Counterfire sts-16

by Keith Douglass

  “One truck up and running,” Lam said. “Moving it back to the road.”

  The SEALs gathered around the truck as it rolled over the sand and onto the blacktop. In back they found three unfired RPGs, lots of blood, and two MREs. In the cab, Murdock found an Israeli long-range radio exactly like the one he and Eb carried. He grunted and went to see the Israeli.

  “Ebenezer, are there any roads to the east across the Judean hills?” Murdock asked as he looked back at the still-blazing wreckage of the chopper and the funeral pyre for its three men.

  “No roads up this high. We’re back in Israeli-controlled land, and we can drop south on this road for fifteen more miles to the town of Newe Zohar. Then we can drive east.”

  “First we should see if we can talk with anyone back at Rama. Do they monitor this frequency back there?”

  “They should know that they have a chopper out,” Ebenezer said. He made the call, but had no response. “When the chopper is overdue on its run back to the base, they may start getting curious and monitor this frequency,” Eb explained. “We’ll try again in two hours.”

  “We’re back in Israeli territory, right?” Murdock asked. Eb nodded. “So we should have no trouble driving to where we can call in a new chopper.”

  “Depending on the fuel situation,” Eb said. “This is a gasoline-powered truck. Petrol isn’t always easy to find down here, and where it is available, it can cost dearly. Do any of you have any cash we can spend on gas?”

  “Weren’t issued any money,” Murdock said. He looked at Lam behind the wheel. “How much gas in the tank?”

  “Looks about half full.”

  “Siphon all the gas out of the sedan. We can all fit on the stake. Let’s get ready to roll. Use the tubes we have over our backs to hold the weapons for the siphon. Go.”

  It was twenty minutes before they started moving. Bradford was lucid and seemed to be hurting less. He sat against the cab of the truck in back and sang a little song he hadn’t thought of in ten years.

  Three rode in the cab and seventeen in back. It was a full load. Lam drove, and they rolled down the highway at forty miles an hour. They pulled into the small village of Newe Zohar just as it was getting daylight. Ebenezer had an idea. He had Lam drive around until they found the police station. One Israeli cop on duty quickly called his superior, who came in ten minutes later.

  Lieutenant Ebenezer showed the man some documents, and the chief of police kept nodding. Ten minutes later their truck’s tank was filled with gasoline from the police pump and they had two ten-gallon cans full in the back.

  “Now maybe we can get somewhere,” Ebenezer said. He tried the radio again, but had no luck getting a response.

  Eb rode in the cab with Murdock and Lam. “Our only worry now are Arab marauders. They roam over the underpopulated hills and sometimes hit small towns. They are well armed and take what they want. Usually they drive old military jeeps, decked out with ten-gallon cans of gasoline. We watch for them and when they see our guns, they will race away as fast as they can.”

  Before they left town, Eb had Lam stop in front of a small store. He came out with four large sacks filled with pastries, fruit, and sandwiches. He passed them out to the men and then they began their eastward journey. “I always carry money with me just in case of an emergency like this,” he told them.

  Lam looked at the map the Israeli showed him as Eb said, “First we go south on this same highway for ten miles; then we make a right turn into the only road. I’m not sure if there are any more settlements or villages out here or not. I’ve never been in this part of Israel. It’s all controlled by us, so no worry there. From the map it looks like about forty miles as the crow flies, or maybe fifty-five or so on the road. We’re heading for the good-sized town of Be’er Sheva.” As Lam drove, Lieutenant Ebenezer tried to call on the long-range radio. He made the call ten times, but heard no response.

  25

  They drove for two hours east through the dry semi-desert of the southern Israeli countryside. The road followed a wadi that would have quite a bit of water in it during the rainy season. It must have rained a few days before because Murdock saw occasional places with running water in the wadi, and more with water holes. They turned sharply south with the gully, and then later were about to turn back to the north, still following the dry riverbed, when they heard gunshots and bullets zinged over the top of their truck. Ahead, a jeep with three ten-gallon gas cans showing to the front careened around a sharp corner and slid to a stop thirty yards directly in front of them.

  Luke Howard, who had been standing in the truck bed watching over the cab, had his weapon trained on the front and he hit the trigger, spewing twelve rounds across the suddenly defensive jeep riders. The driver tried to reverse his gears, but by then three more SEALs had their weapons out firing. Both jeep front tires blew; then the folded-up windshield shattered into a hundred pieces, and four men riding in the jeep jumped off the rig and stormed into the sparse brush next to the watercourse.

  Lam pulled the truck closer to the jeep.

  “Keep firing at the bastards?” Senior Chief Sadler barked.

  “Run them into the desert but don’t hit them,” Murdock said. “Let’s see what they have on the jeep.”

  The SEALs found a box of food, two weapons, and six blankets. A few shots came from the thin brush, but a heavy volley of rounds from the SEALs drove the attackers back into the sharp sides of the wadi and out of sight.

  “Grab those two cans of gas if they’re full,” Murdock said. “Slosh the rest of the last one on the vehicle and we’ll see if we can set it on fire with some lucky-placed rounds.”

  The gasoline soaked the rig, and then the truck pushed the jeep off the road and they went by it fifty feet. It took only four rounds from the MP-5’s to touch a spark that exploded the vaporizing gasoline into one huge fireball.

  Jefferson watched the rig burn as they pulled away. “Those boys should know never to play with guns unless you’re gonna win.”

  When they came out of the last big turn following the wadi, they were on a small rise, the largest one they had seen. The Judean hill had petered out from the north. Eb decided to try the radio again.

  “High Bird, this is Grounded calling. High Bird, this is Grounded.” Lieutenant Ebenezer bit his lip and looked north as if he could will someone to answer. He made the call again, and on this try repeated it three times.

  A weak signal came through. “Calling Grounded. We have no record of a High Bird call. Are you using this frequency without authorization?”

  “No, we’re authorized out of Rama. Who is this?”

  “This is Tel Aviv Air. What is your clearance? Why are you calling Rama?”

  “Tel Aviv, we were on a trip into the West Bank. A helicopter from Rama took us in, and was coming back to get us when it was blown out of the sky. We have had no contact with Rama since that time about eight hours ago. Rama has one helicopter missing. We’re looking for a ride out of here. We’re coming up on Be’er Sheva. Can you get us transport? You should talk to Colonel Ben-Ami at Rama.”

  “Will do that, Grounded. Stand by.”

  Nothing came over the speaker. “He must be on a different frequency to get to Rama,” Ebenezer said. “At last we have some contact.”

  Less than three minutes later the long-range radio chirped.

  “Grounded, this is Ben-Ami at Rama. We lost the chopper?”

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Ebenezer here. It was shot down by PA gunners with RPGs just before it landed. No survivors. I’m sorry. The Authority men were out of their area; they shouldn’t even have been near there.”

  “Your mission?”

  “Mission accomplished, sir, down and out.”

  “Thank you.” There was some dead air time.

  “Grounded, you have transport to Be’er Sheva?”

  “Yes, sir, a truck we borrowed from the PA.”

  “Your ETA?”

  “Two hours max. One of our guests is w
ounded, rather seriously. We should get him to a hospital in town there.”

  “Yes, get him situated. An ambulance will be waiting for him. Then the rest of you come back here. We’ll have a good after-action debriefing. Go to the airport’s transient air section. An Army chopper will be there, probably about the same time you arrive. Good work, Ebenezer. We’ll see you later.”

  “Thank you, sir. Out.”

  “Who the hell is your guest?” Bradford yelped. “Hell, if that’s me you’re jawing about, I’m fit and ugly and ready for action.”

  “I agree you’re damn ugly, but that’s not enough,” Jaybird shrilled. Most of the troops laughed.

  Murdock relaxed in the front seat. Should be nothing to worry about now unless these armed jeep raiders traveled in pairs like rattlesnakes and had radio communication.

  “You didn’t tell him about your Mossad team and it grabbing that turncoat,” Murdock said.

  “Not the sort of thing I’d say over a non-secure radio transmission,” Lieutenant Ebenezer said. He grinned. “But it’s going to be worth a month’s pay to see these four gents walk into his office with that briefcase.”

  Murdock tried to relax. He wasn’t sure it was over yet. Those marauders could still hit them hard.

  “I want two men on lookout standing up by the cab,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “Ed, pick them.”

  Even with that precaution taken he wasn’t satisfied. He knew he wouldn’t be until they were on board that plane heading for Rama.

  The land was looking more productive. Here and there they saw settlements that led into green swatches that could be some kind of cultivation. Maybe irrigated.

  By the time they came into the suburbs, Murdock realized that this must be a good-sized little city. Ebenezer told him there were over two hundred thousand residents in the town. They found the airport, and were directed to the military and transient section. An ambulance sat near a CH-46 look-alike chopper.

  A darkly efficient nurse approached the truck as soon as it stopped.

  “You have a patient for us,” she said.

  “Right back here, miss,” Jaybird called, and they walked Bradford to the rear of the truck, removed one of the stake end gates, and helped him get down to the ground. He was put in a wheelchair, wheeled promptly into an ambulance with a ramp on it, and driven away at once. Murdock had time only for a quick talk with the efficient nurse. She said she would contact Colonel Ben-Ami about the patient’s condition.

  Only then did Murdock notice the captain’s bars on her collar.

  An hour later they were in Rama, had dumped their goods, and presented themselves to a half-dozen officers in Colonel Ben-Ami’s special office.

  Lieutenant Ebenezer took the lead.

  “Colonel, before we get to the palace mission, I’d like to introduce you to these four gentlemen who return from En Gedi after some serious problems. We had reported three of them dead.”

  The men were greeted with shouts of joy and pleasure. One man rushed out to call Mossad in Tel Aviv and report the rescue.

  The rest of the debriefing went quickly. They swore that The Knife was dead and that his support group there in En Gedi had been seriously depleted.

  Lieutenant Ebenezer recommended that a permanent police presence be sent into En Gedi to maintain it as Israeli territory and to counter the strong point that the PA had just three miles away in the West Bank zone.

  It was another hour before the SEALs made it back to their quarters, where Murdock enjoyed a long hot shower, a large dinner, and then a long nap. The other SEALs were fed at a special mess, and most dropped into bunks long before the next meal call.

  Murdock slept until midnight, then got up, went to the soft-drink machine, and took out a Coke. He drank it, thinking about the last operation. It had worked, but it could have been better. There was no way they could know that those damn Palestine Authority men would have the Israeli radio. He finished the drink, and went back to bed. No telling what might happen the next morning.

  * * *

  Daylight came, and with it an order for Murdock and his planning team to be in the conference room they had used before. They were there: Ed, Jaybird, Sadler, and Lam. Murdock saw that the only other unit represented was the SAS underwater men.

  Colonel Ben-Ami stood at the lectern at the front of the room. “Gentlemen, this may seem like a strange little task. Like a flotsam-and-jetsam child’s story. I assure you it is not. During the past year there have been twenty-four adult deaths, fifteen children killed, and over sixty adults and children seriously injured. All because they picked up attractive items that had floated up on the beach or were found in the water.

  “This problem is no accident, or series of accidents. The items are highly sophisticated and attractive death traps. We know that they are released in a pattern sequence by ships along the shore with the timing so the items wash ashore on the incoming tide. We have tried everything to stop them: intense patrols just off the surf line, surveillance of casual boats just at the incoming tide time of day, a follow-up on the makers of the items.

  “The makers are in Hong Kong, North Korea, and the Philippines. We have no recourse there. The items are planted, or floated, by members of the PLO and we have a few names, but we need much, much more. It is summer here in Israel, and we will have record numbers of our residents escaping to the beach to lie in the sand and enjoy the water. We also will have a record number of deaths and tragedies, if we can’t stop the booby traps.”

  “How long has this been going on?” Murdock asked.

  “Almost a year. They come in batches and bundles. Not on every tide. Not every week. Sometimes a month between incidents. Then they might hit every day for a week. It’s infuriating and frustrating. Local police have about given up.”

  “Have you tried the military mine-flogging machine?” Ed DeWitt asked.

  The colonel frowned.

  “It’s a device that swings cables with weights on them in a pattern across a six- or eight-foot strip of land,” Murdock said. “It pulverizes the land and explodes over ninety percent of planted mines. Should work well on these devices.”

  “But it would be too slow and too expensive,” the colonel said. “Any other ideas?”

  “What sets them off?” Jaybird asked.

  “Body heat. When one is picked up and held, it takes about ten seconds of body heat from a finger or two to explode the device. They can lay in the sun for two hours at a hundred degrees and not go off.”

  “The best solution is to go after the ones who plant the devices,” Murdock said. “You undoubtedly tried that. What results did you get?”

  “Two blank walls. Both ended with the fishing boats that were used to scatter the items. Both boats were owned by a large Israeli fishing company. The officials and the boat captains and crew had no clue about the explosives.”

  “That still has to be the way to go,” Murdock said. “Let us shadow one or two of these boats from the water. They won’t see us, but we’ll know every move they make. We’ll have more people on the dock and on shore and in cars. We’ll grab every person who even touches the boat before it goes out and after it comes back. There have to be some leads to the supply point where the explosives are smuggled on board the ship. It could be a supplier taking in lunches for the fishermen. It might be the iceman or the mechanic who works on the boat. It has to be somebody there somewhere. And we’ll find him. If nothing else works, we’ll put men on board suspect boats as deckhands.”

  “Sounds good to us here at SAS,” one of their officers said. “We’ll be glad to share the water work. Maybe split up a half-dozen boats that could be dumping. Do they go into deep water to fish, or do they sometimes work along parallel to the shore?”

  “Boats do both in almost every fishing village along the coast,” the colonel said. “They want to get to the fishing grounds as quickly as possible.”

  The colonel pondered the situation for a moment. “All right, we’ll all move back
to Tel Aviv. A flight will take off from here at fourteen hundred. We’ll all be on it. You’re dismissed.”

  On the way back to their quarters, the SEALs talked about the problem. “Work it over,” Murdock said. “We’ve got to find out how they get the goods on board the fishing boats and which one man on the boat drops the packages over the side. It could be that the boat owner knows nothing about the dirty tricks.”

  26

  Barak Air Force Field

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  Third Platoon settled into its quarters on the air base. They were Israeli spartan with double-deck bunks, a small dayroom, and a meeting room next door. With the delays getting off the ground at Rama and a mix-up in transport to their quarters, it was after 1800 before they were in their new digs. Chow followed quickly, and then they grouped around Murdock in the dayroom trying to get a handle on their new assignment.

  “No way the fishing boat’s captain doesn’t know about the booby traps, if one of them is floating them into the beach,” Donegan said. “Those are little boats, maybe twenty-four to thirty feet, and with only three men on board. How could one man hide that?”

  “Easy,” Jaybird said. “Three men on board. The owner or captain handles the boat at sea and drives to the fishing grounds. The two deckhands are sleeping if it’s anything like a boat I worked on one summer out of San Diego Bay.

  “When the one guy is supposed to be sleeping, he isn’t. He waits until the boat is along a popular beach and he drops a box overboard. Inside he’s set a timer to explode the box apart but not set off the booby traps. The box splits, the items float to the surface, and charge in with the tide. By that time the fishing boat is ten miles out in the Mediterranean.”