Hostile Fire (22 page)

Five hundred yards from the sunken nuclear bomb factory, the squads stopped. Lam had been out ahead by a hundred. He came back. He reported to Murdock.

“They’re working out there. Somehow they rigged up lights—off emergency generators, I’d guess. Must be fifteen men there with that backhoe and a crane. So far I didn’t see anything that looked like a bomb. They have men and cables in a hole they have dug near the back wall of the factory.”

“Military?”

“I saw part of one squad standing around. Not in any kind of a defensive mode.”

Murdock turned to Kat. “Are you ready with your gear?”

“Ready and waiting. I can rappel down if I need to.”

“Good.” Murdock pulled the men in around him. “We’ll move up to a hundred yards and go into a line of skirmishers. We saturate the area with twenties, and then move ahead fifty yards and recon the place. We might have some return fire by that time. Let’s move.”

They kept ten yards apart now, usual combat procedure. When they were only a hundred yards from the lights, they spread out in a line facing the bomb factory.

Murdock used the Motorola. “Okay, twenties. I want each man to put three rounds in and around those lights. You snipers take any forms you see moving. Fire when ready.”

At once three twenties fired and Murdock brought his Bull Pup up and sighted in. The first two rounds were airbursts immediately over the crane and backhoe. Murdock saw through his scope some men scattering as he fired. He saw one round hit the crane and blow the engine apart. Three rounds later, all the lights in the area went out.

When the twenty-one rounds of the 20mm high-explosive shells had been fired, Murdock ordered the men ahead to fifty yards. There had been no return fire from anyone near the end of the bomb factory.

At fifty yards it was still too dark to see much. Murdock
waited. Something didn’t seem right. He used the radio. “Anybody have any bad vibes about this place right now?”

Lam came on first. “Skipper, I don’t like it. No return fire. Where are those thirty rifles?”

“Something wrong,” Jaybird said. “Maybe a squad in reserve out in the dark waiting for us to move in.”

“It smells,” Gardner said. “They have some resources they haven’t used yet. We just don’t know what they are.”

“Lam, do a half circle from here around to the left. Stay out a hundred and see what you can find. Take a Bull Pup and the thermal imager with you in case you get into a firefight.”

“Done, Cap. I’m gone.”

They waited.

Kat lay in the sand beside Gypsy. “When we get back to the States, I’m going to set you up in your own little gallery. You will live with me in my apartment. My roommate got married and left, so I’ve plenty of room. I figure you can paint for six months, and then we’ll have enough pieces to open a gallery somewhere. Oh, not one on the best street in town, but somewhere you can get some exposure, some notice.”

“It’s a dream. The Company said they would take me out if I got into real danger of being exposed and shot. I didn’t think the Secret Police would ever catch me, but evidently they had doubts about me for a year or more. I was lucky. I just hope it can happen.”

“It will happen, Gypsy. We have connections. I work directly for the President. He can do anything. The Company owes you a retirement check every month.” Kat nodded in the darkness and put her hand on the Iraqi woman’s shoulder. “It will happen.”

The radios spoke softly then.

“Oh, yeah,” Lam said. “I have about a dozen ghostly white forms up here about halfway around. Their weapons all lined up on the spot where the backhoe sits. They have a machine gun and two rocket launchers. I’m putting an airburst over the group, then a quick HE on the machine gun, and another one on the rocket launchers. Any left I’ll pick off with the 5.56. Any questions?”

“Go,” Murdock said.

They waited. A moment later an airburst lit up the desert for a lightning-fast second, then the booming sound of the detonating round came over the half-mile distance. It was followed quickly by two more 20mm rounds going off. A third and then a fourth sounded before the radio spoke.

“Okay, I’d say the threat is over. The rocket launchers are down and the MG is a bunch of scrap metal. I got all but two of them who were running scared. They lost their rifles and are heading deeper into the desert. I’d say the next move is yours, Cap.”

“Roger that. Good shooting. Get back here fast. We won’t leave until you hook up. Besides, I want that imager.”

“Moving,” Lam said.

Five minutes later, when Lam jogged into the platoon, Murdock had given out the assignments. Alpha Squad would go in with assault fire by all weapons. Bravo Squad would move a hundred yards across the face of the target to stay in reserve for any more surprises. They would be in a perimeter defense and keep alert for any troops in any direction.

“Kat and Gypsy, on me. Line of skirmishers. When you are on line, sound off.”

Two minutes later Bravo Squad had double-timed to the left to get into position and the last Alpha Squad man checked in.

“Let’s do it, walking assault fire. One round every five seconds. No automatic. Let’s do it, now.”

The first shots sounded in the quiet desert darkness. Then the shots came one after another as the men and two women marched forward. Kat set her mouth in a firm line and triggered her MP-5 every five seconds. Beside her Gypsy fired her AK-47 from the hip, aiming at the dark bulk of the crane and backhoe ahead of them. For a moment there was no return fire. Then a few shots came from the two vehicles.

“Automatic fire, let’s run forward,” Murdock barked into the radio. At once the firing increased as the weapons went fully automatic in five-round bursts. It staggered as they changed magazines; then it picked up again.

Murdock came to the crane first. The long arm had slumped into the depression that had been the bomb factory.
He took cover behind the smashed cab and could hear no more return fire. He pulled out the large, two-cell flashlight Jaybird had brought for him and, holding it at arm’s length, shined it around. A shot came from the right and he turned and fired six rounds from the 5.56 Bull Pup into the area.

There were no more shots from anyone in or near the bomb factory. More flashlights came on and shined into the hole. Murdock stood at the very edge and looked down fifteen feet. A man lay there holding up one arm. The other arm was a bloody mass.

“Okay, okay, okay,” the Arab shouted.

“Rafii, on me,” Murdock shouted. “Just behind the crane.” Rafii ran up beside his CO.

“Man down there. Talk to him.”

Rafii leaned down and shouted in Arabic at the man below.

“You in the hole. Anyone else alive down there?”

“No, two with me but they are dead. All dead. Artillery shells. All dead.”

The side of the dug-out hole next to the slanting roof of concrete had a sloping side.

“I’m going down,” Rafii said.

“Go,” Murdock said.

Rafii slid down the side with his flashlight beam playing on the wounded man. He checked the Iraqi quickly, took a pistol he had, and looked around. He aimed his light around the open space between the slanted roof slab and the concrete wall it rested on. Then Rafii vanished under the slab. He came back to the side a moment later.

“Skipper, looks like the real thing down here. Better send Kat down with her gear. Two big mothers, fifteen, sixteen feet long. Lots of metal and wires. Fat little jobs, maybe four feet across.”

“Any more Iraqis down there?”

“Don’t see any, Skipper.”

“I’m coming down with three men to clear the area before we risk Kat.”

Kat had knelt down beside Murdock.

“I’ll wait here,” Kat said. She snapped on her flashlight to check below. At once a rifle fired from down near the end
of the fallen roof. Another rifle answered it on automatic fire. Murdock recognized the heavy sound of the AK-47. The rounds came from the top of the ground. It had to be Gypsy firing. When the shooting stopped after twelve to fifteen shots, they heard a scream from across the way, then silence.

Murdock took the closest three men and went over the side and down to the bottom. They worked into the vacant area under the slanted slab. The spot they had to clear was only thirty feet deep and ten feet high at the wall. The fallen roof tapered down rapidly and hit the concrete floor of the structure fifteen feet from the side.

“I’ve got two KIAs,” Jaybird said on the radio.

“I’ve got another down and dead,” Luke Howard reported.

“Any live ones?” Murdock asked.

“None here. Clear in this section the farthest back,” Jaybird said. “I’d say were clear.”

“Clear,” Murdock repeated. “Kat, come on down but be careful. How many flashlights you want down here to light your work?”

“Four should be enough. I’m sliding down.”

Murdock met her at the edge of the cut and lit her way back to the first large device. Kat checked it from one end to the other.

“It’s the real thing. I need to take off two panels and put in the explosives. I don’t have the C-4. I want two pounds for each one.”

Murdock used the radio. “Who has the C-4? We need eight of the quarter pounders. Gather it up and get it down here.”

As he spoke, he heard gunfire on the surface. Then the radio came on.

“We’re taking incoming,” Bradford said. “We’re coming over the side and into the hole.”

Just then an explosion rocked the fallen-in roof of the factory twenty feet behind where the backhoe stood.

“Come on in,” Murdock said on the Motorola.

“Yeah, getting a line on the shooters,” Gardner said. “Look to be about a hundred yards north of us. Putting twenties on them now.”

Murdock stood in the opening. One more rocket came in.
It went high overhead and hit in the middle of the fallen-in roof. Murdock figured it was a shoulder-fired rocket. He heard the twenties going off.

“Oh yeah,” Gardner said. “We got them pinned with the twenties. Now Fernandez is picking them off using the thermal imager. We figure there were about ten of them. Not more than two or three left who can move. Get on with your work down there.”

“That’s a roger, Gardner. Protect our backs here. Good work. See you soon.” He looked around and saw most of his men, who had slid into the hole when the shooting came.

“Where’s Gypsy?” he asked Jaybird.

“Haven’t seen her.”

“Gypsy, you have your radio on?” Murdock called. There was no response. “Gypsy, are you down, hurt? Where are you?”

Nothing.

“I want all but four of you back up to the top and find Gypsy. She must be hit or she’d respond. Move it.”

The men crawled up the slope and over the top. Murdock went inside to where two men each held two flashlights. Kat had used impact wrenches and screwdrivers and had removed a two-foot-square panel near the nose of the first bomb.

She took one of the lights and looked inside.

“Oh, yeah, they got it right, but it’s easy enough to blow apart. We’ll blow up the trigger and fusing end and leave nothing that can set off the chain reaction.”

“Any radiation?”

“Sure, but not a lot. We won’t use that much C-4. I might cut back on the amount. Now let me get to work.”

“How long on each one?” Murdock asked.

“About an hour. This has to be done right.”

Murdock left and crawled up the dirt slope to the surface of the desert. He used the radio.

“Anybody found Gypsy?”

Ching came on. “Yeah, Skipper, just found her. That first sniper in the box must have hit her. Then she nailed the bastard. Not sure how bad she’s hit. Shoulder, maybe her chest. Better get Mahanani over here.”

“I’m running,” Mahanani said on the radio. “Stop any
bleeding if you can. She doesn’t have much blood she can afford to lose. Be there in about five minutes. Where are you from the crane?”

“About fifty feet south of it, twenty feet from the edge of the cave-in. Can’t miss us. I’ll have a red carnation in my lapel.”

Murdock ran to the south looking for Gypsy and Ching. As he ran, the radio came on again.

“Skipper, I’ve got two trucks coming down the road from the north,” Gardner said. “Could be reserves coming in from that little town. That supervisor said he talked to Baghdad after the bombing. What the hell you want me to do about these two trucks?”

Murdock kept running toward where he could see Mahanani bending over someone. “Two trucks,” he said on the Motorola. Let them get within half a mile of you, and then hit them with your twenties. You have enough rounds?”

“We have three twenties and fifteen rounds per gun.”

“Stop the trucks and then airburst the troops if there are any inside, which there must be. Reinforcements, Iraq style. No air, thank God. Keep me posted.”

He came to the two on the ground and knelt beside Gypsy. Mahanani had his shirt spread over her and was working on her upper chest.

“She’s in and out of consciousness,” the medic said. “Shock mostly, I’d guess. You have an extra shirt? We could use some. Hey, guys, bring us some shirts, south of the crane.”

“Breathing?”

“Ragged and shallow. Probably some damage to her right lung. We need an airlift out of here pronto. Can you use the SATCOM and get a bird?”

“Bradford,” Murdock said on the radio. “Move to me south of the crane. Get the set aligned, we need to talk.”

Murdock watched the medic. He had cleaned and bandaged the wound. The rifle bullet probably went right on through.

“She must have fired at that sniper after she was hit. That’s one gutsy lady. Save her for us, Doc. I’ll get a chopper here as soon as we’re finished with the damn bombs. They have to be first priority. I know, I know. But it’s got to be this way.”

He lifted up, ran back to the crane, and called down into the pit. “Kat, how you doing?”

“A half hour more here, then about forty minutes on the other one. Senior Chief Neal is taking the plate off on the other bomb. That will help. So about an hour and a half, more or less.”

“Don’t waste any time. You heard about the trucks coming in. We’ll have a fight. Then we need to get Gypsy out of here as soon as we can. She took a round into her lung.”