Deathrace (27 page)

Murdock watched Kat. She was the first one to pick a spot, settle in a hollow, and pull the camo cloth over her, right up to her eyes. He eased down beside her.

“You get in any rounds back up there?”

“Yep.”

“Hit anybody?”

“Don’t know. Actually I don’t want to know. I fired the damn weapon like I was supposed to.” There was a sharpness
in her tone. He looked at her but she didn’t say anything more.

“Right. You did fine. Some sleep wouldn’t hurt.” Murdock checked the covers for each of his people. Ed did the same. Murdock said he’d take the first watch of two hours. They’d be in place all day, so some sleep would be good. “If we hear that spotter plane, I’ll give some clicks on your Motorola.”

He watched the sixteen settle down. Within ten minutes he had trouble remembering who was where. Most of them he couldn’t pick out from twenty yards away. He found his own spot where the water had dug out a two-foot-deep gully and squirmed into it. He sat with his back against the end of the hole and watched.

“Murdock,” Kat said softly. She was about ten feet away.

“Yes.”

“You do good work.”

“Thanks, Kat. So do you.”

She was quiet then and Murdock turned to watch a small tarantula moving up on a large beetle. It would be no contest once the tarantula got its stinging tail working.

An hour later he heard the first buzz of an airplane motor.

“People, Third Platoon. We have company. A wee aircraft somewhere to the north. Not sure how far away or if he’s coming our direction. Just want to be sure you know he’s about. DeWitt, take a squad check.”

Murdock listened as all seven of his squad members checked in. Murdock did the same for First Squad. They reported in order of march.

“So, everyone’s awake, we’ll see where our little buddy airplane goes.”

It was quiet then. Now and then they could hear a whisper from a soft breeze that missed them in the gully, and the call of an occasional bird. Murdock didn’t remember seeing a bird since they had landed in this desolate spot. Must be a desert hawk or a vulture of some kind.

The tarantula struck once, and the stunned beetle turned toward it. The second lash of the tail penetrated the beetle’s shell, and a moment later the black bug collapsed on its legs and the tarantula moved up for its meal.

The sound of the plane came closer. Murdock moved lower in his hole and pulled the camo cloth up higher. He wished he had brought some binoculars. Next time.

A moment later the aircraft flew directly over them across the gully, so the pilot or observer would have only a few seconds to look into the ravine.

“Surprise,” Murdock said in his mike. “Check your cover, he’ll be back. Don’t think he can see our foot tracks from even that altitude, but can’t be sure. Next time we wipe out our tracks before we hole up.”

They waited fifteen minutes and couldn’t hear the plane.

“Doubt if he’ll be back now,” Murdock radioed. “Let’s get some sleep.”

He looked over at the small animal war. The victor had eaten and left. There was nothing remaining of the big black beetle but the hard shell and two spindly legs.

Survival.

That’s what life is all about. Especially for the Third Platoon right now. Survival. His job was to get his men, and Kat, out of Iran without losing anyone.

Survival.

“Murdock?”

It was Kat.

“You don’t sound asleep.”

“Not nearly. How many men did you say Iran has under arms?”

“Over half a million.”

“Oh, damn. And only seventeen of us.”

The silence stretched out.

“Logically, it seems that they should be able to throw a couple of thousand troops between us and the coast, stop us cold.”

“It would seem so, wouldn’t it, Kat?”

“Hey, Lieutenant. I know you and your men are good—hell, the best at this kind of work. But the odds of a thousand to one say there really isn’t much you can do.”

“Kat, they have to find us before they can stop us.”

“After last night’s hit on their people, they will damn well know which direction we’re headed.”

“True, Kat. True. They still have to find us.”

Another silence.

“How long before they fly in the reserves? What will it be, paratroopers dropping in on us out of the daytime sky?”

“Probably. And trucked-in troops when we get down far enough that there are a few roads into this barren, desert wilderness.”

“Murdock, we practiced that chopper rescue at sea, when we went up the rope ladder. Couldn’t they do that on land just as well, or even set down on a gully floor somewhere?”

“Could. But then you have an open overflight of a foreign military force. Plainly an invasion of a sovereign nation. The brass doesn’t like to do that sort of thing.”

“Remember that old World War Two movie,
They Were Expendable
?”

“I remember the title. We’re not in that class. The SEALs never leave one man behind on a battlefield, let alone a whole fucking platoon.”

“Sorry, guess I’m thinking too much.”

“Never hurts to think, Kat.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’m done thinking. I’m gonna snore.”

Murdock chuckled. “You do that. I’ll never tell.”

“Murdock?”

“Sure.”

“You said we never leave a man behind. What if a two-hundred-forty-pound man got killed. Say today. How can we carry that man’s body out forty miles without compromising the rest of the platoon?”

“Point taken. I buried one SEAL on foreign soil. Last
mission we towed a body through the surf and out to sea for a submarine pickup. I didn’t like either job. I’m going to do my damnedest to see that I don’t have to do either one of them again.”

“But it could happen?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good night, Murdock.”

“Yeah, dreams of D.C.”

Murdock looked over to where Kat lay, but for a moment couldn’t find her. Then the ground moved slightly, her camo cover. He nodded, and stared down their back trail. They were on the side of the gully well off the small valley’s floor. He could see over two small ridges they had climbed.

His head snapped to one side as he refocused on one spot along the back trail. Had he seen a flash of light? He concentrated on the area, and it came again, a flash of sunlight off something.

Off what? An Iranian soldier’s unblued rifle barrel? A shiny unit metal pin?

He estimated the distance. Not more than two miles. Could there be a force of Iranian infantry that close to them? There was no way their tracks directly to this ravine could be missed by a land unit.

Murdock spoke softly into his mike. “DeWitt, we may have a problem. Check the back trail. Thought I saw some sun flashes back there.”

“I’m looking,” DeWitt said. “So far nothing.”

“I’m higher on the ravine,” Jaybird said. “Let me give it a five-minute scan. If they have a unit that close, we just jumped into a sinkhole of deep shit.”

27

Jaybird watched for the flash. It was two or three minutes later when he spoke. “Oh, yeah, I see it again. One odd thing about it, I don’t see any movement.”

Ed DeWitt chimed in on the Motorola net. “Yeah, I had the same feeling. Either the troops are hunkered down there resting, or it’s something not connected to Iranian military.”

“Which would be great news for us,” Murdock said. He scowled for a minute. “We better know which. Lam, you tuned in?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How about a small scouting mission. You can stick to the shadows this early for most of the way. You’ll need to get up that second small ridge to check it out.”

“On my way. I’ll leave my vest here and take my Colt. It’s what, about two miles. That’s about fifteen minutes each way. I’ll try out the Motorola at two miles and see what you receive.”

“Go, take care. If it is the Iranians and they come at you, we’ll have the fifty out and warmed up.”

“That’s a Roger, L-T. I’m on my way.”

Murdock saw a patch of bare sand twenty yards ahead of him collapse, then Lampedusa lifted out, left the camo cloth, and jogged down the ravine, careful not to step on anybody.

They watched him work along the Iranian hills. Some of the time they couldn’t see him in the shadows. The desert cammies blended in well with the barren landscape.

He made it up the first slope, and paused. He couldn’t see the flashing from there.

“The flashes keep coming,” DeWitt said. “Still looks like the same spot. No movement is a good sign.”

Five minutes later, they saw him cresting the second ridge. He flattened out, and seemed to look over the top. The report came in snatches on the Motorola. It was line of sight, which helped.

“Nada… see… neg… On my…” He broke off the transmission, and jogged back down the slope, into more shadows.

Fifteen minutes later he was back.

“Some kind of a tin can. It was off our line of march. Maybe one of the prospectors left it there. Bright and shiny with the label torn off. It rolled back and forth between two little ridges, and flashed the sun on most of the moves.”

Murdock told them to get back to sleep.

Ed DeWitt said he’d take the watch. He said Franklin would be next up in two hours. Murdock pulled the camo coverup over him and tried to get comfortable. He didn’t make it.

“Lieutenant, you might try counting the live Iraqis and the Saudi Arabians that we saved by blowing up those nukes.” It was Kat. “Iran would have run roughshod over this part of the world. All they would have to do was drop one bomb to take out a secondary Arab city, and the whole subcontinent would fall right into their laps.”

“About what State said in some of their comments. They were dead set on killing the Iranian project. If we make a
little noise about it, it could slow down efforts by other Arab states to try the same thing.”

“Like Iraq. Yeah, I agree.”

Murdock shook his head. “Somehow visions of pretty Arab girls with veils on jumping over a fence don’t help me sleep.”

“You’ll think of something. Good night again, Murdock.”

“Yeah, Kat, good dreams to you, too.”

Murdock figured he must have nodded off. The next thing he knew his earpiece yelped at him.

“We got trouble, L-T.” It was Franklin’s voice so it must be after 1000 hours. “That damn spotter plane is coming back. He’s been around this area for five minutes, but this time he’s coming dead over us going up the gully the long way. Gives him a good look at our little colony here.”

“Everyone check your camo cloths, be sure everything is under cover,” Murdock said loudly in the mike to be sure to wake everyone.

DeWitt took a squad check, then Murdock did the same. All hands were awake and covered.

Then the light plane swung into place directly over the ravine. There were no tall mountains around it, and the small bird had to be no more than fifty feet over the top of the hill that had spawned the ravine. Murdock marveled at how slow the plane flew, then figured it had a headwind to keep the wing fooled about the stall speed.

The plane seemed to hang in the air almost motionless, then dipped its nose slightly. The engine gunned, and it flew on over the hill above the gully.

“Did he see anything?” DeWitt asked.

“Not fucking much,” Ron Holt said.

Lampedusa came on. “Don’t be too sure. I hear a chopper.”

They were all quiet for a minute.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got him coming straight up our gullet. He
can take all the look time he needs to.” It was Joe Douglas talking.

“Check those coverups,” Murdock said. “Everyone stay undercover, and don’t even breathe. He’ll be over us in about thirty seconds. Small, chopper, not more than a four-man rig. No more transmissions.”

Murdock knew it was highly unlikely that the small chopper would have a scanner-type receiver that could pick up anything broadcast by checking all frequencies a hundred times a minute. But they kept quiet anyway.

Murdock had a slit in the camo cloth over his eyes to watch through. The chopper came straight at them, up the length of the twisting and turning ravine. It was about seventy-five yards long here. Plenty of room for the troops, but also a small area for the chopper to concentrate on. The bird moved slower, then hovered well down the gully.

Murdock worried that it might get so low that it would blow the camo cloth right off his men. Then the chopper did a little dance as a serious updraft caught it and boosted it twenty yards more into the sky.

It came down a little, and still the men inside appeared to concentrate on the spot where Third Platoon had hidden. It moved closer, then had to lift a little to clear the sharp side of the canyon’s wall.

Murdock saw the rotor wash from the chopper kick up dust in the canyon. The ship moved higher so the dust wouldn’t obscure everything on the ground. A flap of one of the cammo cloths lifted up a moment, then settled back down, covering the SEAL.

Murdock held his breath. The chopper moved forward, up the slope, went past where Murdock and Kat lay, and higher, until it had to surge upward to get over the top of the canyon’s slopes.

Then it was gone.

“He will be back,” Murdock said in his mike. “Make sure
that all the corners of your hideout camo cloth are secure. We almost had one whip off somebody a moment ago.”

As he finished saying it, the helicopter made a return run, working down the slope this time, keeping a little higher so it wouldn’t kick up dust, but this also kept the men inside from making a detailed observation of the area.

Murdock eased apart the camo cloth and watched the bird move down the slope. At the bottom it paused, hovering, dropped down to ten feet, and kicked up a storm cloud of dust and dirt, then lifted away, and vanished over the next hill to the north.

“L-T, I don’t think he’ll be back this time,” Doc said. “I should check on Magic.”

“Go,” Murdock said.

A piece of the desert opened up and folded back, and Doc Ellsworth scurried down ten yards and pulled back another piece of camo cloth. He worked quickly, removing the old bandage, adding some disinfectant, then wrapping the wound again. When he was done, he eased the leg back under the camo cloth, piled sand around the outside of it and hurried back to his own hide hole.