By compass and GPS they moved another four and a half miles eastward through that, the bouncing of the vehicles causing pain to kidneys and, in Rattus's case, a bit tongue. They came at last to a steep sided bit of ground, small and most unlikely to be investigated. There they pulled the vehicles in tight against the sides and dismounted.
Leaving Wahab behind to guard the transportation, the other four, moving in single file, began the two thousand meter trek to the northeast. They left their gear, most of it, behind, carrying only their weapons and ammunition, dun-colored gillie suits, night vision devices, a GPS, personal communicators, and in Buckwheat's pocket a satellite phone.
The way led steeply up, past a thin dirt road. They crossed this by simply getting on line on the near side, listening for a few moments, then rushing across as one. On the far side they flopped down again, listening for several minutes after.
Hearts were pounding and not just from the minor exertions of walking and rushing.
"Okay," whispered Fulton, "now to the ridge."
The closer they came to that feature, the lower they walked, until finally, perhaps a hundred meters shy of it they went to hands and knees and began to high crawl. From there, they crawled all the way to it, to a point from which they could see the airfield below.
There they waited while Buckwheat flicked on his night vision scope, took a firing position, and slowly swept the scope's field of view across the airfield. He counted silently as he did, then again, just as silently, as he swept it back.
"I count six Hips," he said, "plus eight fixed wing, four of those jets."
"No change then," Fletcher said. Despite the plain and simple words, his voice held the passionate tone of a man about to make love to a woman he has long desired. "And I agree with your count."
"Good. Let's go."
On bellies now, the men crawled forward another two hundred meters to some rocks. There they stopped while Buckwheat used his world phone to send a brief, pre-set text message. The answer came back immediately, a text message that simply said, "Roger."
"You take this position," Fulton whispered to Fletcher. "Vic, let's go."
Those two then crawled, Buckwheat leading, to a different set of rocks perhaps one hundred meters east of the set they'd just left and about as much closer to their targets. There, once again Fulton used his scope to view targets.
"Fletcher, Buckwheat," Fulton whispered over his personal radio. "From left to right . . . engage."
D-Day, five miles north-northeast of Nugaal, Ophir
The airstrip was about six thousand feet in length, running east-northeast to west-southwest, paralleling the road that lay to the southeast about half a mile distant. There was a single, white, propeller-driven aircraft at one end of the strip, guarded by two armed men who seemed reasonably alert. Between the main road and the airstrip stood a large house-more of a palace, really. That palace was the objective. It belonged to the chief of Ophir, and leader of the Habar Afaan clan, Gutaale.
The palace was surrounded by a wall, at three to four feet in height more decoration and demarcation than defense. Built into the wall were two buildings. One of these was presumed to be servants' quarters, the other a barracks large enough to hold at least fifty men. In front of the palace were a couple of sedans, one commercial truck of about five tons capacity, and a few rattletrap hoopties.
The chief wasn't expected to be home, since this was only one of several palaces he maintained. According to Wahab's sources, and Buckwheat's confirmation, Gutaale's accountant, however, was.
From his prone position, overlooking the airfield, Welch scanned with night vision goggles. He could see the entire area well, or at least as well as could expected through image intensification.
"Grau, Semmerlin," Terry whispered, pointing at the two airplane guards. "There are two men there. They're not in range. So far as I can tell they're not night vision equipped. You two get in range-there's a decent firing position to our left-and take them out."
"Roger," Semmerlin answered, softly. "Come on, Grau."
Both men, like the rest of the team minus the already black translators, wore "Black-is-Beautiful," a creamy camouflage makeup that resembled nothing so much as boot polish.
Terry waited long minutes watching the two guards intently. Suddenly, one of them was thrown backwards, arms and weapons flying. A moment later the other one bent double violently before he, too, fell backwards. With the size and weight of the bullets the Russian arms fired, there was little likelihood of either of the victims living, or giving any trouble if they did.
And I never heard the shots, Welch thought. I love all Russian equipment.
The two snipers returned fairly quickly, taking their positions behind Welch.
"Gentlemen, well done," Terry said. "Now let's go."
D-Day, two hundred meters south of
Bandar Qassim Airport, Ophir
Thwupt . . . Thwupt. Buckwheat's .51 caliber rifle gave off barely a whisper. Not only was the bullet subsonic, the bullpup semi-auto rifle mounted a silencer about the size of four Foster's Lager cans, stacked one atop the other. It wasn't the most accurate rifle in the world, perhaps, but it was accurate enough for this.
Downrange, through his spotting scope, Vic saw chunks fly off the fuselage just above where the engine was mounted. Despite the low muzzle velocity of nine hundred and fifty feet per second, the nearly three ounce, solid bronze projectile was more than capable of ripping the guts out of a jet engine.
"I mark that as a kill," he told Fulton.
"Roger," the marksman said, adjusting his aim slightly left to the next helicopter in line. Thwupt.
"Kill."
"Roger." Thwupt.
"Miss," Vic said. "Change mags."
Buckwheat raised his firing shoulder up, keeping as much of a stock weld as possible, then reached over and dropped the empty magazine. Vic pulled that out of the way while Fulton pushed a fresh one into the well.
Thwupt.
"Miss."
"Dammit." Thwupt.
"Don't take it to heart; Russki quality control at the munitions factory is poor . . . Kill." Vic hesitated a moment, then said, "Uh, oh."
"Huh?" Fulton asked.
"I think you . . . "
He didn't quite finish the sentence before Fulton's last target started to burn. The fire began with a small flame. The flame became a jet as it heated the fuel behind it to a high pressure gas. From there, it quickly grew, locally, then began to spread as burning fuel spurted onto the ground.
Fulton keyed his small radio. "Fletch; Buckwheat. Screw subtlety. Service the targets fast."
From across the airfield, more than half a mile away, came a chorus of shouts as some scores of armed men began pouring out of a makeshift barracks. From farther away came a sound that, while strange to American ears, was almost certainly the siren of a fire vehicle.
D-Day, one mile north of Buro, Ophir
The engine coughed and shuddered once again before settling back, for the nonce at least, to a steady if anemic thrum.
This bucket won't make better than eight knots, Eeyore fumed, standing at the wheel he'd taken over from Morales once they were out of the harbor. We'll never make rendezvous at this rate.
The town passing to starboard shone a few lights. By the chart and the GPS Antoniewicz made it as being Buro, a nothing-too-much fishing village. It was not on the list of places the contingency plan would have had them hole up at to await a later pickup if everything went to shit.