It worked that way. Murdock could see the air cushion craft spray sand as they charged across the beach and spewed Marines out in all directions to lay down protective fire.
The LCUs hit the beach, the front ramp came down, and 250 Marines charged from each boat through a foot of surf, onto the dry sand, and into the brush. Behind them, from each LCU, rolled an M-48 tank, its big gun swiveling as the gunner checked out possible targets. Murdock heard one of the tank’s cannon fire before they were out of sight of the beach.
The coxswain grunted as they put more distance between them and the fighting. “Hey, I’m not used to getting shot at. I’m a blue water sailor.”
Murdock tried the Motorola. “DeWitt, any casualties over there?”
He made the transmission twice, then checked his own guys. Nobody had any new hurts.
“Lam, how’s that shoulder?” Murdock asked.
Lam had to shout over the sound of the RIB’s motor. “Yeah, I know it’s there. Think it busted open. No sweat.”
“Get to the medics as soon as we hit the carrier. I want them to check out Adams and Franklin, too. Not taking any chances you guys won’t be around for the big one.”
“What’s the big one?” Jaybird shouted.
Murdock shrugged. “Damned if I know, but we’ve had three or four little jobs on this vacation time. There must be a big assignment for us out there somewhere. I want everyone to be ready.”
11
Don Stroh threw down the printout and glared at it. Murdock picked it up and started to read it.
“Straight off the Reuters News Service Web page. As of today, all Western nationals will be excluded from Iraq. All United Nations employees, workers, and volunteers will be put on planes and shipped out of the country. The Iraq Department of Commerce has totally and unilaterally canceled all agreements about imports and exports. Iraq will sell oil to anyone she wishes, anywhere in the world.
“In short, Iraq is declaring war on the U.N. and the Western powers and is defying anyone to do anything about it.”
“That’s a hell of a bold step for a small country like Iraq,” Murdock said.
“But she has one strong bargaining point. About ninety-two billion barrels of oil reserves in her country just waiting to be pumped, loaded, and shipped.”
“Sure, but one aircraft carrier sitting right here at the strait can stop any Iraqi tanker that comes this way, or any tanker we know is hauling embargoed Iraqi oil.”
“If we’d do it,” Stroh said. He flopped into a chair in the SEALs’ assembly room. “Hell, we knew Iraq could do this at any time. So far, we’ve been able to keep her in chains. Now Saddam is smashing those chains.”
A sailor came into the room, looked around, and spotted Stroh. He hurried over.
“Mr. Stroh, a call for you. I’ll have it transferred to the phone in here.”
“Oh, damn, what the fuck has gone wrong this time?”
He went to the phone and soon was talking a little and listening a lot. After more than two minutes on the phone, he nodded, said something more, and hung up. His hand held the phone on the hook for several seconds, then slipped off as he turned and walked back to Murdock.
“Saddam took the next step. We’ve just had word that he now rejects all U.N. agreements and operations on the no-fly zone. He says he will defend the territorial integrity of all of Iraq. Any foreign military aircraft flying over any part of Iraq will be shot down without warning.”
“I bet that damn Saddam is a poker player,” Murdock said. “He sure knows how to up the ante. Any reports from the no-fly zone yet?”
Stroh shook his head. “No, but we have planes in the air patrolling that large no-fly zone. It won’t be long.”
Two F-16s with U.S. Air Force markings slanted along the top border of the Iraqi no-fly zone. Captain Archer Smarthing kicked the Fighting Falcon over into a roll and checked his radar. Nothing ahead. He’d been on thirty-two of these flights and had to chase only one Iraqi MiG back over the line to the north. Sometimes he wondered how valuable this service was.
He knew the Kurds appreciated it, but it took a lot of manpower and aircraft to do the job. He looked over at his wingman, Jeffrey Smith, and waved. They rode in tandem part of the time, then split off for checking the rest of the envelope they had as their responsibility.
Still nothing showing on radar to the front.
If the Iraqi planes intruded, it usually was from due north. The plane-to-plane radio jolted him back to reality.
“Arch, I’ve got three blips coming hard from the north,” his wingman, First Lieutenant Broderson, said. “Looks like we’re going to have company today.”
Captain Smarthing swung his craft more to the north. There they were on his screen, coming fast. They were already over the line into the no-fly zone. “I see them. You go left, I’ll go right,” Smarthing said. “Let’s give them a reception.” He moved the controls only a little and the Mach 2 craft slammed to the right, raced around in a wide arc, and slanted at the invaders from the side. He saw the missile shoot almost when it left the Iraqi MiG. He hit the chaff button to disperse a false target for the missile and did a second sudden turn, then came in behind one of the MiGs. He maneuvered carefully and had the plane in his crosshairs and a lock.
He hit the firing button and felt the AIM-9 Sidewinder drop off the wing and slam forward, trailing a white plume of condensation. The nine-and-a-half-foot-long rocket leaped ahead of the plane at 2.5 Mach, slanting in on the tail end MiG in the group. The target must have shown a missile warning and began to maneuver, but before it completed the first turn, the Sidewinder hit it just in back of the wing. The annular blast fragmentation warhead wrapped in a sheath of preformed rods, exploded with a shattering roar, and triggered the detonation of three Iraqi missiles under the wing. The combination of explosions blasted the MiG into wheelbarrow-sized chunks of scrap metal and bloody body parts that began their long fall to the desert below.
“I’ve got trouble!” Lieutenant Broderson shouted on the radio. “Two of the bastards. I’m going low and fast. You see them?”
Smarthing scanned the sky but couldn’t find his wing mate. He checked the radar screen and moved around, hunting them. Then he saw a flash of sunlight off metal to the west, and he angled that way. Soon he had the three blips on his screen. He targeted the front plane in the trio but received back a friendly signal. The last two were his targets.
He judged the distance and hit the afterburner to catch up, but before he could get into a good firing position, he saw a flash of light in the sky.
“Broderson, come in. Broderson, where are you?”
There was no response. The two MiGs put on their own afterburners and jolted away to the north. He was in no position to follow them. He kept searching the sky and at last found a black cloud slowly rising. Far, far below he saw what was left of an aircraft impacted into a dry gulch in the desert floor. There was no parachute. He slanted down and overflew the wreck. He found one part with the white star on a blue circle, the insignia of the U.S. Air Force. Smarthing swore for two minutes, then climbed back to his assigned altitude.
He switched frequencies on his radio and contacted his home field. “Mother Lode, this is Sweet Sixteen One.”
“Go, Sixteen.”
“Just tangled with three Iraqi fighters. I shot down one of them, the other two jumped Broderson and they splashed him. No chute. I just flew over the crash. Not much left of the plane.”