Murdock saw two doors out of the room. He opened one slowly. Light poured in through two firing slots in the thick rock wall. No one was inside.
"Over here," Magic Brown said.
Murdock went to the second door that Magic had opened. There were stone steps set against the wall that led upward. Murdock closed the door softly.
"Anybody up there isn't coming down, and they won't give up easily. Any suggestions?"
"Grenades," Magic said.
"Yeah, sure, and what if it bounces around and falls down the stairs?" Nicholson asked.
"Flash-bang grenade," Jaybird said.
"Good, but we're out of them."
"One man go up them fucking stone steps quiet and cautious," Doc Ellsworth said.
"Who?" Murdock asked.
Nicholson shrugged. "Hell, gotta be me. You other guys would spook a herd of turtles."
Nicholson took off everything on his gear that would make any noise, hefted his M-4A1, and moved the rest of them to the other side of the room.
Then he opened the door soundlessly, slid through a foot-wide slot, and closed the door.
Red moved up one step at a time. The stone gave off no squeaks or rattles. He moved standing up, hoping that he could see over the floor level soon. He had on his NVGs and they helped in the nearly dark upstairs. Red wondered if there was more than one big room upstairs.
He crept up higher, but still couldn't see over the floor. He paused, listening. Nothing. Not a chirp of a cricket, or a bird, or a man wheezing or breathing loudly. Another step. Still not high enough.
One more step and he lifted on tiptoe so he could see over the landing. There was no wall beside the stairwell, just a three-slat board railing. He checked under the lower rail, and saw in the green-tinted light two beds without linens or mattresses, a pair of chairs, and a large closet. Slowly Red inventoried every square foot of the room. There was no one there.
Except maybe in the closet. He lifted up another two steps, and angled the carbine's muzzle over the wooden floor. He had taken the silencer off the carbine. Red triggered a dozen rounds, drawing a line of bullet holes two feet off the floor across the wooden doors of the five-foot-wide closet.
When the sound stilled, there were four more SEALS just behind him on the steps. He put six more rounds into the closet, then surged up the last three steps and charged the doors. One had opened an inch. He threw open the door, training his weapon on the inside.
Nothing was there.
He jerked open the second door, and found the same situation.
"Nobody up here, L-T. If there was somebody here, he squeezed through that six-inch firing slot."
Murdock pushed past the others and checked every corner of the one big room.
Nobody.
"Where did they go?" Murdock asked. "We know there was at least one more live one in here."
"What about that other fucking door downstairs?" Ching asked.
They ran for it. When Murdock got there, Ching was ready to kick in the door in the next room. He did, staying clear at the side. No shots slammed through the opening. He bellied down, and took a look into the half-lit room.
"Sonofabitch!" Ching bellowed. "This is where that second door comes out of the place. Has that other window, and the fucking door is open."
Murdock ran to the door and looked out. "Oh, shit. We didn't leave anyone outside to cover this door. We must have chased them around in a circle, and they hauled ass through this door. Nicholson, on the double."
Red spent ten minutes outside looking at the grass, leaves, and weeds just beyond the second door. He took off in a line directly in back of the building, looking carefully at the ground as he went. A minute later he returned.
"Okay, here's what we've got. I found tracks of four different kinds of boots. One set is deeper into the mulch than the others, which I'd figure is our fat general. They couldn't be ahead of us by more than twenty minutes. It's downhill from here. That fat guy is going to slow them down."
"Good, we'll go get them," Murdock said. He frowned. "Ammo report."
The three in front of the building were down to ten rounds each. The rest of the platoon members were on their last thirty-round magazines, except two, who had one more spare. The AK-47s were dry and discarded. They all had their belt pistols, the heavy HK special Mark 23s with two twelve-round magazines. "If we get down to fighting with our forty-fives, we're in shit city," Murdock said. He scowled and walked around a minute.
"This all means we're damn short on ammo," Murdock said. "We use it only when we have to. We have four more guys out there to waste, but we have to do it carefully. Let's go, Red."
29
The platoon scout headed down the trail of footprints leading from the now-benign rock fortress on top of the Kenyan hill. The remaining men in the Third Platoon followed stretched out at ten-yard intervals.
Murdock was in his usual place just behind Nicholson, and Ron Holt shadowed the Platoon Leader with his SATCOM radio. The trail wound through the woods, not along the road they had come up. It angled down a slope through heavy trees and brush, but Nicholson had no trouble following it.
At one point on hard ground with little vegetation, he had to do a small circle to pick up the trail, but he found it again and they moved out.
Ten minutes later, Red called for Murdock to come up. He pointed at the ground.
"Fuckers are finally getting smart. They split up. Two of them went each way. I'd say the general is on the trail to the right, but I can't be sure."
Murdock looked at the evidence, and was glad his tracker was along. "Ed, come up," Murdock said in his mike.
Ed DeWitt hustled up, and went on one knee beside Murdock.
"So?"
"Split up, two each way. You take your squad and go left. I'll take the right hand. We want them down before dark."
"How am I going to follow them? I'm no Indian," DeWitt asked.
Red showed him the bent-over grass, the broken sticks and twigs on the ground, the scuffed mulch. "These guys are in a rush and not trying to hide their tracks, L-T. You shouldn't have any trouble."
"Easy for you to say, kemosaby."
"Ed, you have four men?"
"Right."
"Take Doc with you. Nail these guys fast."
Ed called his men out, and they moved down the trail that slanted away at a ninety-degree angle to the other one.
Murdock nodded, and Red hiked out along the other trail. They had gone about two hundred yards through light trees when two weapons fired ahead of them on full automatic. Red Nicholson went down hard and rolled over.
The other four men hit the dirt, and returned fire at the location. The two weapons ahead chattered again on full auto, and bullets sang and ricocheted through the trees and brush. Murdock waved Magic Brown to swing to the left, and Ching to move right. The Platoon Leader and his men fired on the site for another minute. Then Murdock's command on the mike stopped the attack.
They waited. Two minutes went by with no fire from the front. Another minute, and Magic Brown came on the Motorola.
"Bastards are gone, L-T. Nothing up here but a pile of brass."
Murdock got his men moving. Red Nicholson hadn't been hit when he went down — just a precautionary move, as he called it.
He got back on his tracking mission. They moved ahead. Murdock evaluated his squad. They were beaten up. Ching, Doc, Nicholson, and Magic all had gunshot wounds. Ronson was out of it for now. Only he, Jaybird, and Ron Holt hadn't been shot up. He worried about it.