Deathrace (33 page)

“Closer, you son of a bitch,” Magic whispered into the mike.

They waited. It kept working uphill toward them. It would be a hundred yards from Murdock when the light touched the first of the men in Second Platoon, more than that distance from Magic.

“Your guns are free, Magic,” Murdock said. “Fire at will.”

Just as the chopper swung over the rock Ed DeWitt had claimed, Magic fired. The round slammed through the cabin of the chopper. Before the bird could make any move, Magic had worked the lever and chambered a new round and fired. This one thundered into the engine compartment. At once black smoke poured from the bird.

Magic fired again. The armor-piercing round exploded inside the machine somewhere and it angled sharply to the left. The rotor went on freewheeling when the power stopped. The craft righted itself, then plunged straight to the ground a hundred feet below.

“Go clean it up,” Murdock said. “On me, my squad.” The first squad ran downhill toward where the chopper hit the ground with a loud explosion and fire. They ran to within fifty feet of the burning wreckage but couldn’t get any closer.

“Work the perimeter and look for survivors,” Murdock ordered in the Motorola. They found none.

Five minutes later, the fire had burned itself down to a few flames and a lot of smoke.

“Clear front,” Murdock said. “Let’s get away from this bonfire.”

Lam met them when they rejoined the platoon. “South? L-T?”

“Right. No way we can fool anyone about where we are now. As soon as that chopper’s radio went out, there must
have been two or three more birds heading this way. We make some tracks. Some concealment would be nice from the lights the new birds must have. See what we can find.”

They hiked again. This time Magic insisted on carrying the fifty. Ronson didn’t tell him he still had ten rounds in one big magazine for the fifty.

Murdock watched his timepiece. They made good time for the first hour. It was 2100. In forty-two minutes they would contact Uncle Sugar, and hope for good news.

Murdock eased to the rear and walked beside Kat.

“How’s it going?”

“Good. I’m good.”

“Really?”

“I’m surviving, after all. We’ll see. First survive, then take a shot at getting a life, right?”

“Yeah. The arm?”

“I got some ibuprofen from Doc. Four of the suckers. Taking the burn out of it. I’ll make it. Is Uncle going to pop for a chopper for us?”

“Hard to tell. At least the President is in on it. If I tell them you’re wounded, it should be a cinch.”

“Don’t you dare, Murdock. I mean it. Don’t say a word about me.”

“You got it. First Squad owes you one, SEAL. You remember that.”

They hiked for another half hour and Murdock stopped them against a steep hill with a lot of moon shadows. Holt had the SATCOM set up before Murdock asked him.

He worked the mugger and got their coordinates, which he wrote down on the edge of his map. He used a small mouth-held flashlight to be sure he got the figures right. Then he keyed the screen. His message.

“Murdock has his ears on.”

He snapped it to receive, and seconds later the screen showed a response.

“We have a go on chopper. It has lifted off its birdhouse
already and is on the way. Two F-14’s will fly cover at time of pickup. ETA when you give us your exact coordinates. Use two red flares on the ground to mark your LZ. Make it as level a spot as possible. Coordinates. The Seahawk will give you three strobe flashes, then three more for identification as it comes in.”

Murdock typed in the coordinates from the mugger, had Holt double-check them to be sure, then zapped out the burst of transmission.

They waited with the set on receive. It was five minutes before the screen came to life.

“Murdock. ETA your site 2240. Use two red flares to mark LZ. Any hostile action?”

“No hostiles now. Will use green flares on any hostiles. May be three hundred yards off coordinates for level LZ. Waiting.”

Murdock looked at the silent set. Done. “Fold it up, let’s find an LZ.”

As soon as he heard the problem, Lam took off on a run. He was back before Murdock got the platoon moving.

“L-T, out here to the left about four hundred yards we have a valley of sorts. Level spot a hundred yards square.”

“Let’s move it there,” Murdock said. “Keep your eyes and ears open. We don’t want to be surprised this close to home.”

They hiked to the spot, and Murdock gave the two red flares to Jaybird to light, and throw when they heard the friendly bird and saw the three white strobe flashes.

“Perimeter defense,” Murdock said. “We watch everywhere, all the time for the next fifty minutes or so. Holt, be ready to switch to receive on the Miltac frequency so we can talk with the Seahawk and maybe the F-fourteens. Let’s move.”

“That chopper we shot down,” Kat said from ten yards to his right, “will they send in some more right away?”

“I would. Try to get us here before we slip away again. It
depends how good the guy who got by us is, and how good he is on coordinates.”

They waited.

Twenty minutes later, Murdock felt easier about it. A quick landing, sprint to the big open door. Pile in seventeen bodies and a brisk takeoff.

It didn’t work out that way.

Twenty minutes before the Seahawk was due, three big choppers came in from the north. They spotlighted two of the platoon and dropped down two hundred yards away. Doors clanged and Murdock could just feel the troops rushing out.

“Magic, your big one is free. Everyone fire at those choppers. Now, keep it high so we don’t hit any friendlies.”

The guns opened up, the ones that could reach out two hundred yards. The MGs chattered. Magic got in one lucky round on one of the dark choppers and it mushroomed into flames. That backlighted twenty Iranian troopers charging toward them. Half of them went down on the first volley. That slowed them.

A moment later three more choppers came in due south of the platoon.

“Damnit, fucking damnit to hell,” Murdock bellowed. “Half of you hit each side. Hold up on the short guns.”

Before they had warned up on the second trio of enemy helicopters and their troops, Holt was on the Motorola.

“Skipper, I’ve got two Tomcats two minutes away. They suggest we hit those chopper guys with some green flares.”

“Roger that. Who is closest to each side with the flares?” He got responses, and thirty seconds later, they shot out the rifle flares at the enemy choppers.

Almost before the first one exploded with a green light, an angry bird from the sky swooped down and laced the Iranian chopper area with fifty rounds of 20mm cannon fire. A second Iran helicopter exploded in flames.

The second green flare hit the southern force and soon the
second Tomcat slammed in on target and got away seventy-five to a hundred rounds of cannon fire before he pulled up and went around for another pass.

In four minutes the Tomcats had made four passes at each of the enemy contingents. Two more choppers caught fire, and there was little return fire from the Iranians.

Holt hit his lip mike again. “L-T, I have a Seahawk coming in. Suggest we light the red flares.”

“Do it,” Murdock barked.

He saw the flares burst into color just as the Tomcats made another pass, blasting the remnants of the Iranian forces into deadly fragments.

The big Seahawk settled to ground inside the two red flares.

“Magic and Kat first,” Murdock said loudly in his mike to get over the chopper sound. “Go, you two, now go, everyone else right behind. This ain’t no waiting game we’ve got here.”

33

Murdock watched as Magic and Kat both ran to the open door of the Seahawk while the rotors whirled. They jumped on board. Murdock heard firing from behind him. He turned and sprayed the area with the rest of his magazine, then ran for the chopper with the last of the SEALs. He had almost made it to the door when he saw Kat lean out with her MP-5, and shoot off a full magazine of rounds in one burst.

The rounds went well over his head and toward where there had been more muzzle flashes behind them.

Murdock pulled himself into the Seahawk.

“DeWitt, do we have a count?”

“You’re the last, Murdock. All seventeen SEALs present and accounted for.”

A crewman slammed the door shut, and the chopper pulled up like it was on a spring, jumping into the air and slanting away from the groundfire.

Murdock looked around in the dim light of the chopper. “Anybody get hit in that last exchange?”

“Oh, yeah,” a voice said.

“Washington?” DeWitt asked.

“’Fraid so, L-T. Caught one in the shoulder, I was almost in the fucking door. Two feet away from getting home free. Kat there pounded out about sixty rounds just then and I figured she pushed them crackers’ heads down.”

Doc Ellsworth was by Washington’s side a moment later. He pulled off the cammy shirt and looked at the wound. The Navy crew chief brought a flashlight.

“Oh, yeah, Washington, you bought a good one. Hit the bone and didn’t come out. We’ll let the real Navy doctors on the carrier take care of it.” He bandaged it up and slipped the shirt back in place except for the sleeve. Doc gave him three pain pills. “You take it easy. We’ll have you in sick bay inside of an hour.”

“How’s Magic?” Murdock asked the medic.

“Don’t know. He hasn’t complained. Magic? Where the hell are you?”

They stared around the cramped inside of the Seahawk. “Hey, he’s over here,” Kat said. “Looks like he’s passed out.”

Twenty minutes later they were nearing the big aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. It had steamed down close to Dubayy of the United Arab Emirates to cut down on flying time.

Magic had come around once, grinned, waved at them, and drifted off to sleep.

“He’s been running on empty for the past day and a half,” Doc said. “Living on guts and hope. That leg wound really drained him, then he kept hiking along with the rest of us. There’s got to be a ton of infection in that leg.”

“We’ll land in fifteen minutes,” the crew chief told them.

A half hour later, on board the USS
Monroe CVN 81
, Murdock and DeWitt saw their people into sick bay. Kat got quick treatment. They took Washington into surgery to dig out the slug. Magic was another matter.

“Massive infection,” a Navy surgeon said. “He’s lucky to be alive. Another twenty-four hours and it would have eaten him up. Good work getting that bullet out. We’ll go after the infection with antibiotics. He should be up and around in a month.”

“When can he fly back to Balboa Naval Hospital?” Murdock asked.

“Two days, Lieutenant. Not before.”

Murdock went for a telephone chat with Don Stroh, then had the biggest steak the mess could provide.

An hour later, Murdock was in his quarters when a knock came on the door. He opened it. Kat stood there looking washed and combed in a clean pair of cammies, with her railroad tracks on her collar.

“You keep those bars of rank with you all the time?” Murdock asked.

“Hey, you said to. May I come in?”

He stepped back, and she went in and sat on a chair.

“So, we made it, we survived,” Kat said.

“Now we start thinking about having a life, again.”

“I’ve been wondering about that. I think I’m through tearing nukes apart. As beneficial as it might be. I’ve always liked research.”

“You shouldn’t have any trouble finding a spot. Maybe at M.I.T. or Cal Tech.”

“No, I don’t want that much pressure. Lower expectations, lower stress, more time to have a life.”

“Good thinking. Hey, I’d like to give you a medal, Kat, but I can’t do that. You probably saved my life out there, but it’s all one big, dark secret.”

“I know. I can tell some civilian what I did, but then I’d have to kill him. I know.”

“Any regrets?”

“Well, I’m not sure I wanted to find out how it felt to kill another human being. Three, in fact, maybe more.”

“How does it feel, Kat?”

“Part of it damn good, especially those two bushwhackers who came up behind us. I cried after the first one. But then the old bugaboo about surviving came to the fore, and I had to cope with that. Survive first, get a life afterwards.”

“You’ll do fine, Kat.”

“What about you?”

“I have another part of my life waiting for me in Washington, D.C.”

“That would be Ardith Manchester, beautiful lawyer type.”

“You knew that all along?”

“Sure, I research more than physics when I take on a job.”

The phone on the desk rang. Kat shrugged, lifted it off the set, and gave him the handset.

“Yes, sir.”

“Murdock. Stroh. I’ve had half that damn carrier force trying to find Kat. Any idea where she is? Somebody here wants to talk to her.”

“I think I could find her. Just a minute.” He handed Kat the phone. “It’s for you.”

Kat took the handset. “Yes, this is Katherine Garnet.”

“May I call you Kat?” the booming voice came.

She frowned. “Yes, of course.”

“Don Stroh here has been telling me what a great job you did becoming a SEAL for a week. We’re all proud of you here at the White House.”

“The White House?”

The voice on the other end chuckled. “Don didn’t tell you. This is President Mason, and I want you to be sure to stop over and see the First Lady and me as soon as you get to Washington. Have Murdock bring you. I need to talk to him as well. Just wanted to offer my congratulations. You might have prevented World War Three, or at least some disastrous fighting among the Arab states. You rest up now. Don says you’re due to fly home in two days.”

“Yes, and thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President.”

“Don’t mention it. You get that arm healed up now, y’hear?”

“Yes, sir.” The line went dead and Kat hung up the phone, a strange smile growing on her face.

“The President,” she said.

Murdock grinned. “I guessed as much. Hell, won’t be any getting along with you now for the next three days.”

“Shut up, Murdock, and buy me a Coke. Shouldn’t you be checking on the troops or something. I thought us SEALs took care of our own.”