Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (2 page)

“Look closer, damnit, that shadow is moving.”

“Then shoot it.”

“Yeah.” Corporal Aharon aimed and sent seven rounds of 9mm Parabellums into the moving shadow. At once a scream echoed off the stark, dry hillside. The stuttering of submachine guns replied with counterfire. Before the echoes of the rounds quieted, more dark ghostly shapes moved in the blackness. Then fingers pulled pins out of grenades and the deadly hand bombs sailed through the air from only twenty yards away.

Before the grenades hit, both Israeli soldiers were firing on full automatic with their Uzis, spraying the slight downslope in front of them. They knew where the rocks were, none large enough to hide a man. They emptied their forty-round magazines, jammed in new ones, and had started to use them when the first grenade went off just outside the sandbags. It blew dirt and sand into their faces and they sagged down behind the parapet into the safety of the bunker.

The next grenade exploded just inside the sandbags and shattered Aharon’s right leg. The third bomb went off with a terrifying roar, the exploding shrapnel from the steel casing tearing into Zared’s neck and head, dumping him half over Corporal Aharon and dead before he hit the ground.

Aharon pushed his friend off his legs and lifted his Uzi just as the first attacker looked over the sandbags. Even in the darkness, the corporal could make out the angry face of the Arab. Aharon pulled the trigger, blasting six rounds into the soldier’s face, slamming him off the bunker. Corporal Aharon edged up so he could see over the top of the canvas bags. More moving shadows. He drilled them with spaced six-round bursts. Two weapons sent counterfire, but they missed. He fired until his magazine was empty. He hit the release and reached for a filled one. It was right beside his knee. He jammed it in, pulled the arming handle, and edged up for another look.

An enemy soldier crawled toward the bunker, dragging one leg, his submachine gun cradled in his arms. Aharon blasted him into a meeting with Allah, as six rounds ripped into his head, splitting his skull open and spraying the rocks and gravel with brains, blood, and gray matter.

The sudden quiet startled Aharon. He could see no one else moving. No shadow lifted to throw a grenade. No rifle or submachine gun chattered at him. Gone. Or dead. He wiped his face and his hand came away sticky. Then he smelled the blood. Jacob Zared’s blood. A sudden rush of fury flooded over him and he lifted up and emptied the magazine in two long bursts into the area where he had seen the ghost shadows. If only he had fired when he first
noticed them, Zared would be alive. He thought of the other man in the bunker. He hadn’t made a sound. Was he sleeping?

Immediately Aharon shielded the narrow beam of his pencil light and checked the rest of the bunker. It was nothing more than an eight-foot-long arc built up by sand-bags, with a small cave behind it carved by some ancient people into the nearly vertical wall of rocks. He hadn’t counted on grenades. On the first sweep of the far side of the bunker, he found the new guy, Elkan. He didn’t even know his first name. He had come into the squad yesterday as a replacement for a man who had been seriously wounded in a street bombing last week. Elkan lay where he had been sleeping. It looked like he had lifted up when the first firing came, then before he could get turned around to use his weapon, a grenade had jolted hot steel shards into him in a dozen vital places.

Corporal Aharon reached for the squad radio that he had positioned on a small shelf in back of the shallow cave to keep it safe. He grabbed it and punched the on switch and then the send button. No red light came on. He shook it to move the batteries slightly so they would make better contact. That had worked before. Not this time. He used the light again with his back toward the front of the bunker. The radio had been chopped up by half a dozen pieces of a grenade.

He had to report the attack. So he would walk. Could he walk? He used the light to check his right leg. The explosion had gouged a six-inch strip of flesh off his calf. It was so deep he could see the white bone. He pulled open his belt first-aid kit and took out an ampoule of morphine and injected it into his arm. Then he used a roller bandage and tried to wrap up his leg. It took him a half hour fighting the pain that the drug couldn’t deaden. At last he used a large red handkerchief and made a final outer wrap on the six-inch-long wound. He made it so tight that he keened sharply with pain.

He stood, testing the leg, hoping that none of the attackers still watched the bunker. No one shot at him. He took a step over Zared’s body, then back. He did it three
times, and nodded. Yes, he could walk. It was only six miles back to the closest bunker and then to the border. They would have a radio. They might even have heard the firing. Ten soldiers manned that position.

Corporal Aharon picked up the three Uzis and then his small pack and sat on the edge of the bunker. He ground his teeth and scowled as he swung his legs up and over the sandbags. They made it and he took a deep breath. Then he tightened his legs and belly and eased his feet slowly to the ground. The searing jolt of pain when his right boot touched the ground brought a gasp and then a long shiver over his whole body. It hurt like hell. Yes, he could do this. He had run marathons. Once he ran forty miles just to see if he could. He could do this damned six miles.

The first three miles filled him with anger and pain. Why had they attacked? It had to have been expert raiders, commandos, and the elite of either Lebanon or Syria. He didn’t even know if Lebanon had any special troops.

The next two miles filled Aharon with a deadly, suppressed fury that dulled his pain as he concentrated his mind on plain, old-fashioned revenge. That wish, those plans, spurred him on with enough adrenaline to make it through the last mile. A sentry heard him coming when he was a hundred yards away. A password saved him, and the sentry helped him limp into the command post in one of the three bunkers, where he waved at the sergeant in charge. Then Corporal David Aharon promptly passed out.

Less than a half mile from the border on the Lebanese side of the buffer zone, Captain Jarash Rayak lifted his submachine gun and aimed it at the noise he heard out front. The clouds had cleared away from a half moon, and soon he saw two men supporting each other as they limped slowly forward. Only one of them had a weapon.

“Password,” the captain snapped.

“Moon shadows,” the word came back. Captain Rayak relaxed. He waited for the two men to come to him, told
them to sit down, and then he questioned them thoroughly.

“Yes sir, Captain. It went as we planned. We got close enough to use grenades in the dark and fired our weapons. We must have killed all of them in the bunker. I watched for twenty minutes and nobody came out. We lost five men. Private Dasht here is severely wounded. Can we get him back to the hospital?”

“In due time.” Captain Rayak smiled. Yes, this should be enough. They would return to the Lebanon defense center, where he could call his colonel with the good news. Colonel Madinat would be pleased. Now if the Israelis followed through the way they usually did, the stage would be set.

He brought up a jeep and took the two enlisted men back to the defense center, where they were quickly taken to the hospital. Making the phone call to the colonel was pure pleasure.

Less than twelve hours after the attack on the border Israeli bunker, Israeli jets streaked over the buffer zone with full loads of bombs and rockets. The six American-made F-18 fighters slanted down just past the safe zone and destroyed a small Lebanese military post, then blasted apart four houses usually used by Lebanese line crossers. They continued on to the next small town in Lebanon, where they wiped out a large electrical substation, six train cars on the main line north, and more than a dozen business firms and small manufacturing plants.

Ten minutes after the aircraft attack, the Israeli radio and TV came on the air with a statement from the minister of defense. “One of our forward observation posts in the buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon was viciously attacked last night by elite line crossing troops from Lebanon, killing two soldiers and seriously wounding the third.

“This morning Israeli fighter aircraft destroyed several military targets in southern Lebanon in retaliation for the unprovoked attack on our armed forces. Any future missions that Lebanon or Syria run into the buffer zone, or
into Israel, will be dealt with at once and with deadly force. Our purpose is to live in peace with our neighbors to the north. It is our hope that they will observe the civilized actions that will permit this.”

Damascus, Syria

General Mahdi Diar looked up at a small TV screen as the Israeli defense minister gave his warning.

“Yes,” he shouted. “Yes, they have taken the bait. They have played it exactly as we planned.” He turned to an aide. “Make sure that the bodies of the five rangers who were killed in the raid are recovered. They each will receive a medal and their burial costs will be paid for as well.” He looked back at the three-dimensional layout of a long swath of land extending south from the Lebanese-Israeli buffer zone and smiled. As most military men do, he was working on a grand war game strategy. This one would bring Israel to her knees begging for a just peace before her population was pushed ingloriously into the Mediterranean Sea. This war game could quickly turn into something more deadly. General Diar looked around and waved at another aide.

“I must celebrate. Bring me a tall glass of lemonade from my special supply.” The aide grinned and left the room. General Diar was short and square like a Lebanese cedar fence post. His black hair was cut close and he wore a tailored uniform that hid a layer of fat around his mid-section. He used glasses and now peered over them at the display in front of him. He moved a symbol for a company of tanks up to the Israeli border. Again he smiled from dark eyes and showed stained teeth that he could never get clean. His round face held puffy cheeks, dark brows, and a nose that was both sharp and long, giving him a wolfish appearance. The smile tempered; then it faded as he looked at the symbols for the mass of troops and equipment that would be held at least fifty miles north of the Lebanese-Israeli border. It must be done. It had been all arranged, and now the bait had been cast and Israel had swallowed it hook, line, and new bomb.

General Diar laughed softly as he lifted the chilled glass
of lemonade that contained a generous portion of vodka. Yes, soon now. So very soon and it would begin. Then with any luck and with an overwhelming victory, he would be a national hero, and who knew, he might soon be president of all sixteen million Syrians.

Near Boulevard, California

Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven, based in Coronado, California, hadn’t been on a live fire training exercise in more than a week.

“We can’t let you guys get rusty,” Lieutenant (j.g.) Chris Gardner said on the eight-mile hike into the far outback of a ranch in East San Diego County. The owner had long ago agreed to let them use some of his land for live firing practice. They were in the edge of the Laguna Mountains and near the southern section of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. There wasn’t a building or a road within fifteen miles of them in any direction, and thirty miles in others. Here they could practice their automatic weapons, their 20mm rifle air bursts, and stage small wars all their own without bothering anyone, and usually without anyone ever hearing them. All they had to do was close any gate that they opened, and pick up their brass so the hot southern California sun didn’t magnify off it and start a range fire.

Platoon Leader Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock let Gardner lead the pack today. He planned the exercise, primed the troops, issued the weapons, and would run the whole thing. Murdock had been breaking in this new second in command for several months now, through retraining and on at least two hot fire missions out of country. The more experience he had with the men under combat conditions the better. Then he would know about how the men would react, and they would know his moves and gain respect for him as the team leader. At all times he was the leader of Bravo Squad.

Gardner jogged up to the head of the strung-out combat patrol and waved at Operations Specialist First Class Joe “Lam” Lampedusa.

“Speed it up a little, Lam, we’re running late. We need to be to the spire over there in twenty minutes.”

Lam nodded. He had wondered about the pace, but let the officer in charge do the changing. He shifted into a slightly higher gear, lengthened out his stride, and saw the men behind him respond to keep their five yards distance from each other just like on a real combat mission.

Eighteen minutes later the platoon knelt down at the edge of the spire they had used for years as a key point of the landscape.

The JG nodded at Lam and faced the troops. “So far, so good. We’re warmed up now. Our next little mission is for each man to laser two shots from our twenties at our favorite oak tree snag over there eight hundred yards. We have six twenties along today. One is in the repair shop, so we’ll trade off. I want a defensive line along here for you six with the Bull Pups. Now.”

The six SEALs with the 20mm shoulder-fired weapons jogged up to the imaginary line the JG had drawn in front of him and went prone with the weapons. “Fire when you’re ready. Two rounds each, laser on that old snag. Go.”

The 20mm shoulder-fired rifles were not yet operational in the U.S. military. In fact Murdock had wrangled seven of them out of the CIA to “field test.” The weapons would be fully developed and made available to the armed forces sometime during 2005. The weapon has a 20mm barrel on top, and above that a laser/telescopic sight; it can laser up to a thousand yards away. When the gunner pulls the trigger, the laser shoots back the distance to the laser sight, which sends the data to the arming mechanism. There the weapon sets the round’s fuse for the number of rotations the slug has to make to reach the target. At the lasered target the round explodes in an air burst. The weapon is awesome, turning a dog soldier in combat into a walking field artillery piece. The barrel below the 20mm one is for 5.56 rounds. Each barrel has a magazine but
the rifle works with one trigger. The 20mm magazine holds five rounds. Unloaded, the Bull Pup twenty is slightly lighter than the same configuration of the M-16. Four major companies are working on the project that the military has approved. Heckler and Koch in Germany is one of the prime contractors.