Canzoneri dropped to the floor and slithered forward, his MP-5 in one hand and a grenade with the pin pulled in the other hand. He kicked in the door.
Down the hall a head poked out of a room. Donegan chased the man back inside with a three-round burst into the door frame. There was no reaction from the first room. Canzoneri looked inside, then jolted into the room and fired two shots, and came out nodding.
Donegan took the next room. Before he could open it, two rounds slammed through the door. He jolted the panel open and flipped inside a grenade that exploded with a roar. Donegan rushed into the room the minute the bits of deadly steel stopped singing. He fired two three-round bursts, cutting down the man at the window who was trying to get outside.
They worked the rest of the rooms. Only two more were occupied, and the terrorists tried to give up, but the Mistaravim men gunned them down. The Israelis had seen firsthand what these terrorists could do in a crowded marketplace with a car bomb.
Sergeant Menuhin gave the men a thumbs-up and waved them down the hall. They encountered no more hostiles as they went outside and ran around the back of the building and up the slope nearly to the fence. Then they paused.
Menuhin gathered them around. “That’s our first objective. Now we have time to hit the secondary. It’s their training rooms, assembly room, mess hall, and kitchen. This one is supposed to be wooden construction, so our plan is to burn the sucker down. About a quarter of a mile more north. Let’s do it double time.”
They ran north along the fence, and found one place they had to zig down closer to some small single-unit buildings. Fernandez figured it might be officer country. They angled into the camp itself past two small buildings that were dark and closed.
Sergeant Menuhin stopped them at the corner of a concrete-block building. “Just past this is the area we want. Let’s get some of your WPs into the place if you have any left, Fernandez. Then we’ll hit what’s left with C-4 on one-minute timers. Spread out after the WPs, and don’t push in your detonator activator until you get word by radio.”
Fernandez went to the prone position and slammed one round through a set of windows nearest them. The WP exploded inside and a fire began. He had three WPs left. He spread them around the complex, then waved at the Israelis.
They all ran to the building, kicked in doors to get inside, where the bombs would do the most damage. Fernandez and Franklin found themselves in the assembly hall. It was big enough to hold two hundred. They found the basic roof supports and put bombs on them. They planted four bombs, then gave a ready to Sergeant Menuhin on the Motorola.
“Hold until I get everyone covered.” The SEALs waited, watching for anybody to come in and challenge them. Nobody moved.
Three minutes later the signal came. “Punch in the one-minute timers now, and haul ass out of there and back to the fence. We’ll group up there. Go.”
Franklin and Fernandez punched in the timers and ran for the door. They could smell smoke all over the big building. At the door they paused and Franklin looked out.
“Shit, we got trouble. Looks like fifteen fuckers out there with their automatic rifles, in a line of skirmishers, like they’re waiting for us to come out.”
“Fifteen to two,” Fernandez said. “And we have about thirty seconds to figure it out before those bombs go off.”
“Any twenties left?” Franklin asked.
Fernandez checked the magazine. “Empty,” he said. He pulled the bolt back a half inch. “Yeah, one in the chamber. What are they, forty yards out there? I’ll laser one over their heads and as soon as it goes off, we hose them down with everything we have left, then get our butts out of here.” Fernandez aimed the twenty Bull Pup and fired.
After that the two of them fired their weapons as fast as they could. Fernandez didn’t figure out if the twenty did the damage, or the automatic fire from the 5.56 and the 9mm rounds. About ten seconds later, he realized it had worked. Most of the fifteen were down, and not by choice.
“Go, go, go!” Fernandez bellowed.
They came out the door just as the charges blew behind them, giving them an added boost. Franklin’s magazine ran dry, but he didn’t have time to put in a new one. He and Fernandez set a new record for the two-hundred-yard dash as they pounded down the street, arms pumping, breath coming in desperate gasps. They rounded a building and slowed; both jammed in new magazines and then tried to figure out where the fence was, the boundary fence for the meeting.
“Nobody behind us,” Fernandez said.
“We shot the shit out of them fuckers, but we got to keep going. To the right up that slope to the right in the dark, that’s the fence. Come on.”
Five minutes later they lay in some tall weeds on the slope next to the fence. Two of the Israelis had shown up. One used the radio and guided in Sergeant Menuhin, who brought along Donegan and Canzoneri.
They were halfway back to where they had left their car when Franklin moved up to Fernandez and hit him on the shoulder. “Hey, we walk through any water anywhere? I got some strange wet squishing in my left boot.”
Sergeant Menuhin heard the words and stopped them. He used his pencil flash and looked over Franklin’s left leg.
“You took a round about halfway up your thigh, Franklin. Didn’t you feel it?”
“Hell, we was running so fucking fast I couldn’t even feel the ground. One of them bastards shot me?”
“Looks that way, went right on through. Let me put a bandage on it and a pad on both sides. I won’t even take your pants off. Hold steady now.” The Israeli wrapped the wound with a white bandage that stood out in the darkness.
“Oh, yeah, now I can feel it,” Franklin said.
“Can you walk, little buddy?” Fernandez asked him.
“Can an eagle fly? Let’s get moving.”
“Better have a shot of morphine, sailor,” Sergeant Menuhin said. “That leg could go out on you at any time.”
“No way, Sarge. I’m fine. Lets chogie.”
The Israeli frowned. “Chogie?”
“Yeah, haul ass, get out of town, move it.”
Menuhin grinned. “Yeah, okay, we can always carry you if you pass out. Let’s chogie.”
Fifty dark yards farther along the fence, Canzoneri stopped the squad.
“Hey, I feel naked. We don’t know what’s out front. I’m moving out as a scout. That way we won’t all get clobbered if they’re waiting for us.”
The sergeant nodded, and Canzoneri jogged out thirty yards until he could just barely see the shapes behind him. “I’m at thirty, let’s move,” he said on the radio.
When they passed the headquarters building, they could see the fires still burning. A few men idled around. Nobody was trying to put out the fire.
“Fuckers planned everything but a fire department,” Franklin said.
Canzoneri found nothing to hinder their movement along the fence. Twenty minutes later they came to the cut-open place. He stopped the squad and watched the area for five minutes. Nothing, no trap waiting for them.
“Yeah, the hole in the fence looks like a virgin, but better spread out to twenty yards between you and then run like hell through it. I’m first. Hey, this scout shit is okay.”
Fifteen minutes later the seven men squeezed into the sedan they had left parked less than three hours before. It was just after 0315.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Franklin said. “I need a two-hour nap.” He frowned, then his face twisted and he groaned. “Damnit, Sarge, you still have that little shot of morphine? I think I need it now.”
18
Lieutenant Ed DeWitt, Lam, and Howard lay in the sand and rocks just inside the fence up a half mile from the headquarters building that Ed knew was a target. He worried a little about coming back this way past the HQ once it had been hit by a squad. He was with three Israelis. Corporal Zared led the team. He had briefed them in the car.
They were hitting the small ammo and explosives bunker that was at the north end of ca
mp where terrorists could stop by and pick up weapons, ammo, or explosives on their way to missions. It was restocked from the big ammo bunker that another squad would attack far to the south end of the camp.
“If we have time, we double back about a quarter mile and take out the small motor pool they have. Our reports show ten two-ton trucks for personnel, ten or twelve sedans, six jeeps, and four SUVs.”
DeWitt felt his palms get moist, the way they did sometimes just before a mission. It was a little strange taking orders from a corporal, but he was just another cog in the machine now, doing his job. Get it done and get away without losing a man. That was his purpose.
“We move in five minutes,” Corporal Zared said. “We hit the ammo at exactly 0100 to coordinate with the other strikes. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Lam said. “Will there be any C-4 in that bunker we can team up with on our bombs?”
“Let’s hope so. We’ll send two men in. It’s a relatively small bunker dug half underground with a concrete base and sides and three feet of dirt on top of the roof. It will be locked, but we’ll shoot the lock off. I have a forty-five automatic I brought along to do just that. Then we put two men inside; the rest of us are security. Lam, you and my man will go in and set the charges. Rig them with one-minute timers, but don’t start them until I give the word on your radios. Okay, time to move.
“The mound is that third blob to the left up there. I’ve been watching it and there aren’t any guards of any kind. I haven’t seen any interior guards anywhere in this camp. Sloppy, and a dangerous way for them to operate. Let’s go, now.”
They worked down the slight slope and into the main camp, past two small buildings and around a streetlight of sorts. Then they came to the ammo bunker. A shadow moved by the sunken door. Ed DeWitt pointed to it, and the Israeli took out a thin-bladed knife and worked up silently.
The guard sat on a chair that leaned back against the bunker door. He was sleeping. One slash with the sharp blade across the man’s throat, severing the left carotid artery and the jugular vein, and the terrorist guard slept forever. Ed dragged the guard to the back of the bunker. Corporal Zared fired twice at the heavy padlock on the door, and it jolted off into the dirt. One Israeli and Lam went inside with their two pounds of C-4 each. They used the radio two minutes later.
“We’ve got the charges set, the timers for thirty seconds, and we’re ready to rock and roll,” Lam said.
Howard, DeWitt, and Corporal Zared moved to one side of the door.
“Push in the timers and get out of there,” Zared said. He pointed in the back toward the brush along the border fence, and when the two came out of the bunker, all six men ran for the brush. They were halfway there when the charges went off. It didn’t blast the roof off the bunker, but smoke and debris gushed out the doorway and blew the door fifty feet across the compound. In one area the roof sagged; then the dirt began to sift into the bunker.
“No way we can look inside,” DeWitt said.
He had just said it when they heard an explosion, a roaring crackling sound far to the south.
“Must be this one’s big brother down at the main ammo dump,” Zared said. “They lit off a big one.”
“Let’s find the motor pool,” DeWitt said. “Which direction?”
It was about a quarter of a mile back the way they had come. On the way they heard rifle fire and what Lam was sure were the twenties sounding off.
“Our buddies are busy too,” Lam said.
It took them five minutes to find the motor pool. Most of the trucks and cars and SUVs were parked outside. They broke their quarter-pound C-5 bars into three pieces and took off gas- and diesel-fuel tank covers. They pressed the C-4 halfway into the filler tank tube and when half of all the rigs were ready, they set the timers for thirty seconds; then the six men pushed down the fourteen timer devices on the detonators and ran for the fence.
The first C-4 went off in a six-by-six truck’s filler tube and blasted the burning gasoline over four other trucks, which caught fire at once. Then the rest of the charges went off in random order, demolishing the rigs bombed and spreading burning fuel on those cars and trucks without any charges on them.
The squad stopped and looked back at the devastation. Every vehicle in the small compound burned fiercely. The motor pool building itself caught fire and began to burn furiously. Barrels of gasoline and diesel heated up inside and exploded, showering parts of the building a hundred feet away; some of the boards were still burning when they landed.
They saw several men rushing around the area where the trucks burned, but it was far too late to salvage anything, even a spare tire.
“You jokers won’t be driving anywhere for some time,” Lam said. The rest of the team nodded, then moved forward toward the fence.
They had run past two small buildings and across a street when a jeep skidded around a building and the headlights bore straight down on them. They didn’t have a chance to move before a machine gun stuttered out three five-round bursts. One of the Israelis went down.
The five other men left jerked up their weapons and zeroed in on the headlights, blasted them out, and riddled the vehicle before it came within thirty yards of them. It veered off to the side and rammed into a building. The squad blasted the wreck with a hundred more rounds.
Corporal Zared knelt in the dirt beside the road. He touched the throat of his buddy. His face took on a sharp expression and he slung his rifle over his back, then picked up the Israeli Mistaravim and walked with the others toward the fence.
The squad took turns carrying the dead man. He had two machine-gun rounds in his chest, one through his heart. He had died instantly.
They used a fireman’s carry, with the body over one shoulder, holding onto arms on one side, the legs on the other.
DeWitt tried to talk to Corporal Zared, but the Israeli waved him off. They met no resistance as they moved along the fence to the spot where they had cut the hole. Their car was in the same place and had not been tampered with.
The third Israeli, Eleazar, drove. It was the longest drive that Lieutenant Ed DeWitt could remember. Nobody said a word. Ten miles from the Army base at Ramallah, they saw a Palestinian Authority police checkpoint ahead. There was no chance to go around it. Eleazar said he could talk them into letting them through without an inspection.
“Everyone just stay calm,” Eleazar said. “It’s late and these cops are tired. Let me handle it.”
There were only two Palestinians on duty when the car came to a stop as the Police Authority man held out his hand. He came up to the window and spoke in Arabic. He carried a submachine gun.
Eleazar, in the driver’s seat, answered him in Arabic. He said they were part of a soccer team returning to Ramallah after a hard game way up north.
The guard was skeptical, and ordered the driver out of the car. He looked at him and patted him down. He found no weapon.
“One of our players took sick. I’d appreciate getting him on to the hospital in Ramallah.”
The Palestinian policeman shook his head. “I want all of you to get out of the car. Right now.”
Corporal Zared had been listening closely. When the policeman ordered them out of the car, he leaned out the window and shot the cop twice in the chest with a pistol, then pushed across the car and fired twice, hitting the second policeman in the chest.
Eleazar jumped back in the sedan, slammed the door, and drove forward with tires squealing on the blacktopped road. Eleazar was grim-faced as they rocketed down the road. He pushed the old sedan as fast as it would go.
Corporal Zared reloaded the magazine in his pistol so it was full, and pushed it back in place.
“It was the only thing to do,” he said to the group. “In another two or three minutes he would have seen our dead body and we’d have been in big trouble. Forget it. We’ll be back in the Rama Army Base before anyone even finds those two.”
“Let’s hope that you’re right, Corporal,” DeWitt said.
“Could be trouble,” Eleazar said. “Everybody lock and load. If we have to shoot it out we should far outgun this police car squad.”
The flashing light came closer. Then it loomed right in front of them and rushed past. It was an ambulance.
“Might be going to tend to those cops,” Lam said.
“At least they weren’t looking for us,” the driver said. “We’ll be at the Army gate in five minutes.”
At the gate of the Army base tight security was in effect. All five of the men had to get out of the car and be inspected. The guard stared at the dead man and then let them pass.
Colonel Ben-Ami was there to meet them. He ushered the three SEALs to a temporary barracks.
“You’ll be housed here until tomorrow night, when you will be driven back to Tel Aviv. Your car is the last one to return. I’m sorry about the one man we lost. One dead and three wounded. Good, but we don’t like to lose any on a mission like this. From my reports so far, all twelve of the strikes went well and we enjoyed outstanding success. We’ll get our reports from our man inside the complex later today.”
Murdock welcomed his three SEALs at the door, checked for wounds, and pointed at bunks.
“You’re the last ones back, glad to see you. No injuries, that’s good. We only had one so far, a bullet hole in Franklin’s leg. He’s over at the base hospital getting treated. Lam, how is that leg of yours holding up?”
“Stings a little bit, but it never was that bad. I’m fit for duty.”
“Good. We made it through this one in good shape. Let’s get some sack time and see what we do tomorrow.”
Just before Murdock dropped on his bunk, Colonel Ben-Ami came in. Nobody shouted, “Attention.” He looked like he expected it. He saw Murdock and went over by his bunk.
“We’ve changed some plans. We have our force in place here at Rama. No sense in going back to Tel Aviv. We have some small one-squad projects here in the West Bank that need taken care of. We’ll have a planning session in the morning. No, make that about 1300, Commander.”
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