Bloodstorm

27

Murdock went forward to talk with the pilot.

“How far from our DZ?”

“Twenty miles, and I’m ready to turn back,” the pilot said.

“Turn on the jump light,” Murdock said. “We’ll go out here. We can’t turn back. Should give you time enough to get over the border before they fire their missiles.”

“What if it doesn’t?” the pilot asked.

“That’s why you flyboys get the big paychecks. Let’s move it, DeWitt.”

It took them another minute to get everyone on their feet and at the jump doors. They turned on their oxygen and checked the eight-inch bottles on their harnesses, all were working. As soon as the loadmaster opened the doors, the SEALs jumped out. There was no time for anybody to even think about what was happening, let alone be afraid.

Kat hesitated at the door. She was next to last out on that side. Murdock touched her shoulder. She flashed him a smile, then stepped into the thin, cold, 33,000 feet of nonsupportive air.

Murdock went right behind her. He had his glow stick bent and working before he left the plane, as did the other SEALs.

The cold air hit him in the face right through the woolen protective mask and oxygen mask that left only his eyes uncovered. It jolted him like a bucket of ice water hitting him while he stood naked in the snow at twenty below zero. He spread out into a glide position with his arms and legs spread. Then he began to look around.

He craned his neck as he checked for the faint glow. He found two light sticks to the left, and moved his body to steer himself in that direction. By the time he got close enough to see the men in the thin, moonlit air, he counted three. There should be one more. All the SEALs had put on their Motorola personal radios before jumping and had radio-checked with DeWitt.

Murdock used his. “DeWitt. I have four of us on this side. One is astray somewhere.”

“DeWitt here. I have four chicks and me. Where is your stray?”

“Left door jumpers, check in,” Murdock said on the mike, hoping the words didn’t freeze before they hit the airwaves.

Everyone responded but Kat. “Kat, can you hear me? Where are you?”

Nothing but silence came. He craned his neck, looking around. He thought he saw some faint glow in the far right. That would be DeWitt and his group. Where could she be? He stayed with his men, but looked behind and to the side and then up. She was smaller and lighter than the rest. Would that make a difference?

He checked his wrist altimeter. They were at 28,000 feet. Where was she?

He looked again to the side away from the others. For a moment he thought he saw a glow. Then it vanished. He left the group and sailed that direction.

“Kat, can you hear me? Maybe your mike froze up. Remember about laying out with your arms and legs spread so you can sail? Try it. If it works, turn a little so you move to your right. And keep that glow stick in your hand. Yes, now I can see it. Steer right, more to the right. You should see my glow stick soon.”

He could see her glow plainly then as she worked her way toward him.

“Kat, if you can hear me, we’re at twenty thousand feet and it’s getting warmer. Try your mike again.”

“Yes, I see you. Don’t know if the mike is working. I’m coming your way.”

“Good, Kat, your mike is working. Swing farther my way, then we’ll join up with our group and DeWitt.”

“I can see you!” Kat shrilled, her relief billowing into her voice. “Thank God. I thought I was alone in the whole universe. Really, I thought I was an astronaut cut loose from the tether in space. What a trip. What a ride. Just sail toward you?”

“Doing fine. We’re at fifteen thousand. Won’t be long now.”

By the time she was close enough, Murdock realized that DeWitt’s group had sailed over and joined with the rest of his party.

DeWitt came on the radio. “Okay, we have a full count, we’re just passing ten thousand. Be down in a shake. Can anybody see a string of lights that might be cars on a road down there?”

“No damn road,” Jefferson said.

“Batch of lights up north, I guess it is,” Khai said. “Looks like a small town.”

“Let’s all turn that way,” DeWitt said on the Motorola. “Maybe we can steal a car or a truck. What will hold ten bodies these days?”

“Maybe a van,” Franklin said.

“Coming up on two thousand, grab those emergency chute cords just in case,” DeWitt said. “Sound off when your chute opens.”

“I’m open,” Ostercamp said. He was followed by the rest of the Bravo Squad.

“Open,” Kat said, then Murdock chimed in.

“We have ten open, let’s turn the chutes toward those lights and see if we can find a soft landing,” DeWitt ordered.

Murdock could see Kat to his left. Her chute had opened before his, so she was a little above him. She turned and he turned with her, steering closer so he was only fifty feet away. They were behind the rest of the squad now, and Murdock started to relax. There were lights around, but scattered, like maybe farming country with houses. The town was well ahead of them.

“Kat, watch it when you hit,” Murdock warned. “Run forward if you can. It’s a perfect jump if you can stay on your feet.”

“Seems like we’re going faster than that last night jump. My God, there it is, the ground.”

Then Murdock stopped watching her and looked at his own LZ. He came down almost on top of a small building at the edge of a fenced field. He willed himself over the fence, then hit running in a plowed field and stumbled and fell. He jumped up, gathered in the parachute and lines according to the book, and ran with them ahead to where he had seen Kat land.

He realized they were almost at the back door of a small farmhouse and buildings. Kat had gathered her chute, and stood there looking down at a man sprawled on the ground. Even in the dim moonlight Murdock could see the man’s penis outside his black trousers.

Kat had trouble to keep from laughing. She motioned to the man, then to the small outhouse, and giggled.

“He came out and stood there, legs spread taking a piss. I couldn’t miss him. My boots whacked hard into his head. Did I kill him?”

Murdock looked at the man, then knelt down and touched his throat for the carotid artery. He stood.

“He’ll live, but we better get out of here. Run, lady, run.” They rushed ahead toward where they saw the others picking up their chutes in a field of newly mown hay.

“He isn’t dead, just knocked out,” Murdock told Kat. “Nobody will believe him when he tells his story tomorrow.”

Just ahead they found another plowed field, and with the two entrenching tools they carried they dug out furrows, lined the chutes into them, and covered them up. Ten minutes later they were ready.

DeWitt had sent out Miguel Fernandez as scout as soon as they landed. He came jogging back as they finished digging.

“We’ve got a secondary road of some kind half a klick over here to the right. Not much traffic, but some. Damascus has to be north of us and a little to the east.”

“Let’s hit the road and see what we can find out from the next neighborly truck driver,” DeWitt said. They moved out. Bravo Squad had its usual line of march. Fernandez out a hundred yards in front as scout, DeWitt next, with his radio man, Ostercamp, behind him with the SATCOM. Then came Franklin and Khai, who both could speak Arabic, followed by Mahanani, Canzoneri, Jefferson, Kat, and Murdock bringing up the rear.

They had landed in a small valley that had a water source of some kind to grow the crops. The surrounding hills were barren and desertlike, Murdock remembered from watching them as he came down.

They moved over another fence, then through a ditch, and went to ground as Franklin waited at the side of the road. Time was the important factor now. It was 1920, which left them roughly eight hours to complete their mission or find someplace to hide out during the day.

Franklin carried an MP-5 submachine gun. He waved two cars by in the glare of headlights. Then a small loaded truck went by. He stopped the next truck, holding the weapon in front of him but standing at the side of the road. He wasn’t going to risk getting run down by a wild-eyed Syrian driver.

The truck stopped, and Franklin talked to the driver a moment, then ordered him out of the cab. It was a stake truck with canvas over the top, and would hold the whole squad.

“How far to the next town?” Franklin asked in Arabic.

“Five kilometers,” the driver answered.

“How far to Damascus?”

“Fifty kilometers.”

“You live around here?”

“Yes, next village.”

Franklin put three silenced rounds from the sub gun through the man’s heart. The Syrian farmer jolted off the roadway into the ditch. Franklin hurried after him, took off his hat and light jacket, and then went back to the truck.

Bravo Squad and guests were already inside, with DeWitt and Khai in the front seat.

“Can you drive this thing?” DeWitt asked Franklin.

“Can a duck fly?” He started the engine, pushed it into gear, and began backing up. The SEALs cheered. He ground the gears, found first, and moved forward.

They crept through the village at a modest pace, found nothing to hinder them, and gunned the rig to a faster speed once past the lights.

“Fuel?” DeWitt asked.

Khai stared at the small panel of instruments. “One gauge, but I’m not sure if it says almost full or almost empty.” He pointed at it.

“Almost full,” Franklin said.

In the back of the truck, Kat moved next to Murdock. He had just cut a hole in the front of the canvas top so they could push the machine gun out and fire in case of trouble.

“Murdock,” she said softly. “About the driver?”

“Yes, an innocent man. But we couldn’t leave a witness to run to the Army about a group of ten who hijacked his truck. He’s a victim of war. His death could help save the lives of ten thousand people if Syria dropped that warhead on Haifa, Israel, say. I know when you look at it another way, it’s shocking. But we’re protecting our own backsides this way as well. We let him live, all ten of us could die before morning.”

“I know, I know. I just had to hear you say it. Now, I’m all SEAL again.” He reached down and squeezed her hand. She clung to it. In the dark nobody could see.

Two miles out of the village the land changed back to desert. Wind whipped sand across the highway, and in places small dunes had built up a foot of sand on the ancient blacktop. They kept driving. For twenty miles they saw no lights anywhere in the surrounding area.

“Not a good place to run out of gas,” Franklin said. “Hope to hell I’m reading that gauge right.” Two autos passed them, whipping along at what Franklin said had to be seventy-five miles per hour. He kept the truck at a respectable fifty-five, and hoped the engine didn’t blow up.

They came over a small rise and lights billowed ahead of them. The lights were situated well off the road, brilliantly illuminating some kind of facility.

“Limestone quarry,” Franklin said. “They use a lot of limestone in buildings in some of their cities. We should be hitting more traffic now. They must have a rail line down here to move the stone to the north.”

“Checkpoint ahead,” DeWitt said. “Looks like just one man beside a jeep. He’ll be on the driver’s side.” As they moved toward the checkpoint, they were sandwiched in between large closed truck trailers, moving slowly and evidently loaded.

The man at the checkpoint noted the truck in front of them, talked to the driver a moment, and made a note on the paper on his clipboard and waved him by.

The sentry had a revolver on a belt around his waist and the cap of an Army man. He only glanced at the farm truck, and waved it on through without a second look.

Everyone in the truck relaxed, and the people in back stayed low and out of sight until they were well down the road.

“Somebody from the quarry checking the goods coming out,” Khai said.

Ahead they came to a wider, better road with signs. They could turn left or right. Khai studied the signs and when the truck was at the junction, he pointed to the left.

“Swings around and keeps going north,” Khai said. “The sign says twenty-six kilometers to Damascus.”

“Yeah, and that’s probably the outskirts of the place,” Franklin said. “How we going to find anybody in that big city?”

“We ask questions,” DeWitt said. “When we get to the town, stop at the first little group of stores you see. You take the address inside, Franklin, and get directions to the street. Should work out well.”

Five miles from Damascus, the traffic began to back up. Murdock looked out over the cab and saw the problem. He leaned under the canvas and yelled to Khai.

“There’s a roadblock ahead. A real one. Looks like they’re checking cars and trucks and cargo. How about a side street?”

They turned right at the next street, and a block down found a Syrian Army jeep parked sideways across the street. Two soldiers with rifles stood in front of the jeep.

“I see them,” Murdock said. “I’ll take the one on my side. Ed, you take the other one. We pull up and stop and they will come one on each side. We do them and push the jeep out of the way and drive on through. No chance for radio use. Got it?” DeWitt had a silenced MP-5. In back, Murdock grabbed a suppressed MP-5 and held it close to the hole in the canvas top over the hood. The rig came to a stop ten yards in front of the jeep, where one of the soldiers held up his hand. Then the Syrian soldiers began walking toward the truck.

Murdock pushed the MP-5 out the canvas and drilled three shots into the chest of the soldier on the left, slamming him backward into a quick death. At almost the same time, DeWitt shot the other soldier in the forehead with one round.

Franklin saw the left-hand man go down, pushed on the gas, and hit the rear end of the Jeep with the truck’s left front bumper and jolted it out of the way. The truck rolled on through, down eight blocks, then over one, and back onto the main highway into town.

They stopped three miles down the road, which was now engulfed with houses and small businesses and what had to be small manufacturing buildings.

Franklin went into a food store, and came out a few minutes later with a sack of goods and a written note telling how to find the house they needed.

They had been supplied with funny-looking paper money before they boarded the plane. They were Syrian pound notes in denominations of twenty, fifty, and one hundred. Fifty-eight Syrian pounds were worth one U.S. dollar.

“Got the directions,” Franklin said, passing the sack over to DeWitt. “Also some delicious sweet rolls that look like cinnamon rolls, and taste ten times as good. Hang on.” They passed the rolls around. Khai leaned out and passed the sack to Ostercamp.

Franklin drove like he knew where he was going. He made several turns, backed up once and went in the other direction, then came to an unpaved street and grinned.

“Almost home to Mama,” he said. He noted house numbers, and parked at the side of the street in front of a house. It was what the natives called an Old House, Khai told them. “It’s made of unbaked bricks, often dried in the sun, and of wood and stone. Most of these are very old.”

DeWitt and Khai left the truck and went to the rear of the house. They carried weapons, and hoped anyone watching in the darkness would mistake them for Syrian soldiers. At the rear of the house they found a door with a bell. DeWitt rang it and stepped back, giving the play to Khai.

A small panel in the door opened, and a face with two dark eyes looked out.

“Yes?” the woman asked in Arabic.

“We are looking for the one true believer.”

The woman sucked in a breath, and they heard a bolt come free and latches open. Then the door swung outward, showing a shadowed narrow space. A woman in long flowing skirt and brilliantly colored blouse watched them with a frown.

“Come in quickly,” she said in English. “Yes, you have found the right place. Get rid of the truck at once. Even though it is dark, bring in the others by twos. This side of the house. Then drive the truck down a mile and leave it. You stole it, right?”

DeWitt nodded. “I’m DeWitt, miss. We’re grateful for your help.”

“Hurry. If the neighbors see any of you, we all could die rather unpleasantly.”

DeWitt went back to the truck, ushered the men inside, and told Franklin where to drive the truck and leave it.

“No trouble so far,” DeWitt said. “Let’s keep it that way.”

The men slipped through the nighttime shadows and around the house, then inside. Murdock watched the truck drive away slowly, then went inside himself.

“Franklin should be back in fifteen minutes. Somebody keep the clock on him,” DeWitt said. He turned to the woman. “I understand we are to call you Yasmin, which isn’t your real name.”

The woman was in her thirties, tall and graceful and a little on the full-figured side.

“Yes, Yasmin it is. I will do what I can. My sources say the warhead is here, but we’re not exactly sure where.”

“We’ll need to know an exact location before we can do much,” DeWitt said.

They had moved into a room from the entrance, and some of the men sat and some stood. Yasmin glanced at them, and paused when she came to Kat.

“One so young, he’s just a boy,” Yasmin said.

Kat laughed. “Not so, Yasmin. I’m twenty-eight, and as you can hear, I’m not a boy.”

Yasmin put both hands over her face. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Dressed this way…”

“Yasmin, let me introduce you to Katherine Garnet,” DeWitt said. “Kat works for the U.S. government the way you do, only Kat is our scientific expert on nuclear warheads. The rest of us are just delivery boys bringing her here to do her extremely sensitive work.”

Murdock looked at his watch. Franklin had been gone almost twenty-five minutes. Where was he?

Four blocks down the street, Franklin stared at the two Syrian soldiers who had stopped him moments before.

“No one runs in Damascus unless they are criminals or enemies of Syria,” one of the soldiers told Franklin.

Franklin looked at them, and saw two soldiers probably not out of their teens. They held their rifles slung over their shoulders and muzzles down.

One of them motioned with his free hand. “Come on, we’re going to have to take you into headquarters if you won’t talk. You could tell us what branch of special Army teams you’re with, and we could let you go and finish our patrol. Going to be a lot of work for all of us.”

Franklin understood every word they said in Arabic. He knew he had to do something fast. He just didn’t know what.