“Yeah, Cap, running lights. Sometimes the chemicals on the water give off a kind of fog that sloshes around and confuses the visual. So our look at him may come and go. But that is the bad guy up there.”
“How far?”
“Six hundred yards and closing about ten knots.”
“Radar?”
“Probably,” Lam said. “Depending who they bought it from. Most patrol boats these days have radar as a given.”
They waited.
“Three hundred yards tops,” Lam said.
“Fernandez, can you see the lights?”
“Oh, yes, I’d say maybe three-fifty.”
“Good, Fernandez. In twenty seconds I want you to fire one and have a second ready immediately.”
“That’s a roger, sir.”
A few moments later, the sound of a shot came. “Firing one, Commander. One round off and away.”
“Everyone down. Bull Pups fire as soon as we get a target. We’re committed now, people. Let’s make this count.”
21
A fraction of a second after the star shell bloomed over the Dead Sea, the SEALs could see a medium-sized patrol boat heading toward them from a little over two hundred yards away. Two trigger fingers squeezed and two twenty-millimeter rounds blasted out of the short barrels heading for the slow-moving PLO craft.
Murdock steadied the telescopic sights of the Bull Pup on the craft after the recoil, and watched as his round punched into the cabin of the boat and exploded. At nearly the same instant another round hit lower down on the side of the boat almost at the waterline, exploding with a furious blast of metal and water.
“One more twenty round,” Murdock said, and sighted in again after working a new round into the chamber. His second shot hit near the bow two feet over the waterline, and blew a large hole in the port side just under the water. Jaybird’s second shot hit the cabin, blasting into junk anything left after the first round. The craft slowed, and then coasted to a stop. She was dead in the water.
“Waste any personnel in sight,” Murdock said. The sniper rifle cracked once, then twice, then again.
“Two terrs down, one went over the side,” Fernandez said.
The two rubber ducks slowed and stopped about fifty yards off the stalled patrol boat. It was listing badly to port. The bow deck was almost at the water level. A sudden burst of rifle fire came from behind the cabin. Ten SEAL weapons answered it.
“Don’t think we nailed him, Cap,” Jaybird said. “Too much cabin there protecting him.”
“Jaybird, put an AP round right at the waterline, now,” Murdock said. “Eb, will a ship sink in this water?”
“Oh, yes, quite a few down there. Depends how deep it is here, but there should be no trace.”
“Good,” Murdock said, and sighted in on the waterline about amidships and fired an armored-piercing round. Jaybird’s hit first, and the explosion seemed to continue inside the craft. It heeled over more to port then, and came to a twenty-degree list. Murdock’s AP round hit about midway along the forty-foot craft, just as the parachute flare sputtered and went out.
In the sudden darkness, they could now see a small fire burning in the cabin area. It grew larger. An explosion deep inside the patrol craft made it shudder. Then the flames leaped higher as if fueled by diesel or gasoline. The large explosion came a moment later, shattering the upper structure of the boat and dumping it on its side. The stern settled; then water sloshed over it and without a cry or a whimper, the patrol boat sank by the stern and nothing was left on the surface but a few boards and an empty one-man life raft that had automatically inflated.
They heard no splashing after the boat went down. Murdock moved the two ducks into the area, looked around a minute, then hit the Motorola. “Let’s move on north. Anybody hit by that counterfire?” Nobody spoke up. They settled into their eighteen-knot trip to the north.
They had figured a run of about an hour and ten for the trip north to a landing spot where they could hide the boats. Now they were ten minutes behind that schedule.
“Let’s move a little closer to shore and watch it,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “Looks like there won’t be anyplace to hide these ducks. My suggestion would be, as soon as we see any sign of those small farms, that we stash the boats and do the rest on foot.”
An hour into their run they spotted lights ahead. Just a few, as if in scattered houses. The closer they came, the more evident it was that they had reached the small farming operation. Murdock wondered where the farmers found fresh water, but knew they did.
“Lam?” Murdock asked.
“Yeah, the farmers are at it here. Looks like it’s walk time. Not much activity over there.”
They had seen two cars or light trucks move along the roadway next to the Dead Sea. Now they saw a few more cars driving around. Murdock checked his watch. A little after 2130. Not even bedtime for farmers.
“Let’s hit the shore,” Murdock said on the radio. “We’ll beach the ducks and hope to be back here ready to use them again before anyone finds them.”
They landed, pulled the ducks up out of the water, and knelt down waiting. Lam came back five minutes later.
“Just a few farms right along here. Nothing that reaches out to the highway and north for maybe two miles. Then we’ll have to be more careful.”
“Right,” Murdock said. “Lam out front by a hundred. Everyone have on his ears? Radio check, Bravo?” All eight men checked in, even Eb. The seven men in Alpha came on the horn.
“All right, Lam, take your hundred. We don’t want any surprises. We’re plenty early, so there’s no rush. If we get to the palace by midnight it should be about right.”
Lam moved out ahead of the troops. He had his MP-5 with the silencer on it for quiet work. He moved along the bank of the Dead Sea where it was solid ground, keeping every one of his senses alert. He could smell the salt mist coming off the sea. To the far left, away from the water, he noticed the “green” smell of growing things. Vegetables, from what they had been told.
A dog barked. The damn Arab habit of keeping dogs around to sound the alarm. The platoon should be far enough away from the farms to avoid the dogs. Unless there were packs of wild ones running around here too.
Lam moved up another five hundred yards and paused. Something to the left. The roadway curved closer to the water here, and when a vehicle came along it toward him, Lam went to the ground and became a dark blob. The lights swept past and were gone.
Lam reported how the road curved closer to the water, and moved ahead. Another two hundred yards and he saw a building to the left with lights on. It looked to be near the road, and Lam studied it carefully. He moved up slowly for a better look, then used his 7-&-35 field glasses. Yes, a checkpoint on the road. He could see two armed men standing just outside the structure. Now, did they have any motion or vibration sensors stretched across the road and on down the beach to the water?
Lam walked across the spot where he figured any such sensors should be. Nothing. He moved back and forth across the point several times. No response. He used the radio and reported the checkpoint to Murdock.
“Looks like just a check on the road,” Lam said. “Should give us no problems.”
Two more cars came at just the wrong time, and the SEALs had to wait for the cars to pass before they ran through the narrow strip of land between the water and the highway. Then they were past that and moving up to the checkpoint.
Lam had waited for them there, and hustled them past it before he moved out ahead again by two hundred yards.
There were a few small buildings well across the road and into what looked in the dark like green fields. There must be fresh water from somewhere to irrigate them. He saw no activity, and most of the small houses didn’t have lights on.