“Want to know where we are, so I can get back to this spot,” he said. A small stream worked its way across the gently sloping farmland. At last he nodded.
“Okay, we go now,” Gamba said.
“This time the pilot has one of our Motorolas,” Gardner said. “With him at two thousand feet, the little radios should be good for eight miles. I told the pilot to stay here unless he started taking enemy fire. Then to memorize this spot and get back here every hour on the hour after the first three hours.”
They jogged across the fields, found a road going their direction, and kept up the pace, moving at a little better than seven miles an hour. That was about a nine-minute mile, and they could keep it up for four hours if they had to. Murdock remembered once or twice on past missions when they had been forced to go that long.
Gamba worked the point with Fernandez.
“We’re coming into some of the city now,” Fernandez said. “Looks like almost every house and building is dark. No streetlights out here. Just downtown is my guess. We’re home free along here.”
They slowed their jog to a fast walk and kept three yards apart in a column of ducks.
After twenty minutes of hiking, the streets became more commercial, and soon there were business sections, then residential, and sometimes mixed. Gamba called a halt ten minutes later. They were in an alley, and the darkness was complete as two-story buildings loomed over them.
Gamba talked to Murdock and Gardner on the radio. “Now I need to do some looking around. We’re two blocks from the police station. They could have guards out this far. If I find one, there will be more. Smoking will give them away. Everyone here wants to smoke. I don’t understand that. I’ll take Fernandez with me for support.”
“Be back in fifteen minutes,” Gardner said.
The SEALs slumped on the alley dirt. The front man automatically went out as security, and Murdock, who was at the tail end of Alpha Squad, went back twenty yards as rear security.
After twenty minutes, Gardner called on the Motorola. “Fernandez. Where the hell are you?”
The whispered voice came back. “Just watched Gamba eliminate a guard with his knife. He can play on my team anytime. He said there are no more guards between us and the station. We can move down to the end of this block and have open fields of fire at the front and side. I’m coming back to lead you here.”
In five minutes he keyed his radio again. “Move it, SEALs, to the end of the block you’re on. I’m at the first cross street.”
Ten minutes later JG Gardner had the men in the positions he wanted them to be. Half would fire at the police station. This one was made of concrete block, so they would have to hit windows with the twenties and maybe blow off a door. He put three SEALs behind them for security, and put two more on each side in a square perimeter.
“All units in position?” he asked on the Motorola. The four groups checked in. Murdock had worked forward to the eight men who would put fire into the police station. He had his Bull Pup and figured he could help.
“Four rounds each with the twenties,” Gardner said. “The three twenties on the left of center hit the doors and windows on the front of the building. The other three fire at the side windows. Your weapons are free.”
Murdock had knelt down, and now aimed at the large door on the front of the building and fired. The sound of the six Bull Pups going off created a crescendo of sound that kept increasing until the twenties stopped.
Reaction inside and outside the police station was quick. Ten men lifted up from the left side of the station and charged across the open street toward the street mouth where the SEALs had fired from. The two SEALs on that side cut down three of them with the MP-5’s. A twenty-round burst just in front of them blasted four more dead, dumping them on the concrete street. The other five dove behind cars and an old truck, and began firing at muzzle flashes.
“Cover,” Gardner barked into the Motorola. The SEALs in the street mouth rushed to the near side of the building, which came to the sidewalk.
Then three Army men pushed sandbags off their weapon and fired a machine gun from an emplacement near the left side of the police station. Murdock targeted it with a twenty, and the impact fuse detonated on the side of the weapon and destroyed it and the three men manning it.
MP-5 fire kept down the heads of the men who had hidden behind the cars on the street. Two twenty rounds hit one of the cars, exploding it and igniting the gasoline in both rigs in a second spectacular blast. Now men ran out the front door of the police building, one of them slapping at his burning shirt. Two 5.56 rounds cut him down.
“Let’s use two rounds each on the twenties with WP,” Gardner said. The rounds soon slammed into the building, some falling harmless as they missed the blown-out windows. Half of them penetrated the building, and soon smoke billowed out of the front of the structure and windows on the near side.
Gardner surveyed the scene. No more opposition. He was ready to give the order to pull back when they heard a racing motor and saw a tanklike vehicle roll around the near side of the station and move directly at them. A heavy machine gun chattered on its front roof mount as the rig rolled toward them. They could hear the tread as it worked over rollers.
“Light tank or armored personnel carrier,” Murdock said on the net. “Everyone take cover, cease fire. Our rounds won’t hurt him, not even the twenties. Get your C-4 out and make it into quarter-pound bombs. Insert a timer detonator, but don’t set it yet. We’ll see what he does. We should spread out along here. Ten yards between men. Find any cover you can. He’s stopped firing. He can see no targets.”
“Any casualties from that last action?” Gardner asked.
“Caught some shrapnel or a ricochet in my left arm,” Senior Chief Sadler said on the net. “It’s okay, I wrapped it up. Ready for duty.”
“Here he comes,” Gardner said. “He’s got no headlights, maybe a nightscope. He must have viewing slots up there in front. Anybody know where they should be?”
Jaybird sputtered a moment. “Oh, yeah, viewing ports on both sides of most of these rigs. I can get on top of him and work down to the slots, push half of a quarter of C-4 into it, and set the timer/detonator. Half is inside, half outside.”
“No way,” Murdock said. “Too dangerous.”
“We move up and try for the tracks?” Mahanani said.
“Best bet.”
They watched the rig crawling toward them. They could see it better now in the soft moonlight. It was a half-track with tires in front where the body of the rig slanted sharply up to the top, six feet off the ground.
“Hold fire,” Gardner said. “Two men on each side of him when he gets closer. It’ll take a sprint across the street.”
“Who the hell?” Murdock asked as a shadow eased away from a building closest to the police station, then charged across the open street and slammed against the side of the station. The half-track had just passed that point. Then the figure raced up to the back of the slow-moving machine, jumped on board, and crawled over the bare metal toward the front.
“Jaybird, if that’s you I’m gonna kill you,” Murdock said on the net. There was no response. “Figured,” Murdock said.
The machine moved slowly forward. The figure crawled under the roof-mounted machine gun and angled down to the slanting front. He eased forward and down. Then his arm came out and it worked over what must be the viewing port, Murdock decided. He could imagine Jaybird jamming the inch-thick puttylike C-4 into the half-inch-wide viewing port, then punching in the timer detonator and pushing the timer.
A few seconds later the figure retraced his climb to the top and then jumped off to the street, did a shoulder roll, and came up running for the safety of the buildings across the street.