Then there was a quick flash in the distance. Murdock counted off in his head: “Thousand-one, thousand-two.” The shock wave and the loud rumble of the blast arrived at the same time.
The Syrian soldiers thought they had driven the raiders off by superior force of arms, causing them to abandon their vehicles. Once they were sure the intruders were gone, they celebrated their victory in traditional fashion by firing their rifles into the air. Some were striking heroic poses atop the armored cars.
Since he had pulled his fuses a little sooner than DeWitt, Murdock’s armored car went off first. But it didn’t matter; the blast immediately set off the mercury switch in DeWitt’s vehicle.
The power of an explosion is determined by both the mass of the charge and the velocity of the explosive. When black gunpowder is ignited, it changes from a solid to a gas relatively slowly, but few substances on earth do so faster than TNAZ.
The armored cars contained the blast only for microseconds, and then their steel broke into hundreds of thousands of high-speed fragments and added to the devastation.
The insides of the armored cars had been lined with sheets of zirconium, courtesy of the CIA. The same metal was used in cluster-bomb warheads to create an incendiary effect. When the zirconium ignited it added a fireball to the blast.
The warehouse and everything and everyone in it blew apart.
Unbeknownst to the CIA, the Syrians had housed the counterfeiting workers and technicians next to the warehouse, reasoning that it was easier to protect them there than transport them across Baalbek every day. The firefight at the warehouse had woken everyone up and caused all but the least prudent to hug their floors.
Those few who were looking out their windows died first when the shock wave caved in the front of the barracks. Then the building collapsed. Some of the others would eventually be dug out alive.
Pieces of wood, metal, and burning paper fell back to earth. The smoke settled, and the warehouse was just a mound of debris. An eighty-thousand-pound T-62 tank lay upside down. The turret of the BMP that had fired at the SEALs could be seen in the branches of some nearby trees; the body was nowhere to be found.
The houses surrounding the warehouse were flattened to one degree or another, depending on how shielded they were from the blast. The roads were blocked by trees and debris. The shock wave shattered windows in a mile radius around the warehouse.
Needless to say, everyone still living in Baalbek was wide awake. It was going to take quite some time to figure out what had happened, and even more time to get organized.
“Hoo-yah!” Razor Roselli screamed in exultation.
“Get in the car!” Murdock yelled.
“Eat that, motherfuckers!” Razor shouted down the road.
The explosion had temporarily silenced the incoming fire, and Murdock wanted to take advantage of it. “Get in the fucking car! Doc, get in the back and check ‘em out. Jaybird, drive.”
Murdock had tailored the assault force so they all could fit into one Mercedes in an emergency. They did, just barely, and it was madness: Jaybird behind the wheel, Murdock and Razor crammed in the front seat, the Doc stretched half over the front seat with a flashlight trying to sort out injuries from the packed mass in back. Magic Brown was fighting to get his head out a window so he could puke some more. The smell of sweat and fear and adrenaline was obscene.
And in the midst of it all, Razor Roselli was as happy as Murdock had ever seen him. “We did it!” he exclaimed. “We fucking did it.”
“Excuse me, Chief,” said Jaybird Sterling. “But if you take a second and look around you’ll see that half our crew is at least half fucked up, and I’m not sure how long this car is going to hold together; most of the warning lights on the dash are lit up.”
“Fuck you, Jaybird,” Razor responded. “We fucking won. We finally rammed one up their ass, and it’s gonna be a long time before they forget it. The mission’s accomplished. Nothing that happens now is gonna change that.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Chief,” said Jaybird, “I’d like to cap the mission off by living through the son of a bitch.”
“Like I keep telling you, shitbird,” said Roselli. “You picked the wrong line of work.”
“Is everyone through now?” Murdock demanded. “We’re going to live through it, but if we don’t get our asses up into the hills with an hour window of darkness, we’ll be walking out.”
“Oh, I’d really hate that,” Magic Brown groaned from the back seat, having just finished with the dry heaves. “Make haste, Jaybird, make haste.”
“Doc, what’s the score?” Murdock asked impatiently.
“Mister DeWitt’s left arm is broken,” Doc Ellsworth replied in a tone of clinical detachment. “Simple fracture, not compound, which is pretty amazing considering the way Razor threw his poor ass around.”
“Hey, I got him out,” Razor protested.
“Kos has half the skin on his back and ass ripped off,” the Doc went on. “He’s also got no pants; I don’t know where the fuck they are. He’ll be sleeping on his stomach for the next month or so. I wouldn’t want to live with him while he heals, but outside of a general pissed-off mood, he’ll be okay. The Professor’s got a golden ass as usual; not a scratch. Magic’s got some superficial lacerations, probably glass from the windshield, and he’s sick to his little tummy.” It was a fair example of SEAL corpsman bedside manner.
“Fuck you, Doc,” Magic groaned.
“Can everybody move if they have to?” Murdock demanded.
“I’m fine,” Ed DeWitt insisted through clenched teeth.
The Doc slid a clear plastic splint onto DeWitt’s arm, inflated it with a tiny pump, and tied the whole thing across his body with an Ace bandage. “I don’t think anyone has any major internal injuries, but it’s not like I’ve got a lot of room to work in here. They’ve all got whiplash and torn muscles to one degree or another. If I don’t get some muscle relaxers into them now, they’ll be all twisted up and stiff as boards inside the hour. Mister DeWitt gets a shot, everyone else get a couple of pills. Other than that, we won’t know until we try, and I’d just as soon we didn’t have to.”
“Thanks, Doc,” said Murdock.
“Thanks, Doc?” Magic Brown said as he burped vomitus around the car. “You call that a diagnosis? I’d rather crawl my ass up and consult with the old guru on the mountaintop.”
“Be my guest, asshole,” the Doc replied calmly. “Piss me off any more and you won’t get any drugs.”
“Aw, you know I was just shittin’ you, Doc,” Magic said, instantly subdued.
What a mess, Murdock thought. He didn’t share Razor’s jubilation at the accomplishment of the mission. He had to get his men home. All of them. That was his responsibility. And the time, the goddamned time. It was now 0325. They were running out of time, and couldn’t afford any more trouble.
There was an explosion behind them.
“What the hell was that?” asked Razor.
There was a general shrugging of shoulders, and then Higgins said quietly, “I rigged a charge to the car on my way out. They must’ve tripped it.”
There were a few low, respectful whistles.
“That was very thoughtful of you, Prof,” said Murdock. He was really quite impressed. He hadn’t thought of it. “Consider yourself attaboyed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
From the darkness of the back seat there arose a chant. “Lieutenant’s pet, Lieutenant’s pet.”
“We’re back in fucking kindergarten again,” Razor said, disgusted.