“Yes, over them,” Murdock said.
Murdock and DeWitt picked up garments and put them on, then watched as the rest of the SEALs came in a side door and put on the latest in Iraqi workingman attire. They all wore some kind of hat to help disguise them. When the small civilian looked at Jefferson, he sighed.
“Sir, you’ll have to keep your face and hands hidden if you’re stopped by border guards or at a roadblock. We have very few Negroes in Iraq.”
Jefferson grinned. “Hey, I been hiding most of my life.”
Outside, the SEALs walked with the major to a small building where they would wait until dark. They had their equipment there, and each man inspected his weapon and his combat vest with its variety of deadly goodies and the float bag with the TNAZ. All of this would have to be out of sight during the drive toward Basra.
The major had brought along fresh box lunches for the SEALs. They ate them and waited. It wasn’t quite dark by 1800, when the SEALs were split up into the four cars. Four SEALs and a driver. They left the border just at dusk and spaced out a half mile apart. They all drove without lights. They went across the unmarked border at about the same time and saw no one. The driver, who spoke both English and Arabic, assured Murdock that there were Kuwaiti soldiers on guard along the border, but he wasn’t sure if Iraq had any or not.
“Never see none,” the driver said. He motioned with one hand. He drove an ancient Citroën. Murdock had his combat vest and his MP-5 submachine gun at his feet. The weapon was locked and loaded, ready to fire.
They drove for a half hour, then in the faint light, Murdock saw a car driving without headlamps come into the same track of a road that they followed.
“One of ours,” the driver said. He stayed behind so far that Murdock could hardly make out the other car. That must be the way they always did this, he decided.
“We ten miles across border,” the driver said. “Okay so far, okay?”
Murdock nodded.
A few minutes later, the car slowed from its whirlwind twenty miles an hour. The driver stopped the rig.
“Trouble ahead,” he said. “See lights? Roadblock. Never seen one out this far.”
“How many of our cars up ahead of us?” Murdock answered.
“One, just one. We number two.”
“Stay here,” Murdock said. “Jaybird, on me.” The two SEALs took their submachine guns and ran along the road for a quarter of a mile. They split then, one going on each side of the track for the last one hundred yards to the blaze of headlights that appeared twice as bright since they were the only illumination for ten miles around. They eased forward until they were twenty yards from the roadblock.
Everyone was out of the car. One Iraqi soldier held up a weapon and a combat vest. He shrilled in delight and jabbered something in Arabic.
Murdock looked around the lighted area. Two vehicles. Three men with weapons holding Ed DeWitt, three other SEALs, and the driver. Murdock didn’t have the Motorola on. He relied on Jaybird to know what he was doing. He sighted in on the first guard holding the SEAL equipment and squeezed the trigger. The silenced round took the road guard in the upper chest, punched him back a step, then he let out a small cry and crumpled forward.
Just after he fell, the second guard caught two of a three-round burst from Jaybird’s weapon. Murdock targeted the third guard and used three rounds to put him into the dirt of the roadway.
Ed Dewitt leaped forward, his K-bar out, and provided the proof that the three men were dead. He and the SEALs dragged the bodies off the road and into the desert fifty yards. They returned and drove the two patrol rigs forward the way their car was headed. When the car’s lights turned, Murdock heard their car approaching.
He and Jaybird jumped in the Citroën, and they drove forward.
“A small problem that has been solved,” he told the driver and the others.
“Yeah, damn small,” Jaybird said and took the magazine from his subgun and refilled it with fresh rounds.
Five miles down the track, the SEALs drove the Iraqi cars into the desert, then ran back and got on board their transport, and the convoy moved on.
An hour later, Murdock asked the driver how much farther.
“Depends how close we can get to Basra,” the driver said. “They have more guards out now. I don’t know why. Two, maybe three miles from the naval base.”
“That will be fine,” Murdock said. “Can you take back roads so we don’t hit any more roadblocks?”
“Not here. One road. Must take. Road goes along river. It’s a half mile to the right. We drive up the road as far as we can. Easier than swim upstream.”
Murdock nodded. They were passing houses now, strange brick and stone structures, then more of them. The road angled toward the river, and ahead they could see a blaze of lights again. The four cars still were not using headlights. Two hundred yards up the road, they came on the lead car stopped. The second one stopped as well. The driver of the first rig came back.
“Big roadblock ahead. Many men and guns. Best to go by foot now. Maybe along river in trees, most of the way to the naval base on this side of the town.”
The eight SEALs crawled out of the two cars. The last two sedans rolled up, and the rest of the men slid out.
“Let’s saddle up,” Murdock said. “Get on the vests and bring your bags of goodies. We’re infantry for a while. Beats swimming upstream. Lam, get out front twenty-five. River is to the right. Let’s stay in any concealment we can find. Let’s choggie.”
Alpha Squad fell in behind Lam and Murdock, and they headed for the brush along the river. Murdock had never seen the Euphrates, one of the fabled and historic rivers of the earliest of civilizations. Some say the Euphrates provided life-giving irrigation to the early city of Ur as far back as the twenty-ninth century B.C. That period of the Mesopotamians fascinated Murdock. The river itself began l,700 miles upstream in Turkey, came across Syria, and then through Iraq, before it joined the equally historic Tigris River to form the Shatt al-Arab.
Murdock pulled his thoughts back to the present. He was going to be up close and intensely personal with the river before long. They had decided to leave their rebreathers at the base. They wouldn’t need them for long, and they would be a hold-back if things got sticky on the way in or the way out. The closer they could hike to the ships, the less surface swimming they would have to do.
Lam dropped to one knee. The men behind him stopped, watching in all directions. Lam pointed toward the river, which was less than twenty yards away. Then the rest heard it: the single chugging of a small boat’s motor as it worked its way swiftly down the current of the river. None of them saw the boat.
After a brief pause, Lam moved ahead again. Ten minutes later, they could see lights ahead. Lam came back.
“Looks like security lights,” he told Murdock. “This must be the lower end of the naval base.”
“Check to see what kind of fences and guards they have.”
Lam faded into the night.
Murdock waved the men down.
Ten minutes later, Lam came back.
“Three sets of fences, lights, and walking patrols on the land. I saw no security of any kind in the water.”
“Let’s get as close as we can, then get wet,” Murdock told Lam. They moved ahead another fifty yards, then Lam angled toward the water. The river was wide and deep here. The Tigris came into it a short way above Basra.
The SEALs knew the routine. They would swim just under the surface, break water to breathe, then swim underwater again. When they passed the edge of the naval base, they would keep under the surface for as long as possible. Some of the lights splashed over into the water. Any guard worth his rifle would be checking the lighted water as well as the land.