Battleground sts-6

by Keith Douglass

  Ching already had out the high explosive that succeeded C-5. It was TNAZ, twenty percent more powerful and lighter in weight than its cousin. Ching plastered a pliable one-eighth pound of the explosive on each door hinge, and attached timer-detonators. He had preset them for ten seconds. He motioned to the L-T that they would go around the corner to get away from the blast.

  Murdock looked at the windows, held up his hand in a wait signal, then ran to the nearest window, broke the pane with the butt of his MP-5, and pushed two fragger grenades between the bars and through the window. He ran for the near rock wall corner, then nodded at Ching.

  The SEAL pushed in the timer-activation switches, then hurried around the corner.

  They heard the karumph of the two hand grenades inside the building after their 4.2 second fuse train burned down. Ten seconds is a year when you're waiting for a charge to go off, and Ching had started to go back to check it when Murdock caught his arm. Just then the twin explosions blasted half a second apart.

  Murdock and Ching were around the wall in seconds. The rest of the squad raced across the thirty yards to join them at the rear wall. The two hinges had disintegrated, and the door had pivoted on the heavy lock and then broken off. A yawning black hole showed inside.

  Ching hosed it down with ten rounds from his carbine. Murdock leaned toward the hole and threw in the flash grenade. The SEALs covered their ears and eyes. Murdock pulled up his night-vision goggles, and as soon as the six pulsing explosions and the six white-hot strobe lights faded, he rushed into the void.

  In dull green light, he saw he was in a kitchen area. The grenades had trashed some kitchenware and furniture, but no bodies were present.

  He charged to the connecting door, kicked it open, then knelt beside the protection of the wall. A burst of automatic-rifle fire buzzed through the opening. He rolled in a fragger grenade and waited the 4.2 seconds for the explosion.

  When the shrapnel from the bomb stopped snarling through the open door, Murdock surged into the room. He took the right-hand side, and Ron Holt with his NVGs took the left. Through the faint green patina, Murdock saw two men trying to rise on the right-hand side. He drilled both with three-round bursts and they flopped to the floor. The sound of the firing in the rock room was like an echo chamber. Murdock wasn't sure he could hear much.

  He heard Holt on the left kick something, then send a six-round burst into the corner. The rounds echoing in the rock room sounded like doomsday itself. When the sound faded, Holt reported.

  "Clear left, L-T."

  The room had one door leading off it. Holt kicked it open. There was no reaction.

  "Scrub it down," Murdock said.

  Holt reached his MP-5 around the door frame and squirted twelve rounds into the room, covering most of the floor space. Again there was no reaction.

  Holt leaned around from floor level and checked the room through his NVGs. He lifted up, and did the same thing again.

  "Looks clear to me, L-T," Holt whispered. The two SEALs burst into the room, and found it empty.

  Ching and Nicholson were right behind them. Ching saw the door leading from this room, and pushed it open gently, staying well to the side. The hinges squeaked. When the door came fully open, someone in the room spat six rounds through the void. Then there were footfalls, and a door slammed.

  Ching checked the area from floor level by leaning out to look around the jamb. He jolted out, and came back. Just as he cleared the frame, it shattered with three rounds of angry bullets. Ching caught some splinters in one hand. He swore softly, pulled a fragger off his webbing, jerked the pin, and rolled the bomb inside after letting it soak for two seconds with the arming spoon popped off. The bomb went off two seconds after he threw it.

  At once, he checked again, and pulled back. He did that twice, then stayed looking inside. "Looks clear, L-T," Ching said. As he did, he lifted his M-4A1 and emptied ten rounds from his magazine into the room. Then he charged in, and confirmed it was clear.

  Murdock found a firing slot at the front wall. He looked at a door to his left.

  "How do you get to the second floor in this place?" he asked. Nobody knew. They cleared the next room. The rest of the eight men Murdock had brought with him were in the rooms behind. He could split up and send some men upstairs if he could figure out where the stairs were.

  Murdock saw two doors out of the room. He opened one slowly. Light poured in through two firing slots in the thick rock wall. No one was inside.

  "Over here," Magic Brown said.

  Murdock went to the second door that Magic had opened. There were stone steps set against the wall that led upward. Murdock closed the door softly.

  "Anybody up there isn't coming down, and they won't give up easily. Any suggestions?"

  "Grenades," Magic said.

  "Yeah, sure, and what if it bounces around and falls down the stairs?" Nicholson asked.

  "Flash-bang grenade," Jaybird said.

  "Good, but we're out of them."

  "One man go up them fucking stone steps quiet and cautious," Doc Ellsworth said.

  "Who?" Murdock asked.

  Nicholson shrugged. "Hell, gotta be me. You other guys would spook a herd of turtles."

  Nicholson took off everything on his gear that would make any noise, hefted his M-4A1, and moved the rest of them to the other side of the room.

  Then he opened the door soundlessly, slid through a foot-wide slot, and closed the door.

  Red moved up one step at a time. The stone gave off no squeaks or rattles. He moved standing up, hoping that he could see over the floor level soon. He had on his NVGs and they helped in the nearly dark upstairs. Red wondered if there was more than one big room upstairs.

  He crept up higher, but still couldn't see over the floor. He paused, listening. Nothing. Not a chirp of a cricket, or a bird, or a man wheezing or breathing loudly. Another step. Still not high enough.

  One more step and he lifted on tiptoe so he could see over the landing. There was no wall beside the stairwell, just a three-slat board railing. He checked under the lower rail, and saw in the green-tinted light two beds without linens or mattresses, a pair of chairs, and a large closet. Slowly Red inventoried every square foot of the room. There was no one there.

  Except maybe in the closet. He lifted up another two steps, and angled the carbine's muzzle over the wooden floor. He had taken the silencer off the carbine. Red triggered a dozen rounds, drawing a line of bullet holes two feet off the floor across the wooden doors of the five-foot-wide closet.

  When the sound stilled, there were four more SEALS just behind him on the steps. He put six more rounds into the closet, then surged up the last three steps and charged the doors. One had opened an inch. He threw open the door, training his weapon on the inside.

  Nothing was there.

  He jerked open the second door, and found the same situation.

  "Nobody up here, L-T. If there was somebody here, he squeezed through that six-inch firing slot."

  Murdock pushed past the others and checked every corner of the one big room.

  Nobody.

  "Where did they go?" Murdock asked. "We know there was at least one more live one in here."

  "What about that other fucking door downstairs?" Ching asked.

  They ran for it. When Murdock got there, Ching was ready to kick in the door in the next room. He did, staying clear at the side. No shots slammed through the opening. He bellied down, and took a look into the half-lit room.

  "Sonofabitch!" Ching bellowed. "This is where that second door comes out of the place. Has that other window, and the fucking door is open."

  Murdock ran to the door and looked out. "Oh, shit. We didn't leave anyone outside to cover this door. We must have chased them around in a circle, and they hauled ass through this door. Nicholson, on the double."

  Red spent ten minutes outside looking at the grass, leaves, and weeds just beyond the second door. He took off in a line directly in back of the building, lookin
g carefully at the ground as he went. A minute later he returned.

  "Okay, here's what we've got. I found tracks of four different kinds of boots. One set is deeper into the mulch than the others, which I'd figure is our fat general. They couldn't be ahead of us by more than twenty minutes. It's downhill from here. That fat guy is going to slow them down."

  "Good, we'll go get them," Murdock said. He frowned. "Ammo report."

  The three in front of the building were down to ten rounds each. The rest of the platoon members were on their last thirty-round magazines, except two, who had one more spare. The AK-47s were dry and discarded. They all had their belt pistols, the heavy HK special Mark 23s with two twelve-round magazines. "If we get down to fighting with our forty-fives, we're in shit city," Murdock said. He scowled and walked around a minute.

  "This all means we're damn short on ammo," Murdock said. "We use it only when we have to. We have four more guys out there to waste, but we have to do it carefully. Let's go, Red."

  29

  Friday, July 23

  1602 hours

  Rock fortress

  North of Nairobi, Kenya

  The platoon scout headed down the trail of footprints leading from the now-benign rock fortress on top of the Kenyan hill. The remaining men in the Third Platoon followed stretched out at ten-yard intervals.

  Murdock was in his usual place just behind Nicholson, and Ron Holt shadowed the Platoon Leader with his SATCOM radio. The trail wound through the woods, not along the road they had come up. It angled down a slope through heavy trees and brush, but Nicholson had no trouble following it.

  At one point on hard ground with little vegetation, he had to do a small circle to pick up the trail, but he found it again and they moved out.

  Ten minutes later, Red called for Murdock to come up. He pointed at the ground.

  "Fuckers are finally getting smart. They split up. Two of them went each way. I'd say the general is on the trail to the right, but I can't be sure."

  Murdock looked at the evidence, and was glad his tracker was along. "Ed, come up," Murdock said in his mike.

  Ed DeWitt hustled up, and went on one knee beside Murdock.

  "So?"

  "Split up, two each way. You take your squad and go left. I'll take the right hand. We want them down before dark."

  "How am I going to follow them? I'm no Indian," DeWitt asked.

  Red showed him the bent-over grass, the broken sticks and twigs on the ground, the scuffed mulch. "These guys are in a rush and not trying to hide their tracks, L-T. You shouldn't have any trouble."

  "Easy for you to say, kemosaby."

  "Ed, you have four men?"

  "Right."

  "Take Doc with you. Nail these guys fast."

  Ed called his men out, and they moved down the trail that slanted away at a ninety-degree angle to the other one.

  Murdock nodded, and Red hiked out along the other trail. They had gone about two hundred yards through light trees when two weapons fired ahead of them on full automatic. Red Nicholson went down hard and rolled over.

  The other four men hit the dirt, and returned fire at the location. The two weapons ahead chattered again on full auto, and bullets sang and ricocheted through the trees and brush. Murdock waved Magic Brown to swing to the left, and Ching to move right. The Platoon Leader and his men fired on the site for another minute. Then Murdock's command on the mike stopped the attack.

  They waited. Two minutes went by with no fire from the front. Another minute, and Magic Brown came on the Motorola.

  "Bastards are gone, L-T. Nothing up here but a pile of brass."

  Murdock got his men moving. Red Nicholson hadn't been hit when he went down — just a precautionary move, as he called it.

  He got back on his tracking mission. They moved ahead. Murdock evaluated his squad. They were beaten up. Ching, Doc, Nicholson, and Magic all had gunshot wounds. Ronson was out of it for now. Only he, Jaybird, and Ron Holt hadn't been shot up. He worried about it.

  Ahead, Nicholson went flat on the ground, and the rest of them behind at ten-yard intervals dropped as well. Murdock bent over and hurried forward, sliding into the forest mulch beside his scout.

  "So, what?"

  "I saw somebody up there. Less than two hundred yards. We must be catching up with them."

  "Let's go get them," Murdock said. Red moved out faster, charging down the slight slope. He didn't see the trip wire until he was on it. Then he screamed a warning, and tried to dive away from it. The trip wire snapped, releasing the arming spoon, and the grenade went off almost at once.

  Red slammed into the ground too late. More than a dozen chunks of the shrapnel tore into his body. Two hit him in the chest, one in the throat, and four more large ones in his belly and legs. The ten-yard interval between men saved the rest of them. By the time Murdock dropped to the ground beside Nicholson, he was choking on his own blood. He looked up at Murdock and gave a small shrug.

  "Been a good tour, L-T," he said. Then he gave one last long breath and died.

  Murdock slammed his fist into the ground.

  "Jaybird, stay with him. Keep some rounds so we can find you when we're ready to bug out of this firetrap. The rest of you, let's go get those bastards."

  Magic Brown took over the point. He had left the big Fifty with Ronson when he ran out of rounds, and now moved along the plain trail. Fifty yards ahead he stopped and knelt.

  Murdock went down beside him.

  "No fucking expert, L-T, but looks like they split up again. One that way, one straight ahead."

  "Brown and Holt, to the left," Murdock said. "Ching and I'll take the straight ahead. Let's get this thing wrapped up."

  Murdock took the lead now, running when he was sure of the trail ahead, slowing to check the dirt and mulch of the woods floor. The brush thinned out, and he could see ahead thirty to fifty yards. He caught the glimpse of a green shirt vanishing into some trees, and put a dozen rounds into the area.

  When they got there, Murdock found no body, only hurried tracks going along the side of the hill. They ran again. This time the brush petered out, and only a few trees remained. Ahead, Murdock saw a figure working along a rocky slope.

  Ching lifted his M-4A1 Carbine and fired twice to get the range on single-shot, then flipped the lever and emptied his magazine at the target two hundred yards away.

  The Kenyan soldier had turned to look behind him just as the rounds reached him. Murdock figured it was four or five hits. The man crumpled, then dropped his rifle, and flopped on his back.

  Murdock nodded. "Yeah, splash one bogie. That one's not the general. Magic has him on the other trail. Let's get to where we left Red."

  They turned and began working along their trail to where the dead SEAL lay on the ground.

  Magic Brown had started out fast along the trail in the grass and leaf mold, but slowed as he watched for trip wires. He saw that the impressions in the mulch were deep, and hoped it was the general ahead.

  Twice they took incoming fire. Both times they did not shoot back. Brown was down to his last magazine in his sniper rifle, and he wasn't sure how many rounds he had left. Then came an opening in the brush, and he saw a figure moving ahead. Three hundred yards. He lifted up and fired twice. The figure moved, and he had a good shot. But when he pulled the trigger, there was no round. He should have noticed when the magazine ran dry.

  Ron Holt held fire. The target was out of range of his submachine gun. Both of them ran down the trail. Magic Brown worked ahead of Holt. The radioman tried to keep up, but he couldn't. He came around a small turn in the trail, and saw Brown twenty yards ahead. He put on a burst of speed, failed to see a root sticking out of the ground, and tripped and went down hard.

  Holt threw out his arms to break his fall. His MP-5 fell to the ground, and he hit hard. A jolting pain streaked up his arm, and he rolled over. He'd lost the radio, and he reached for it. The stabbing pain caused him to cry out. He looked at his left arm. It hurt like fire. B
roken, he was sure.

  He gritted his teeth to hold down the pain, and crawled over to the fifteen-pound SATCOM radio. Once it was safe, he touched his lip mike.

  "L-T. Holt here. I'm down. Think I broke my fucking arm. Brown is still after the guy over here."

  "Hang in there, Holt," Murdock answered. "Get back to where we left Red. We'll make that our assembly point."

  Ahead, Magic Brown heard the cry behind him, and figured that Holt was down. It was up to him, with no rounds and a worthless rifle. Still, he carried it. He could bluff with it. Yeah, maybe whoever was up ahead was short or out of ammo too.

  He rounded a bend in the small canyon they had worked down to, and ahead, just vanishing behind a rock, he saw the general. Had to be him. The man was huge, tall, and wide. He carried a rifle.

  Magic slid behind a large hardwood tree and watched the spot. It was no more than thirty yards ahead. For a minute nothing happened. Then the general lifted the rifle and rested it over the rock that shielded him. So maybe he did have rounds left. One way to find out. Magic surged into sight of the general, then jolted back. The rifle ahead fired almost at once. Good reflexes. At the same time Magic felt a blow on his right hip. He dodged out of sight and stared down at his hip looking for blood.

  The holster holding his .45 auto had been almost torn off his hip. He pulled out the big HK Mark 23 and looked at it. The AK-47 round had slammed into it on the side of the slide, denting it inward a quarter of an inch. He tried to charge a round into the chamber. The slide wouldn't move. He tossed the useless weapon aside. What the hell now? He was really out of ammo. He couldn't go back and get Holt's weapon. He scowled. Then his hand brushed his K-Bar.

  Magic left his rifle against a tree, drew his knife, and moved into the denser brush to his right. He found what he wanted, a dead branch on the ground two inches thick, six feet long, and fairly straight. He used his knife to smooth the shank of it, then with some all-purpose tape from his vest, taped his K-Bar on the small end of the branch with the blade extending over the end.