The second sedan rolled to a stop not far away, and its six men got out. Jaybird and Epstein’s squad left its car and assembled near the fence.
Sergeant Epstein motioned them to the side. “We’ll cut this fence. Too close to use explosives. Cut it and get through at fifteen minutes after midnight. Gives us thirty more to get in position above the barracks for the 0100 attack. Everyone ready? We have ammo and plastique, right?” They all murmured their assurances.
“The other lads will cut the fence; we’ll follow them through,” Epstein said. “No quick triggers. We don’t fire until I give the order. Jaybird and Jefferson, you’ll start the party. Let’s move out.”
They worked through the fence cut, then to the left and up a slight hill past a dark and silent building to a cut-bank above the first barracks. It wasn’t as large as Jaybird thought it would be. Three stories and maybe a hundred feet long. Housing for fifty students, probably on double-deck bunks. Jaybird hoped they all were home when the party started. There was a good chance that the trainees would not have ammo for their weapons in the barracks.
He waited.
Victor fingered his MP-5. He might not shoot until they were closer or inside. The range was almost a hundred yards. He screwed on the silencer, thinking it might help inside.
The growl came from the right.
“Dogs, damn, fucking dogs,” Epstein said. “They use them for guard dogs. But usually they’re just packs of wild things. Might be only one or two or a dozen. We can’t fire our weapons at them. Knives?”
A dog lunged through the darkness directly at Victor. In a reflex action he lifted the MP-5 and drilled three silent rounds into the dog’s chest. The large dog angled to the left of Victor, pushed by the high-velocity 9mm Parabellums. It whined a moment, then rolled over and didn’t move.
“Nice shooting, Victor,” Epstein said. “I didn’t even know you had a silencer for that little squirt gun. There could be more dogs, so keep alert.”
They had moved up another forty yards when three dogs leaped at them without a sound. Victor got one; the other two went down with KA-BARs slicing into their throats and hearts. Jaybird pushed a big black dog off him where it had knocked him down. The dog gave a low growl, and Jaybird drove the KA-BAR into the dog’s throat and slashed it out.
“Damn dogs,” he said, wiping canine blood off his blade and his right hand.
The squad paused and waited for the other unit to catch up with them. Then they eased along the last quarter mile until they were at their two assigned firing points.
Jaybird checked his watch. He pushed the light on the dial and saw that they were ten minutes early.
“We wait,” Sergeant Epstein whispered to the men. The six men were spread out at five-yard intervals watching the target. There were still a few lights on in the rooms.
Three minutes later a ragtag unit came into the security lights at the back of the building. One man kept shouting something.
Epstein came past each SEAL. “He’s screaming for a medic. Claims he fell down and broke his leg and he needs attention.”
“He’ll have a lot more than a broken leg to worry about in about four minutes,” Jaybird whispered back.
The two Bull Pups would start the action with WP rounds into the ground-floor windows. Then move with HEs, or more WPs, on any targets the two SEALs could see.
Jefferson and Jaybird sighted in on their targets. Jefferson had the left side. Less than a minute later the word came in the earpieces.
“Twenties, give them hell.”
Jefferson had been waiting with his finger on the trigger. He fired. Jaybird’s round came out a moment later. The smoke rounds both went through windows on the ground floor. At once the rest of the squad began firing into the barracks. Jefferson and Jaybird put four more WP rounds each into the barracks’ ground floor, and at once could see the smoke of the fires they had started.
Men poured out of the building, caught the rifle and automatic-weapons fire, and promptly scurried through doors toward the front of the structures where they would be out of the direct line of fire. There was no return fire.
Jaybird got in one airburst before the screaming students found their way back into the burning building or out the front.
“SEALs hold here and continue firing at targets of opportunity. I’m taking the SAS and moving around so we can get some shots at the front of the place,” Epstein said. He scowled. “Jefferson, bring your twenty and come with us.”
They left at once, running down the hill and across a lighted area to the darkness and around the side of the building, keeping fifty yards away from it.
Jefferson got off a round as they ran. He saw thirty or forty men, clad mostly in underwear, milling around the front of the burning building. His first shot airburst over them and a third of them went down.
The Israelis fired automatic weapons, and what was left of the group scattered. Jefferson tracked a group of ten and lasered them and fired. Only four of them kept moving after the airburst that sprayed them with deadly shrapnel.
“Jefferson, put some HE into the front of the building. Windows if any are left.” The words came over the Motorola.
Jefferson fired two contact rounds. The first hit the window frame and smashed it inside as it blew. The second went in a third-floor window and exploded inside.
Jefferson watched a car race into the area and slam to a stop. He put a twenty-millimeter round into the car before the men inside could get out. The car exploded, then the gas tank went, and the whole thing was a funeral pyre blazing into the night.
“Move back,” the radio in his ear told Jefferson. He lifted off the ground where he had been firing from, and ran with the three SAS men back the way they had come.
Jaybird was still slamming twenties into the second and third floors. “You got any more WP?” he asked.
Jefferson said he had four. “Give me two and let’s light up the second floor,” Jaybird said. “Damn box isn’t burning fast enough.”
They fired the last four WPs’ and the phosphorus started more fires. Jaybird had a view of the second barracks. It too was now on fire, burning brightly.
“We’re done here,” Sergeant Epstein said on the radio. “Let’s hook up with the other squad and move back. Other squad, where the hell are you?”
“In your hip pocket in case you hadn’t noticed,” the radio chirped. “Be there in two. Going your way.”
The other squad jogged in out of the darkness, and they all left for the parking area.
“Scout out front?” Jaybird asked over the radio.
Epstein thought a minute, then the radio came on. “That you, Jaybird? If it is, take the lead. Keep within forty yards of us. Hard to see anything in this damn half-moonlight. Use your radio and keep us up to date.”
Jaybird said he would, and jogged ahead on the route back toward the cars. At first it was just a walk in the park. He kept his eyes watching forward, and nearly missed the movement to the right near the fence.
He dropped into the sandy rocks and used the mike. “Company. Something next to the fence behind me about twenty and twenty in front of you. I think I smell exhaust, so it could be a jeep or an armored rig. They have any?”
“No armored. Maybe a jeep. We’re down and waiting.”
“How about a star shell straight up? I’ll nail the bastards if it’s them. Couldn’t be any of ours, could it?”
“None of our people are within half a mile of us,” the whispered words said. “Star shell coming.”
Jaybird found some thick weeds to lie in with the Bull Pup aimed at the suspect. He heard the rifle report; then seconds later the flare blossomed two hundred feet above. He saw the rig at once, an open jeep with four men. All had rifles. He had already aimed, and he fired less than a second after the flare burst. The HE round hit the small vehicle in the engine area, blew it off its wheels, and turned it over, disintegrating the engine. His second round found the gas tank, and the whole thing went into a fireball that lighted the area for fifty yards around. He could see no movement. Then he did.