When it vanished down the way, he came up and moved to the edge of the fence. The slope of the hill put it higher than the fence here, and he held the MP-5 in one hand to his chest, and jumped. He hit on the hard ground, and did a shoulder roll to take up the force. The MP-5 stayed on his chest. He rolled once, and then lay perfectly still.
Nothing happened.
Good. He crawled out of the lights on the fence slowly, so anyone watching would not notice him by movement alone. After what seemed like two hours, but was only about two minutes, Lam was in the shadows between the lighted fence and the buildings. He was about in the center of the complex. He came to his knees, then his feet, and ran bent over toward the nearest building.
Just then the jeep-like rig's headlights cut a path through the darkness, as it drove around a building two down from the one he aimed at.
He paused and watched the small truck move away, and darkness return. There were two nightlights outside the small warehouse-type structure. He had no idea what kind of uniforms the Iranian soldiers wore. Be nice to get a set to put on over his cammies. An idea.
He walked casually through a bloom of light to the building and then along it to a door. He tried the handle. It wasn't locked. Trusting souls. He pulled it open. No alarm. A moment later, he was inside with the door closed.
Lam took a penlight from his shirt pocket. He used it to check the building. It looked to be a machine shop of some kind. Definitely not a final assembly plant. Check one off the list. He headed for the same door he'd come in.
Just before he reached it, the knob turned, and the door opened outward. Someone spoke in normal tones. Then another voice answered, before a man came through the door, and closed it. In the dim light, Lam saw that the man was an Iranian soldier.
Lam was six feet from him. He lunged forward. Just as the soldier turned to see what was coming, Lam slammed the heavy butt of the MP-5 into his head. He went down with a grunt, and fell unconscious to the floor.
Yeah, he was big enough, Lam decided.
Five minutes later, Lam left the building dressed in the soldier's uniform and cap. The unconscious form had been tied hand and foot, gagged, and stuffed into a closet in the machine shop. Nobody would find him until morning at least.
Lam moved easier now. If he met anyone, he'd growl at them, and go on by. He checked six more unlocked buildings. None was the final assembly. Then he came to a one-story structure set apart somewhat from the rest. It had brighter lights around it. Lam walked up to it in the open and began checking doors, as if he were a security man. The first three were locked, the next opened, and he stepped inside.
All the lights were on. The interior was laid out in six individual areas. In each one was an elaborate worktable, a hoist, a battery of tool cabinets, and what could be shelves for parts. On each worktable was what looked to Lam like a partially assembled nuclear weapon. They were larger than he had figured. But these would be crude and unsophisticated compared to the U.S. atomic weapons. He'd found it. This had to be the final assembly building.
Three men worked at each assembly area. He turned and, as casually as he could, walked outside, shielding the MP-5 from view. He had no idea what weapons the Army men here would carry. The one he met had been without any firearm.
Just before he went out the door, he heard the chopper coming overhead. He paused at the door, felt as much as saw the brilliant beam of some kind of stream-light spot from the chopper wash over the building, and then it was gone.
He stepped outside, and headed back the way he had come, angling toward the fence. One of the military-type jeeps came around the corner, and caught him in its headlights. He slowed to let the rig pass him, but instead it rolled up beside him, and stopped. One man in the jeep said something to him. He growled, and waved the man on past. The question came again, and Lam screeched some words he was sure weren't Farsi. The man behind the wheel shrugged and drove on.
Lam let out a breath, and walked directly away from the building into the shadows. He paused beside a pile of wooden boxes. No one seemed to have noticed him, or to question his presence. He waited a minute, then walked into the darkness between the buildings and the lighted fence. He angled to the left where he had left Lieutenant Murdock.
When he got closer, he saw slight movement at the lighted fence area. He stopped and concentrated on it. Yes, that was the small gully under the fence. Now it was considerably deeper. He watched again, and saw a hand dig a knife into the dirt and slowly drag it backward. The L-T was still there working on the opening.
Lam ran then through the semidarkness between the buildings and the lighted fence. He came close to the spot, and called out softly.
"Lieutenant Murdock. Lam, coming out."
He heard a grunt, and the hand and knife moved backward.
Just then the chopper began its run along the fence. Lam saw the figure on the other side of the fence roll several times away from the wire. Lam dropped to the ground rolled into a ball, and lay perfectly still. He was outside the direct beam of the powerful light, but it splashed to the sides a dozen feet.
Lam held his breath, expecting at any instant to be shot by a door gunner working a machine gun. The chopper moved slowly but didn't pause at the escape spot. Then it was past.
Lam wanted to run, but he walked to the lighted area, dropped to the ground, and crawled as slowly as he could stand it toward the fence, and the enlarged escape hole. It looked big enough.
It took him three minutes to cover fifteen feet. Headfirst, he decided. He turned on his back and worked his head under the wire in the little gully. Good so far.
He pushed with his heels. The MP-5 caught on the bottom of the wire. He pulled it to his side, and pressed forward again with his legs. The wire snagged his ammo pouch, then came off. A moment later he was under the wire, and crawling slowly away from the light.
Twenty feet later, he was in the darkness.
"You do fast work," Murdock said just behind him.
"Oh, damn, sir, you scared the shit out of me. How do you like my new uniform?"
"Iranian military, I'd say. Keep it, we may need it later on tonight. You found the place?"
"Roger that, sir. It's the one-story building down from that intensively lighted one. Eighteen guys in there. Three of them working on each of six different bombs. I have no idea how close they are to finishing anything."
"Kat will know. Let's get the hell out of Dodge City."
They hiked back the way they had come. For a minute Lam felt the tension draining out of him. He'd been higher than a comet while he was inside. What a fucking rush! He shook his head. Now it was back to work as usual. They had five miles to hike, then to get hidden for the daylight hours. He wondered when the Iranians would find the naked soldier in the closet. By then they would be wondering, but there should be no special alert. Somebody might just have been playing a joke on the soldier. At least that's what Lam hoped.
As they walked, he filled in his L-T on what happened. "Good work, Lam, We may keep you in the squad."
Lam grinned, and kept hiking. In two hours they should be back on the saddle, and find a hide hole. Yeah, and then some sleep. He suddenly was more tired than he could remember.
23
The helicopter with the Iranian flag on the sides made three sweeps across the barren saddle between the two mountains, hesitated as if for a third look, then drifted to the north and swept down a valley, and out of sight of the seventeen SEALS.
The sixteen men and one woman had plenty of time to hide from the chopper. This was the second time it had been over the area that day. Some SEALs had found crevices to lie in, and simply covered their body and packs with the camouflage cloth made of desert cammies material. It blended in perfectly with the surrounding brown and sandy colors.