Firestorm

34

Murdock's finger eased on the trigger as the Chinese cop's tone became less formal. He chatted with Ching for a moment through the open window of the farm truck. Then both men laughed. After a little more talk, the policeman stepped back and waved.

Murdock saw him through the faint light and let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Ching shifted the truck into gear and pulled slowly away from the spot where the cop stood beside the road watching the rig. It took only two or three minutes rolling down the main street of the tiny village before they were through it and back in the countryside. Their travel direction was roughly southeast, heading for the coast.

The road continued flat and straight. Murdock wanted to get back in the front seat, but he made no move. Don't change things when we're winning, he told himself.

Ten minutes and maybe four miles down the road later, Ching yelled that there were lights showing.

"Looks like headlights, L-T," Ching said. "That could mean a roadblock. What the hell are we supposed to do?"

"Cut our lights and keep moving," Murdock said. "Might be another farm truck."

They continued down the road for another quarter of a mile. Then they heard rifle shots ahead and sensed hot lead slugs zinging around them. Nobody was hit.

"That cop must have called ahead," Ching shouted. "Didn't really trust him, but he did let us go. Curfew along here at night, the cop told me. Nobody in a vehicle on the road after dark."

"Stop this thing," Murdock called. "Everyone out and in the ditch on both sides fast."

As the others scattered, he talked to Ching at the driver's-side door. "Keep it running. We'll tie down the steering wheel and put a stick on the accelerator to keep it running and head it straight down the road with the lights on. We hit the ditch and hope that the truck keeps their attention."

It worked to a degree, Murdock thought as he watched the truck roll down the road toward the barricade ahead. The truck stayed on the road for two hundred yards, then angled into the ditch on the left side and stalled. Moments after it stopped, Murdock saw something fired from the roadblock. He guessed it was a rocket-propelled grenade.

The grenade hit the truck and it exploded into a mass of flames as the fuel tank blew. The SEALS had gone to ground in the ditch.

"What now, L-T?" Jaybird asked from where he lay in the weeds watching the truck burn.

"They know where we are by now. We better take out the roadblock and keep moving southeast," Murdock said. "One squad on each side of the road for a small cross fire."

"We can use the fields as cover to get up there," Dewitt said. "I'll take the left and pull my men around the far side. You take the near side and we'll squeeze them."

"Sounds good," Murdock said. "No noise. Let's move."

They were almost opposite where the burning truck still smoldered when Jaybird spotted a four-man detail moving up the road toward the truck. Murdock gave a signal to ignore them, and the SEALS kept working silently forward through the fields toward the roadblock.

The headlights still illuminated the barricade. They could see men now and then in back of the three small utility vehicles that were parked there.

"They ain't expecting us," Jaybird whispered to Murdock, who only nodded. True, they looked like they were on garrison duty or on a night training run. They'd get some first-class instruction in how not to be a soldier tonight.

The First Squad settled into firing positions fifty yards away from the trucks. Murdock looked at his watch and waited. Soon he heard a single click on his radio earpiece. Dewitt and his squad were ready.

Murdock nodded at Jaybird through the Chinese night and sighted in with his AK-47. His first unsilenced round sounded like a cannon shot in the quietness of the countryside. It brought the immediate crashing and belching of twelve other firearms as the rest of the SEALS opened fire on his signal shot. Murdock watched his target jolt backwards from where he had been leaning against the first jeep-like rig.

The AKS and the other long guns blasted again and again. Half the Chinese troops were down and dead on the first volley, and another thirty seconds of gunfire flattened the rest of them. Murdock saw one man limp away into the darkness.

Murdock gave three clicks on his mike and the shooting stopped. There had been no return fire at all from the Chinese. He didn't worry about the four who had gone up to the burning truck. They would not be a problem.

Murdock watched the death scene for half a minute, then touched his lip mike.

"Let's move in. If any of those jeep rigs are working we can take another ride."

Murdock ran toward the roadblock with the other SEALS. There were no live defenders. Lincoln tried all three of the utility rigs. He got two of them running. The thirteen men piled in and they moved down the road, southeast again.

"With any luck we could be at the coast in half an hour," Jaybird shouted to Murdock where they rode in the back of the first rig.

"Good luck has been in short supply around here, Jaybird. We'll see how far it holds on this go-round."

Two miles from the roadblock one of the rigs sputtered and ground to a halt.

"Out of gas," Lincoln said. The men crowded onto the other little truck. Two rode on the hood. Two more clung to the sides with one foot for purchase. They slowed down and kept the lights off.

Another five minutes and they came around a small bend and spotted bright lights ahead.

Murdock checked it out through the Starlight scope on the M-89.

"They have a real one this time." Murdock said. "Looks like two tanks, four six-bys, and maybe fifty troops."

"I move we go around this one," Dewitt said.

"Amen," Magic Brown said.

"One of those tanks is moving its turret around to fire," Murdock said, shoving the weapon at Magic. "He can see us. Let's haul ass out of here."

The men piled off the rig and scattered into the field to the left, which had some small brush and a few trees. Doc Ellsworth had just cleared the ditch and run for the trees when a round from the tank slammed into the jeep. It smashed it ten feet back down the road when it hit, but the fuel tank didn't explode.

"Move it," Murdock called. "Those troops won't sit on their hands down there. We've got about a half-mile head start. Let's make it pay off for us."

Before Murdock stopped talking they were taking small-arms fire. The shots were random, and Murdock figured the Chinese were blanketing the whole area hoping to get some return fire that would pinpoint the enemy.

"Move it," Murdock said again. "Straight away from that tank, and then we'll figure out how to get southeast again."

They jogged away from the tank and kept getting an occasional round from behind. Murdock was sure the Chinese didn't know where they were. He wasn't about to give them any clues.

Five minutes later they slowed it to a walk. They passed a dark building on the edge of a field. Ching said it was a storehouse for the farmland they were going through. They charged through another field and into a blessed grove of trees on a rocky hillside.

Murdock could hear someone behind them. The locals had enough troops that they could have detailed a dozen to take four different directions and try to chase down the enemy. Might work. Any firefight would bring the rest of the Chinese troops in to help and hopefully wipe out the foreign devils. Only, they didn't know who the enemy was. They probably thought the most likely attackers would be the Taiwanese.

Murdock put his men through the trees and came out on the other side near the backside of a village. They hurried along in the field just beyond the houses. He could hear music playing in some of the buildings. Lights showed in most of them. It wasn't even nine o'clock yet. There were lots of people up and moving around. He hoped they didn't run into any kids playing in the fields.

They jogged again. Now they turned south hoping to find the elusive coast of the Taiwan Strait. It had to be over there somewhere.

Five minutes later Murdock heard the Chinese behind them. Evidently this group of hunters had hit the village and turned south as well. Half may have gone north and the other half south. In either case, Murdock knew his men couldn't afford a fight right now that would bring in the rest of the troops.

"Could be some of the Chinese Marines back there," Ching said. He had heard the pursuit as well. "The Marines are the best fighting troops the Chinese Mainland guys have."

"More good luck for our side," Murdock said.

They soon came away from the village into open fields, and then a good-sized hill loomed out of the darkness in front of them.

"Let's go up," Murdock said. He had been rethinking his strategy. As long as the Chinese pursued them, they had to keep running. If they stopped and got into a firefight, it might pull in more troops. Then again, they were now about five miles from the roadblock and the tanks. It could be another sector and there might be no added response. He wanted to shake off the tail.

The hill might do it. The troops behind might be following them with some kind of nightscopes. The Chinese must have brought some. The tracking had been sure so far. If they came up the hill, it would give the SEALS a chance. Murdock moved to the front of the line of men with Red, and together they selected the spot on the ridgeline. The hill was maybe two hundred feet high, with some shrubs and small trees, but not enough for cover and no concealment. Even in the half light of the moon they could see movement on the slope below.

Murdock placed his men along the downslope of the ridge so they could fire over it from a prone position. He set up his machine guns just off center twenty yards, and put the sniper rifles between them. The rest who had long guns spread out on both sides. The Kalashnikovs would come in handy. They could pinpoint the targets fifty yards down the hill in the moonlight.

Murdock brought up his AK-47, chambered a round, aimed the weapon downhill, and waited. The others would hold for his first round before they fired. Murdock had twenty rounds for the AK. When his ammo was gone he'd dump the rifle.

The Chinese came up the hill slowly. There were two point men, but they were doing it wrong. The point scouts should be out at least a hundred yards. These were ten yards ahead. Behind them came a shadowy and ragged line of assault troops. Murdock counted twenty.

They were at seventy-five yards. Closer, they should be closer, especially for the MP-5s.

The lead scouts stopped and knelt down. They started ahead, and Murdock got the idea they were listening. He scraped a metal ammo clip against the AK. The scouts stood at once and angled directly toward the platoon leader.

Yes. Another ten yards. Murdock sighted in on the right-hand scout. He always took the right-hand side and Holt right beside him with an AK, knew that. Ten seconds later Murdock fired. Again the other twelve weapons opened up with a vengeance.

Murdock's man went down with a round through his heart. The other lead scout took two rounds, spun backwards into the dirt, and never moved. The ragged line of assault troops suddenly became more ragged. Six went down in the first SEAL volley. The rest dove for the ground hunting any kind of cover. There simply wasn't any.

Return fire came from four of the riflemen, but they had only gun flashes for targets. Their own flashes drew hot lead. One man screamed. Another leaped up and raced down the hill. He made it unscratched as far as Murdock could follow him in the sparse moonlight.

The SEALS fired for twenty seconds. A long fire mission for most of them. Murdock gave them three clicks on the Motorola and their weapons fell silent. A few counterfire rounds came from below. Murdock could see two men crawling down the hill. A third dragged a wounded man with him.

"Magic, Fernandez, give us a rear guard. Fire for three minutes back here, then run to catch us. We'll be straight south down the hill."

The men moved out. Red took the point as usual, with Murdock right behind him. They jogged down the hill and into another series of small fields with dikes around them. Rice paddies. He was glad they weren't flooded right then.

On the ridgeline, Magic and Fernandez kept up occasional fire into the spot where the Chinese had been, then aimed farther down the hill. Magic gave a little grunt when his AK ran dry. He dropped it and waved at Fernandez. They crawled down the far slope until they could stand with safety, then jogged south to the bottom of the hill and into the rice paddies.

Three minutes later they caught up with the platoon as they slogged on south.

"Where the fuck is the damned coast highway?" Jaybird said to Murdock.

"Let you know when we find it."

A small village showed a half mile to the left. Far enough away, Murdock decided, and he kept aiming at the star he had picked to be due south. South and east. They'd get to the east soon. To the left, he could see the shadows of some low hills. A few lights glowed in the area, but no big village. Far to the right he thought he could see a spray of headlights now and then, but he couldn't be sure.

Two jets screamed overhead, probably the same two SU-27's they had seen in daylight. Not a chance they could be dangerous until morning. However, they did indicate that the Chinese must be serious about trying to rout out the raiders still on Chinese soil.

Their route led down a wide valley. They kept to the left side where there were some woods and barren spots. Well behind them they saw headlights, and then heard the chatter and unmistakable sounds of troops getting off transport. The Marines were on their tail again, and too close for the SEALS to think too much about collecting Social Security. They speeded up their march.

Ten minutes later they had neared the end of the low row of hills when they heard a new sound.

"Choppers," Red said.

Murdock listened. "Yes, larger ones, troop-transporting birds. More than one."

They saw the running lights first — red, green, and white. The helicopters came in low from the south almost straight at Murdock and his platoon. Then they swung in a circle and a half mile ahead moved into a six-bird front. Then all six snapped on landing lights and they dropped down to the ground about fifty feet apart. Murdock and his men could hear doors opening and troops hitting the ground.

The platoon leader scowled. If each of the birds carried twenty combat troops that would be 120 fighters ahead of them.

He looked behind. Now he could see more headlights with flashes of shadows walking in front of them.

Murdock shook his head. Airborne troops in front of them, Chinese Marines in back of them. Just what the fucking hell did they do now?