Ambush

24

“Let’s all get off the road,” Murdock said into his radio. “They should have concentrations of fire mapped out. The road would be one. Split into two groups. SEALs to the right, Rangers to the left. Stay off the road fifty yards and move up through the cover. Don’t make any noise or let the cover move to give yourself away. Let’s split, now.”

They moved slower through the woods. Murdock brought up his three Bull Pups. He’d sent two with the Rangers.

Murdock called a halt when his unit was a hundred yards from the face of the slope where the cave was.

“General, let’s talk. Strategy?”

“I’d say we hit the cave entrance with four rounds of twenty, then do two shots from the EAR and move up and recon and see what they have left.”

“If they have a heavy plank door over the cave entrance, it could bounce the EAR beam off at an angle and not hurt them at all,” Murdock said.

“We should find out about that when the twenties wash away all of their camouflage. Worth a try. We don’t have enough men to assault a fort like that.”

“Agreed. You have two twenties. Let’s have each of the five guns put two rounds on the cave entrance and see what happens.”

Before they could shoot, two RPG’s flashed out of the brush near the face of the cliff and raced out a hundred yards, but fell and exploded harmlessly between the two units near the road.

“Fire when ready,” Murdock said, and he heard the report of the heavy rifle rounds leaving the weapons, then the stuttering explosions of the twenties against the face of the cliff. He hoped some went inside.

Murdock found a spot where he could look through the jungle at the cliff. He saw one section where the growth had been blown aside, and he thought he could see the edge of a hole, maybe the entrance to the cave. He used his own Bull Pup again, and put a round on the spot with the laser sighting. The airburst shattered a whole section of cut branches shielding the opening. Now they could see half of the cave opening.

Murdock had charged through the jungle for fifteen yards as soon as he saw results of the shot. He was safely behind two tree trucks when the machine-gun slugs riddled the area he had fired from.

“Casualty report,” Murdock barked into the net.

Both squads checked in with no casualties. “Two more rounds each Bull Pup,” Murdock said. “Fire and then move your ass at least twenty yards. First find a spot where you can see through the trees to the cave entrance. Then fire. Go.”

The weapons fired with spaces between as the men found fields of fire. When the ten rounds ended, Murdock moved again to where he could see the cave. The entrance was void of any cover now. It was a black hole that looked at least ten or twelve feet high. He saw a sandbagged machine gun that had been placed in front of the opening. One rebel had fallen half over the sandbags and wasn’t moving.

“General, how about some EARs into that opening?”

“Agree. Two shots each at ten-second spacing. EARs fire when ready.”

The shooters had to move to a spot where they could get a clear area to fire through at the cave mouth. Then the whooshing sounds came, and Murdock watched the opening for some reaction. He saw no men there, and none appeared after the rounds went inside.

This time there was no return fire.

“We’ve got to go in there,” Murdock said. “Ideas, General?”

“Let’s each send up one squad with the EAR and Bull Pups for a probe. You’re right, we have to go inside.”

“Moving now up this side, we’ll check with you at the cliff face. Alpha and Juan, let’s go. Whoever has the EAR come with us. Now.” Murdock moved to the head of the squad, and they worked silently up the slope toward the cliff face. It was only eighty yards now and they moved slowly, not disturbing any of the lower growth. The canopy overhead was thirty feet above them, but grew lower as they climbed.

“General, we’re about forty yards from the cliff face.”

“Roger that, we’re a little closer. Haven’t seen any action at the cave mouth. The EARs must have done their job.”

“We don’t know how far they penetrated into the cave, so be alert,” Murdock said.

They came to a rocky ledge that was in plain sight of the cave mouth. They had to cross it. Murdock studied the cave opening again. Two rebels were draped over the machine gun and its sandbags. Both looked to have massive, bloody wounds. He could see no one else.

He grouped the squad behind him. “Okay, we go over all at once. If anybody is there, he can’t get all of us. Ready? Let’s go, now.” Alpha Squad and Juan charged across the ten yards of rocky shale, and dove into the jungle cover on the other side. Everyone made it, and there was no fire from the cave mouth.

Murdock told the general about it.

“Good, they must be back well inside if any are alive or awake,” General Domingo said. “We’re near the face and moving toward the opening.”

A minute or two later the SEALs were there and could see the Rangers moving up with each man covering for the next. The SEALs did the same routine, and Lam came up to the gun mount first.

“Two KIA here, Skipper,” he said. “The weapon is out of action as well. I can’t see anything or any bodies in the cave.”

“Hold there at the side,” Murdock said.

Two minutes later the Alpha Squad men and Juan clustered against the wall next to the mouth of the cave. The general’s Rangers were on the other side.

“Scout,” Murdock said. “We’ll send in Lam.”

“Roger that,” the general said.

“Ten or fifteen yards, talking all the time,” Murdock said to Lam. The scout lifted away from the wall, and holding his Bull Pup at port arms, he edged around the side of the opening and darted inside.

“Okay, I’m in. Nothing so far. No lights. No bodies. Yes, now I have two men on the ground. Looks like the EAR got them. Weapons are by their sides. No visible wounds.”

There was a moment of dead air. “Oh, shit, now we get to it. About a dozen rebels, looks like a twenty came in here and then went off. Body parts all over the place. Hold it.” The radio went silent.

“Yes, faint but I can hear it. I’d say it’s a generator and that could mean lights back a ways. I’m using my flash. I’m maybe thirty yards inside now. Suggest some backup. One squad up here, one in reserve.”

“General?” Murdock asked.

“I’ll send in a squad. One of the men has a Motorola.”

Murdock saw the ten Rangers led by a sergeant come to the cave mouth and charge inside.

“Hi, guys, glad you could make it,” Lam said when the Rangers got up to him. “Use your lights if you have them.”

The air was quiet for a while.

Lam peered ahead in the cave. The ceiling was way up there. The cave widened out now to almost forty feet. He could still hear the pounding of the engine. Must be enough air in there so the carbon monoxide wouldn’t be a problem, he decided. Lam stabbed the short light into the darkness ahead, then swung it side to side. It didn’t help that much, and a moment later he stumbled over a body. He checked it. Sleeping. He bound the man’s feet and hands with plastic cinch straps and moved on. The cave made a turn, and ahead he could see lights. At the same time he heard the magnified sound of a sub gun chattering off a dozen rounds. He dove to the stone floor and rolled to the side.

“Contact. We’ve made contact with some live rebels who have a working sub gun. It’s around a bend in the tunnel. What now, oh, wise leaders?”

“Back off to the corner and wait,” Murdock said. “We’re coming in.” Both squads outside pulled out flashlights and ran for the cave entrance.

“Look sharp,” Murdock said. “Some bodies up here, don’t stumble over them.”

“We’re with you,” General Domingo said.

At the bend in the cave, Murdock found Lam, and edged around the wall with him and looked from ground level down the void toward the faint lights. Murdock could hear the engine chugging along now.

“No idea how many of them down there, Cap,” Lam said. “The guy on the MG had his sights set too high.”

“Good. I need an EAR up here,” Murdock said. He waited a minute, and Ching slid into the rocky floor beside him. “We want one round down the cave. Then when it fades, the three of us are going down there full bore. Gonna try out my new flash, a Maglite two-cell. Throws a good beam so we won’t be surprised. Your round should knock out any rebels down there for a long way. It might not go around corners, but we’ll see what happens.”

Ching checked his weapon. “Up to charge,” he said.

“Fire.”

The whooshing sounded louder inside the cave. They heard it jolt down the tube, and then there was nothing. The only sound came from the engine Murdock figured ran a generator.

“Let’s chogie,” Murdock said. “General, we’ll recon and report back. Hold the fort.”

Murdock swung the light from side to side in the cave. It widened again to fifty feet. Here and there he saw the remnants of old ammo boxes. This Maglite was twenty times as bright as his penlight. He kept it moving, just in case there was a live one down there with a gun.

A hundred feet down the tunnel they found a man with a sub gun. He slept. They tied him hand and foot and moved on.

“He was a lookout,” Lam said. The next ones they found were a squad lined up across the tunnel, all with AK-74’s, the new ones, which must have been furnished by bin Laden. The six rebels lay sleeping, and the three SEALs tied them hand and foot.

They were closer to the generator now, the sound louder, insistent. They stopped and lay on the rocky floor. Murdock reported what he had found. He suggested to the general that he keep three men at the cave mouth as a rear guard, and the rest come up around the bend in the tunnel to a six-man squad taking a nap.

“We’ll move on forward. Can hear the generator better, so it should be close. Wonder if they have a fresh-air outlet for the exhaust.”

The three moved ahead. Twenty yards farther they came to a small mess setup, with gas stoves, food cabinets, even two tables with chairs. No cooks.

Another twenty yards and they found another bend in the cave, again to the left. The three edged up to the turn, where they could see around it. At the first use of the flashlight around the bend, they took incoming small-arms fire from at least three weapons.

They pulled back.

“An EAR round?” Ching asked.

Murdock scowled. “If there are any hostages, they should be close. That engine is next door here somewhere.”

“Better packing out some sleeping hostages than it is getting the shit shot out of us from those three weapons out front,” Ching said.

“Oh, yeah,” Murdock said. “Oh, yeah. Give them a round, Ching.”

He fired one round with the whoosher, and they waited a full minute; then Murdock waved the flash around the corner, but had no response. “I’ll charge across the cave here and see if I get any response,” Murdock said. He came to his knees and surged across the fifty feet to the other side. No response.

“Let’s move forward,” Murdock said.

They found the three shooters behind sandbagged positions forty feet up the cave. Now all three men were sleeping. The SEALs used the plastic ties, then stared into the darkness beyond.

“Why keep the generator running if they don’t have some lights on?” Lam asked. “We saw some lights before, but now they all seem to be off.”

“Good question, any answers?” Ching asked.

“To keep some equipment turned on,” Lam said.

“To keep a radio net open,” Murdock said.

“Or to keep a timer running on a booby trap, a bomb,” Lam said.

“Let’s move faster,” Murdock said. “We should find somebody here. They’ve had time to set up bombs all around this damn cave.”

They jogged forward for fifty feet and came to a dead stop.

Just ahead, behind a chain-link fence, they saw people moving.

“Are you the tourists, the hostages?” Murdock called.

“Yes, some of us are here,” a man called. They ran up to the fence but didn’t touch it. It was ten feet high and with posts set in concrete into the rock floor.

“How many of you?” Murdock asked, shining the light around.

“Six. They took six men out of here late last night. We don’t know where they are.” The man looked about sixty, with white hair and a stubble beard. He held his hand in front of his eyes. “Damn rebels said something about a bomb. Don’t know what they meant.”

Lam tossed his KA-BAR against the fence. It fell to the floor.

“Not electrified,” Lam said. “I’ll find a gate or an opening.”

“Did some men come past here recently?” Murdock asked.

“Yep, about a dozen. Looked dazed and not happy. Went on down the cave. Don’t know where they were heading.”

Murdock frowned. “Didn’t the old man say something about there being two caves here? The large one and a smaller one.”

The two with him nodded.

“So where did the rebels go?” Lam and Ching shrugged.

“Lam, stay with the group here, get them out of there if you can. Ching and I are heading on down the cave. Chance there’s a connection between this cave and the other one. Sounds like something the Japanese would do in the last war.”

The two SEALs jogged down the cave. Now, in Murdock’s light, they saw it was getting smaller. Twenty feet farther and they came to the end.

Murdock used his light all around the end of the cave, and found it to one side almost hidden.

“A tunnel,” Murdock said. “Tall enough to stand in. Our rebel friends have gone through it, and either to the outside or to the other tunnel and back to daylight. Let’s get back to the captives.”

When they came to the chain-link fence partitioning off a section of the cave, they saw that Lam had found a gate and released the hostages. They stood around waiting, two men and four women.

“General, we have six hostages,” Murdock radioed. “The rest of the rebels have gone through a tunnel into the second cave. Tell your men at the mouth of this one to watch for any movement out there. We’re coming back with the hostages.”

“You didn’t tell him about the bomb?” Lam said.

“We don’t know for sure. If we find the generator, make sure that nobody turns it off. That could be a break to make circuit and set off the charges, wherever they are.”

“A bomb?” General Domingo asked.

“Forgot we were live full-time on the radio, General. Chance the generator is powering some equipment or maybe a timer on a bomb. We’re not sure. Get everyone out of the tunnel on double time. Don’t spare the horses, as we used to say in Nebraska. Move them, now.”

Murdock turned to the hostages. “We’re going to walk out of here now. Does anyone have trouble walking?”

They all said no, and Lam led them forward. He paused once to let them catch up, then continued.

“With any luck we’ll be out of here in about ten minutes,” Lam said.

They came to the first bend in the tunnel and headed toward the next one. The explosion came as a grinding, blasting sound, tearing through the tunnel that amplified it. The hostages looked behind, then hurried forward. The jolt of hot air and smoke hit them a moment later and knocked down two of them. Then the surge of air was past and they coughed in the smoke.

“Bomb must have been in the hostages area,” Murdock said. He helped one of the men stand and held his shoulder as they walked forward.

“Everyone all right back there?” General Domingo asked.

“A little shook up, but everyone is moving. Another five minutes.”

“The rest of us are out and I’ve sent a security force to protect the helicopter. I still can’t believe we lost that first one. The old man was in that one and said he’d wait for us.”

“Moving as fast as we can. Just hope there aren’t any more bombs. You might have your men scout around the entrance to see if they can find any wires or any explosives.”

“Will do, Commander. Good idea.”

They kept walking forward. One of the women tripped over something. Murdock helped her up and as he did, his flashlight shone on a rebel body, torn apart, that the woman had tripped on. She gave a low cry and fainted. Murdock caught her, picked her up, and carried her in his arms as they kept moving forward.

Fifty yards down the cave, where the last turn came, Ching took the still-unconscious woman and Murdock ran on ahead.

“Better clear your men out of the entrance,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “I’ll give it one last check before the hostages get there.”

Murdock hurried forward. He was less than fifty feet from the light at the entrance when the bomb went off.