Hostile Fire (24 page)

“Coming. First the fucking RPGs. Lam, where are you?”

“I can hear you, Skipper. Next curve on the wadi and you have it.”

“Underground, this is Bird One. We don’t see a flare.”

“Hold it, Bird One, circle or something. We’ve got some RPGs down here we need to shoot up.”

“That’s a roger, Underground.”

Murdock came around the next small turn and saw Lam belly down in the dirt next to a sharper curve. He ran up and dropped beside him.

“I’ll do a contact round, Skipper. You do an airburst. They’re up there about fifty yards.”

Murdock leaned around the lip of rocks and sand and saw the uniforms. “That’s a go, swabbie. On three. One, two, three.” Both men fired. The twin reports of the twenties startled the Iraqi soldiers, but they had no time to react as the 20mm rounds exploded almost at the same time. Lam’s contact round blew two men into the air and riddled one RPG launcher with dozens of penetrating shards of shrapnel. Murdock’s airburst sent hundreds of razor-sharp metal fragments blasting down on the eight men who crouched in the gully.

Both men at once fired second rounds, and the next time they looked around the bend in the wadi, they saw only one man standing. He stared down the gully at them and lifted his RPG. Murdock’s contact 20mm exploded in front of him
before he could fire. The explosion set off the round in the RPG launcher and tore the soldier apart who held it. He jolted backwards, one of his arms missing and his torso riddled with shrapnel.

The SEALs looked again, saw no one alive, and Murdock hit his radio.

“Jaybird, throw out that red flare. Kat, how are you coming?”

“Flare is on the way,” Jaybird said on the net.

“You eliminated the RPGs?” the new voice on the Motorola said.

“Yes, Bird One, you should have one red soon to land. Kat, what’s your status?”

“We’re all three out of the crater. Senior Chief Neal set the charges on the wall, and we punched up the boom-booms for five minutes. That was a minute and twelve seconds ago. Right now we’re hoofing it fifty yards away and finding ourselves a hole.”

“Blast set for about three minutes from now, everyone. Bird One, wait about five before you land. We want to see what happens at the bomb hole.”

“That’s a roger, Underground. We’re holding.”

Murdock could hear the choppers then. The sound came and then diminished, then came again. They were circling.

Murdock and Lam ran back down the wadi to where they could get out easily, and then jogged toward the line of pickets they had set out. Just as they got there, Murdock felt the ground shake.

“Fire one,” Lam said.

A gush of smoke and dust blasted out of the opening behind the crane. Then a second explosion came, followed at once by a third. More smoke and dirt gushed out of the hole; then they heard a rumbling and saw the slanted roof on this end of the factory shake and then slide into the hole that had been the bombs’ home.

Murdock, Lam, and the rest of Alpha Squad hiked back toward the crane. They met Kat and Neal, who were both grinning.

“Looks like you did it,” Murdock said.

Kat nodded, her smile bright. “Oh yes, we did. The slab
dropping down seals those two bombs in there so no radiation can come out. They should be safe there for about a thousand years.”

“Flare now, Skipper?” Jaybird called on the radio.

“Flare now, affirmative.”

Murdock hurried forward and found the gully where Gypsy lay on a bed of cammie shirts. He knelt down beside her. She opened her eyes.

“Kat got the bombs?” she asked, her voice husky, so low Murdock had to strain to understand.

“Yes, all three are destroyed. Now our job is to get you safely out of here and to a good doctor.”

“I like this one,” she said and smiled. Then her face tightened and her eyes closed. She gasped as pain drilled through her body. She shuddered, then nodded and opened her eyes.

“Hurts some,” she said.

Fifty yards behind Murdock, the choppers both landed on an open space.

“Load up,” Murdock said to his mike, and he saw men moving toward the two birds. “Howard and Canzoneri, come over to where Gypsy is. I’m standing and waving.”

The four men held each other’s wrists under Gypsy and moved her as gently as possible to the chopper door. Eager hands helped take her inside and put her on a cargo pad on the floor.

“Everyone on board?” Murdock asked. “How many bodies in the first chopper?”

Gardner responded. “We’ve got eight here. Kat’s with us.”

Murdock counted. “We have ten including Doc and Gypsy. Eighteen is our number. Cleared for takeoff.”

Just then an explosion shook the first chopper.

“RPG incoming,” the pilot shouted into his Motorola. “It didn’t miss us by much. We’re out of here.”

The second chopper pilot lifted off at the same moment, and when the bird was twenty feet into the air, another RPG round went off where the craft had been sitting. They felt some pings and the sound of whining shrapnel, but nothing that came through the skin of the chopper.

Both helicopters slanted south at top speed and a minute
later Murdock relaxed. They must be out of range of the RPGs by now. They were dangerous and deadly but better at short range than long. He touched his radio mike. “Bird One, what’s your flight time to Kuwait?”

“I have it an hour and forty-eight.”

“Good. Can you advise them we have wounded and we’ll need an emergency team at the landing site ready for one critical.”

“Will do that, Underground. Congratulations on your mission. Talk about hairy. You SEALs do good work.”

“We had help from one brilliant and gutsy lady, and a second lady who is leaving her country to help us. Get us to medical help as soon as possible.”

Murdock went over to Gypsy and held her hand. She was unconscious. He gripped her hand and she stirred, then opened her eyes.

“Dream. I just had a dream. Wild. Abstract. Nothing fit anything else. Almost a nightmare.”

Mahanani hovered nearby. “Gypsy, do you need some more morphine? Is the pain too much for you?”

“What pain? I’m with friends.” Her scratchy voice was hard to hear over the roar of the chopper. Mahanani took her pulse and scowled. He went up to the pilot.

“Tell the medics at the airport to have a portable defibrillator on their gurney and everything else. Her heart rate is so slow I’m afraid it’ll stop before we get there.”

The pilot nodded and made the call to his home base.

In the chopper the SEALs sat and watched the struggle for life. For a time Mahanani hovered over Gypsy, watching, testing her pulse and listening to her breathing. At last he leaned back, his face near a smile as he nodded.

“She’s stronger. I don’t know where she finds the strength, but she’s doing better than I hoped. At this rate, she might make it.”

Twenty minutes from touchdown, Gypsy cried out in pain and tried to sit up. Murdock and the medic held her down. Mahanani took her pulse and frowned.

“So damn low it almost isn’t there. Make this damn machine go faster,” he shouted into the chatter of the rotors.

When they landed, Murdock had the door open and saw the team of white-coated medics running forward with two gurneys. One was empty, the other loaded with machines and material. Two men jumped into the chopper and checked her with their stethoscopes. One frowned and shook his head. The other called for the paddles. They came into the chopper on their long cords.

“Three hundred,” the medic shouted, then, “Clear.” The paddles contacted Gypsy’s chest and shoulder and made her slender body jolt upward. The stethoscope came again, held by the doctor. He shook his head. “Four hundred,” the doctor called and the paddles hit her again, jolting her upward off the pad then down.

The doctor with the stethoscope nodded. “She’s back,” he said. “Let’s get her out of here and into emergency.”

Two hours later Murdock and Kat paced the waiting room near the operating suite. An hour before, a nurse had come out and told them that Gypsy was still in critical condition but they had stabilized her. The bullet had gone through her chest, lung, and out her back, and most of the damage had been repaired. Her right lung had collapsed, but they had it working again it and it was functioning well.

“There’s a little more repair work we need to do, and she isn’t out of danger yet, but her chances look extremely good. She’s a tough little lady. We’ll let you know how we’re progressing.”

At last they both sat down and stared at each other.

“She’s with the Company, right?” Kat asked.

“Yes, a part-time player, but they owe her.”

“If they don’t give her a retirement or put her to work, I’m going to go to the President about it. He owes me at least one favor. She could be invaluable in their Middle East Section.”

“Without her we wouldn’t have found the bombs,” Murdock said. “You’re right. Our country owes her.”

It was still morning in Kuwait. They had landed in one of the military airfields close to Kuwait City where the U.S. had set up a large contingent of Americans and dozens of aircraft, all air force. Murdock had seen that his men were
sent to a barracks for some rest, showers, and chow. He told Don Stroh where he would be but hadn’t heard from the CIA man since.

Stroh walked into the room, saw them, and sat down beside Kat.

“If this cowboy gives you any trouble, let me know, Kat, and I’ll have him shipped to Adak up in the Aleutian Islands to count polar bears on the icecap.”

“Hey, good fishing up there,” Murdock said.

Kat grinned at the two jawing at each other. “Since you asked, your agent is stable and should make it,” Kat said. “Is the CIA going to give her a job stateside, or give her a medical retirement?”

“She isn’t staying here?” Stroh asked.

“No, she’s coming back to the States with me and living in my apartment.”

Stroh lifted his brows. “Well, that was a fast bonding.”

“She took a bullet for me, Stroh, and then gunned down the sniper before she collapsed. We owe her.”

“I’ll talk to Washington. Right now we’ve got more problems.”

“Where is the other bomb?” Murdock asked.

“We’re not sure. The Israelis have been tracking a man they call Asrar Fouad for over three years. He’s chaperoned more than a dozen suicide bombers into Israel. Now they think he’s moved up in his chosen profession. We’ve had intel about somebody shopping for a functioning nuclear bomb. This person worked the Russians, went to Ukraine and tried the Odessa caves, but found the price too high. The word is that he then contacted those who had produced nuclear bombs to buy or co-own one. One trace showed him in Baghdad recently.

“Yesterday he was spotted by one of our people in Jordan, not in the capital but in a northern city called Irbid. Okay, we’re making some assumptions here. Baghdad airliners are not welcome in many nations. On the other hand, Jordan Air, a freight hauler, can literally fly the world.

“A few more background facts. The Israelis captured one of Fouad’s right-hand men. I won’t say the Israelis used torture, but they extracted quite a bit of general information
about Fouad. One of his dreams is to set off a nuclear weapon on a U.S. city. We now know that he was in Baghdad. Iraq has nuclear bombs. One of them got away. We think Fouad sold Iraqi President Kamir on the partner plan. Kamir furnishes the bomb; Fouad transports it to America and detonates it.”

“That’s a bucket full of assumptions,” Murdock said. “What do we know in hard, cold facts?”

“Fouad wants to nuke America. Fouad has been in Baghdad. Baghdad has one nuclear bomb left. Fouad was spotted yesterday in Jordan. It’s a closer drive to Jordan from the bomb site than it is to Baghdad. Those are our facts.”

“Can your man in Jordan check the airfreight companies?”

“Unfortunately no. He was killed this morning in an apparent auto accident.”

“So, when do we leave?” Murdock asked.

“I’ve been authorized to send three men to Jordan to try to check out the sightings. You and your two best Arabic speakers leave in two hours. You’ll go as Saudi nationals on a Saudi Airlines flight from the civilian airport here. No weapons, not even a knife. Tight security on these planes. You’ll stop in Amman and continue on to Irbid. There are two airfreight lines up there. Jordan Airfreight and Middle East Air Freight. Both solid, legitimate carriers. They say money can buy anything in Jordan. That might be the case here. You’ll each have five thousand dinars. It takes three dollars to equal one Jordanian dinar. We better move. We have new Saudi Arabian–type civilian clothes, Saudi papers for each of you. Rafii and Ching are ready to go. You better get a shower and hit the officers’ mess. I’ll keep you informed about Gypsy. Best way to contact me will be by regular telephone. Let’s go.”