Flashpoint

9

Jack Mahanani, the platoon medic, dropped on his knees beside Lampedusa before Murdock got there.

“No wound on his back,” the medic said. Gently they rolled Lampedusa over.

They both saw the head wound. Blood ran from the slice across Lam’s forehead. Mahanani pushed a compress over the part bleeding and wiped off the rest of Lam’s face and head.

“Just that one, looks like, Skipper,” Mahanani said. “Head wounds bleed like sons of bitches. This probably looks a hell of a lot worse than it is.”

“Only scraped across his forehead instead of penetrating his skull?” Murdock asked.

“What I’m hoping. But even that way, the shock of the slug hitting him could have knocked him out.” Mahanani lifted the compress. Fresh blood oozed out but at a slow rate. “Oh, yeah. The furrow across his thick head is about a quarter of an inch deep. Two inches long. Lots of fucking blood but shouldn’t be much damage.”

“A concussion?” Murdock asked.

“Have to wait and see. He shouldn’t be out long.”

The medic quickly wiped off the rest of the blood smudges and put a bandage over the wound, wrapping the gauze around Lam’s head. Lam’s eyes flickered, then opened.

“What the hell? Who hit me?”

“Head hurt?” the medic asked.

“Like a damn steam engine is roaring through it. I get shot?”

“Just a little scratch, Lam,” Murdock said. “Somebody had a landing greeting for us. Mostly, they missed.”

“We have an all clear in the LZ. We’re going in,” The pilot said on the speaker. “There should be protection down there. Hope you guys are locked and loaded.”

Murdock looked at the small window but couldn’t see much. They were the first down.

“Shoulder those packs and chamber a round. When we hit the asphalt out there, it will be running. I have Lam’s weapon. Somebody get his gear. If we have a guide, we follow him. Otherwise, we head for the closest building that looks like it has some kind of protection. Read me?”

He heard a chorus of responses.

The wheels touched down, the copilot rammed the hatch open, and Murdock led the way out of the bird. No one came to meet them. He bolted for the closest building, a two-story frame affair thirty yards away.

Just before Murdock made it to the building, a man dressed in green cammies and fisting a .45 auto ran out and waved them down the side of the structure to the door he had just opened.

“SEALs?” the dark-skinned man asked.

“Yeah, you our contact?”

“Right. Sorry about that little inconvenience. Turned out to be two men with three sticks of dynamite, a K-47, and two magazines. We got both of them.”

“We’ve got a wounded man. Doesn’t look serious.”

Murdock and the captain moved indoors and waited for the SEALs to run inside. The last two in were Lampedusa with his head bandage and Mahanani carrying half his gear.

Lam sank to the floor just inside the door. Mahanani checked with him. “Commander, is there a doctor around here anywhere?”

Murdock looked at the Colombian. “You’re Captain Orejuela?”

“That’s right, Commander. There are doctors in town, but we are supposed to load up the trucks with all the matériel you brought and your men and proceed directly to camp Bravo near Cali.”

“How far is that?”

“About forty-five miles.”

“How long in the trucks?”

“An hour and a half.”

Mahanani had been checking Lampedusa. He came over. “Cap, looks like he might have a mild concussion. Lost quite a bit of blood. He can do the ride if we pump him full of chocolate bars. I’ll make a survey.”

The big room they were in had folding meal cots, blankets, and at the far end what looked like some kind of a closed-up kitchen.

“We stay here for about half an hour,” the Colombian captain said. “By then they should have the ammo and weapons loaded and we can put two or three SEALs in each rig.”

The SEALs had dropped to the floor and waited. Those who had a routine used it. Harry Ronson took out a small harmonica and tried to play. He was terrible. Ed DeWitt and Les Quinley worked at a peg chessboard on a game they had started in the chopper. Half the men took a nap, not sure when they might sleep again. Will Dobler sat on one of the bunks with his eyes closed, thinking about his wife and daughter back in San Diego. Ken Ching wondered what the off-road bikers were doing this weekend. He wouldn’t be with them.

Mahanani came back with five chocolate bars. “Eat up, Lam, do you good.”

“Four ibuprofen pain pills would do a lot better,” Lam said.

“You’re bitching,” Mahanani said. “Now I know you’re not hurt as bad as you wanted us to believe. I’ll take back one of those chocolate bars.”

Murdock eyed the Colombian. “Tell me about the attack. Just two men, you say? How close did they get? Inside the complex? Who were they?”

“They sneaked into the enclosure. Yes, dedicated but now just dead. I shot one of them myself. Both men were under twenty. Probably some offshoot from the regulars. Definitely not from the federal army.”

“Might be more of them out there?”

“Always more of them. That’s why I’m glad you’re along on this munitions run.”

“You expect trouble?”

“No. My guess is they hit us too early. They hoped to get the munitions, but the choppers hadn’t even landed when they struck. Bad timing. No, the colonel and I don’t expect any trouble.”

“We’ll be locked and loaded all the way,” Murdock said. He wiped sweat off his face and realized he was still sweating from the run in there from the chopper. Then he remembered. Cali was less than two hundred miles north of the equator. At anywhere near sea level it would be hot all day.

He took out his Motorola and hooked it up.

“Senior Chief,” Murdock called. Will Dobler came away from where he sat in one swift move and took a dozen fast steps to his commander.

“Let’s get the men ready to travel. We want their Motorolas on, all combat gear ready to go. The men with the Bull Pup should have their issue forty rounds. All else as usual. We should be moving out in fifteen.”

Dobler gave a curt nod and talked to everyone awake, then went around waking up the rest.

Ten minutes later, the Third Platoon was combat ready.

Twenty minutes after that, the convoy of eight six-by trucks with soft tops rolled southwest along the paved highway toward Cali. There were two SEALs in each truck that was loaded with boxes of ammunition, weapons, and war supplies. Murdock and Senior Chief Dobler were in the first truck right behind the lead jeep with the colonel and Captain Orejuela and his driver. Both SEALs in the first truck had their issue H&K MP-5 submachine guns.

Only a few miles from the coast, the road slanted upward into lush, green mountains. The highway was narrow and made many turns and climbed up some grades slowly.

“Dozens of places along here are ideal for an ambush,” Murdock told Senior Chief Dobler.

“If they’re out there, they’ll pick the best spot. My guess is it will be on a sharp rise where the trucks slow down to fifteen or twenty miles an hour to grind up the hill.”

Ten minutes later, Murdock had just sat down from where he’d been watching out the front of the rig through a folded-back flap of the roof canvas, when a rocket-propelled grenade went off. It exploded on the side of the second truck, stalling it.

Murdock was glad the trucks had kept a good interval between them, about forty yards.

He hit the lip mike at once. “Bravo Squad, move to the right side of the road, Alpha Squad on the left. Come up through cover to the second truck.”

Murdock forgot which two SEALs were in the second truck. He could only hope they were still alive. He and Dobler jumped from the back of the first truck and darted into the brush at the left side of the road. They heard some small-arms fire but didn’t know where it came from.

Both men lay flat in the growth of ferns and weeds under the trees. Murdock pointed toward the second truck. They worked ahead slowly at a crouch, their weapons ready. Twenty yards ahead, they saw movement. Too early for his men to get there. Murdock dropped into the growth, and Dobler went down with him.

“Saw it,” Dobler whispered in his mike. “Two of them. Young. No uniforms.”

They moved forward again. “I have the one on the right,” Murdock said. Dobler was to his left.

Ahead of them, the green brush near a small tree moved, then bent down, and a man lifted up and stared at the road ten yards away. Murdock had his MP-5 on single shot and with the silencer on. He moved slightly upward and got off one shot. The attacker took the round in his side, where it bored quickly through light bone and tissue and plunged into his heat, dumping him dead in the lush growth.

Brush moved six feet away from where the man died. A voice called a name that Murdock couldn’t catch. The man screamed, lifted up, and ran straight for Dobler. A three-round silenced burst from the H&K chopper knocked down the Colombian in mid-stride. One round hit his chest, the second his throat, and the third his forehead.

“Two terrs down near the second truck,” Murdock said on the net. “If anybody has spotted any more terrs, sound off.” Silence. Murdock and Dobler lifted up at the same time and ran for the second truck, which still burned, but the flames were not near the fuel tank. They paused at the edge of the brush and checked out the truck again. The whole side had been blown off and the top had burned away. Boxes of small-arms ammunition lay scattered around the floor of the rig and on the ground.

“Bravo, any of you up near the truck they hit?” Murdock asked.

“Oh, yeah, and I need new drawers.”

Murdock frowned. “Quinley?” Murdock asked.

“Yeah, Cap. I was in the damn second truck. My luck, right? All of a sudden I’m in the air flying into the fucking brush. Hit a tree damn solid, but didn’t bust nothing. I think everything works.”

“Who was on board with you, Quinley?”

“Who? Yeah. Who was it? Not sure. Not remembering too damn well. Oh, now I have it. Yeah, Ostercamp.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t know.”

“Cap, Fernandez,” the Motorola said. “Just arrived. Didn’t see anybody else. We’ll search the brush around here. Oster ain’t on board this side of the truck. It’s burning now. Hope to hell there ain’t no HE rounds in there.”

A grenade exploded on board the truck.

“Keep back. There’ll be more of them if there was one,” Murdock said.

“Found Ostercamp,” a new voice said.

“Ed. Where is he? Is he wounded?”

DeWitt came back at once. “He’s not bleeding, doesn’t seem to have any broken arms or legs. He was wrapped around a tree and he’s talking but not making much sense.”

“Get him away from that truck and bring him up front. Get all of his gear you can find. Some may still be on the truck. Take your squad up ahead near the jeep. See you there. Alpha Squad, on me at the jeep in front. Move now.”

Murdock and Dobler hit the shoulder of the road and ran forward to the jeep, where the Colombian captain waited. Captain Orejuela called to Murdock.

“You get them? Is it safe now?”

Murdock stopped beside him and scowled. “Where the hell have you been? Go back there and get your drivers to go around that burning truck. It’s a complete loss and no way to salvage the ammo until the fire goes out. You can come back here with a squad of riflemen to protect it until you can salvage it. Now, get those trucks moving so we can get away from here. If there were two shooters, there might be fifty nearby. Move it, Captain.”

DeWitt came up, leading Ostercamp. He seemed dazed to Murdock, not injured.

Mahanani had been on the other side of the SEAL, trying to talk to Ostercamp. “Yeah, man, come on, tell me where we are. Colombia, right? Yeah, we’re here in Colombia. Some fucker put an RPG up our asses and we’re trying to work out of it.”

“RPG?” Ostercamp said.

Mahanani’s face erupted into a big smile. “Oh, yeah, man, you’re coming along. You hurt anywhere?”

“Hurt?” Ostercamp said. “Yeah, head hurts. Scraped my damn arm.”

“Hey, buddy, we’ll get you back on a truck, and you’ll be doing fine.”

Murdock heard the exchange. The jeep and the first six-by moved ahead to make room for the other rigs behind them as they drove around the still-burning truck.

“No chance to find their weapons, Murdock,” DeWitt said. “We’re missing Ostercamp’s MG and Quinley’s G-Eleven.”

“We’ll get some replacements flown in from the ship,” Murdock said. He used the lip mike. “Let’s mount up, same rigs as before. Mahanani, you take Ostercamp in your truck. Quinley, come on the first truck.”

He waved at Captain Orejuela, who stood up in the back of the jeep at the head of the column.

“Let’s move it, Captain,” Murdock shouted. The line of trucks drove away from the still-burning rig behind them.

The rest of the trip went without incident. They wound higher into the Cordillera Occidental, the sharp range of mountains that worked north and south along the coast of Columbia. Just the other side of the peaks on the Cauca River, they came to the key southern city of Cali.

At one time, Cali had been one of the two huge drug cartel operations in the country. They traded punches with the Medellin people far to the north. Now the power had been usurped by the Medellin people, and they held a rigid, army-protected control over all of the drug business in the country. That made the Cali area safer for Ex-president Manuel Ocampo.

Twice on narrow mountain passes, the convoy had come to army roadblocks. These were what President Ocampo called his Loyalist Forces, those 40,000 troops who had remained loyal to him and the principles of democracy.

At the first roadblock, Captain Orejuela told the officer in charge about the attack, and he sent back ten men in a truck to push the burned-out rig off the road and to recover the undamaged ammunition and weapons before the guerrillas stole them.

They drove into what Captain Orejuela told Murdock would be an army compound five miles from the city. Cali was the size of San Diego, 1.9 million people. Most of the ex-president’s men were in camps around the city, with defensive postures facing north and east.

As soon as the trucks stopped, the SEALs off-loaded and asked what to do with their supplies.

Captain Orejuela hurried up and apologized.

“A detail was supposed to meet us here,” he said. “I’ll go find them. We have quarters for you and your men and all of their supplies. Just a minute.”

The SEALs relaxed.

Ostercamp was on his feet but not moving quickly. The rest of them took his gear and his supplies off the truck. Murdock and Mahanani looked at him.

“How you feel, Ostercamp?” Murdock asked.

“Sir, feel good, sir.”

Murdock frowned. It was the chant from the Tadpole training Ostercamp had taken three or four years ago.

“Where are we, Ostercamp?”

“On the grinder, sir.”

“Sit down and stay put, Tadpole,” Murdock said. “I’ll get back to you.” Murdock and the medic moved away.

“Not good, Captain. That concussion must be worse than I figured.”

“We’ll find out what kind of medical treatment they have here, then I want you to get Lam and Ostercamp checked out. I’ll find you as soon as I have the others straightened away.

It was ten minutes before the English-speaking Captain Orejuela came back.

He apologized again, got them back in the trucks, and drove two miles across the camp to a barracks set apart from the others.

It took them a half hour to find and unload the SEALs’ part of the munitions and ammo that hadn’t been on the second truck.

“Figure we lost about 10 percent of our goods,” Senior Chief Dobler told Murdock.

The wooden barracks hadn’t been used for a while. The captain called his jeep and told the driver to take Lam, Ostercamp, and Mahanani to the hospital. They had just left when Murdock heard explosions.

“Bombs,” he said and darted outside. He saw two jet fighters swing around, drop their bombs, then head his way using 20mm cannon on a strafing run.

“Take cover,” Murdock bellowed. One of the two jets turned in to a low-level attack directly at their newly found barracks. Murdock dove behind a low rock wall and ducked his head as the rounds jolted into the wooden building and exploded.