Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (26 page)

“Yeah, Stroh.”

“I’m putting my ass on the line for this one. Don’t let me down. I need that damn scientist.”

“You got him. Out.”

Murdock’s watch showed 0100 before the radio came on again. He grabbed it.

“Yeah, Highboy One, this is Grounded.”

“We’re at Zefat on the ground waiting your go. We have contacted Israeli Action and they are ready to get us in and out with a fierce bombardment on the MLR just to the west of here. Give me the word. We are about-ten minutes from takeoff to your position. Questions?”

“None. We’ll be hitting some tents in a divisional head-quarters with twenty-millimeter airbursts. Should give you a beacon to come in on. We’ll also put in some WP rounds to light up the target. One of you work over the far end of the tents. Nothing on the south end, that’s where the prize package is. Your attack should help pull the troops up there and away from our scientist.”

“That’s a roger, north end of burning tents. Got it.”

“Then we want the second chopper to come in south of the camp. We’ll be on a low hill and set up an LZ with a flare on some fairly level ground. If that second chopper isn’t on time, we’re toast. We won’t be able to communicate
then, we’ll be charging away from the hill. You’ll have your go in about five minutes. Grounded, Out.”

Most of the SEALs heard the talk on their personal Motorolas. Now they got up, checked their weapons, and went with Murdock up to the hill. He spread them out as before, with Lam taking four MP-5 shooters down the hill to within forty yards of the edge of the camp. They would use silenced rounds so they didn’t attract attention to their position.

“Ready.” Lam said.

“I want two WP and the rest airbursts. I’ll do one WP, Mahanani the other one. Then we put in measured rounds for three or four minutes. I’m waiting until I can hear the choppers before we open fire. Bradford, you set up?”

“Yes, sir, ready.”

Murdock used the mike. “Highboy One and Two. This is your go. I want Highboy Two to come in a hundred yards south, that is south of the lighted camp. We’ll have out a flare for his LZ. Got that, Highboy Two?”

“That’s a roger, Grounded. We’re in the air. Hit the MLR in five and you in another five.”

“When I hear your engines, I’ll start firing. Just head for the biggest light show in this end of Israel. Electric lights all over the place. But fire into the north end of the tents only.”

“That’s a roger, Grounded.”

“Hold steady, SEALs. When we hear the choppers, we fire. Not before. We could overplay our hand. Lam. As soon as you eliminate hostiles in that immediate area of the posts, take your four men in there with KA-BARs and cut free and carry out or let run out with you those three men. You might shoot out some of the floodlights while you’re at it. Bradford, good job for you. Get as many in this end of camp as you can.” Murdock paused, listening for the choppers. No indications they were near.

“Everyone on board? Check in.” Murdock waited while both squads checked in, by patrol order.

“Roger that, platoon. We’re all here. Now listen for those birds.”

It was six minutes by Murdock’s watch before he heard
the choppers. “Here they come. On my round twenties. We’ll do the first salvo, then a round every ten seconds. Space them out. Bradford, you do those lights and help on Lam’s crew. Here we go.” Murdock sighted in on the farthest tent with his WP round and fired. It hit midway in the canvas, tore through, and exploded inside. The second WP round hit a short way toward the front and moments later the whole tent was one big bonfire. Then the airbursts began and rained death down on the men who scurried out of tents along the line. Some had weapons, most didn’t. Murdock saw the first chopper slanting in and the. 50-caliber rounds tearing up the last three tents in the line. The bird swung around and raced back out of rifle range and hovered somewhere out of sight, blasting the area with the long-range. 50-caliber machine guns.

Below, Lam sighted in on a guard who paced near the last tent in the row. He was thirty yards from the prisoners. He heard one floodlight shatter, then saw another go dead. Two more guards moved toward the prisoners, looking at the dead floods. Lam’s men cut down all three Syrians and watched for more.

“Two more bad guys on the left, just coming out of the shadows,” Donegan said. Both went down with two slugs in each one. Bradford had killed three floodlights in the same area. Lam watched for more Syrians. He saw three more run into the scene from behind the row of tents. Bradford must have nailed one; the MP-5s stuttered out three-round silenced bursts and the last two men hit the dirt and didn’t get up.

“Donegan-you, me, and Rafii, let’s go in and get those guys. On the double, be ready to shoot anyone you see in there.” Before they were to the edge of the camp, two Syrians ran around one of the officers’ tents. Lam saw them coming and drilled them with a three-round burst. They jolted to the ground and one tried to crawl away. Donegan saw him moving and nailed him with three more rounds.

Lam got to the first prisoner and sliced his rope ties. He was barely conscious. Lam draped him over his shoulder and ran for darkness out of the camp and toward the
hill. He heard more silenced rounds. Behind him. Donegan shot a Syrian who had wandered toward them looking up at the dead floodlights. Donegan cut the bonds of the third man. He was conscious, angry, said he could walk, and he and Donegan ran for the darkness.

Rafii was last to get to his man.

“Yes, yes,” the man shouted. He was ready to run when Rafii got him cut loose, and they both sprinted for the darkness. Rafii heard firing behind him, felt the wind of a bullet zipping close to him, and rushed forward out of the light into the darkness. He stumbled and stopped.

A body. A SEAL. He turned the man over. Donegan. Rafii bent and picked up Donegan, who weighed more than he did, and began to work with him up the hill. Lam almost had his man to the top of the hill when the choppers hit the tents again with another sequence of. 50-caliber machine-gun fire. One of the forty-sixes swept in closer, then slanted back out of rifle range and blasted the tents with the. 50-caliber fire. Some men still ran from the tents; most had guns now but couldn’t see the choppers killing them.

Murdock had watched the men below as one by one the prisoners were cut loose and helped up the hill. When all three of the prisoners were free, he saw one of the SEALs go down. Was he shot or did he fall? He didn’t get up. Another SEAL stopped and picked up the wounded man and worked up the hill. Murdock sprinted down the hill and took the weight off the much smaller Rafii and they hurried up the hill. Lam had his man over the ridge last. Jaybird had run down the hill on the reverse slope to find an LZ. A minute later, Murdock saw a flare go off marking the LZ location. Bradford didn’t have the SATCOM working, but the bird flyer knew what he was supposed to do.

“Everyone down to the flare,” Murdock said on the Motorola. Murdock checked the prisoners; the two up and moving were the Israelis. Lam had the package. “Is he hurt bad?” Murdock asked.

“Don’t know, Skipper. He can’t walk, hasn’t said a word. He was unconscious when I cut him down. Didn’t
see any obvious wounds. I don’t think he’s been shot.”

“Get him down to the chopper. I’ll get two men to help you.” Murdock hurried the two Israelis down the way toward the flare.

“Mahanani, we’ve got a customer for you. On Lam, and me now. We’ve got Kugel, but he’s almost out of it. He’s coughing, and he has a fever. I don’t know what’s the matter, but it isn’t good.”

Murdock gave Donegan to Howard to carry down the hill. He was dead and Murdock didn’t know how it happened. A stray round or one aimed at the rescuers? He helped Lam with Kugel. Murdock tried to talk with him but got only gibberish back.

He had left Fernandez and Canzoneri on the top of the hill as a rear guard to discourage anyone who tried to get up the hill to fire at them. Now he could hear the weapons on the hill chattering off rounds. It took them only three minutes to get everyone down near the flare. It had almost burned out. Murdock looked into the darkness. Where was the other bird? Not again.

Then he heard it coming. It swept over the small hill to the west and settled to the ground twenty feet from the flare. By the time Murdock got there, half the platoon was on board. He bellowed at Fernandez and the two rear guard men raced down the hill intent on getting to the flying bird before it took flight. Lam found a place on the floor to lay Kugel. Two of the men took off their shirts and wrapped them around the naked man. The two Israelis were chattering, crying, and singing.

“We knew we were dead,” one of them said. “We thought we were safe in our cave, then they pulled in with that regimental headquarters and sent out troops to check every hill and bush and they soon found our cave. Nothing to eat for three days. Almost no water. Put us in the sun yesterday morning. Kugel couldn’t take the sun. He’s in a bad way.”

Fernandez and Canzoneri clambered on board and Gardner called it. “All accounted for, Commander,” he shouted.

“Get out of here,” Murdock yelled at the pilot and they
lifted off just as two rifle rounds slanted off the outside plates. Ten seconds later they were up and over the protective hill and heading for the village of Karmi’el. Murdock moved over beside the scientist lying on the floor.

“Not sure what’s the matter with him,” Mahanani said. “Could be sunstroke or heat exhaustion, but must be something else or something more. I feel so damned stupid not being able to figure it out.”

Yaron knelt down beside them. Two flashlights played on the sick man. “He didn’t take well to the heat. Hated it. Kept mostly indoors. Two days in the sun could do it. Canteens? Let’s cool him down, can’t hurt. Pour the water right over the shirts. That might help enough.”

They poured water over the prostrate man and Mahanani said it seemed to calm him down at least. The fever was still there, but to the corpsman’s trained hand it seemed a little lower.

Five minutes later they set down outside of the village of Karmi’el and the three Israelis stepped out. Murdock thanked them. They hugged the SEALs, and then the chopper lifted off and headed for the same MLR spot it had come across on the way in. Murdock saw a black shape against the clouds and recognized the other forty-six flying forty yards to the right. Everyone accounted for.

The tanks were still blasting the Syrian positions. Machine-gun fire and rifle fire peppered the same targets. There was some counterfire but not much.

Before Murdock could even locate the actual lines of the two sides, they were past them and into the darkness and quiet of the Israeli countryside. The worst was over. Now it was just a chopper ride back to Haifa.

Murdock went to the cabin. The pilot spoke on his radio. “Yes, Haifa, mission accomplished. We’re across the MLR and on our way south, then to the west.”

Murdock touched the pilot’s shoulder. “We have one sick man, our package. Have a gurney and doctors at the hospital chopper pad when we can get there. Our medic says he looks critical. Tell Haifa that.”

The pilot nodded and Murdock went back to talk with
Mahanani and to watch Kugel. “Don’t let him die on us, Mahanani. We didn’t come all the way in here and lose one man KIA just to have Kugel die of sunstroke. Keep him alive.”

Murdock used his flashlight and looked at the other body on the chopper’s floor. Tracy Donegan’s head wasn’t marked. Murdock felt his shirt. The cloth over his heart was soaked with blood. He used his flashlight again and opened three buttons on the cammie shirt. Two round black marks showed on Donegan’s white chest. One was directly over his heart, the other three inches to the left. He had died instantly. Murdock buttoned the shirt and closed the dead man’s eyelids.

He looked at the silent face that had been Donegan. They had been on a few missions together. He had been a good SEAL. Murdock wiped his hand over his face. The chopper was not full of SEAL talk, as often was the case coming back from a mission. They all knew about Donegan, and probably were making silent prayers that the bullets hadn’t found them. Murdock frowned trying to remember. Was Donegan thirteen or fourteen? He couldn’t remember. Was he getting so callous, so detached from reality, that he took the deaths of his men as a matter of course?

“Casualty report,” Murdock bellowed to get over the chopper noise. “Anybody else get hurt?”

“Something’s been squishing inside my left boot,” Rafii said. “I don’t remember walking through any water.”

“Where are you?” Mahanani shouted. “You’ve been shot, son, but you’re going to live.”

Murdock watched Kugel. His breathing had evened out. They poured more water on him and he shivered. His eyes blinked now and then, but he was still unconscious. Murdock touched his carotid artery. A strong pulse, and regular.

Twenty minutes later the chopper came in at the brightly lighted helicopter pad just outside the Israeli military hospital on the Rahat Air Base and six medics waited there with a gurney. Three SEALs moved Kugel to the edge of the chopper and then eased him out with infinite
care until he was on the gurney. Someone took Kugel’s pulse, another his blood pressure as they ran forward wheeling him directly into the emergency entrance.

Murdock told Gardner to take the men back to their quarters. He sat in the chopper with Donegan. The pilot came back.

“I heard,” he said. “We better take him to the morgue around in back of the hospital. We call it Graves Registration. I’ll go get somebody to come out.”

Murdock put both hands over his face and didn’t try to stop the tears from coming. He had wiped away the wetness by the time the pilot came back with a gurney and two attendants.

“Sir, there’s some paperwork we’d like you to fill out,” one of the white-coated attendants said. “It’ll only take a few minutes. He’s a SEAL, I understand. Damn fine fighters. I’m sorry that you lost him.”

“Donegan, damnit. His name is Tracy Donegan, Signalman Second Class from Andersonville, Illinois.” Murdock closed his eyes and slid out of the forty-six.

“Sorry, it’s been a rough night. I’ll be glad to fill out the paperwork that you need. Hold the body for shipment to the U.S. It should be within a day or two.”