Deathrace (32 page)

What bothered her, as they moved up on the target, was if she could actually kill another human being… again.

31

General Reza Ruhollah stared at the colonel who had commanded this facility until the heathens attacked it. General Ruhollah was in no mood to tolerate traitors.

“Colonel, I relieved you of your command here. I re-stricted you to your quarters. What are you doing in my office?”

“I must protest, General Ruhollah. My men have been subjected to your illegal orders. My guard troops have been sent into the field without proper rations. You have ordered my subordinates to rebuild the assembly plant, but have given them no resources.”

“Colonel, I’m telling you one more time to keep your mouth shut. Not one more word.”

“I still must protest, General Ruhollah. My men have been slaughtered at the hands of a well-equipped military force. I ask that adequate protection be given …” The Colonel stopped.

General Ruhollah lifted a German-made machine pistol
and fired six rounds into the Colonel’s chest. He slammed backward, hit the wall, slid down, and died as he lay on the floor, his eyes still wide in total disbelief.

Two aides rushed into the room.

“Get this trash out of my office and clean up the mess. I have to call for more troops. Quickly now.”

General Ruhollah went back to his desk. He picked up the phone and was soon asking for more reinforcements from Shiraz and Bandar-e Bushehr.

“You can have two thousand troops here within eight hours,” he stormed on the phone. “I don’t need authorization from Tehran. I’m ordering you to send those troops to Chah Bahar this morning, and have them here before dark. Get them moving, combat-ready, with three days of ammunition and rations. Move them now.”

He hung up and made another call similar in nature to the Army Commander at Bandar-e ‘Abbas, which was much closer. He demanded the troops be on hand by four that afternoon. When he hung up, an aide came in the room.

“General, there is an aircraft landing at the small field. It may be the Army Supreme Commander. It is the same kind of two-engine turboprop plane he usually uses.”

“Thank you, Major. Meet him, and see that he’s brought here at once with all normal courtesy.”

The General sat back and smiled. He would show his one superior in the Iranian Army the damage, his moves so far, and his plans for stopping the attacking force before it could reach the coast.

He would have nearly a thousand troops on hand before dark. They would be deployed at the end of every road leading into the mountains around Chah Bahar. He would throw in as blocking units all he could find. He would continue to drop in twelve-man paratroop teams to block all normal avenues south. He would use the jets from Bandar-e ‘Abbas to search for and harass any movement they heard about.

The enemy force was still a mystery. It had wiped out all
but three men on the first patrol he sent out. Twenty-seven men dead, two of the escapees wounded. It was a potent force he was following. He must do everything he could to stop it.

He was sure that General Shahr would agree. The devils must be hunted down, and slaughtered, then their nationality broadcast to the world as invaders and murderers of the lowest order. It had to be a Western power, but which one? Perhaps it was Israel; they were tricky and deadly.

He heard a car pull up outside his office and stood, straightened his tie, and brushed off his uniform. He looked at the wall and floor where the Colonel had fallen. All signs of the blood had been cleaned up.

As the door opened, he stood and snapped a salute.

“General Shahr, good morning. If I had known you were coming, I would have had a fitting welcome for you.”

General Shahr was short and heavy. He wore five stars on his shoulders, and a scowl on his face.

“This nuclear plant, this bomb making—why didn’t I know anything about it?”

“My General, I was simply following orders of our honored President and some of his highest advisors. I am only their active tool to get the project completed.”

“And you have failed miserably. Even now I understand you draw in our troops to find the attackers. Why can’t our half million troops track down this band of saboteurs you estimated at no more than twenty?”

“They are professionals, General. Deadly, deceptive, experts at concealment. We will find them. By nightfall we will have them blocked off from the sea. They can’t go through Pakistan. We will close the circle and slaughter them to a man.”

“You will have no more part in the battle, Ruhollah.”

He froze in place when he heard his superior disregard his title and use only his name. It was a sign that all was not well.

“You have deceived your superiors, you have conspired behind my back to seize this power and, with it, control Iran and all of the peninsula, and most of Islam. For that you are a traitor to Iran, and you must pay the price.”

General Shahr took a revolver from his waistband and shot General Ruhollah twice in the chest. Ruhollah slumped to the floor, both hands holding the holes in his chest. He looked up at his commanding officer and started to say something.

General Shahr shot him in the head, and General Ruhollah slammed to the floor, blood pooling beside his head and running down to the stars of his rank on his shoulder.

General Shahr nodded, called in his men to remove the body, then settled down to the situation map on the wall, and began making phone calls.

Ruhollah was an idiot to think he could get away with this. He had been monitored all the way. As soon as the project was a success, Ruhollah would have been eliminated, and the Army would have taken the credit. He would have ousted the President, and overruled the Ayatollah, and he, General Shahr, would have ruled two-thirds of the Arab world with his bombs, and the threat of his bombs.

Now they were set back at least two years, and he knew they would be monitored closely by the foreign powers. Still it could be done with total secrecy, and with an underground facility. He had plans for it already.

He turned back to the map. If he were a military force running for safety, exactly where would he go after heading south? Continue on that way, divert to the east and slip through the porous border with Pakistan, or sit, and wait for some kind of an air rescue? Any of the three were possible. He reached for the phone to check on the nearby bases and see if they had been alerted. It would be a busy afternoon.

32

Five minutes after they parted, Murdock had his squad in position. Magic insisted that he get back his sniper rifle to use in the attack. Murdock let him have it. He put Kat next to him, and then the rest of his squad in a rough line aimed at the dozen troopers about seventy-five yards away. It was fully dark now.

Murdock waited. Moments later he heard two
tsks
on the earpiece. DeWitt had his SEALs ready.

Murdock looked quickly at Kat. She had her submachine gun up and ready. He took a deep breath, aimed at the man standing in front of the big fire, and jolted off three rounds.

At once the whole platoon opened up.

Kat hesitated. Could she do it again? Then she triggered off three rounds. They were high. She brought the muzzle down and fired again into the sudden churning mass of men. There was screaming, men looking for their weapons, men dying. She shut her eyes for a minute, heard firing beside her and opened them, and fired again on 3-round bursts until her magazine went dry. She ripped it out, put another one in, charged a round, and aimed back at the men below.

Suddenly she heard firing from behind her. She saw three dark shapes running at them from the rear. She whirled, brought up her weapon, and triggered nine rounds at the three shadows. One screamed and dove to the ground. Another fell dead without a word; the third turned and ran back the way he had come.

Murdock looked behind him. He saw one of the dark shadows crawling away. He put a 3-round burst into him, then looked at Kat.

She nodded, swung her weapon back to the front, and kept firing.

Murdock checked the scene carefully. There was no more return fire from the troopers below.

“Think we did it,” DeWitt said on the radio.

“Yeah, cease fire,” Murdock said. “Ed, send in two men to check them out.”

Murdock lifted off the dirt and ran to the rear where he found the two Iranians. Both were dead. He hurried back to their line.

Ahead at the small Iranian camp, he heard two shots, then all was silent.

Kat stared at him. “Those shots?”

“We have to make sure the enemy are all dead. We don’t take prisoners or leave wounded.”

Kat flinched. Her face surged into a scowl. “Isn’t that… Isn’t that a little cold, brutal?”

“Absolutely. We’re not here to play games or give credits for the enemy’s bravery. It’s simply kill or be killed. The way you reacted just a minute ago. You saw the three coming when the rest of us didn’t. You reacted. You saved at least three of our lives right here.”

“Clear front,” the radio said in their ears.

The SEALs moved down and surveyed the wreckage. There was little they could use. The ammo didn’t fit, and they didn’t want to pack along any additional weapons. Their canteens were still full.

“No one escaped down here?” Murdock asked.

DeWitt shook his head. “What was that firing to the rear?”

“Three surprised us from behind. Two are down, and one got away.”

“So we better shag ass out of here,” DeWitt said.

“Yeah, let’s move,” Murdock said.

They walked away down the slope of the small pass, and Murdock moved back beside Kat.

“So?”

“I’m alive. That’s the main purpose now—to stay alive. It’s like when you can’t breathe, nothing else really matters. Like now. If we don’t survive, none of my high and mighty principles mean a pile of shit, to drop into the SEAL vernacular.”

“True. We survive, then we figure out about living. It can be a tough road.”

“We’ll make it.”

“Good work back there. If they’d been better shots, we’d be digging two or three graves right about now.”

“Didn’t think you left anyone behind.”

“Sometimes, depends. Here we would have had to. We couldn’t carry out even one body.”

“Hate to mention it but you forgot to ask for a casualty report,” Kat said.

Murdock frowned. “Yeah, we didn’t take much return fire. Some, I guess.” He clicked his mike. “Hey, casualty report. Sound off if anybody got hit.”

For a moment there was no sound on the radio, then one small voice came on.

“Yeah, Doc might take a look at my arm. It doesn’t seem to be working right.”

Murdock moved over beside Kat. “Why in hell didn’t you say so?”

“You didn’t ask. Hell, a SEAL can fight over a little
pain.” She grinned in the darkness and hoped Murdock could see it.

Doc came storming up.

Murdock called a halt. He asked for Holt, and had him set up the SATCOM.

“How bad is it, Doc?” Murdock asked.

“I’m gonna have to amputate,” Doc said, sounding re-lieved.

“You try it and I’ll use up my full magazine on you,” Kat said.

They both chuckled.

“One slug cut through about an inch of Kat’s forearm,” Doc said. “Missed the bone. Kat will hurt like hell for a week or so, then will have a war wound to brag about. Oh, yeah, it will leave a battle scar and everything.”

“SATCOM is ready, L-T,” Holt said.

Murdock knew his message. He typed it in. “Stroh. How about a pickup? Can receive you now. Answer me, we’re running out of time and ammo. Murdock.”

As soon as they switched to receive, the small screen lit up. The message was short.

“Murdock. Possible. Contact us in two hours. Have your exact coordinates and time of day there.”

Murdock snapped off the set. “We contact them again at exactly twenty-one-forty-two. Doc, you got your patient bandaged?”

“Ready to rock and roll. Hear she saved the fucking day back here.”

“True. You almost had a lot of work to do. Let’s get out of here at three miles an hour. Go, Lam.”

They hiked again through the Iranian hill country darkness.

Twice they heard jets overhead. Once a propeller-driven plane sounded to the south but faded out.

Murdock heard the next sound a half hour later. It was a chopper and headed their way.

“Big bird coming,” he said. “Possible that the guy who got away back there had a radio. If he did, they must know about where we are.”

The chopper came closer, scouring the ravine to the left. They saw the powerful searchlight. It turned the ground into daylight for a circle of twenty yards.

“Scatter,” Murdock said. “Try to find a rock to curl around and use your cammo cloth. He’s gonna work this gully for damn sure. Magic, can you use that fifty?”

“Fucking A, L-T. Armor piercing?”

“Give it a five-round try if he comes within two hundred yards of us. No, wait for a hundred yards. You can’t miss at that range.”

“You got it, Skipper.”

Ronson had been carrying the fifty and the ammo. He loaded five rounds of the armor-piercing types and handed the weapon to Magic. He hunkered down behind a two-foot rock and rested the weapon over the top.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Magic said. “Come and let papa give you a shot or two.”

Chin watched him, and looked over at Doc. “Hell, I don’t know if he’s still under or not. Could be pure adrenaline, a nervous high. He doesn’t even seem to know he’s got a shot-up leg.”

“Hope it lasts,” Doc said.

They had spread out to be fifteen yards apart. Murdock watched the bird with its long arm of light probing the canyon. Soon the pilot or observer was satisfied, and the bird angled toward the next gully, the one they had been hiking up.

“Stay low and don’t move a muscle,” Murdock said.

“Never fear, the Magic man is here,” Brown chortled.

The big chopper swung closer. At two hundred yards it picked up the gully, changed course, and began working up it, no faster than a slow walk. It gave the crew plenty of
time to watch below. It was over a hundred feet in the air so the rotor wash made no dust problem on the ground.