"Now we get this outfit in gear and move down the road. We've got one more job to do."
They hit the downslope almost at once, and Murdock let Douglas turn on the jeep's lights. The road was old, not kept up, made of dirt and filled with runoff gouges and ditches. The going was slow.
After ten minutes, they had left the nuke factory behind and were coming to the first good-sized hill to their left. The road ran directly to what must have been a quarry of some kind. "Drive it right up to the wall," Murdock said. Kat scampered out. They had left the civilian at the opened gate, and saw him run back toward the main buildings.
"Get some TNAZ up here," Murdock called. Half the men still carried blocks of the powerful explosive. They brought it up, and Murdock placed it beside, in front of, and behind the jeep, against the heavy rock and dirt of the cliff overhead. He tied the charges together with primer cord, and stood there a moment taking a compass bearing.
"We'll be heading almost due south," he said.
Kat came up and nodded. "Bury the plutonium under hundreds of tons of dirt and rock. Yes, about the best we can hope for. Make sure you use enough explosive."
Murdock put four more quarter-pound chunks on the wall, then moved the people a hundred yards down the gully before he set the timers for ten minutes. He pushed the three timers to on, then jogged down to the rest of the group.
The explosion was larger than the one at the nuke assembly building. The sky lit up again. This time the blast came in the open, and sounded louder than a hundred 105 howitzers going off together. A few rocks flew through the air as far as the SEALS, but none of them was hurt.
"Doc, take a casualty report. Kat and I are going back to check on that explosion. We'll be back in five. Get the troops ready to travel, DeWitt."
They ran up to the still smoking and dusty side of the mountain. The rock slide extended fifty yards on all sides from where they had parked the jeep and its deadly load. There must be a hundred feet of rock and dirt over the plutonium. It could be dug out, but the Iranians would have to be sure that was what was under there. Kat figured they wouldn't bother.
"If they could get that much plutonium, they can get some more. At least we stopped them this time."
They ran back to the other SEALS, put on their gear, and kept moving down the valley.
"We'll get as far away from the place as we can while it's still dark," Murdock told the men on the Motorola. "Then we'll hole up during the day while they try to find us. Yes, they'll be coming."
"They don't have the chopper, but they do have a spotter plane," Douglas said. "We might ask Magic to shoot it down if they find us."
"I've got a suggestion. We're not going to need those damned Drager rebreathers for a long time. They weigh too much for us land-type SEALS. Let's ditch them here, and travel lighter. We won't worry about name brands now. Our job is to get our asses out of here and to the wet. I figure we have about fifty miles due south to the Gulf of Oman. There's supposed to be a sub out there somewhere waiting for us. Doc, find me."
Murdock heard the men unstrapping the rebreather units and dropping them. They could be tied to the U.S., but right then, Murdock wasn't worried about that. He had a platoon to get over fifty miles of enemy territory. He'd do it any way that he could.
They worked ahead in their usual combat formation with Joe Lampedusa out front, and then First Squad, with Murdock leading.
Doc Ellsworth came up and paced beside Murdock. "We have any casualties?"
"Fernandez took a round in the right arm. Not too bad. I got it treated, and wrapped up. He's fit for service. The sprained ankle hasn't been bothering whoever had it. Sterling got a graze on his shoulder, just a scratch. Band-Aid time.
"Magic is the worst. He has a round in his left thigh. It could have hit the bone, I'm not sure, but I do know the slug didn't come out. In way too deep for me to try to dig out the lead, That gives us three days at the most before he loses the leg. He tells me he can walk. Every step is hurting him. Not sure how much longer he can take it. I gave him two shots of morphine. It'll get worse every hour."
Murdock talked to his mike. "SEALS, we've been lucky so far. Some nicks and scratches and two bullet wounds. We have fifty miles to go, and when they figure out where we're heading, there will be all kinds of troops in here after us. Iran has over a half million men under arms, a good air force, a few naval ships, and a well-trained and armed army corps. They didn't have much up here at the plant, but you can bet your bottom babushka that they'll be coming after us now with everything they have. Choppers, paratroops, the works. We've got to remain as invisible as possible. No, Magic, you won't be trying to shoot down that spotter plane or any choppers. We're gonna dig a lot of holes on this one."
Murdock pushed the light on his watch.
"It's now 2136. We were on-site too long, but nothing we can do about that now. We have about eight hours of darkness to move our asses. We go at the speed of our weakest man. We didn't tap any kegs of water in there, so let's take it easy on drinking. We may have to make it last for two more days, No water between here and the coast unless somebody is good with a staff against a hard rock."
Murdock heard a few chuckles and figured they were the Bible students.
"Lam, keep us on a due south course unless a valley shows that will keep us out of climbing up and down these damn mountains. We can zigzag a little and make better time, so be it. Now, let's settle down and put in a good six miles an hour. Even if we can average four an hour, that will put us halfway to the bloody Gulf of Oman before daylight."
He dropped back and walked beside Kat.
"How's it going, SEAL lady?"
She grinned. "So far I haven't had to fire a shot. Maybe I'm a little disappointed. The bombs were not even half-done. They won't be able to salvage anything from those blasts to use for new bombs. We've put their program back at least a year."
"Good. Now, about you. When I talked about going the speed of our weakest man, I didn't mean you. Magic Brown has a shot-up leg. He'll slow us down. As long as he's conscious, he'll walk. They'll be coming after us, so don't lose your shooting eye. You'll have plenty of times to test it out before we get wet." Kat looked at Murdock in the Iranian darkness. He liked the gleam of determination he saw in her eyes.
25
General Reza Ruhollah had been outside his commandeered headquarters at the bomb plant and on his way to where his men reported a firefight was in progress with aggressors. He was furious.
"How the hell did anyone find us?" he had asked his major aide. Then he shook his head. "If they did find us, how did they get through our security? Call out the rest of the military guard. Do it now."
The major scurried away from the staff car where he had been talking to the general through the window. He headed for the nearest building with a phone.
General Ruhollah had just ordered his driver to head for the bomb assembly plant, when the gigantic explosion rocked the whole area and turned the night into a false dawn as one thundering blast roared toward him and then on past with a surging rush of gale-force wind.
"What in hell?" Ruhollah stepped out of the car and stared ahead. Two hundred yards away, flames lit the sky.
He bolted back in the car.
"Drive," he shouted. "Get to that fire. Now!"
The driver started the car and drove ahead. A block closer to the fire he had to jog around debris in the road that evidently had been blasted there by the explosion. Half a block from the fire the driver stopped. A truck lay on its side in the road where it had been blown from near the bomb assembly building.