Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (31 page)

The red flare arched up high overhead and burst into a bright pinkish light that drifted slowly south.

“Go,” Murdock said on the Motorola. The SEALs and the Israeli frogmen pushed down the arming levers on their bombs, stood, and raced into the surf, then swam straight out to sea.

Murdock had counted down in his head the thirty seconds. When he got there he stopped swimming and treaded water as he watched the shore.

The sudden eruption turned the blackness into daylight as the crackling roar of the blasts showered sand and water a hundred feet in every direction and sent a shock wave through the air to break out all the windows within a quarter of a mile. It wasn’t just one blast; they came like a string of firecrackers, some doubling on each other, some far down the beach, some close at hand-until all forty of the huge bombs had detonated and slammed the
shock wave time after time into the mostly rural Israeli countryside. There were more shells from the ship at sea, and then the noise tapered off and faded out and Murdock turned and stroked easily toward the dark hull of the landing craft he spotted fifty yards to sea.

“SEALs, the right-hand boat is ours. Do you all see it? Sound off?”

One by one the SEALs checked in, then Bravo Squad tallied in. A moment later the Israeli came on. “What a hoot that was. We gave any Syrians around this part of the country a welcome. Our men are approaching our landing craft. I can’t count them yet, but we should have all of our lads with us. I understand the ship will stay on station and fire into the countryside every half hour or so to convince the Syrians that something is afoot up here.”

Murdock hit the side of the landing craft and lifted up and was pulled over the side by hands above. Then he helped lift in the rest of the SEALs until everyone was accounted for. His left shoulder burned with every tug on a SEAL, but he ignored the pain.

“Marnin, you get all your men back?” Murdock asked on the Motorola.

“Waiting for one, he’s our slowest swimmer, but he’s in sight. You can take off for the ship whenever you want. We’ll see you on board. I understand the ship’s mess is going to put on a special feed for us.”

“Sounds good, see you there.” Murdock stretched out his left arm. Hurt like hell, but he’d never admit it. He felt like a wild animal. They tried never to show that they were injured or hurt in any way, because then they would become the target of any predator in the area. He flexed the arm again and Jaybird grinned.

“You say a word, little friend, and I’ll squash you like a lop-eared grasshopper on the sidewalk.”

“Me? What? Just wondering what we’ll have for chow.”

The SEALs arrived back at the air base later that same night and sacked out. Stroh had some words for Murdock and Gardner.

“Good job on the fake landing. We have reports of a massive movement of troops toward that area. The generals think that’s going to swing the balance. Already some Israeli forces are moving forward into positions vacated by the Syrians. By tomorrow night the war situation should be going the Israeli way big time.”

“So when do we fly out of here?” Gardner asked.

“General Bildad wants you to stick around a couple more days. Not sure what might turn up. He’s been thankful that you were here to help out.”

“That’s why we get the big bucks,” Gardner said.

“Hold that thought.”

“Then we can actually get some sleep time?” Murdock asked.

“Be my guests,” Stroh said. “But remember the old Stroh proverb: he who sleeps to noon has a short morning.” The CIA man grinned and slipped out the door.

The next morning Murdock heard that the war front news was good. The Israeli forces were advancing on all fronts except that one nearest the ocean where the fake landing had been. There were still massive troop concentrations there. The frustrated Syrian generals were probably trying to figure out what happened.

At 1410 Don Stroh popped back into the SEAL quarters. He found Murdock cleaning his Bull Pup.

“Get it clean, you’re going to need it.”

“I thought we’d already won the war for the Israelis,” Jaybird said.

“Almost, but not quite. The friendly troops are advancing on all fronts now, except the beach property. Recon shows that the concentration of troops that were rushed there last night have been pulled out and sent to the other fronts, but they got there too late to do much good and now half the army is in a rout heading for the buffer zone and Lebanon.”

“So let’s go home,” Jaybird said.

“Not so fast, Machine-Gun Mouth,” Stroh said. “We know where their GHQ is for this romp. It has the commanding general in it, a professional soldier by the name of General Mahdi Diar. He’s in a luxury home over-looking the sea near the small town of Nahariyya. That’s about four miles north of where you guys hit the beach last night.”

“Sure and he’s probably got about two thousand guards around him,” Murdock said. “You know how these generals are.”

“Maybe yesterday, but today the Israelis have a man in the area with a radio and they say he’s down to about twenty guards, he’s sent everyone else to the front.”

“So?” JG Gardner asked.

“So he wants you guys to go in with sixteen Israelis and do a HALO jump and take out the general and his staff.”

“Just like that?” Murdock asked.

“How else? It’s what you guys do best. The Israelis will send their elite jump team from their special forces. They are good.”

“How high?”

“Talking about twenty thousand, not too chilly.”

“Stroh, you’ve never jumped into cold air up there,” Gardner said. “That high it’ll freeze the old gonads off a brass monkey.”

Stroh chuckled. “Haven’t heard that phrase for thirty years. Thought it died out in the fifties-well, the seventies.”

“So when’s the meeting?” Murdock asked.

“At fifteen-hundred, usual place. Bring four.”

“We’ll be there.”

Murdock was pleased an hour later when the meeting got underway. They passed around digital pictures of the luxury house. There were four views of it, showing three sides.

“These pictures were taken this morning by our man there with his digital camera,” General Bildad said. “He then sent them by his cell phone with special modem in it to our phone and we printed them out.”

The Israeli Air Special men talked with the SEALs. Their leader, who had been introduced as Captain Lansky, had the floor.

“We come in from the sea at about twenty thousand, and then fly north a half mile. There’s a south breeze blowing today and it’s supposed to continue tonight. If we bail out at twenty, and free-fall to two thousand, we shouldn’t drift much. Once our chutes open we can control them and come in on the beach about a quarter of a mile from the objective.”

“Can we start it as a silent operation?” Murdock asked. “We can silence half of our weapons, then go with the rest of the guns when we need them.”

“Sounds good,” Captain Lansky said. “We’ll have half our submachine guns silenced,” the captain said.

“Timing,” General Bildad said.

“Anything around oh-one-hundred would work for us,” Murdock said. “Guards tend to let down about then.”

The Israeli captain agreed and they looked back at the general.

“This is a bit of a sensitive situation. The mansion we’re going into is owned by an influential man high in the Israeli government. We want as little damage to the building and furnishings as possible. That’s why we haven’t called in a missile strike on the GHQ. Don’t use grenades or other explosives, and try to limit your weapons fire to single shots if it can be done that way.”

Murdock scowled. “General. I won’t risk my men’s lives to save some antiques or fancy furniture. My men
are worth a lot more than this house. Maybe you should leave us out of the mission.”

General Bildad frowned. “Commander. I may be a little rusty on my American military discipline. But I always thought a lower rank officer did as he was ordered.”

“You’re quite right, General Bildad. However, we are U.S. Navy personnel, and answer to the highest ranking American naval officer on post. Which I happen to be. We are here at your request, not our own. In the field, when I am on the direct orders of our President, which I am in this case, I outrank anyone in the mix, which would include you, General Bildad. If you need us for this mission, my men and I will take all due caution to preserve the property. However, if it is a choice between a blasted dining room or a dead SEAL, that dining room will indeed be blasted. Do I make myself clear on this matter?”

“Yes, Commander. Totally clear. I didn’t mean to imply that you endanger your men to save the house. However, it would be appreciated if you could complete the mission with as little structural and internal damage as possible. If it can’t be done that way, we still want this Syrian general to be eliminated.”

Murdock hesitated, looked at the general, then nodded. “Yes, General Bildad. We’ll do the job with as little damage as must be done.”

“Good, we’re all on the same page. The plane will take off oh-thirty. I suggest you SEALs go to our parachute building to check on the harness and operation. These chutes may be a little different.”

“Will we have masks and oxygen bottles?” Gardner asked.

“From twenty thousand we usually don’t use the oxygen,” Captain Lansky said. “We’re through the cold zone in two minutes and then the oxygen is sufficient. We can provide them if you want them.”

“You’re right,” Murdock said. “At twenty we usually don’t use them either on a HALO. Do we need to coordinate on the kind of weapons we take?”

“We’ll get together on that right after this meeting,” Captain Lansky said.

“How do we get back?” Lam asked.

“Thirty men,” Murdock said. “I’d suggest a pair of SH-60s could do the job, if we have a secure beach LZ.”

They all looked at the air force general. “Yes, we can send in two sixties. We call them UH-60 Blackhawks when they’re on land. They can each lift out fifteen men. We need to send in a pair of chopper gunships to assure that the LZ is secure.”

Murdock grinned. “General, I like the way you plan a mission. The gunships are a must. How do we call them in when we’re ready?”

Captain Lansky looked up. “We have radios that work on TAC Two with the planes. We’ll call them in. We always have three radios for backup in an operation like this.”

Lam rubbed his neck the way he did when he was unsure. He frowned and looked at the generals. “How far will we be from the MLR? How far would it be if we have to fight our way back into friendly territory?”

General Bildad looked at one of his aids. A colonel spoke up.

“Sir, right now we have pushed the Syrians back to within about five miles of that GHQ.”

“Be a hell of a lot easier to swim back,” Jaybird said.

“Not for us,” Captain Lansky said. “I haven’t swam a mile in twenty years.”

“Then we’ll be sure to get the birds in there,” General Bildad said. “And two gunships will guarantee a safe LZ. Now, are there any more questions?” There weren’t any.

Outside Captain Lansky talked with the SEALs.

“On jumps we mostly use the Uzi. We’ve customized ours with sound suppressors, but that doubles the weight.”

“If you could bring half of them suppressed, that would help,” Murdock said. “We’ll have a sniper rifle suppressed and eight H and K MP-5s all suppressed. We take one, sniper rifle with scope, a machine gun, and the rest will be the Bull Pups with twenty-millimeter and 5.56.”

“I’ve heard you have those,” the captain said. “I’ll look forward to seeing them. Sound like a fantastic infantry weapon.”

“Turns a dogface into a walking artillery piece,” Gardner said. “They are simply fantastic for anything long range.”

“How are you fixed for ammo?” The captain asked.

“Not sure,” Murdock said. “If you could send one of your men with us, we’ll check and then he could take us where one of our men could get the needed ammo.”

“Done,” Captain Lansky said. “First let’s go to Building 412 to check out your chutes. I think you’ll find them pretty standard.”

The chutes were almost exactly what they used in the U.S., and the ammo supply was replenished. Later the SEALs followed Murdock from the tarmac at 2400 into a plane he had never seen before. It had a fixed high wing with jump doors on both sides and turbo prop power. Murdock shrugged-just so it flew.

It did. They leveled off at twenty thousand feet and the pilot then moved slowly a half mile inland and a half mile north of the target. Then the red light changed to green and the SEALs and the Israeli jumpers went to the doors holding the rip cords in their hands. Murdock took a deep breath and stepped out first on the SEAL side into the cold blackness of the Israeli night. It was always a shock to the senses and the system that first step into nothingness. Then as he fell he moved his arms so he was fairly flat and sailed toward the cluster of lights he saw far below and south. Without realizing it, Murdock had held his breath when he jumped, and now a minute and a half later he let out the air. The cold air slapped his lungs but was welcome. The cold didn’t worry him. He’d been colder lots of times. He wasn’t aware of the rest of the SEALs, but knew they had to be slightly above him. All had their Motorolas on and he touched the throat mike.

“SEALs, check in.” He heard the fourteen men make the radio check in the usual order. “Good. Lam and Jaybird, call out the two-thousand-foot level and we’ll pull. No automatic openers on these chutes. We do it the old-fashioned way. When we land I’ll use a light stick so we can get together. Generally we go south.”

He watched the lights come closer, and the ground. He could soon see the dark blobs below.

“Coming up on two thousand,” Jaybird said. “In ten. Count it down.” Murdock counted, then pulled the rip cord and tried to get vertical before the harness lines snapped him up short from his free fall. “Damnit,” he shouted as the harness jerked him sideways then upright. He looked up and forgot the pain as the beautiful chute billowed out. It was the directional kind and he watched the ground coming up slower now. A house up front. The lights of the village they were aiming for vanished behind a small hill.