Without a word, Professor Higgins sprang out the driver’s door of the Mercedes and charged through the hole in the fence into the smoke. Higgins didn’t have an imager. “Mister DeWitt!” he shouted.
“Over here,” came the response.
Magic Brown went through a 250-round belt at the rapid rate to give them covering fire.
Higgins followed DeWitt’s voice through the smoke until he found them. With two to carry Kosciuszko, the job went faster. They dragged him through the fence and threw him into the back seat of the Mercedes.
Higgins ran around the car to get back behind the wheel. The smoke had dissipated slightly in his absence and someone in a house on the other side of the road opened up on the now-visible car. Rounds hit the Mercedes but didn’t penetrate the armor.
Higgins ducked back around the car for cover and returned fire with his AKM.
The house was on the opposite side of the car from Magic and his PKM; there was nothing he could do but get off the gun and chuck smoke grenades out the window as fast as he could pull the pins.
The smoke billowed up. Higgins came in through Magic’s door, crawled right over him in a thrashing, profane-rich tangle, and slid back behind the wheel.
Even though they could no longer see, someone still had the range. Rounds were hitting the vehicle but the armor was stopping them. It was time to get the hell out.
“Two, this is Three,” Magic Brown spoke over the radio. “Lightning, Lightning, over.” The code word for everyone present and ready to go.
Murdock and Razor had already made it to their Mercedes, and that was the word they had been waiting for. “This is 1,” said Murdock. “Roger Lightning.”
“The bad guys are starting to stack up at the north corner,” Jaybird Sterling informed them as he fired.
“Okay, then we won’t go that way,” said Murdock. “This is Two. Stand by for Route Echo. I say again, Route Echo.”
“Roger on Echo,” replied Magic Brown.
“Execute,” said Murdock.
Doc Ellsworth swung the Mercedes into a screeching U-turn and sped back down the road the same way they’d come. Jaybird pulled the PKM back in the car and brought up the armored glass window.
Murdock was looking out the rear window. As they went past, Higgins yanked the second Mercedes into an identical turn and pulled in right behind.
They emerged from the smoke just in time to see and be seen by a startled group of Syrians huddled against the side of the warehouse. There was also a BMP-1 armored personnel carrier whose turret began to swing around as they passed.
“Floor it!” Murdock bellowed.
A rocket sailed over the top of the car. There was a huge flash from the BMP’s 73mm gun, but the two Mercedes were moving faster than the turret could traverse and the shell fell behind them.
A line of slugs stitched the side windows of the Mercedes, but only made stars in the polycarbonate material. Razor Roselli had been looking out at the time and the impacts made him instinctively jump. He fell back against a very preoccupied Blake Murdock, who elbowed him out of his lap. Needing to vent some embarrassment, Razor stuck his AKM out the gun port and loosed off a burst. The hot cartridge casings ejected from Razor’s weapon sailed right onto the back of Doc Ellsworth’s neck.
The Doc yelped in pain and the car swerved. What effect that drive-by shooting had had on the Syrians was unknown, but the interior of the Mercedes was now filled with burned gunpowder smoke.
“Cease fire, for crissakes,” shouted Murdock. “You’ll gas us out.”
Jaybird was trying to wave the smoke away so he could see out the window. “I think we’re clear.”
“Turn on the lights and siren,” Murdock ordered, coughing. “And open the fucking vents.”
18
“How bad is he hit?” a worried Magic Brown asked Ed DeWitt.
“Give me a second,” DeWitt replied.
The Mercedes was screaming through the streets of Baalbek, and Kos Kosciuszko was laid out across the back seat.
His flashlight held in his teeth, DeWitt began a search for wounds. It was best done by touch, and had to be thorough. Even a very small wound missed could mean a man bleeding to death.
DeWitt started at the feet, for no reason other than that was where he happened to be. He ran his hands up both legs — no blood, no wounds. He ripped open Kos’s jacket and body armor. Nothing. Without moving Kos, he slipped his hands underneath and checked the back. No vertebrae out of place. What the hell?
Then his flashlight fell on Kosciuszko’s helmet. There was a neat round hole in the front left side. DeWitt unsnapped the chin strap and gently eased the helmet off. There were no holes in Kos’s head, but there was another one in the back of the helmet.
The round had hit the helmet, skipped off one of the kevlar layers, and gone back out at an angle. All it had done was knock Kos Kosciuszko cold.
DeWitt checked, but there was no blood in the ears or nose that would indicate a serious concussion. He opened Kos’s eyes and flashed the light at them. Both pupils were responsive and symmetrical.
Kos gave off a low moan when the light hit his eyes.
“He took a round in the helmet and got knocked out,” DeWitt announced. “The son of a bitch doesn’t even have a bruise.”
“You gotta be shitting us,” said Magic Brown.
“No shit,” DeWitt assured him. He hoisted Kos up and packed him against the corner of the rear seat. “Anyone got an ammonia capsule?”
There was no response.
“Fuck him, then,” said DeWitt. He made himself comfortable, and they left Kos Kosciuszko to regain consciousness on his own. If you didn’t require some major first aid, you couldn’t expect much sympathy from a bunch of SEALS.
DeWitt keyed his radio. “Kos just got knocked out. He doesn’t have a scratch.”
“Roger,” Murdock radioed back. He’d been pondering whether to stop somewhere and transfer the Doc to the other Mercedes. Now it was one less thing to worry about.
“Checkpoint ahead,” Doc Ellsworth broke in. Then, cocking an eyebrow at Jaybird, he added, “And no, I ain’t slowing down.”
“Outstanding,” said Murdock.
Jaybird just shook his head.
They came up on the checkpoint with the Mercedes’ police lights flashing and the sirens wailing. Even if there had been radio reports of raiders and a firefight, they looked like they were chasing something — not being chased. Enemy commandos certainly wouldn’t be making all that noise. If not, they at least looked official enough to raise the same doubts as before.
The noise of the sirens had everyone out and ready at the checkpoint.
“Jiggle the siren switch,” Murdock ordered. “Change the tone and let them know we see them.”
Jaybird did it.
“Flash the lights and go on through,” said Murdock.
The car filled with the metallic clicking of weapon safety catches coming off.
As they sped through the checkpoint Murdock saw one man raise his rifle and another yank it down. Even the visible bullet holes in the vehicles didn’t tip the scales against them. Of course, you couldn’t get that good a look at night and at that speed.
Where they had come up from the south, now they headed northeast. There was a hard-surface secondary road that snaked up into the mountains and all the way back down to Batreun and Tripoli on the coast. Murdock had identified a number of possible helicopter landing zones for the pickup, but he wanted to get as close to the mountains as he could. The valley was gently rolling and almost treeless, and the visibility extended for miles. As the land rose up toward the base of the mountains it became much more forested. Murdock wanted to get inside the screen of those trees, to minimize any exposure to the helicopters. It all depended on the time. The helicopters had to get in and out before daylight. That was definite.