Battleground (28 page)

The SATCOM radio bleated, and Holt ran up beside Murdock. He held out the handset.

“SEALtime, how is our tank?”

“Cover Bird, scratch one tank. The other one is disabled. Any sign of their leader?”

“SEALtime. I’ll make another pass. Thought I saw a convoy of two limos and two armored trucks heading for the west gate. I’ll make another check.”

Murdock stopped the platoon, and put the men on the ground. Holt kept close by with the radio. They heard the Hornet F-18 streak overhead. Then the radio talked.

“SEALtime, that’s affirmative on that convoy. How about some twenties on them?”

“Cover Bird. I like it. We’re still legal. Take them out.”

They heard the fighter make two more passes, and the rattle of the 20mm Gatling-gun Vulcan cannon rounds exploding. The weapon could fire four thousand rounds a minute.

The radio spoke again. “SEALtime, convoy seriously disrupted. Three vehicles out of commission, the fourth abandoned.” He paused. “I do see another pair of weapons carrier-type rigs heading for the west gate.”

“Cover Bird, this is Rover.”

“Yes, Rover.”

“Your mission is finished. We have CNO orders to do no more air attacks on Kenyan soil. I’m sure this order comes directly from the Kenyan President to our President. Break it off and come home.”

“That’s a Roger, Rover. Sorry, SEALtime. The other two rigs are all yours.”

Murdock looked at his troops. There was no way to know if the general was in the convoy that had been blasted, or if he was still on base or running out the west gate. Murdock called in DeWitt and Jaybird. Jaybird always surprised him with his sharp grasp of a situation and the strategy needed.

He told them about their loss of airpower.

“So the general might have been in that first convoy, or it could have been a diversion while the old man slipped out the side gate,” Jaybird said.

“Yeah, I’m inclined to go with the general trying to make a move,” DeWitt said. “I’d look at those weapons carriers heading out west.”

Murdock grinned. “That makes it unanimous. Let’s see what we can find for transport.”

“Those trucks we trashed,” Jaybird said. “One of them looked undamaged.”

“Let’s take a look,” Murdock said.

Five minutes later, they were at the trucks that had blocked the street. Ross Lincoln, their top mechanic and driver, stepped into the driver’s seat on the third truck in the line.

“Keys in it,” he called. He turned over the engine, and it powered into life. Quickly he cramped the wheels, and got the 6 × 6 out of the line. Murdock and Jaybird joined him in the front seat, and the rest of the SEALs piled into the back. The canvas top covering the roof’s wooden stays had been burned away, but the rest of the rig was intact.

“Gas gauge shows almost a full tank, L-T. The west gate?”

Murdock gave him a thumbs-up, and the truck powered down one street after another westward until they saw the gate ahead. There were no gate guards. The lift pole that usually swung down across the exit had been smashed and battered aside. Outside the gate, there was one paved road that headed west, but quickly turned north toward the mountains.

Jaybird found a map in the trash on the floor. He folded it twice, and tried to figure out where they were going.

“You sure the half-tracks came this way?” Murdock asked.

“I been watching the shoulders. Only road in this direction, and nobody has driven off it so far.”

“How much head start?” Jaybird asked.

“Maybe twenty minutes. I can get forty miles per hour out of this mill, but I can’t push her any faster than that.”

Jaybird kept looking at the map. “Near as I can tell, we’re heading somewhere toward Fort Hall, which is just south of Mt. Kenya. Tall sucker, over seventeen thousand feet.”

“We got taller ones in the States,” Lincoln said.

“Not a chance.”

“What about Mt. McKinley, twenty thousand two hundred thirty feet up in Alaska.”

“Alaska don’t count.”

Lincoln grinned, and Jaybird fumed.

They had been driving for twenty minutes when the road narrowed. They met little oncoming traffic, and no one passed them.

Lincoln pulled the truck off the road to a wide hard shoulder. He got out with the other two in the front seat. In back of where he turned off, he showed them tracks and a small puddle of oil.

“One of them rigs isn’t running so well,” Lincoln said. “Maybe we can catch them before they get lost up here.”

They got back in and drove. Lincoln pushed the old truck up to forty-five mph, but had to back off to forty.

“Now that I think of it,” Murdock said, “why didn’t I ask to have the Hornet stay up there and be a spotter for us so we would know where those two half-tracks were going.”

“Too damn late now,” Jaybird said.

“Yeah, and when the CNO gives an order, best to get the aircraft back home before somebody gets busted bad.”

Murdock scowled, and looked ahead. They were coming out of the plains and into some low hills. They could be the start of the foothills that led up to the peak of Mt. Kenya. He wasn’t sure if the hills would have any more growth than down here. So far all they had were low-lying shrubs and some grasslands.

Ahead he could see higher hills. Murdock scowled. That couldn’t be good. Whoever was in those trucks could get lost in those hills and brush and trees. The higher the hills the more rain, and more rain meant larger vegetation and trees.

Murdock set his jaw and tried to will the truck to go faster.

1032 hours

Hill country

North of Nairobi, Kenya

Murdock figured they had been on the road for about an hour. They had made one sighting of the two half-tracks ahead where the road lifted into more hills. So they were on the right trail. The hills became larger, and real trees began to show along the road. He wasn’t sure what kind they were.

Jaybird had been reading the English map. He looked outside and pointed out some of the trees he recognized.

“There’s a good old cedar tree, and up there some wild olives. I remember something about some podo trees, whatever they are. We’re too low for the bamboo. It doesn’t show up until we get to the eight-thousand-foot elevation.”

“Hey, watch it,” Lincoln shouted. Ahead in the narrow road no more than a quarter of a mile, one of the half-tracks had pulled to the side of the road. Before Lincoln could do more than ease off on the throttle, a round smashed through the windshield, missing them and sinking into the rear of the seat.

Almost at once they heard the machine gun chattering over their heads as someone in the back of their truck returned fire.

The three in the cab bolted out both doors, and dropped into shallow ditches on both sides of the road.

In the back of the truck both Les Quinley and Horse Ronson had their H&K machine guns up and firing. They alternated, and sent the half-dozen men from the half-track scattering into the brush on the side of the road.

Magic Brown lifted his big McMillan M-93 fifty and fired three incendiary rounds into the rig as fast as he could work the bolt. He hoped to hit the gas tank. They missed the tank, but he saw a hiss of steam coming from the front. The radiator. The engine must be dead.

The machine gunners moved their sights to the side of the road where the soldiers had vanished, and riddled the brush with the 7.62 NATO rounds. The return fire stopped.

Murdock talked to his lip mike. “First Squad except Ronson. Into the brush on the right-hand side of the road. We’ll circle around them. Second Squad keep up fire for four minutes.”

First Squad sprinted across the road and into the brush, which wasn’t all that thick. They circled to the right, then when four minutes were up, they worked ahead slowly, soundlessly. Twice they stopped to listen. They heard whispers ahead.

Another twenty yards, and Murdock spotted a uniformed soldier prone and facing the road. Murdock’s silenced MP-5 stitched four rounds up the man’s back. His dead hand fell away from his rifle.

They moved in closer. Murdock heard the crack of the AK-47 to his left. They worked ahead another ten yards, and found three soldiers trying to get out of their uniforms.

“Hold fire,” Murdock whispered. “Move in, but don’t fire. None of them have weapons.”

Seven cammie-clad SEALs stepped out from brush and trees and faced the three Kenyan men. Two had their uniform shirts off. The other was pulling his pants off. They all held up their hands.

“English?” Murdock asked.

“Yes, I speak English,” one of the men said.

“Why did you stop your vehicle?”

“We knew you were behind. The general said we were to be the rear guard, stop you if we could. Die if we couldn’t.”

“How many men are with the general,” Jaybird asked.

The Kenyan looked at Jaybird, who held his MP-5 trained on his belly.

“He has twelve, maybe fifteen men with him. All fanatics. Two machine guns, a flame thrower, grenades, rifles, a rocket-propelled grenade.”

“Thank you. Why are you taking off your uniforms?” Murdock asked.

“We quit. The revolution is busted. We’re going back to our old Army units, or just become civilians. Our war is over.”

“Too much killing,” another man shouted. “We’ve seen him kill too many good men. He’s crazy.”

“Where are your weapons?”

They pointed to a tree. Red Nicholson went over there and brought back three AK-47’s and six magazines filled with thirty rounds each.

Murdock gestured to the Kenyans. “Go. Your truthfulness saved your lives. Get out of here.”

The men looked uncertain. Murdock waved them away, and one ran south. Then the other two ran, taking off their army shirts and throwing them away.

Five minutes later, the SEALs had checked the half-track and taken out two more rifles, four loaded magazines, and six hand grenades. Then the big truck moved on up the hill again.

“How’s our gas supply?” Murdock asked.

“Half full,” Lincoln said. “A real gas-guzzler. We can’t be getting more than seven miles to the gallon.”

The road made a switchback, and climbed higher on the hill. Now there was a real forest. Tall trees, lots of cedar, and other trees they didn’t know. Hardwoods with moss on them. It was more of a rain forest here in the higher elevations of what was mostly a desert country. All of that cover could be a death trap for the SEALs, Murdock knew.

“Look sharp now,” he called to the men in back of the truck.

The road was narrower here. It looked bulldozed to Murdock. It twisted and turned, but they knew the quarry
was ahead somewhere. There had been no place to turn off for the past five miles.

Twice they had seen men walking ahead of them. Murdock figured it was a rear guard. But when and where they would attack was the problem. Twice they fired rifles at the truck, but missed. Magic Brown had slammed two .50-caliber rounds at them and missed, but maintained that he’d scared the shit out of them.

Murdock looked at the turn ahead. Sharp and uphill. He hoped the big truck could make it. They might come to one soon where the truck couldn’t get around, and they’d have to walk.

Lincoln ground the big rig into the turn, and stopped.

“Ambush dead ahead!” Lincoln shouted. They started to dive out of the cab, but the machine gun chattered at them even as Lincoln screamed the words. Half-a-dozen rounds hit the windshield, mashing it into jagged wedges. No safety glass in this one.

Murdock slid out of the passenger’s side, and Jaybird fell on top of him. They dove and rolled into the scant cover of the ditch.

“Lincoln, you okay?” Murdock called. The machine gun chattered at them again and again.

In the back of the truck, Willy Bishop used the cab as his cover, and got his H&K machine gun over the roof and laid down a steady stream of answering fire. The Kenyans were two hundred yards off. Horse Ronson began pounding at them with his MG, and a minute later half the weapons with the range on board fired at the two men at the side of the big tree ahead.

Then the incoming stopped.

“Cease fire,” Murdock told his Motorola. The weapons were silenced, but the machine gunners kept watch.

“Anybody hit?” Murdock asked.

He heard one growl from the cab of the truck, and jumped up the step and inside. Lincoln hadn’t made it out of the truck. He lay against the back of the seat bent down under the dash. That must have saved his life. He had a bullet
graze on one arm, and held his hand over his belly. Blood seeped between his fingers.

“Doc, get up here fast,” Murdock bellowed.

Doc Ellsworth came up to the driver’s-side door, and frowned when he saw Lincoln.

“Hey, buddy, you picked up a scratch. Move your hand, let me look at it.”

He picked up Lincoln’s bloody hand so he could see. “Yeah, Linc, caught you one in the side. Looks like it went right through. Missed most of your gut. We’ll get you in the back.”

He gave Lincoln a shot of morphine, put a pad over the front wound, and felt in back.

“Yeah, little zinger came out. That’s good. Now I don’t have to go lead mining.”

“Anybody else hit?” Murdock asked into his lip mike.

“One nipped my arm a little, messed up my shirt sleeve,” Holt said. Murdock knew his voice. “No sweat, LT. Band-Aid stuff. How’s Linc?”

“We’ll need a new driver. Who can handle this rig?”

“I can,” Jaybird said. “Used to drive a furniture-delivery rig about this size back in Michigan.”

They moved Lincoln carefully. Doc put bandages on both wounds, and had most of the bleeding stopped. Lincoln wouldn’t be walking anywhere else on this mission. They laid him down in the back of the truck on some sacking. Doc stayed with him.

Jaybird rolled the truck. They cleared the curve and then the next one. Each time Jaybird slowed. They were getting into the higher country now, and the trees and underbrush covered the narrow road. They met nobody, and no rig tried to pass them. Murdock figured they were moving about ten or fifteen miles an hour, grinding along in second most of the time.

Murdock had Horse Ronson’s H&K machine gun in the cab now, with the nose pushed out through the hole where the windshield used to be. He was ready for any more ambushes.