Battleground (30 page)

“DeWitt. Move somebody up to see around the bend and put some rounds up the road. Ten or twelve. See if you get a reaction. Keep your fucking heads down.”

Murdock and Red kept easing forward. He heard the slap of the AK-47 rounds, then an answering chatter of the machine gun. Good. Sounded a lot closer.

“About a hundred yards,” Red said in his mike.

“Sounds right. Figure he’s on my side.” Murdock moved up again. The MG sputtered out more rounds down the roadway, where DeWitt must be baiting him. The sound helped cover Murdock’s cautious movements. When he figured he was twenty yards from the machine gun, Murdock went on hands and knees and slipped under and through the brush, trailing his AK-47.

He stopped suddenly. There was a small opening in the brush, and he could see the MG in the ditch with some fallen logs dragged in front of it as a shield.

Fifteen yards. Three men worked the weapon. One feeding in a belt of ammo. One on the gun behind its bipod
and resting the gun on the log. The third man looking around the barricade down the road.

Murdock stripped two fraggers off his harness, then changed his mind and used one HE and one WP. He pulled the pins on both, and threw the fragger first, then the white phosphorous grenade.

The fragmentation grenade hit six feet from the gunner, and bounced once on the soft forest floor, then rolled forward almost to the edge of the ditch four feet from the machine gun. Murdock threw the WP quickly. The HE went off with a deadly whump. The machine gunner slammed forward over his weapon. The ammo bearer was thrown sideways. Four seconds after the first explosion, the WP went off, showering all three with the sticky, unstoppable burning phosphorus. The third man took a dozen globs of the material on his uniform. He tried to brush them off, but they burned through the cloth into flesh and bone and kept on going. He screamed again and again, until Murdock had an open shot at him and put him dead in the ditch.

Murdock touched his lip mike. “Move up, we’re clear here.”

They had a brief conference in the woods beyond the three dead Kenyans. Red Nicholson came back from scouting up front. He said it was all clear for at least a mile ahead past another small hill and around the side of a little valley.

“How’s the ammo?” Murdock asked. Three of the men had used up their AK-47 ammo and discarded the heavy rifles.

“That damned AK really chews up the rounds in a rush,” Ron Holt said.

Most of the others had two or three magazines left.

“Ammo is going to be critical on this one,” Murdock said. “Use it, but with some caution. When we’re out, we’re out.”

“Anybody hit?” Doc asked. Nobody replied.

“We’re going to go double time now. Magic, how many rounds left for the big one?”

“Last magazine, and it’s getting heavy as hell. Find me a target, L-T.”

They went ahead on the trail of a road. Red stayed a
quarter of a mile out front now, keeping in touch with the Motorola.

Murdock kept them at the slow trot for a half mile, then went to a walk but with a long ground-eating stride.

They met Red Nicholson at the next corner. He pointed upward. The road took a long turn and headed up a sharp slope.

“See those figures on the road?” Red asked. Magic pulled out his McMillan fifty and looked through the scope.

“Oh, damn, yes,” he yelped. “I count eight of them.” He lifted the big weapon and looked for something to lean it across. Horse Ronson went on his hands and knees, and Magic dropped to the ground beside him and slanted the heavy barrel across Ronson’s back.

“Oh, my, yes, this is good,” Magic said. He had a ten-round magazine in the big weapon. He sighted through the scope and fired. At once he jerked the bolt to the rear and slammed a new round into the chamber.

He watched through the sight, and screeched when he saw the round hit between two of the men. He sighted and fired again. Then he fired four more times as fast as he could pull the bolt. He saw the men on the road scatter and vanish from his sight. He aimed once more and pulled the trigger, but he knew he was out of rounds.

“Give the bastards something to think about,” Magic said.

“You gonna dump the fifty now that you’re out of rounds?” Fernandez asked him.

“Shit, no. They might not buy me another one.”

They marched again. Nicholson had vanished around a bend ahead of them.

A half hour later, they climbed the long slope and came to the spot where the troops had been when Magic had fired on them. They found one man in the far ditch with half of his chest blown out. The .50-caliber round had almost cut him into two pieces.

Murdock checked his watch. Just after 1400. Should be five more hours of daylight. They had to get this wrapped up before dark, or they could lose the big man in the night and the wilderness.

They marched again. Red held his lead of three hundred yards. The road leveled out some, then rose again. They could see the footprints of the others ahead of them. Red figured there were no more than seven of them now.

It could be getting close to desperation time for the general plodding ahead. The big man must be out of shape. This hike would kill him. What would Murdock do in the general’s place? What? He’d make a stand. Find a favorable setup, and try to cut down the odds against him or wipe out the chasers. Murdock considered it, and watched the country on both sides of the road.

The woods closed in again, and Murdock watched closer. Red pulled back so he was one hundred yards ahead of the main body, where the men were still stretched out ten yards apart. That separation was basic combat technique. At ten yards a chance mortar round, grenade or machine gun couldn’t get more than one or maybe two men with a lucky hit or a sudden attack.

Murdock was tired of hiking. They had been going uphill now for what he figured was seven or eight miles, maybe more. Some kind of a bird called in the woods. Murdock frowned. He hadn’t heard any birds before. He studied the growth on both sides, then took a breath and relaxed.

That was when small-arms fire broke out on both sides of the road. The SEALs were in a cross fire. They hit the dirt, and returned fire on full automatic. The attackers were twenty yards ahead on each side so they didn’t shoot each other. Murdock felt a round tug at his shirt sleeve. Then he was down returning fire on full auto with the AK-47.

All of the SEALs, scattered as they were, had perfect fields of fire. The first incoming rounds did the damage. Then the eleven weapons all on full automatic cut a swath through the brush, and the SEALs heard two men scream.

Red came running down the road, but it was over before he got there. Ronson brought his machine gun into play, and riddled the left side of the roadway where he figured the rounds came from.

Ching used his M-4A1, and emptied a new thirty-round clip of 9mm parabellum rounds into the right-hand side. All
of the SEALs fired their magazines dry, and slammed in new ones.

“Hold fire,” Murdock said into his Motorola. The sound of the weapons trailed off. Murdock stared at the ambush. The general and his men had used their heads this time, waiting for the cross fire.

“Ed, check the left side. I’ll take the right. Everybody else cover us. If anybody in there fires a shot, blast them.” Murdock lifted up and charged into the brush. He worked ahead carefully, making as little noise as he could. Twenty yards forward he came on the death scene. Two green-uniformed Kenyan troopers lay sprawled in the grass and weeds. Both had been riddled by more than a dozen rounds. They’d had no protection to the front. He kicked the weapons away. Both AK-47’s had run dry of ammo.

“Clear right,” Murdock said.

“Clear left,” Ed DeWitt answered.

Murdock ran back to the road. He saw what he feared he might. Doc Ellsworth was busy. Murdock came up beside him where he worked on Horse Ronson. The big man grinned through what Murdock knew was searing pain.

“He took two rounds in his right leg,” Doc said. “Doubt if the bone is broken. He’d be screaming by now if it was. Guess that one round slanted off the bone and came out sideways. No more hiking for Horse.”

“Anybody else?”

“Yeah, me. Got a scratch on my left arm,” Doc said, and sat down suddenly. His face went white, and he struggled to stay sitting up. He shook his head.

“L-T, could you get me one of them morphine shots. Think I’m going to need one. Oh, one for Horse here too.”

It was ten minutes before they got Ronson to the side of the road in a trampled-down patch of grass where he could stay until they came for him. Murdock gave him a WP grenade.

“Hey, Horse, if you hear a chopper coming, pop that Willy Peter out there in the road and we’ll be sure to stop by.”

“Can do. Go knock down that General Fuck up there. Wanted him myself. Have to give him to you.”

Ronson wouldn’t let them leave anyone with him. They were down to eleven men. Doc came around and joked about almost passing out. Murdock wrapped up his left arm. Doc could flex his hand. He said he could shoot, and that was what mattered.

Murdock looked up the road. They were coming to the top of this particular hill. It looked as if the road went directly to the summit. Maybe that was the end of the road. It had to lead somewhere. The general might be down to three or four men. Which should make it easy, if they could catch the guy. He shouldn’t have much of a lead by this time.

Murdock saw Red Nicholson jogging down the sloping road toward him. He was out of breath.

“Might have something up front,” Red said. “Road goes right to some kind of a rock building, an old house or a fort. I know the general and his men are inside. I heard him yelling at them. It’s not more than a quarter of a mile ahead.”

1532 hours

Mountain country

Near Nairobi, Kenya

Murdock and Red Nicholson slid into brush at the edge of the road. Murdock had moved the platoon up in the brush to the closest place to the structure, which was fifty yards away across a grassy area. He looked at the sturdy rock building. It wasn’t a house or a storeroom. It had more the look of a fort. On the front he saw what could only be firing slots.

“Could have been a strong point early on when the British were here,” Red said.

Murdock nodded. “Makes it just that much harder to capture.” The platoon commander studied the structure again. Two stories, maybe thirty feet showing on the front side, slate or tile roof so it couldn’t be burned out. Six firing slots out this side. One regular-sized door that looked to be covered with an iron facing had been built into the center of the front. Outside the door was a pile of furniture. Murdock got his glasses on it, and froze.

“They’ve got a barricade outside the front door. Could be some rifles in there.”

Just as he spoke they heard two weapons fire, and rounds nipped through the brush around them.

Murdock got his MP-5 up. He’d taken the silencer off so it was good for a range of 150 yards. “Dig them out,”
Murdock said, and fired a six-round burst. The others began slamming lead at them as well, with the heavy snarl of the AK-47’s and the sharper sound of the .223 rounds from the carbines.

Automatic bursts came from the barricade. Murdock squirmed farther behind the cedar tree. He heard somebody bleat in pain, then fired again at the pile of furniture.

There were three more bursts of rounds from the front of the house. Then they stopped. Murdock saw the door open a foot, then close a few moments later.

“Hold fire,” Murdock said in his mike. “The gents have moved into their fortress. Who got hit?”

Ching spoke up. “Hey, just a scratch, not even a Baid-Aid needed. Not to worry. What’s next?”

“Take a look, Doc. That’s why we pay you the big bucks.”

Ellsworth worked over to Ching, and found a graze that had plowed up a half inch of flesh across Ching’s arm just below the shoulder. He put on some disinfectant salve, and then wrapped it with a roller.

“Ching is fit for duty, L-T. Just a graze,” Doc reported.

“Good. Ching, glad you’re still with us. Hey, no wonder the general wanted to get here,” Murdock said. “This place looks like a fortress. Red, circle around the whole thing. See if there’s any closer approach through the brush and trees. Check for any windows in back and look for more doors. See if they all have metal shielding. We’ve got three hours to darkness with any luck. Go.”

Red Nicholson bent over and ran through the brush. This was the job he had asked for in the platoon, and one he loved. A little thing like a slug through his left arm wasn’t going even to slow him down. He moved thirty yards in the heavy brush, then worked forward to where the growth thinned and then stopped around the top of this small hill. Evidently it had been cut down and dug out at one time. Now the new growth was starting to recapture the lost ground.

The side of the structure looked much like the front. Two stories, six firing slots, no doors or windows.

He crawled into the brush and circled around to the back.
The cover was sparser here, and he moved with caution. If they were any kind of soldiers at all, they would have lookouts at those firing slots.

Again he came up on the clearing. The rear was a little different. There were two doors, and two windows with close-set bars on them. He estimated the iron bars were only three inches apart. He saw one of the doors open. A man appeared briefly, threw out some water from a bucket, went inside quickly, and closed the door.

Red wondered if he should have shot the guy. No. He had no go on it from the L-T. He squirmed into heavy cover, and checked the last side. It resembled the other three.

The best place to attack would be the rear. It had the two doors, and grenades could be wedged between the window bars. The doors had the same metal facing, but a charge or two would send them flying off their hinges.

When Red returned to make his report, he found the ten men spread out in the brush facing the rock house. He gave his report to Murdock.

The platoon leader had his plan at once. He looked at Ed DeWitt. “Keep two men with an MG and AK-47. You’ll be the diversion. I’ll give you a signal on the Motorola. Gonna try those two doors in back. Keep up a good-paced fire, but don’t run out of ammo. How much you have left?”