Direct Action (14 page)

There were occasional sandbagged gun emplacements in front of buildings, but they were unmanned. The streets were narrow and deserted. The rain and the Friday Moslem Sabbath had seen to that. Murdock doubted there was much nightlife in Baalbek anyway.

“Is this the turn?” Razor asked suddenly.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Murdock replied, counting the streets off in his head. He reached under his seat and took out a Kevlar helmet. He placed it on Razor Roselli’s head. Razor tugged the chin strap into place. Murdock put on his own helmet. A hundredth look in the rearview mirror, and the others were still with him.

“There’s the warehouse,” Razor exclaimed.

They dropped the two steel shutters over the windshield, and now the forward visibility was restricted to two narrow armored glass slits.

Murdock keyed his radio. “This is One. Rattler, over.” It was the code word to execute the primary attack plan. None of the contingencies they’d thought up would be necessary. The other three vehicles acknowledged.

The four separate fuses that led back to the explosives were taped to the dashboard in front of Murdock. He peeled off the tape and gathered them all up in a bunch in his left hand. He took a deep breath and let it out.

“Time to earn all that combat pay,” said Razor Roselli.

Murdock noticed that the rain had stopped. He didn’t believe in omens, but it gave him a little shiver.

0249 hours

Baalbek

Lebanon

Razor Roselli stomped on the gas pedal and the heavy vehicle lurched forward. Blake Murdock’s heart jumped as the wheels skidded on the wet road, but Razor straightened it out.

The chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire, bordered the right side of the road. The warehouse it protected was about twenty feet beyond.

When they were just past the midpoint of the warehouse, Razor twisted the steering wheel to the right and took the armored car off the road.

They hit the fence at a shallow angle; any more of a turn at that speed and they would have flipped over. The chain link snapped off the poles and then separated at its weakest point, but a big strip wrapped around the front of the armored car. It didn’t slow them down very much.

Murdock hit a switch on the dash, and there was a hard thump as the four-barrel smoke dischargers on each side of the turret launched eight screening smoke grenades in a circular pattern around the vehicle.

The wall of the warehouse came up fast. Murdock braced himself against the impact, hoping there wasn’t something large and solid, like a forklift, sitting up against the wall inside the warehouse.

The seven thousand-odd pounds of armored car going at forty-five miles an hour punched right through the wall in a cracking explosion of lumber and splinters. If Razor hadn’t immediately stood on the brake, they would have gone out the other side.

As soon as they skidded to a stop, Murdock hit another switch and the second pair of smoke dischargers went off. Only four smoke grenades were launched this time. The other four barrels were loaded with 66mm Haley and Weller fragmentation grenades. These were designed to be launched the same way as screening smoke, but packed a bursting charge surrounded by several thousand steel ball bearings. Just the thing to take care of any unwanted enemy personnel who might be lurking around an armored vehicle.

Not intended for confined spaces, the grenades hit the ceiling and exploded. It didn’t diminish their effect. Murdock and Razor were safe behind the armor, but anyone outside wasn’t.

Murdock activated the fuses in his hand and tripped the last toggle on the dashboard. It armed a mercury switch that would fire the charges if anyone tried to drag the vehicle out or if it took a heavy impact—like the other armored car detonating.

“My door’s jammed!” Razor yelled.

Murdock wrenched his open. “Follow me out!” He fell out the door with his AKM in his right hand and a box that looked like a full-size VHS camcorder in his left. It was a Marconi HHI-8 hand-held thermal imager. The warehouse was filled with the thick white smoke from the grenades, and the imager was the only way they’d be able to find their way out fast. It weighed about ten pounds, and saw objects on the basis of their
heat, in varying shades of black and white. Because of this, it could look right through smoke.

Murdock swept the imager around and saw a line of printing presses, machinery, and wooden crates. At least they’d hit the right spot, a minor miracle in American intelligence terms. He could also see the other armored car: Ed and Kos had made it in.

The grenades hadn’t got everyone; there were people still running around, but Murdock didn’t shoot. If he did they would know where
he
was in the smoke. It didn’t fit their public image, but operating in small groups with limited ammunition loads had taught SEALs to avoid firefights whenever possible.

Razor hopped out behind him and paused to lock the door. A small detail, but by the time someone dug up an acetylene torch to try to cut their way inside the vehicle, it would be too late.

The imager showed Murdock the huge hole they’d made in the wall, and he headed for it. There was just enough visibility for Razor to be able to follow him through the smoke, if he stayed close.

Then Murdock heard machine-gun fire start up outside.

0250 hours

Baalbek

Lebanon

The Mercedes was parked in the road right in front of the hole Murdock and Razor had left in the fence. Jaybird Sterling had his window down and his PKM machine gun set up on a homemade welded U-mount over the door frame. Another Marconi thermal imager was mounted atop his machine gun feed cover. Doc Ellsworth was still behind the wheel, occasionally tossing beer-can-sized white smoke grenades out his window.

Through his imager Jaybird picked up hot human figures running out from around the far corner of the warehouse. He had his radio set on voice-activated and called out, “Troops, warehouse, north corner,” at the same time he opened fire.

Jaybird’s first burst took two of the figures down. He’d removed the tracer ammunition from his ammo belts; tracer allowed you to see where your rounds were going, but also let everyone else know exactly where they were coming from. He didn’t need it; the imager was so sensitive he could track the hot path of his bullets in the air. As the rounds impacted, the other figures slipped, stumbled, and ran back into cover around the side of the warehouse. The two crumpled forms lay motionless in harsh white contrast against the cooler ground.

Jaybird slowed his rate of fire, but kept shooting at the corner of the warehouse. Imagers couldn’t see through solid objects, but it was easy enough to guess where they had taken cover, and the Russian 7.62-x-54mm rimmed rounds were heavy enough to punch right through the wooden wall.

It looked like the bad guys were pretty well pinned down. Doc Ellsworth was keeping an eye on the houses on the other side of the road, but no one was sticking their nose out.

Then someone started hollering over the radio.

0251 hours

Baalbek

Lebanon

Ed DeWitt, imager in hand, was leading Kos Kosciuszko out of the warehouse when an automatic weapon opened up off to their right.

DeWitt hit the deck at the first bullwhip crack of the rounds going by. Slugs kept snapping overhead, and a few ricochets skidded off the concrete floor. DeWitt made an instinctive decision not to return fire. Murdock and Roselli were somewhere in that direction, and might be in his line of fire. Besides, he could sense that the rounds were coming in blind.

DeWitt didn’t have time to wait for the fire to taper off. Preparing to make a dash for the hole in the wall, he looked back to make sure Chief Kosciuszko was ready.

But Kosciuszko was lying face-down on the floor, unconscious.
There was no time to check him over. DeWitt sprang to his feet and lifted Kos up bodily into a fireman’s carry. Fortunately, both his AKM and imager were securely strapped to his body, SEAL-fashion, so he didn’t lose them.

There was about a seventy-pound weight differential between them, in Kosciuszko’s favor, but adrenaline and SEAL determination were wonderful things.

DeWitt shook one hand free and got the imager up to his eyes. Waddling as fast as he could under his burden, he headed out of the warehouse.

0251 hours

Baalbek

Lebanon

Magic Brown was firing his PKM at the southern corner of the warehouse. In the edge of his imager he saw DeWitt coming out with Kosciuszko on his shoulders. It looked like a huge body floating along under two tiny legs.

“Kos is down,” he shouted. It went out over the radio net.

Without a word, Professor Higgins sprang out the driver’s door of the Mercedes and charged through the hole in the fence into the smoke.

Higgins didn’t have an imager. “Mister DeWitt!” he shouted.

“Over here,” came the response.

Magic Brown went through a 250-round belt at the rapid rate to give them covering fire.

Higgins followed DeWitt’s voice through the smoke until he found them. With two to carry Kosciuszko, the job went faster. They dragged him through the fence and threw him into the back seat of the Mercedes.

Higgins ran around the car to get back behind the wheel. The smoke had dissipated slightly in his absence and someone in a house on the other side of the road opened up on the now-visible car.

Rounds hit the Mercedes but didn’t penetrate the armor.
Higgins ducked back around the car for cover and returned fire with his AKM.

The house was on the opposite side of the car from Magic and his PKM; there was nothing he could do but get off the gun and chuck smoke grenades out the window as fast as he could pull the pins.

The smoke billowed up. Higgins came in through Magic’s door, crawled right over him in a thrashing, profane-rich tangle, and slid back behind the wheel.

Even though they could no longer see, someone still had the range. Rounds were hitting the vehicle but the armor was stopping them. It was time to get the hell out.

“Two, this is Three,” Magic Brown spoke over the radio. “Lightning, Lightning, over.” The code word for everyone present and ready to go.

0252 hours

Baalbek

Lebanon

Murdock and Razor had already made it to their Mercedes, and that was the word they had been waiting for.

“This is 1,” said Murdock. “Roger Lightning.”

“The bad guys are starting to stack up at the north corner,” Jaybird Sterling informed them as he fired.

“Okay, then we won’t go that way,” said Murdock. “This is Two. Stand by for Route Echo. I say again, Route Echo.”

“Roger on Echo,” replied Magic Brown.

“Execute,” said Murdock.

Doc Ellsworth swung the Mercedes into a screeching U-turn and sped back down the road the same way they’d come. Jaybird pulled the PKM back in the car and brought up the armored glass window.

Murdock was looking out the rear window. As they went past, Higgins yanked the second Mercedes into an identical turn and pulled in right behind.

They emerged from the smoke just in time to see and be seen by a startled group of Syrians huddled against the side of the warehouse. There was also a BMP-1 armored personnel carrier whose turret began to swing around as they passed.

“Floor it!” Murdock bellowed.

A rocket sailed over the top of the car. There was a huge flash from the BMP’s 73mm gun, but the two Mercedes were moving faster than the turret could traverse and the shell fell behind them.

A line of slugs stitched the side windows of the Mercedes, but only made stars in the polycarbonate material. Razor Roselli had been looking out at the time and the impacts made him instinctively jump. He fell back against a very preoccupied Blake Murdock, who elbowed him out of his lap. Needing to vent some embarrassment, Razor stuck his AKM out the gun port and loosed off a burst. The hot cartridge casings ejected from Razor’s weapon sailed right onto the back of Doc Ellsworth’s neck.

The Doc yelped in pain and the car swerved. What effect that drive-by shooting had had on the Syrians was unknown, but the interior of the Mercedes was now filled with burned gunpowder smoke.

“Cease fire, for crissakes,” shouted Murdock. “You’ll gas us out.”

Jaybird was trying to wave the smoke away so he could see out the window. “I think we’re clear.”

“Turn on the lights and siren,” Murdock ordered, coughing. “And open the fucking vents.”

0253 hours

Baalbek

Lebanon

“How bad is he hit?” a worried Magic Brown asked Ed DeWitt.

“Give me a second,” DeWitt replied.

The Mercedes was screaming through the streets of Baalbek, and Kos Kosciuszko was laid out across the back seat.

His flashlight held in his teeth, DeWitt began a search for wounds. It was best done by touch, and had to be thorough. Even a very small wound missed could mean a man bleeding to death.

DeWitt started at the feet, for no reason other than that was where he happened to be. He ran his hands up both legs—no blood, no wounds. He ripped open Kos’s jacket and body armor. Nothing. Without moving Kos, he slipped his hands underneath and checked the back. No vertebrae out of place. What the hell?

Then his flashlight fell on Koscuiszko’s helmet. There was a neat round hole in the front left side. DeWitt unsnapped the chin strap and gently eased the helmet off. There were no holes in Kos’s head, but there was another one in the back of the helmet.

The round had hit the helmet, skipped off one of the kevlar layers, and gone back out at an angle. All it had done was knock Kos Kosciuszko cold.

DeWitt checked, but there was no blood in the ears or nose that would indicate a serious concussion. He opened Kos’s eyes and flashed the light at them. Both pupils were responsive and symmetrical.

Kos gave off a low moan when the light hit his eyes.

“He took a round in the helmet and got knocked out,” DeWitt announced. “The son of a bitch doesn’t even have a bruise.”