Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (30 page)

“Before the fake landing there will be a naval bombardment of the coast. We’ll keep the rounds on the beach or just in back and avoid hitting any houses or buildings if possible. An important part of the operation will be our landing about forty men on the beach to plant explosive charges. The underwater specialists will plant the charges, then go with small arms fire and swim away from the beach and set off the charges. We want the fifteen SEALs from the U.S. to lead the way, followed by twenty-five of our underwater specialists to do the same task. The bombardment will continue from the offshore guns almost until dawn. By that time we hope that the Syrians will have pulled ten to fifteen thousand men off the MLR to meet this amphibious landing they will have to assume is going to come at daylight. Are there any questions?”

Murdock stood. “The charges we plant on the beach. Do we set timers on them, then swim out to the boats?”

“If that works best for you, Commander. We could set them off electronically, but with the water, it might be safer and more reliable to use your regular timer/detonator system.”

“Can Syria move large numbers of troops that quickly?” an army colonel asked.

“Syria drove about a thousand trucks into the area they occupy. We destroyed a lot of them with air attacks, but they still have plenty of transports to move a lot of men the short distance that’s required. That’s a yes.”

“Could we send in an agent to warn the people in the
area and give them time to evacuate away from the beach?” an air force light colonel asked. “I have relatives around that town.”

“It’s already been done,” General Bildad said. “We sent them in this morning through the lines. If we hear no major objections and no problems we can’t solve, we want to get this operation underway and move our ships north at first dark. Our attack time with the first naval bombardment will be twenty-two-hundred.”

“How big will the charges be?” Jaybird asked.

“We’ll use C-5, and each charge will be two pounds,” an army colonel answered. “Enough to blow down the average house, and set in the open on the beach, it will make a tremendous sound and visual display.”

“How do we coordinate the beach blasts?” Gardner asked.

“When the underwater men have the charges set, you will fire one red flare,” the navy captain said. “At that point each man will set his timer/detonator on the charge for thirty seconds, activate it, then reenter the water and swim for the landing craft off shore.”

“What if we get enemy fire as we set the charges?” Lam asked.

“We will have three patrol boats just off the surf line watching for any enemy activity,” an Israeli navy commander said. “If they see any enemy movement, or if anyone fires from that section of the shore, our boat machine gunners will open fire and give you close support. They will know exactly where you are. No friendly fire problems.”

“Timing?” General Bildad asked.

“Good with us,” Murdock said.

“We can have the corvettes
Eliat
and
Lahav
on station within two hours. Both are here in Haifa. The patrol craft on station in one hour. We’ll use two landing craft that will follow the corvette out of port and stay seaward of it.”

“Where do we pick up the charges?” Murdock asked.

“You’ll get them on board the
Eilat
when you board her,” an Israeli commander said. “You should be at the dock at eighteen-hundred.”

General Bildad looked around the table. No one else had any questions. “We’re done here,” he said and stood.

“Teen-hut.” one of the army majors bellowed. The rest of the men shot to their feet and stood at attention as the two generals walked out of the room.

Later, in the SEAL quarters, Murdock explained the operation.

“So that’s about it. Not exactly a barn burner but it should make one hell of a bang when eighty pounds of C-5 goes off almost at once.”

“What do these guy want from us?” Senior Chief Sadler yelled. “First we drop sixty million dollars’ worth of tanks right in their hip pocket and now they want us to play sapper on the beach?”

“About the size of it.” Gardner said. “Let’s get our wet gear ready. We’ll have a full layout inspection in fifteen minutes.”

That evening at 1800 the fifteen SEALs were on a dock in the Haifa harbor waiting for an Israeli Navy launch to take them out to the corvette. Murdock looked over at the senior chief. “Sadler, we have the EAR with us on this trip?”

“Yes, sir. I had a hunch you might want it along on a silent operation like this, so Rafii is packing it.”

“Good.”

Claymore stared out into the harbor. “What the hell is a corvette? I thought that was a Chevrolet.”

Jaybird bristled. “Claymore, you shit-eating knuckle-head. You’re on your second hitch in this man’s Navy and you don’t know what a corvette is? So I’ll tell you. It’s often a smaller country’s largest naval vessel. Smaller than a destroyer but much larger than most patrol boats. Most of them are about two hundred and fifty feet long with a displacement of around a twelve hundred tons. A destroyer is over five hundred and sixty feet with a displacement of about nine thousand tons. Get the picture? In between are the frigates, four hundred and fifty feet and about thirty-five hundred tons displacement. You got that, Claymore? I’m giving a test in ten minutes.”

“I’d guess they have enough guns to protect us,” Clay-more said.

Jaybird laughed. “Right, Claymore. They have missiles like the harpoon and SAMs and torpedoes and three-inch guns and twenty-five-millimeter Vulcan cannon. Yeah, they have guns.”

Five minutes later the launch arrived and the SEALs stepped on board. After a short ride they went up a ladder to the chopper pad on the stern of the corvette. They waited on the empty pad for an ensign to come and lead them to a small compartment where they met the twenty-five Israeli underwater specialists. One of the men came over to Murdock and held out his hand.

“I’m Lieutenant Joseph Marnin.”

Murdock gave his name.

“Looks like we’ll be setting off some charges. I hear you guys have underwater personal radios. How in hell can they work?”

Murdock showed him the waterproof earpiece, the throat mike, and the waterproof unit on his belt. “We kept prodding Motorola until they made this latchup. Not sure if it’s commercially available, but I bet they would work up a bunch for you. Have your people give them a try.”

“Going to do that. We almost lost a man on a simple operation last month. With a radio like that it wouldn’t have happened.”

“How long a ride we have tonight?” Murdock asked.

“Not long, maybe an hour. Depends how fast they move. She can make thirty-three knots if they crank her up.”

The loudspeaker cut into the words. “Divers to the fantail. All divers to the fantail.”

“Must be us,” Murdock said.

They sat on the chopper pad, waiting for their signal to move into the landing craft. Each diver had his package of two pounds of C-5 and the waterproof timer/detonator. The SEALs all carried their weapons over their backs.

Ten minutes later the corvette eased to a near stop off shore from a sparkle of lights from some small town.

“Our beach is two miles north of this town,” the Israeli
diver told Murdock. “Why are they stopping here?”

Murdock listened. “Patrol boat that probably isn’t one of ours,” Murdock said.

An officer came to the fantail with a pair of large bin-oculars and scanned the sea shoreward. Murdock figured they were only two miles off the beach.

The officer let down the glasses. “God, it’s a Syrian patrol boat headed right for us. How can we get past him without his seeing us? We can’t put him down. If we fired now the whole north beach would be on alert.”

Murdock touched the man on the shoulder. “We can put him dead in the water without a sound,” Murdock said.

The Israeli officer snorted. “Sure and my grandma wears dive fins. How in hell can you do that?”

“We’ve got a weapon that can do it. Shoots out a concentrated enhanced sound that will break windows, but it also knocks out anyone within fifteen or twenty feet of it. Puts them down and out for four hours. They wake up with a slight headache but that’s all.”

“Damn thing works?”

“Been using it for two years now.”

“Let me talk to the captain.” The man hurried away and came back with another officer.

“A damn ray gun?” the new Israeli asked.

“No, sir, Captain. We call it an EAR, enhanced acoustic rifle. Rafii, bring up the EAR.”

Rafii worked through the SEALs and handed the weapon to Murdock. “This is it. We need to be within four hundred yards, and then it’s beddy time for anyone on board that patrol boat.”

“We were about ready to scrub the mission. We’ll ease in toward him. Keep the ship totally black. No smoking, no talking,” the captain said. He hurried away.

Murdock felt the craft work slowly forward, then toward the sound of the patrol boat. He watched through the night but still couldn’t see the craft. It took five more minutes of moving shoreward before Murdock spotted the lights of the craft. It was small, maybe sixty feet.

Lam was beside him, watching now. “Cap, I’d say the
range is about six hundred.” The patrol boat, which had been idling its engines, either listening or working its radar, suddenly gunned the motors and headed straight at them.

“Call it, Lam,” Murdock said. He was prone with the EAR angled toward the oncoming boat.

“Five-fifty, Cap.”

They waited. “A little under five. Still coming.”

Another few seconds, then a half a minute.

“Cap, she’s at four hundred. Fire when ready.”

The whooshing sound of the EAR came at once and they watched the patrol boat. Murdock counted down the ten seconds until he could fire the recharged gun again. The boat continued at them, only not quite so fast now.

Murdock fired the EAR again. This time the patrol craft slowed and then coasted toward them on the same course. The engine cut to an idle. She slid through the water and came to a stop less than twenty feet from the corvette’s rail.

“Everyone on board should be fast asleep,” Murdock said. “When the Syrians find they have lost radio contact with the craft, they’ll send another one out to investigate. By then she may have drifted on shore or down the current ten miles.”

The Israeli captain grinned, shook Murdock’s hand, and ran back to the bridge to continue the mission. The big ship edged forward, then came up to ten knots and worked its way up the coast and closer to shore. Five miles north it slowed and then stopped. A landing craft that had been shadowing the corvette on the seaward side slid up to the stern and tied on. The ensign who had met them came back.

“Time to load into the landing craft,” he said. “We have two. They will take you within two hundred yards of the shore. When you hit the beach, send up a green flare and we’ll start our bombardment. We can cause a lot of trouble in there but we hope not to smash up too many buildings. After all, it is Israeli territory.” Murdock found the Lieutenant Marnin he had talked to before and gave him
his backup Motorola. He fastened it on the man and explained how it worked.

“Give me a call,” Murdock said, turning his back on the man.

The call came through and Murdock gave the Israeli a thumbs-up “When you get all of your bombs planted and ready for the red flare, call me on the radio and we’ll shoot the flare,” Murdock said. The Israeli grinned thanked him, and went to load with his men.

The SEALs climbed into one of the craft, and the Israeli specialists into the other, and they moved toward the silent, dark shore. Jaybird had the Colt M-4Al to fire the flares.

At two hundred yards the two boats went dead and the men began dropping over the side. The SEALs kept together, then moved as a group toward the beach. They had been assigned the left-hand side, so they swam that way. The breakers were easy compared to those off Coronado. They surfed in on them, then let the waves move them toward the sand like beached logs where they lay. Murdock gave the Israelis another two minutes. “Lieutenant, are you ready on the beach for the shelling to begin?”

“Ready on the right,” came the answer over the net.

“Jaybird, fire that green flare and aim it well out to sea. When ready.”

The rifle made a sharp report, but the surf drowned out most of it. The green flare arched up and then burst into brightness well out to sea. Within twenty seconds they could see the guns firing off the corvette and hear the rounds coining over.

“Three incher,” Lam said. They made a good-sized explosion when they hit on shore.

“Let’s get our bombs strung out.” Murdock said on the radio. “Ten yards apart, move it, now. Check in when you have your units in place on the top of the wet sand. Move slowly, so we don’t attract any attention. Let’s do it.”

The SEALs spread out on each side of Murdock and soon covered almost two hundred yards of the sandy beach. They eased up forward, out of the water, and crawled slowly up the wet sand until the breakers stopped
hitting them. There they set down the two-pound bombs. They were so small it always surprised Murdock how much power they contained. He pushed the timer/detonator into one of the soft blocks of plastic explosive and set the timer for thirty seconds. But he didn’t move the activator lever.

He waited and then used the radio. “How we doing? Check in with your squad leader when you’re all set and ready to activate. Don’t activate yet. Wait.”

He took calls from five of his six men, then Jaybird chimed in.

“I had the farthest to crawl,” he said.

“Good, now hold.” Bravo Squad had waited for Alpha to finish, then they checked in. All were ready.

Murdock watched the explosions on the land. He heard some of the 25mm rounds hitting and slashing overhead. Time to get out of there. He used the radio.

“Israeli frogmen, are you ready with your plants?”

A moment later the earpiece spoke. “Everything done and done here, mate. Let that flare rip whenever you’re ready. As soon as it flares, we’ll push the arming levers and swim like crazy out into the deep water.”

“We’re ready. Stand by. Shoot it, Jaybird.”