“Coming up on it,” Murdock said to the lip mike. “Get all the firepower we can out the front. No twenty-mikes. I don’t know how they would work from a moving rig. We’ll open fire a hundred yards. Hit anything that moves.”
Murdock had the machine gun locked and loaded, ready to push out the window and whale away at the roadblock. He heard the men getting the other weapons ready.
“Two hundred so I’m slowing down. I see three guards, probably that many off duty sleeping. Slowing more. At a hundred and fifty.” He paused, then hit the throttle. “A hundred yards. Open fire.”
Murdock saw his rounds slam into the three sedans and some of the men. He pounded off six-round bursts until the belt ran out. By that time, they were on top of the defenders. He heard the weapons over his head slamming dozens of rounds at the roadblock. He couldn’t see anyone standing.
Then the heavy six-by rammed into the sedan on the right, which bounced off the thick bumper and jolted backward into the ditch. The big truck slammed through the opening and gunned on down the road.
Behind in the six-by, the SEALs turned around and fired at the roadblock they had just come through.
“No return fire,” DeWitt said on the radio.
“Cease fire,” Murdock said on the net. “I want a casualty report. Was anyone hit? Alpha Squad.” His six men checked in as okay. DeWitt took a roster rundown and found no new wounds.
“Ostercamp, how much gas we have left?” Murdock asked.
“Don’t think the gauge works, Cap. I’ve been watching the needle, and it says half full, but it hasn’t moved since we started. All we can do is drive her until she quits.”
“How far to the first Loyalist roadblock?”
“As I remember, about twenty-five miles. It’s a wide no-man’s land between the enemy lines down here.”
Ed DeWitt came on the radio. “Commander, how do we get into the Loyalist’s roadblock without getting ourselves blown to hell? I saw a rack of RPGs there when we came up. One of those rocket-propelled grenades into this rig, and most of us are going to be flying home in body bags.”
“No sweat,” Murdock said. “It’s about 0230 now. Another hour at most, and we should be there. We’ll stop off five hundred yards with our lights out and send Fernandez up to work past the checkpoint in the brush and come back to the road on the other side. Then he walks into the roadblock and with his Spanish tells them who we are and that we’re driving in with an enemy truck.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Fernandez said. “These jokers have a weird accent, but I can understand them.”
It went just that way.
By 0400, Murdock dictated a statement to Fernandez who translated it for the radio operator at the Loyalist roadblock. The message went to Colonel Paredes, informing him of the success of the campaign with an estimated 150 six-by trucks destroyed. He also reported that Captain Orejuela had been killed in action during the drive through an enemy checkpoint.
The radio operator nodded that he had sent the message and Fernandez looked at Murdock.
“What now, Cap?”
“Now we take a leisurely hundred and fifty mile ride back to Camp Bravo, have a big meal, and catch up on our sleep.”
The SEALs were all back in the truck and Ostercamp had just started the engine, when the radio operator came running out of the shack beside the roadblock. He handed a message to Murdock. It was written in Spanish.
“Fernandez, front and center,” Murdock bellowed.
Fernandez read the message in the headlights.
“Congratulations on your mission accomplished. Sorry about Captain Orejuela. Must ask you to make all possible speed to return to Camp Bravo. Have had a disturbing and threatening development here. We will expect you sometime this morning.”
The message was from Colonel Paredes.
Murdock looked at Ostercamp. “Did you get some gas from the trucks here?”
“Did that, Commander. The tank is full, and the gauge still reads half.”
“Good. We’ll need it. We have to get back to Camp Bravo as fast as we can. Don’t spare the horses.”
Murdock climbed in the cab, wondering what the hell had happened that involved them.
14
It was just past 1100 before the truck turned in at the main gate at Camp Bravo. Murdock had Ostercamp drive directly to the base hospital.
“Ed, get the men settled and weapons cleaned. Then they can hit the mess hall before they sack out. I’ll get Canzoneri and Jaybird treated and see you as soon as I can. Then we go see the colonel.”
Canzoneri winced but didn’t cry out as the medics in the hospital took off the bandages. They cleaned the wound, asked how old it was, and after treating it, stitched it up. The doctor didn’t speak English, and Murdock’s Spanish was as sketchy as the other SEALs’.
“¿Quando tiempo?” Murdock asked. The doctor frowned. A nurse going by paused. She said something to the doctor who brightened. He spoke to her and she nodded.
“He says he wants to keep your man here for at least three days to watch the healing,” she said in English. The wound was open for a long time.”
“Thanks, my Spanish is not good. Could I hire you as my personal interpreter?”
She was slender, in her mid-twenties, and with darting brown eyes. Her pretty face broke into a smile. “Afraid not. I have a lot of other work to do. Sick people, wounded men.”
The doctor spoke again. She listened and interpreted. “He says that your man will be fine, but he can’t go charging around like a wild man for a few days.”
She smiled. “Are you American SEALs wild men?”
“Does everyone in Colombia know that we’re here?”
She nodded.
“Well, to answer your question, usually we aren’t wild men. Now, I need to go see your Colonel Parades.”
She waved. “Hasta luego,” she said.
“That’s something about going in health. I’ll try.”
Murdock checked where a doctor had looked at Jaybird’s shot arm. He had cleaned the wound, treated it on both sides, and bandaged it again. He said Jaybird should check back in the hospital in three days.
At the colonel’s office, Murdock was shown in at once. Ed DeWitt and Jaybird Sterling sat in the outer office waiting for him.
“They stitched up Canzoneri. He’s on the shelf for three days.”
A lieutenant opened the inner door and ushered the men inside. One army major worked over the camp map at a side table.
“Gentlemen. Glad you’re back, and congratulations on your mission,” the colonel said. “I have sent condolences to Captain Orejuela’s wife. This new problem is a nasty one.
“Late last night, a small force broke through our exterior guards and attacked and captured our communications center. It is the heart of our operation. Without it we have only a few radios like the one we contacted you on.
“The insurgents may be rebels working with the federal troops or they may be an elite force of the federal commandos. We don’t know which. Come to the table.”
He waited for them to move over.
“The communications center is here in this concrete-block building. It is a fortress and was designed that way. It is three stories high, easy to defend, nearly impossible to penetrate.
“Heading the incursion is a man who calls himself Colonel Rafael Cardona. He is holding forty of our men and civilian employees inside the building as hostages. He has made demands, unreasonable demands. If they are not met, he says he will kill a hostage every four hours. This morning at 0800 he pushed a dead lieutenant out the front door and allowed our medics to pick him up. He had been shot. We’re not sure if he was killed during the takeover or executed.”