The siren and all the lights were shut off. They no longer wanted to call any attention to themselves. Especially since now out in the open country any lights could be seen for miles. Jaybird was driving with night-vision goggles on.
The Mercedes crossed over the Bekaa highway and continued northeast. They drove around and past the small village of Laat, and the former Lebanese Air Force base located north of Baalbek.
There was a drop in elevation; the road dipped lower into the Bekaa Valley proper, although the valley itself ranged in elevation from sixteen hundred to two thousand feet. Baalbek was around 3,800 feet above sea level.
The SEALs crossed the Litani River, which supplied the valley with its water. Fallow plowed fields broken up by stone walls stretched out for miles out in the moonlight, with hardly a tree to be seen. Only a quarter moon, but enough to see by. Small streams and wadis, dried-up streambeds, crisscrossed the road as it headed for the mountains in the distance. The road rose steadily up into the foothills.
The road forked, and they took the right. There was a left turn onto a dirt track coming up soon. They could have followed the paved road all the way over the mountains, but it ran right through at least one sizable village and the risk was too great. The dirt track went up into the forest at the base of the mountain range and simply stopped. That was where the helicopters would come in.
Murdock was intently studying his map. There was another stream that crossed the road, and then the turn.
“Here it is,” Jaybird said abruptly. He’d already made the turn before Murdock could lift his head up.
“Wait a minute,” said Murdock. It was too soon. But it did look like the dirt road. Maybe he’d missed the stream in the dark.
They drove about five minutes and the road stopped in the middle of a grove of low-slung olive trees.
Murdock felt like doing some yelling, but that wasn’t how it was done. Besides, he was responsible — it was his screw-up. “Turn around and head back,” he said calmly. More time lost.
“Jaybird Sterling,” Doc Ellsworth chortled from the back. “The human compass.”
Jaybird burned with humiliation, but had the sense not to say anything.
They got back on the paved road and found the real turn about a quarter mile farther up. Just to be sure, Murdock checked the exact position on his GPS set.
The dirt road was slow going. It was narrow, and had been cut to the sides of hills and stretches of poor soil where crops would not grow.
They drove another quarter of a mile, and Jaybird came to an abrupt stop that caused everyone to lurch forward. “Rocks,” he said in response to the inevitable razzing.
Several large rocks sat on the road, having fallen down from the hill that bordered the right side of the road. They weren’t boulders, but there was no room to drive around them or get off the road.
“Back up fast!” Murdock ordered.
Jaybird rammed the Mercedes into reverse.
“Okay, stop,” said Murdock, after they’d gone back about thirty yards.
“You think it’s an ambush?” Razor asked.
“Don’t know,” Murdock replied. “But we can’t go back and we don’t have time to screw around. Jaybird and I will go out and move the rocks. Everybody but Ed get out and cover us.”
Murdock and Razor took a minute to go through their moves. Nothing complicated, just on the order of: If this happens, I want you to do that; or if that happens instead, I want you to do this.
Then he and Jaybird trotted up the road, weapons ready. Not that that would do a lot of good if the two of them ended up in the killing zone of an ambush.
Murdock sniffed the air and let his senses pull in all the available information. It didn’t feel wrong, and he’d learned to trust that.
He and Jaybird rolled the rocks out of the way. Nothing happened. Murdock just hoped they wouldn’t run into many more. They couldn’t afford the time.
Everyone packed themselves back into the Mercedes. Jaybird kept it slow. There were more rocks, but small enough to either go over or around.
A half mile further and the road curved around the side of another hill. As they rolled around the curve Jaybird hit the brake again. The road was completely blocked by an enormous mound of mud and rock.
20
Murdock got out of the car to take a look. After the door slammed, there was a moment of stunned silence.
“It’s the karma,” Doc Ellsworth said confidently. “Jaybird and all those negative vibrations.”
“I told you I was thinking positively, goddammit!” Jaybird burst out.
“Someone’s going to get shot in about a second,” Razor Roselli warned.
Murdock got back in the car and unfolded his map.
“Why the fuck wasn’t this in the satellite photos?” Magic Brown demanded. “We checked the whole route out.”
“It was the rain,” said Kos Kosciuszko. “The whole hillside is eroded. They must get mud slides all the time in the winter.”
“Will everyone shut the fuck up for a second and let me think?” Murdock requested. He turned his flashlight on the map. They couldn’t go around the slide. Going back would lose them time and distance, and even so, the nearest alternative road went right through a village. They couldn’t afford another firefight. It was time for one of what Razor liked to scornfully call the lieutenant’s encounter groups. “All right,” said Murdock. “Give me some ideas.”
“We could drive around all night and not get any farther than we are right now,” said Higgins.
“We can’t bring a helo into this place,” said Jaybird.
“They could drop a caving ladder,” said Magic, but even he didn’t sound too convinced.
“We couldn’t even put Mister DeWitt on the hoist,” said Doc. “Not with his arm.”
“That’s not it,” Razor said impatiently. “The ground is as flat as a pancake and wide fucking open. There’s a village within half a klick. As soon as the helos popped over the mountains everybody and his uncle would be shooting at us.”
“We’ve got to assume that there are people chasing us,” Higgins broke in.
“Either moving right now or in the process of getting their shit together,” said Jaybird.
“We left so much fucking wreckage behind us, it’s not going to be that hard to figure out our route,” said Kos Kosciuszko.
“Oh, they’ll show up soon,” said Razor. “And pissed off to boot.”
“We’re too close to Baalbek as it is,” said Doc.
“We’ve got to do some walking,” said Ed DeWitt, giving voice to what was on everyone’s mind.
“Can you walk?” Murdock asked him.
“I’d do anything to get off everyone’s lap back here in this sardine car,” said DeWitt.
“I guess we walk,” said Magic.
Everyone seconded the motion. There was nothing else to do.
They opened up the trunk and removed their equipment. There were four nylon packs that had the same rough shape as guitar cases, only narrower. These were snipers’ drag bags. A sniper occasionally had to move with his weapon over very rough terrain, sometimes crawling on his belly, and sniper rifles and optics had to be treated gently. Thus the drag bag. It was padded with foam, had shoulder straps like a pack, and could also be pulled along behind the sniper over rocky ground, hence the name.
Three of the bags contained Heckler & Koch MSG-90 semiautomatic sniper rifles in 7.62mm NATO. The other held a MacMillan M-87 bolt-action sniper rifle in.50 caliber, the same as a Browning heavy machine gun. All had been brought along at the insistence of Master Chief MacKenzie, who was looking more and more prescient as the night wore on.