Bloodstorm

31

They drove the moving van south on the main highway for twenty minutes. “We’re in a desert situation here again,” DeWitt said on the net. “Not a damn building, let alone a town and a doctor. How is our girl doing?”

“Not good,” Murdock said. “She was talking for a while, thought she was back in Philadelphia. She’s unconscious now. Not a good thing. Lost a lot of blood and that chest wound is bad.”

“Doing what we can up here. Where is that next little town? We passed through lots of them on the way up.”

Murdock scowled in the darkness. Damn shame. Yasmin must be chopped up inside. Unless they found a doctor in the next ten minutes, they would lose her.

“Anything out there, DeWitt?”

“Just sand and rocks and some scrub brush. I can’t see anything but blackness down the road. Hey, yes, lights ahead. Some little burg. Another four or five miles.”

“Have Franklin strip off his fighting gear, no weapon. Sic him on any live person you see and ask about a doctor.”

“Will do. Coming up, another mile or two.”

Murdock looked down at the woman with her head in Kat’s lap. Her breathing had evened out, but when he shone his flashlight on her, her face looked too pale. He tried for a pulse. There was one on her carotid, but weak and slow. Not good.

He felt the truck turn off the highway and come to a stop. The front door slammed. Go, Franklin, go, go, go.

It was a small store at the side of the road, backed by half-a-dozen houses and one other store that had closed.

The store had an old woman behind the counter.

“Do you have a doctor here?” Franklin asked in Arabic.

The woman shook her head. “Ten kilometers south. Good doctor. You hurt?”

“No, a friend. Thanks.” Franklin ran back to the truck. “No medics here,” he said to the mike. “A good doctor down ten kilometers. Can she hold on?”

“Doubt it, but we’ll give it a try,” Murdock said. “Tell the driver to put his foot through the floor.”

Franklin jumped back in the truck next to DeWitt and told the driver to crank it up. “Drive this thing as fast as it will go,” he said. The driver knew the problem. When he heard where the doctor was, he nodded and they raced down the highway.

Murdock checked on Yasmin again. Her face looked pasty now, as if it wasn’t getting enough blood. Her breathing had turned ragged and slow. He was afraid to check her pulse. He’d seen people die before. If they didn’t find a doctor in another five minutes, it could be too late.

In the cab, Franklin scanned the buildings in the small village. No hospital, for sure. Then he saw a sign that had the medical symbol. The driver stopped the truck, and Franklin ran to the door of the dark building and pounded hard. DeWitt opened the back doors of the van.

Franklin yelled and pounded on the door again. A light came on inside, and Franklin kicked on the door. A minute later, it opened a crack.

“What do you want?” a man’s voice asked in Arabic.

“We have a woman who’s almost dead. She needs a doctor’s help at once. We need to bring her inside.”

“It’s too late, too late,” the man said.

“Are you the doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must help us.”

Franklin shouted at the truck, but they had heard him on the radio. Three of them carried Yasmin, careful not to harm her any more. They brought her through the door, to a waiting room, and into a surgery. There was a table with a light over it. They put Yasmin down and stepped back.

The doctor checked her chest wound and shook his head. He tested her pulse and shook his head again.

“Give her a shot of morphine, something to keep her alive,” Franklin yelled at the doctor. He frowned at Franklin, took out a package, and unwrapped a needle and filled it, and gave her a shot, then began examining the chest wound. He shook his head again.

“Too much blood lost. Bullet wound?”

Franklin nodded. “Accident,” he said.

The doctor snorted and put a probe into the wound, searching for the bullet. He didn’t find it. He started a saline solution drip in her arm, and then went to a refrigerator and brought out a package of blood. He typed her blood, nodded, and started the blood transfusion. He gave her another shot he told Franklin was an antibiotic.

Franklin told the SEALs to dig out their cash. He collected twenty thousand pounds and pushed it into the medic’s hands.

“Make her well,” he said. “She is an important person from Damascus. Make her well. We have to leave. Make her well.” He shook the doctor’s hand and they hurried back to the truck. Franklin talked to the driver.

It was about an hour more to where he would leave them near the border. “When you drop us off, we’ll give you the rest of our money. You go back and check on Yasmin, and do everything you can for her. You help her get well and you’ll be rewarded. You understand me?”

“She’s a friend. I’ll help her all I can. The doctor seemed better than some in our country. I hope she can make it.”

It was nearly 0400 when the driver pulled to the side of a dirt road. They had been off the main highway for most of the past half hour. Now he stopped. “End of the road,” the driver said. “This is as far as I can take you. The border is about five miles across these hills. No more roads.”

Franklin told DeWitt what the driver said.

“Okay, guys. Ante-up time. We need the rest of your cash for the driver. He’ll go back and stay with Yasmin. He’s a friend and will do everything he can for her.” Nobody counted the money. It was a lot more than he’d asked for to make the trip.

The SEALs saddled up with their gear and weapons, and watched the truck drive back the way it had come. DeWitt led them out on the hike due west, where they should find the tongue of Israel that extended north between Lebanon and Syria.

“I can’t imagine any section of this border without guards on both sides,” DeWitt said on the mike. “So we’ll walk light and keep our eyes open. We have any more casualties after that little firefight?”

Nobody spoke up.

They hiked to the west through the sand and scrub growth of an apprentice desert. Five miles. De Witt figured it could be more like eight or ten.

Kat settled in beside Murdock as they hiked. “Think she’ll make it?” she asked.

“The medic looked like he knew what he was doing. He put fluids in her and started a transfusion. If he has enough blood, she has a chance. We’ll check with CIA later and find out for sure.”

“She saved my life,” Kat said. “That Syrian would have chopped me in half a second or two later.”

“But he didn’t. Thank God for that. How’s that leg of yours?”

“Still working. It should have another ten miles or so before it collapses.”

She was quiet for a few minutes.

“Will we have trouble getting over the border?”

“Could, depending what kind of border guards both countries have. Be a damn shame to come this far and get whacked by some friendly fire from the Israelis.”

The land rose quickly. Ahead they could make out the slopes of mountains. From somewhere Murdock remembered that the Anti-Lebanon mountain range defined the border between Lebanon and Syria. They would be at the lower end of the range with, he hoped, much smaller mountains.

An hour later the upward slopes had turned into nasty little hills that climbed upward one after another. There seemed to be no top to them. The time was working quickly toward 0600, and Murdock was wondering if they could get over the border before daylight. That could be anywhere from a half hour from then to two hours.

They kept walking. Slowly the brightening sky ate up the last of the night, and it was dawn.

Ostercamp led the way as scout. He used his radio now. “Let’s hold it right here a minute. J.G., you need to look at this.”

The SEALs hit the dirt. Murdock almost went forward, but held back. This was DeWitt’s operation. Let him finish it.

DeWitt bellied up to the top of a small ridge they had been climbing and looked over. Halfway down the reverse slope, and not more than two hundred yards away, lay a communications tower and a collection of ten to fifteen six-man tents, several vehicles, and what had to be a cooking tent.

At last they might have found the border, but were the soldiers he saw walking around below Syrians or Israelis? He used his binoculars. There must be something to identify the troops. He kept searching. Vehicle numbers? He tried to find some. The rigs he could see were parked sideways, so there was no exposure of the numbers painted on the rear and front bumpers.

It was on one of the tents, over the door. He looked again, adjusted the focus, and tried once more.

“Ostercamp, take a look at this. That second tent from the end. What do you see?” He gave the scout the binoculars. Ostercamp adjusted the focus and stared. He pulled down the glasses.

“What do I see? Just a tent showing a door and a Star of David over the door. Damn, that’s Jewish. They must be Israelis.”

How to get close enough to yell at them? There were no gullies, no ditches, no cover. Nothing but sand and rocks. The hell of it was, the SEALs’ uniforms looked almost like the Syrians’.

“Murdock, can you get up here and take a gander?”

“Be right there.”

Murdock checked the tent, saw the Star of David, and agreed.

“Israeli, but how do we let them know who we are without getting our heads blown off?”

“I was about to ask you the same question,” DeWitt said.

“White flag?” Ostercamp suggested.

“Who has anything white?” DeWitt asked.

“Curiosity,” Murdock said. “We pique their curiosity into getting them to come to us.”

“How?” DeWitt asked.

“Range to subjects?” Murdock asked.

“Two hundred yards.”

“Bad spot for a border guard unit, wouldn’t you think? With the bad guys on a reverse slope right in your backyard where they could shoot the hell out of you.”

“Tremendously bad planning,” DeWitt agreed.

“Unless we’re not on the border, but a mile or two inside Israeli territory.”

“A WP grenade,” Ostercamp suggested. “Roll it down about halfway and stay out of sight. They will have to send out a patrol.”

Murdock had a WP in his vest. He agreed, pulled the pin, and tossed it twenty yards down the slope. They edged back so only their eyes and tops of their floppies showed over the ridge as the WP exploded in a Fourth of July shower of furiously burning white phosphorus.

Nothing happened for ten seconds. Then a whistle shrilled and six troopers came out of a tent in battle gear and stared at the grenade’s smoke pall.

An officer barked out an order, and the six men split fifteen yards apart and charged up the hill, holding their weapons at port arms.

“Everyone move up within a few feet of the crest of this ridge,” DeWitt said on the radio. “We have some Israeli visitors, so no shooting.”

The run by the troopers below slowed to a slogging walk as they advanced up the sharp slope with their weapons now aimed forward and fingers on triggers.

When they were twenty feet down the hill, the SEALs all began to shout and yell that they were Americans and not to shoot. The SEALs kept yelling up a storm.

The Israeli soldiers stopped, and one of them held up his hand. The SEALs quieted.

“Who the hell is Beavis’s buddy?” one of the Israelis shouted.

“Butthead.” The word came back from all along the line.

“Hey, you must be Yanks,” the Israeli noncom said. “Come on out, we won’t shoot. Where the hell did you guys come from?”

After that it was a short ride in American-made armored personnel carriers to a group headquarters. Ostercamp warmed up the SATCOM, and DeWitt reported to Admiral Tanning in Athens. The admiral said there would be air transport for them from Haifa. Next came a truck ride to Haifa. A U.S. Airforce Gulfstream business jet, the VC-11, met them at Haifa. The SEALs swarmed on board the VIP plane, usually reserved for generals and admirals, and an hour and a half later landed back in Athens.

Murdock took Kat to the medics to check her shoulder and her leg. The doctor admitted her to watch her leg, which had become infected.

“I’m fit for duty,” Kat kept telling him. The doctor pretended that he didn’t speak English, and pampered her and kissed her hand, and the nurse said the doctor would come by and see her the next day.

“Get me out of here,” Kat hissed at Murdock. He grinned, kissed her hand, and told her he’d see her the next day. He had an after-action report to make to Admiral Tanning.

Before he left the hospital, he stopped by to check on Ron Holt. The doctor told him the chest wound was better. They had dug out most of the shattered bullet from his chest. Now the left shoulder was not responding well. He would be out of any physical action for at least two months. Murdock and DeWitt talked to the radio operator and longtime SEAL. He asked about the mission. Murdock asked him if he’d like a ride home.

“Oh, God, yes. Give a month’s pay to be back in Coronado where they at least speak English.”

Murdock made arrangements to have Holt sent to Balboa Navy Hospital in San Diego.

Murdock and DeWitt’s next stop was the admiral’s office. The tanned ex-ship driver already knew the good news about the mission being accomplished. Murdock told him about the CIA agent and how she’d saved Kat’s life but was shot down for her trouble.

“We don’t know if she’ll make it or not. The Syrian doctor didn’t know. He said he would do his best.”

“Yes, we’ve heard from the Company about her. They will get her off her station as soon as she’s able to travel. We’re counting on her beating that chest shot.”

The admiral paused and shook his head. “Now our next job is to take care of that damned Chinese destroyer disguised as a freighter. She’s still anchored off that uninhabited Greek island. We have all sorts of plans, but nobody is satisfied. I suggested we wait for your input on the problem. What do you suggest we do about the rest of those forty-seven nuclear warheads in that destroyer?”