Murdock chuckled. “Bet he did at that. Let’s move out. Five-yard intervals, single file so we don’t leave too much of a broad trail. We’ll keep to the shoulder of the road until we get some traffic. Easier than hiking through this damn rain forest.”
An hour later, they had not met any traffic nor had any come from the rear. The military roadblocks evidently choked off everything. Another four miles, and they saw bright lights ahead.
“Roadblock,” Lam said after he made a quick recon.
“We go around it to the right,” Murdock said. “We don’t want them to know where we are.”
Two hours later, Murdock and Lam edged up to a small ridge top and looked down at the lights.
“Has to be it, Cap,” Lam said. “Small town setup. Looks like a bunch of civilian buildings taken over by the military. I’ve got some interior guards doing their beats. Military vehicles all over the place.”
“So where is the motor pool?”
“Don’t see it.”
Murdock agreed. “Let’s move around to the far side and see what they have there.”
Thirty minutes later, they eased up to the side of a road and looked slightly downhill at the rest of the military complex. It had swallowed up nearly half the small town. Barbed wire fences circled the buildings and open spaces. Beyond the fences, the houses and small business buildings looked strangely out of place.
“Oh, yeah,” Murdock said putting down his field glasses. “There they are. At least a hundred trucks lined up nose to tail on that lot.”
“Got them,” Lam said. “Could be another fifty in that big warehouse. It has a drive-through door.”
“Any trouble getting inside the fence and planting about twenty charges?” Murdock asked.
Lam chuckled. “Not unless all of our guys go blind and deaf.”
“Time is our problem. Not a chance we can get the troops over here and get the charges planted before daylight.”
“So we pull the men over here tonight, find a safe hideout, and wait out the white light.”
“About the size of it,” Murdock said. “Let’s move.”
It was a little after 0400 when Murdock looked at his lighted-dial watch again. Lam had found them a hide hole a mile back in the mountains from the camp. There were no roads nearby, no trails, farms, nor coffee plantations.
They kept two guards out, and the SEALs went to sleep. Murdock took the first guard until 0600, then would rouse Jaybird. It gave him some time to think.
His mistake so far on this mission was letting Captain Orejuela come along. A lucky shot? Sure, but somehow hot lead had a way of picking out the most vulnerable. It would be his last mistake on this detail.
He thought of the SATCOM. No use in contacting Stroh. He’d yell again about not using the 20-mike-mike, which they most certainly would. It was the most amazing small arms weapon Murdock had ever seen. It would soon set the standard worldwide for the best infantry weapon. He wondered if the makers of the system had the patents on the various components or if the U.S. Defense Department held the patent, since they had probably paid R&D money for the development.
Or had they? It was a competition. Were those financed by Uncle or not? Murdock didn’t know. He’d have to find out. Be damned uncomfortable if the Bull Pups went for sale on the open market. If so, he and his men would be fighting against those damn 20-mike-mike exploding rounds before long.
That brought up the wonder of how long he’d be in the SEALs. He had no desire to be in upper management. If he couldn’t be in the field, why be a SEAL? Sure, he could probably get to be XO of some team, then eventually the CO. That might fill out his twenty years. He had no aspirations to move up into NAVSPECWARGRUP-one or — two. So, he would be a field SEAL or back in the blue water Navy.
He was sure he could keep his field status as long as he stayed a lieutenant commander. If he ever was promoted to full commander, it would take a direct order from the CNO to keep him working as a field platoon leader, especially in this current platoon.
He had no idea when the sunrise would be in Colombia a few hundred miles north of the equator. By 0530, it was starting to look a little bright in the east, but it didn’t get much lighter by 0600 when he rolled Jaybird out of his slumber.
“Time to go to work,” Murdock told Jaybird. He mumbled something and tried to turn over, but Murdock sat him up.
“Come on, Jaybird. Rise and shine and smell the coffee. Only we don’t have any coffee and no fires so we won’t have any. You awake now?”
“Yeah, damn it.” Jaybird shook his head and pulled on his floppy hat. “Now, what’s the picture?”
“No change from when you sacked out. We hold here for the day, get all the sleep we can, and get into gear at first dark tonight. You have this end of camp. A Bravo Squad guard should be down there. Let the men sleep in as long as they want to. All they have to look forward to is MREs for breakfast and lunch. Do a two-hour watch and pick the next guard. We’ll want somebody on alert all day.”
Murdock waited until Jaybird made it to his feet, pulled his MP-5 submachine gun over his shoulder, and started looking around.
Then Murdock slept.
Ching woke up Murdock just after 1030.
“Sorry, Commander, but looks like we have some company not more than three hundred yards down this little canyon. Can’t make out what the hell they’re doing.”
Murdock took out his field glasses and worked up where he could see the visitors. The six soldiers he saw had long rifles, maybe AK-47s or the newer ones from Russia, the AK-74, which fired the smaller 5 .45-caliber whizzers.
“What the hell they doing, Commander?” Ching asked.
Murdock set his jaw and squinted at the invaders. “That’s what we have to find out before they blow our whole mission,” Murdock said.
12
Murdock heard something behind him and saw Lampedusa sliding in beside him with his field glasses up.
“Thought I heard something down there,” Lam said.
“How many troops?” Murdock asked.
They both studied the area.
“I’ve got six,” Murdock said.
“Three more just came from behind that brush,” Lam said. “Hey, these three have axes and a crosscut kind of saw.”
“That’s a stand of cedar they’re in,” Murdock said. “They aren’t after wood. Seems like they’re sizing up the cedars. Must need some long, straight trees, telephone poles or such.”
A moment later, the sound of an ax cutting into wood rang out in the forest. Ed DeWitt dropped down beside them. Murdock handed him his glasses.
“Company,” he said.
“Engineers,” DeWitt said. “Maybe they want to put up a quick bridge over a creek or small stream.”
“I’m not going to stop them,” Lam said. “I’ll bird-dog them. If they come this way, I’ll use the Motorola.
“Yeah,” Murdock said. “I could use a few more hours of sleep while I can get it.”
“That was an easy one,” DeWitt said as they walked the fifty yards back to their temporary camp.
“Yeah, if that’s all there is to it. What if they need more cedars and come up to this bunch we’re sleeping under?”
DeWitt grunted. “No way. They should have all they need right there, at least for those nine men to drag down the hill.”
The JG was right. The lumbermen cut down three cedars, trimmed them, and used a small tractor to drag them down the hill. Two hours later, the men were gone, and the forest took on the natural quietness of a few birds singing and the wind sighing through the treetops.
Murdock had the men up, MREs eaten, and ready to move a half hour before dark. Lam had drawn maps of the motor pool and set up the routes into the place.