Direct Action

42

The keypad light blinked. Murdock almost didn’t want to scroll the message. He did, of course, but mentally prepared himself for another kick in the nuts. Just in case. The message read:

“That’s a little more like it,” Razor whispered in Murdock’s ear.

“Right now it looks like the only problem is going to be hanging on,” Murdock replied. “We know the Syrians are coming down the ridge at us from the north. For all we know they may be coming up from the south too, and we just didn’t hear them over the mortar fire.”

“Doc’s got to stay with Higgins,” said Razor. “Mister DeWitt might as well make it a threesome. Let’s send Jaybird and Magic a couple hundred meters south. You and I go north. We’ll slow down any Syrians who show up. Either way, when the helos come in we’ll all collapse back onto this spot.”

“Sounds like a winner,” Murdock replied.

Razor brought everyone together around Higgins. Doc Ellsworth and Ed DeWitt kept two AKM magazines each and passed the rest of their ammunition and grenades to the others. Murdock had everyone turn on the MX-300 walkie-talkies. He wasn’t concerned about alerting the Syrians now. They all made tsk … tsk sounds over the net to make sure all the sets were up and operating. Murdock rigged up his PRC-117 with the UHF antenna and voice handset so he could talk with the helicopters. The backup PRC-1 17 with satellite antenna and keypad was left with Doc, along with the sniper rifles.

While they were going over contingencies the keypad blinked and the carrier confirmed the launch of the helicopters. Murdock tapped out an acknowledgment and informed them he was switching both his sets over to UHF voice. “Any questions?” Murdock asked his SEALS. There were none. “Okay,” he said. “Razor and I’ll meet you all back here.”