“Soon, we hope. Soon.”
“Eat dirt,” Lam said on the Motorola, and the Third Platoon went into the Iraqi topsoil. “Commander, you best look at this,” Lampedusa, on the point fifty yards in front of them, said.
Murdock and Dewitt double-timed up to Lam, and went into the dirt beside him. Ahead they could look down a gentle slope. It had probably been made by runoff water over centuries of cloudbursts. In the middle of it, three hundred yards away, they saw three vehicles in the faint moonlight. There were troops around them, evidently eating a meal.
“Oh-three-hundred chow-down,” Lam said.
The officers had their NVGs up and working.
“One weapons or personnel carrier, two smaller rigs,” Dewitt said.
“I’d say maybe twenty-five men.”
“Good uniforms, good equipment,” Murdock said. “That would make them Iraqi Army. Some of Saddam’s outlying troops. They must be looking for us, or may be just in a blocking position.”
Jaybird had come up and checked through Murdock’s NVGs. “Oh, yeah.
Good gear. Definitely not El Raza baby. I move to take out their transport with the Fifty, then get on our horses and run like homeboy bastards for Saudi.”
Murdock took the NVG and checked again. “We put the twenty-one-Es thirty yards apart for convergence. Then we bring Bradford and the Fifty in here. We put twenty forty-mike-mike on them as well, with half HE and half WP. Should do it. Call up the men, Jaybird.”
Five minutes later, the SEALs were in position. Murdock pointed at Lampedusa, who angled his Colt M-4AI with the grenade launcher on it, and the scout fired the first 40mm grenade. At once the Big Fifty and the machine guns and the other grenade launchers fired.
Bradford’s first .50-caliber round hit the larger weapons/ personnel carrier in the engine and blew it apart, which started a small fire. The men below bellowed in panic, throwing away their meals and dodging for cover. The machine guns riddled them, putting a dozen down and dead before they could find any cover.
“Die, you sonsofbitches,” Horse Ronson bellowed over the nine-round bursts of the 7.62 NATO slugs that slammed out of his H&K chattergun.
He aimed and fired again, chopping down a pair of men charging away from the trucks.
Miguel Fernandez zeroed in on a man trying to get out the door of the burning rig. His H&K PSG1 sniper rifle fired, and the Iraqi slammed against the truck door and sagged down dead in an instant.
Al Adams judged the distance with his 40mm grenade launcher and fired. The first round was long. He adjusted and dropped the next two right in the churning mass of frightened men. The WP showered like white waterfalls, and the Big Fifty knocked out the other two vehicles before anyone had a chance to start the engines. There were only a dozen shots fired from below at the SEALS.
Within forty-five seconds it was over. Two of the rigs below burned brightly in the Iraqi night. Bodies sprawled around the vehicles. Murdock guessed eight to ten had escaped into the desert wondering what hit them and how an 0300 supper had turned into a death knell for so many of them.
Murdock checked the scene of the slaughter below again with the NVGs. He nodded.
“Let’s saddle up and get out of here,” he said. “We definitely can’t use their transport.”
Fayd Salwa kept shaking his head. “I don’t see how you did it. So quick, so deadly. These weapons you have are truly remarkable. All I ever had was a rifle that worked sometimes. Truly amazing.” He smiled.
“I’m grateful that we are on the same side in this difficult situation.”
“Good,” Murdock said. “How far are we from the border?”
Salwa thought for a moment, looked around at the moonscape, and nodded. “Yes, I recognize that small wadi back there. I’d say two of your miles.”
“Two miles and it’s oh-four-twelve. Two hours to sunup. We better hustle.”
They marched again. Murdock knew there was no chance to fly in a chopper for a pickup. Not with Iraqis angry and working the border with Kuwait. They would probably be over here along this end of the Saudi line as well.
The SEALs kept hiking. The coolness of the desert night crept into their cammies, and neutralized the sweat. At 0440, Murdock called a halt and looked at Salwa.
“Where’s the damned border?”
“It should be close by,” the Kuwaiti said. “I’ve been here a dozen times. Unless … “
“In two hours it’ll be light,” Murdock said. “They’ll have every plane in this sector up searching for our asses.”
“My mistake somehow,” Salwa said. “I’m sorry. I thought we would be in Saudi Arabia by now. We must be in a slightly different sector.”
“Just slightly,” Murdock said.
They marched across the desert again in the morning darkness.
Ten minutes later, Lam hit the mike. “Better get up here, Commander. I think we found the fucking picket line.”
Both officers and Jaybird went up to where Lam lay in the dirt on a slight rise. Ahead, across a quarter mile of desert, they could see winking lights, and hear some metal-on-metal sounds.
“Could be the damn cooks getting breakfast ready,” Jaybird said.
The NVGs showed a different picture. Even at that distance, Murdock could pick out individuals. The men were in a defensive picket line stretched across in front of the SEALS. It looked like they were spaced about thirty yards apart. He saw no telephones or wire. Some of them could have radios. The SEALs would have to chance that.
Jaybird saw the same thing. Then Ed Dewitt nodded. “Sure as hell it’s their picket line,” he said. “Where do we go through?”
Murdock looked over the line again. Slightly to the left, he saw a concentration of men and a half-track. That would be the center of the line.
“Their center looks to be to the left. We’ll angle five hundred yards to the right, and try for our penetration. Jaybird, Lam, and I will go in with our K-bars. Ed, you’ll have the con if we don’t come back. Try an end run. They’ll be looking for you. Let’s move the troops.”
They hiked parallel with the line for ten minutes. Then Murdock stopped them, and told everyone what they would do.
“When you hear ‘ left, right, and center,’ you come for the center of the slot. We’ll keep our radio transmissions to a minimum.
They might have some kind of receiver that would show up our signals.
Any questions?”
“Wouldn’t silenced rounds do the job?” Fernandez asked.
“Too risky,” Dewitt said. “It’s the noise factor. We can’t take that chance. We’ll work the program. As soon as we get the all-clear, we’ll go through the fence in single file, five yards apart on the double. Don’t let any equipment jangle or make any noise. You know the silent routine.”
Murdock pointed Jaybird at the middle target. He took the one on the right, and Lam had the left one. They moved out like shadows on the desert floor. They were fifty yards from the targets, and crawled the last twenty. Murdock saw that his sentry was smoking. Good, it would hamper his night vision. Murdock drew his K-bar fighting knife and crawled forward.
The sentry moved, flicked his cigarette away, and took six steps toward Murdock. He gave a long sigh, and urinated. He was totally relaxed.
Murdock came out of his crouched position, and surged forward ten feet, his boots pounding the ground. The sentry heard his steps, and half turned. Murdock’s K-bar drove into his side, through his shirt and upward, slicing through part of the intestine and lung, then into his heart.
The Iraqi’s eyes went wide. He started to say something; then his mouth opened in a scream that never made it out of his throat. His knees buckled, and he fell toward Murdock, who caught him and eased him to the ground.
Murdock touched his lip mike. “Clear right.”
Jaybird had the center. He crawled the last thirty yards, slow and sure. Twice he saw his man look out front, scanning the area. Then he seemed to relax, and concentrated on cleaning his
fingernails with a small knife.
The soldier’s rifle had been slung over his shoulder with the muzzle pointing down. It would take precious seconds to get the weapon up and ready to fire. Deadly seconds.
Jaybird held two K-bars. One he had balanced for throwing. He held it in his right hand. He moved forward again on his elbows and knees. Twice he had to stop when the man looked across his position.
Closer. He was within twenty feet of the man now. Too far for a throw. He edged closer, six inches at a time. The sentry coughed, and looked to his right. He whispered something that Jaybird couldn’t hear.
Evidently the one he tried to call to didn’t hear him either.
The sentry sighed, reached his right hand into his pocket, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Jaybird worked closer. When the Iraqi soldier’s match flared, totally destroying the man’s night vision, Jaybird lifted up from ten feet and threw the K-bar with one swift motion.
Hours of practice had made Jaybird an excellent knife thrower. The long blade and handle turned over once, and the point of the K-bar drove into the sentry’s chest just to the left of his heart. With the throw, Jaybird had charged forward.
When the knife pierced his chest, the sentry let out a groan of surprise, caught the blade with one hand, and fell to his left. Jaybird was on top of him in seconds, his other K-bar slashing deeply across the soldier’s throat, severing his left carotid artery and jugular vein.
The man gasped once and died as blood drained from his brain.
Jaybird quickly searched the body, found nothing of value, and hit his mike. “Clear center.”
Lam had a tougher target on the left. The man looked hyperactive.
As Lam crawled up to twenty yards, the sentry kept pacing back and forth. He checked the area directly in front of his post, and the landscape on each side as well.
Lam stopped within twenty feet of the sentry. If the Iraqi took a good look directly in front of him, he would be able to make out Lam flat on his belly. Lam brought up a borrowed, silenced MP-5 on single-shot. Just in case. He held the K-bar knife in his right hand.
The sentry made his ten-yard hike on either side, and came back.
Lam knew he couldn’t risk going any closer. He felt around on the ground, and found a fist-sized rock. He’d revert to his old kid games of war in the Oregon mountain brush. He hefted the rock, then threw it at some dead shrub directly behind the sentry. The bush was no more than a foot high, and half of it had died from lack of rain.
The rock hit the dead branches and snapped them, making a surprisingly loud sound in the desert silence. The sentry spun around, his weapon up and ready.
Lam came out of his crouch, took a dozen silent steps toward the man, then surged forward sprinting the last six steps, his arm held in front of him like a lance with the K-bar a straight extension of his arm.
The sentry must have heard him at the last moment. He spun around just in time for the blade to drive deeply into his chest. It missed his heart, but slashed through his lung, and chopped in half a major artery supplying the lungs.
The Iraqi sentry sagged, then slammed backward from the force of the knife thrust. Lam let go of the knife. The soldier tried to scream, but had no voice left. His eyes closed, then opened. His hands reached for weapons that were no longer there.
Lam bent over him, pulled out his knife, and stabbed the wounded man once more, driving his K-bar into the soldier’s heart. He waited a moment, and saw the life fade from the sentry’s eyes. Then he touched his mike.
“Clear left,” he said. Lam crouched over, and ran silently to the right. He spotted Jaybird a moment later, and dropped beside him.
Murdock was on the other side. They each pointed outward in defensive postures. No words were spoken.
Lieutenant (j. g.) Dewitt heard the third
“Clear,” and waved his men forward. All had weapons at the ready, with rounds chambered and safeties pushed off. They walked quickly single file, following Dewitt toward the center position, where Jaybird had vanished. They were five yards apart.
The silent file came out ten yards to the side of the three SEALs covering for them, continued on through, then spread out to ten yards between men. The three sentry-busters moved in at the end of the line, and walked backwards for a hundred yards watching the rear.
They were two hundred yards past the line when a single rifle shot sounded behind and to the right where the center of the picket line had been. “Double time, let’s get out of Dodge,” Murdock said into his mike.
They ran forward. Murdock heard movement to his right. He stared into the darkness, then used the NVGs.
“Hold it in place and in the dirt,” he said into his mike. A second later a flurry of rifle and submachine gun fire erupted to the left.
“I spotted about twenty troops over there just before they opened up. Some flankers. They know where we are. Fire at those muzzle flashes now!”
The stretch of desert erupted with the SEALs’ firepower. The snipers with NVGs picked off targets that showed themselves. Most of the Iraqis were flat on the ground firing at where the SEALs had been standing.
Murdock figured the range: two hundred yards. Maybe less. “How is our supply of forties?” he asked on the mike.
Radio reports came in that they had twenty-four rounds.
“Let’s each man shoot half his rounds. Make them on target, no more than two hundred yards. Fire now.”
The MP-5 weapons were of no use. Silenced, they were effective at no more than fifty yards.
Murdock wished now that he had a long gun. All he could do was watch. He concentrated on using the NVGs.
“Five of them moving up on the left flank,” he said into the mike.
At least three guns shifted fire there, and the flankers fell back dragging two wounded.
The 40mm grenades began dropping on the enemy troops. They took several direct hits along the line of shooters. After taking ten rounds of the grenades, the Iraqi troops surged ahead fifty yards to get out of the barrage, and went on firing.
The two SEAL machine guns worked overtime as the Iraqis moved up, cutting down five of them. “How many out there?” a voice on the Motorola asked. “I’ve got about twenty left,” Murdock replied. “Get those forties back on target.”
Another half dozen of the grenades dropped in on the Iraqi troops.
The firing died off for a moment, then picked up as some of the troops ahead of them made a fast retreat to the rear and vanished — probably into a wadi, Murdock decided.
Then the retreated troops covered for the rest of the soldiers as they raced to the gully and out of sight.
“Hold your fire,” Murdock said into the mike. “Looks like the bad guys have had enough for now. Anybody pick up a wound?”
The net went silent for a moment; then a voice came on, and Murdock was sure who it was.
“Yeah, got a scratch, upper right leg. Hurts like hell.”
“Ching, that you?” Doc Ellsworth asked.
“Yeah, not sure how fast I can walk.”
“Where are you, middle of the line?”
“Front, near the front.”
Murdock ran that way, and saw Doc ahead of him. Doc got there first. Kenneth Ching was down, and holding his right leg.
“Ed, get the rest of the platoon out of here, and take Salwa with you,” Murdock said into the mike. “Due southwest. Move them. We’ll catch up. Watch out for Gonzalez. Trade off on the men carrying him.
Move.”
Doc examined the leg with the help of a shaded mini-flash hung around his neck. “Bullet went through. Looks like it missed the bone.
Hurts like hell.” He bandaged it and got Ching on his feet.
“Limp a little and see if you can walk,” Doc said.
Ching tried. Limped and walked. He made it ten yards with Doc and Murdock beside him. Murdock had Ching’s Colt carbine.
“Yeah, I can make it. Got one of them shots, Doc?”
Ellsworth used a
one-time shot of morphine, and Ching perked up.
“Yea, let’s go,” Ching said.
They caught the rest of the SEALs three hundred yards ahead. The main body had slowed. Doc left Ching, and went to check on Gonzalez.
They had stopped, and Fred Washington and Fernandez were taking turns carrying the hurt man.
Gonzalez couldn’t hold on anymore. His eyes were going glassy and he mumbled.
“Fireman’s carry,” Doc said. “It’ll keep his head down and he won’t fall off that way. We better move again.”
Murdock came to the front of the column with Salwa. They kept walking across the desert at a slower pace. The coolness of the desert night crept into their cammies and neutralized the sweat.
Another half mile, and Murdock called a halt. It was almost 0500.
“Salwa, where’s the damned border? Is it marked here?”
“It should be close. I’ve been here a dozen times, unless … “
“In an hour it’s going to be light,” Murdock said. “They’ll have every plane in this sector up searching for us to burn our asses.”
“Sorry. My mistake. I thought we would be in Saudi Arabia by now.
We must be in a slightly different area.”
“Just slightly,” Murdock said, his anger edging through.
Murdock checked on Ching. He was limping worse, but he waved away any help. “Hell, I’m a fucking SEAL,” he said.
They walked for another half hour at three miles an hour on the same compass bearing. The darkness began to evaporate around them. It would be dawn in half an hour.
Murdock stopped the men and dispersed them. He turned to Salwa.
“Now what? Just where the fuck are we?”
Salwa studied the landscape ahead of him. It looked much the same all the way around to Murdock. Salwa turned to Murdock, smiling. “Yes, yes, now I see. We hit the notch. A small area of Iraq that bulges into Saudi Arabia. It’s not more than three miles deep. We hit it almost in the center.”
“Three more miles, you’re sure?”
“No, we’re two thirds of the way there. A mile more. Yes, absolutely. Guaranteed.”
Murdock had just about given the order to move out when he heard the jets. “Figures,” Murdock said. “They can’t miss us out here.” He hit the lip mike. “Company. Probably Migs. Not sure what number, but doesn’t matter much with targets like us. If they spot us, and they almost certainly will, we disperse at least twenty-five yards apart.
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