Flashpoint sts-11

by Keith Douglass

  DeWitt put Canzoneri right beside him on the move and kept a tight watch on him. “Canzoneri, I know your leg is hurting like hell. You’ll get another morphine in an hour. If we’re going too fast, give me a yell. We go the rest of the way at your pace.”

  “Hell, no sweat, JG. Just a fucking scratch. I can keep up with these bastards any day.”

  DeWitt stared into Canzoneri’s eyes a moment and saw the determination there. He moved out again with the rest of the men.

  They were what Murdock figured was five miles from the smoking ruins of the motor pool when Lam held up his hand for a stop. Murdock moved up to see the situation.

  “Figure there’s about ten of them,” Lam said. “Must have taken a radio call and come up from somewhere down this way. How would they know we were on this side of the river?”

  “Where we fired from,” Murdock said.

  “There,” Lam said. They saw two men run across an open space about thirty yards ahead.

  “I need six men up here on a company front,” Murdock whispered into his mike. “They’re too close for the twenties. Use the rifles or the 5.56 on the Pup. Quietly.”

  The two men ahead who ran across the open space went back the other way.

  “What the hell they doing?” Lam asked.

  “Scouts,” Murdock said. He felt rather than heard men coming into a line on both sides of him and Lam.

  They heard a loud click, then a greatly amplified voice boomed across the open space and through the woods.

  “U.S. SEALs. We know you have invaded our sacred Colombian homeland. There is no way you can escape. We have you completely surrounded. You will die here, SEALs. Your blood and your bodies will fertilize our fine Colombian soil. You will die, SEALs. Every one of you will be cut down and dead within an hour.”

  13

  Forest Area

  Southern Colombia

  Murdock chuckled softly. Into the mike he said: “Don’t pay any attention to the voice. It’s an old trick the Japanese used hundreds of times in World War Two. The Colombians probably do this with every patrol that goes out. They set up in a blocking position and tell us exactly where they are. I do wonder how they know we’re SEALs or that we’re even in the country. That will keep.

  “Lam and I’ll go take a look, see who they are, and reduce them if practical. Lam, get an MP-5 with suppressor on it. Let’s see how good we are.”

  Lam and Murdock moved out silently, working ahead slowly, not rustling a leaf. They worked slightly to the right of the open space and then forward a tree at a time. After forty yards, Lam was five yards ahead. He looked back at Murdock and motioned him forward.

  They looked through a screen of trees and spotted a cluster of six soldiers. They had taken off their helmets and sprawled on the grassy mulch under the tall trees. Both Lam and Murdock had their NVGs. The soldiers drank from canteens and talked quietly with each other.

  Murdock looked for any insignia. Dumbest thing an officer can do is wear his rank on his uniform or helmet in a combat situation. He found one. A single bar that could have been silver or gold. A lieutenant.

  As they watched, three more soldiers came into the area. They dropped their weapons and helmets and sat on the ground near the other men. The officer stood to one side near a packboard that held a large, square object that Murdock decided was a battery. The Lieutenant picked up a microphone, turned a switch, and trumpeted his brave words into the night again. Now Murdock saw the two-foot-square speaker.

  Murdock patted his silenced submachine gun and switched it to single shot. He showed Lam the weapon.

  “Pick off the outsiders one at a time. When they panic, we throw in two grenades each.”

  Lam nodded and switched his MP-5 to single shot. He gave Murdock a thumbs-up, and they settled in. Lam would take the left side and Murdock the right.

  Murdock saw one man at the far right. It looked like he had curled up and gone to sleep. Murdock zeroed in on his chest and fired. From thirty yards away, the effect was immediate. The man jolted with the entry of the bullet, then lay still. Lam found two targets on his side, then Murdock checked for the officer. He had sat down beside the loudspeaker. Murdock caught him with a round in the chest, but he shrilled out a warning scream as he dove for his rifle. Murdock’s second round silenced him.

  The troops scrambled for their weapons and helmets. Lam had out his grenade and threw first. Murdock’s came a quick second later. Both exploded almost at the same time, the shrapnel slicing into half the Colombian soldiers. Two men lifted up and darted toward the woods. Lam caught one of them with a three-round burst, but the other one vanished into the woods.

  Lam pointed toward the runner. Murdock shook his head.

  “We’d never catch him. He’s running for his life, and he knows the territory.” Murdock hit his lip mike. “Clear in front, move out, and we’ll meet you just past the cleared zone.”

  “Roger that, skipper,” Ed DeWitt responded.

  Murdock looked at Lam. “Let’s go down there and make sure everyone is dead.”

  They checked. Lam fired one shot from his MP-5, then the two SEALs went forward and toward the far end of the cleared space. The rest of the platoon was there when they arrived.

  “One got away,” Murdock told the troops. “If he gets back to his unit and if they have a radio, the rest of the damn army will know where we were. We better shag ass out of here.” He looked at Canzoneri. “How’s the leg?”

  “Fine, Skipper. Just fine.”

  Murdock put Mahanani beside him, and they took off in a column of twos through the woods and angled toward the valley ahead of them and the road. It would be much easier marching along the shoulder or on the blacktop than through the thick brush.

  Murdock led them out at a four-mile-an-hour pace. He checked with the medic after a half hour.

  “He’s keeping up, but he’s hurting, Commander,” Mahanani said. “Probably should drop it down a notch. I’d just as soon not have to carry him.”

  “Done,” Murdock said. He sent word to Lam, who was out in front of the main body by fifty yards. The pace slowed.

  They kept two hundred yards from the road, crashing brush as they went. Just when Murdock thought it might be safe to go to the blacktop below, a vehicle came boiling down the road. It had a machine gun mounted on it and every hundred yards, it blasted a dozen rounds into the brush. It worked alternate sides, then sometimes hit the same side three times.

  When the rig was opposite them, the gunner turned the weapon toward their side of the road and fired off two six-round bursts.

  The singing lead went high over their heads, but the SEALs had flattened to the ground with the sound of the first round. They stayed down as the jeep moved on down the road, the MG yammering again and again with wasted rounds into the brush.

  They had been up and moving for ten minutes when the speaker came on in Murdock’s ear.

  “Skipper, I need ten minutes with our Petard guy. The wound broke open.”

  Murdock stopped the march, spread out the troops, and went back to see how Canzoneri was doing.

  “No sweat, Commander,” Canzoneri said. “Just a little blood came out and doc here got in a panic. Hell, I’m good for another thirty miles.”

  After the hospital corpsman had rebandaged the knife slice, Murdock talked to the medic.

  “Mahanani, you still do that hypnotism?”

  “Sure. You think now is a good time?”

  “The farther we can get away from the federales out there before daylight, the better. Would Canzoneri be a good subject?”

  “Never can tell. I’ll ask him. He’s smart enough to know how it would help him.”

  Canzoneri grinned when they told him.

  “Hell, yes, give it a try. Never been put under, but I’ve heard a lot about it. Then I could hike normally and it wouldn’t hurt at all?”

  “About the size of it.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Canzoneri seemed to struggle
against the hypnotic suggestion, but after five minutes, Mahanani had him under.

  The march continued. They moved back to a four-mile-an-hour pace. When Canzoneri kept up, Murdock moved the speed up a notch.

  A half hour later, the machine gunner on the enemy truck came past. This time, he fired on the other side of the road and the SEALs breathed easier.

  Murdock took them down to the road, and they jogged for two miles without meeting any traffic. The nighttime curfew on travel worked to the SEALs’ advantage here. An hour later, they saw the machine-gunning rig headed their way, and they slipped into the brush and behind a small hill for cover.

  Ed DeWitt dropped down beside Murdock. “Hey, you been thinking about that roadblock up ahead?”

  “Some.”

  “Seems like a good time for a little share-the-ride time. We should be able to move in and take out the personnel, then borrow one of their vehicles and charge right through that second roadblock down the way.”

  “Sounds good, JG. Your idea, your mission. How far you figure the roadblock is?”

  “My guess is about four miles out. I’ll stay with Lam out front and watch for it. We should hit it from both sides at a forty-five angle. Be surprised if they have more than six men on the block. We’ll tell the men not to shoot up the vehicles.”

  “Let’s move it,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “Same formation. The JG will be out front with Lam.”

  They saw the roadblock after three miles hiking on the blacktop. There had been no more motor traffic. Lam took them into the woods a quarter of a mile from the block, and they made their plans.

  Ed DeWitt took his squad to the left-hand side of the lights on the highway, and Murdock kept his on the right. They stopped forty yards from the block and set up firing positions.

  “We’re looking for one of those rigs for transport,” Murdock told his men. “Lots faster than walking.”

  “Then we blast through the next roadblock?” Ronson asked.

  “That’s the plan, unless we can fly over it. We’ll fire on Ed’s first rounds. Remember, don’t damage the vehicles.”

  There were three of them. Two sedans and an older-looking six-by that blocked the center of the road. Murdock hoped it would still run. It must if they drove it out here.

  Ronson had his H&K 21-E machine gun set up and ready. Bill Bradford had his PSG1 sniper rifle ready. The Pups would be on single-round fire.

  “Let’s do it,” DeWitt said on the radio and fired his G-11 caseless-round submachine gun. A heartbeat later, the rest of the SEAL weapons opened fire.

  Murdock made five men at the site. All five went down in the first volley.

  “Hold,” Ed called on the radio.

  One man dove out of the cab of the six-by and ran for the brush. He didn’t make it as three SEAL rounds dug into his body and sprawled him in the leaves and grass.

  “Quinley, take a look,” DeWitt said. The smallest man in the platoon at five-nine held his caseless submachine gun at port arms and charged into the scene. He kicked two of the bodies, fired into two more, and checked out the two sedans and the truck.

  “Clear front,” Quinley said.

  Ostercamp ran ahead of the rest of the squad to the six-by and checked it out. He tried to read the gauges in the dark, then turned on the key and tried the engine. It ground over twice, then on the third try kicked over and settled down into a gentle roar.

  “Pick up any weapons and ammo you can find and put them in the six-by,” Murdock instructed. “Somebody search those two sedans.”

  Two minutes after the first rounds hit the men at the roadblock, the SEALs were loaded into the truck and Ostercamp drove it south down the road.

  Murdock sat in the front seat with Ronson’s NATO round machine gun. “Cut slots in that canvas so you can fire to the front over the cab,” Murdock said on the Motorola. We’ll need all the firepower we have when we roll into this last roadblock. They might have been alerted by radio from the main camp.”

  “We figured it was about twenty miles between the roadblocks,” Ostercamp said before Murdock asked him. “We’re doing about forty miles per hour. So, should take us about a half hour to get there.”

  “Good, we’ll be ready.”

  They drove without lights. Ostercamp said it was no problem.

  Murdock used the mike. “Hey, Canzoneri, how are you doing?”

  “He’s sleeping right now,” the platoon medic answered. “I told him to get some rest. He’s still under. I can bring him out any time you want.”

  “Let’s keep him that way until we see if we can get through this next roadblock with our wheels intact.”

  “That’s a roger, sir.”

  Twenty minutes later, Ostercamp motioned ahead. “I can see the roadblock. Looks like they’ve got a fire going and some headlights on. They can’t see us yet. Because of the lights, they’re night blind up there.”

  “Turn on our lights and keep going. Start slowing down like last time when you’re about two hundred yards off. Then, at a hundred yards, floor it, and we’ll open fire.”

  “Roger, that. Not sure if they have a truck or not up there or maybe three sedans. Yeah, that’s more like it. One sedan right in the middle of the road. I can take out the one on the right and blast it back off the road.”

  “Coming up on it,” Murdock said to the lip mike. “Get all the firepower we can out the front. No twenty-mikes. I don’t know how they would work from a moving rig. We’ll open fire a hundred yards. Hit anything that moves.”

  Murdock had the machine gun locked and loaded, ready to push out the window and whale away at the roadblock. He heard the men getting the other weapons ready.

  “Two hundred so I’m slowing down. I see three guards, probably that many off duty sleeping. Slowing more. At a hundred and fifty.” He paused, then hit the throttle. “A hundred yards. Open fire.”

  Murdock saw his rounds slam into the three sedans and some of the men. He pounded off six-round bursts until the belt ran out. By that time, they were on top of the defenders. He heard the weapons over his head slamming dozens of rounds at the roadblock. He couldn’t see anyone standing.

  Then the heavy six-by rammed into the sedan on the right, which bounced off the thick bumper and jolted backward into the ditch. The big truck slammed through the opening and gunned on down the road.

  Behind in the six-by, the SEALs turned around and fired at the roadblock they had just come through.

  “No return fire,” DeWitt said on the radio.

  “Cease fire,” Murdock said on the net. “I want a casualty report. Was anyone hit? Alpha Squad.” His six men checked in as okay. DeWitt took a roster rundown and found no new wounds.

  “Ostercamp, how much gas we have left?” Murdock asked.

  “Don’t think the gauge works, Cap. I’ve been watching the needle, and it says half full, but it hasn’t moved since we started. All we can do is drive her until she quits.”

  “How far to the first Loyalist roadblock?”

  “As I remember, about twenty-five miles. It’s a wide no-man’s land between the enemy lines down here.”

  Ed DeWitt came on the radio. “Commander, how do we get into the Loyalist’s roadblock without getting ourselves blown to hell? I saw a rack of RPGs there when we came up. One of those rocket-propelled grenades into this rig, and most of us are going to be flying home in body bags.”

  “No sweat,” Murdock said. “It’s about 0230 now. Another hour at most, and we should be there. We’ll stop off five hundred yards with our lights out and send Fernandez up to work past the checkpoint in the brush and come back to the road on the other side. Then he walks into the roadblock and with his Spanish tells them who we are and that we’re driving in with an enemy truck.”

  “Yeah, I can do that,” Fernandez said. “These jokers have a weird accent, but I can understand them.”

  It went just that way.

  By 0400, Murdock dictated a statement to Fernandez who translated it for
the radio operator at the Loyalist roadblock. The message went to Colonel Paredes, informing him of the success of the campaign with an estimated 150 six-by trucks destroyed. He also reported that Captain Orejuela had been killed in action during the drive through an enemy checkpoint.

  The radio operator nodded that he had sent the message and Fernandez looked at Murdock.

  “What now, Cap?”

  “Now we take a leisurely hundred and fifty mile ride back to Camp Bravo, have a big meal, and catch up on our sleep.”

  The SEALs were all back in the truck and Ostercamp had just started the engine, when the radio operator came running out of the shack beside the roadblock. He handed a message to Murdock. It was written in Spanish.

  “Fernandez, front and center,” Murdock bellowed.

  Fernandez read the message in the headlights.

  “Congratulations on your mission accomplished. Sorry about Captain Orejuela. Must ask you to make all possible speed to return to Camp Bravo. Have had a disturbing and threatening development here. We will expect you sometime this morning.”

  The message was from Colonel Paredes.

  Murdock looked at Ostercamp. “Did you get some gas from the trucks here?”

  “Did that, Commander. The tank is full, and the gauge still reads half.”

  “Good. We’ll need it. We have to get back to Camp Bravo as fast as we can. Don’t spare the horses.”

  Murdock climbed in the cab, wondering what the hell had happened that involved them.

  14

  Camp Bravo

  Cali, Colombia

  It was just past 1100 before the truck turned in at the main gate at Camp Bravo. Murdock had Ostercamp drive directly to the base hospital.

  “Ed, get the men settled and weapons cleaned. Then they can hit the mess hall before they sack out. I’ll get Canzoneri and Jaybird treated and see you as soon as I can. Then we go see the colonel.”

  Canzoneri winced but didn’t cry out as the medics in the hospital took off the bandages. They cleaned the wound, asked how old it was, and after treating it, stitched it up. The doctor didn’t speak English, and Murdock’s Spanish was as sketchy as the other SEALs’.