The other four sniper rifles had been lost in the second Mercedes. Professor Higgins had only been able to salvage two AKMs, a bag of loaded Kalashnikov magazines, a few grenades, and his backpack radio. Razor carried an identical radio from the lead Mercedes. Each vehicle had been equipped redundantly.
They had a fast discussion about their body armor. With the ceramic inserts, each set weighed well over ten pounds. It was a question of protection or foot speed. The vests and helmets were tossed into the trunk of the car.
They passed around a camouflage stick and painted their faces and hands. Kos Kosciuszko borrowed a suture kit from Doc to try to quickly stitch his torn-up trousers together.
Jaybird gunned the Mercedes up the road and skidded it sideways into the mound of mud. Then they all quickly shoved as much of the mud as possible onto the car to conceal it from aerial observation.
Razor Roselli booby-trapped the vehicle.
“Hope no one comes along and decides to strip it,” said Magic Brown.
“Then that’s what they get for being thieving bastards,” said Razor. “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
They started off, in single file, with as much interval as possible between them over the open ground. As far away as you could still see the man in front of you and stay in contact was the SEAL rule. Jaybird was on point; he’d given his PKM to Kos Kosciuszko and received a lighter, faster-handling Kalashnikov AKM from Doc. Murdock walked right behind with an AKM and an MSG-90 in the drag bag on his back. As usual, Higgins dogged his heels with the radio and an AKM. Then Kos Kosciuszko, with the machine gun and close to seven hundred rounds linked, all that had been left in the Mercedes. Doc followed with Ed DeWitt. With the shortage of weapons due to the destroyed Mercedes, DeWitt just had his backup Russian Makarov pistol; it was all he could handle anyway. Doc had removed an MSG-90 from a drag bag and was carrying it at the ready. Magic Brown and then Razor Roselli finished off the file as rear security, both with AKMs. Magic had the MacMillan.50 in the drag bag on his back, Razor an MSG-90.
The temperature was about thirty degrees, and the night air was still wet-cold from the rain. They cut around the side of the hill and then between two fields, keeping close to the dividing stone wall for cover.
Murdock was watching his men carefully as they patrolled along. DeWitt seemed to be moving all right. And there was a confidence to the others, as if they were all more comfortable being out of the car and back on the ground. It made him feel better too.
As he looked across the fields, Murdock could see trees in the distance and the mountain range farther away, covered with snow.
A dog barked, too far away to worry about. There were no other sounds but the occasional boot crunching lightly into the frost-covered earth of the field.
21
Saturday, November 11
0400 hours Near Bteday, Lebanon
The SEALs soon left the fields and cut back across one of the forks of the dirt road. Murdock had been very uncomfortable with the tracks they were leaving.
There was a ritual to crossing what was known as a danger area. Jaybird and Murdock went across the dirt road first, while Kos and Higgins, on either flank, trained their weapons up and down the road. Murdock secured the far side while Jaybird scouted out even farther ahead. On Murdock’s signal the rest crossed, one at a time, with Kos and Higgins still covering.
Murdock was waiting when the last man, Razor Roselli, made it across the road.
“We’re heading onto more solid ground,” Murdock whispered to him. “Let’s put some CS across our trail.”
Razor nodded, and took a small plastic bottle out of his trouser pocket. It was filled with powdered persistent CS tear-gas crystals. Razor sprinkled the powder sparingly in a zigzag pattern across their trail. Just in case any dogs were tracking them. One tiny whiff of the CS crystals and a dog would no longer have a sense of smell. Rain would not wash the CS away.
Murdock went back to his place at the front of the column.
They edged around the village of Bteday, population 554. There were a few slivers of light visible from the village, even at that hour. Farmers got up early. The SEALs stayed far enough away to keep from alerting the ubiquitous village dogs.
The SEALs crossed another dirt road. It was expected. This one cut past Bteday to the south and simply ended.
Just past the road they entered a grove of trees. This patch was the beginning, the edge, of the larger woods. There were pines and oaks; the legendary cedars of Lebanon were not present. It was not a forest in the American sense; the trees were too sparse and widely dispersed. It was cover, though, and a welcome change from the wide-open fields.
As Razor Roselli at the end of the file slipped into the trees, loud voices speaking Arabic were suddenly heard further ahead. The SEALs dropped flat to the ground.
It was the type of situation that required the most careful exercise of judgment. If you started shooting when you could have let someone pass unknowingly by, you alerted the entire neighborhood to your presence. But if you allowed a large force to walk right up to your position, you risked being pinned down, overrun, and wiped out.
Unless one of the SEALs was stepped on or otherwise compromised, it was Murdock’s call. He lay with one ear to the ground, breathing quietly and shallowly through his mouth to keep from sending up a cloud of condensation. He smelled pine needles. His weapon was pointing toward the voices.
And the voices came closer. It only sounded like one or two. Then again, maybe it was more and only one or two were talking. Not for the first time, Murdock wished he spoke Arabic. He added it to his list of early New Year’s resolutions.
None of the SEALs shifted even slightly on the ice-cold ground, or so much as twitched a muscle. Discipline was perfect. The only real discipline was self-discipline, as they said in BUD/S.
The voices seemed to be coming right at them. Murdock’s finger edged toward his trigger. The SEAL platoon’s standard signal for triggering a hasty ambush was the platoon commander opening fire. No whistles or shouted commands. Nothing that would give the enemy time to make any move. Just rounds on target.
The voices abruptly angled off to Murdock’s right, as if they were now moving across the SEALs’ front. It would be the perfect moment to spring an ambush.
Murdock resisted the temptation. He could now hear as well as feel feet moving on the ground. Not like troops moving tactically, just clumping along. It sounded like just a couple of pairs of feet, not more than three. They were so close he could actually smell sour body odor and garlic.
Murdock set his finger back across the trigger guard and let them pass on by. The voices faded off in the distance, but the SEALs waited for a solid minute of dead silence before lifting themselves cautiously from the ground. Murdock noiselessly crawled down the line to Magic Brown, who had the best Arabic. “What was all that?” he whispered in Magic’s ear.
“Couple of farmers heading back home,” Magic whispered back. “They spent the night at another village, helping someone out. The sheep are lambing right now.”
Murdock squeezed his arm in acknowledgment.
When they got moving again, Murdock noticed a narrow but well-worn footpath that curved right around where they had lain. It headed back to Bteday. They avoided it as they would all paths and trails, and resumed patrolling into the woods.
Murdock was becoming more and more anxious. There seemed to be a running conspiracy against them making any time.
The woods opened up into a clear grassy area. It was like a firebreak, though not man-made. A stream ran through the middle of it. Even though time was crucial, some instinct told Murdock to have his men fill their canteens. The Russian-style Syrian web gear only carried a single canteen, and everyone had to be dry or close to it. They formed a circular security perimeter. Then, one by one, they drained their canteens, filled them in the stream, and dropped in an iodine purification tablet.
It only took a few moments. Then they crossed t
he stream, slipped through the tall grass, and disappeared back into the woods.
22
Saturday, November 11
0425 hours West of Bteday, Lebanon
The SEALS had entered a thin strip of woods only a few hundred yards across with open areas on either side. But it led deeper into the forest.
Murdock peeled the nylon cover off his watch and checked it yet again. About another kilometer further and it would be time to get on the radio and call in the helicopters. They had just enough time, with a nice little cushion.
Professor Higgins was the first to hear it. A low scratching sound off to his right that could have been whispering. Then a drawn-out metallic click that, despite someone’s best efforts, sounded like a safety catch coming off.
Higgins wheeled about, brought up his weapon, and squeezed off a long burst. Known as an immediate-action drill, it gave everyone time to get down. “Ambush right!” he screamed as he fell forward, but it was lost in all the noise.
A line of muzzle flashes lit up about twenty yards away. Green tracers streaked across the intervening space.
In a short-range ambush, with the element of surprise lost, neither side is usually able to assault forward or withdraw. Survival is awarded to those who first establish fire superiority. That is, those who put out such a heavy volume of accurate weapons fire that their opponents’ ability to return fire is either suppressed or eliminated. Easy to discuss in the classroom, hard to do in real life.
Ed DeWitt lay flat on his stomach. A tree in his path provided convenient protection. He had his pistol in hand, but was saving his rounds in case someone came assaulting through their position.
Beside him Doc Ellsworth was squeezing off rounds from his sniper rifle at the rapid rate. Fortunately the MSG-90 carried a twenty-round magazine.
Magic Brown was firing his AKM single-shot, but so fast it sounded like automatic, putting fire everywhere he saw tracers coming from. His concentration was so intense that he didn’t even notice the incoming rounds kicking up dirt all around him.
Razor Roselli was looking for an opportunity to flank the ambush from the right, but he was solidly pinned down. He couldn’t maneuver, so he fired.
Unless very well trained, everyone shoots high at night. The SEALS were superbly trained and shooting straight. It began to tell with a slackening of fire from the other side. Then at least four more rifles joined in, firing on automatic, as if reinforcements had just come up. That shifted the odds dramatically.
Sensing it, Kos Kosciuszko raised up on his knees and held down the trigger on his PKM machine gun. He worked a continuous stream of fire down the line of muzzle flashes in front of him. Dirt flew, brush and saplings were literally mowed down. The PKM barrel glowed red, then white. It would soon melt, but if they didn’t survive the next few seconds it wouldn’t matter.
It was devastating, and the opposition immediately concentrated all the fire on him.
For Kos the world slowed down until almost nothing was moving. He saw the tracer coming at him, so slow that it seemed he could dodge it, but he couldn’t. Then it felt like he’d been hit by the world’s hardest punch, but red hot. He was a huge man, and strong, and he kept the trigger of that machine gun down, weaving back and forth, up and down the line. Then he wasn’t firing the machine gun anymore. His first thought was that the belt had run out. Then he felt the ground, and somehow he had fallen back down onto it. Then he felt cold, so cold. Then he couldn’t feel anything at all.
Murdock and Jaybird, at the front of the column, had been completely out of the ambush killing zone when Higgins initiated the immediate-action drill. When the shooting started they did not open fire. Instead they began crawling to their left in a wide hook, trying to come around on the enemy’s flank.
They scuttled on their bellies as fast as they could. Brambles tried to hold them up, but they yanked their way free.
Only seconds had passed since the beginning of the firefight, but their crawl seemed to have taken hours. They knew they were getting close because the bullets snapping over their heads were coming from their own side. They came up through the trees, and suddenly they were looking straight down the length of a line of shooters maybe ten yards away. It was the perfect spot for a flank attack. In such a position two men could take on many times their number, because while Murdock and Jaybird could shoot straight down the line of firers, only the man closest to them could twist around and get an unrestricted shot at them.
But if Murdock and Jaybird were to go assaulting down the enemy line just then, they would be cut down by the incoming fire of their fellow SEALS. But not if a signal was given for the SEALs to cease fire first. No human voice could rise above the din; a radio call might not be received by everyone. But there was a signal that every SEAL would recognize immediately, because it came right out of their standard operating procedures.
Murdock and Jaybird fumbled in their pouches and came up with two Russian M75 hand grenades each. Small, barrel-shaped, with ribbed plastic bodies, the grenades were Cold War copies of an Austrian model.
They pulled the pins, rose up from the ground, and distributed the grenades evenly down the line. At the fourth explosion Murdock and Jaybird got to their feet and charged forward, assaulting down the line.
Murdock passed by grenade-torn bodies that he fired into just the same. Then, out of the smoke, a man was on his knees with arms outstretched, begging with what sounded like, “Hai, hai, hai.”
Blake Murdock was not dispensing mercy. His burst blew the man down. Murdock dropped to one knee to change magazines, and then continued on. He reached the end of the line. He heard the thrashing of someone running through the brush, but didn’t fire. From some long-ago training class he heard: Don’t fire unless you can identify your target; it might be a SEAL.
“Jaybird,” he yelled.
“With you, sir,” came the call to his left, right where Jaybird was supposed to be.
Murdock marveled for a brief moment at Jaybird using the word “sir” when he wasn’t in trouble, then keyed his radio. “Jaybird and I have the ambush site secure. Come up on line, and don’t shoot us when you do.”
A series of acknowledgments came over the net, and then the rest of the platoon surged forward in a classic skirmish line. They reached Murdock and Jaybird, and then swept onward into the trees to make sure they hadn’t missed anyone. Murdock and Jaybird now faced around to cover their rear.
Murdock heard a short spasm of firing, then everything quieted down.
“Two more tangos and a bunch of donkeys,” came the unusual message over the radio.
With only one good arm and a pistol, Ed DeWitt prudently hadn’t gone on with the others. He walked up and put his hand on Murdock’s shoulder. “Kos is dead,” he said.
23
Saturday, November 11
0440 hours West of Bteday, Lebanon
“Are you sure,” Murdock demanded, grabbing DeWitt’s jacket. It immediately occurred to him that he had never asked a more stupid question in his entire life. He let go of DeWitt. “I’m sorry, Ed.”
“He was gone by the time we got to him. He saved our asses.”
The rest of the SEALs reappeared out of the darkness.
DeWitt took things in hand. “Let’s get their ammo,” he said crisply. “From what I heard, they were all using AKs.”
Jaybird and DeWitt stood security while the rest of the SEALs went down the line of corpses and stripped them of weapons and magazines. Razor Roselli stayed with Murdock.
“Smugglers,” Razor reported. “They had a string of donkeys loaded with hash. I think they stopped to take a break, and we just ran into each other in the dark.”
“It was my fault,” said Murdock. “We were patrolling too fast. I was pushing Jaybird too hard. If I’d been scanning with the imager, we would have picked them up with enough time and space to go around.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Razor said firmly. “That’s all over and done with. We h
ave to get out of here, and fast.”
Murdock knew Razor was right. They had to clear the area. Some of the smugglers had undoubtedly gotten away. There were always survivors in every engagement. It never happened that way in training, but it always did in real life.
The SEALs formed a hasty perimeter and redistributed Kalashnikov magazines. The grenades the smugglers had been carrying were so old and beat up no one wanted to mess with them. Doc Ellsworth and Ed DeWitt took two AKMs that seemed in the best shape.
“Use the grenades to booby-trap the bodies?” Magic Brown suggested.
“No,” Murdock replied. “We don’t want to make it look too professional. If we’re lucky, anyone who finds them won’t make the connection. They may write it off as a business disagreement.”
Kos Kosciuszko’s body was wrapped in Doc Ellsworth’s German nylon poncho. It had six stout carrying straps on each side and doubled as a stretcher.
Murdock took point. DeWitt followed him. Jaybird, Razor, Higgins, and Doc carried Kos. It took that many to bear his weight and still cover the ground at a decent pace. Magic Brown took over the tail-gunner position.
Despite what had happened, they pushed harder. The firefight had to have attracted attention, and the nearby road networks would allow a fast response. And the fast-approaching dawn was on everyone’s mind. The ground was rising fast as they headed up higher into the mountain highlands. It was hard going.
The time only permitted a mile and a half advance before Murdock called a halt. They formed another perimeter with Kos’s body in the center. Professor Higgins broke out his backpack radio.
It was a piece of gear that had only recently come into SEAL service, the AN/PRC-117D. Extremely compact at fifteen inches high, eight inches wide, three inches deep, and fifteen pounds total, it was one of the most sophisticated tactical radios in the world. Capable of operating in a number of modes and multiple frequency bands, the PRC-117D combined the functions of the three different radio sets it had replaced in SEAL service.
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