No, Goldman was right. He didn't want to know about things like that.
He watched as one group of seven SEALs scrambled up the south wall of the fortress, a low and bomb-damaged barrier only about ten feet high, while another group of five slipped around the west side to approach the front gate in the north. Another Hezbollah sentry, standing on the south wall, was taken down, this time by someone wielding a knife from behind. Gordon winced as the blade slashed; blood, glowing hot yellow under IR imagery, stained the front of the Hezbollah guerrilla's uniform. The SEAL lowered the corpse to the stone surface of the parapet walk.
Frank Gordon was a trained and experienced military officer, used to the idea of sudden death on the battlefield. But his direct exposure had been from the combat command center of a submarine, where the enemy was represented as a sonar target designated Sierra and a number. He'd never seen a man killed before… certainly not taken from behind with the sweep of one arm, and instantly killed with a quick thrust-and-slice of a razor-edged combat knife. It was… disconcerting.
"This is the Bekaa Valley?" Gordon asked, trying to keep his thoughts from morbidly fastening on the sprawled corpse on the screen. "That's a hell of a long way inland. How'd you insert them. HALO?"
"No," North said. "Too risky. We took advantage of the fact that our Israeli friends have complete air superiority over southern Lebanon. A word to our counterparts with Israeli Military Intelligence, and they let us fly three Sea Kings off the Nimitz, bringing them in nape-of-the-earth right along the Lebanon-Israel border."
"The ragheads think the choppers are Israeli," an Army colonel said, "if they see them at all."
"The teams were put down in open country north of Marj'Uyun three hours ago," North explained, "at an LZ secured by a Ranger pathfinder team that infiltrated yesterday. They made their way on foot from there, about seven miles over some pretty rough terrain. Those SEAL guys are damned impressive."
"Almost as good as Marines, eh, Ollie?" Captain Rafferty said. They chuckled.
"E and E?" Gordon asked.
"Primary extraction point is right down the hill from Al Kufayr," North told him. "They call in the choppers when they have the package and the LZ is secure. Secondary LZ in case of trouble is two miles south, near Hasbayya. And they can always infiltrate through into Israel, and make contact with our people there."
"So… I assume the 'package' is a hostage."
"At least two hostages, maybe more," the Army colonel said. "Good, solid intel on this one."
"Good, solid intel" was always the big problem in this sort of op. In this case, it almost had to be from HUMINT— human intelligence — assets on the ground at the objective; a satellite or high-tech spy plane couldn't ID hostages in a basement prison cell.
Something bothered Gordon, though. "What about reprisals? There are twenty-four hostages, now. If you rescue two, won't the others suffer for it?"
"These are important hostages, Commander," Rafferty replied. "We get them out, we'll be able to bring pressure to bear on the Hezbollah terrorists who grabbed them. They won't dare hurt the others, for fear of a bad world press, and because we'll demonstrate our ability to hit them where it hurts, no matter where they hide."
Which left Gordon more bothered than before. Important hostages? What the hell were the criteria for determining which captives were important, which ones were not? As for bringing pressure to bear on their captors, that sounded like sheer wishful thinking. Hezbollah was just as likely to shoot a few of the prisoners still in their keeping, just to warn the United States not to try these sorts of cowboy tactics again.
Gordon was beginning to get a bad, bad feeling about the whole situation.
4
Randall was getting a distinctly bad feeling about this situation. He'd been on field ops often enough in his SEAL career to learn to trust instinct, that eerie sixth sense combat vets developed which told them when things were going down smooth, and when the op was turning into a cluster fuck. The rest of Second Squad had boosted one another up the ten-foot stone wall, and after taking out the sentry on the parapet, they'd slipped down into the enclosed courtyard beyond.
At the southeast corner of the compound, a ramshackle tower of tree trunks and planks rose twenty feet above the top of the wall. A Hezbollah gunman stood there, staring with a most unmilitary lack of interest off toward the east, cradling his AK-47. He'd taken no notice of the SEALs slipping over the wall almost literally under his nose, but it was time to guarantee that he remain oblivious to the stealthy infiltration. "Longarm, Alfa Two," Randall called, switching channels. "Gunman in the south tower. Time to reach out and touch someone."
"Copy, Alfa Two," GM2 Hernendez said. "On the way."
Hernendez and ET3 Lederer, the two remaining members of First Squad, were posted atop a hillside nearly a mile to the south. Hernendez was the platoon sniper, armed with a Barrett .50 and a light-intensifier scope that let him look into a target's eyes at two thousand yards. At that range, they never heard the shot when it was fired, save for the short, sharp crack of the bullet's sonic boom. It sounded like a falling rock or a bottle breaking against stone, not like a gunshot at all. The tower sentry's chest simply exploded suddenly in a spray of black, and the man's body slumped out of sight.
A Hezbollah guerrilla emerged from a warehouse, looking about as though searching for the source of the unusual sound. "Youssef!" he called. "Youssef, en—!" Neubauer took aim with his .45 and softly double-tapped the man down.
The SEALs rushed forward, cutting down three more men along the way. Four checked inside the warehouse while the other three stood guard outside. "Warehouse clear!" Kyzinski called, emerging a moment later. "Two more tangos down. Moving!"
"Alfa Two, Alfa One," Gallagher's voice said. "Front gate secure. Three down."
"Alfa, Starbase," another voice, the annoying one, said. "Walls and courtyard are clear. Alfa Two proceed to Objective Texas."
"Copy. Two moving."
A number of buildings and structures were scattered about the fortress courtyard, from the warehouse to canvas tents. Objective Texas was a large, two-story building growing out of the western wall, its roof stripped away by a recent air strike. The assumption was that the local Hezbollah militia had their headquarters here … and that there would be a basement or secure rooms inside where captives might be safely held.
"Alfa Two, Starbase. We have what looks like four guards in the big room behind the front door of Objective Texas. Suggest you check there for the cellar entrance."
"Copy, Starbase."
A swarthy, bearded man in crisp fatigues and a black beret stepped out of the front door and onto the building's front veranda, his eyes widening as he saw four black-garbed figures rushing toward him across the dimly lit courtyard. "Allah! " he cried… and then the word caught in his throat as a volley of sound-suppressed .45 rounds ripped into his body.
Randall holstered his pistol and slid his primary weapon off his shoulder. Holding the H&K SD5 high on his shoulder, he advanced up the steps and past the body of the fallen officer, keeping the heavy sound-suppressor muzzle aimed at the screen door.
A part of his mind noted that the dead man wore a more formal uniform than most of the Hezbollah guerrillas, and the silver badge on his beret. Syrian army, almost certainly… and that was not good.