The other four sniper rifles had been lost in the second Mercedes. Professor Higgins had only been able to salvage two AKMs, a bag of loaded Kalashnikov magazines, a few grenades, and his backpack radio. Razor carried an identical radio from the lead Mercedes. Each vehicle had been equipped redundantly.
They had a fast discussion about their body armor. With the ceramic inserts, each set weighed well over ten pounds. It was a question of protection or foot speed. The vests and helmets were tossed into the trunk of the car.
They passed around a camouflage stick and painted their faces and hands. Kos Kosciuszko borrowed a suture kit from Doc to try to quickly stitch his torn-up trousers together.
Jaybird gunned the Mercedes up the road and skidded it sideways into the mound of mud. Then they all quickly shoved as much of the mud as possible onto the car to conceal it from aerial observation.
Razor Roselli booby-trapped the vehicle.
“Hope no one comes along and decides to strip it,” said Magic Brown.
“Then that’s what they get for being thieving bastards,” said Razor. “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
They started off, in single file, with as much interval as possible between them over the open ground. As far away as you could still see the man in front of you and stay in contact was the SEAL rule. Jaybird was on point; he’d given his PKM to Kos Kosciuszko and received a lighter, faster-handling Kalashnikov AKM from Doc. Murdock walked right behind with an AKM and an MSG-90 in the drag bag on his back. As usual, Higgins dogged his heels with the radio and an AKM. Then Kos Kosciuszko, with the machine gun and close to seven hundred rounds linked, all that had been left in the Mercedes. Doc followed with Ed DeWitt. With the shortage of weapons due to the destroyed Mercedes, DeWitt just had his backup Russian Makarov pistol; it was all he could handle anyway. Doc had removed an MSG-90 from a drag bag and was carrying it at the ready. Magic Brown and then Razor Roselli finished off the file as rear security, both with AKMs. Magic had the MacMillan.50 in the drag bag on his back, Razor an MSG-90.
The temperature was about thirty degrees, and the night air was still wet-cold from the rain. They cut around the side of the hill and then between two fields, keeping close to the dividing stone wall for cover.
Murdock was watching his men carefully as they patrolled along. DeWitt seemed to be moving all right. And there was a confidence to the others, as if they were all more comfortable being out of the car and back on the ground. It made him feel better too.
As he looked across the fields, Murdock could see trees in the distance and the mountain range farther away, covered with snow.
A dog barked, too far away to worry about. There were no other sounds but the occasional boot crunching lightly into the frost-covered earth of the field.
21
The SEALs soon left the fields and cut back across one of the forks of the dirt road. Murdock had been very uncomfortable with the tracks they were leaving.
There was a ritual to crossing what was known as a danger area. Jaybird and Murdock went across the dirt road first, while Kos and Higgins, on either flank, trained their weapons up and down the road. Murdock secured the far side while Jaybird scouted out even farther ahead. On Murdock’s signal the rest crossed, one at a time, with Kos and Higgins still covering.
Murdock was waiting when the last man, Razor Roselli, made it across the road.
“We’re heading onto more solid ground,” Murdock whispered to him. “Let’s put some CS across our trail.”
Razor nodded, and took a small plastic bottle out of his trouser pocket. It was filled with powdered persistent CS tear-gas crystals. Razor sprinkled the powder sparingly in a zigzag pattern across their trail. Just in case any dogs were tracking them. One tiny whiff of the CS crystals and a dog would no longer have a sense of smell. Rain would not wash the CS away.
Murdock went back to his place at the front of the column.
They edged around the village of Bteday, population 554. There were a few slivers of light visible from the village, even at that hour. Farmers got up early. The SEALs stayed far enough away to keep from alerting the ubiquitous village dogs.
The SEALs crossed another dirt road. It was expected. This one cut past Bteday to the south and simply ended.
Just past the road they entered a grove of trees. This patch was the beginning, the edge, of the larger woods. There were pines and oaks; the legendary cedars of Lebanon were not present. It was not a forest in the American sense; the trees were too sparse and widely dispersed. It was cover, though, and a welcome change from the wide-open fields.
As Razor Roselli at the end of the file slipped into the trees, loud voices speaking Arabic were suddenly heard further ahead. The SEALs dropped flat to the ground.
It was the type of situation that required the most careful exercise of judgment. If you started shooting when you could have let someone pass unknowingly by, you alerted the entire neighborhood to your presence. But if you allowed a large force to walk right up to your position, you risked being pinned down, overrun, and wiped out.
Unless one of the SEALs was stepped on or otherwise compromised, it was Murdock’s call. He lay with one ear to the ground, breathing quietly and shallowly through his mouth to keep from sending up a cloud of condensation. He smelled pine needles. His weapon was pointing toward the voices.
And the voices came closer. It only sounded like one or two. Then again, maybe it was more and only one or two were talking. Not for the first time, Murdock wished he spoke Arabic. He added it to his list of early New Year’s resolutions.
None of the SEALs shifted even slightly on the ice-cold ground, or so much as twitched a muscle. Discipline was perfect. The only real discipline was self-discipline, as they said in BUD/S.
The voices seemed to be coming right at them. Murdock’s finger edged toward his trigger. The SEAL platoon’s standard signal for triggering a hasty ambush was the platoon commander opening fire. No whistles or shouted commands. Nothing that would give the enemy time to make any move. Just rounds on target.
The voices abruptly angled off to Murdock’s right, as if they were now moving across the SEALs’ front. It would be the perfect moment to spring an ambush.
Murdock resisted the temptation. He could now hear as well as feel feet moving on the ground. Not like troops moving tactically, just clumping along. It sounded like just a couple of pairs of feet, not more than three. They were so close he could actually smell sour body odor and garlic.
Murdock set his finger back across the trigger guard and let them pass on by. The voices faded off in the distance, but the SEALs waited for a solid minute of dead silence before lifting themselves cautiously from the ground. Murdock noiselessly crawled down the line to Magic Brown, who had the best Arabic. “What was all that?” he whispered in Magic’s ear.
“Couple of farmers heading back home,” Magic whispered back. “They spent the night at another village, helping someone out. The sheep are lambing right now.”
Murdock squeezed his arm in acknowledgment.
When they got moving again, Murdock noticed a narrow but well-worn footpath that curved right around where they had lain. It headed back to Bteday. They avoided it as they would all paths and trails, and resumed patrolling into the woods.
Murdock was becoming more and more anxious. There seemed to be a running conspiracy against them making any time.
The woods opened up into a clear grassy area. It was like a firebreak, though not man-made. A stream ran through the middle of it. Even though time was crucial, some instinct told Murdock to have his men fill their canteens. The Russian-style Syrian web gear only carried a single canteen, and everyone had to be dry or close to it. They formed a circular security perimeter. Then, one by one, they drained their canteens, filled them in the stream, and dropped in an iodine purification tablet.