Hostile Fire (23 page)

“Shit,” Kat said.

Murdock pulled back, caught Bradford, and had him set up the SATCOM and align the small dish antenna. Before he was done, they heard the twenties go off just north of them.

“They came and we’re shooting,” Gardner said. “We’ve stopped both trucks and I can see maybe twenty men scattering out of each truck. We’re on airbursts now. Some of them will get away, so we’ll have to watch for them.”

“Nail all you can. Follow them with the thermal imager and harass them with the twenties. Save a few rounds. We might need them before we get out of here.”

“How bad is Gypsy?”

“Not good. We need an air evac as soon as possible. Kat says about an hour and a half more. I’m going to talk to Stroh now.”

“That’s a roger.”

Bradford handed Murdock the handset. “She’s ready. We’re on the frequency we usually use for Stroh.”

“Underground looking for Big Daddy.”

The response was immediate.

“Yes, Underground. Progress?”

“The sky guys came and dropped about two-thirds of the six-foot-thick roof into the complex. One of the bombs was crushed and is worthless. Two more are getting Kat’s treatment now. Our report by an insider supervisor is that they made four and one left yesterday morning by highway truck heading north. We don’t know where it might be. That’s your problem now.”

“We’re on it. They could have gone to Baghdad for a flyout on a sale, or maybe to Jordan. We’re out of assets in Baghdad, but we do have good people in Jordan. We’ll check the airports for any private charters out of there today. Money
in Jordan can get any information. Any casualties?”

“Yes, one of your Company people from Baghdad. She’s with us and took a round through her lung. We need air evac as fast as possible. Where will they be coming from?”

“My home port from where you took off.”

“That’s two hours away,” Murdock said. “I thought they might be closer, where Gardner came in from.”

“We could do that. You need two. When will you be ready for a pickup?”

“Get them here on our red flares an hour and a half from now. It might be starting to get light by then. We’ve got ten or fifteen men from the home country contesting our right to go on living. We’re working on them. How long from Saudia Arabia to us?”

“Twenty minutes to the border, but we don’t have the medical there she’ll need. Two hours from Kuwait to you and two back. Best we can do for top medical help.”

Murdock sucked in a long breath. Even if they got out of Iraq to Saudi Arabia, that wouldn’t save Gypsy. “Okay, get those birds warmed up and moving from Kuwait. We’ll see you here in two hours. The pilots have the coordinates. Two hours, get their asses in motion.”

“It’s done; the air chief here is listening. They’ll be in the air in five minutes. Stay safe. Let me know when the bang-bang comes eliminating those other two nukes.”

“Will do. Underground out. Gardner, come in.”

“Go, Skipper.”

“You heard my talk with Stroh. We’ve got two hours to wrap this up. How is your seek and destroy doing?”

“Two trucks burning. We figure we nailed about half of the Arabs. That leaves fifteen out here somewhere. You better put out some security down there. We won’t come in unless they get behind us. They probably will circle, so watch your hind side.”

“Right. Thanks, Gardner.”

Murdock looked around. It wasn’t getting light yet, but it could in another two hours. “Mahanani, you hear Gardner?”

“Yeah, Skipper.”

“See if you can gently move Gypsy into some cover—a wadi or a ditch or something. We could be taking fire soon.”

“Done, Skip. Jaybird and I moved her about ten minutes ago. Little wadi about three feet deep. She’s stable now, or as stable as I can get her. I pumped in two morphine and all the liquid antibiotics I have. She’s still in and out of reality. We’re talking four hours to medical help?”

“Afraid so.”

“That will be touch-and-go.”

“Right, Doc. Kat, can you talk?”

“Since I was two.”

“Who do you have helping down there?”

“The senior chief and Vinnie Van Dyke. I sent Jaybird and Howard up a few minutes ago. You’ll need them. I’m almost done with the first one. Second one won’t be so hard. Another thirty, maybe fifty minutes.”

“Take your time. We have two hours. Let’s make certain. I don’t want to crawl in there on a hangfire.”

“Oh yeah, I’m with you, Skipper. Out.”

“The rest of Alpha on me at the crane,” Murdock said.

Soon the five men were there. “You know the situation. Best bet is that other squad of Iraqis out there will come at us from the south. So we want a picket line. Space yourselves thirty yards apart along the end of the complex to the right. Lam, take the thermal. Use your twenties on them if possible. We’ve got plenty of rounds and the kill ratio is higher. Doc, you stay with your patient but keep a lookout to the south. Don’t gun down any of our guys, though. Questions?”

“Will it be light by the time the choppers get here?” Ching asked.

Murdock looked at Rafii.

“In this area, this time of year, should be daylight by oh-six-hundred. It’s now about oh-four-hundred. So it will be just getting light when the birds come.”

“Let’s hope this squad doesn’t have any RPGs with them,” Jaybird said.

Murdock looked up. “Gardner. On those truck hits, did you hear any secondary explosions, like maybe rockets or RPG ammo?”

“Yeah, we did hear some, three or four, then the fuel tanks blew and that was all we heard.”

“So, the troops in the field might have some heavier firepower.
Let’s keep alert. Get out there, stay in touch, and keep quiet. Lam, lead them out.” He watched the men. Besides Lam there were Jaybird, Howard, Ching, Bradford, and Rafii. Bradford had left the set aligned on the satellite and all Murdock had to do to talk was hit the talk button on the handset.

He called the north squad. “Gardner, any ghosts on your thermal imager?”

“Nothing except some small animals I think must be rabbits. We haven’t seen or heard of any of them since the big blast. Maybe they headed back north?”

“Probably not. At least not if one officer or one noncom survived. Just keep on the alert. We should be wrapped up here in less than an hour.

Twenty minutes later they had heard nothing more from the Iraqi army squad. Kat called to tell Murdock her status.

“I’ve just finished one, made all the internal changes I wanted to, and I have placed the C-4 inside but it has no timer or detonator. That comes last after the next one. Moving there now. Yes, the senior chief has the panel off so I can get right to work. I need him and Vinnie to hold the lights. Now that I’ve done one, the next one should wrap in about thirty minutes. Later.”

Murdock kept watch to the south, but could see nothing. He tried to make the time go by faster, but it wouldn’t. He checked twice with Kat, who said she was almost done.

“Taking longer than I figured. I’m going to be on this one most of an hour.”

Later in the picket line of defenders across the south flank, Jaybird shielded his penlight under his shirt and checked his watch.

“All you locals out there in radio land, the time this morning is oh-five-oh-two. Which means we could see the start of the dawn in a half hour. Maybe we should find some wadi protection rather than up here in the good target area.”

“Good idea, Jaybird,” Murdock said. “I’m settling in on the side of the cut here like in a big foxhole. Those ten or fifteen riflemen aren’t going to sit out there and wait for us to move.”

Ten minutes later Murdock heard rifle fire from the south.

“Oh, yeah,” Lam said. “We got company. Still dark
enough they can’t see much, but they figured out we’re out here waiting for them. They popped up out of a wadi about two hundred from us, I figure, and jolted off a few shots and then vanished.”

“Anybody hit?” Murdock asked.

“No rounds came even close,” Ching said. “I think they were looking for some muzzle flashes from us.”

“The thermal gadget helping any?” Murdock asked.

“Oh, yeah, now it is,” Lam said. “I’ve got two of them crawling out of a branch wadi maybe fifty yards out.” The radio went dead, and a moment later Murdock heard three three-round bursts from an MP-5.

“Oh, yeah, two down and dirty,” Lam said. “They won’t try coming around that end again.”

“I’ve got a pair of uglies moving in up here,” Gardner said. “I’ll wait until they come in close and nail them. We’re spread out the way Lam and his bunch are. I’ve got this pair of Iraqis on the thermal and they are dead meat in about two minutes.”

The sound of an explosion came over the radio earpieces.

“What was that?” Murdock asked.

“Must be an RPG,” Lam said. “Hit down the wadi about thirty yards. Missed us. No muzzle flash so it must have come from a gully somewhere south of us.”

“Probably RPG-Sevens,” Jaybird said. “The antipersonnel grenade they throw is good for over twelve hundred yards. No telling where they fired them from. Bad news is they can bring down a chopper. Remember we lost three or four Blackhawks in Mogadishu, Somalia, back in 1994. RPG-Sevens shot them down.”

“Don’t they have antitank rounds, too?” Lam asked.

“Sure do. The launcher is forty millimeter and it can throw an antitank round out a thousand yards,” Jaybird said. “Now, what do we do about the damn things?”

“We find them and take them out with our twenties before they can use their forties,” Murdock said. “The Russians used to assign one RPG man to each squad. That could be the ratio here. So maybe they only have one RPG with them. Gardner, you see anything more up there?”

“Nope. We took out the two men we spotted. Haven’t seen or heard anything else.”

“Okay, we assume then they have one RPG and it’s to the south. Lam, work down some of those tributary wadis and see if you can sniff out where the bastards are. Don’t get yourself shot and don’t get on the surface. They must be watching the top just like you guys are. Going to be dawn in about thirty. Move fast while you can. Bradford, this SATCOM ready to go?”

“Ready, sir.”

Murdock picked up the handset where the SATCOM sat on the lip of the drop-off and pushed the send button. “Big Daddy, talk to me.”

The response was slow, but it came. “Yes, Underground. Our birds are in the air. Their ETA your place is less than thirty minutes.”

“May have some bad news. We’ve got a squad of Iraqi infantry and they evidently have one or more RPGs. The old seven type probably, but mean enough to knock down a chopper. We’re hunting them now, but not sure we’ll find them before your birds get here. Did you give the chopper pilots one of our Motorolas?”

“I did, little buddy. I remembered getting broadsided before because the birds couldn’t talk to you. Five miles is about all the range they have, or maybe six or seven when they are in the air.”

“As soon as we hear them coming, we’ll talk to them and throw out a red flare. Right now, we’re on a search and destroy. Out.”

Murdock put the SATCOM back in place. “Kat, how are you doing?”

“Another ten minutes and I’ll be done. This bomb is different from the first one. Don’t know why. I can do both of them. Give me ten and then time to set the fuses and we’ll all choggie out of this neck of Iraq.”

“We pull back how far?” Murdock asked.

“Two hundred. I’m having Senior Chief Neal rig the wall that’s holding up the roof slab so it will blow out the wall and let the whole thing drop down and crush the bombs.
He’ll set that timer for two minutes after the charges on the bombs go off.”

“Good, I like it. Get finished. It’s almost light out here.” Murdock watched the darkness slip away and the first traces of dawn creep over the desert.

“Senior Chief, you read me?”

“Right, Skipper.”

“Okay, you’ve got the con here. Get the three of you out of there when the charges are set. Give yourself at least five minutes to make the move. Then find a wadi up here on the surface to drop into. I’m heading out to where Lam is hunting for the RPGs.”

It took Murdock five minutes to get out to where the rest of the squad had the picket line. They were in a gully that ran parallel with the bomb factory.

“Lam went down that one,” Jaybird said, pointing to a branch of the wadi. “He’s been gone fifteen and we haven’t heard a word. He traded me for my Bull Pup.”

“Lam, you on the scent out there?” Murdock radioed.

“Fucking close. I can hear some chatter, but can’t see anybody yet. Oh damn. Just around a bend in this ten-foot-deep gully, I can see them. Six, maybe eight of them, and they have three RPGs.”

“Let me get up there,” Murdock said. “You have a twenty?”

“Yes and four rounds.”

“I’m coming. Lead me in. I go to the first branch to the left—is that the direction?”

“Second branch, and go right. I’m about fifty yards from the turnoff.”

“Be there in five. Hold your fire.” Murdock took off at a sprint, got to the first-branch wadi, went past it to the second. That’s when he heard the sound of the two choppers coming in. He ran ahead again. If he didn’t get there in time, the RPGs could knock down their ticket out of there.

“I hear it, too,” Lam said. “About two miles out. You better get here quick. Otherwise I’m going to have to do it myself.”

“I’m no more than a minute away. Two rounds are better than one. I’m running, Lam. If I don’t get there in time, you
take them out with the twenties. We can’t afford to let them get off a single round.”

“I’m sighting in and waiting, Skipper. Shake a leg. Those birds are getting closer.”

Murdock frowned as he ran. “Jaybird, don’t throw out that red flare until we get these RPGs taken care of.”

“You best hurry, Skipper,” Jaybird said. “The birds are zeroing in on the smoke still coming up from parts of the factory.”

Murdock scowled into the growing light and surged down the flat bottom of the wadi toward where Lam must have been waiting.

Murdock panted as he rounded the small turn in the five-foot-deep wadi. No Lam ahead. He could hear the sound of the choppers now coming in from the southeast.

“Skipper, Gypsy isn’t sounding good. She’s wheezing now and her pulse is so low I can hardly find it,” the medic said. “Where are those damn flyboys?”