The BMP climbed steadily upward. Hot shit, Murdock thought.
33
Saturday, November 11
1550 hours North central Lebanese mountains
"Careful, Jaybird," Murdock cautioned over the BMP intercom. "We slip off this road and we'll all be playing harps." He chuckled to himself and keyed the microphone again. "And Razor'll be ramming his up your ass for the rest of eternity."
"I get the picture, sir," Jaybird replied over the system.
"Thanks."
The road zigzagged along the sides of the switchback ridges. Fortunately, the steep slope meant that Jaybird couldn't get the BMP much over twenty-five miles an hour. Murdock was glad that at least nature was able to exert some influence over Jaybird.
Murdock turned around in his hatch and looked out over the valley. Razor had been right. He could almost picture the Syrians down below beating the brush for them. At least the sun was starting to drop into the west. It felt like the longest day of the whole fucking year.
All the SEALs were hanging out of the troop compartment roof hatches. The BMP was not a large vehicle. It was designed to tightly accommodate eight small Russian infantrymen sitting four back-to-back in the troop compartment. To give an idea of the fit, the Russians were in the habit of donning their gas masks and sliding the hoses out the roof hatches in order to get some air. Staring at the steel wall while the BMP bounced up and down was almost guaranteed to induce vomiting.
Now the road was on a long, straight uphill run along the side of the mountain range. The right side of the road sat snug against the sheer side of the mountain. The left side was a long drop into the canyon below. Of course there were no guardrails. Just short of the top, the road made a hard right turn in the opposite direction, still heading up. That put the Mountainside on the left, the drop on the right. It would continue that way right over the top and down the other side of the mountain.
Jaybird made the turn very slowly, jiggling the right-track brake and left-track clutch on and off so the BMP turned a few degrees, stopped, turned a bit more, stopped, and then moved slowly forward. When the turn was accomplished, Murdock reached out and gave Jaybird a complimentary tap atop the helmet.
Then Murdock looked out and saw one of the Gazelle helicopters sweeping up the valley. It seemed the size of a golf ball in the distance. Then Murdock was looking down at fluttering rotor blades as the Gazelle rose toward the mountains, following the road.
The SEALs disappeared into the troop compartment, which was good because the group included a few fair-haired and fair-skinned types who weren't about to pass for Syrians.
Murdock picked up the microphone. "Jaybird, there's a helicopter coming up to take a look at us. Just be cool and keep driving at a steady pace, like we're going someplace we're supposed to."
"Roger that, sir."
The helicopter approached cautiously. Murdock could make out the sand, brown, and blue camouflage, and the red, white, and black Syrian bull's-eye rounders. He saw the clear bubble front, the skids, the protruding tailpipe, and the finned fan-rotor tail. Murdock took no comfort from the fact that the copter was an antitank variant, armed with six French HOT heavy wire-guided missiles with a four-thousand-meter range; three tubes mounted in-line on each side of the cabin.
Murdock gave a friendly wave. The Gazelle moved up even with the BMP, but far enough off to the side to keep the rotor blades away from the side of the mountain. Murdock could see both the pilot and copilot/gunner looking over at him.
Murdock stood up higher in the hatch and pointed to the BMP's whip radio aerial mounted on the roof of the vehicle at the left rear. Then he pointed to the earpiece on his crewman's helmet, shaking his head and stretching his arms out in a gesture of helplessness. As if the reason why he wasn't talking to them was that his radio was broken.
He could see the helicopter crew talking in their microphones.
It was a cold November day in the mountains, yet Murdock could feel the perspiration trickling down his back. Something tapped his right leg. He looked down, and Razor Roselli's face was looking up at him.
"Everyone's got their gear on," Razor shouted. "You want us to shoot the motherfucker down, just let me know."
Murdock was still smiling and waving at the helicopter. "No shooting," he said through his teeth. "Just stay ready and keep out of sight."
Razor gave him a reassuring tap on the leg and disappeared back into the compartment.
Murdock pretended to speak into his microphone, as if giving it another try, then pointed to it and shook his head sadly. He decided it was time to ignore the Gazelle, so he gave a final wave and shrug of the shoulders and turned back to his front.
After a very long minute the Gazelle began a slow, sweeping turn away from the mountain and back toward the valley. It grew smaller in the distance, but wasn't losing any altitude. Murdock noticed that the BMP had almost reached the top of the mountain range.
Then, off in the distance, the helicopter made another turn. It was in a stationary hover, and its nose was pointing directly at the BMP.
A small puff of gray smoke appeared in the sky beside the helicopter.
Murdock screamed into the microphone and the troop compartment at the same time. "Stop! Everybody out! Bail out, bail out, bail out!"
34
Saturday, November 11
1620 hours North central Lebanese mountains
With his drag bag in one hand and the AKM in the other, Murdock leaped from his seat right over the side of the BMP. He'd been counting in his head the whole time, and was up to thousand-six, thousand-seven.
He hit the ground and rolled to his feet. Thousand-nine, thousand-ten. Jaybird Sterling was in front of him, trying to get up off the ground. Murdock shifted his gear in his hands, grabbed Jaybird by the belt, and lifted him up bodily.
The SEALs in the back of the BMP didn't bother with the rear doors. They poured out the top hatches while the BMP was still rolling.
Razor Roselli actually saw the missile coming in at them. He grabbed Professor Higgins and threw him off the road. Higgins slid down the gravel slope face-first, with Razor and DeWitt close behind him.
Doc and Magic went out the other side of the BMP, which faced the side of the mountain. There was nothing they could do but run down the road.
Now Murdock and Jaybird were running up it.
Thousand-thirteen, thousand-fourteen. The explosion picked them up and threw them face down onto the road.
The Gazelle's pilot had been careful to pull back out of cannon and machine-gun range before he allowed the gunner to launch the HOT missile. HOT time of flight to three thousand meters was thirteen seconds. To four thousand meters max range, it was 17.3 seconds.
When armor-piercing shape-charge warheads are tested, they leave holes in steel over a yard deep but less than an inch in diameter. Very much like a stream of water coming out of a hose and boring a hole in mud. But when a fast-moving missile with a shape-charge warhead hits steel, the dynamic impact effect is quite different.
The HOT hit with a blinding flash and blew a hole in the top of the BMP large enough for a man to climb through. The shape charge jet went all the way through the vehicle and out the floor. The forty rounds of 73mm cannon ammunition, two thousand rounds of machine-gun ammunition, and four Sagger missile reloads chain-detonated in rapid succession. White-hot flame blasted out all the hatch openings. The diesel fuel ignited in a fireball.
Murdock rolled in the dirt in case he was on fire. This time Jaybird dragged him to his feet, and they were running again. After a thirty-yard sprint up the road, they were able to get off it and into a wall of boulders that spread up into the mountaintop. After a short climb, they threw their weapons over the top of a boulder and scrambled over themselves. They landed in a sizable crevice in the rocks.
Explosions blow up and out, so Razor, DeWitt, and Higgins had been spared the force of the blast. But now flaming metal and debris was raining down all around them.
&
nbsp; "Across the slope," Razor shouted. "We gotta get up the road. Cut across the slope."
Magic and Doc weren't far from the BMP when the missile hit. Magic could feel the heat right through the soles of his boots. His head hurt. The back of the heavy drag bag had cracked him across the skull when he hit the ground.
They crawled down the road away from the flaming vehicle. Magic looked over and saw Doc's trousers smoldering. He leaped up, pinned Doc down, and threw dirt on him to put it out. It was only then Magic realized that his clothing was smoking too. He rolled off Doc and threw handfuls of dirt over himself.
Doc was already up, and he saw what was on the way. He grabbed Magic by the webbing harness and pulled him over to the side of the road. After the first tug Magic rolled back onto his feet. They got off the road just as a second HOT missile exploded with an earsplitting roar. Right where they had been.
Doc shook his head to clear it. Talk about trying to kill mice with a howitzer.
Magic saw Higgins, Razor, and DeWitt sprint across the road higher up and start climbing up the rocks. Well, at least they knew where to go. He got Doc's attention and pointed; both of them were still pretty deaf from the blast. Doc gave him a thumbs-up. They headed up across the slope, staying well below the surface of the road. They had to get past the destroyed BMP, which was still spitting flame and small explosions.
Murdock had heard the second HOT explode. It sounded as if it had been guided onto the road to try to take out some SEALs with the blast. He had no idea where the others were. He sprang up from the rocks to try to see what was happening, and immediately had his wind knocked out when Professor Higgins came sailing over and landed right on top of him. Murdock curled up into a ball and fought that terrible feeling of really needing to breathe air and not being able to.
Jaybird, meanwhile, was leaning over the rocks bellowing, "Up here, up here, on me, on me."
While Murdock wheezed around in the dirt, people began climbing over the rocks.
He was grabbed and turned over. Ed DeWitt's imperturbable face appeared before him. "You okay, Blake?"
Murdock only nodded. He'd just regained the ability to draw breath, and was fully occupied doing that.
"What the fuck happened to him?" he heard DeWitt demanding.
"I did it," Higgins admitted. "I landed on him."
"You fucked up the lieutenant, Higgins?" DeWitt asked, bewildered.
"Sure," Jaybird broke in. "Did you think it was the Syrians?"
"Fuck you, Jaybird," said Higgins.
"No, fuck you," Jaybird replied.
"Shut up and spread out!" Razor Roselli screamed. "Get those long rifles broken out."
Magic and Doc made it across the slope and past the BMP. Doc gave Magic a hand signal "You first, and I'll follow." You had to stay spread out, so if you had a misfortune the other guy wouldn't get sucked in too.
Magic signaled OK, and sprinted across the road. He reached the rock and started climbing. Hands reached over the top to grab him. Doc showed up a few moments later.
"About time," said Jaybird.
Doc, panting hard, fought off the urge to shoot him.
Razor got everyone positioned and then came over to check on Murdock.
"Have we got everyone?" Murdock demanded between gasps.
"Yeah, Boss." Razor was talking fast, as he always did when he was excited. "We were watching through the periscope in back. We saw that helo turning around, and while you were still yelling me and the boys were blowing out of every hole in that BMP like shit through a goose. We just had to wait a bit; couldn't head up the road until the ammo finished cooking off."
"Anyone hurt?" Murdock demanded.
"A little shrapnel, a few burns. Just made us run faster. I think we broke the Iraqi Army's world record for un-assing an armored vehicle under fire. Chicken-shit son of a bitch launched from max range. If he had the balls to get in close we'd all be ashes right now."
"Shouldn't have said that so loud, Chief," Jaybird called out. "He's coming in."
35
Saturday, November 11
1625 hours North central Lebanese mountains
While his fellow SEALs were scrambling among the rocks, Magic Brown was removing his massive rifle from the drag bag.
The McMillan M88 was a highly tuned bolt-action sniper rifle, scaled up in size to handle the huge .50-caliber machine-gun cartridge. It was fifty-three inches long, with a bulbous muzzle brake on the end of the barrel, an adjustable bipod, and a fixed five-round magazine. To make that great length more manageable, the black fiberglass stock broke down at a joint just behind the trigger group. The rifle weighed twenty-five pounds, including the Leupold Ultra Mk 4 16-power telescopic sight. Magic had screwed a 2-power converter onto the end of the scope to bring the total magnification up to 32-power. That much magnification threw up a lot of haze and mirage in the field of view, but was necessary for a rifle designed to shoot accurately beyond two thousand yards.
Although McMillan rifles were close to being a SEAL trademark, the M88 had been brought along on the mission because a great many had been sold around the world. Particularly to the French, who used them for counter-sniping in Bosnia. Magic had been careful to bring along the M88 instead of the similar but lighter and improved McMillan M93, which was almost exclusively in the SEAL inventory.
There was no flat place to set the rifle on its bipod, so Magic threw the empty padded drag bag over a rock and used it as a rifle rest.
Now that the BMP and its cannon and machine guns had been destroyed, the pilot of the Gazelle felt more comfortable about moving in close. He intended to use the high-magnification HOT sight to pick out the enemy in the rocks. His remaining missiles would blow them to bits. A range of one thousand meters ought to do just fine.
Razor Roselli was beside Magic acting as spotter. But the compact laser range finder the size of a small pair of binoculars wouldn't be much use. The Gazelle's range was changing every second. It was all going to be up to Magic.
Quartermaster First Class Martin "Magic" Brown was a black man who had grown up in the Chicago projects. His fiercely protective mother had made sure he maintained the clean police record that allowed him to escape into the Navy.
At boot camp in Great Lakes he'd watched the SEAL recruiting film and decided that was for him, even though at the time he could barely dog-paddle across the pool. Swimming pools and swimming lessons were hard to come by in the projects, one reason why there were proportionately few minority SEALS. But you didn't need to be an Olympic swimmer to be a SEAL. You just needed to be determined. Martin Brown was determined.
Because nothing came easy, Magic got in the habit of listening carefully and doing things exactly the way he was taught. Not only was this the right formula for making it as a SEAL, it also happened to be the characteristic of a great rifle shot. After he pinned on the Budweiser, a smart platoon chief sent Seaman Brown through the SEAL sniper course. He later went on to Marine Corps Scout Sniper Instructor School, and the Army Special Operations Target Interdiction Course. A kid who had barely made it through basic-level high school math now did ballistic trajectories, windage compensations, and moving target computations for a range of ammunition loadings--in his head, and in minutes of angle. Magic liked to say he just needed a practical application for those numbers.
The McMillan was capable of Minute of Angle accuracy, which meant a group of rounds would fall in a one-inch circle at one-hundred yards, a ten-inch circle at one thousand yards, and a twenty-inch circle at two thousand yards. With the right ammunition it could do better than that. No matter how good the rifle was, most men couldn't shoot Minute of Angle. Custom-built sniping weapons in the conventional rifle calibers could produce 1/2 Minute of Angle. Magic Brown could shoot 1/2 Minute of Angle.
Magic worked the heavy bolt and racked a round into the chamber. The Gazelle was approaching leisurely; it was bright and clear in the fine black crosshairs of his scope. Magic watched the clouds to see which way the wind wa
s blowing and how fast. His brain was working on the math, and the compensation for the difference in altitude from the Chocolate Mountains, where he'd last zeroed the scope. Long-range marksmanship was both art and science. Magic Brown was both artist and scientist, and, as the platoon liked to say in frequent awe at the results, part magician.
Magic didn't aim at the helicopter. He practiced the sniper's trick of aiming at a particular spot on the target, in this case a square of windscreen. He clicked the elevation drum of the telescopic sight to fifteen hundred meters.
The Gazelle gunner was scanning the rocks through his own crosshairs, looking for signs of life. His finger was on the firing button.
In order to shoot Magic had to be exposed. The gunner picked him up.
Magic fired. The time of flight for a .50-caliber slug at fifteen hundred meters was 2.4 seconds. Plenty of time for a helicopter to move.
"Miss, low," said Razor.
Magic had already worked the bolt and made a new set of calculations. The SEALs in the rocks were silent, like any appreciative audience. But that made no difference. No matter what the noise or distractions, there was only Magic, the rifle locked against his body, and the helicopter.
At that range the Gazelle crew had no idea they were being fired at. Now the gunner had his crosshairs on Magic, and unlike a sniper's bullet, a HOT missile could be continuously guided to its target. The pilot was hovering now. The gunner pressed his firing button.
Magic fired again. What he fired was an armor-piercing explosive round. Explosive rounds in .50 caliber had previously been unavailable because no one could make a fuse small enough to fit in the round with enough room for the charge. This one was made by Raufoss of Norway, so of course the SEALs called it a Rufus round.
Seal Team Seven 04 - Direct Action Page 17