Jaybird set a careful pace. Take a step, carefully scan your assigned sector of observation, then take another step. The SEALs were spread so far apart that it would take an ambush the size of two full platoons, around sixty men, to catch them all in a single killing zone. They refilled their canteens in a stream and crossed another dirt road. As Razor had said, at least it was a bigger box, about six miles east-west by three miles north-south. Five ridges ran east to west across it. It took a little time to find the right spot for a patrol base, a secure area where they could hide out. The rules were that a patrol base had to have good cover and concealment and be away from human habitation. It ought not to be ground that a military unit could easily move through, or would even choose to move through. All roads, trails, or natural lines of movement had to be avoided. They found it in a large thicket of brush and brambles in low ground that probably held water during the spring rains. The SEALs didn’t head right in, instead patrolling past the thicket. Then they circled back onto their own trail and set up an ambush to snare anyone who might be following them.
They sat motionless for an hour and a half. No one showed up.
Doc Ellsworth went into the thicket first, on his hands and knees. He didn’t trample and break down the bushes, instead parting the branches and working his way through carefully. The rest of the SEALs followed, in his exact path. Razor Roselli went in last, smoothing out the marks in the earth and bending the branches back into place. When he finished there was no trail, and no open spots in the thicket. Anyone following would have to pass along the original trail that led past the thicket, thereby alerting them.
Murdock and Jaybird had remained outside. By necessity, the patrol base had to be located in an area where visibility was restricted. Murdock intended to find an observation point where he could get a good look at what was happening in the surrounding countryside.
There was a dominating hill nearby, within MX-300 walkie-talkie range. And if by some chance they couldn’t return to the others, Jaybird was carrying the second, backup PRC-117.
When the two of them reached the hill, Murdock carefully circled around the entire base, looking for trails or any sign of human presence. They found none, so they worked their way up.
They avoided the top. While observation might be best there, it would be equally easy for someone else to observe them. It had to be a place they could move out from under cover if they detected the enemy observing them.
They found an out-thrust corner of the hill that afforded a good view in three directions. Murdock removed his MSG-90 sniper rifle from the drag bag and set the rifle up on its bipod legs. The Hensoldt 10-power telescopic sight would be his observation device. Jaybird cut some brush to camouflage their position.
The sun had risen far enough to use the telescopic sight without fear of a reflection off the glass. SEALs used the sniper’s trick of fitting lens hoods to the ends of their scopes; just a piece of plastic tubing that extended out from the objective end of the sight. With the hood in place, there would be no lens reflection unless the sun was directly in the scope’s field of view. It took a lot of effort to be that careless.
Perfectly concealed, Murdock scanned the area through the scope. It took some time, because the telescope had a very narrow field of view.
They were around six thousand feet up, and the surrounding hills and ridges were in the four-to-five-thousand-foot range. Murdock could even see Baalbek. He couldn’t make out the warehouse, but a pall of smoke still hung over the town from the fire, or fires.
Vehicles were racing around the town, and up and down the Bekaa highway.
Then Murdock was alarmed to see a long line of military trucks, armored personnel carriers, and even a few tanks speeding up the same route they’d taken in the Mercedes. They were heading straight for the village of Bteday.
27
The Syrians were responding a hell of a lot faster than Murdock had expected them to. He’d been counting on it taking at least a day to get their shit together. Perhaps the firefight with the smugglers had attracted even more attention than he’d thought.
Murdock couldn’t see what the trucks did when they reached Bteday; a ridgeline was in his way. Several light observation helicopters that looked like the French Gazelles flown by the Syrians were buzzing up and down the valley. Confident of the SEALs’ camouflage, Murdock wasn’t worried about the helicopters.
Finally, the strain on his eyes from the scope was too much. Sitting still made him aware of the twenty-four hours worth of stress and fatigue he’d been fighting. He turned the rifle over to Jaybird and dug in his pockets for the mocha energy bar he knew was there somewhere.
The sun was warming up the ground wonderfully. Murdock was even enjoying the smell of the brush Jaybird had cut to cover them. It was like rosemary.
Then he was in the midst of a dream about being chased; he ran and ran and couldn’t make any progress no matter how hard he tried. Then he shot awake. Jaybird was shaking him.
“Sorry to wake you up, sir.”
“Why did you let me sleep?” Murdock grumbled, furious with himself for giving in to it. Doubly furious for sleeping while one of his men had to stay awake.
“Thought you ought to see this,” said Jaybird, scooting out from behind the rifle.
Murdock locked the stock against his shoulder and followed where Jaybird’s finger was pointing. It was the secondary road Ed DeWitt had had so much trouble crossing. A long line of troops was crossing the road, along what seemed like its entire length.
“Looked to me like at least a battalion, maybe two,” said Jaybird. “And check this out.”
All the villages within view and most of the road intersections were occupied by at least a couple of military vehicles and milling troops. They were on every road that came off the Bekaa highway, every road that led into the mountains, from Bteday all the way up to a secondary road that passed far north of their hill. The box of roads, Murdock thought. How fitting he’d called it that. Because they were in the damn box.
Jaybird gestured around. “There’s the cordon, to hold us in,” he said. Then he pointed back to the troops, who had by now crossed the road and disappeared into the trees. “And there’s the sweep.”
“Sweeping toward us,” said Murdock. “To flush us into the cordon.”
“Yup,” Jaybird agreed. “From Baalbek to the checkpoint we busted, the Mercedes, and then on to the smugglers, Pretty soon to Kos’s body. The sons of bitches are just connecting the dots.”
28
From his vantage point, Murdock considered the situation. He thought the Syrian sweep was a serious development but not a catastrophic one. The advance on line was the most difficult military formation to control. Anyone who had tried it with only a few troops over a short distance knew how hard it was. To do it with more than a thousand troops over miles of woods and broken ground was well-nigh impossible without breaks in the line, units getting ahead of or behind each other, and frequent stops to sort things out. Seven men ought to be able to either evade or slip through that force. It was something SEALs specialized in.
The main problem, as Murdock saw it, was bringing helicopters into the midst of such a concentration of enemy, even at night. It was going to be tricky. And, like all ground commanders in the age of the helicopter, he wasn’t quite sure how much information to give out. If you told the truth about how bad it was, they might not come and get you. If you didn’t, they might come in using the wrong routes or tactics and get shot down, also putting you in the lurch. He wasn’t worried about the 160th. It was the CIA’s timidity that had gotten them into the present situation, and Murdock didn’t intend to test their resolve any more than he had to.