Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire (28 page)

“Red Platoon Leader, come in.”

“Red Platoon here. We’re on our final leg, due west toward the town. ETA about five minutes.”

“Right, Red PL. Keep it moving. Fifteen tanks already in position. You are to take the lead of the column. We want ten men to ride each tank until you come under fire or need to maneuver sharply. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. Ten hikers on board. Will I pick them up at Karmi’el?”

“Right, Red PL. You have seven minutes to get in the lead of the force, pick up your riders, and move out on your designated compass course toward the target. You will be the column leader. Good luck. May Allah sing praises to your name.”

“Look sharp now, crew,” the major said. “We’re almost there. We’ll go just south of the town and meet the other armored units. Yes, there they are. We’ll go to the head of the pack.”

“Right, sir, to the head and beyond,” the driver said.

When they pulled into position, the major opened the hatch and stood so he could get the larger picture. He saw some of the crews out of their tanks. He went on the net at once. “This is Red Platoon Leader. Every tanker will be in his vehicle within thirty seconds or answer to me. We pull out in two minutes. You know our objective. As ordered, we will present a three-tank front, with the rows behind the first tanks at forty to fifty yards. Please maintain your distance. Infantry get on board and hang on. The MLR is about four miles distant, and we’ll be firing at it as we race through. Our men have given us a one-hundred-yard open zone on our side, so we won’t crush
any of them. We pull out in one minute. Infantry get on board. Drop off if we take heavy tank counter battery. That’s it. Good luck and may Allah ride with you. Now, first row, move out.”

Major Shamalekh kept his position standing in the hatch as the tank churned across a harvested grain field and down the valley. The MLR was just this side of the low hills, and he hoped they would hit it quickly and with such a punch that they would be through it and well into Israel before the Jews knew it. A mile from where he could see small arms fire, he buttoned up his tank and drove for the center of the one-hundred-yard-wide opening in the Syrian lines. He knew that the Jews had a lot of tanks across the front somewhere. He just hoped that they didn’t have a concentration of them at this point.

He could see rifle fire now coming at them from the other side. The tanks raced over narrow trenches where the Syrians had dug in, and charged into the one wide swath between the lines. He could see tracers to the sides. Small arms. Good. No sign of any tanks. When they were fifty yards away from the Israeli MLR, he fired his big gun. The round rammed into a bunker on the Israeli side and then he heard the other tanks in his row pounding the line with rounds. His gunner got off three rounds before they rolled into the Jewish positions, crashed through makeshift bunkers, over trenches, and were through. He had not seen or heard a single tank. They were into the rear areas within five minutes, encountering no opposition. They used a road to race up and over the low hills, then came down into a larger valley and kept moving south. After three miles, he turned his column of twenty-six tanks due west and began the drive straight into Haifa.

Ahead five hundred yards he saw a tank or an artillery piece fire. The belching flame gave away the position and he fired a few seconds later directly at the muzzle blast. He knew the round hit true when he saw it detonate, then the huge blast of a secondary explosion. To the far left he saw more heavy rounds going off, but none of them came toward his column. Was it going to be this easy? The map showed that after he turned right, he should have
only fifteen to eighteen miles to the heart of Haifa. Tonight they would push the Israelis into the sea. His heart beat faster. He didn’t know if he still had infantry on board or not, but he didn’t care. He was leading a tank thrust deep into enemy territory, and so far it had been with almost no opposition.

Ahead, he saw lights of a small town. He fired two rounds into it, watching the HE rounds explode and start two fires. He swung the column around the town and on west. Where was the enemy? Where were the Jew tanks that the Israelis had bragged were the best fighters in the world?

He used the net radio again. “This is Red Platoon Leader, is everyone through the MLR? Anyone still not through sound off.” There was only silence. “Good. We’re on the second leg, moving west, don’t miss the turnoff. Key in on the tank ahead of you. Keep your three-unit front as we swing toward Haifa. No real opposition yet, but things could get tougher at any moment.”

Just as Major Shamalekh finished talking, he heard a roar and the tank on his right erupted into a huge ball of flames and a thunderous explosion as every round in the machine must have exploded when it was hit by an enemy round.

“We’re taking fire in the front row, disperse to a hundred yards but maintain your forward motion. Maintain your advance at ten miles an hour. No sign of what fired the round. No lights or gunfire visible to the front. Keep driving hard.”

A moment later the tank on his left vanished in a jolting explosion that rocked his machine from side to side. His second tank had suffered a direct hit.

“Zigzag-all tanks take evasive action but maintain forward speed and direction,” the major shouted into the radio. He had to find out where the rounds came from that had just killed eight of his good friends and two of his tanks. If he didn’t nail it down fast, he could lose half of his column in a matter of minutes.

Haifa, Israel

Rahat Air Base

Four Star General John Bildad listened to the radio reports from his tankers in the field. He was sixty, small, built like a lead pencil with muscles, and worked out every morning. His head was shaved and his brows stood out starkly on his otherwise hairless head.

“Sure, we can slow them, but the problem is, can we stop them? We knock out two of them and they keep coming. Twenty-four left. We only have six tanks out there on line.”

“General, we have the high ground and our laser-aimed guns,” a bird colonel said. “We have to see them before we can hit them, but we’re doing well so far.”

General Bildad stood and paced. “Our first intel was when they broke through our MLR. Then we lost them. The bird overhead, that Hawkeye spotter, really saved our onions. The U.S. Navy loaned it to us. We called it in and it pinpointed the movement of the tanks. So we moved up as many as we could to block them from the high ground and here we are. What’s next?”

“The Hawkeye reports the twenty-four tanks are advancing but slower now, down to about five miles per hour they figure or maybe they have stopped. They couldn’t be sure.” An officer with a headset on made the report.

“Could the Hawkeye pinpoint them enough for our F-18s to go in and hit them in the dark?” General Bildad asked.

General Menuhin shook his head. “Not a chance. Those anti-tank missiles aren’t any good if they hit ten yards off target.”

“What about artillery?” another bird colonel asked. “We could lay down a pattern that would certainly hit some of them.”

“We have one-fifty-fives within range,” General Bildad said. “Yes, worth a try. We have the coordinates, call in a fire mission now to those one double nickel and let’s see how we do.” The calls went out and the men waited.

“What about the six tanks we have here?” General Menuhin asked. “I know their electronics were fried, but they will still run and the guns will still shoot. We could get in some rounds with trial and error. Line-of-sight aiming.”

“How fast can you get them revved up and out to that line we have ten miles to the east?” General Bildad asked.

“An hour to roust out the crews and load the ammo, another half hour to get to that line.”

“Do it. We have to get this done in the dark or they’ll be in town before daylight.”

“What would come in handy are a dozen U.S. B-52s that would do pattern bombing and tear up every inch of a swath a quarter of a mile square.” one of the bird colonels said.

“Dream on. We’ve got to do this ourselves and before daylight.”

“Infantry anti-tank?” General Menuhin asked.

“Yes, we have the Dragon, a medium-range, shoulder-mounted anti-tank guided missile. But you have to be within a thousand yards to use it.” He turned to his aid. “Major, get on the horn and see where our nearest teams of Dragon men are and how soon you can get them here. We’d need at least twenty-five. And we want men who can hit the tank they aim at. Go.”

They had a report from the artillery then. The big guns had zeroed in on the coordinates and sent out twenty rounds. The colonel who commanded the battery talked to the general.

“Sir, we made the fire mission, but we don’t know if
we hit any of the enemy tanks. We’d need an FO in the area who could give us corrections for the next salvo.”

“We don’t have time for that, Colonel. Tell your guns to fire twenty more rounds left a hundred and up a hundred and we’ll call it a night.”

“Yes, sir, General.”

The faces around the table were growing longer. “There’s got to be some way,” General Bildad said. “How long before those Dragon shooters can get to us?”

“Half of them are in anti-tank defensive positions about fifteen miles east along the MLR. The captain said he had two eight-man squads he could detail to us, but they would need twelve hours to get operational.”

“Thank the captain for us and tell him we’ll have to find another way.” The men looked at each other.

General Bildad rubbed his face and swore softly. “If our tanks try to advance, they’ll be in a dangerous situation?”

“Yes, sir. Then they’ll be in the open with no hills between them and the Syrian tanks, which are protected by some low ridges. There’s no good way to outflank them. Again, bad terrain. If we move, they fire star shells and blast us. We had one tank damaged the last time we tried to run up over the ridge and fire at them.”

“So we have a tank stalemate. They run the same risks if they try to advance any farther, right?” Heads nodded. “Then we have to find another way to blast those tanks before morning. Come daylight they will throw the rest of their fighter aircraft into close support of the tanks. We’ll have to answer with our fighters and the stalemate will be doubled. What in hell else do we have?”

“What about the SEALs?” General Menuhin asked. “They have those new shoulder-fired twenty-millimeter rifles. A pair of twenties on the tracks of those tanks would put them dead in the water.”

“Where are the SEALs?” General Bildad asked.

“On base, just back from an operation. But I can get them.”

“Do it. We’ll truck them up as far as we can.” Bildad frowned. “I’ve heard about that weapon. Isn’t supposed
to be available for field use for three years yet.”

“They have them, and they are laser sighted.”

“Get them, now.” Bildad said.

Murdock took the radio call from Stroh shortly after 2100. He had been ready to watch a war movie on the VCR in the SEAL ready room. He squinted a moment, then nodded. “Yes, sir, we can be ready for your transport in twenty minutes. Seven guns, twenty rounds per man. We’re on the way.”

Murdock looked around their quarters. “Everybody with a twenty front and center. We’re employed again.”

It was almost an hour later when the six-by-six truck dropped the seven SEALs off at the end of a narrow valley more than fen miles east of Haifa.

“Just over this hill should be our tanks,” the driver said. “You work past them and the Syrian tanks are stalled about a mile beyond that. We’ve got the high ground, and when one of them pokes his turret over the ridge, he gets a round up his ass.”

“Roger that,” Murdock said. He stepped out of the truck, which turned around and moved slowly without lights to the rear. Murdock looked at his team: Gardner, Jaybird, Lam, Fernandez, Canzoneri, and Claymore. “You know the routine. We get close enough to the tanks to see them and hit them with HEs on their tracks and try to put them dead in the water. Remember they probably have machine guns that can fire in any direction. Doubt if they pop any one-oh-five rounds at us but they might. We’ll keep dispersed. We hit the tanks closest to us, then move ahead and get those in the middle and on the other side. It might take two or three rounds to kill a tread. Take your time. Work in pairs. I’m the odd man out. Let’s go.”

They double-timed with their heavy load of rounds in chest bags that fit over their heads. They didn’t have their usual combat vests, which cut down the overall weight.

Murdock set the pace, went around the Israeli tanks he could see on the reverse slope. Now and then one fired a round to the east.

They hiked past the friendly tanks, keeping a quarter
mile away from them, then angled to the right a little watching for any muzzle flashes ahead. Murdock saw one. He figured about three thousand yards. They kept moving.

Murdock found the first tank edging up to a small rise. He sent the rest of the squad forward to look for more. They kept in touch with the Motorolas. Murdock watched the tank. He was a little over five hundred yards from it and decided to move closer. There was a little cover here and he found a gully he used for a hundred, then looked over the rim. The tank had moved closer to him and eased up the reverse slope again looking for a target. Murdock pushed on the twenty lever and sighted in on the fuzzy outline of the tracks. He closed his eyes and tried again. A momentary shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds and outlined Murdock’s target. He heard a twenty round fired somewhere farther east. A moment later he fired and saw the round jolt into the tank just over the tracks. He worked the bolt for a fresh round and this one exploded on the front of the tracks. In the brief flash of light he saw part of the track blown away. The tank tried to move. It spun around in a circle and Murdock grinned and moved straight ahead. There might be another tank on this small hill waiting for a target.

In his lead tank, Major Shamalekh had called his thrust to a stop after he lost two. He directed them to find cover from the enemy tanks that must be out front. They couldn’t risk charging forward into what could be forty Israeli tanks lined up hip to hip waiting for them. They could even have night vision scopes on their aiming devices. He had to wait. He popped up over a slight rise and fired one round at what he thought might be the tanks’ position, then rolled back down before any counterfire could come.