Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (11 page)

Later, after he set the guards, Murdock waited up inside until Barbara and his two men came back. Lam nodded. “Both down and in the well. No problems. We didn’t even see anyone. Met one car but it was weaving all over the street. Driver must have been sloshed.”

Barbara motioned to Murdock and he went over to where she sat on the couch with a drink in her hand. “I shot the soldier before we dropped him in the well. It’s a bad habit of mine. In cases like this I tell the person how his government had my husband killed just on the chance he might be a spy for the U.S. He wasn’t. Then I shot him.”

“How many does that make?”

Barbara looked up quickly, a frown painting her pretty features. “Oh, I understand. Only three. I promised my husband on his grave that I would do ten in his name.”

“Hmmmm.” He paused. She looked up. “I understand you’re in considerable danger, that you’ve been questioned before.”

“True, but one of the top men in the country likes me. I encourage him once a month. He’s a good lover. He helps protect me.”

“You thinking about going home?”

“Not until I get my ten.”

“You have your bomb ready?”

“No, lots of time.” She frowned. “I know I don’t have to, but a lot of the local customs have rubbed off on me. I want to ask if it’s all right with you if I have Lam with me tonight. After … after I do one of their people, I never like to sleep alone.”

“Lam isn’t on guard duty now. What he does is up to him.”

“Thanks. You were my first choice, but he says you’re committed to some lady in San Diego.”

“True.” She watched him a moment, then stood and with that catlike grace walked toward her bedroom. When she opened the door, Murdock saw that there was already a light on inside.

The next morning, Murdock watched his men eat in shifts at the small kitchen table. They wolfed down eggs, sausage, hash browns, toast and jam, and lots of coffee. They met the owners of the house, Huda and Akram. Akram worked for the power company and was just leaving for his job. There had been some problems with some of the electronics at the substation. Huda bustled around the kitchen, showing that she was glad to have a lot of mouths to feed. Each of the SEALs gave Huda fifty Syrian pounds for the hospitality. She tried to push it away, but Barbara insisted that she take it.

“You do so much for our cause, and there’s little I can do for you. These young men think this is only play money. So take it. You deserve it. We put you in enough danger as it is.”

Huda smiled softly. “Maybe someday we can make a difference in my homeland. We appreciate what you men are doing. There is a great evil in our land. It is difficult to do anything about it.”

Murdock went out and checked the van. They would need both vehicles to get to the hill behind the laboratory. One of the CIA men had told them about the hill. It would give them cover until the last possible moment.

Barbara would ride a bicycle to the military post. She was known in this small town for her bike rides. Today would be no different except she would have a backpack.

Jaybird had been working with her for an hour to get the right components for the bomb. They at last set on four one-pound blocks of C-5. It was enough to blast the back of the building halfway to the street. She looked at the timer detonators and insisted on taking two.

“Set one for ten minutes, and one for fifteen minutes. If one doesn’t work, the other one will.”

“They work, ma’am. I’ve never had one of these misfire on me. Maybe two hundred times I’ve used them.”

“Good, then we have a guaranteed backup.”

They taped the four one-pound blocks of C-5 together in pairs. She would place them side by side against the rear wall, push in the arming levers, and ride away.

“Yes, I understand,” Barbara said. “I can do this. I’ve done everything else. This is easy compared to shooting a man.” She looked away. Her face worked for a moment. “Sorry. I keep remembering my husband. He was a good man. Came to the States to get an MA in Business Administration from Harvard. Did well. He was not a spy.”

Huda insisted on feeding them again before they left. She had meat cakes of some kind, vegetables, baked potatoes, and a delicious salad that Lam liked so well he asked for seconds. Huda beamed.

Jaybird took one final look at the bomb, then handed Barbara the timer detonators. She knew how to set them and activate them.

“Casual, just be casual,” Jaybird said. “You’re out for a ride. Don’t go past the military point in your ride. Ride slowly down that alley and at or about twelve noon, put down the bomb, set the timer detonators, and cover the bomb with some trash or the backpack, then ride away. Stay casual.”

Barbara chuckled. “You’d think I was a brand-new bride the way you guys are being so gentle with me. I can do this.” She looked at her watch. It was a quarter to twelve. Barbara wheeled the bike out from behind the house and rode away. She went on one of the routes she often used, to avoid as many hills as possible. At five until twelve she pedaled past the small army unit building. It was an old store the military had taken over and it sat alone on the end of a block of businesses. She went around the block and came down the alley behind the army’s headquarters. No one was in the alley. She stopped, pretending to have trouble with the bike. At last she laid it down, took off her backpack, and rummaged
in it as if looking for a tool. Then she shook her head and carried the backpack over to the rear wall of the army building. It was less than forty feet long and half that wide. She eased into the shade there and wiped her brow. Then she reached inside the backpack and looked at the timer detonator. She pushed it into the hole in the putty-like C-5 and set the timer for five minutes. She pushed in the arming lever and stood, wandered back to her bike and lifted it up. Just as she was about to get on the bike, a soldier ran up carrying a rifle.

“What did you leave against the wall?” he screamed. She ignored him, put her foot on the pedal. He called again, then she felt a sudden hammer blow to her shoulder and at the same time the sound of a gunshot. She staggered forward. The soldier looked at her, then at the backpack against the wall. He ran toward the building and was almost there when it exploded. The force of the blast almost knocked Barbara down. She held the bike tightly until the surge of hot air slammed past her. Then she sat on the bike and rode away out the short end of the alley to the street and to the left toward Huda’s house. Shot, she thought. I’ve been shot. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about the soldier identifying her. That made four. She smiled through the pain that had gushed into her brain, nearly making her pass out. For a moment she thought she would faint. Then she beat it down. She had to ride and get back to Huda’s house. Huda would help her.

The SEALs and the CIA men loaded into the van and the sedan and drove away ten minutes before twelve. They figured it would take them a half hour to get to the spot they needed this side of the laboratory. Then a two-hundred-yard hike uphill to the rear slope they wanted that would let them look down on the laboratory only two hundred yards away.

Murdock was in the lead sedan with Lam and Jaybird. They all had their MGP-15 sub guns loaded and ready. A CIA man drove the car. “We go out ten miles, then turn off on a narrow dirt road to the right,” Murdock said,
reciting from memory the directions he had been given. “The lab is in about three miles. At two point five we leave the car behind a small hill and go up to the top. The lab should be just across a small gully, about two hundred yards away.”

They had almost come to the turnoff when they saw three army trucks storming down the road to meet them. The drivers were grim-faced as they raced past the civilian car heading into town.

The three SEALs cheered. “Barbara must have set off her bomb and the CO there called for some help,” Murdock said. A short time later a military sedan raced out of the side road and sped after the trucks.

The CIA driver wheeled into the dirt road. “Hope to hell no other rigs come out of this road,” the driver said. “They might not like our being here.”

“Two and a half,” Murdock said. The driver watched the odometer. Just past the 2.5-kilometer reading on the odometer, they saw the hill. It was in front of them and the road turned off to the left to arc around it.

“Show time,” Murdock said. The four men piled out of the car and ran up the two-hundred-foot-high hill. Jaybird looked behind them.

“The van is coming,” he said. “Not more than half a click down the road.”

At the top of the hill they bellied down in the rocks and sand and peered over the top. A military tent had been set up near the laboratory. Another army vehicle had parked near it. Six civilian cars were parked on the other side.

“We wait for the others,” Murdock said. He had out field glasses checking the activity below. Only two soldiers paced in front of the only door on the building they could see.

“Concrete block construction,” Murdock said. “If it doesn’t have massive rebar in it, the thing should shatter and drop the roof right down on what’s left.”

“Four more troops coming out of the tent,” Lam said.

“Changing of the guard,” Murdock chanced. “Where the hell are the other twenty-one men?”

“Maybe they sent more than half into town,” Jaybird said. “There were three of those two-ton trucks. Ten in each one would be thirty.”

The van came off the road and partway up the hill, then stopped and the six men poured out of it and raced up the hill. They were winded when they slid down beside the others.

“We’re here,” Rafii said. “Let the party begin.”

Murdock spread them out on the reverse slope. “We’ve got a few targets. Most must be in the tent. We do the men out front, then, Lam and Jaybird, do in all the vehicles you see. The rest of us will concentrate on the tent. I want only the silenced sniper rifles to fire first. When we’re found out, we all will fire our AK-47s. Snipers, fire away.”

Bill Bradford refined his sight, then squeezed the trigger. The 7.62 NATO round jolted through the shirt of the guard standing near the laboratory door, slammed him backward, and left him dying as he slumped to the ground. A second shot seconds later hit the next guard by the front door in the left shoulder as he turned to watch his buddy go down. Another shot followed, smashing into the guard’s head and blasting him backward against the building. Nothing moved outside the laboratory.

Murdock whispered into his Motorola personal radio. “Snipers, put three rounds each into the tent, Bradford take the right half.”

Moments later the huff of the silenced rifles sounded on the reverse slope of the hill and two hundred yards away small holes showed in the side of the tent. A scream sounded below and three men rushed out of the tent with weapons in hand.

“Everyone, open fire,” Murdock said. The three men outside were cut down in five seconds. Then one of the cars in the civilian parking area exploded as a round hit the gas tank and sparked off the built-up vapor in the top of the tank. Another car near it went up in flames. Two suffered blown-out rear tires, and the rest had windshields smashed and holes bored into their radiators and engines.

Men darted out of the tent now, some making it to the
rear of the concrete block laboratory for protection.

“Body count,” Murdock said.

“I see five on the ground, two more near the tent opening makes seven,” Jaybird reported.

“How many around back?” Murdock asked.

“I saw three make it,” Rafii said. “Another one is down near the corner and not moving. I’d say he’s a KIA.”

“There’s got to be more than a dozen down there,” Murdock said. “Rafii and Fernandez. Go up fifty yards on the ridge here, then circle past the burning cars and see if you can get a shot behind that structure. Lam and I will circle it from the tent side. Until we get in position, I want some more rounds into that tent.”

Murdock and Lam ran fifty yards along the crest of the small hill, then went over the side and darted in zigzag patterns down the side of the hill to the small arroyo at the bottom where there was a four-foot-deep ditch they jumped into. They had not taken any enemy fire.

Murdock led the way another twenty yards along the cover, away from the tent, then they lifted up and looked over the edge of the dirt and rocks.

“Another twenty,” Lam said and they hurried down the gully again. This time when they lifted up they could see past the back of the tent and almost to the rear wall of the lab, but not quite.

“Let’s move up and see who we can shake out,” Murdock said. He touched his throat mike. “Cease fire on the tent. We’re moving up toward it. Any more on the body count?”

“One more,” Jaybird said. “Some asshole tried to run from the tent to the front door. He didn’t make it.”

“We’re moving.” Murdock and Lam ran forward. The tent was still on their right. If no one was looking out the back, they might not have any resistance, Murdock thought. The Syrians had enough to worry about out front. The two came to another small dry watercourse halfway to the tent. Now they could see the rear of the lab. Three men cowered there, one looking quickly around the corner of the concrete block wall, then jerking back.

“Now?” Lam asked.

Murdock nodded. “I’m left,” he said. They sighted in over the rocks and sand on the lip of the depression and fired almost at the same time. Murdock held up and let Lam take the next shot on the third Syrian soldier. All three were down.

“The tent?” Lam asked.

Murdock shrugged. “Hell, who wants to live forever?” They came out of the ditch and charged forward. They raked the rear of the tent with the rest of the rounds in their thirty-round magazines, quickly dropped the empty one, and pushed in a new one. There was no response from the tent. They blasted it again with half the rounds in their weapons, then went flat on the ground behind the tent itself.

Lam took out his KA-BAR knife and sliced a two-foot opening in the tent, then dropped to the ground. There was no gunfire through the slit. He lifted up and pushed the canvas aside and looked inside. “Looks like four bodies, all dead as hell. Nobody else. Let’s go inside.”