Magic Brown had already worked his bolt and was ready for a follow-up shot. It wasn’t needed. Not that SEALs were overly concerned about such things, but the hollowpoint bullets were perfectly legal. Contrary to popular belief, terrorists, guerrillas, and irregulars were not protected by the Geneva Conventions.
Several more pops came from Nicholson’s vicinity. Red was right in line with the gap between the villa and its neighbor. An the electrical transformer stood in full view on a light pole, and Nicholson was quietly shooting the transformer casing full of holes with his McMillan. As the cooling oil leaked out of the transformer, the unit blew with a sizzling crack and haloed flash of blue light. All the lights in the neighborhood went out, everyone hopefully thinking that it was just another Port Sudan power outage.
Even though all the SEALs by now had their walkie-talkies, earpieces, and microphones on, Murdock hadn’t needed to give any orders. Chief Petty Officer “Kos” Kosciuszko and Lieutenant j.g. Ed DeWitt swept out of the water, dropped their diving rigs on the shore, and began boosting the assault element over the seawall.
First over was Chief Petty Officer Tom Roselli, “Razor” to his friends. No one in the villa fell under that heading. Right behind him was Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class David “Jaybird” Sterling. They sprinted across the lawn directly toward the cast-iron door to the villa. It took them only seconds to apply a cutting charge of lead sheath explosive over each of the hinges of the door. This was a triangular strip of high-velocity explosive sheathed in metal. The point of the triangle focused a shape-charge effect. The sheath blew a linear cut only as wide as a pencil, but deep enough to slice a steel building girder in half. Once the sheaths were on, the SEALs hung air-mattress tubes that they’d filled with seawater over them. These would drastically muffle the sound of the explosions. The final touch was a tiny charge to the bottom of the door to flip it backward out of the way.
Murdock went over the wall right behind Razor and Jaybird. Chief Kosciuszko, who had the same approximate build as a mountain gorilla, almost threw him right over the balustrade. Following up after him were the rest of 1st Squad: Professor Higgins, Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class “Doc” Ellsworth, Minemen 2nd Class Scotty Frazier and Greg Johnson, and Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Al Adams. Gunner’s Mate First Class Miguel Fernandez, Radioman 1st Class Ron Holt, and Seamen Joe Lampedusa and Ross Lincoln from 2nd Squad were also part of the assault element. There was no confusion or hesitation. After days and nights of intensive rehearsals on a mock-up, with every move choreographed like a Broadway musical, there had better not be.
Ed DeWitt, Chief Kosciuszko, and the two snipers would hang back to cover the water, the grounds, and the exits from the villa. When during the planning DeWitt had complained about being left out of the assault assignment, Murdock had just grinned and told him it was his military fate. The lieutenant was always going to choose to be the bride, and the j.g. would always be the bridesmaid.
By the time everyone was over the wall the charge was ready, the assault element crouched next to the side of the villa in a formation called the “train.” One man directly behind the other, right hand on his weapon and the left clasped to the shoulder of the man in front. Higgins squeezed Murdock’s shoulder, a signal passed up the line letting him know that everyone behind was ready. Murdock squeezed Sterling’s shoulder, and Jaybird signaled Roselli to fire the charge.
The chief was holding a flash-tube firing device, a hand grenade-type fuse attached to twenty feet of thin hollow plastic tube with a blasting cap on the other end. When you pulled the pin and let the spoon fly free, a powder flare shot down the tube and detonated the charge instantaneously, but with you a safe distance away. Just the thing for a dynamic entry, and a lot better than standing around tapping your toes waiting for a time fuse to go off.
Razor Roselli fired the charge. The ground rocked, but there was just a heavy whomp instead of the usual deafening crack. The air filled with rain from the water tamping.
Murdock followed Sterling through the mist and smoke into the door opening. The house was completely dark. The butt of his M-4 was locked into his shoulder, and the laser aiming dot looked like a searchlight in the green field of the NVG.
Designed for the tropics, the villa was open and airy, with high ceilings and open doorways. Roselli and Sterling disappeared into the nearest room. Everyone’s microphone was voice-activated. As he sped down the hallway, Murdock heard Roselli’s voice. “Room one, clear; moving.”
The next room down the hall, the large living room, belonged to Murdock and Higgins. Doc Ellsworth and his fire team went pounding up the stairs to the second floor. Fernandez and his fire team split off and headed for the kitchen and front of the house.
Murdock ran toward the doorway, as he’d done a hundred times in rehearsal. He’d go through diagonally, take a step to the right, and slam his back against the wall. His sector of fire started at the right-hand corner of the room and swept to the center. Higgins would do the same on the left side of the doorway. The firing would be single-shot, unlike the movies where everyone blows off whole magazines on full auto. With an assault rifle fired on automatic, the first round goes into the target but then the upward force of the recoil sends all the other rounds high. A trained shooter could put out almost the same rate of fire on single-shot, one after the other, as fast as the sights could be centered and the trigger squeezed, except that all the rounds would be going into the target. It all went according to plan, but when Murdock began scanning for targets, the pitch-dark room viewed through his goggles turned into a fucking convention center. It was full of shouting people who knew something was going on and were trying, with little success, to get organized in the darkness. Murdock was glad he was the only one who could see. He shot the first man on his right, the suppressor only giving off a quick muffled snap.
Then a flashlight came on. Murdock closed his goggled eye, opened the other, and took down the man with the light. Unbelievably, he heard Higgins both shooting and calmly reporting on the radio, “Contact, room two.”
A better man than I, thought Murdock, because even though the guy he’d shot was dead, his flashlight wasn’t. It lay on the floor casting a nightmare’s worth of illumination over the room. Now everyone could see him instead of the other way around. Not only that, it seemed as if most of them had started shooting. Muzzle flashes exploded in front of him. Murdock tossed his head back to flip the NVG up out of the way, and kept shooting.
Hundreds of hours and thousands of rounds expended in training saved Blake Murdock’s life. He didn’t think about it; he just fired until his man went down and then shifted to another target. First everyone with a weapon, then everyone standing, then everyone moving. The M-4 magazine ran out just as a screaming face loomed in front of him. M-16’s took a magazine change faster than any other weapon in the world, but there wasn’t enough time. Murdock’s left finger was on the trigger of the M203 grenade launcher, and he yanked the trigger. The recoil banged against his shoulder and the figure in front of him went down with twenty buckshot in his chest from the 40mm M576 multipurpose round. So close was the range that the shot group was the size of a fist, and the plastic pellet cup and cap were blown right into the wound.
Murdock stood panting, smoke curling from the end of his suppressor, the room reeking of burnt gunpowder, dead bodies all over the place.
0310 hours Port Sudan villa
Lieutenant Murdock might have wanted things kept quiet, but Razor Roselli had trouble with orders that conflicted with his personal survival. He wasn’t about to enter the locked downstairs bedroom door without some preparation. Besides, after all the unsuppressed gunfire he’d been hearing, he figured he was absolved.
He nodded to Jaybird Sterling, who reached behind his back and drew out a Remington 870 12-gauge pump shotgun with the barrel cut down to the magazine tube and no stock, just a pistol grip. Sterling shot the hinges off the door with two solid slugs.
Roselli kicked his side of the door dow
n and whipped in an M-67 fragmentation grenade whose fuse he’d let cook off for a couple of seconds. The grenade blew, and they went in.
Blinded by the grenade smoke, Roselli sensed something thrashing on the floor and fired.
Jaybird, on the other side of the doorway, was sweeping the room with his laser, trying to punch through the haze. A figure sprang up from the floor and rushed across his field of view. Jaybird settled the laser on his target and fired. The figure went down with a hideous high-pitched screaming. Sterling kept shooting until the noise stopped. Nothing else was moving in the room, so he moved forward to take a look. In the laser light the figure turned into a woman with a child in her arms.
“What do you got?” Roselli called over. When he didn’t get an answer, he walked over and punched Sterling’s shoulder. “Whatcha got?” he repeated.
Jaybird was still staring down at the bodies. “Two,” he said flatly.
“I got one, and the frag got another,” Roselli said conversationally. “Room six clear, four tangos down,” he radioed. He pushed the microphone down and yelled at Sterling, “C’mon, let’s get going.” When Jaybird didn’t move, Roselli grabbed an arm and slung him out the door.
0310 hours Port Sudan villa
Murdock rammed in a new magazine and threw the empty into his vest. Then a new buckshot round into the M203. Nothing was moving in the room. He heard Higgins fire twice, then nothing. “You okay, Prof?” he called to Higgins.
“Yes, sir,” Higgins replied calmly.
The first thing Murdock did was stamp on the flashlight and return the room to darkness. Then he and Higgins toured the room, firing a round into the head of each figure on the floor. Better than a wooden stake through the heart.
“Room two, nine tangos down,” Higgins reported over the radio, doggedly following SOP to the last.
“Save some for us,” came Doc Ellsworth’s voice over the net. “Upstairs secure, two tangos down.”
Damn, thought Murdock, there were a hell of a lot more terrorists in the villa than the CIA had thought. Though the fact that they’d got it wrong wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Beside him Higgins gave voice to his thoughts. “If it wasn’t for all the guns, I’d say we fucked up and hit a Chamber of Commerce meeting or something.”
“Sound off,” Murdock ordered over the radio, and each member of the assault element reported in, alive and unwounded. “Clear and search,” said Murdock. “Let’s make it quick.” The SEALs would now make a hasty search of the villa for documents and intelligence. “Victor Two, any movement?”
“Clear,” reported Ed DeWitt.
Evidently the neighbors knew who lived there, and if a bunch of terrorists wanted to have a spat with firearms that was their own business.
Just as they’d rehearsed, Higgins held open a waterproof dry bag while Murdock shoveled in the contents of the terrorist’s pockets, along with all the papers that had been scattered around the room. Then Higgins used a miniature video camera with a night vision attachment to record the faces of the dead.
Each assault pair reported over the radio that they were done.
“Charges ready?” Murdock demanded.
“Victor 1–2 ready,” said Doc Ellsworth.
“Ready,” said Razor Roselli.
“2–1 ready,” said Miguel Fernandez.
“2–2 ready,” said Ron Holt.
“Pull fuse,” said Murdock. “Everybody out. Victor 2, copy?”
“Victor 2, copies,” said Ed DeWitt, letting everyone know that the security element wouldn’t blow them away as they came out the door.
The charges were 1-quart issue plastic canteens filled with a napalm mixture, a blasting cap, a two-minute safety fuse, and a fuse igniter. The fire would consume the villa within minutes, removing most of the evidence of what had happened.
Murdock stationed himself by the blown door and counted everyone out of the house. He was the last man to sprint across the lawn to the balustrade, where Ed DeWitt and Kos Kosciuszko were laying in the grass behind their HK-21’s, smiling big old smiles and hoping some trouble would pop up so they could lay waste to it at the cyclic rate of 900 rounds per minute.
Murdock went over the seawall and they followed right after him. The snipers covered while everyone strapped on their Draegers. While he worked, Murdock sucked on the plastic drinking tube of the Camel-Bak water bag attached to the back of his vest. It held seventy ounces and didn’t make any sloshing sounds when you moved. After all the heat and exertion he needed to get rehydrated before the swim out.
When they were ready, each swim team gave Murdock a thumbs-up that their equipment was working and slid into the water. Murdock checked them all off like a worried mother hen. He looked at his watch. They’d been in and out of the villa in less than six minutes. It had seemed like an hour.
Then Murdock and Higgins donned their mouthpieces and disappeared beneath the waters of Port Sudan harbor, just as the flames began to light up the villa’s windows.
3
Friday, August 18
0436 hours The Red Sea, 1.5 miles off Port Sudan
Murdock had already used his Mugger to confirm that the fishing boat bobbing directly above him was in the same spot his fishing boat was supposed to be. The second confirmation was the orange chem light tied to the bottom of the boat. Even so, he and Higgins broke the surface with their weapons ready. A Sudanese crewman was peering cautiously over the stern.
“X-Ray,” Murdock challenged, his index finger resting against the trigger guard of his M-4.
“Bravo,” the Sudanese replied.
Murdock and Higgins went up the ladder, and were quickly ushered into the interior of the boat. It was a nondescript commercial fishing boat, controlled by the CIA and manned by an Arab and Sudanese contract crew that did assorted covert jobs in the Red Sea region. Just the thing for an unobtrusive extraction. But since good SEAL operations didn’t leave anything to chance, and always required an alternate means of getting out of town when the job was done, the Special Operations submarine U.S.S. King Kamehameha, a converted ballistic-missile job, was cruising beneath the Red Sea awaiting an emergency beacon signal.
In the fishing boat’s galley Murdock found Razor Roselli and the CIA maritime operations paramilitary officer sitting at a table drinking coffee. The Razor had already showered and changed into a green flight suit. He pretended not to notice while Murdock stood there dripping on the deck. Then he pretended to notice. “Oh, Jeez, Sir, didn’t see you come in,” the Razor said innocently, though his grin gave him away. He tossed Murdock and Higgins liter bottles of mineral water that they both drained dry. “Hot work,” Razor said.
“Have we got everyone?” Murdock demanded.
“You’re next to last,” said Roselli. “Everybody but Doc and Scotty are back.”
Murdock didn’t like that one bit. Ellsworth and Frazier had left before Higgins and himself, and were even stronger swimmers.
The CIA man was up and pumping his hand. “Fantastic job, Lieutenant Murdock. Chief Roselli gave me a quick preliminary debrief. Sounds as if it went like clockwork.”
“Thanks,” said Murdock, “but the chief’s been known to lay it on thick. We killed a lot of bad guys, and damn near all of them fit the descriptions, but we still don’t know if we killed the right ones.”
That didn’t faze the CIA man one bit. He continued to gush, obviously thrilled to have his name attached to a winning effort. “Once we look at the video and the documents, I’m sure everything’s going to shake out just fine.”
“Better rinse the salt water off you, Skipper,” Roselli said pointedly, meaning that standing around worrying about Doc and Frazier wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good.
Murdock sent Higgins off to the single-stall shower. The boat crew had laid on extra fresh water to accommodate sixteen SEALS. Ed DeWitt and the rest of the platoon were cleaning their equipment, which every SEAL did automatically before even thinking about eating or sleeping. They were
understandably wired, and not just from the adrenaline. It had been the kind of real-world op that every SEAL dreamed about pulling off.
“Hey, Skipper!”
“You finally made it.”
“Fucking-A, sir!”
“You didn’t lose the Professor, did you?”
“Of course he didn’t, that would be careless.” So went the chorus that greeted Murdock’s entrance.
Murdock let them run on. “Beautiful op, guys,” he told them. “A first-class job by everyone. Really professional.” Then: “Thanks for bringing me along.”
The platoon got a laugh out of that and shrugged off the praise. Murdock knew that in their secret heart of hearts, most SEALS felt that officers were a fairly useless bunch of dicks whom the Navy forced them to carry along on missions. So he humored them about it, which you could do while still remaining the boss, especially since in his experience the officer was the first guy everyone looked to when the shit hit the fan. Murdock also knew the boys were secretly pleased when the lieutenant gave them an attaboy, which was why he did it.
By then Higgins had finished in the head, so Murdock rinsed off first his equipment with fresh water, then himself. A dry flight suit and boots were waiting for him when he got out. Then he sat down with the platoon and turned to his weapons and equipment, all the time worrying about Ellsworth and Frazier.
Fifteen minutes later Razor stuck his head into the compartment. “They’re back,” he announced, ushering in a soaking-wet Ellsworth and Frazier.
Murdock let out a sigh of relief at getting all his boys back unhurt. The difference between the SEALs and nearly every other military unit was that SEALs expected not to lose people. This was the very reason their selection and training were so brutal. Only thirty-three SEALs had been killed by enemy action during the entire Vietnam War. During the Gulf War no SEALs were lost despite missions that included taking down oil platforms and inserting agents directly into occupied Kuwait City. SEALs felt that if one of their own was killed, it was because someone had screwed up. That always weighed heavily on Blake Murdock’s mind.
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