Direct Action

37

“They know where we are now,” Murdock said to Razor Roselli. “And I don’t like that one bit, no matter how defensible the position is. Not with only five of us in fighting shape.”

Razor nodded in agreement. “If we move two or three klicks south down this mountain range, we’ll still be in a good position to dominate the road up.”

“You’re reading my mind again,” Murdock replied.

SEAL officers did not delegate the grunt work. Murdock sent Jaybird out ahead to scout a good route. He, Razor, Magic, and Doc would carry Higgins on the stretcher. It would take all four of them to negotiate the rocks. Ed DeWitt would have to cover the rear single-handed. In more ways than one, as Razor humorously told him.

Moving two kilometers, or little over a mile, was no easy matter when you were doing it across the top of a rocky mountain range in thin high-altitude air while carrying a wounded man on a stretcher. And despite their superb physical condition, the SEALs were already exhausted. Since the early hours of the morning they had been walking and running a marathon over the Lebanese hills under almost constant enemy pressure.

The enemy pressure was the key. When SEALs did a for-real combat swim during the invasion of Panama, they found that the increased stress caused them to use up the air supply in their Draeger rebreathers at twice the rate of regular training swims.

They had been out of drinking water for some time, and were all dehydrated. There was snow on the peaks, but it had to be melted. And that took time and heat, both of which were in short supply. You could operate a long time without food, but not without water.

The air was cold and dry, which made their thirst worse. There were only the rocks for shelter from the whipping wind on the peaks. The solution was movement, fast enough to keep their body temperatures elevated and prevent hypothermia. As long as they kept moving, their relatively light dress would be no problem. As a matter of fact, light dress was a necessity since sweat-soaked clothing caused dangerous overheating and then rapid cooling. The result was a potentially fatal drop in body temperature — hypothermia.

Having been pushed to the limits of physical endurance in their selection and training, the SEALs were used to constantly monitoring their bodies and staying alert for danger signals. But what made them so formidable was the extreme outer threshold of their physical limits.

The snow was patchy, mostly accumulating among the rocks that were out of direct sunlight. Jaybird moved along gingerly.

The snow might be concealing holes or crevasses; he knew that a broken leg and one more man down would mean disaster for the whole unit. The four carrying the stretcher were careful to follow in Jaybird’s footprints.

There was nothing approaching a path available to them as they trudged down the mountain range. Jaybird chose the easiest going, but all that meant was having to climb over the smallest rocks.

After the first few halting attempts, a system was developed. Murdock and Razor would take the stretcher themselves while Magic and Doc climbed up the larger rocks. Then they passed the stretcher up and climbed on their own. Occasionally they had to stop and give DeWitt a hand up.

After lifting Higgins up and over a particularly narrow boulder, Razor said smugly, “Now you know why they made you carry those rubber boats and logs around on your head during BUD/S.”

Magic winked at Doc. “And all this time I thought they did that just to fuck with us.”

“You hang around with Razor Roselli,” Doc pronounced, “and you learn something new every day.”

“Disrespectful bastards,” Razor grumbled good-naturedly to Murdock. “You know, sir, that gets me to thinking. Master Chief Mac was looking for a couple of guys to give one of the gear lockers at Chocolate Mountain a fresh coat of paint. Money’s tight these days. Uncle Sam can probably swing the paint, but the two guys who volunteer just might have to use their toothbrushes.”

“You know the Master Chief,” said Murdock, joining the act. “He wouldn’t care how you did the job as long as it got done.”

“This is the thanks we get for sustained superior performance in an operational environment,” Magic complained.

Razor grunted as they handed Higgins up again. “Hey, Magic, you know what they say. One fuckup cancels out all those pats on the back. As a matter of fact, I’m starting to forget about those three helicopters already.”

“That really hurts my feelings, Chief,” Magic replied with a grin. “I’d hate to have it affect my aim the next time.”

Razor accepted Murdock’s hand up the rock. “That’s the problem with all of us sitting down at the same table, Magic. If we eat it, you eat it.”

Razor Roselli was not in the habit of relinquishing the last word. Magic and Doc grinned at each other and accepted that.

Higgins was out of it. Knowing the move wouldn’t do him any good, Doc Ellsworth made sure he was well medicated. Though his fellow SEALs were doing their damnedest, Higgins was still taking jolts.

The ground rose up toward a small peak. The stretcher-bearers found Jaybird waiting for them.

“This peak blocks the way down the range,” he said. “We can’t go over, we’ve got to go around. I checked both sides, there’s no ledge. The slope isn’t bad but the footing’s slick; only a few cracks for handholds. It’s got to be single file.”

“Okay,” said Murdock. He thought for a few seconds. Ed DeWitt had just come up behind them.

“Okay,” Murdock repeated. “Jaybird, you go first. Doc, you and Magic grab ahold of Mister DeWitt’s belt and help him across. Razor and I’ll watch how you go and then bring Higgins over.”

DeWitt, who had been privately steaming about his helplessness, seemed on the verge of protesting. But without a better idea to offer, he didn’t.

The SEALs approached the peak, which was in the shape of a dome. They were able to easily walk up to it. But then both sides of the dome extended out and down about a hundred feet. One side was sheer and the other sloped gently. Walking across the sloping side was the only way around. That in itself wouldn’t be a problem, even with the chance of ice. The problem was negotiating it with the stretcher.

Like all SEAL officers, Blake Murdock was a graduate of U.S. Army Ranger School. And there, during Mountain Phase in the Chattahoochee National Forest near Dahlonega, Georgia, they taught all the tricks of moving up, over, and down rock. Especially with casualties. Unfortunately, virtually all those tricks required climbing rope, which the SEALs did not have. Oh, well, Murdock thought.

Jaybird went first. He faced the rock with both hands and boot soles pressed flat against the slope. He moved without crossing his legs. He crabbed across by stretching his right leg out, making sure of his hold, and only then bringing the left leg over beside it.

Melting water had frozen into seams of ice in the channels and cracks in the rock. Jaybird occasionally paused to break up the patches of ice with his boot.

Magic, DeWitt, and Doc followed him, except they made the move together. Magic first, his left hand grasping DeWitt’s belt. Then DeWitt, his good hand on the rock for support. Then Doc, his right hand hanging onto the other side of DeWitt’s belt.

Doc slipped. As he felt his leg slip off the icy rock he instantly released DeWitt’s belt. As he dropped all he could do was splay his feet outward and hope the friction arrested him. He slid about twenty-five stomach-churning feet, and then stopped in a shower of ice and rock chips.

“You okay?” DeWitt called down.

“Yeah,” was all Doc managed to get out.

Now that he knew Doc was all right, DeWitt said, “You’re supposed to be helping me.”

Doc wasn’t receptive to SEAL humor just then. His face was ash gray. He slowly made his way across to one of the ice channels running down the rock. Doc took out his knife and chipped out the ice, exposing a crack in the rock about an inch and a half wide. He wedged his fingers into the crack and used it as a handhold.

Doc slowly climbed upward. Chipping with the knife, climbing, stopping, chipping some more. It wasn’t fun. His hands were already abraded and bleeding from the drop. He lost two fingernails on the way up, and had to keep tucking his hands in his armpits when they became numb from the cold.

When Doc reached the level he’d dropped from, he continued on across the dome. Jaybird and Magic were waiting on the other side to pull him over.

Doc collapsed onto the ground. “If you guys don’t mind, I’m going to take a little break here.”

“No problem, Doc,” said Jaybird. “We had a nice rest ourselves waiting for you.” Then he reached around for the medical pack and got to work wrapping up Doc’s hands.

On the other side of the dome Murdock and Razor were looking at each other.

“I don’t know about you,” said Razor. “But I didn’t pick up a lot of pointers watching that.”

“Well,” Murdock said laconically. “We can pause here for a short moment of prayer, and then we can head across the rocks before I get any more hypothermic.”

“Skip the prayer,” said Razor. “God’s already made up his mind what he’s going to do with my ass. Besides, he’s a SEAL God, he doesn’t like to listen to any sniveling.”

Razor Roselli was the Old Testament type, Murdock thought. “Let’s go then. But if I fall you let us go. There’s no way you can hold Higgins by yourself and no sense in going down with us, you understand? That’s an order.”

“You’ve been doing just fine, Boss,” Razor said calmly. “Let’s not ruin everything by giving orders at this stage of the game.”

Murdock just shook his head and gave up. He grabbed the handles on both sides of the head of the stretcher in his left hand. He stepped off first, facing the rock with the entire weight of the front of the stretcher in that one hand.

Razor followed, holding the rear of the stretcher with his right hand.

They eased across an inch at a time. With half of Higgins’s deadweight hanging on it, Murdock’s arm felt like it was coming out of its socket. A bitter cold wind was whipping across the face of the rock. Murdock felt himself tensing up; his knees began to wobble. He couldn’t stop to sort himself out; he and Razor had to keep moving in unison. Be cool, he kept telling himself. Take it easy.

Razor Roselli’s right foot slipped. He threw his entire body flat against the rock. That and his left leg held him up; he didn’t go down. To Murdock’s enormous relief.

Razor regained purchase with his right foot. He pushed himself back off the rock and nodded to Murdock. They resumed their inch-at-a-time rhythm.

As Murdock came around the dome, Magic and Jaybird reached out to grab the stretcher. When Razor got closer, they worked their way down the line of carrying straps on the stretcher, trying to take as much of the weight onto themselves as possible.

Razor got off the rock and joined Murdock slumped on the ground. Doc checked Higgins out.

Jaybird clapped his hands together with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Okay, Chief, we’re ready to go.”

Razor treated him to a single arched eyebrow. “Then get out there and do some scouting. And work a little goddamned harder on the route selection this time.”

Jaybird nodded happily, as if he would have been disappointed with any other response. “You got it, Chief.”

Murdock and Razor rested until they felt themselves cooling down, the body’s signal to get moving again.

The going was easier now. They went a few hundred meters further, and Jaybird came bounding back.

“I found a position with a good view of the road,” he announced.

When they reached the spot Jaybird had picked, Murdock used his GPS set to find out exactly where they were. They’d traveled a whisker over two kilometers.

Jaybird had been right. They had a perfect view of the road, just short of the dogleg where Jaybird had made that very careful turn in the BMP.

When Murdock announced the halt, Doc Ellsworth issued orders. “Everyone drink your IV bag and put your space blankets on.”

All the SEALs carried a bag of intravenous fluids as part of their belt survival kit. It was just as effective swallowed as injected into the veins. They also carried a vacuum-packed foil space blanket. It folded down to the size of a pack of cigarettes and weighed only ounces. The SEALs broke out the blankets and wrapped themselves up.

Murdock already had the vise-grip headache that was one of the warning signs of dehydration. He cut the top off his IV bag and sipped steadily until it was gone. The survival credo said to ration your sweat, not your water. You drank whatever you had; your body would handle the storage and use it as needed.

Murdock immediately had to urinate, which was a good sign. The urine was dark and therefore concentrated, which wasn’t a good sign.

Jaybird, who knew he’d had it the easiest, came around and collected everyone’s canteens. He’d discovered a frozen pool of collected water. He chopped up the ice with his knife and filled the canteens with the ice and slush. The SEALs would keep the canteens under their space blankets. When the ice eventually melted they’d have at least a little water. Murdock joined Razor in the rocks overlooking the road.

A column of BMPs was stacked up at the base of the mountain, but none had started up the road. “I can’t wait to see what happens next,” said Razor.

He said it with a definite lack of enthusiasm, which Murdock shared.