Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (17 page)

“Easy, and live,” Murdock said in Arabic. “Where are the American prisoners?”

The guard pointed to the two bodies.

“Those two dead ones are two of the American students?”

The man nodded.

“Where are the others?”

The guard pointed toward the north.

“I’m taking my hand off your mouth, but if you scream or talk loudly, I’ll snap your neck and you’ll be dead in two minutes, do you understand?”

He nodded. Murdock let his hand come off the man’s mouth. The Syrian soldier swallowed. “Easy on my throat,” he said.

“Where north did they take the American students?”

“Jut inside the buffer zone is our Eastern Area divisional headquarters. The driver told me they were going up there.”

“You’re guarding dead men?”

“They were only wounded until an hour ago, then the second one died.”

Lam looked at Murdock, who nodded.

“Can you tell us why they took the American students north?”

“For prisoner exchange.”

“You heard nothing about ransom?”

“We’re soldiers, not terrorists.”

Lam had taken his KA-BAR out of its sheath, and when Murdock nodded the second time, he plunged the sharp blade into the Syrian’s side, slanting it upward under his ribs into his heart. The Syrian’s eyes went wide. He gave a muffled cry, then slumped off the cot he had been sitting on, his hands twitching and spasming, as the muscles failed to get enough blood and his brain triggered a dozen alarms, just as his lungs stopped working. He slumped to the floor dead, sprawled near the two dead American students.

“I.D.?” Lam asked.

“The Syrians would have already stripped everything from the students’ bodies. Let’s choggie.”

They checked out the slot in the tent, found it all clear, and slid out, then ran bent over into the darker shadows they had come from and into the brush.

As they jogged back to the pickup, Murdock told the others what he and Lam had found. Rafii started the engine and wheeled it up the road to the north. They kept the police office captive with them. They passed within
fifty yards of the regimental headquarters, but there was no guard or military on the highway. Down a short side road they saw a tank and three trucks with a dozen soldiers milling around beside them. None of them even looked up as the pickup powered past to the north.

Jaybird started it. “Just how the hell do six of us get eight American students out of a division field headquarters? They will have more protection around that place than Fort Knox.”

“Maybe. First we look it over, let Lam have a look and then maybe take our little Syrian buddy here with us and have him get the information about where the American students are being held. Can’t be anything solid up here, just tents and more tents. Give us an edge, don’t you think?”

They drove six miles to find the glow of lights ahead. They parked the pickup and took the Syrian with them this time. They left his hands tied behind his back and his gag on, but untied his feet.

“He’s yours, Rafii. Keep him with us, and then tell him what we want him to do when we figure it out. It’s a hike from here. Lam, go out forty and be careful. They must have some security out around a divisional HQ.”

They worked ahead a cautious yard at a time. Lam went slowly, made certain before moving. So far they had encountered no security patrols or interior guards, but that meant nothing about what might be ahead. The men edged forward over a low rise and then into a small valley that led directly to the brightly lighted camp ahead. Murdock could hear the chugging of what had to be four or five diesel generators that supplied juice for the lights.

They had just crossed an open space when Lam saw a patrol of eight soldiers working toward them. “I’ve got eight bogies bearing down on me,” Lam said. “Maybe thirty yards away and moving toward me and you guys. I could get half of them in the first burst, but that would make too much noise. Any suggestions, Commander?”

Murdock scowled. “How close?”

“Maybe forty yards.”

“You have your silenced MP-5. Pick them off one at a time from your right side. I’ll send Bradford up with his silenced sniper to get some of them from the left. Go.”

Bradford heard his orders on the radio and sprinted forward. Lam had been fifty yards ahead of them so the sniper went prone after a forty-yard dash and peered into the darkness. He heard a soft cry ahead but couldn’t see anyone.

He waited with his finger on the trigger. The shapes came out of the gloom slowly. He saw only six. He worked the left end of the line of men five yards apart. He sighted in on the last one and fired. Then he worked the bolt, gently jacking a new round in. By that time he had sighted in on the next in line, and he dropped him with a chest shot like the first.

Another one vanished on the right end of the line. Now there were three. He fired again, scratched another Syrian before one of the two soldiers left let out a screech and turned to run back the way he had come. The soldier stumbled and fell and didn’t get up. Bradford had sighted in on the last man to the left, who turned to look at his buddy. The round hit him in the middle of his back, cracking his spine into two parts and killing him in seconds.

“Commander, sir,” Lam said. “We have a body count of eight down and dirty. You’re welcome to come to my fish fry up here.”

“That’s a roger, we’re on our way.”

They worked forward past the corpses, until they could see two sentries walking posts near the edge of the light splash along the outside of the tents. Murdock counted sixteen tents, and there were probably more. Chances were the American students were in one of the them.

Murdock looked at Rafii. “Go back and get a uniform from one of those men we just dispatched. Bring it up here and put it on. You and our Syrian friend here are going to take a walk into the lion’s den and pull some teeth.”

Rafii grinned. He ran off and came back in five minutes wearing the Syrian camo uniform with a soft hat and patches on both shoulders and sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeves. He carried an AK-47 and gave his MP-5 to Jaybird and his combat vest to Fernandez.

“I just promoted myself,” he said with a grin.

“Good. Over there looks like a gap between the two roving guards. We need to do this quickly before that patrol is missed or somebody finds it. I’ve timed out these two walkers. There is a four-minute period when neither of them can see that section up there halfway between those two nearest tents. You’ll need to crawl up to that scrub brush staying out of sight. When both are gone, you slam across to the tents, then find somebody to question about the American students. Everybody in camp should know about it. Our Syrian friend here must understand if he tries to give you away or yell for help, that you will ram your KA-BAR through his heart and leave him dying for nothing. Tell him now, and remind him about the KA-BAR every step of the way.”

Rafii drew his KA-BAR and showed it to the Syrian as he talked to him. He paused in Arabic and spoke in English. “He says his name is Jamil.” Rafii went back to Arabic. Slowly Jamil nodded. He shivered when Rafii placed the point of the knife over his heart. After three more minutes of threats and easy talk, the two moved up as far as they could in the darkness, then dropped down and crawled forward to the struggling bit of greenery that looked like sage.

Murdock watched intently. On the first pass by the
guards, he saw Rafii prod Jamil up and they both ran for the tents. They made it with no outcry or gunfire. Murdock breathed a little easier.

Rafii pushed Jamil down when they hit the shadows between the two tents. They crawled to the front and looked out. Six tents in a fair row. Rafii figured they were infantry housing. Across a thirty-yard open space loomed four more twenty-man tents. One of them had a guard out front with a submachine gun. He didn’t bother anyone who walked by, but getting into the tent would be another matter.

Rafii punched Jamil in the shoulder. “We’re going to walk out there like we belong. We’ll go up this street and find someone to talk to and locate where the Americans are being held. I’ll do the talking. You just look stupid. Understand? Or do you want to die right here and leave your wife and family alone?”

“No, no, I will go with you and not give you away.”

They found a soldier staring at the sky two tents up.

“Stargazing?” Rafii asked the man.

“Oh, yeah. I used to know the constellations.”

“Learn them again, they’re still up there. You hear about the Americans we captured?”

“Hear about them, I captured half of them. Shot one. We brought them up here.”

“They all in that same tent over there?”

“Yeah, so that’s where they put them. Only tent in the whole place with a guard outside, except the colonel’s of course.”

“See if you can find Taurus, the bull. He’s up there.”

The soldier thanked them and wandered away. Rafii and Jamil headed the other way, toward the prisoner tent. Not for sure the students were there, but it was a try.

The two men walked briskly up to the guard, who brought his weapon up to port arms.

“Soldier, they told us the American prisoners are here. Is that right?”

“Not for me to say. I’m just a guard.”

“You better say. The colonel told me to come and get them. He has found a good translator who speaks perfect
English and he wants to interrogate the spies.”

“Say something in English for me.”

“You blow-headed bastard, you can’t understand me anyway, now shut up or shape out.”

The guard chuckled. “Sure sounds like English. Okay, look inside.”

“You have them tied up?”

“No.”

“Do they at least have leg irons on?”

“No, just their hands tied behind their backs.”

“Okay, you go in first and I’m right behind you.”

The guard frowned, lifted his brows in surrender, then untied the flap on the tent and pushed it aside as he went inside. A single bulb burned in the center.

The eight Americans sat or lay on folding cots. Some of them were sleeping. “On your feet,” Rafii snapped in English. The young men and women groaned. “Stay unhappy. I’m here to help you. Get up but be unhappy, you understand?”

“If we do?” a young man said.

“If it works right, we get you out of here and into a navy chopper and fly you out of here. Come on, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Rafii turned to the guard and slammed the butt of the AK-47 he had taken from the dead Syrian hard against the side of the man’s head, jolting him to the ground. Then he drew his KA-BAR and sliced a four-inch slit in the rear of the tent. He turned as Jamil headed for the door. “Stop him,” Rafii said. One of the young students tackled him and they rolled over. Rafii tossed the kid riot cuffs. “Tie him up, hands behind his back and ankles, then gag him. I thought you kids were tied up.”

“We untied them right away. Bad knots.” A girl maybe twenty said it. She looked out the slot in back. “Nothing out there but dry land and some shrubs.”

“Good,” Rafi said. He slit the rear of the tent open five feet high and lined up the students. “Is anyone hurt or wounded?” There was no reaction. “Good, we go out of here at a walk, don’t run. Not much light gets back there. We fade into the darkness. You got that? If anyone runs,
we attract attention. In the dark they won’t know who is who. So they will shoot us. Understand that? We keep five yards apart. Everyone ready?”

He looked around. They were all grinning. The same girl spoke up. “An Israeli sergeant was giving us close order drill once a day. We can do it.”

He put the two men in front, then the four girls and the other two men in back. He brought up the rear.

“Let’s go. Five yards, and walk. If anybody starts shooting at you, run like hell generally around the tent lights and to the south. Move.”

It seemed to take forever to get all eight of them out of the tent. Then Rafii followed the last boy, the one who had done the tackle. Already he couldn’t see the ones in the lead. As the lights behind them faded, he pushed the rear of the line forward until they were closely bunched. He took over the lead and they did a slow trot southward.

“Hey, Commander,” Rafii said on the Motorola. “We’re out and moving south. I have eight chicks who want to come home to roost.”

“You’re out with them? We didn’t hear a shot. Nothing. How did you do it?”

“Later, Commander. Give us a landmark. This bull-dozed land all looks the same.”

“Head south and to your left. I’ll put Lam out to listen for you. Any of the kids hurt?”

“Not that I know of.”

“We find you, get the kids on the truck, and we move two-point-five miles south between the two camps and call in our chopper. Should work. Lam, anything?”

It took them a half hour to find each other in the black Syrian night. Then the kids jammed onboard the pickup and one of them drove as they headed south at ten miles an hour. The SEALs jogged along behind at their six-minutes-to-a-mile pace.

The girl who had talked before leaned out of the cab and called to Murdock.

“You must be the commander. Isn’t that a navy rank?”

“Yes, miss, it is. We’re Navy SEALs.”

“On land. Good. Whatever, I’m glad you found us. What about Harry and Mike?”

“The two men you left behind. I’m sorry-we found them, but they are both dead. We can’t do anything about them now. We’ll have to wait until this little war is over.”

“Why can’t we get them and take them with us?”

“Far, far too dangerous. It would be compromising your safety. They won’t mind waiting awhile.”

“This odometer is in kilometers, Commander,” the kid driving said. “I let it go to three, isn’t that about two miles?”

“Close enough. Murdock saw some brush and trees ahead to the left. “Drive into those trees. No ditch here to worry about. Get the rig in as far as you can.”

Murdock called to Bradford, who was unfolding the dish antenna. Quickly he had it situated and gave Murdock the mike.

“This is Search One calling Skyhook. I say again, Search One calling Skyhook.”

As soon as he let up on the send button the set talked.

“Yes, Search One. Been waiting. This is Skyhook. I’m about twenty below where I dropped you. Things are heating up. Where’s my LZ?”