“I’m grateful that we are on the same side in this difficult situation.”
“Good,” Murdock said. “How far are we from the border?”
Salwa thought for a moment, looked around at the moonscape, and nodded. “Yes, I recognize that small wadi back there. I’d say two of your miles.”
“Two miles and it’s oh-four-twelve. Two hours to sunup. We better hustle.”
They marched again. Murdock knew there was no chance to fly in a chopper for a pickup. Not with Iraqis angry and working the border with Kuwait. They would probably be over here along this end of the Saudi line as well.
The SEALs kept hiking. The coolness of the desert night crept into their cammies, and neutralized the sweat. At 0440, Murdock called a halt and looked at Salwa.
“Where’s the damned border?”
“It should be close by,” the Kuwaiti said. “I’ve been here a dozen times. Unless … “
“In two hours it’ll be light,” Murdock said. “They’ll have every plane in this sector up searching for our asses.”
“My mistake somehow,” Salwa said. “I’m sorry. I thought we would be in Saudi Arabia by now. We must be in a slightly different sector.”
“Just slightly,” Murdock said.
They marched across the desert again in the morning darkness.
Ten minutes later, Lam hit the mike. “Better get up here, Commander. I think we found the fucking picket line.”
Both officers and Jaybird went up to where Lam lay in the dirt on a slight rise. Ahead, across a quarter mile of desert, they could see winking lights, and hear some metal-on-metal sounds.
“Could be the damn cooks getting breakfast ready,” Jaybird said.
The NVGs showed a different picture. Even at that distance, Murdock could pick out individuals. The men were in a defensive picket line stretched across in front of the SEALS. It looked like they were spaced about thirty yards apart. He saw no telephones or wire. Some of them could have radios. The SEALs would have to chance that.
Jaybird saw the same thing. Then Ed Dewitt nodded. “Sure as hell it’s their picket line,” he said. “Where do we go through?”
Murdock looked over the line again. Slightly to the left, he saw a concentration of men and a half-track. That would be the center of the line.
“Their center looks to be to the left. We’ll angle five hundred yards to the right, and try for our penetration. Jaybird, Lam, and I will go in with our K-bars. Ed, you’ll have the con if we don’t come back. Try an end run. They’ll be looking for you. Let’s move the troops.”
They hiked parallel with the line for ten minutes. Then Murdock stopped them, and told everyone what they would do.
“When you hear ‘ left, right, and center,’ you come for the center of the slot. We’ll keep our radio transmissions to a minimum.
They might have some kind of receiver that would show up our signals.
Any questions?”
“Wouldn’t silenced rounds do the job?” Fernandez asked.
“Too risky,” Dewitt said. “It’s the noise factor. We can’t take that chance. We’ll work the program. As soon as we get the all-clear, we’ll go through the fence in single file, five yards apart on the double. Don’t let any equipment jangle or make any noise. You know the silent routine.”
Murdock pointed Jaybird at the middle target. He took the one on the right, and Lam had the left one. They moved out like shadows on the desert floor. They were fifty yards from the targets, and crawled the last twenty. Murdock saw that his sentry was smoking. Good, it would hamper his night vision. Murdock drew his K-bar fighting knife and crawled forward.
The sentry moved, flicked his cigarette away, and took six steps toward Murdock. He gave a long sigh, and urinated. He was totally relaxed.
Murdock came out of his crouched position, and surged forward ten feet, his boots pounding the ground. The sentry heard his steps, and half turned. Murdock’s K-bar drove into his side, through his shirt and upward, slicing through part of the intestine and lung, then into his heart.
The Iraqi’s eyes went wide. He started to say something; then his mouth opened in a scream that never made it out of his throat. His knees buckled, and he fell toward Murdock, who caught him and eased him to the ground.
Murdock touched his lip mike. “Clear right.”
Jaybird had the center. He crawled the last thirty yards, slow and sure. Twice he saw his man look out front, scanning the area. Then he seemed to relax, and concentrated on cleaning his fingernails with a small knife.
The soldier’s rifle had been slung over his shoulder with the muzzle pointing down. It would take precious seconds to get the weapon up and ready to fire. Deadly seconds.
Jaybird held two K-bars. One he had balanced for throwing. He held it in his right hand. He moved forward again on his elbows and knees. Twice he had to stop when the man looked across his position.
Closer. He was within twenty feet of the man now. Too far for a throw. He edged closer, six inches at a time. The sentry coughed, and looked to his right. He whispered something that Jaybird couldn’t hear.
Evidently the one he tried to call to didn’t hear him either.
The sentry sighed, reached his right hand into his pocket, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Jaybird worked closer. When the Iraqi soldier’s match flared, totally destroying the man’s night vision, Jaybird lifted up from ten feet and threw the K-bar with one swift motion.
Hours of practice had made Jaybird an excellent knife thrower. The long blade and handle turned over once, and the point of the K-bar drove into the sentry’s chest just to the left of his heart. With the throw, Jaybird had charged forward.
When the knife pierced his chest, the sentry let out a groan of surprise, caught the blade with one hand, and fell to his left. Jaybird was on top of him in seconds, his other K-bar slashing deeply across the soldier’s throat, severing his left carotid artery and jugular vein.
The man gasped once and died as blood drained from his brain.
Jaybird quickly searched the body, found nothing of value, and hit his mike. “Clear center.”
Lam had a tougher target on the left. The man looked hyperactive.
As Lam crawled up to twenty yards, the sentry kept pacing back and forth. He checked the area directly in front of his post, and the landscape on each side as well.
Lam stopped within twenty feet of the sentry. If the Iraqi took a good look directly in front of him, he would be able to make out Lam flat on his belly. Lam brought up a borrowed, silenced MP-5 on single-shot. Just in case. He held the K-bar knife in his right hand.
The sentry made his ten-yard hike on either side, and came back.
Lam knew he couldn’t risk going any closer. He felt around on the ground, and found a fist-sized rock. He’d revert to his old kid games of war in the Oregon mountain brush. He hefted the rock, then threw it at some dead shrub directly behind the sentry. The bush was no more than a foot high, and half of it had died from lack of rain.
The rock hit the dead branches and snapped them, making a surprisingly loud sound in the desert silence. The sentry spun around, his weapon up and ready.
Lam came out of his crouch, took a dozen silent steps toward the man, then surged forward sprinting the last six steps, his arm held in front of him like a lance with the K-bar a straight extension of his arm.
The sentry must have heard him at the last moment. He spun around just in time for the blade to drive deeply into his chest. It missed his heart, but slashed through his lung, and chopped in half a major artery supplying the lungs.
The Iraqi sentry sagged, then slammed backward from the force of the knife thrust. Lam let go of the knife. The soldier tried to scream, but had no voice left. His eyes closed, then opened. His hands reached for weapons that were no longer there.