It took the Pegasus almost four hours to reach the big carrier. They tied up at the lower hatch, and the SEALs climbed the ladder into the bowels of the ship.
Murdock took Ching to sick bay to have his gunshot and his head graze looked at. They treated them both, then said they would keep him for twenty-four hours for observation, watching for any infection. Murdock asked about Bradford. The doctor who treated him was still on duty.
“Bradford, yes, the SEAL. He’s out of danger. Halfway into a bad case of peritonitis, but we nipped it. We stitched up his large intestine and did some repair work in that area. He’ll need at least two weeks in the hospital here or Stateside. You’re homeported in San Diego. So it would be Balboa Naval Hospital. He’s coming along fine. Still in recovery and sedated.”
“What about DeWitt?”
“A nasty one. Much worse than it looked. Glad you didn’t let him swim out those two miles he kept mumbling about. That really ticked him off. Said if everyone died that it was his fault. Near as we can figure, the round that hit him shattered on the clavicle. Tore up lots of tissue up in there, put one small hole in the top of his lung. Lucky it didn’t collapse on him. Some internal bleeding. He’s going to be black and blue up in there for a week or two. One shard we found by X-ray an inch from his heart. That would have been bad.”
“How long is he grounded?”
“Two weeks at least. Then light duty for another month. You better take his trident away from him for a while. In two months he should be as good as new.”
Murdock found his way back to his quarters and rolled into his bunk. When he looked at his watch, he was surprised that it was 0530. Yeah, when you’re having fun.
He turned over and slept.
The damned Iranians had captured him and were banging a bucket they had clamped over his head. The banging was done with an old saber, and he couldn’t stand it. Then a door opened and a new voice sounded in the racket.
“What the hell, Murdock, you gonna sleep to noon?”
Murdock made the Iranians go away, but when he buried his head under the pillow, the other voice came through loud and agitated.
“Murdock, you gonna sleep all fucking morning?
Oh, god, he wasn’t dreaming. He’d just gone to sleep. He moved the pillow and stared out of bleary eyes at Don Stroh, who stood just inside the compartment door.
“Murdock, get your ass in gear. Something big just came down. The U.S. is officially in the fracas with Iraq. Not officially, by Congress, but we are “aiding and helping defend an ally in any way that we can.” In short, Syria begged us to help slow down Saddam the fuck Hussein before he overruns Damascus. We might just as well be at war. And the CIA, the War Department, and State all have a fantastic new assignment for you and your boys.”
“We’re shot to hell; we can’t do it.”
“Sure you can. Simple, really. You get awake, have a shower and then about a gallon of coffee, and I’ll let you in on your next job. It’s a pisser, I mean something the U.S. has wanted to do for years, but had no guts. Now you and your guys are gonna do it.”
Murdock stood and headed for the male officer’s showers just down the companionway.
“No way, Stroh, I’m serious. Look at my medical report. Half of my outfit is shot up, four in the hospital right now. No damn way are we going to take on another assignment.”
24
USS Enterprise CNV 65
In the Southern Persian Gulf
Don Stroh followed Murdock down the companionway toward the showers.
“How many men do you have who can walk and talk?”
“Twelve, but four of them have been put on light duty by the medics, which brings us down to eight. Not a good number. Regs require us to have at least a dozen men for any mission.”
“Regs my ass. You make up your own regs. Listen to this assignment after breakfast, then see what you decide.”
“This would be a volunteer mission, right, Stroh? A highly dangerous, combat-filled operation that could very well get every man in the platoon killed.”
“Hell, Murdock most of the missions you go on fit that description. What the hell you so pissed about?”
Murdock stopped at the shower room door. He turned, and his face was flushed and angry. He touched Stroh’s chest with his index finger.
“What? You have to ask? I just got half of my squad shot up on this deployment. One is busted up so badly that he can’t stay in the SEALs. Another one was on the brink of dying before the medics worked him over. My best friend, Ed DeWitt, almost bought the farm out there on that rotten chunk of Iranian soil. If that isn’t enough, I have four more men with bullet holes or shrapnel in them, and they are hurting by the bucketful. What I have to figure out is why this all happened and what I should have done that I didn’t do. Or maybe what I did that I should not have. When it comes down to the final analysis, it’s my fault that those men were wounded. My fault, no one else’s. Now, do you have any other dumb questions, Stroh?”
Murdock waited a beat, then pushed into the shower room and let a small cloud of steam come out. Stroh took a breath and went to the wardroom for another cup of coffee.
Almost an hour later, Murdock walked into the wardroom and sat down across from Stroh.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I shot off my mouth at you. I shouldn’t have, and I apologize. But who else can I yell at, the admiral?”
Stroh nodded until he looked like one of those little dolls some people have on their dashboards.
“Please don’t yell at the admiral. I’m your guy to bellow at. Sorry I came up with the next assignment before you had settled the last one in your mind. My fault.”
They both worked on coffee. Neither one said a word for five minutes. At last, Stroh chuckled.
“Okay, inscrutable one. I give. I’ll talk first. There really is another situation that we should go over.”
“The proposed mission?”
“Right.” Stroh looked at Murdock critically, as if trying to figure out what his reaction was going to be. When Murdock looked at him to see if he was going to continue, Stroh said two words:
“Nerve gas.”
“Nerve…” Murdock scowled. “You’ve got to be joking. My men have no training in handling nerve gas.”
“You did rather well with it in China as I remember.”
“That was on a limited scale, and it all was underground.”
“You think Saddam is going to have his ace-in-the-hole weapon sitting in a tent out in the desert someplace?”
“From what I hear about him, he might put it in his sons-in-laws’ graves.”
“We know where it is, what it is, and how to destroy it without killing off half the population of the Middle East.”
“Good, so you do it.”
Stroh went on as if he didn’t hear Murdock’s comment. “We know where it is, and the word from inside the high command at Iraq’s GHQ is that Saddam will use it if the war goes badly for him. Our job: Get to the goods and destroy them and the delivery vehicles before the war goes so badly that he lashes out with the missiles aimed at six national capitals, as well as Tel Aviv and Haifa, Israel.”
“We still saving this lousy world?”
“Last thing I heard, we are.”
Murdock sipped at his coffee. It had turned cold. He drank some anyway so he wouldn’t have to answer. At last, he gave a sigh.
“Let’s go over the whole damn problem in my compartment. I’d guess this isn’t for the ship’s loudspeakers.”
Stroh stood.
“Sit down, I’m not going anywhere until I have breakfast or lunch or whatever the hell time it is. I’m a bear before breakfast.”
Northern Desert
Saudi Arabia
U.S. Air Force Captain Smarthing led a flight of six F-16 Fighting Falcons across the northern reaches of Saudi Arabia, heading for the fighting in Syria twenty miles inside Syria from the Iraqi border. The United States had answered the call from Syria for assistance, and the quickest and mo
st effective way was to provide air cover and attacks on the Iraqi tanks that boiled across the border.
The lines between nations were ill defined in this desert area, but far ahead, Captain Smarthing could see signs of smoke.
“Falcon Flight, this is Falcon One, approaching target area. Keep a check on any Iraqi air, then pick out your tank target and do what you can. We’ll split up about now. Two, three, and four take the northern sector. The rest of us the south. Break.”
The three other Falcons broke off to the left and raced toward the ground. They needed at least three thousand feet altitude to fire their Maverick missiles. Each of the Falcons carried four of the tank busters. The 637-pound missiles housed a 300-pound warhead and could destroy any tank in this small war.
The big tank killers had IIR, imaging infrared guidance systems, that usually produced an 80 percent to 90 percent hit rate.
“Three tanks to the left,” Smarthing’s radio reported.
“Roger that, I’ll take the first one,” Smarthing said. He cranked in the scope and turned to get the tank squarely in a lock in his sights. He had it. He punched the firing button and felt one of the heavy missiles drop off the plane and jet forward at Mach l and gaining speed. Below, the tank maneuvered, but the missile’s guidance system kept locked on the target.
In the tank below, Major Hadr watched with satisfaction as his company of tanks rolled through light infantry resistance toward the small hill a mile away that was the goal for today. It had been an exciting two days of battle. Thrills of the chase and the battle with two smaller Syrian tanks, which he had won. Now there seemed little to stop his company from taking the small hill.
He had no warning as the heavy Maverick missile bore straight into its target and the 300-pound warhead penetrated the tank’s armor before exploding, disintegrating the tank and killing Hadr and its crew at once.
In the air, Captain Smarthing held up one finger and nodded. He had three missiles left. By that time, two of the tanks below had ceased to exist. The hatch popped open on the third, and a man stood up just as another Maverick blasted his armored tin can into scrap metal and a disemboweled and widely scattered crew.
Captain Smarthing and his flight accounted for fourteen tanks that afternoon and finished the day with strafing runs on rear areas behind the lines, looking for fuel dumps and vehicles. They hit one gasoline storage area that erupted in a tremendous gush of flames that spread to tents and a few small buildings.
“Damn, you see that?” his wingman shouted in the radio. “Bet we discouraged a lot of trucks from running any farther.”
“Fuel check,” Captain Smarthing called. The five others reported in that they had 55 percent of their fuel supply left.
“Better head back, unless some of you want to walk the last fifty miles through the desert,” Captain Smarthing said.
They turned, formed up, and headed back to their field in Saudi Arabia.
“Why didn’t we get more tanks?” Captain Smarthing asked.
“Damn, that was all there were there, Captain. We clobbered the whole damn tank company. Near as I can figure, we had only two misses with the Mavericks. What a sweetheart.”
Smarthing felt better. But on the way back to their base, he still remembered the last words of his friend and former wingman when they patrolled the no-fly zone in Iraq. Nothing would erase those words from his mind. The ache and the empty place would always be there. Today helped make up a little for losing his friend over the skies of Iraq.
Southeast Syria
Sergeant an-Numan had watched the jet fighters come out of the sky and kill the tanks that were about to overwhelm his platoon. His lieutenant had been killed the first day of the war. He had been leading the platoon since. They should have forty-two men, but two days of furious combat had cut his troops down to twenty-two. At this location, the men had dug in, throwing up quickly whatever protection they could. Now the men looked at him.
They had been told to hold this area at all costs.
“Hold your positions,” an-Numan shouted. He had no radio. He received instructions by runners, when they could get through. He peered over the dirt parapet toward the still-burning tanks. Where was the Iraqi infantry? The foot soldiers always followed the tanks. Perhaps they had fallen behind the growling monsters.
Sergeant an-Numan had hated it when the tanks came over the small rise ahead of them. They had retreated here early this morning and been told to dig in. There were only a few men behind them. They had to hold. Now they had, thanks to the pilots who killed all but one of the tanks, which turned and sped back the way it had come.
He thought of sending two men up to the dead tanks to see what they could salvage. There might be some useable weapons. He dismissed the idea.
A moment later, he saw the first Iraqi soldier come over the hill. He dropped to the ground at once. He had seen the burning tanks. The figure slithered backward and vanished over the rise. How many men were behind him?
Sergeant an-Numan waved at his machine gunner. The weapon was the best they had, and there was plenty of ammo. He signaled the squad leaders to be alert.
The sergeant watched the top of the hill. It was six hundred yards away. He saw movement. A pair of men crawled up to the top of the hill and looked over. An-Numan sighted in with his AK-47 and fired a single shot. Yes. He saw one of the men rear up, then fall. The other man dragged him back out of sight.
A small cheer went up down the line.
“Hold your fire,” an-Numan called. “If they come, they will be charging fast. We will make every round count.”
Nothing happened. For an hour, the men of the First Platoon, Second Infantry Regiment, sat in their holes, waiting. An-Numan wanted to send a scout to the crest of the hill and see who was on the other side. He didn’t have a good scout left. He had one machine gun where he should have three. He had no snipers. There were only two submachine guns. The rest had AK-47s, the old ones.
Movement.
He checked with his binoculars. Another scout. Before he had a sight on the man, the Iraqi slid back out of sight.
The Syrian soldiers heard the machine before they saw it. When it came over the brow of the hill, it spat lead at them. The rig was a half-track with a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a pedestal.
“Get down,” an-Numan shouted. The heavy bullets slammed a line across their earthworks. One man shouted, but the sergeant grinned, knowing he was a clown. When the bullets walked down the line the other way, an-Numan lifted up and looked at the skyline. He shivered. Eighty, maybe a hundred men came over the top and began running forward.
“Hold your fire,” the sergeant bellowed. “Wait until they get closer.”
His heart thumped hard in his chest. His eyes watered. He coughed. He’d coughed when he became nervous since he was in school.
He waited.
Down the line, one man fired a shot.
“Hold your fire,” He bellowed again. By that time, they were taking rifle fire from the Iraqi infantry. The .50-caliber kept working back and forth along their line of holes.
The ragged line of men was at five hundred yards. Still too far away. The farther they ran, the more tired they would be and the less accurate.
He knew: You don’t have to be accurate when you’re overrunning a position.
When the Iraqi were at four hundred yards, he gave the order to fire. They had been ordered before to put the AK- 47s on single shot. Conserve ammunition. They were low enough.
He saw one or two of the men in the long line coming at them stagger and fall. More took their places. At three hundred yards, they slowed to a walk but kept coming. The .50- caliber had to quit firing so it didn’t hit friendly forces.
Too damn many. How could he defend against a hundred men?
He kicked his AK-47 to automatic fire and began sending out bursts of three rounds. He heard other men down the line do the same thing. Now more of the Iraqis fell.
Still too many. They would be overrun
.
The buzz came out of the north, then it turned into a whine and suddenly, in front of them the Iraqi soldiers fell by the dozens. A jet fighter slashed across the field and pulled up in a sweeping circle. Then another jet flashed across the field, firing some kind of machine gun or cannon. The Iraqi troops wavered. An officer barked at them and waved them forward.
Just then, a third jet slammed rounds into the line of Iraqis, and the officer went down along with twenty more men.
No more than forty soldiers were still standing. Two more times the silver jets slashed across the field and fired into the attacking soldiers.
Two Iraqis turned and ran back the way they had come. Someone with the Iraqis shot one of the men in the back. The other one continued. Four more men from the far end of the line ran back up the slope. Then six from the middle ran.
“Fire at them,” Sergeant an-Numan shouted. Six more of the attackers were put in the dirt before they made it over the ridge.
The field ahead of them was empty except for the dead and dying. The sergeant sent two of his best men up the slope, one on each end, to check over the other side. Six more men went into the field and gathered up all of the rifles and ammunition they could carry. They went back twice to collect the magazines for the AK-47s that the Iraqis carried.
Sergeant an-Numan took a drink from his canteen. He was delighted to be alive. He owed it to those U.S. fighter planes. He remembered seeing the white star on the blue field. The U.S. symbol.
A runner came into the end of the defensive line and soon found an-Numan. He opened the envelope and took out the gold bars of a second lieutenant. The handwritten note said: “Congratulations on holding your position. You are hereby promoted to second lieutenant. We have reinforcements coming. Before nightfall, you will have thirty more men to fill out your platoon. Keep up the good work. We may have stopped the onslaught of the hated Iraqis.”
An-Numan smiled as he pinned on the bars. Then he called in his scouts who had looked over the hilltop.
“Must be half a regiment out there,” his best soldier said. Looks like they were mauled bad by some of the same jets that helped us. I saw some of the trucks heading back toward the border.”
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