Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (27 page)

As he followed the rolling stretcher into the hospital, Murdock remembered. Fourteen. Goddamnit, it was fourteen.

Nahariyya, Israel

General Mahdi Diar sat in the coolness of the oceanfront home he had commandeered as his field headquarters and sipped at his vodka-spiked lemonade as he studied the latest field reports. A colonel and two majors fussed around an eight-foot-long situation board, changing symbols as new reports came in. He hated the jagged line that the MLR had become. Early on the second day he had kept his lines almost even for better lateral support and so none of his flanks were exposed. Now there were ten places where he had little flank protection for his troops.

His position there at the coastal town of Nahariyya was secure. He had a company of tanks dug in and well hidden from Israeli aircraft. He also had five hundred seasoned troops in the immediate area and a crack regiment down the road about four miles, where the Israelis had pushed up the coast. But they were stalled now at some low hills with Syrian gunners holding the high ground.

The war had not gone as he had expected. There had been no help whatsoever from other Arab nations surrounding Israel. His call for a holy war to push the great evil Jews into the sea had failed miserably. He had counted on at least two nations to help him. Not Egypt, but surely Jordan and Iraq would send assistance in material and weapons if not troops. How had he miscalculated? Had the pulse bomb been too extreme? It had not killed a million people the way it could have if the bomb had been nuclear. Or had he misjudged the tenor of the times? Perhaps after generations of hatred for Israel, and
the goal of its total annihilation, the urgency had become diluted and the resolve muted. Still there were dedicated suicide bombers and men who gave their lives to hurt Israel. Had he misjudged that faction?

He looked at the symbols again on the battle situation board and the ragged line across the twenty-mile front. The Israelis had pushed his men back almost to the buffer zone on the far eastern front. His Syrian Army still held good positions in the center of the line, but there were deep dents in it the farther he moved to the west. On the coast the Jews had retaken ‘Akko, and were a mile north of there. His staff had estimated Syrian losses at far more than what he had expected. He wondered if the figure was accurate. They said he had lost seventy-five of his one hundred tanks. He knew that had to be impossible. Of the fifty thousand men he had poured into the fight, his staff reported that there had been three thousand dead and another eight thousand wounded and evacuated.

The trucks that were the lifeline of a forward moving army had faltered in their mission. Jewish planes strafing and bombing had reportedly destroyed over two thousand trucks. The general rubbed his reddish face and scowled. How could so many be gone? He had planned every detail. Air power. He hadn’t counted on the skill of the Jew pilots. They had simply outflown his pilots and shot most of them down. He scrubbed his flattop black hair and motioned the men to continue working on the board. He went down a short hall and into the first bedroom. The master bedroom by the looks of it. It was at least twenty-four feet square, with a large bed and a couch and a double bath off it. He closed the door and smiled at Samira. She was sixteen, well developed, and lay on the bed watching Israeli TV, which they had somehow begun broadcasting again. She wore nothing but a thin veil across her lower face.

General Diar sat down beside her and she squirmed into his lap and put both his hands on her breasts.

“May I please you, my favorite general?” she asked, her voice low, enticing, filled with a thousand and one promises.

“Soon. I have had bad news and I must think what I can do next. Can you help me with that?”

“Send a thousand naked Syrian girls into the front lines to seduce the Jew soldiers. Then our glorious troops can march right into Tel Aviv.”

He laughed and bent to kiss one of her breasts.

“Not quite that simple. I had planned on using another pulse bomb on Tel Aviv, but the day before we set off the first one, some raiders blew up our laboratory and destroyed the other four bombs we had almost completed. They killed our scientists, too, and now we would have to start over from the first raw idea of the bomb.” He shrugged and began undressing.

“In five days I was sure that we would be in Haifa and on our way to Tel Aviv. I need a striking success, a bold stroke that will demoralize the Jews and allow our troops to surge forward in a great victory.”

He kept talking, not so much for Samira to hear, as to convince himself he was doing the right thing. But what? Tanks. The only way to drive forward quickly. He had more than twenty-five, he was sure. A slashing, charging thrust with all of his tanks in a surge from near the coast and shooting their way right through the suburbs and into Haifa’s business district, where he would blow up every building over four stories high.

Yes. He would do it. He would risk the last of his fighter squadrons. He knew he had sixteen planes still ready to fly. Some had been sent to airfields far away for safety. He would bring them back to make morning strikes, to battle the Israeli fighters and to protect his tank column. He would get with the tank commanders now and lay out the plan. They would have no infantry support at first. Trucks would follow directly behind them when possible and provide infantry when they could. The infantry would mainly hold the corridor a mile wide down through Israel and into the homeland. Yes, it would work. The Jews would be surprised. They thought he was on the run, when instead he would be running right down their throats.

He dumped the nubile girl off his lap and hurried back to his large situation board.

“Hanieh, get me an up-to-the-minute report on all the tanks we have that are manned and ready for action. I want only those tanks that can carry at least half of their normal load of rounds for their cannons. I want it in fifteen minutes. Colonel Adar, do the same on trucks. I mean the big ones to haul troops. Also check on supplies of ammunition for the troops, and field rations. Where is that topographical map of northern Israel? Numan, I want you to help me pick the fastest and easiest route from the center of our MLR directly into Haifa. Yes, gentlemen, we are going on the offensive. We are going to drive a tank column with infantry support right into Haifa.”

“General Diar,” Colonel Adar said. “It’s now thirteen-hundred. When do you want to start the attack?”

“We will begin to move forward across the Jews’ MLR at precisely nineteen-hundred today, so get your asses in gear. We have a war to fight. Praise Allah.”

“Praise Allah,” the men in the room shouted in unison, then they scurried out to get to their assigned tasks.

Major Numan rolled out a large-scale topographical map. He used wipe-off markers and traced a line down from Karmi’el.

“General, we can assemble our tanks here at Karmi’el and have a good thrust due south. We charge across the weak MLR there, and continue for three more miles, then we turn due west. We charge through this valley and over a pair of low-lying hills and we should be in the outskirts of Haifa before they can move any forces to stop us. We’ll go at night so their aircraft will be seriously limited in finding any targets. The trucks will drive without lights. In the darkness they won’t know anything but a column thrust through their MLR. They will be blind until dawn.”

“I don’t see any roads in there, Numan.”

“Not many, but enough that we can use the dirt roads to meet the tanks at designated spots and discharge troops to act as security for the corridor.”

Diar studied the area for a moment, looked over the route and the few roads he saw on the map, then grunted.
“Good, write out instructions for the tankers. We’ll use our secure radios to reach the tanks. Give them as much warning as possible about the dash to Karmi’el, and then the plunge into Haifa. All tank movements will be after dark.”

“Yes, sir, General. I’ll write up the orders at once and send them by radio.”

General Diar looked out the window, at the view of the Mediterranean Sea and the small cove nearby. Idyllic. He wished Syria had a longer coastline. It was only about eight-five miles long. Someday he’d have a villa there, right on the beach, or on a cliff overlooking a bay with waves crashing into the rocks. He sighed. He’d been a soldier for a long, long time. With the stumbling they had done on this invasion, he had suffered his first doubts about ever becoming president and head man of all Syria. He knew he needed a smashing victory to prove himself to the people and to the powerful band of army officers who ran the country. Without that support, he was just another general looking forward to retirement.

He heard a door open behind him and turned. All the army men had left the room. He looked back and saw Samira standing in the door wearing the small thin veil and nothing else.

“Busy?” she asked.

He turned and rose from the chair. He loved her full breasts and the way they bounced and rolled when she walked. Her sweet little behind was another pleasure zone he never grew tired of. Diar smiled as he walked toward her. She pushed one hip out at him and made her breasts bounce.

“Oh, yes,” Diar said. “A man has to have some time for recreation.” He grabbed the girl by one breast, pulled her into the bedroom, and closed the door.

Major Nabil Shamalekh stood beside his tank in the first bunker dug into the Jewish soil just below the commanding general’s headquarters. They had destroyed a house to dig the protective bunker and then camouflaged it with boards from the wrecked residence. He had his orders. As
soon as it was dark he would lead his four tanks away from the coast and plunge cross-country to meet more tanks almost in the middle of northern Israel near the small town of Karmi’el. It was all in Syrian-held territory. He had studied his maps and knew the best route. Down a country road for a mile, then over a small rise due west, then down a valley to a crossroads. The road would take him directly into the rendezvous point. He figured it would take about twenty minutes if he didn’t run into any mounted Israeli patrols. All of the area was in Syrian hands, but line-crossing patrols had been moving into the area to harass them lately. He went over the route again.

Major Shamalekh had not even had time to polish the new gold oak leaves on his shoulder. A major. He had dreamed of leading a platoon of tanks into battle. He just hadn’t thought it would come so quickly. His platoon commander and two men above him in date of rank had been killed in the second day of fighting, when the Jew fighters had pulverized the Syrian tank battalion. He sighed. He would much rather be at home with his wife, two sons, and his small daughter, than in this fight. His family was safe in Hamah, far to the north in Syria. One of his men came up asking how many rounds of the heavy shells they should load.

“All we can carry, and we’ll plan on shooting every one of them. Maximum on the machine-gun ammo supply as well. We’re going all the way into Haifa.” The sergeant saluted, and hurried back to the tank to take stock.

Nabil looked down at his gold oak leaf. A rank he often wondered if he would ever attain. Now it was here. He had been promoted in the field by General Diar himself yesterday. Now he was at war and had his best chance to move up another notch in the officer corps of the fairly small armored division. He took out a folder he kept in his right breast pocket. No wallets or identification of any kind were permitted, but he had brought the plastic folder along. It had two pictures. One of his sons and baby daughter. What a little jewel. She was precious. The other picture was a portrait photo of his wife. She was so beautiful he wanted to cry. So wonderful. Worth fighting for.
He would fight and come back and be the best husband he could be and raise his sons to be true men and to love the army.

He went to the tank, slid inside, and flipped on the radio. It was a half hour to dusk. He would be on alert for an early leave. He checked. All his ammo was in place and his crew inside. They were ready.

The call came ten minutes later.

“Major Shamalekh, move out your platoon. Lead them in your approved route to the meet. Go with Allah.”

“Go with Allah,” he said in response. Then on the same frequency, “Red Platoon, start your engines. We move out in thirty seconds.”

Five minutes later the five tanks rolled down a Jewish dirt road that led to two small hills to the south and east. They would be easy. No timber to speak of, mostly brush. No rocky cliffs or sudden drop-offs. Almost too easy.

The platoon came off the road following Major Shamalekh up the first gentle slope. Too late to fire the machine guns, the major saw the Jewish infantry patrol break from a patch of brush and rush behind the slope.

“Infiltrators on the left,” the major radioed. “Number five, swing over that way and bring them under fire. Six men I saw, nothing heavier man a machine gun.”

“Received, Red Leader, I’m on it.”

The sound of the machine guns firing came over the radio before it cut off. Major Shamalekh checked the front and saw they were at the brow of the small hill. He slowed the tank and stopped so he could recon the area below. Surely the Jews had not pushed up this far from the MLR. It was supposed to be three miles on south.

He scanned the landscape looking for fires or men smoking or any other sign that there were considerable numbers of Jew fighters in the area. He saw nothing.

“Hit three of them with the MG,” the radio said. “The others have scattered. Should I get back in formation?”

“That’s an affirmative, Five. Move now.”

The five tanks soon tipped over the ridge and powered downward toward a small stream and a single building. It could hide a squad of Jewish infantry. Then also it could
be a resting place for wounded Syrians on their way back for medical aid. He left the building standing and made his left turn along a gravel road wide enough for only one car or tank at a time. The rest strung out behind him thirty yards apart.

He led the tanks down the road, watching through the faint light for any opposition. There should be none, but that’s often when it appeared … and killed you. He saw nothing. The radio chirped.