Counterfire

14

Murdock lifted up at the edge of the wadi until the soft gray, civilian-type hat showed enough so he could get his eyes up and see over the sand and rocks. Ahead of him were two houses, both with hundreds of bullet holes in them. He saw someone in one window and no other sign of occupants. He dropped down and used his Motorola. “Force One, I have one terr showing in the window of the first house. That’s just one terr that I can see.”

“This is Force Two,” his earpiece responded. “We see more than a dozen armed men behind the first house. They’re trying to suck you into a trap. Abort scouting mission. Instead, open fire with three of your twenties with airbursts at each side of the house. Weapons are free.”

“Twenties one and two take the port side, three and four the starboard. Fire when ready, one round each.”

Murdock waited a moment. “Simulating the firing of four twenties on the first house. Over.”

“Half the force behind the house is down. Let’s move out Force One and Two with assault fire on the first house. Over the top, now!”

Murdock waved his arm forward and his mixed Force One of Six SAS men, sixteen SEALs, and ten Israeli Special Ground Forces charged over the top of the wadi, formed into an assault line, and began firing as they walked forward with a relatively straight line. After fifty yards, and when they were fifty yards away from the first house, the command came on the radios to charge forward running and firing.

They ran, and the line bent and angled and then straightened. Quickly the men came to the house, stopped their assault fire, and used fragger grenades through empty doors and windows. Then on radio command, the two forces of thirty-two men each surged inside the six-room, two-story house and cleared each room in order using flash-bang grenades, then rushing into the rooms. Murdock waited for the report. He had it twenty seconds later.

“House one clear,” Ching reported.

“Four minutes and thirty-two seconds,” a new voice said on the Motorola. They had been reprogrammed to the Israeli personal radio frequency. “Not bad, a bit off our usual standard, but we didn’t kill any of our own chaps. So, good show. We’ll assemble in the living room for a final critique.”

Murdock went into the large room with the others. He looked at his hands and arms. They and his face had been given an instant three-week suntan, a soft shade of brown the makeup artist said would fade out and be gone in six weeks.

The critique by Colonel Ben-Ami took fifteen minutes and covered everything from the way they entered the sedans, to the timing on the flash-bangs and the assault fire. When it ended, Murdock decided he hadn’t learned anything new and that he and his platoon could work well with the other professionals they would be fighting beside. He had hardly recognized some of the SEALs when they put on their Arab clothes. They had been wearing them for two days now. None of his men had on wigs, but half of them had their hair dyed dark black. It would grow out, the hairdresser said. Or if they washed their hair every day after the current assignment was over, the black dye would fade out in two weeks.

Murdock looked back at Colonel Ben-Ami at the front of the room.

“This is our last training session,” the colonel said. “I think the past four days have been worthwhile. Gives us practice working in our new uniforms if nothing else. Some of you still look a little self-conscious about your Arab clothes. That will be gone when you’re on an Arab street with lots of Arabs around you. So, we will have a briefing at 1900 in Building 54. Our civilian transport will leave just after 2200. Remember, no wallets, papers, letters, anything that could identify you on your person. Each of you will have well-used Arab identification papers, the usual for this area, and three hundred in used dinars in case you get cut off or somehow entangled. For you Yanks, a dinar is about the same as a U.S. dollar, worth a little more actually. Are there any questions?”

“Once the target is taken down, how do we find our transport back to Ramallah?” an SAS man asked.

“Your six- or seven-man squads will each have a designated sedan. The sedan will be left near the target. After your independent mission is over, move back to the sedan for a ride home. There shouldn’t be any real trouble. If there are roadblocks, you will be dispersed enough going home to prevent any connection. Just use your identity papers, and you should be fine.”

“If not, do we shoot our way through the roadblock?”

“That will be a field decision that the senior officer or man in charge in each sedan will have to make. We’ve been over the assignments of each squad and the timing of each of the actions. Is there any man who does not know the number of his squad, who his squad leader is, and what his squad has as its primary mission?”

No hands went up. There were seventy-six men crowded into the room. Thirty Israeli special ground forces, thirty SAS Britishers, and the SEALs. Two Israelis went with each of seven four-man SAS squads. Three Israelis went with each of five SEAL groups. Four groups had three SEALs each, and one had four SEALs. It made up twelve fighting units, each with its own target and commander.

“No one has asked about wounded,” the colonel continued. “We have inclusive medics; however, there are not enough for each six- or seven-man squad. If you have a medical emergency, use your radio and give your location and ask the closest medic to report to you. Best we can do. Remember this, we leave no one behind. We leave no wounded, no dead, and certainly do not allow ourselves to be taken prisoner.

“We have been over our assignments a dozen times. They should be memorized and letter perfect. This is not a sequential type of attack. No one squad depends on another doing a task before it can do its work. Once your job is done, ask if anyone nearby needs help. If not, haul ass and return to your transport and drive out of the area. We do not expect any concentrated resistance from the Arabs.

“You have seen the mix of our squads. This is for security reasons. Six SEALs with no one speaking Arabic would be totally lost in the middle of this situation if, for example, their transport failed. We have put three Israelis with each SEAL squad, and we have also put two Israelis with each of the SAS squads. So far, it has worked out well. Our Israeli Mistaravim members are adequate to fluent in Arabic, and that could be a lifesaver for a squad that is cut off or in trouble somewhere. We hope that it is a precaution not needed.”

Colonel Ben-Ami stopped and looked around. “Very well, we’ll see all of you later at our briefing at 1900.”

The rides back to the Army base were in the same nondescript and much-used sedans that they would use that night to get to the PLO training site. Murdock had no idea how far it was. He dozed off, not sure when he’d have time to sleep again. Before he nodded off, he thought about how he had become a cog in a machine again, a fighter in a squad instead of leading the squad. He shrugged. This was his job, he’d do it the way the hosts wanted it done. If he had reason to take over the squad, he could do that too. He slept.

The briefing at 1900 that evening came after showers and chow and a short time on their bunks. They learned little new, except that the SEALs should bring all of the Bull Pups they had plus all of the rounds they could reasonably carry. At least one of the twenties would be in each mission squad as far as they went. Murdock counted out seven of the twenty-millimeter blasting rifles. He figured twenty rounds per gun, but when he hefted the special ammo pouch that looped over the head and rested on his chest, he cut the rounds to fifteen per man.

Colonel Ben-Ami wore Mistaravim Arab clothing now as the rest of them did. The SEALs had become accustomed to it. Most of the clothing was loose and it helped to hide their weapons. Their combat vests, with all the ammo pockets, were hidden by the outside layer of dark Arab shirts and robe-type clothing.

“We’ve made one small change of plans,” the colonel said. “All of you are ready. We will push off in exactly fifteen minutes. The drive will be about three hours and we will keep in touch by radio, so the cars are never more than a mile apart but not next to each other. All cars have specific parking spots that your drivers know. We will leave the vehicles and move up to the objective on radio orders. Our hope is that we will be on site and ready to attack at 0100. Questions?”

There were none.

“All right, gather up your squads, your equipment, and your ammo and explosives, and we’ll move out as soon as every squad leader signals that he is ready to drive.”

No one had been told the exact destination, except the drivers. They weren’t talking. Murdock settled down for the drive, and came alert when the car stopped. He checked his watch. It was just past 0030. A half hour to attack time.

“We there?” he asked. The Israeli driver chuckled.

“Almost. Another quarter mile. Now I can tell you. This is an arid section of the West Bank in a range of hills about a mile from the Jordan River. The combined PLO-Intifada training camp is located here. We have known of it for about six months and have been working on an attack. With you specialists, it’s an ideal time.

“Our target and mission is a set of bunkers at the far south end of the camp where ammunition, explosives, and RPG rounds are kept. It will be heavily guarded. First we have to breach the wire around the camp, which will set off alarms. But identical alarms will be going off at twelve points around the camp at the same time or within seconds.”

The driver looked around. His name was Sholomo Per; he was a twenty-eight-year-old career soldier and a leader in one of the Mistaravim units. Per brought the car to a stop at the end of a road. There were barriers there with signs Murdock couldn’t read.

Per used the radio. “Squad Bunk in position at parking.”

“Good, Bunk. Hold there.”

The men eased out of the car. Murdock had SEALs Ching and Vinnie Van Dyke with him along with the three Israeli special forces men. They waited.

Three minutes later the orders came on the radio.

“All units move up toward the wire. Hold thirty yards off for the attack signal.”

They formed a line silently, and on Per’s arm swing began to jog forward. They had roughly a half mile to go according to the plan. Per spread them out when they came in sight of the boundary fence that marked the southern end of the Arab training camp. They went up within thirty yards and eased to ground and waited.

Four minutes later the word came from the radio. “All units, move up to the wire now and place charges. You have two minutes.”

“We have two minutes,” Per said. “Ching, you have the C-4. Move up to the fence now and plant three charges that will blow a man sized hole in the barbed wire and single-apron. We want to be able to run through. You have two minutes.”

Chin nodded and ran forward. He slowed twenty feet from the wire and crawled the rest of the way. He tied two charges six feet high on the heavy fencing, and then two more down from the top to bottom. He inserted preset timer-detonators, looked at his watch, and waited. When it was twenty seconds to 0100, the radio spoke to them.

“Activate the charges on the fence, now.”

Ching pushed in the timers, lifted up, and ran back to where the other men waited thirty yards away.

“Eight, nine, ten,” Per counted. The explosions came a second later, four of them almost on top of one another. The three SEALs were in front as they charged the wire. Far off Murdock heard other faint explosions. The blast had done a fair job on the fence, but one segment of the single apron fence on the far side was nearly intact. It stretched out for six feet and started at the three-foot-high level nearest the fence. The main vertical wire had been blown away.

Ching was first man through; he held his MP-5 on his chest and dove into the apron wire, smashing it down within a foot of the ground. Right behind him came Van Dyke, who stepped on Ching’s back and leaped over the rest of the wire. Murdock followed, and then the three Israelis. When the last one was past, Ching eased up from the wire, pulled away some of it sticking into his right arm, and came to his feet. Then he ran to catch up with the others.

They ran forty yards directly into the camp toward a soft light over a structure that looked only four feet tall. It was. Vinnie used his Colt M-4A1 Israeli copy and lofted a white star shell over the structures ahead. Now they could see four of the low-lying buildings that were dugouts, with the ammo and explosives underground.

As soon as the star shell blossomed, half a dozen defenders tried to hide. Murdock powered in a twenty round that exploded in the air between the first two buildings. The rest of the squad fired into the area with their small arms. Ching put down one man who tried to run out of the light. Murdock fired two more airbursts between the buildings, and Sergeant Per used his radio mike.

“Right, lads, good work. Now let’s go up and greet the bastards face-to-face.”

They charged forward in a running assault line, holding fire until they saw any targets. A machine gun opened up to the left next to one of the buildings. Murdock fired a lasered round at the edge of the building, and it burst in the air just over the corner. The machine gun stopped firing.

Twenty yards farther and they hunkered down behind the first of the buildings. Per pointed to the left, and he took that side with his two mates. Murdock and his SEALs moved to the right. When they came around the side of the structure, they saw only two bodies. One lifted up and tried to fire, but Ching cut him in half with a six-round burst from his MP-5.

They looked across at the other two buildings. A door slammed and Murdock frowned. Per slid up beside them. “That far bunker with the door that just closed. Can you take the door off with a twenty, Commander?”

“No problem.” Murdock aimed at the door and fired one round. The door disintegrated. He fired one more round through the door and they waited. Nothing happened. Per motioned to the nearby bunker.

“This one first. Two grenades through the door if it’s open.” He pointed to his two Mistaravim buddies. They charged the door. One swung it open outward and they both fragged it. When the hot shrapnel stopped flying, they charged inside with flashlights on and held away from their bodies. A moment later they came out.

“All clear,” one said. “About a hundred tons of explosives in there. Blow the top right off this box when it goes up.” Per left them to guard the outside of the closed door. The rest charged the next bunker to their right. The door stood open. Murdock and Ching threw in fragger grenades. When they exploded, the two SEALs charged inside, with their small flashlights on and held away from their bodies. One submachine gun chattered at them. Ching swore and answered with six rounds from his MP-5. Both Murdock and Ching dodged behind wooden crates that usually held rifle ammunition. They heard movement beyond them. Murdock threw a box across the bunker and lifted up with his Bull Pup on the small bore. When the box hit, two weapons fired from chest high toward the back of the bunker. Both Ching and Murdock fired at the muzzle flashes, four sets of three rounds each. When the tremendous sound died down in the cavelike area, neither SEAL could hear a thing. They touched, and shone their small flashes on grenades. Murdock nodded. They both threw the hand bombs at the far end of the forty-foot-long bunker. When the blast sound died away, Murdock thought he heard a groan, then a scream.

They moved forward down an aisle in the bunker through stacks of boxes that could be holding mortar rounds, grenades, or more small-arms ammo. Halfway to the back they stopped. They were moving by feel now, not using the lights.

Murdock touched Ching, held up his flash over a stack of wooden crates, and aimed it at the back of the bunker. There was no response. The two SEALs both used lights and charged down the aisle between the closely stacked boxes. At the back of the bunker they found four men, three of them dead. One man lifted up his hand; his other hand held his bloody chest. Ching put one round through his forehead. They made a careful inspection of the whole bunker using the lights. No more terrorists.

Out front, they found that Per and his other Israeli had cleared the third bunker. They met outside the fourth one. Another Israeli guarded the cleared bunker. Ching leaned against the one he had just helped sanitize.

Per asked Murdock what was in his bunker, and nodded when he heard. “That leaves this last one to hold their C-4, sixty-percent dynamite, and a whole mess of RPG rounds.”

Vinnie Van Dyke moved out and checked the door. It was locked from the inside. The three moved back thirty yards, and Murdock put a twenty round into the door, blasting it back inside the bunker. A half-dozen shots snarled from inside the bunker and hot lead slanted through the door.

“Could be a dozen in there,” Murdock said. “Maybe we don’t have to go in.”

Sergeant Per looked at him. “You have your two pounds of C-4?”

Murdock nodded. He took the C-4 out, wrapped the quarter-pounders together with all-purpose green tape, and pushed a timer detonator into the pliable plastic explosive.

“This should give enough bang to set off everything else in that cave,” Murdock said. “If the RPG rounds are in wooden boxes, they might survive, unless there’s a fire hot enough to burn the boxes and set them off. You ready, Sergeant?”

The Israeli grinned. “Been waiting six months to get ready,” he said. “Blow it when you’re ready. We’ll be over behind the other bunker.”

Murdock ran up beside the fourth bunker with the live terrorists inside. Sergeant Per used his radio.

“We’re blowing bunker number four. Get in back of the other bunkers and watch your heads. It will be a real whammer.”

Murdock set the timer for ten seconds. He hoped the terrorists were far enough in the rear of the bunker so they couldn’t find the bomb and throw it outside. He took a deep breath, figured his retreat line, and punched the activation lever on the detonator. He held his arm out and threw the bomb into the bunker, then ran like hell for the next bunker and slid around the side of it. No sweat. The big boys could do a hundred yards in ten seconds.

He counted down in his mind without knowing it. “Three, two, one.” The first explosion was dwarfed by a thunderous, billowing, shattering roar as the top of the bunker shattered and blew out in all directions. The giant explosion sucked into its maelstrom all the air in the vicinity, leaving the six men gasping for breath. Then in a fraction of a second, the vanished air was replaced with a massive, swirling tornado of hot gases, smoke, and air as the explosion surged outward in one stupefying avalance of horrendous blasts that spun the attackers around and dropped them into the West Bank sand and rocks.

Murdock shook his head to clear it, then lifted up on his hands and knees and picked up the Bull Pup he’d dropped. He peered around the side of the bunker when the final gusting blasts passed it and tried to see the exploded bunker. All he could see were a few vertical concrete columns towering over a hole in the ground that was now twice as deep as it had been seconds before.

Sergeant Per slid up beside him and took a look.

“Bingo. Won’t have to worry about that C-4 in the middle of Jerusalem. Now about the other three.”

Just as he said it, he saw a column of three headlights racing toward them over the desert. They were still a half mile away.

“My meat,” Murdock said. He steadied the Bull Pup, put it on the twenty barrel, and lasered in on the first oncoming lights. They were moving at a narrow angle toward the bunkers. Murdock lasered again, then fired. The first round was slightly to the left and hit where the vehicles had been. Murdock adjusted, lasered into the path of the lead rig, and fired another twenty. This time the airburst was close enough to send the rig spinning off the road and crashing into the shallow ditch.

The second and third rigs had wider-set lights. The trucks both slowed and Murdock’s next round nailed the second one, killing it in place and blocking the road. The third truck moved cautiously into the shallow ditch to go around it. Murdock aimed directly at the headlights and fired. The contact round hit just at the top of the radiator and exploded with a fury. The rig stalled, then the engine caught fire, and a moment later the fuel tank exploded.

Sergeant Per shook his head. “Sweet Mother, when can I order a hundred of those rifles? We need them. It makes any walking soldier into a slow-moving tank. We could use about a hundred of them and twenty thousand rounds of ammo as soon as you release it for sale.”

He shook his head again. “We have three more bunkers to blow.”

Before any of them could move, a machine gun rattled out two bursts of nine rounds each, slamming through the bunker area and thudding into walls and roofs.

The team of six dug into the ground.

“Well, now,” Murdock said. “Looks like we’ve run into a small complication we didn’t figure on.”