One of the communicators suddenly shot forward in his chair. "Message just came in," he announced excitedly.
They all practically climbed over each other to reach the terminal and read Murdock's message off the display.
"... They did it!" Paul Kohler whooped, sounding very much like Razor Roselli.
Miguel Fernandez, whom the platoon called Rattler in honor of his favorite cuisine during desert operations, stared at the screen and wondered which one of his friends was dead.
Don Stroh had a handset up to his mouth, and was passing the news over a satellite link to the operations center at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The major was on an internal ship's phone giving the word to his pilots waiting in the ready room.
Stroh put down the handset and picked up another one that connected to the ship's Combat Operations Center. "Is it still there?" he asked. "Okay, thanks." He hung the phone up. "We've got a real problem." He turned to the communicator. "I want you to send, 'WAIT ONE STOP STAND BY FOR MESSAGE END,'" he ordered.
"Aye, aye, sir," the sailor replied.
A Russian Sovremenny-class destroyer had shown up in the area about a half hour before, attracted to the Washington and trying to discover what she was doing. Intelligence photographers shooting through night-vision equipment had been lined up on her rails the whole time. The Russians had been going through one of their we're-a-great-power hypernationalistic phases lately, and had been causing more mischief than they had in years.
The presence of the destroyer meant the Washington couldn't launch the helicopters without permission.
"If only we'd gotten that message an hour ago," the major lamented.
"The COC says we can lose her," said Stroh. "But the Navy can't do that, get back into helicopter range, and go to flight quarters all before daylight."
"Then we have to launch anyway," said the major. "Screw the Russians."
Fernandez was glad the major had said that because otherwise he would have had to. And one of the facts of life was that majors got more favorable hearing than first-class petty officers.
"We can't do that without permission from Langley," said Kohler.
"Well, fucking get it then," Fernandez blurted out. Heads turned and all eyes fell on him, and he added rather lamely, "Sir."
Well used to SEALS, Don Stroh only chuckled. "I'm going to do just that, Miguel."
The communicator handed him the handset to Langley, and he explained the situation in detail. After Stroh finished he listened for quite a while. His face darkness. "I'd like to point out, sir," he said, "that if any SEALs are captured, the mission will be even more compromised than it would be by the sighting of a few helicopters. Any number of cover stories could explain that away."
Fernandez's stomach turned to ice.
Stroh listened some more. "Yes, sir, their equipment is sterile, but that won't matter if the Syrians get a chance to go to work on them." More listening. "Yes, sir, we will stand by, but allow me to remind you that our launch window is closing rapidly. Yes, sir." He gave the handset back to the communicator. "They're going to get back to us."
"The fuck!" Fernandez said fiercely. "The dirty work is done, so now no one gives a shit anymore."
One of the Navy intelligence officers seemed on the verge of having words with Fernandez, then perhaps thought better of it.
"I can launch at any time," the major said. "I'm willing to launch right now," he added pointedly.
Don Stroh just shrugged helplessly and shook his head.
The minutes ticked off. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. The tension in the room was unbearable.
"Sir," the communicator said, giving the handset over to Stroh.
"Yes, sir," Stroh said into the handset. There was conversation on the other end, and Stroh finally broke in to protest, "Yes, sir, but we have no idea what the situation on the ground is right now ... sir, I don't care where the order came from, this is murder. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I understand perfectly." Stroh gave the handset back to the communicator. "We don't launch while the Russian ship is here," he told them. "So that means the earliest we can launch is after dusk. Tonight."
"They got to sit out there all day?" Fernandez shouted.
"Well, screw that," said the major. "I'm launching right now. I'll take the responsibility."
Fernandez could have French-kissed him--and an officer at that.
Another phone rang, and it was handed over to Don Stroh. "Yes? Yes, Captain? You did? Very well, thank you." He hung up. "The Captain just got a flash message from Washington. No Army helicopters will be launched until End of Evening Nautical Twilight. Tonight."
"Those bastards don't miss a trick, do they?" Fernandez asked bitterly. If they had turned the major down he'd been considering pulling his pistol and making some demands. Now even that wouldn't work. "I'll tell you something. You all better make out your wills, 'cause you do this to Razor Roselli and I wouldn't put odds on your life expectancy once he gets back."
"I'd be glad to have Razor take a shot at me, as long as we get him back," said Stroh. He sounded completely worn out. "Be that as it may, now we have to sit down and put together a message to the SEALS."
25
Saturday, November 11
0535 hours North central Lebanon
The light on the keypad blinked. Murdock and Razor were both huddled over the tiny display.
"What the fuck took them so long?" Razor whispered in Murdock's ear. "They bring in Shakespeare to compose the fucking message?"
Murdock reached over and hit the button to review the message.
They watched eagerly as it ran across the narrow strip window of the display
UNABLE TO LAUNCH AIRCRAFT STOP CANNOT LAUNCH IN DAYLIGHT STOP REMAIN HIDDEN OR ESCAPE AND EVADE AT YOUR DISCRETION STOP WILL LAUNCH ON ORDER ANY TIME AFTER EENT 11 NOV STOP SORRY STOP ORDERS STOP GOOD LUCK END
Razor couldn't believe it, and reviewed the message again.
Murdock felt like he'd been kicked in the balls.
Razor took a moment to regain his composure, then whispered, "Well, this has to be the best fucking I've ever taken, bar none."
"I think I'm finally starting to get a handle on the drawbacks to working for the CIA," Murdock whispered back to him.
"Fuck 'em," Razor whispered. "We'll get our own selves out."
"Acknowledge the transmission," Murdock told Higgins. "And don't tell them to go fuck themselves."
"Roger that, sir," the Professor replied. "I'll keep it professional."
With that, as might be expected sitting in the Lebanese woods with dawn approaching, it was back to business.
Murdock crawled to each man and gave him a whispered briefing. They were SEALS, so no one went hysterical. At first some of them thought Murdock was playing a really bad joke. Then there were a few whispered oaths, followed by a general shrugging of shoulders, as if all that could be expected from the powers that be was a good hard shot up the ass anyway. The SEALs knew what kind of situation they were in but, since they were SEALS, it was the kind of situation they expected to find themselves in.
Murdock briefed them because they needed, deserved to know. And because, as usual, they picked his morale right back up. Jaybird Sterling wanted to know if it meant an extra day of combat pay. Murdock said only if it went past midnight the next day. Jaybird then asked if the lieutenant would take that into consideration in his planning, since he was thinking of buying a motorcycle.
Then Murdock, Razor, and DeWitt pulled a poncho over their heads, turned on a flashlight, and broke out their maps for an impromptu conference.
"Let's get the hard stuff out of the way first," said Razor. "We have to leave Kos here."
Murdock started. He knew it would eventually come down to that, but it would have taken him a while to bring the subject up.
"He's too big," said Razor, "and we've got too many people hurt and sick to carry him, move fast, and still keep good security. If he was alive we'd take him, no matter wha
t. But you don't die for the dead. Kos would understand." He paused again. "I'll handle the boys."
"All right," said Murdock. The fact that you got paid to make the tough decisions didn't make them any easier.
DeWitt closed his eyes and nodded.
"Okay," said Razor. "Now, which way do we go? Right now we got our backs up against the mountain range to our west. Not a damn piece of cover on the whole mountain range. We're coming from the east, the bad guys are following us from that direction. So east is out. I guess we can go either north or south."
"South is Israel," said DeWitt.
"It's not the U.S.-Canada border," Razor said dubiously. "There's mine-fields, fences, and a shitload of people with guns. Just to get to their security zone in south Lebanon we'd have to go through a lot of Hezbollah country. Plus it's a long goddamned walk."
"Let's not get off the track here," said Murdock. "We just have to hide out for twelve hours or so."
"So they say," Razor retorted.
"Looking on the bright side," said DeWitt, "the Syrians are going to think that anyone slick enough to pull off what we did would be long gone by now."
"If we were Israelis, we would be," said Razor. "Good thing they don't know what a stupid bunch of dicks we really are."
"A few klicks south the forest disappears and we're back in open country," said Murdock. "I vote we head north, stay in the woods. And we get moving right now, make as much distance as we can before daylight."
"This is a vote?" Razor inquired.
"It's a vote," Murdock confirmed.
"Then I vote we go north."
"Don't look at me to disagree," said DeWitt, grinning in the red glow of the flashlight. "I'm just the j.g."
"We love you all the same, sir," said Razor, trying to lighten the mood like a good chief.
26
Saturday, November 11
0520 hours North central Lebanon
The SEALs found a small depression in the ground and scraped out a shallow hole with their knives, piling the dirt onto a poncho. They laid Chief Boatswain's Mate Benjamin "Kos" Kosciuszko into the hole, covering him with earth, then pine needles and branches. They sprinkled CS crystals around to keep the animals off. The rest of the dirt was carried away and scattered.
Murdock took several GPS readings at the grave site, and everyone recorded the coordinates on their maps in case there was ever an opportunity to recover the body.
In the meantime, another SEAL family would be told that there had been a diving accident and the body lost at sea. An empty casket would be buried with full military honors.
They left him and patrolled away. That was the way it was.
No beating of breasts, no inability to function. The SEALs just got a little tighter, a little colder. Kos Kosciuszko would be mourned when it was all over. Violent death was not an unanticipated event among SEALS. A great many earmarked money in their wills for a final party that they would not attend.
They headed northeast. Although still within the cover of the woods, this meant they had to cross numerous ridgelines that steadily increased in elevation. These all ran east-west, and the constant up-and-down climbing was both exhausting and time-consuming. It was known as going cross-compartment. Murdock wanted to spend as little time in the ridge valleys as possible. The low areas were where people walked, and eventually trampled paths. And the SEALs wouldn't walk anywhere they expected to meet anyone else. The same was true for the tops of hills or ridgelines. Whenever you passed over them you were completely exposed. It was better to walk halfway up and then traverse around, no matter how long that took.
Running parallel to the ridgelines were a whole series of dirt roads that connected the mountain and highland villages to the Bekaa Valley highway. One of them was the cross-mountain paved road they had originally taken such pains to avoid.
Crossing that road was a particular problem. It forked into two separate directions, and crossing the nearest and most heavily wooded portion would require crossing both forks, which was tactically unwise. The SEALs had to patrol far out of their way to find a section where there wasn't too much open area on both sides of the road. Another consideration was that the crossing site couldn't be within view of anyone driving further up or down the road. This usually meant crossing at a curve or bend.
Jaybird found the right spot just as the first halo of dawn began to light up the horizon. The SEALs followed their danger-area SOP. Great care was necessary because it was exactly the sort of place they would pick to set up an ambush. As they approached, Murdock designated near- and far-side rally points where the unit would re-gather if split up in either the crossing or a firefight.
Higgins and Doc secured the right and left flanks of the crossing point. Jaybird sprinted across first, followed by Murdock to secure the far side.
DeWitt had just bolted from the tree line when a glow came through the trees and headlights began to emerge from around the bend. DeWitt dropped flat. Murdock cursed. If anything happened now he was separated from the bulk of his men by the open road.
The lights flashed past and headed down the road. DeWitt got up and scrambled across. Murdock gave silent thanks for Lebanese drivers. They went so fast they'd miss an elephant grazing by the side of the road. DeWitt slid into the trees and found Murdock.
"How's your arm?" Murdock whispered, worried that DeWitt had damaged it even more when he'd hit the deck.
"Hurts," DeWitt replied bluntly.
Ask a stupid question, thought Murdock. When Doc came across, he sent him over to DeWitt.
Doc checked him out and came back over to report. "He landed right on the arm, but the fracture still didn't go compound. I gave him another shot. Don't know how he kept from yelling when he hit the ground. Tough little bastard." Having dispensed his highest praise, Doc slipped back into formation.
No more cars showed up, and the rest of the SEALs crossed without any difficulty. They pushed on. It was getting alarmingly bright. Murdock called a halt for another conference.
"If we stop here," he said, "we're right in the middle of a box of roads, with another road cutting across the box. I don't like it, but to get out of the box we've got to patrol in daylight and cross another dirt road."
"The roads all form boxes," Razor replied. "One after the other." He pointed to the map. "But the box after the next, a little over ten klicks away, is a hell of a lot bigger. The ground is higher, and at least there aren't any villages nearby if we keep going."
"So what you're trying to say is that you want to go?" Murdock asked.
Razor nodded.
"Staying here doesn't feel right," said DeWitt.
"Okay," said Murdock. "Then we go nice and easy. I want to take two hours to move the ten klicks. If we take three, I won't be pissed. Right?" he asked Jaybird, who had been brought into the circle.
"You got it, sir."
Murdock pointed his pencil at a spot on the map. "I want to establish a patrol base near this high ground, and an observation post on the high ground. Any problems with that?"
There were none. In a perfect world Murdock would have preferred to establish the patrol base while it was still dark. It was a shame the world wasn't perfect.
Jaybird set a careful pace. Take a step, carefully scan your assigned sector of observation, then take another step. The SEALs were spread so far apart that it would take an ambush the size of two full platoons, around sixty men, to catch them all in a single killing zone. They refilled their canteens in a stream and crossed another dirt road. As Razor had said, at least it was a bigger box, about six miles east-west by three miles north-south. Five ridges ran east to west across it. It took a little time to find the right spot for a patrol base, a secure area where they could hide out. The rules were that a patrol base had to have good cover and concealment and be away from human habitation. It ought not to be ground that a military unit could easily move through, or would even choose to move through. All roads, trails, or natural lines of movement had to be
avoided. They found it in a large thicket of brush and brambles in low ground that probably held water during the spring rains. The SEALs didn't head right in, instead patrolling past the thicket. Then they circled back onto their own trail and set up an ambush to snare anyone who might be following them.
They sat motionless for an hour and a half. No one showed up.
Doc Ellsworth went into the thicket first, on his hands and knees. He didn't trample and break down the bushes, instead parting the branches and working his way through carefully. The rest of the SEALs followed, in his exact path. Razor Roselli went in last, smoothing out the marks in the earth and bending the branches back into place. When he finished there was no trail, and no open spots in the thicket. Anyone following would have to pass along the original trail that led past the thicket, thereby alerting them.
Murdock and Jaybird had remained outside. By necessity, the patrol base had to be located in an area where visibility was restricted. Murdock intended to find an observation point where he could get a good look at what was happening in the surrounding countryside.
There was a dominating hill nearby, within MX-300 walkie-talkie range. And if by some chance they couldn't return to the others, Jaybird was carrying the second, backup PRC-117.
When the two of them reached the hill, Murdock carefully circled around the entire base, looking for trails or any sign of human presence. They found none, so they worked their way up.
They avoided the top. While observation might be best there, it would be equally easy for someone else to observe them. It had to be a place they could move out from under cover if they detected the enemy observing them.
They found an out-thrust corner of the hill that afforded a good view in three directions. Murdock removed his MSG-90 sniper rifle from the drag bag and set the rifle up on its bipod legs. The Hensoldt 10-power telescopic sight would be his observation device. Jaybird cut some brush to camouflage their position.
Seal Team Seven 04 - Direct Action Page 14