“Fine, Skipper. Just fine.”
Murdock put Mahanani beside him, and they took off in a column of twos through the woods and angled toward the valley ahead of them and the road. It would be much easier marching along the shoulder or on the blacktop than through the thick brush.
Murdock led them out at a four-mile-an-hour pace. He checked with the medic after a half hour.
“He’s keeping up, but he’s hurting, Commander,” Mahanani said. “Probably should drop it down a notch. I’d just as soon not have to carry him.”
“Done,” Murdock said. He sent word to Lam, who was out in front of the main body by fifty yards. The pace slowed.
They kept two hundred yards from the road, crashing brush as they went. Just when Murdock thought it might be safe to go to the blacktop below, a vehicle came boiling down the road. It had a machine gun mounted on it and every hundred yards, it blasted a dozen rounds into the brush. It worked alternate sides, then sometimes hit the same side three times.
When the rig was opposite them, the gunner turned the weapon toward their side of the road and fired off two six-round bursts.
The singing lead went high over their heads, but the SEALs had flattened to the ground with the sound of the first round. They stayed down as the jeep moved on down the road, the MG yammering again and again with wasted rounds into the brush.
They had been up and moving for ten minutes when the speaker came on in Murdock’s ear.
“Skipper, I need ten minutes with our Petard guy. The wound broke open.”
Murdock stopped the march, spread out the troops, and went back to see how Canzoneri was doing.
“No sweat, Commander,” Canzoneri said. “Just a little blood came out and doc here got in a panic. Hell, I’m good for another thirty miles.”
After the hospital corpsman had rebandaged the knife slice, Murdock talked to the medic.
“Mahanani, you still do that hypnotism?”
“Sure. You think now is a good time?”
“The farther we can get away from the federales out there before daylight, the better. Would Canzoneri be a good subject?”
“Never can tell. I’ll ask him. He’s smart enough to know how it would help him.”
Canzoneri grinned when they told him.
“Hell, yes, give it a try. Never been put under, but I’ve heard a lot about it. Then I could hike normally and it wouldn’t hurt at all?”
“About the size of it.”
“Let’s do it.”
Canzoneri seemed to struggle against the hypnotic suggestion, but after five minutes, Mahanani had him under.
The march continued. They moved back to a four-mile-an-hour pace. When Canzoneri kept up, Murdock moved the speed up a notch.
A half hour later, the machine gunner on the enemy truck came past. This time, he fired on the other side of the road and the SEALs breathed easier.
Murdock took them down to the road, and they jogged for two miles without meeting any traffic. The nighttime curfew on travel worked to the SEALs’ advantage here. An hour later, they saw the machine-gunning rig headed their way, and they slipped into the brush and behind a small hill for cover.
Ed DeWitt dropped down beside Murdock. “Hey, you been thinking about that roadblock up ahead?”
“Some.”
“Seems like a good time for a little share-the-ride time. We should be able to move in and take out the personnel, then borrow one of their vehicles and charge right through that second roadblock down the way.”
“Sounds good, JG. Your idea, your mission. How far you figure the roadblock is?”
“My guess is about four miles out. I’ll stay with Lam out front and watch for it. We should hit it from both sides at a forty-five angle. Be surprised if they have more than six men on the block. We’ll tell the men not to shoot up the vehicles.”
“Let’s move it,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “Same formation. The JG will be out front with Lam.”
They saw the roadblock after three miles hiking on the blacktop. There had been no more motor traffic. Lam took them into the woods a quarter of a mile from the block, and they made their plans.
Ed DeWitt took his squad to the left-hand side of the lights on the highway, and Murdock kept his on the right. They stopped forty yards from the block and set up firing positions.
“We’re looking for one of those rigs for transport,” Murdock told his men. “Lots faster than walking.”
“Then we blast through the next roadblock?” Ronson asked.
“That’s the plan, unless we can fly over it. We’ll fire on Ed’s first rounds. Remember, don’t damage the vehicles.”
There were three of them. Two sedans and an older-looking six-by that blocked the center of the road. Murdock hoped it would still run. It must if they drove it out here.
Ronson had his H&K 21-E machine gun set up and ready. Bill Bradford had his PSG1 sniper rifle ready. The Pups would be on single-round fire.
“Let’s do it,” DeWitt said on the radio and fired his G-11 caseless-round submachine gun. A heartbeat later, the rest of the SEAL weapons opened fire.
Murdock made five men at the site. All five went down in the first volley.
“Hold,” Ed called on the radio.
One man dove out of the cab of the six-by and ran for the brush. He didn’t make it as three SEAL rounds dug into his body and sprawled him in the leaves and grass.
“Quinley, take a look,” DeWitt said. The smallest man in the platoon at five-nine held his caseless submachine gun at port arms and charged into the scene. He kicked two of the bodies, fired into two more, and checked out the two sedans and the truck.
“Clear front,” Quinley said.
Ostercamp ran ahead of the rest of the squad to the six-by and checked it out. He tried to read the gauges in the dark, then turned on the key and tried the engine. It ground over twice, then on the third try kicked over and settled down into a gentle roar.
“Pick up any weapons and ammo you can find and put them in the six-by,” Murdock instructed. “Somebody search those two sedans.”
Two minutes after the first rounds hit the men at the roadblock, the SEALs were loaded into the truck and Ostercamp drove it south down the road.
Murdock sat in the front seat with Ronson’s NATO round machine gun. “Cut slots in that canvas so you can fire to the front over the cab,” Murdock said on the Motorola. We’ll need all the firepower we have when we roll into this last roadblock. They might have been alerted by radio from the main camp.”
“We figured it was about twenty miles between the roadblocks,” Ostercamp said before Murdock asked him. “We’re doing about forty miles per hour. So, should take us about a half hour to get there.”
“Good, we’ll be ready.”
They drove without lights. Ostercamp said it was no problem.
Murdock used the mike. “Hey, Canzoneri, how are you doing?”
“He’s sleeping right now,” the platoon medic answered. “I told him to get some rest. He’s still under. I can bring him out any time you want.”
“Let’s keep him that way until we see if we can get through this next roadblock with our wheels intact.”
“That’s a roger, sir.”
Twenty minutes later, Ostercamp motioned ahead. “I can see the roadblock. Looks like they’ve got a fire going and some headlights on. They can’t see us yet. Because of the lights, they’re night blind up there.”
“Turn on our lights and keep going. Start slowing down like last time when you’re about two hundred yards off. Then, at a hundred yards, floor it, and we’ll open fire.”
“Roger, that. Not sure if they have a truck or not up there or maybe three sedans. Yeah, that’s more like it. One sedan right in the middle of the road. I can take out the one on the right and blast it back off the road.”