Direct Action sts-4

by Keith Douglass

  1316 hours North central Lebanon

  Once the firing started up, the Syrian soldiers in front of Murdock stopped dead in their tracks. Murdock visualized the radio conversation that had to be taking place. Then orders were screamed. The Syrians faced about. Where they had been sweeping northeast now they headed southeast, in the direction of the firing.

  Murdock looked around and saw SEALs grinning at him. He waited, giving the Syrians time to get out of the way. A few hand signals, and Jaybird was back on point with the others formed up behind him.

  The SEALs patrolled southwest, right through where the Syrian sweep line had originally been. A few hundred meters more and they were behind the sweep line, in the area the Syrians had already cleared.

  Murdock had the completion of a perfect fantasy in mind. The Syrians would take their time, pound the living crap out of the ridge with mortars or artillery, and then assault. When they found nothing, they would eventually get sorted out and decide that the booby traps had only been intended to delay them. Angered by their losses, they would get back on line and renew their sweep with greater vigor, totally convinced that the enemy was up ahead. Which would be perfect, now that the SEALs were safely behind them.

  Murdock made a mental note to name his first child Jaybird.

  30

  Saturday, November 11

  1330 hours North central Lebanon

  The SEALs had made it out of the noose, but the main roads were still covered by the Syrians, and the section of woods they were now forced into was alarmingly small.

  Now Murdock had to decide whether to sit tight or keep moving. There seemed to be no contest. There wasn’t any assurance that the Syrians had finished moving around the area. If the SEALs kept moving there was always the risk of bumping into some random unit. Better to lay low and keep their heads down until dark.

  But first they had to find the right place. The SEALs patrolled excruciatingly slowly, making no noise. They didn’t follow a straight route, zigzagging back and forth instead to make it more difficult for anyone trying to trail them.

  Jaybird found a spot that looked good, and Murdock was unwilling to keep patrolling in order to find something better. Unlike the previous patrol base, this one was on higher, more defensible ground: the side of a high but gently sloping ridge, covered with boulders, brush, tall grass, and scattered scrawny saplings clinging desperately to the rocky soil.

  The SEALs arranged themselves across the nose of the ridge, settling in among the boulders with good 360-degree security.

  After twenty minutes of peace and quiet, a small group of men passed by at a distance of several hundred yards. They were armed but scruffy, wearing combinations of military uniforms and civilian clothing. Murdock thought they had to be Hezbollah.

  Another half hour passed. Murdock had no intention of allowing himself to fall asleep again. He chose the most uncomfortable position he could find.

  A single shot was heard, not far away. Murdock was so keyed up that it made him jump slightly. It wasn’t a rifle shot, though. It sounded like a shotgun. Then there was another shot, closer. It was definitely a shotgun. Murdock couldn’t figure it out, and he didn’t like it when that happened.

  Fifteen minutes later he had his answer. Two Lebanese civilians appeared, carrying shotguns and accompanied by a dog. Murdock couldn’t believe it. Half the Syrian Army in Lebanon was pounding the hills on a major manhunt, and these dumb bastards were out hunting. He’d heard amazing stories about recklessly stupid and fatalistic Lebanese behavior during the civil war, but this was ridiculous. Then again, if you lived in a country where armed soldiers regularly roamed the hills, maybe that wasn’t reason enough to make you postpone your Saturday outing.

  Go away, Murdock ordered them in his head, go the fuck away.

  The dog flushed a bird at the base of the ridge. Both hunters fired, and missed, but their shotgun pellets rained in among the SEALs’ position. Murdock was glad that shotgun pellets didn’t travel far before losing velocity. Considering that it was Lebanon, he supposed he ought to be thankful that the two yokels weren’t out hunting with machine guns.

  The dog picked up a scent and bounded up the ridge. Murdock didn’t know whether it was scenting an animal, the mass of Syrians who had already passed through, or the SEALS.

  The dog kept coming, and Murdock knew the animal was on their trail. They had made the usual question mark maneuver before heading into the rocks, so the dog went almost all the way around the ridge before heading down and then coming back toward them.

  Then the dog ran into the line of CS crystals Razor Roselli had thoughtfully sprinkled down.

  The dog didn’t take a few tentative sniffs, then call it a day and head for home. No, it took a deep drag of CS and went absolutely berserk.

  The dog nearly did a complete back flip. It yelped and howled and rolled in the grass. Then it chased its tail in tight frantic circles, howled some more, and began rubbing its eyes and muzzle in the dirt.

  The two hunters were running up the slope to see what was the matter with their dog. And the dog, in the course of spazzing out, had come within twenty yards of the SEALs’ position.

  By the time the hunters reached it, the dog’s muzzle was caked with dirt. They got ahold of the dog. One of them, clearly the owner, began wiping the dirt off the dog with a rag while the animal whimpered. And the other hunter just had to take a look around and see what had caused all the fuss.

  The hunter literally stepped over Professor Higgins. If the man hadn’t seen him, Higgins never would have moved. But the hunter’s eyes went wide, and before the man could move his shotgun an inch Higgins shot him in the head.

  Higgins, like the rest of the SEALS, was carrying as a backup weapon a sound-suppressed Russian Makarov pistol, which they called the P-6. The weapons were part of a stockpile inherited by the Germans from the former East German Spetsnaz special forces. Although the shot was quiet, Higgins couldn’t do anything about the dead body rolling back down the hillside. As soon as that happened all the SEALs were up and blazing away with their pistols at the other hunter.

  Even if it had been the hunter’s first scrape, which it probably wasn’t, his reflexes were perfect. As soon as he saw the green and brown apparitions bouncing up out of the very earth, he instantly abandoned his dog and his shotgun and launched himself down the ridge at a dead run.

  Twenty yards or more is a long pistol shot, especially with a suppressed weapon designed to be used at point-blank range. It was professionally embarrassing, but all the SEALs who were able to get a clear shot missed.

  Twigs and leaves clipped by the bullets fell all around the man, but he remained untouched. He hit the base of the ridge without breaking stride and smashed into the brush.

  Murdock passed hand signals down the perimeter. They said in essence: “Let’s mount up, we’re out of here.” It wasn’t going to take that hunter very long to find someone to tell his story to.

  The situation was that the Syrians were off to the northeast, and the hunter had run southwest. Murdock looked at his map to try to figure out which village the man would head for. There was one to the east, and another almost equally distant to the west. Great.

  Murdock’s choices were even more limited than that, being determined by the available terrain.

  The SEALs headed northwest, Jaybird setting the pace as fast as he felt secure. They had to put some ground between themselves and that ridge.

  Jaybird zigzagged wildly across their base course, to throw off pursuit. Razor spread the last of the CS crystals behind them.

  In a fairly open forest glade Murdock gave a signal. Everyone turned ninety degrees to their right and kept walking. Where there had been one trail now there were seven. A hundred meters or so and they all turned back onto the original course, the seven separate trails returning to one. It was enough to buy them a little time while any tracker stopped to try and figure it all out.

  To make better time and keep from leaving tr
acks, Jaybird angled the formation around a stretch of boggy ground. They came across a tiny stream, filled their canteens, and walked in it until it disappeared into the earth.

  As Jaybird was elbowing his way through some streamside brush, he suddenly came face-to-face with an equally surprised Lebanese carrying a Kalashnikov.

  31

  Saturday, November 11

  1408 hours North central Lebanon

  In a gunfight, the one who shoots first usually wins. Jaybird Sterling, who like all SEALs patrolled with his rifle at his shoulder and ready to fire, got off a burst before his opponent even had a chance to start work on the cumbersome Kalashnikov safety catch. The force of the rounds threw the man back into the brush.

  Jaybird didn’t know if the man was alone or had fifty buddies following along behind, and he didn’t intend to stick around to find out. He began a maneuver called the Australian Peel. He emptied his magazine into the bushes in front of him to force everyone who might be in there down on their faces, then turned tail and ran, changing magazines as he went.

  This left Murdock on point. He knew the drill. When Jaybird opened up he had automatically dropped to one knee. As soon as Jaybird moved he fired several short bursts to his front, then followed right behind Sterling.

  Higgins, now in front, did the same. Then Doc. Then DeWitt, who threw a grenade in lieu of firing one-handed. The explosion threw up a nice bit of smoke, so Magic Brown and Razor didn’t waste time on a lot of shooting.

  Soon the whole file of SEALs was sprinting in the opposite direction. It had all been neatly done, and without a word of command being spoken.

  But there was fire coming from behind them, and they were obviously being chased.

  They kept running, and the firing continued. Whoever it was was right on their ass. The SEALs had to break contact or the pursuers would dog their heels until, inevitably, they ran right into a larger force.

  As he ran, Jaybird kept looking back over his shoulder to make sure everyone was still with him. When he went over a small rise in the ground Jaybird saw that Murdock had stopped, so he stopped also.

  As each SEAL ran up and saw Murdock on his stomach, they instantly spread out on both sides of him. It only took a few seconds, not even long enough to catch their breath, before the screaming pursuers broke through the trees.

  Murdock fired, and all the SEALs joined in. The pursuers dropped to the ground or behind the trees and began firing back a few moments later.

  As soon as that happened, Murdock slid back down below the cover of the rise and had Jaybird and the SEALs up and running again.

  The hasty ambush had put the first of their pursuers down, but the ones behind must have started running again as soon as the firing stopped. The SEALs had bought themselves some time and distance, but not enough. It wasn’t that their pursuers were good; it was that they were Hezbollah and didn’t mind running into a few rounds. Paradise was automatic for those who died in battle with the infidel, which covered just about everyone besides themselves. Murdock yelled over his shoulder to Higgins, “Throw a PDM!” The order worked its way back to the end of the line of runners. Razor Roselli tossed one of their two remaining Pursuit Deterrent Munitions over his shoulder.

  A key element of human psychology, of which the SEALs were well aware, was that when you chased someone you assumed they were running in a straight line and would continue to do so. And when you were being chased, you did tend to run in a straight line and at a constant pace.

  So after Razor threw the PDM, Murdock yelled to Jaybird and Jaybird veered hard to his left. He quickly slowed down to a fast walk to minimize the enormous racket they were making.

  Now the SEALs crept along quietly. They heard the PDM explode. There was a pause, and then they could hear the shouting of the Hezbollah continue along their original route.

  Another hundred meters and Jaybird made another hard change of direction. They continued on for a while, and then Murdock flashed him some more hand signals. Jaybird circled around in another question-mark maneuver and they came back on their trail.

  The SEALs set up an ambush and waited, slowly getting their wind back. A fifteen-mile run through beach sand was a lot less tiring than a relatively short run for your life.

  No one came down the trail. They were safe. Again. For the moment.

  32

  Saturday, November 11

  1435 hours North central Lebanon

  Murdock crawled from man to man. He needed to get an idea of their ammunition situation. He also needed to take everyone’s temperature, in a manner of speaking.

  “Four magazines,” Jaybird whispered. “A hundred and twenty rounds. If it wasn’t for those smugglers, I’d be out. One frag grenade, one smoke.”

  “Five mags,” Higgins reported. “Three frags, about six feet of time fuse, a few igniters, five caps. Used up all the det cord on the diversion.”

  “Four magazines,” said Doc. “Four frags. I also used up forty rounds of 7.62 match on the smugglers.”

  “Three magazines,” said Magic. “Three frags. I’d like to use up some of this.50-cal. ammo; it’s weighing my ass down.”

  “You ever try running with your arm strapped to your chest?” DeWitt wanted to know. “Really slows you up. Magic almost ran me down from behind.”

  Even under unbelievable pressure, that almost cheerful, cocky-ass attitude was what Murdock had been expecting to hear. It was why there was a BUD/S, and a Hell Week. The instructors made sure the quitters quit back at Coronado, not in Lebanon. And that the officers who wanted to wear the pretty badge but would sooner or later say, “I’m tired, I don’t want to be in charge any more … you guys do what you want,” never made it out of the program.

  “I got four magazines,” said Razor Roselli. “The last PDM and two frags. Don’t these fucking people know we don’t want to be disturbed until it’s time to leave?”

  “I guess someone didn’t tell them,” Murdock whispered in reply.

  “You know what’s going to happen now?” said Razor. “They’re going to get on the radio and all the Syrians are going to turn right around and come sweeping back down here. And they ain’t going to fall for the same trick twice.”

  “You’ve got something on your mind,” said Murdock. “Don’t keep it to yourself.”

  “We’ve got to head for the mountains.”

  “It’s wide open,” Murdock protested. “The biggest piece of cover is a knee-high bush.”

  “They’ll close in on us eventually. We’ll keep getting chased around these fucking woods until we run out of room, and all it’ll take is one good firefight to pin us down. Then they’ll close in and keep throwing troops at us until we’re either overrun or out of ammo. And that’s all she wrote.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” said Razor, “but we gotta do it. These woods are nothing but a trap.”

  Murdock didn’t take his chief’s counsel lightly. He thought hard on the problem. It would be easier to bring the helicopters in without getting them either shot down or shot out of the landing zone. The SEALs only had enough ammunition for one more freight. And not a long one at that.

  He decided, and they began patrolling west toward the mountains. At least in that direction they weren’t having to cross one ridgeline after the other. But the woods quickly opened up, and Murdock felt even more exposed.

  A helicopter flew overhead and all the SEALs froze. Movement was more easy to see from the air than shapes, especially well-camouflaged shapes. Even the very act of throwing yourself to the ground could mean compromise. The helicopter disappeared and they resumed patrolling.

  Then Jaybird signaled enemy ahead. Murdock signaled the file to halt, then get down. Jaybird was very close to the edge of the trees. Murdock slipped in beside him, and Jaybird pointed to their front.

  There was a road just beyond the trees. A low-slung BMP-1 armored personnel carrier was parked diagonally across the road. The paint job was Syr
ian brown and sand. The top hatches and the two rear doors were hanging open. The crew, seven men, were slumped casually against the outside of the vehicle. Some were sleeping, the rest were brewing tea. Their weapons were casually propped up against the tracks. Murdock decided that there had to be at least one man inside the BMP monitoring the radio. Maybe two.

  Using hand signals, Jaybird asked Murdock which way he wanted to go to patrol around them.

  Murdock signaled back to wait. He had an idea, an idea that didn’t seem too outlandish once he considered all the angles. Murdock slid back into the brush, and then signaled Razor to come up.

  It took him some time; he didn’t make a sound. Then Murdock pointed to the BMP. Razor checked it out and shrugged, as if to say, “So what?”

  Using his finger, Murdock drew a diagram in the dirt. One of Razor’s eyebrows shot up, and then he nodded approvingly. He slid back and brought up the rest of the SEALS.

  They were all briefed on what Murdock wanted without a word being spoken. It took a bit of diagramming, but soon they all signaled their understanding.

  The Syrian mechanized infantrymen had no inkling of what was going on when what seemed to be a group of their fellow soldiers burst from the tree line. The uniforms made them freeze for a crucial few seconds, but they realized something was wrong. The weapons were pointed at them. They had no chance, which was exactly how Murdock had planned it.

  The SEALs opened fire as they charged. The prone Syrians weren’t even able to lift themselves up, let alone get to their weapons.

  The SEALs could have shot them from inside the cover of the tree line, but Murdock needed to get to that vehicle fast.

  While the rest of the SEALs made sure the Syrians on the outside were dead, Razor Roselli leaped up onto the top of the BMP, stuck his AKM into the driver’s hatch, and fired. Only then did he risk a peek inside. No one was there. He quickly shifted his weapon over to the nearby vehicle commander’s hatch and repeated the process.