Murdock and DeWitt watched the rest of the men go through the outside door, then went to the connecting door into their equipment room. Six SEALs stood there with grins all around.
“Hot damn, we’re gonna get some action after all,” Canzoneri said.
“Eavesdropping?” Murdock asked as he came through the door.
“No, sir,” Jaybird said. “Just watching the TV from way over here. That colonel has a parade-ground voice, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, we’re going into the West Bank,” Donegan said.
“Holy shit, we’re gonna kick Arab ass,” Frank Victor shouted.
“Holy shit?” Lampedusa asked. “The Pope been using our latrine again?”
Bill Bradford whacked him with his floppy hat.
“So what do you think, Commander?” Senior Chief Sadler said. “We going to get into some heavy action here?”
“Looks like it, Senior Chief. We better be sure we’re ready. Like the man said, 0800. You guys get chow? Did DeWitt and I miss it?”
“Oh, we chowed down, Commander,” Franklin said.
“Figured,” DeWitt said. “Can we run a tab on Stroh at the officers’ club?”
“Let’s try.”
14
Murdock lifted up at the edge of the wadi until the soft gray, civilian-type hat showed enough so he could get his eyes up and see over the sand and rocks. Ahead of him were two houses, both with hundreds of bullet holes in them. He saw someone in one window and no other sign of occupants. He dropped down and used his Motorola. “Force One, I have one terr showing in the window of the first house. That’s just one terr that I can see.”
“This is Force Two,” his earpiece responded. “We see more than a dozen armed men behind the first house. They’re trying to suck you into a trap. Abort scouting mission. Instead, open fire with three of your twenties with airbursts at each side of the house. Weapons are free.”
“Twenties one and two take the port side, three and four the starboard. Fire when ready, one round each.”
Murdock waited a moment. “Simulating the firing of four twenties on the first house. Over.”
“Half the force behind the house is down. Let’s move out Force One and Two with assault fire on the first house. Over the top, now!”
Murdock waved his arm forward and his mixed Force One of Six SAS men, sixteen SEALs, and ten Israeli Special Ground Forces charged over the top of the wadi, formed into an assault line, and began firing as they walked forward with a relatively straight line. After fifty yards, and when they were fifty yards away from the first house, the command came on the radios to charge forward running and firing.
They ran, and the line bent and angled and then straightened. Quickly the men came to the house, stopped their assault fire, and used fragger grenades through empty doors and windows. Then on radio command, the two forces of thirty-two men each surged inside the six-room, two-story house and cleared each room in order using flash-bang grenades, then rushing into the rooms. Murdock waited for the report. He had it twenty seconds later.
“House one clear,” Ching reported.
“Four minutes and thirty-two seconds,” a new voice said on the Motorola. They had been reprogrammed to the Israeli personal radio frequency. “Not bad, a bit off our usual standard, but we didn’t kill any of our own chaps. So, good show. We’ll assemble in the living room for a final critique.”
Murdock went into the large room with the others. He looked at his hands and arms. They and his face had been given an instant three-week suntan, a soft shade of brown the makeup artist said would fade out and be gone in six weeks.
The critique by Colonel Ben-Ami took fifteen minutes and covered everything from the way they entered the sedans, to the timing on the flash-bangs and the assault fire. When it ended, Murdock decided he hadn’t learned anything new and that he and his platoon could work well with the other professionals they would be fighting beside. He had hardly recognized some of the SEALs when they put on their Arab clothes. They had been wearing them for two days now. None of his men had on wigs, but half of them had their hair dyed dark black. It would grow out, the hairdresser said. Or if they washed their hair every day after the current assignment was over, the black dye would fade out in two weeks.
Murdock looked back at Colonel Ben-Ami at the front of the room.
“This is our last training session,” the colonel said. “I think the past four days have been worthwhile. Gives us practice working in our new uniforms if nothing else. Some of you still look a little self-conscious about your Arab clothes. That will be gone when you’re on an Arab street with lots of Arabs around you. So, we will have a briefing at 1900 in Building 54. Our civilian transport will leave just after 2200. Remember, no wallets, papers, letters, anything that could identify you on your person. Each of you will have well-used Arab identification papers, the usual for this area, and three hundred in used dinars in case you get cut off or somehow entangled. For you Yanks, a dinar is about the same as a U.S. dollar, worth a little more actually. Are there any questions?”
“Once the target is taken down, how do we find our transport back to Ramallah?” an SAS man asked.
“Your six- or seven-man squads will each have a designated sedan. The sedan will be left near the target. After your independent mission is over, move back to the sedan for a ride home. There shouldn’t be any real trouble. If there are roadblocks, you will be dispersed enough going home to prevent any connection. Just use your identity papers, and you should be fine.”
“If not, do we shoot our way through the roadblock?”
“That will be a field decision that the senior officer or man in charge in each sedan will have to make. We’ve been over the assignments of each squad and the timing of each of the actions. Is there any man who does not know the number of his squad, who his squad leader is, and what his squad has as its primary mission?”
No hands went up. There were seventy-six men crowded into the room. Thirty Israeli special ground forces, thirty SAS Britishers, and the SEALs. Two Israelis went with each of seven four-man SAS squads. Three Israelis went with each of five SEAL groups. Four groups had three SEALs each, and one had four SEALs. It made up twelve fighting units, each with its own target and commander.
“No one has asked about wounded,” the colonel continued. “We have inclusive medics; however, there are not enough for each six- or seven-man squad. If you have a medical emergency, use your radio and give your location and ask the closest medic to report to you. Best we can do. Remember this, we leave no one behind. We leave no wounded, no dead, and certainly do not allow ourselves to be taken prisoner.
“We have been over our assignments a dozen times. They should be memorized and letter perfect. This is not a sequential type of attack. No one squad depends on another doing a task before it can do its work. Once your job is done, ask if anyone nearby needs help. If not, haul ass and return to your transport and drive out of the area. We do not expect any concentrated resistance from the Arabs.
“You have seen the mix of our squads. This is for security reasons. Six SEALs with no one speaking Arabic would be totally lost in the middle of this situation if, for example, their transport failed. We have put three Israelis with each SEAL squad, and we have also put two Israelis with each of the SAS squads. So far, it has worked out well. Our Israeli Mistaravim members are adequate to fluent in Arabic, and that could be a lifesaver for a squad that is cut off or in trouble somewhere. We hope that it is a precaution not needed.”