Direct Action (27 page)

The Blackhawks’ turboshaft engines gasped, and then began to scream as they powered up. The rotors engaged, and then came up to speed. Light signals passed across the flight deck, and back and forth between the helicopters.

On the deck in front of the lead Blackhawk the light sticks came together vertically. The Blackhawk rose from the flight deck, and hovered momentarily. The light stick pointed the way, and the Blackhawk banked left over the sea. The second aircraft followed right behind.

Miguel Fernandez, listening to the crisp professional exchanges over the intercom, felt his gut smooth out slightly. At least they were doing something.

1843 hours

North central Lebanese mountains

The keypad light blinked. Murdock almost didn’t want to scroll the message. He did, of course, but mentally prepared himself for another kick in the nuts. Just in case.

The message read:

HELO LAUNCH IN 15 MIN STOP FREQ PER ORDER STOP WILL CONFIRM LAUNCH STOP HANG ON END

“That’s a little more like it,” Razor whispered in Murdock’s ear.

“Right now it looks like the only problem is going to be hanging on,” Murdock replied. “We know the Syrians are coming down the ridge at us from the north. For all we know they may be coming up from the south too, and we just didn’t hear them over the mortar fire.”

“Doc’s got to stay with Higgins,” said Razor. “Mister DeWitt might as well make it a threesome. Let’s send Jaybird and Magic a couple hundred meters south. You and I go north. We’ll slow down any Syrians who show up. Either way, when the helos come in we’ll all collapse back onto this spot.”

“Sounds like a winner,” Murdock replied.

Razor brought everyone together around Higgins. Doc Ellsworth and Ed DeWitt kept two AKM magazines each and passed the rest of their ammunition and grenades to the others. Murdock had everyone turn on the MX-300 walkie-talkies. He wasn’t concerned about alerting the Syrians now. They all made, tsk … tsk, sounds over the net to make sure all the sets were up and operating. Murdock rigged up his PRC-117 with the UHF antenna and voice handset so he could talk with the helicopters. The backup PRC-117 with satellite antenna and keypad was left with Doc, along with the sniper rifles.

While they were going over contingencies the keypad blinked and the carrier confirmed the launch of the helicopters. Murdock tapped out an acknowledgment and informed them he was switching both his sets over to UHF voice.

“Any questions?” Murdock asked his SEALs.

There were none.

“Okay,” he said. “Razor and I’ll meet you all back here.”

1903 hours

North central Lebanese mountains

Murdock and Razor crept slowly along the rocks. The mortar fire was still dropping up near the road, but at a much slower rate.

The wind was whipping; it was bitterly cold. Murdock guessed that the temperature was in the teens and dropping, with the wind chill making it much worse. Their pace wasn’t fast enough to keep them warm. Murdock thought about sitting in the ocean at Coronado during Hell Week, the surf washing over him and the instructors saying that they couldn’t come out until someone quit. He hadn’t quit then. He told himself that it had been much colder then than now.

He and Razor reached the dome of rock that had been so much trouble to cross earlier. Then the mortar fire stopped suddenly, and all they could hear was the wind.

Murdock turned to look at Razor through his NVG. Razor nodded. The mortars had ceased fire because the Syrian commandos had reached the road.

The dome was a handy obstacle. The SEALs unscrewed the fuses from two Russian M75 frag grenades and replaced them with two push-pull instantaneous booby-trap fuses.

While no handyman worth his salt would ever be without duct tape, no SEAL would be caught dead without the military equivalent: olive-green ordnance tape, also known as hundred-mile-an-hour tape.

With Murdock holding onto him, Razor edged out onto the dome. When he came to the limit of Murdock’s reach, he locked his legs, bent over, and taped a grenade to a smooth, dry portion of the rock surface.

Murdock pulled him in, and Razor taped the second grenade a little closer to the edge. As they backed away from the dome, Razor carefully unspooled the hundred-pound test fishing line he’d attached to the pull rings of the fuses. Murdock took one line, Razor the other.

They spread out among the rocks and settled down to wait.

1908 hours

MH-60K Blackhawk

Over Lebanon

As they flew over the treetops, the Blackhawk crew and the SEALs heard a range of different chirping sounds in their headsets.

“We’ve got radars,” the Blackhawk copilot announced somewhat redundantly. He consulted his display. “I’m reading Flat Face, Dog Ear, Gun Dish, and Spoon Rest. They’re all over the place.”

He’d given the NATO code name for a range of Russian radar systems. Flat Face was a surface-to-air missile or antiaircraft-gun acquisition system. Dog Ear was an early-warning radar associated with the SA-13 short-range missile system. Gun Dish was the radar atop the ZSU-23-4 self-propelled antiaircraft gun system. Spoon Rest was a surveillance radar, and the most dangerous because it could pick up low-altitude targets.

“Anything coming from the higher elevations?” the pilot asked.

“Two Gun Dish,” the copilot replied.

“Shit,” was all the pilot said.

Since they were skimming over the treetops, the radar would have to be higher and radiating down in order to pick them up. But the crew was somewhat comforted by the fact that most Russian radars weren’t good at picking targets out of ground clutter.

But as the second Blackhawk, flying in trail of the first, swept over some trees, a string of green tracer bullets came floating up right in front of it.

The pilot turned away from the fire. It wasn’t easy at such low altitude. Too hard a turn and they would be crashing into the trees. When they steadied out, the pilot realized how it had happened. Someone on the ground had fired at the lead helicopter, or at least the sound of the lead helicopter. But it was going so low and fast that it was already gone by the time he brought his weapon to bear. Unfortunately, the second Blackhawk was just in time to receive the fire. The pilot solved the problem by moving up in echelon with the lead Blackhawk.

The ZSU-23-4 was a small tracked vehicle with a rotating turret mounting four water-cooled 23mm rapid-firing cannons. Atop the turret the Gun Dish radar spun around, searching for targets. When it locked onto one, the Identification-Friend-or-Foe system electronically interrogated it. If the target was a foe, the gunner slaved the turret onto the radar track, the computer provided a solution, and the guns fired.

The Gun Dish radars on the early ZSU-23-4’s had had trouble picking targets out of ground clutter at altitudes below six hundred feet. But in later models, notably the ZSU-23-4M, the Russians had introduced radar modifications to reduce that problem.

When the Syrians had put their forces in Lebanon on alert, several ZSU-23-4’s had taken up station in the western foothills of the central mountain range. As it happened, one of those vehicles was high enough to be right on line with the Blackhawks’ flight path as they came across the coastline and
over the western plain. The dish antenna atop its turret stopped spinning and pointed west, wobbling slightly.

A continuous tone sounded in the crew headsets of the lead Blackhawk.

“Gun Dish lock,” the copilot called out.

The pilot instantly swung into a gentle S-turn and thumbed a button on his stick. Chaff cartridges were ejected from tubes in the fuselage. The cartridges burst open and filled the air around the helicopter with distinct clouds of thin metallic strips.

The S-turn caused the Blackhawk to disappear within the chaff clouds that showed up on the Gun Dish radar as separate and distinct targets. The radar lock was broken. The Gun Dish tried to decide between the slowly dissipating chaff clouds, but couldn’t. By then the terrain elevation had changed and the Blackhawks were safely back in ground clutter.

When the steady tone in their headsets stopped, Miguel Fernandez and Red Nicholson caught each other’s eyes across the cabin and smiled weakly.

1925 hours

North central Lebanese mountains

Murdock thought he heard movement on the other side of the rock dome. Yes, there it was again. All it took was one man to slip on a little loose rock, or one piece of equipment to swing free.

He could imagine the Syrians contemplating the dome. Would it stop them, or would they have the balls to try it in the dark?

Razor’s voice came over the radio net. “This is Two, contact imminent.”

Then Jaybird’s voice. “You need help?”

“Negative,” Razor ordered. “Stay put. And everyone keep off the net unless it’s an emergency. We’re going to need to talk over here.”

A string of acknowledgments from the rest of the SEALs followed. The MX-300’s were all set on low power, so with luck the transmissions weren’t carrying past the mountain ridge. Not that the Syrians could be listening in on the encrypted messages. Murdock was worried about them getting a fix on the location of the transmissions. But it took a long time for any army to work that kind of information through its various levels of command.

Murdock heard metal knock against rock. The sound seemed to be coming from the side of the dome. So the Syrians were giving it a try. And they were doing a good job keeping quiet too. It wasn’t easy moving over rock in the darkness. If they were a little less competent, he might be able to get an idea of the size of the force on the other side.

Then the sound of hammering started up at the dome. It culminated in a clear metallic ringing that carried far in the night air.

Razor’s whispered voice came up on the net again. “If that wasn’t a piton, then I’m not an E-7.”

“Roger,” Murdock replied. There was no mistaking that sound. A piton was a piece of mountaineering equipment, a metal wedge like a spike with a ring on the fat end. It came in various widths and sizes, and was designed to be hammered into cracks in rock in order to secure a climbing rope. The metallic ringing he’d heard was the sound a piton made when it was wedged solidly into a rock crack.

All the Syrians had to do was hammer in a line of pitons across the dome and rig a fixed rope to them. They could all just hook onto the rope and walk right across.

Murdock was also not pleased with the realization that he was dealing with specialty mountain troops experienced at moving over rock at night. They were not going to be easily dissuaded.

The hammering and ringing sounds gradually worked their way across the dome. Murdock kept his night goggle focused on the edge. The first booby trap was Razor’s. It was his move.

Razor Roselli had the fishing line looped around his left hand. Even though he’d positioned the booby trap below any climber’s line of sight, he didn’t want to let a Syrian get too close to it. All they’d have to do to disarm the grenade was cut the fishing line.

It was time. He gathered up the line until it was taut in his hand, and then gave a hard yank.

The grenade explosion lit up his NVG and made his eyes hurt. There was a scream, and then sounds of thrashing and
sliding. Then the screams were coming from lower on the dome, and went on and on.

The grenade had blown the climber off the rock, but the Syrian was tied to a rope hooked along the pitons he’d already put in. Whoever was belaying the other end of the rope had caught him, so now he was dangling from the rope a little lower on the dome. Just hanging there and bleeding and screaming. And he was going to keep on screaming until someone got him back and gave him some morphine. Or he died. Better him than me, Razor thought.

The screaming went on for five minutes by Murdock’s watch. It stopped before more climbing sounds were heard on the dome. Then there was grunting as new climbers pulled the body up and passed it back.

Another piton was being hammered in. They were climbing again. But Murdock guessed that they were being a damn sight more careful. It wouldn’t do them any good. He was able to see his grenade right at the edge of the dome, but no climbers would notice it until they’d already swung across.

Another piton rang out. The Syrians were getting closer. Murdock saw a man’s hand come around the edge and feel around. But he wasn’t checking low enough. Murdock took up the slack in his line.

The Syrian’s body came around the edge. Murdock pulled on the line at the same time he ducked behind the rock.

The grenade blew, and Murdock thought he heard some of the fragments going past. There was no screaming this time. Murdock raised up his head. The Syrian wasn’t there. The rocks had dark scorch marks on them from the explosion. At least Murdock thought they were scorch marks.

Someone shouted on the other side of the dome. Ah, thought Murdock, discipline was starting to break down. Maybe the next guy who’d been tapped to go across was a little hesitant.

So far the Syrians had no reason to believe that the booby traps were anything other than mines set to delay them. They
might not even think there was anyone on the other side of the dome. That was just fine with Murdock.

The SEALs’ AKMs were fitted with French SOPELEM PS 2 laser aiming lights. Just like the American PAQ-4, but not traceable back to the U.S. military. The small tube weighed only nine ounces and clamped to the AKM’s barrel.

Murdock heard the climbing sounds start up again, and through his NVG he saw the dot from Razor’s sighting unit blink on and settle on the edge of the dome.

“Okay, you’ve got the first shot,” Murdock whispered into his microphone.

Razor responded by keying his mike.

In the green glow of his NVG, Murdock could see a Syrian’s head peering around the dome.