” Murdock said. “I can’t move ahead any, no trees big enough.”
“Almost there,” Lam said, panting now. “Give me another two minutes. He’s still stopped. Growth is thick here almost to the tracks. I’m on my belly working forward. Yeah, another minute.”
Murdock leaned around the tree, but he couldn’t see the APC. Too much jungle growth. For the first time he saw some coconut palms. They must grow in certain areas and not others. He knew they had to be in the lowlands. Probably because of somewhat warmer days.
Another round slammed overhead and exploded in the trees behind Murdock. Now he had some idea what the troops must feel like when they came under fire from the SEALs’ twenties.
Ahead, Lam squirmed another six feet and paused. Tougher going on your belly in this jungle. He just hoped he didn’t come cheek-to-jowl-to-fang with any of the poisonous snakes they said were local residents. He could see the vehicle ahead. Slightly to the left. He had to get there before it moved. He worked forward, and then he was there. The tracks were over his head. He pushed the chunk of powerful plastic explosive into the roller just where it picked up the track, and set the timer for fifteen seconds. Then he activated it and wormed back, lifted up, and ran through the jungle for fifty feet before he dove to the ground.
The explosion came moments later. A cracking, roaring that, even through the shield of jungle, jolted Lam where he lay. He turned and worked slowly back toward the APC, his Colt Carbine in his hands and ready to fire.
“Remember that thing has doors on both sides,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “If anyone inside goes out the far door, you won’t see him and neither will I.”
Lam stopped and listened. For a moment he heard some chatter, evidently in Filipino. Then nothing. Nobody came toward him through the jungle. He edged closer until he could see through the last fringe of growth at the APC. It sat slightly askew. The near track had been blown apart and the roller assembly shattered, with most of it missing. The rig wasn’t going to move.
“Nobody out this side,” Lam said on the net.
“I’ve moved out so I can see the APC,” Murdock said. “Yes, the side door on this side is open. I don’t see any bodies. My bet that whoever was inside is gone.”
“I’ll move around and drop a fragger in the can and clear it,” Lam said.
He slid out of the jungle to the mashed-down trail, edged around the back of the armor on the mini-tank, and flipped a fragger into the open door. It went off in 4.2 seconds. And Lam charged into the opening the second the hot steel stopped flying.
“Nobody home,” Lam said. He ran into the edge of the jungle on the far side and looked for a sign. At once he found boot prints of two different sizes.
“Come on up, Skipper. We have two boot sizes in the brush and motoring. Looks like we have a footrace. Want to play?”
“Be there in twenty seconds,” Murdock said. He left the growth, hit the beaten-down trail of the heavy tracks, and ran up to where Lam stood behind the armored vehicle.
“Heard them a minute ago,” said Lam. “My guess, they’re heading for the road and to get into town and melt into the community. Then be damn hard to find them.”
Lam led out on the trail. Murdock was glad Lam was there. He himself could track the men through the jungle, but it would take him twice as long as it would for Lam. He watched for a bent-over plant, a scuffed vine, a torn-off branch, and always for boot prints in the soft mulch of the jungle floor.
They moved ahead in a straight line for fifty yards; then Lam stopped and listened.
He shook his head, and moved on. The trail bent to the left, then into a more open area where there once might have been a plowed field, but which was now reclaimed by the jungle growth. The difference was no tall trees. They went across the area quickly, but when they were near
the far side, a rifle shot snarled in the stillness and Lam lunged to one side and curled behind a clump of vines.
“Missed me,” Lam said. They waited a half minute, then rushed the last twenty yards into the deeper jungle growth. Lam stopped and listened. This time he nodded and pointed to the left again.
“Ambush,” he whispered. And they both went to ground. Lam pointed to the left at a forty-five-degree angle and then to the right at another forty-five degrees. He mouthed the word “twenty,” and Murdock nodded. He sighted in on a tree about forty feet away on the left and fired a 20mm shot without the laser. The round detonated and sprayed shrapnel over a wide area. Lam had crawled behind a tree, and even there he felt hot steel fragments hit the brush around him.
As soon as he fired to the left, Murdock swung to the right and fired a second contact round on a preselected tree there, and it went off with a crack and the singing sound of shrapnel.
When the hot steel stopped slicing through the air, Murdock and Lam each lifted up and charged to the spots where the rounds had exploded.
“I have one KIA,” Lam said into his mike. “He has an AK-74, the new one, but no red tabs on his shoulder, and he doesn’t look old enough to be Muhammad.”
“No body here,” Murdock said. “But I do have a small blood trail. Come take a gander.”
Lam grinned when he saw the drops of fresh blood, and moved out at once, following them. He went quickly for a while, then slowed. Two shots blasted into the silence of the jungle. Lam swore and slid behind a tree. “Careful, Murdock, I picked up a round in my right leg. Feels like a broken bone. Put a couple twenties out front of me about fifty feet.”
Murdock did, and the rounds went off with chilling force. Murdock moved up to Lam and looked at his leg. It was bleeding.
“Go, go,” Lam said. “I can tie up the fucking leg. Go up there and bring back the bastard’s hide.”
Murdock moved up silently, from large tree to small tree, then a spurt toward the tree he had fired at with the twenty. Under the tree he found a pack that had been discarded. Also some brass from a rifle. He listened, and could hear someone ahead. Murdock checked for the blood trail. He found it, but the splatters were larger now, another hit with the twenty. He jolted from cover to cover now, moving quickly.
He stopped behind a large mahogany tree and listened. When he looked around the tree, three shots blasted from not twenty feet ahead of him. They missed. Murdock jerked two fraggers off his combat vest, pulled both pins, and threw them both as quickly as he could. The explosions came seconds apart. One hand grenade had landed shorter than the other, and after the last blast had quieted, he could hear a moaning and a high keening.
Murdock took it slow now, checked his cover from one tree to the next. He moved off the direct line and came in from the side of the spot where the hand grenades had shredded leaves off trees and vines.
A man lay against a downed log, his submachine gun aimed over the log at his own back trail. Murdock crept up slowly, with no sound whatsoever. He tested each step. The muzzle of his Bull Pup on 5.56 trained on the side of the rebel at all times. When he was ten feet away and with no jungle growth between them, Murdock called out.
“You’re covered, Muhammad. Don’t move even a finger, or you’re a dead man.”
The man jumped when the voice came, then steadied and turned his head, his face distorted with fury and pain.
“Motherfucker SEALs,” he said. “We were fine before you assholes came into my territory.”
“We’re here. Let the sub gun drop over the edge of the log, now.”
“If I don’t are you going to shoot me?”
“Absolutely.”
Muhammad must have known he didn’t have a chance, Murdock figured. Muhammad swung the submachine gun to bring it around to train on Murdock. He got it only halfway before three rounds from the 5.56 barrel jolted into his back and neck. He flinched, then tried to continue the gun on around. Six more rounds splashed through his flesh and bone, the last three into his skull.
Murdock knew there was no reason to check the body. He sighed and slumped down on the ground next to a tree, and let the Bull Pup rest over his legs. “Lam, how you doing?”
“Fine here, hurts like hell. What happened up there? I heard the firing.”
“He’s down and dead. He even has the red tabs on his shoulders. Can’t be sure, but I’d bet this is Muhammad. General Domingo, do you copy?”
“Copy that, Murdock. Sending in some men to bring out the bodies. We’ll make a certain ID. Muhammad has some scars I know about from before. Good work. We’re also sending in two men to help Lam out. Mahanani has gone to find him and take care of his leg.”
“I’ll wait here, almost a straight line toward the road from the APC. You copy?”
“Roger that,” Mahanani said. “I’m almost there.”
* * *
Two hours later in Lebak, they wrapped it up. The last man killed was Muhammad. Positive ID was made. Lam’s leg was set and a metal splint put on it to keep it immobile until the doctors at Davao could look at it. The hostages had been flown to Davao already, and another chopper would take the SEALs to the same city, where Stroh was already working out transportation for their homeward trip.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s all fine and dandy,” Jaybird said. “But where in hell is the food? I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I’m fucking starved.”
The mess call came a half hour later, and Jaybird grinned.
28
NAVSPECWARGRUP-ONE
Coronado, California
Three days after the final shoot-out in Mindanao, the Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven was back in quarters in Coronado. It was a Thursday morning when Murdock came over the quarterdeck, paid his respects to Master Chief Petty Officer Gordon MacKenzie, and made it safely into his small office.
When they hit the North Island airfield, Murdock had sent Senior Chief Sadler with the uninjured men directly to the base. He took Lam and DeWitt straight to Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego’s Balboa Park to check their gunshot wounds. The hospital treated them, checked Lam’s broken leg through the splints, and decided it didn’t need any further medical attention. Told him to stay off it for two weeks, then to come back for a walking cast.
Murdock and DeWitt went to check on Ostercamp. He had been flown to Balboa the day after he was shot. The wound in his upper chest was not as serious as they had feared in Davao, but he was kept in the hospital for observation and would be there another week.
“Nothing strenuous for three months,” the doctor on the floor said. “Then he can begin gradual workouts. I understand he’s a SEAL.”
“He is, Doctor. We want him back in top shape before he’s operational with us.”
Then the two headed home.
Now, in the office, Murdock looked at his personnel chart. He needed two replacements. One would be permanent, one would be temporary for at least five months, and on call after that as a filler for the platoon.
A half hour after Murdock began reviewing replacement candidate files, which MacKenzie had already put on his desk, the phone rang. It was his CO, Commander Masciareli.
“Murdock, I want to see you this second. Get your ass into my office.”
“Yes, sir,” Murdock said. He hadn’t sorted through the stack of paper on his desk, but he knew what it had to be about. Bradford. His trouble with the law.
Three minutes later, Murdock stood stiffly at attention in front of the commander. Dean Masciareli was so furious that his face had turned red and sweat beaded his forehead.
“What the hell were you thinking, taking that man on a mission when the San Diego Police and the district attorney had a warrant for his arrest?”
“I was following Navy procedure. You tell me a dozen times a day that I have to go through the chain of command. I had no orders from you about Bradford. I had nothing that would allow one of my men to be detained. What I did have were orders from you and from the Chief of Naval Operations a
nd the President of the United States ordering my platoon to leave the country. I followed my orders from you to the letter.”
Masciareli frowned. “By God, I never thought about it that way. You’re right. The person who phoned you the day you left had no authority from the Navy to contact you. He should have gone through Navy channels. He didn’t, so it’s his fault and I’ll back you all the way.”
Masciareli sat down, motioned for Murdock to sit. He looked at a sheaf of papers in his hand. “You haven’t seen the charges. The more I go over them the flakier they look. All they have are the words of this one witness, who is the main one facing charges of counterfeiting old-master paintings.”
“Sir, have you seen any of Bradford’s paintings?”
“No.”
“I have. I bought two of them. They are good marine subjects, and fairly well done. But Bradford is by no stretch good enough to fake an old-master painting.”
“Not what the warrant and charges say. They indicate that Bradford is the seller of the paintings to some person up the coast somewhere. He’s charged with concealing a felony, aiding and abetting a felon, and selling illegal goods.
“I’ve scheduled a meeting at 1600 with a Navy lawyer who’s a friend of mine, an assistant DA, and a San Diego Police detective. I want you and Bradford there. Before that, you and I need to talk to Bradford and find out exactly what’s been going on.”
“Bradford will be across the quarterdeck at 0800. I’ll bring him right over here and we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Back in his office, Murdock tried to puzzle it out. Bradford simply wasn’t the kind of man to take part in an art scam. Not a chance. Murdock had started on the top of the stack of paperwork MacKenzie had left him when Bradford knocked on the door.
“Senior Chief said you wanted to see me, sir.”
“Right, we need to go over to the commander’s office. He says there’s a warrant for your arrest for being part of an operation that sells fake old-master paintings.”
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