Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (29 page)

He hated this waiting. What could he do? Fire a star shell high over the enemy, roll up six tanks, and fire at whatever they saw? He liked the idea. He had just told the six tanks on the front line the plan when he heard a strange sound. Nothing too large, a rifle of some kind, no more like a small cannon.

“Major, I’m hit.” The voice came from the third tank in his old platoon. He knew the voice. “Something hit the side of the tank and bounced off, then seconds later I took a round on my right track. I’m doing circles, dead in the water here.”

“What hit you?”

“I don’t know. Big enough to rip the right-hand track off.”

“All right, the same orders with our five guns. Captain Fahd, fire that star shell out about a mile. When it bursts, we roll up fast, find a target, and fire and roll back. Fire, Fahd.”

Claymore heard the tank fire and looked up surprised. It was less than fifty yards directly ahead of him rolling in and out of the deep shadows of a tree. As soon as the tank fired, it rolled back into the cover. By then Claymore had his twenty zeroed in on the churning tracks and he fired. The first round slammed into the back of a track just as it started making the turn around the power rollers, and whipped it off.

“Got one.” Claymore said on his Motorola.

Jaybird had slid past the first tank he saw and headed for the second. They were lined up like on a parade. He nailed the second tank track with his second round, then had turned to fire at the tank he had bypassed when its machine gun chattered and hot, angry slugs cut a swath through the grass six feet from him. He rolled four times the other direction, then aimed and fired for the tank with the MG working. It fired again just as Jaybird’s round hit one of the tracks in the middle on top and blew it apart.

“Two down,” Jaybird said. He heard more firing then, the familiar slapping sound of the 20mm round as it left the muzzle of the Bull Pup.

“Anybody keeping count?” Murdock asked on the net.

“That makes seven reported,” Lam said.

Murdock told them about the first line all rolling up at once. He wondered what results they had.

Major Shamalekh heard more of his tankers report that their tracks had been blown off. He hit the side of the
tank with his hand. It couldn’t be anti-tank weapons. They were small shoulder-mounted missiles that would blow up the tank, not just knock off the tracks. So far he’d lost seven of his tanks. That and the two blown up made nine. He had only seventeen left.

He waited for the star shell to glow ahead and the tank rolled up. He forced his eye to the scope and checked. He could see three Israeli tanks about a mile and a quarter away that were gunning backward down a reverse slope. His tanks fired but he knew they were too late. All five of his gunners got off rounds, but they did little more to the Israeli position than dig up dirt.

Who was killing his tanks? Retreat? Could be shoulder-mounted weapons he knew nothing of. Men in the grass.

“All tanks. Use your machine guns and spray the area around your rig. Especially those not hit yet. Some kind of infantry weapon out there is hurting us. Spray out a couple of hundred rounds covering as much area as you can.”

Murdock heard the first machine guns fire, dodged be-hind a rock, and hunkered down safe from the tank nearest him. Then the tank on the other side began firing. Soon the area was a wildfire of bullets and tracers as the tank machine gunners drilled thousands of rounds into the ground to the sides and rear.

“Hold steady and take cover,” Murdock said on the Motorola.

“They know we’re here?” Jaybird asked.

“They know somebody is here disabling their tanks. They can’t know who it is or how we’re hurting them. If any of you are close enough and can see any operating tanks, take them out with your twenty. But don’t get yourself killed.”

Murdock checked his area. He could see two tanks well ahead of him firing their machine guns, but he wasn’t close enough to be able to sight in on the tanks’ treads.

He heard slugs hit the rock he hid behind, then move on past him. Maybe they should pull out? They had cut down seven of the monsters, but there must be fifteen or more healthy ones out there ready to charge into Haifa.
They had to wait for the MG fire to quit in any case.

“I shot myself a tank tread,” Canzoneri said. “He won’t be going anywhere but in circles for a spell.”

“Yeah, I nailed another one,” Fernandez said. “That should be nine we’ve put down and dirty.” They waited. Murdock checked his watch. The machine gunners tired of their work and one after another the guns went silent. When there was no more hot Syrian lead flying toward them, the SEALs moved on looking for more tanks.

Lam came on the radio. “Do believe I’ve disabled another one to make ten.” Moments later reports of two more tank tracks knocked off came over the Motorola. They had stopped a dozen Syrian tanks.

“Let’s get out of here,” Murdock said on the radio. “Silent movement, and keep away from the front of these tin cans. They have viewing ports. I came with six healthy bodies. I want to go back the same way.”

It took them a half hour to move to the side they came in on, and Murdock collected them in a small depression out of the sights of the Syrian guns. He let them wind down a minute before they headed back to their truck.

“The Syrian tanks are moving,” Lam said. “Listen to them.”

“If we killed a dozen tanks, there must be at least three men to a tank. Are they riding back on the other machines?” Murdock asked.

The seven crawled up to the top of their protective small rise and looked over it. In the bit of moonlight they could see the tanks now in ghostly shapes as they turned and headed back east and then somewhere north, to the Syrian lines.

“Some airbursts would be good about now,” Jaybird said. “We might catch a few men riding on top of the tanks.”

“Good idea,” Murdock said. “Two rounds each lasered for airbursts. Take your pick of tanks.”

They bellied down on the little rise and soon fired. The explosions twenty feet in the air over the tanks were spectacular. The SEALs could hear the shrapnel whining off the metal. The rounds didn’t slow the tanks, but if there
had been any riders on the back of the beasts, they might find a lot of new holes in their hides.

“Let’s choggie,” Murdock said. The SEALs moved into a column ten yards apart and hiked back toward where they had left the truck. With any luck the driver would still be there. He wasn’t. Murdock had left a Motorola with him just in case.

“SEALs calling our favorite truck driver. We’re here, where are you?”

A reply came quickly. “Didn’t know how long you’d be, Yanks. I’m burning up the brush getting to you. Give me about ten.”

The truck dropped the SEALs off in front of the general’s office. “They told me to bring you back here,” the driver said. Murdock told him to take the rest of the SEALs to their quarters. He and Gardner went in to talk with the general and his staff.

It was almost 0140 but the staff had assembled again.

Murdock and Gardner came to attention at the side of the big table and General Bildad looked up frowning.

“How in hell did seven of you turn around a column of twenty some tanks and send the survivors racing back to the Syrian lines?”

“We work best in the dark, General,” Murdock said. “There should be a dozen of the tanks disabled out there on those fields. You might want to send out tank retrievers and bring them into your house. All of them should be in good shape except for the tracks on one side.”

“All with those damn twenty-millimeter rifles? I want to look at one of them.”

Murdock took two steps forward, worked the bolt, cleared the chamber, catching the unfired 20mm round, then dropped out the large magazine. He handed the Bull Pup to the general. The general looked at it, checked the laser sight, and nodded.

“Yes, I see. It must have an efficient recoil system. Can I keep this one?”

“Sorry, sir. If I lose one of my seven, I get busted down to seaman recruit for the rest of my hitch.”

The general chuckled. “We don’t want that to happen. I’d like a demonstration of the twenty tomorrow. I’ll let you know where and when. Now give me a full report on your trip out to the tanks and how you got close enough to disable them.”

Five miles behind the MLR and well into Syrian-controlled land, Major Shamalekh spread the remaining tanks out along the main line of resistance and then drove his tank back to General Mahdi Diar’s headquarters in the small Israeli beach town. He backed the tank into the defensive position just below the expensive home they had taken over and started up the walk to the front door.

Two soldiers with submachine guns aimed at him jumped out of the shadows.

“Are you Major Shamalekh?” one of them asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re to come with us. The general wants to see you.”

The tank commander felt a tremor pulse through his body. He thought coming back that he’d at least have the rest of the night to get his arguments ready about why the tank thrust didn’t work. Now it was happening. The two soldiers led him into the house and to the master bedroom, where they rapped on the door. One of them opened it and slipped inside.

A minute later he was back. He held the door open and a sleepy-eyed General Diar, wearing a robe and with bare feet, stared at Major Shamalekh. He had both hands behind his back.

“Major, what the hell went wrong out there?” he roared.

“I told you everything in my radio report, General. It just turned sour. Everything went wrong. They brought up six tanks on line that they must have trucked in from the south. Their electronics were working. I lost two tanks before I knew they were shooting at us. Then we forced them back.”

“The other part, Major. The mystery force that knocked the treads off a dozen of my tanks. What did that? How could that happen?”

“I still don’t know, sir. It wasn’t the shoulder-fired missiles the Israelis are getting. It had to be something else.”

“You don’t know what?”

“No, sir. I’d have to inspect the blasted treads.”

“Then what use are you to me? You’re no use. You’re a traitor to Syria. You’re a disgrace to our military uniform.” General Diar brought his right hand from his back, lifted the revolver he held, and fired three rounds into Major Nabil Shamalekh’s chest before the tank commander could move. The major grabbed his chest as he jolted backward from the force of the rounds. Two of the slugs ripped into his heart and he died as he slumped to the polished wooden floor.

Rahat Air Base

Haifa, Israel

Murdock and his six gunners slept in until 1000 the next morning. The only reason they got up then was that Don Stroh was pacing up and down in the squad room. At last he went in and bounced Murdock in his bunk.

“Hey, sailor. What’n hell you think this is, CIA boot camp where you get to sleep in until noon? Rise and shine, swabby, we’ve got some water work for your boys to take care of.”

Murdock came awake instantly and kicked his bare feet to the floor. “Water work?”

“Yeah, you know that wet stuff you guys like to play around in when you aren’t working.” Stroh came off his manic mode and sat down on the end of the bunk. “You boys did good work last night. The old general was shitting marbles trying to figure out how to stop twenty-four tanks with his six. I’m gonna bust my balls to get you six more Bull Pups. Tell the brass you need them for evaluation.”

“Water work?” Murdock said, pulling on his socks and boots.

“Yeah. The general is putting on a push up from the south on all the bulges in the MLR. He wants a diversion to pull half the Syrian troops off the MLR and rush them over to the coast.”

“Water work?”

“Right. He’ll tell you all about it. We’ve got an eleven-hundred meet with him and the brass. Better get some
new cammies on and look like you’re awake.”

“Did the Israelis retrieve those twelve Syrian tanks?”

“That they did, my boy. That they did. Brought all twelve of them back with tank retrievers. The general told me that with new tracks on one side they’ll be good as new. For that I told him we’d be billing him for five million a tank, which seems like a bargain price. That’s sixty million, which will just about pay your salary.”

“Good. Have Donegan’s parents been notified?”

“I took care of that. We sent a Navy chaplain and a captain out to his parents’ place in Osceola, Nebraska. I had the body shipped back this morning.”

“I’ll write them a letter as soon as we get back stateside.” Murdock yawned and stretched. He was testing his shot-up shoulder. It still hurt but not as bad. He’d never let the pain show. “I hate to go to bed and then I hate to get up. Doesn’t make sense.” He looked at Stroh. “You said eleven-hundred. Who will be there?”

“Bring your planning staff: Jaybird, Lam, and Gardner. How is the new JG working out?”

“Good. He’s been there before on command. He hasn’t had a lot of combat yet, but he’s flowing in nicely with the platoon. I think I’ll keep him.”

The meeting in the general’s conference room was much like the others. Half a dozen colonels and a couple of majors, and the air force general and General Bildad, the overall military commander from the Army side. The four SEALs sat down next to Don Stroh, and Murdock watched three Israeli Navy officers walk in.

“Good, we’re all here,” General Bildad said. “The fighting along the MLR has stalemated. We can’t push forward to where we want to be. So, we’re going to throw a surprise at the Syrians and hope it fools them. Captain Dagen will lay out the plan he’s proposing. Captain Dagen.”

The man who stood could have been a fisherman. He had a sea-weathered face with pockmarks, a nose that had been broken more than once and never quite set right, bushy brows over deadly earnest green eyes, and a mop of dark hair that he had to cut every month to keep it
within regulations. His mouth twisted a little, then he looked each man there in the eye before he spoke.

“My planning group thinks that this will work, and that it can do what General Bildad needs done. We suggest that we stage a mock amphibious landing along one section of the twelve miles of our northern coast that the Syrians still hold. There are enough flat beaches up there above Nahariyya that we can fake an amphibious assault. We want to do this at night. We’ll have a good concentration of our ships just off shore, including a couple of landing craft and several patrol boats. At one point they will circle and then head for the beach.