“So we play it carefully from here on. We double-check every building before we go past it. Better exfiltrate out this way on the alley with the prize, but keep a rear guard to get off some last rounds. How is our man doing?”
A dog ran across the street, but didn’t pay any attention to them. A cat screeched on a fence and then jumped off. Murdock’s radio came on.
“Skipper,” DeWitt said. “We’re in contact and the man is getting dressed. Should be out in a minute or two. Wilco on the getaway. Will be your way in about five. Yes, here they come now. We’ll lay down some cover fire, so don’t be alarmed.”
Murdock heard the firing from familiar weapons, but little counterfire. Where had the gunmen gone? He told Lam to recon out toward the water to see what he could learn. “Don’t go more than a block, and be careful.”
Two minutes later Bravo Squad came up and spread out. Lam called in.
“Looks free and clear up here, Cap. Had one car, but it turned off and is gone. Few lights on, no streetlights. Nobody on the street. I’d say it’s a go up here for a block. I’ll wait. This is still about a hundred yards to the water.”
“Roger that.”
Murdock looked around at the dark shapes. “Alpha Squad up front, our visitors in the middle, and Bravo bring up the rear. Spread out at least five and let’s move.” Murdock took the point and led out, checking every building, every window as they faded along the dirt street toward the Dead Sea.
Nothing.
The hairs on the nape of his neck stood up. What? Where? He scanned the buildings again. He felt like he was in a huge trap and the killer hammer was jolting down to squash him.
Lam came out of the gloom. “Still looks good ahead, Skipper. Some traffic to the south of us, two whole cars.”
“Could they be moving men and guns south to block us?” Murdock asked his head scout.
“Possible. I can take a run down that block and check.”
“Do that, and we’ll move south on this street. Last one before the highway, then the sand and the water. Go. Don’t get yourself shot, and report back on anything. If all is well, we’ll meet you a block south of here on the wet sand.”
Lam gave a curt signal with his hand and vanished into the night. Murdock kept the platoon moving. He was halfway through the block to the east when Lam called in a whisper on the radio.
“Trouble, Cap. I’d say about twenty men with long guns. They have formed a blocking line from the near side of the highway down to the water’s edge. Look like some of them have uniforms, maybe the Palestinian Authority guys.”
“Thanks. We’ll change plans and go the way you went. Ed, you hear that? Reverse march and lead us south down that street we just passed. Go south, be careful. Put out a scout. We might be able to go around that bunch up there. If not we’ll be in a tough firefight.”
“Roger that, we’re reversed. Fernandez is out as scout.”
Murdock acknowledged the call, then went to find Bradford. He was beside Ching, who’d grabbed his combat vest and was holding him up by one arm.
“I can make it, damnit!” Bradford growled.
“Sure you can. Now just keep going this way for another block; then we get a rest or you can pack me a ways.”
Murdock fell in behind them and watched their rear.
Ed came on the radio. “Okay, I get the picture better now. Lam is with me. We’re maybe fifty yards from the end of the picket line out to the west. We keep going here without a sound, we should outflank them and be gone.”
“Let’s get south of them, then get some protection and hit them with the twenties,” Murdock said. “Otherwise they’ll be chasing us all the way down the sea. Jaybird, how many twenty rounds left?”
“Five in the magazine and five more.”
“I’ve got seven left. We can discourage them to hell and back with those rounds. We’ll move down out of range of their guns, say five hundred yards, laser them and let fly. Now let’s get past the end of their line without a damn whisper. Go, Ed.”
The line of SEALs, with ten yards between them, moved agonizingly slow as the men worked their way across the silent dirt street and in back of the buildings on the continuing street. The Israelis and their Arab guest were in the middle, with Alpha Squad bringing up the rear.
They were almost across the exposed area when a dog charged out of the darkness and attacked Luke Howard, the third man from the end. Luke heard it coming and swung his sniper rifle like a club. The heavy butt of the weapon pounded into the side of the dog’s head, and it went down without a whimper.
The last two men stepped around the dog, and Murdock did the same, giving a little sigh of relief when he was behind the building. They moved faster then, still as silent as a ghost company. One more block and they ran out of buildings. Fernandez angled them east toward the water. They were still thirty yards from it when they crossed the blacktopped highway in a rush, then melted into the darkness of the shoreline.
“How far?” DeWitt asked.
“Two hundred yards more due south,” Murdock said. “Jaybird, back here with me for the shoot.” Murdock had spotted a building with a light in a second-story window on the cross street where the Authority guards had set up their ambush. He kept track of it as they moved, and when he figured the building was five hundred yards away, he called a halt. Jaybird had been walking beside him for the last two hundred.
“See that light, first one on the left? Laser on that. We can move right after we see how we do.”
They both fired. The two twenties went off in airbursts with a cracking roar. Some small-arms fire followed from the line of troops, giving both Jaybird and Murdock new targets to laser. One of the next two rounds was a WP, and Murdock stared a moment at the perfect circle of death dealing smoking white phosphorus before it fell to the ground and brought screams of agony from the shooters below.
Murdock heard the two SEAL sniper rifles join in the fight as the long guns found the range from the muzzle flashes.
Jaybird put one contact round on the highway twenty yards in front of where they figured the troops were, and he saw the flash and the swath of shrapnel that tore into the thin line of Arabs. Four more shots each with the airbursts, and Murdock called a cease-fire.
“Enough, let’s chogie out of here. Who is helping Bradford?”
“Ching,” DeWitt said. “I’ve sent four men ahead to the checkpoint we saw on the highway. They will take it down and bring back a vehicle to transport Bradford.”
“Good. Any more casualties?” Murdock asked. Nobody replied. “Ebenezer, how are your four friends holding up?”
“All doing well. The prisoners were treated fairly well. Their captors said they were being held to trade with Israel for some Arabs in jail.”
Gunfire sounded to the south of them. The SEALs and guests had closed up to four yards separation, and Murdock had moved to the front along with Lam.
“Our MP-5’s,” Lam said. “No other weapons fired that I could hear. Our boys must have won the day.”
Ahead a quarter of a mile, Senior Chief Sadler went to ground in the shallow ditch of the highway, and with the other three SEALs drilled the checkpoint with a deadly hail of hot lead.
“Don’t harm those two vehicles,” he had warned his three men. Victor, Mahanani, and Jefferson all kept their rounds away from the two sedans. Two guards had been on duty near the pull-down barrier when the shooting started. Neither one left the area, both down with multiple bullet wounds.
They had planned to come at the roadblock from two directions, but now Sadler changed the order. “We’ll all move up on this side until we can see behind the barricade and the small building. Watch for any movement.”