“This one first. Two grenades through the door if it’s open.” He pointed to his two Mistaravim buddies. They charged the door. One swung it open outward and they both fragged it. When the hot shrapnel stopped flying, they charged inside with flashlights on and held away from their bodies. A moment later they came out.
“All clear,” one said. “About a hundred tons of explosives in there. Blow the top right off this box when it goes up.” Per left them to guard the outside of the closed door. The rest charged the next bunker to their right. The door stood open. Murdock and Ching threw in fragger grenades. When they exploded, the two SEALs charged inside, with their small flashlights on and held away from their bodies. One submachine gun chattered at them. Ching swore and answered with six rounds from his MP-5. Both Murdock and Ching dodged behind wooden crates that usually held rifle ammunition. They heard movement beyond them. Murdock threw a box across the bunker and lifted up with his Bull Pup on the small bore. When the box hit, two weapons fired from chest high toward the back of the bunker. Both Ching and Murdock fired at the muzzle flashes, four sets of three rounds each. When the tremendous sound died down in the cavelike area, neither SEAL could hear a thing. They touched, and shone their small flashes on grenades. Murdock nodded. They both threw the hand bombs at the far end of the forty-foot-long bunker. When the blast sound died away, Murdock thought he heard a groan, then a scream.
They moved forward down an aisle in the bunker through stacks of boxes that could be holding mortar rounds, grenades, or more small-arms ammo. Halfway to the back they stopped. They were moving by feel now, not using the lights.
Murdock touched Ching, held up his flash over a stack of wooden crates, and aimed it at the back of the bunker. There was no response. The two SEALs both used lights and charged down the aisle between the closely stacked boxes. At the back of the bunker they found four men, three of them dead. One man lifted up his hand; his other hand held his bloody chest. Ching put one round through his forehead. They made a careful inspection of the whole bunker using the lights. No more terrorists.
Out front, they found that Per and his other Israeli had cleared the third bunker. They met outside the fourth one. Another Israeli guarded the cleared bunker. Ching leaned against the one he had just helped sanitize.
Per asked Murdock what was in his bunker, and nodded when he heard. “That leaves this last one to hold their C-4, sixty-percent dynamite, and a whole mess of RPG rounds.”
Vinnie Van Dyke moved out and checked the door. It was locked from the inside. The three moved back thirty yards, and Murdock put a twenty round into the door, blasting it back inside the bunker. A half-dozen shots snarled from inside the bunker and hot lead slanted through the door.
“Could be a dozen in there,” Murdock said. “Maybe we don’t have to go in.”
Sergeant Per looked at him. “You have your two pounds of C-4?”
Murdock nodded. He took the C-4 out, wrapped the quarter-pounders together with all-purpose green tape, and pushed a timer detonator into the pliable plastic explosive.
“This should give enough bang to set off everything else in that cave,” Murdock said. “If the RPG rounds are in wooden boxes, they might survive, unless there’s a fire hot enough to burn the boxes and set them off. You ready, Sergeant?”
The Israeli grinned. “Been waiting six months to get ready,” he said. “Blow it when you’re ready. We’ll be over behind the other bunker.”
Murdock ran up beside the fourth bunker with the live terrorists inside. Sergeant Per used his radio.
“We’re blowing bunker number four. Get in back of the other bunkers and watch your heads. It will be a real whammer.”
Murdock set the timer for ten seconds. He hoped the terrorists were far enough in the rear of the bunker so they couldn’t find the bomb and throw it outside. He took a deep breath, figured his retreat line, and punched the activation lever on the detonator. He held his arm out and threw the bomb into the bunker, then ran like hell for the next bunker and slid around the side of it. No sweat. The big boys could do a hundred yards in ten seconds.
He counted down in his mind without knowing it. “Three, two, one.” The first explosion was dwarfed by a thunderous, billowing, shattering roar as the top of the bunker shattered and blew out in all directions. The giant explosion sucked into its maelstrom all the air in the vicinity, leaving the six men gasping for breath. Then in a fraction of a second, the vanished air was replaced with a massive, swirling tornado of hot gases, smoke, and air as the explosion surged outward in one stupefying avalance of horrendous blasts that spun the attackers around and dropped them into the West Bank sand and rocks.
Murdock shook his head to clear it, then lifted up on his hands and knees and picked up the Bull Pup he’d dropped. He peered around the side of the bunker when the final gusting blasts passed it and tried to see the exploded bunker. All he could see were a few vertical concrete columns towering over a hole in the ground that was now twice as deep as it had been seconds before.
Sergeant Per slid up beside him and took a look.
“Bingo. Won’t have to worry about that C-4 in the middle of Jerusalem. Now about the other three.”
Just as he said it, he saw a column of three headlights racing toward them over the desert. They were still a half mile away.
“My meat,” Murdock said. He steadied the Bull Pup, put it on the twenty barrel, and lasered in on the first oncoming lights. They were moving at a narrow angle toward the bunkers. Murdock lasered again, then fired. The first round was slightly to the left and hit where the vehicles had been. Murdock adjusted, lasered into the path of the lead rig, and fired another twenty. This time the airburst was close enough to send the rig spinning off the road and crashing into the shallow ditch.
The second and third rigs had wider-set lights. The trucks both slowed and Murdock’s next round nailed the second one, killing it in place and blocking the road. The third truck moved cautiously into the shallow ditch to go around it. Murdock aimed directly at the headlights and fired. The contact round hit just at the top of the radiator and exploded with a fury. The rig stalled, then the engine caught fire, and a moment later the fuel tank exploded.
Sergeant Per shook his head. “Sweet Mother, when can I order a hundred of those rifles? We need them. It makes any walking soldier into a slow-moving tank. We could use about a hundred of them and twenty thousand rounds of ammo as soon as you release it for sale.”
He shook his head again. “We have three more bunkers to blow.”
Before any of them could move, a machine gun rattled out two bursts of nine rounds each, slamming through the bunker area and thudding into walls and roofs.
The team of six dug into the ground.
“Well, now,” Murdock said. “Looks like we’ve run into a small complication we didn’t figure on.”
15
Murdock looked up from where his face pressed against the sand and rocks of the West Bank ground. The machine-gun firing paused, and the six men darted for cover behind the nearest bunker.
“Sergeant, we’ve still got three bunkers to blow,” Murdock said. “You get them done and I’ll slow down the visitors.”
“Right, Commander. You used your C-4. We have plenty. Don’t get yourself shot up.”
Murdock ran to the far corner of the bunker, and saw the machine gun firing at them again. He could see the muzzle flash, and now more small arms joined in. Sounded like AK- 47’s, heavy, harsh, and deadly. He lasered in on the MG flashes and fired one round. A moment later he saw the killing airburst. The gun fired again, and he lasered it once more and fired. This time the machine gun didn’t fire again.