Got that? At least twenty-five. We want to be as lousy a target as possible. Let’s stretch out our diamonds now and move. Salwa says we have another mile to the Saudi border. Let’s move out.”
It took the Migs ten minutes to find them. They had been on a grid search, and when they turned and came over the SEALs at sagebrush level, Murdock knew their ID had been confirmed. “Ground fire when they come back,” Murdock radioed. “You know the drill, fire in front of the bastards, long lead. Ground fire can be damned effective. Give it a try.”
The two Migs came one at a time, and the machine gunners and the long gun men had time to fire at both in succession. The jet fighters used their cannon, spraying the area with 20mm explosive rounds.
The trouble with jet aircraft strafing a ground target at five hundred miles an hour is that the rounds land from forty to sixty feet apart, depending on the angle of the aircraft. It makes for a lousy hit ratio on as small a target as the dispersed SEALs were.
After the first pass, Murdock hit the mike. “Casualty report, anybody hit?”
The air was silent a moment. Then Doc Ellsworth came on.
“Looks like Gonzales got hit by some shrapnel on his right leg.
Not too bad. But doesn’t help his general condition. I’ve got it under control. We’ll still have to carry him to the border.”
There were no more casualty reports.
“We hit the sonofabitch?” Ron Holt asked.
“Don’t think we had any hits, Holt. Anybody else pick up lead?”
Silence. “Okay, Doc. Stay with Gonzalez from here on in. Let’s try to get invisible with sand before the birds fly back.” The men spread out farther in the dirt and covered themselves with splotches of sand and rocks, weapons hidden under their bodies.
The jets came again, in the same formation. This time the machine gunners and Bradford with the Fifty had a better idea how to aim. The three men popped up when they saw the planes coming. Bradford picked up the strafers as early as he could, and fired for a nearly head-on shot.
He had time for just one shot, and triggered it off imagining that he could see the flight of the big .50-caliber round of explosive, armor-piercing destruction.
Joe Douglas had his H&K machine gun angled upward to meet the jets as well. Once they got overhead, it was too late. He fired a twelve-round burst as one of the Migs was a hundred yards away. The twelve slugs and the plane met at tremendous speed, and Douglas prayed that he had made some hits.
When the long gun men were sure they hadn’t fooled the pilots, every long gun fired, as the jets screamed overhead at less than fifty feet, then pulled up sharply and started their three-mile-wide circle to come back on target. The second Mig went around normally; then a thin trail of smoke came out of the craft. The smoke increased as the big plane wobbled slightly, then slewed to the left, and began to lose altitude.
The SEALs stood and cheered as the Mig dropped lower and lower until it tried a wheels up landing in the desert at more than 150 miles an hour. It hit, bounced, flipped over twice, and burst into flames.
The SEALs quieted and looked at Murdock.
“Okay, we got a lucky hit. The other Mig turned north, and must have hit his afterburner. We better hit ours too. Form up, and let’s move out.”
Doc Ellsworth fell into step beside Murdock. “Gonzalez is in damn serious condition. I don’t know what that slug hit inside him, but it ain’t good. He could use a doctor about now. We’re carrying him and trading off every quarter mile. Four different guys. We can make five miles an hour.”
Murdock nodded, and Doc went back to Gonzales. Murdock waved Salwa up. “What happens when we get to the border? Are there guards all along it? Wire, trenches, or just a single strand of wire identifying the border?”
“Usually nothing to mark the border. A survey post every six or eight miles. The jets would attract attention from the Saudis. My guess is there will be some kind of mobile force along the border here wondering what’s going on.”
“What part of the Saudi border is this?”
“The Irwado sector,” Salwa said. “That I’m sure of.”
Murdock used his Mike and told Ron Holt to come Up. They called a halt, and Holt set up the antenna and aimed it. Then Murdock typed out a message.
“Advise Saudis in the Irwado sector that friendlies are about to cross their border area inbound from Iraq. Make sure they know we are seventeen friendlies coming in.”
He got a quick response, and hoped that the message would be passed down from hand to hand until it got to the commander of whatever force maintained this sector of the Saudi Arabia border.
They marched.
There was no sign of any more Iraqi troops or planes.
A mile farther on, they came to a small rise, and Murdock called a halt and went up with Lam and Salwa to check it over. Ahead they saw what looked like a small military vehicle. Murdock figured it was a quarter of a mile ahead. He let Salwa look through his binoculars, and the Kuwaiti agreed.
“Yes, a utility rig the Saudis use along the border. Usually only three or four men and an officer.”
Just as he stopped talking, they heard the chatter of a machine gun and rounds sang over their heads. The men pulled back under cover of the rise.
“Who has a green flare?” Murdock said into the Motorola.
“Yo,” Colt Franklin said.
“Fire one high toward the border,” Murdock said.
The green flare sailed high, burst, and floated down on its small parachute. At once another burst of machine-gun fire came over the top of the rise.
Murdock checked the landscape. A small ravine led to the left toward the border. It was ten feet deep. He kept his men under cover of the rise, and moved them into the gully. It had some bends and twists, and should get them within fifty yards of the Saudi patrol.
When the gully began to play out, Murdock lifted up to the top, and checked the Saudi troops. It looked more like they were thirty-five yards away. Salwa was at his elbow.
“Can you yell at them from here and make them understand who we are?”
Salwa bobbed his head. “Yes, I can try. We all speak Arabic. If this doesn’t work, I suggest a white flag.”
Salwa moved up another twenty feet, found a place he could stand, and edged his head over the top of the wadi.
He shouted something in Arabic. Waited, then said what Murdock figured was the same thing again. They waited. In a period of silence, Murdock heard shouting from the other side. Salwa shouted something back to them, then said it a second time. After that he slowly lifted over the top of the gully and put both hands in the air.
He shouted again, and motioned below him.
Again a short silence, then chatter, and yelling from the other side.
Slowly, Salwa put his hands down, and turned to look at Murdock.
“Yes, it’s all arranged. They know who we are but are still suspicious.
Hold your weapons pointing at the ground, and come up one at a time.
I’ll go first. Then another one. Only one man in sight at any one time. I told them you’re Americans, and they are impressed. They saw the jet crash. When I get to them, I’ll explain about our wounded man.
Have the big man carry him out last when you tell him to on your radio.”
Salwa moved out of sight, then walked toward the Saudis. When he was gone, Murdock lifted over the edge, then told the men to come one at a time and slowly, with their weapons down.
Ten minutes later the Americans were across the border into Saudi Arabia. The officer there had radioed for more transport. They had made it. Murdock made a mental note to have a serious talk with Don Stroh about the quality of the CIA’s extraction operations. This one was a flat-out failure.
6
Saturday, 13 January
Naval Special Warfare Section
Coronado, California
Third Platoon of Seal Team Seven had been home almost twenty-four hours. Murdock’s five casualties ha
d been treated in an Air Force hospital near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. All except Gonzalez had been cleared for transfer to the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego.
Gonzalez was flown to Germany to one of the best military hospitals. He would get specialized treatment. The doctors had no idea how long he would be hospitalized or when he would be cleared to go to Balboa. They had dug the slug out of his upper chest, but were still evaluating the internal damage the steel-jacketed slug had done.
Ron Holt’s slug through his left arm had not been a problem. The doctors said he could return to full duty in three weeks. The same prognosis had been given to Ken Ching, who had a bullet through his right leg.
Al Adams and Joe Douglas both had shrapnel wounds from the RPG, but they were not deep or serious and were already starting to heal. The two SEALs didn’t require any more hospitalization. The four injured men who came home were all released from Balboa and told to return in two weeks for a final checkup.
Murdock sent a hot dispatch to Don Stroh. Never before had he been hung out to dry for so long, taking so many needless casualties. He knew Don would have an answer for it all. He also put the same comments in his after-action report that went through Master Chief Mackenzie and thence to Commander Masciarelli, the skipper of the Seal Team Seven and Murdock’s immediate boss.
With that out of his way, Murdock settled down to putting the pieces of his platoon back together. Balboa had certified the four injured SEALs fit for light duty.
“Shit, there ain’t no such thing as light duty in the SEALS,” Ron Holt said. “Be fucking lucky if they don’t pile it on us double because we was dumb enough to get hit.”
All of the men had liberty, including Ed Dewitt, and now Murdock sat in the strangely empty and quiet office of the Third Platoon checking his roster. He recognized the sound of the footsteps in the hall outside long before the body came through his door.
Without looking up he said: “Good morning, Master Chief Mackenzie.”
The master chief, who ran the eight platoons in SEAL Team Seven, had previously been Platoon Chief of the Third Platoon, and still had a special feeling for the group, even though many men had come and gone since his term there.
“Didn’t catch you when you stepped over the quarterdeck this morning, Commander. Were you avoiding me?”
“Hard thing to do, Master Chief.” Murdock grinned and put his polished black shoes on the edge of his desk. “Hell, George, you know I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. Even polished my belt buckle this morning for your inspection.”
“How are Gonzalez and your lucky four wounded?”
“You know Gonzalez is in the hospital in Germany. Hard to tell when they will transfer him to Balboa. The other four are SEALs and labeled fit for light duty. You know what that means around here.”
“Figured. You going to want a replacement for Gonzalez?”
“Be a good idea. Run someone in as a temporary replacement. If Gonzalez doesn’t get cleared in three weeks, he won’t be ready for any action we might have within two months, so we’ll make the temp permanent. You’ve done it before.”
“You want to pick from my roster?”
“This afternoon. If it’s all right with the master chief and if you can squeeze me into your loaded appointment calendar.”
“Might be a problem. Later on that. I read your after-action report before I passed it on to the skipper. The old man is going to be pleased.”
“Well, hot damn, George. You came all the way over here to tell me I did a good fucking job for a change?”
“That and to remind you that you owe me a steak dinner.”
“What the hell for, George?”
“Because I’m the master chief and I keep your ass out of the fire, and save your neck from getting chewed every week by Commander Masciarelli. Why else?”
They stared at each other for a minute, then both chuckled. They had been working together for more than four years now. First when Murdock had been an instructor for the tadpoles coming through the BUD/S training. Then for over two years since Murdock had taken command of Third Platoon.
“You don’t think you were too rough on the CIA for not getting you out of Iraq?” Mackenzie asked.
“Not half tough enough. They hung us out to dry again. Hell, they didn’t even try with a second chopper. They let us sit in there and fight our way out.”
“Which you did destroying a shitpot full of Iraqi equipment including shooting down two choppers and one Mig jet fighter.”
“Yeah, we got in a couple of lucky rounds. I’ve still got a huge bone to pick with Don Stroh. Figure he won’t be around for a while.”
“Not for a while, Murdock. Not until ten-hundred today.”
Murdock scowled. “Don’t shit me about this, George. I’m still not cooled down about how they fucked us in Iraq.”
“Get over it, Commander. That’s the way the CIA plays the game.
Once the mission is completed, the personnel are secondary.”
“But we hadn’t extracted the civilian yet. The mission wasn’t over.”
Master Chief Mackenzie dropped into the chair beside Murdock’s desk. “What’s bugging you, George?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.”
“That’s why you’re sweating? Why have you cleared your throat six times since you came through the door? It’s your psychosomatic throat problem, remember? You always get it when you’re nervous as hell.”
“So?”
“So what’s bugging you?”
“The other platoon chiefs are giving me static about your platoon’s facial hair and haircuts. I know, I know, you have special permission from the old man, but it bugs the other SEALS. You know how close I watch every man who steps across the quarterdeck. No beards, no goatees, no long sideburns. Face hair can interfere with the proper use of underwater gear.”
Murdock sat there grinning, enjoying this as much as anything in the past few months.
“True, Master Chief. All true. Tell them when they work for the CIA they can wear face hair too. End of argument.”
“Why?”
“You know damn well why, Master Chief. Sometimes we go in undercover, no uniforms, no weapons, getting the lay of the land. Three or four of us show up clean-shaven with white-side haircuts a half-inch long, lean and mean, we’re gonna scream to everyone who sees us that we’re military. We need to be low-key sometimes. It’s got our dicks out of trouble several times in the past year, and now I won’t let the guys all go clean-shaven and short-haired. That’s why, George.”
“Yeah, I guess I have to live with it. If Commander Masciarelli kissed the CIA ring, not a fucking thing I can do about it.”
“Anything about the commander getting transferred out?”
The master chief perked up and looked at Murdock critically. “You just trying to lift my spirits or what? No word anywhere about any command changes around here. Not that I wouldn’t welcome it. Our leader is bent all out of shape because he lost command of Third Platoon. He says all he is to your platoon now is an impotent pussy of a figurehead. He hates Don Stroh and the CIA with a white-hot passion.
That’s why I want to steer Stroh away from here as soon as he arrives.”
The command master chief rubbed his face for a minute. “Oh, business. You’re not going to need any replacements for your four other wounded men, I’d guess, since you haven’t asked for any.”
“True. We have a month to six weeks and we’ll be ready to dance again, if you get us a top-notch replacement for Gonzalez. Don’t want to mess up the platoon. We’ve had too many changes lately. Interferes with our teamwork.”
Mackenzie checked his watch.
Murdock frowned. “Master Chief, that’s the third time you’ve checked your timepiece in the past five minutes. You late for a hot date somewhere?”
Mackenzie stood, and walked around the chair grinning. “Indeed I am, young man. A hot date straight from Washington, D.C. Like I told you, your buddy Don Stroh is due at ten
-hundred. He’s late. Want to come out to the quarterdeck with me and greet him?”
“Not especially.”
“Might be interesting. You can read him off about hanging you out on a tough titty in Iraq.”
“Now that you mention it.”
A knock sounded on the doorjamb, and a seaman came around the corner. “Sir, a visitor.” He backed away, and Don Stroh, wearing a red hibiscus, Hawaiian shirt, and walking shorts, stepped into the room.
“Commander, what a beautiful job in Iraq. Haven’t had time to tell you what an outstanding job you and your men did over there. Your transport got deep-sixed, and you made adjustments and brought out the hostage, and all of your men with only one major wound. Remarkable.
The President sends his congratulations.”
“You and your Company almost got us all killed, you fucking well know that. What the hell is the matter with … ” Murdock stopped.
“Shit, I can chew you out later when Master Chief Mackenzie can’t appreciate it. Instead we’ll take a cash bonus of five thousand for each of my men.” He paused. “That was a joke, Stroh.” Murdock took the CIA contact man’s hand. Master Chief Mackenzie jumped out of his chair, and waved Stroh toward it.
“Nope, no time to sit down, we can talk later,” Stroh said. “I’m here on vacation. I want to go albacore fishing. Understand that’s the best of the tuna family, and I want to catch about a dozen.”
Master Chief Mackenzie looked at Murdock.
“Albacore, you sure?” Murdock said. “Problem is the albacore fishing was spotty this year. It started in June and finished in August. All the surface fishing is over now.”
“So why are the half-day boats going out of Seaforth? I just called them and made three reservations for the 12:30 boat. Said they had good catches this morning.”
Murdock chuckled. “Yeah. Those landing guys lie a lot. What they’re catching now are rock cod, some mackerel, and maybe a calico bass or two.”
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