“Hour and a half,” Lam said. “It’s a big place.”
Murdock put one squad on each side of the trail. They were fifty feet back in brush and jungle that was now showing some pines. The SEALs settled into places where nobody could see them unless they stepped on them.
“We wait,” Murdock said on the Motorola.
Waiting was always the hardest part. Murdock filled in the time remembering the last time Ardith Jane Manchester stayed with him at his apartment. It had felt so damn good, so wonderfully comfortable, so… right, that he’d almost asked her to marry him. Almost, but not quite. It hadn’t been a special day. He’d worked with the training routine, come home filthy and tired. Had a shower and then some thin-cut pork chops Ardith had fixed the way he liked them, with mashed potatoes and brown gravy and frozen corn and a mixed green salad with the best Roquefort dressing he’d ever tasted. She wouldn’t tell him where she’d bought it.
Just a nice normal-type middle-class day. Nobody was killed, nobody jumped out of an airplane or dove deep into the sea, or blew up a ship or anything like that. A fine, normal day and evening. Then they made love in the king-sized bed and drifted into a great night’s sleep.
A nice normal day for them was exceptional, and 180 degrees from the usual day for both of them. The next morning he got a call from Don Stroh. They had four hours to be on a plane to God only knows where, and Ardith had a call from the Senate Armed Services Committee. It summoned her to testify early the next day in Washington about some research she had been doing. She had to fly out at noon, only she was heading east, while Murdock and the SEALs were moving west.
Murdock came back to reality suddenly. He frowned. A strange sound. It came again. He grinned, found a rock, and threw it over ten feet and hit Bradford. He was snoring.
The big guy snorted, roused, and stopped snoring. That made Murdock wonder about the call he’d had just before they left, about a warrant for Bradford’s arrest. He hadn’t told the big SEAL about it. No reason to worry him. Maybe it would be all ironed out by the time they got back. Maybe not. He knew that Bradford was in a small group of artists who rented a little gallery down on India Street. Bradford certainly wasn’t counterfeiting old masters, that was for sure. He didn’t do that kind of art. Murdock had taken Ardith down to look at his paintings one weekend.
His earpiece clicked twice. “Yes?”
“Halfway around, Skip. We’ve seen about fifteen green shirts. None in a group, scattered all over the place. No GHQ that we can tell. Have seen nothing that looks like what the lieutenant thinks would be a lockup for the hostages. Where could they escape to? Not too wild about taking on this place without a hell of a lot more data.”
“Yeah, Lam, I hear you. Do the rest of the circuit and then we’ll decide. Out.”
“Bummer,” DeWitt said on the radio.
“Worse than that. Bradford, have you made contact with that chopper pilot lately?”
“Twice, Skipper. He has an LZ about a mile behind the big angled turn in the river. A mile downstream. Best he can do. He’s ready when we’re ready.”
“Thanks, Bradford. How’s the artwork selling?”
“Hey, just sold two before we left for three hundred and fifty bucks. I can help pay the rent.”
“Good, Bradford, that’s good.”
The net went quiet for another ten minutes; then Lam came on. “Jackpot, Skipper. We’ve just found a pair of old wooden buildings set back a ways from the rest of the village. Must be twenty, maybe thirty of the green shirts going and coming. No sign of any hostages. We’re about a quarter of the way around the right-hand side of the camp. Best to cross the creek and come up through the brush. Should we take them out?”
“We’re moving, Lam. We’ll take one more look and check it out. I’d say a good chance we get some target practice in before the day is over.”
The SEALs moved across the creek and worked into the jungle brush for fifty yards, then moved upstream. Lam caught them before they passed him. He, DeWitt, and Murdock went for one more look.
A short time later the Motorolas sounded off. “Squads move up. Lam will check you out. Alpha to the upstream, Bravo to the downstream side. Set up where Lam shows you and get a good field of fire. Range will be about seventy-five yards.”
Murdock had whistled softly when he saw the target. The two buildings were old, the traffic heavy. He saw two off-road motorcycles parked nearby. “We’ll use the twenties, three rounds each to start, then switch to 5.56 for the stragglers. Somebody be sure to get those motorcycles with a twenty. Everyone fire your weapon. Not a chance any hostages are in there. Lam says no sign of any hostages anywhere. We take what we can get. Anyone not in position, sound off.” He heard nothing. The men were spread out five yards apart along the far side of the stream across a small clearing.
Murdock sighted down on the open door to the first building. “Fire when ready,” he said, and pulled the trigger. The impact of the 20mm round exploding inside the place came immediately, followed by six more rounds of the twenties, and soon hundreds of rounds from the machine gun, the sniper rifle, and the M-4A1 rifles.
Three men tried to run out the door. They died in a heap just outside. Men crawled out windows on the ground floor, but were splattered with rounds. A fire broke out in one of the buildings. Men screamed and tried to return fire, but they didn’t have a chance. As targets died, the volume of fire fell off.
“Cease fire,” Murdock said. One man staggered out the door of the building not burning, stumbled, and collapsed on the ground outside. Green-clad men pushed forward toward the buildings, then, when they saw the carnage, dodged behind the buildings or ran the other way.
“Fire at any green shirts you see alive,” Murdock said. The sniper rifle replied at once. A man trying to run from one of the buildings to the other made it only halfway before a round took him high in the chest and he fell, slamming hard into the dirt and grass, not to move again.
More shots drilled into the afternoon as rebels tried to get to the back of the buildings.
“Bravo, with DeWitt, move out double time back to the trail and downstream,” Murdock called on the Motorola.
A minute later he ordered Alpha Squad to move in the same direction.
“Bradford, use the Motorola and tell the chopper we’ll be down there in ten minutes.”
There was no return fire or any pursuit. The rebels were in total disarray; those who were left alive were still in hiding.
It took the SEALs ten minutes to jog the mile down the trail to the clearing where the forty-six waited, its rotor turning slowly. The SEALs crashed on board. Murdock counted heads. He came up with eighteen and ordered the chopper to fly.
“Casualty report,” Murdock said into his Motorola so the men could hear him over the chopper noise.
“Checked, Skipper,” Mahanani said. “Only one is the j.g. with his old one, the shot arm. It busted loose, but I did some ointment and a new bandage and he can do the rope climb again.”
“Nothing else?”
“We don’t count scratches and sprains. We’re in good shape.”
“Don’t forget Lam and me,” Lieutenant Ejercito said. “We’d like to be dropped off between these two camps. Anywhere along here.”
“Right.” Murdock went up to talk to the pilot. Two minutes later he set down on a small harvested field beside the stream.
Lam and the Filipino Army lieutenant jumped out of the chopper and took their duffel bag. Lam already had the SATCOM strapped to his back. “Keep in touch,” Murdock called. “Use that SATCOM every night at midnight. We’ll be listening for your call. Tac One.” Lam waved and headed for the brush and concealment.
Murdock waved at them, and the pilot jolted the big bird back into the sky. They had a start. They had reduced the rebel garrison by what he figured was at least thirty men, and demolished one of their headquarters.