Not intended for confined spaces, the grenades hit the ceiling and exploded. It didn’t diminish their effect. Murdock and Razor were safe behind the armor, but anyone outside wasn’t.
Murdock activated the fuses in his hand and tripped the last toggle on the dashboard. It armed a mercury switch that would fire the charges if anyone tried to drag the vehicle out or if it took a heavy impact — like the other armored car detonating.
“My door’s jammed!” Razor yelled.
Murdock wrenched his open. “Follow me out!” He fell out the door with his AKM in his right hand and a box that looked like a full-size VHS camcorder in his left. It was a Marconi HHI-8 hand-held thermal imager. The warehouse was filled with the thick white smoke from the grenades, and the imager was the only way they’d be able to find their way out fast. It weighed about ten pounds, and saw objects on the basis of their heat, in varying shades of black and white. Because of this, it could look right through smoke.
Murdock swept the imager around and saw a line of printing presses, machinery, and wooden crates. At least they’d hit the right spot, a minor miracle in American intelligence terms. He could also see the other armored car: Ed and Kos had made it in. The grenades hadn’t got everyone; there were people still running around, but Murdock didn’t shoot. If he did they would know where he was in the smoke. It didn’t fit their public image, but operating in small groups with limited ammunition loads had taught SEALs to avoid firefights whenever possible.
Razor hopped out behind him and paused to lock the door. A small detail, but by the time someone dug up an acetylene torch to try to cut their way inside the vehicle, it would be too late.
The imager showed Murdock the huge hole they’d made in the wall, and he headed for it. There was just enough visibility for Razor to be able to follow him through the smoke, if he stayed close. Then Murdock heard machine-gun fire start up outside.
0250 hours Baalbek, Lebanon
The Mercedes was parked in the road right in front of the hole Murdock and Razor had left in the fence. Jaybird Sterling had his window down and his PKM machine gun set up on a homemade welded U-mount over the door frame. Another Marconi thermal imager was mounted atop his machine gun feed cover. Doc Ellsworth was still behind the wheel, occasionally tossing beer-can-sized white smoke grenades out his window.
Through his imager Jaybird picked up hot human figures running out from around the far corner of the warehouse. He had his radio set on voice-activated and called out, “Troops, warehouse, north corner,” at the same time he opened fire.
Jaybird’s first burst took two of the figures down. He’d removed the tracer ammunition from his ammo belts; tracer allowed you to see where your rounds were going, but also let everyone else know exactly where they were coming from. He didn’t need it; the imager was so sensitive he could track the hot path of his bullets in the air. As the rounds impacted, the other figures slipped, stumbled, and ran back into cover around the side of the warehouse. The two crumpled forms lay motionless in harsh white contrast against the cooler ground.
Jaybird slowed his rate of fire, but kept shooting at the corner of the warehouse. Imagers couldn’t see through solid objects, but it was easy enough to guess where they had taken cover, and the Russian 7.62-x-54mm rimmed rounds were heavy enough to punch right through the wooden wall.
It looked like the bad guys were pretty well pinned down. Doc Ellsworth was keeping an eye on the houses on the other side of the road, but no one was sticking their nose out.
Then someone started hollering over the radio.
0251 hours Baalbek, Lebanon
Ed DeWitt, imager in hand, was leading Kos Kosciuszko out of the warehouse when an automatic weapon opened up off to their right.
DeWitt hit the deck at the first bullwhip crack of the rounds going by. Slugs kept snapping overhead. and a few ricochets skidded off the concrete floor. DeWitt made an instinctive decision not to return fire. Murdock and Roselli were somewhere in that direction, and might be in his line of fire. Besides, he could sense that the rounds were coming in blind.
DeWitt didn’t have time to wait for the fire to taper off. Preparing to make a dash for the hole in the wall, he looked back to make sure Chief Kosciuszko was ready. But Kosciuszko was lying face-down on the floor, unconscious. There was no time to check him over. DeWitt sprang to his feet and lifted Kos up bodily into a fireman’s carry. Fortunately, both his AKM and imager were securely strapped to his body, SEAL-fashion, so he didn’t lose them.
There was about a seventy-pound weight differential between them, in Kosciuszko’s favor, but adrenaline and SEAL determination were wonderful things.
DeWitt shook one hand free and got the imager up to his eyes. Waddling as fast as he could under his burden, he headed out of the warehouse.
0251 hours Baalbek, Lebanon
Magic Brown was firing his PKM at the southern corner of the warehouse. In the edge of his imager he saw DeWitt coming out with Kosciuszko on his shoulders. It looked like a huge body floating along under two tiny legs.
“Kos is down,” he shouted. It went out over the radio net.
Without a word, Professor Higgins sprang out the driver’s door of the Mercedes and charged through the hole in the fence into the smoke. Higgins didn’t have an imager. “Mister DeWitt!” he shouted.
“Over here,” came the response.
Magic Brown went through a 250-round belt at the rapid rate to give them covering fire.
Higgins followed DeWitt’s voice through the smoke until he found them. With two to carry Kosciuszko, the job went faster. They dragged him through the fence and threw him into the back seat of the Mercedes.
Higgins ran around the car to get back behind the wheel. The smoke had dissipated slightly in his absence and someone in a house on the other side of the road opened up on the now-visible car. Rounds hit the Mercedes but didn’t penetrate the armor.
Higgins ducked back around the car for cover and returned fire with his AKM.
The house was on the opposite side of the car from Magic and his PKM; there was nothing he could do but get off the gun and chuck smoke grenades out the window as fast as he could pull the pins.
The smoke billowed up. Higgins came in through Magic’s door, crawled right over him in a thrashing, profane-rich tangle, and slid back behind the wheel.
Even though they could no longer see, someone still had the range. Rounds were hitting the vehicle but the armor was stopping them. It was time to get the hell out.
“Two, this is Three,” Magic Brown spoke over the radio. “Lightning, Lightning, over.” The code word for everyone present and ready to go.
0252 hours Baalbek, Lebanon
Murdock and Razor had already made it to their Mercedes, and that was the word they had been waiting for. “This is 1,” said Murdock. “Roger Lightning.”
“The bad guys are starting to stack up at the north corner,” Jaybird Sterling informed them as he fired.
“Okay, then we won’t go that way,” said Murdock. “This is Two. Stand by for Route Echo. I say again, Route Echo.”
“Roger on Echo,” replied Magic Brown.
“Execute,” said Murdock.
Doc Ellsworth swung the Mercedes into a screeching U-turn and sped back down the road the same way they’d come. Jaybird pulled the PKM back in the car and brought up the armored glass window.
Murdock was looking out the rear window. As they went past, Higgins yanked the second Mercedes into an identical turn and pulled in right behind.
They emerged from the smoke just in time to see and be seen by a startled group of Syrians huddled against the side of the warehouse. There was also a BMP-1 armored personnel carrier whose turret began to swing around as they passed.
“Floor it!” Murdock bellowed.
A rocket sailed over the top of the car. There was a huge flash from the BMP’s 73mm gun, but the two Mercedes were moving faster than the turret could traverse and the shell fell behind them.
&nbs
p; A line of slugs stitched the side windows of the Mercedes, but only made stars in the polycarbonate material. Razor Roselli had been looking out at the time and the impacts made him instinctively jump. He fell back against a very preoccupied Blake Murdock, who elbowed him out of his lap. Needing to vent some embarrassment, Razor stuck his AKM out the gun port and loosed off a burst. The hot cartridge casings ejected from Razor’s weapon sailed right onto the back of Doc Ellsworth’s neck.
The Doc yelped in pain and the car swerved. What effect that drive-by shooting had had on the Syrians was unknown, but the interior of the Mercedes was now filled with burned gunpowder smoke.
“Cease fire, for crissakes,” shouted Murdock. “You’ll gas us out.”
Jaybird was trying to wave the smoke away so he could see out the window. “I think we’re clear.”
“Turn on the lights and siren,” Murdock ordered, coughing. “And open the fucking vents.”
18
Saturday, November 11
0253 hours Baalbek, Lebanon
“How bad is he hit?” a worried Magic Brown asked Ed DeWitt.
“Give me a second,” DeWitt replied.
The Mercedes was screaming through the streets of Baalbek, and Kos Kosciuszko was laid out across the back seat.
His flashlight held in his teeth, DeWitt began a search for wounds. It was best done by touch, and had to be thorough. Even a very small wound missed could mean a man bleeding to death.
DeWitt started at the feet, for no reason other than that was where he happened to be. He ran his hands up both legs — no blood, no wounds. He ripped open Kos’s jacket and body armor. Nothing. Without moving Kos, he slipped his hands underneath and checked the back. No vertebrae out of place. What the hell?
Then his flashlight fell on Kosciuszko’s helmet. There was a neat round hole in the front left side. DeWitt unsnapped the chin strap and gently eased the helmet off. There were no holes in Kos’s head, but there was another one in the back of the helmet.
The round had hit the helmet, skipped off one of the kevlar layers, and gone back out at an angle. All it had done was knock Kos Kosciuszko cold.
DeWitt checked, but there was no blood in the ears or nose that would indicate a serious concussion. He opened Kos’s eyes and flashed the light at them. Both pupils were responsive and symmetrical.
Kos gave off a low moan when the light hit his eyes.
“He took a round in the helmet and got knocked out,” DeWitt announced. “The son of a bitch doesn’t even have a bruise.”
“You gotta be shitting us,” said Magic Brown.
“No shit,” DeWitt assured him. He hoisted Kos up and packed him against the corner of the rear seat. “Anyone got an ammonia capsule?”
There was no response.
“Fuck him, then,” said DeWitt. He made himself comfortable, and they left Kos Kosciuszko to regain consciousness on his own. If you didn’t require some major first aid, you couldn’t expect much sympathy from a bunch of SEALS.
DeWitt keyed his radio. “Kos just got knocked out. He doesn’t have a scratch.”
“Roger,” Murdock radioed back. He’d been pondering whether to stop somewhere and transfer the Doc to the other Mercedes. Now it was one less thing to worry about.
“Checkpoint ahead,” Doc Ellsworth broke in. Then, cocking an eyebrow at Jaybird, he added, “And no, I ain’t slowing down.”
“Outstanding,” said Murdock.
Jaybird just shook his head.
They came up on the checkpoint with the Mercedes’ police lights flashing and the sirens wailing. Even if there had been radio reports of raiders and a firefight, they looked like they were chasing something — not being chased. Enemy commandos certainly wouldn’t be making all that noise. If not, they at least looked official enough to raise the same doubts as before.
The noise of the sirens had everyone out and ready at the checkpoint.
“Jiggle the siren switch,” Murdock ordered. “Change the tone and let them know we see them.”
Jaybird did it.
“Flash the lights and go on through,” said Murdock.
The car filled with the metallic clicking of weapon safety catches coming off.
As they sped through the checkpoint Murdock saw one man raise his rifle and another yank it down. Even the visible bullet holes in the vehicles didn’t tip the scales against them. Of course, you couldn’t get that good a look at night and at that speed.
Where they had come up from the south, now they headed northeast. There was a hard-surface secondary road that snaked up into the mountains and all the way back down to Batreun and Tripoli on the coast. Murdock had identified a number of possible helicopter landing zones for the pickup, but he wanted to get as close to the mountains as he could. The valley was gently rolling and almost treeless, and the visibility extended for miles. As the land rose up toward the base of the mountains it became much more forested. Murdock wanted to get inside the screen of those trees, to minimize any exposure to the helicopters. It all depended on the time. The helicopters had to get in and out before daylight. That was definite.
In the second Mercedes, Kos Kosciuszko woke up. And like any good SEAL, he woke up fighting.
Ed DeWitt’s first clue came when an arm the size of a country ham came swinging into his shoulder. DeWitt went sailing against the passenger door.
Magic Brown made a quick appreciation of the situation and dove over the front seat onto Kos. He was joined by DeWitt, and they tried to hold Kosciuszko down, shouting, “Chief, Chief, it’s us, it’s us.”
Kos came to his senses fast, which was good, because Brown and DeWitt were on the verge of losing. “Wha … what?” Kos stuttered.
“It’s okay, Chief,” said DeWitt, panting hard. “You took a rap on the head. You’re okay.”
Kosciuszko shook his head to clear it, and then grabbed his temples. “Man, my head hurts. Anybody got a couple of aspirin?”
Magic Brown crawled back over the front seat and rummaged around for the first aid kit, grumbling quietly to himself, “Fucking gorilla.”
DeWitt fell back in his seat and took a little breather. He gingerly worked his arm. He thought that if he hadn’t been wearing body armor, Kos’s first shot would have broken his collarbone.
In the first Mercedes, Murdock was looking at his dive watch: 0258 hours. They had two minutes or so before the armored cars blew, and he wanted to be through the next checkpoint before that happened.
Then Ed DeWitt noticed headlights coming up behind them. So much for the breather. “We’ve got company in back,” he reported. PDMs.”
Murdock heard it in his earpiece. “Get out soon.”
Ed DeWitt grabbed a bulging nylon bag from the rear seat storage area. Kos Kosciuszko was washing down three aspirins. “Get yourself together,” DeWitt told him. “I’ll take care of this.”
The bag was filled with one-pound canisters about the same size as a nine-volt lantern battery, but with only three sides. The M-86 Pursuit Deterrent Munition had been designed to aid Special Forces teams being chased by larger enemy forces.
If you were running like a bastard, all you had to do was pull the pin and toss the mine back over your shoulder. When it hit the ground seven monofilament lines, each six meters long were ejected from the casing. When anything touched one of the lines, a small charge kicked the M-86 one meter up into the air, where it exploded. It was guaranteed to make even the most hard-core pursuers lose their appetite for the chase. During the Vietnam War SEALs had improvised claymore mines with thirty-second time fuses for the same purpose.
The vehicles behind them were gaining. DeWitt could make out what looked like a Land Rover, and two more sets of headlights behind it. The winding narrow roads would have limited speed even if the Mercedes hadn’t been carrying all that heavy armor.
DeWitt opened his door and, leaning out, lobbed three PDMs so they would land in the center of the road. For good measure he tossed out a couple of handfuls of cartraps, tiny t
hree-pointed spikes that did the same damage to tires that they’d done to horses’ hooves at the dawn of warfare.
The Land Rover hit one of the lines of an M-86, and the mine exploded in the air right behind it. The PDM also worked on vehicles. The fragmentation perforated the car and touched off the gas tank. The Land Rover exploded in a fireball. The second vehicle spun off the road trying to avoid it. The third hit another PDM.
Jaybird Sterling watched the whole scene in his side-view mirror. “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed unhappily, because it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Everything was within sight of the upcoming checkpoint.
The Mercedes ran into a hail of fire. It sounded like rivets being driven into the car bodies, and so many rounds splattered into the polycarbonate that it was almost impossible to see out the windows. Murdock, Jaybird, and Razor opened up from the gun ports to try to suppress some of it, smoke be damned.
The two right-side tires blew out and the rear end started to swing around. Dancing the wheel lightly back and forth, staying off the brake, Doc managed to regain control. The hours they’d spent practicing at a California racetrack paid off.
The Mercedes kept going on the run-flat wheel inserts, just not as fast.
The Germans made good cars and good armor. Both cars passed through the checkpoint gauntlet, and perhaps there was even a faint expectation that they might make it.
Then, back at the checkpoint, a man stepped out into the road. He shut out the confusion around him and settled the crosshairs of his optical sight on the rear of the fleeing Mercedes, leading it just a shade high. He smoothly squeezed his trigger. There was no sensation of recoil, but a thunderclap of flame and smoke erupted from the rear of the RPG-7V launcher tube on his shoulder.
Everyone at the checkpoint watched the flare on the tail of the rocket as it seemed to float toward the Mercedes.
The road curved up ahead. The only question was whether the rocket or the Mercedes would get there first.
The rocket hit the car with a yellow flash. The checkpoint erupted with guns being fired into the air and shouts of “Allahu Akbar!”
Direct Action sts-4 Page 11
