The BG-15’s began firing again, and the grenades began closing in on Murdock. He got out another M75.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
“Now.” Murdock lobbed the grenade over the dome.
When the grenades exploded he turned tail and ran. But the BG-15’s started up too soon. Murdock made a split-second decision not to take cover. If the grenades pinned him down he might never get out.
Murdock leaped from rock to rock. The grenades exploded all around him. Loud, very loud. A grenade went off right behind him and knocked him onto the ground.
46
Saturday, November 11
1952 hours North central Lebanese mountains
Murdock pitched face-first onto the rocks. He knew he was hurt; it felt like hot needles sticking into him all the way down his legs. But sometimes blind terror was a help, not a hindrance. Murdock pushed himself up off the ground. If his legs worked he was going to move.
His legs worked. He got on his feet, but his ears were ringing and he was disoriented; he didn’t know which way to run. Then he saw Razor’s muzzle flash. More grenades exploded around him. They spurred Murdock into a loping, limping run across the rocks toward Razor.
“Razor!” Murdock spoke into his microphone. He got no reply. He kept running, but it didn’t seem to him as if he was gaining much ground.
Suddenly rounds began cracking past him. Some Syrians must have finally made it around the dome.
Murdock threw himself over the rocks, almost into Razor Roselli’s lap. Considering the expression on Razor’s face, Murdock didn’t think he was in such good shape. Razor was yelling into his radio. Murdock couldn’t hear a thing in his own earpiece, and the ringing in his ears didn’t allow him to hear Razor. In that kind of situation there was only one thing for a SEAL to do. Murdock leaned over the rocks and brought his weapon to bear. His NVG was smashed, so he ripped it off his face. The Russians had designed the AKM with handy luminous night dots on the front and rear sights. Murdock lined the dots up one on top of the other and began firing at the Syrian muzzle flashes in front of him.
Razor Roselli had to shout in his microphone to reach above the noise of the firefight. “Jaybird, you got anything going on down there?”
“Negative, Chief.”
“Then you and Magic get your asses up here. The lieutenant’s hit and we could use some help.”
“On the way,” said Jaybird.
“You need me?” Doc Ellsworth broke in.
“Negative, the lieutenant’s still shooting,” Razor said proudly. “I want you on the 117. You’re the primary radio now. Stand by to bring those birds in.”
“Roger,” Doc replied.
There was an explosion among the Syrians in front of the dome. Razor knew it had to be his PDM. The Syrian fire slackened, so Razor stepped up his rate of fire. Between shots he kept sneaking glances over at Murdock. The lieutenant’s face was bloody; it looked like blood down the back of his legs, but the game bastard was putting out rounds like he was back on the Chocolate Mountain range. Razor spoke to his Old Testament SEAL God like a chief — no sniveling. “Don’t let me lose this one, sir, he’s something special.”
“Razor!” came a shout from behind them.
“Over here!” Roselli bellowed. “Come up!” Jaybird and Magic crawled the last stretch on their bellies. The Syrian fire was getting hot. “Put some rounds out!” Razor shouted. Jaybird and Magic paused only for a second to look over at Murdock, who was doggedly changing magazines. Then they began firing.
Razor had one grenade left. He crawled over to Jaybird and rummaged in his pouches. He found two frags and, holy shit, a smoke grenade! Just what the doctor ordered.
“I could kiss you, you sweet little shit,” Razor shouted in Jaybird’s ear.
Jaybird gave Razor a funny look and continued firing.
Razor took another frag off Magic. “Okay,” he shouted over the sounds of the firing. “I’ll throw two frags. Jaybird, you leapfrog back with the lieutenant. Two more frags and Magic and I’ll go.”
Everyone nodded. Razor whipped the grenades at the dome.
Jaybird went to put Murdock in a wounded-man carry, but was surprised to hear, “Stop grabbing at me. I can walk, goddammit!”
“Sorry, sir,” was all Jaybird could think to say.
The grenades blew, and the incoming fire slowed again. Jaybird and Murdock set off. First they crawled, because they were still exposed to Syrian fire. Then they made the cover of a dip in the ground and got to their feet. Murdock’s limp was more pronounced.
They ran until they reached the next bit of higher ground where they could get a good field of fire. A rising mound of rocks. Once safely behind it, they began putting down cover fire for Razor and Magic.
Razor pitched out two more frags, then dropped the white smoke grenade right in front of them.
The grenades exploded, the white smoke billowed up, and Razor and Magic were off to the races.
Razor heard rounds cracking past him as he ran. Then, just before they reached the rock mound, a stream of green tracers passed right across the gap between him and Magic.
An impact took Magic in the hip and spun him right around in the air. He fell forward over the mound.
Jaybird was on him instantly.
“Where am I hit?” Magic demanded. Nothing hurt. That was all right.
“A round hit the magazine pouch on your hip, you lucky fuck!” Jaybird shouted.
“Wish that’d happened to me,” Murdock called from across the mound.
That reminded Razor Roselli that his lieutenant had been wounded, and now that they had a little cover and distance from the Syrians, he ought to be checking it out.
“Magic, if you ain’t hurt get off your ass,” Razor ordered. “You and Jaybird put out enough fire to keep ‘em from charging us.” He scrambled over to Murdock. “Hold on a second, Boss, I want to look you over.”
Most of Murdock’s hearing had returned. His legs felt stiff, but the burning was less if he didn’t move. The pain wasn’t that bad, but he had a headache and was sick to his stomach. “I’m okay, Chief, don’t worry about it.”
“No problem, Boss, just roll over on your stomach for me.”
The lieutenant’s radio pack looked like Swiss cheese. Razor cut the straps off his shoulders. There weren’t any holes in the lieutenant’s back. Small grenade fragment wounds were peppered across his ass and down the backs of his legs all the way to his boots. The holes were all oozing blood, but there was no serious bleeding going on. “Roll over on your back, Boss.”
There were no wounds on Murdock’s front. He had some shrapnel cuts on the face and forehead, but nothing near the eyes. “Boss, you got about a million little holes in your ass and legs. I’d like to wrap them up, but we ain’t got enough battle dressings.”
“Oh, fuck it,” said Murdock. “Let ‘em bleed.”
Razor held up the radio pack. “This took most of the blast.”
“I know you,” said Murdock. “You’re just trying to con me into carrying the radio from now on. You done?”
“You want a shot of morphine?”
“Hell, no. It doesn’t hurt that bad, and I don’t need to get any more slowed down.”
“Then I’m done,” said Razor.
Murdock felt the chest pocket of his jacket. “Would you believe I fell on my fucking Motorola? I was wondering why it wasn’t working.”
“I’ll make sure you know what’s going on,” said Razor.
47
Saturday, November 11
2002 hours North central Lebanese mountains
The Syrians kept up a heavy fire, but showed no signs of advancing. The four SEALs lay spread across the rock mound and wondered why they weren’t being treated to a classic infantry assault. The Syrians could certainly tell that there were only four rifles shooting at them. Granted, the ridgeline wasn’t wide enough to get more than ten to fifteen men on line abreast, but that ought to b
e more than enough to do the job.
The answer, Murdock thought, might be that in such a tight space it was easier for him to maneuver four men than the Syrian commander his much larger unit. Maybe the grenades they’d thrown over the dome had taken out some of the leadership.
Then the flashes and bangs started up again down in the valley. Murdock and Razor reached the identical conclusion at the exact same time.
“Run!” they shouted.
Each time they stopped, Murdock’s legs got stiffer. And whenever they moved, the burning needles began jabbing him again. He tried twisting his back in order to throw his legs forward faster. Razor grabbed him under one armpit, Jaybird the other, in order to speed him along. Murdock realized he’d forgotten to count. Damn.
The mortars landed, and the SEALs dove into the rocks.
The Syrians had fired without the benefit of a spotting round to try to catch their foes unaware. A good idea. The barrage of 120mm mortar bombs straddled the area where the SEALs had been. But the SEALs had had a good fifty-second head start to get out of the impact area. They had, but just barely.
The blasts were close enough to bounce them up and down on the ground like rubber balls. The shock waves pounded them, and the shrapnel screamed overhead and bounced off the rocks. The harsh high-explosive smoke made it hard to breathe.
“Don’t nobody fire a round!” Razor screamed. “They’ll adjust it onto us!”
None of the SEALs would have fired, even if they had been able to hear him over the din of the explosions.
In the midst of it all, Doc Ellsworth’s voice came over the radio net. “Everybody still there?”
Razor only heard him because the earphone was stuck in his ear and his hands were clasped over his ears. “We’re still here, Doc,” he screamed.
“Great,” said the Doc. “I’ve got the birds on the line.”
The helicopters had announced themselves first. It was etiquette, done so the SEALs wouldn’t have to keep calling on the radio and risk compromise while the helicopters were still out of range.
Doc Ellsworth had been sitting back against a rock, the PRC-117 handset up to his ear spitting out nothing but hissing static, when a human voice broke in and said clearly, “Echo Seven Oscar, this is Hammer-One inbound, over?”
The transmission was encrypted, so Doc didn’t have to worry about tipping off the Syrians. “Hammer-One, this is Echo Seven Oscar, over.”
“Roger, Seven Oscar, we are ten minutes out, standing by for zone brief, over.”
There wasn’t any fucking landing zone, but if the guy wanted to be humored, Doc was willing to oblige. “Hammer-One. LZ is a ridgeline, twenty meters wide at our position. LZ is covered with boulders, will require ladder. Wind is from the west, twenty knots. Recommend you approach from the southeast along the ridgeline, retire in the same direction. Enemy positions eastern valley, ridgeline northeast five hundred meters. LZ is not under fire at this time. Seven PAX for pickup. One emergency medevac, one priority ambulatory. Will mark LZ with IR strobe, over.”
“Roger, Seven Oscar.” The Blackhawk pilot repeated back what Doc had told him to make sure there were no errors. Then: “We have a stretcher on the hoist for your emergency, over.”
“Roger,” Doc replied. “Let me know when you want the lights on. Seven Oscar out.” Doc raised the MX-300 microphone back up to his lips. “Birds are ten minutes out, got that?”
“Say again?” came the response.
Doc could clearly hear the explosions down the ridge. They were even louder coming over the radio. He enunciated each word this time. “Birds are ten minutes out, over.”
Razor Roselli was still being slammed about by the mortar blasts. “Got it!” he screamed.
48
Saturday, November 11
2005 hours North central Lebanese mountains
During BUD/S, Hell Week begins at 2100 hours on a Sunday night and continues nearly nonstop until Friday evening. Most of Thursday is spent in the demolition pit. The pit is one hundred feet long and twenty-five feet deep, surrounded by barbed wire and filled with mud. Two heavy ropes stretch across. Completely exhausted by constant physical exertion and lack of sleep, the SEAL trainees spend the day crawling under the barbed wire, over the ropes, and through the slimy mud while explosives are detonated all around them. Anyone inclined to crack under the strain of prolonged loud noise and explosive concussion does so in the pit, not on an operation.
The mortar fire ended. The tubes in the valley fell silent. Less than a minute later the last bombs fell on the ridge.
It took Razor Roselli a few seconds to get used to the quiet. He was still hearing explosions in his head. “Sound off,” he whispered into his microphone.
“Jaybird.”
“Magic.” Lieutenant Murdock was beside him without a radio. “Sit tight,” said Razor. The oldest trick in the book was for artillery or mortars to fire a mission, then, just when you were brushing the dirt off your uniform and congratulating yourself on your survival, resume firing.
It didn’t happen.
Murdock leaned over and whispered in Razor’s ear. “Let’s get out of here before the smoke clears and the Syrians show up to take inventory.”
“Right,” Razor whispered back. “Okay, we’re moving. Magic, you’re on rear security. Jaybird, take the point. I’ll help the lieutenant. Doc?”
“I’m listening,” Doc Ellsworth replied over the net.
“We’re coming in. Try not to shoot us.”
“Never happen,” Doc replied. “At least not as long as Jaybird owes me money.”
Jaybird quickly got out in front. Murdock slung an arm over Razor’s shoulder and limped along. Every time he put his foot down, the pain was like an electric shock. The blood had soaked into his trousers. Now it stuck to his skin and the wounds whenever he moved. It hurt. Bad. Especially when climbing rocks. He was seriously regretting his decision on the morphine. He’d talk to Doc once they got back to the LZ.
Behind them, a great many automatic weapons opened fire with a loud roar.
“They’re finally making their assault,” Murdock whispered to Razor.
“Chicken-shit sons of bitches had to sit down and call in a mortar prep before they went after four guys.”
“Take it as a compliment,” said Murdock.
The SEALs were well beyond where the Syrians were assaulting, but that didn’t mean they were out of danger. It was like being beyond the target line on a rifle range. You could still get shot even if they weren’t aiming at you.
Green tracers skipped off the rocks and made bright trails in the night sky. Rounds that had gone long were hitting the ground all around the SEALS. They couldn’t stop. All they could do was hurry along and let fate throw the dice.
But that didn’t keep them from flinching every time a close one went by.
“I hate this,” Razor muttered quietly. “At least when you’re shooting back you’ve got something else to think about. With this shit you just have to walk along and wait to catch one.”
Murdock was well into that stage that every SEAL experiences first-hand during Hell Week. Normally, when the body hurt, the brain reacted to the pain. But whoever hung on to become a SEAL discovered that you could tear the brain loose from the body and just keep going. That’s all you had to do — just keep going. The brain eventually got tired of you not paying attention to all those signals to stop and take it easy. After a while it gave up and came along for the ride.
Jaybird was waiting for them in the rocks. “Doc’s right over there,” he said, pointing.
Murdock and Razor shuffled by him. Jaybird waited for Magic. You always counted your people off as you walked into a position. One or two bad guys might attach themselves to the back of your file and try to walk right in with you. SEALs had been known to pull that trick on others, so they were very careful not to fall for it themselves.
Razor positioned everyone in an all-around security perimeter. But he weighted most of his firepow
er to the northeast, where he expected the Syrians to be coming down the ridge very soon. Ed DeWitt and Doc covered the southern axis of the ridge, just in case some Syrians had been quietly moving up while all the shooting was going on. DeWitt was there because he could only shoot one-handed, Doc to protect the only remaining PRC-117.
Razor briefed everyone on how he wanted the LZ evacuated. SEALs worked it systematically; they didn’t just haul ass for the helicopters. Everyone knew their sectors of fire and order of withdrawal.
“Echo Seven Oscar, this is Hammer-One, over?” said the voice in Doc’s handset.
“This is Seven Oscar, go,” Doc replied.
“Hammer-One is two minutes out, over.”
“Roger,” said Doc. He, like the rest of the SEALS, could hear the Syrians moving down the ridgeline. “The LZ isn’t hot now, but it’s going to be when you come in. So hurry it up if you can, and heads up. Over.”
“Roger,” the pilot replied coolly. There wasn’t much to say after that. “Hammer-One, out.”
Doc spoke into his MX-300 microphone. “Two minutes.”
“Pull your tape,” Razor told them over the net. The SEALs had sewn strips of thermal tape onto the front, back, and sleeves of their Syrian camouflage jackets. The tape would show up in the helicopter door gunners’ night-vision goggles and make it easy for them to pick out friend from foe if the extraction got messy. Until now the thermal strips had been concealed by green ordnance tape. The SEALs ripped it off.
“I’ll initiate fire,” Razor informed them. “I want to hold them as far back as we can. Take it easy and make your rounds count, we ain’t got many left. I don’t want to be down to throwing rocks before the birds come in.”
49
Saturday, November 11
2013 hours North central Lebanese Mountains
Blake Murdock had spent his whole career expecting to find himself in his present situation. But at this point in all the scenarios he’d fought out in his head, he was supposed to be directing F/A-18’s, helicopter gunships, AC-130’s, or naval gunfire against the enemy while the helicopters rushed in to pick them up.
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