Lam bent over him, pulled out his knife, and stabbed the wounded man once more, driving his K-bar into the soldier’s heart. He waited a moment, and saw the life fade from the sentry’s eyes. Then he touched his mike.
“Clear left,” he said. Lam crouched over, and ran silently to the right. He spotted Jaybird a moment later, and dropped beside him.
Murdock was on the other side. They each pointed outward in defensive postures. No words were spoken.
Lieutenant (j. g.) Dewitt heard the third
“Clear,” and waved his men forward. All had weapons at the ready, with rounds chambered and safeties pushed off. They walked quickly single file, following Dewitt toward the center position, where Jaybird had vanished. They were five yards apart.
The silent file came out ten yards to the side of the three SEALs covering for them, continued on through, then spread out to ten yards between men. The three sentry-busters moved in at the end of the line, and walked backwards for a hundred yards watching the rear.
They were two hundred yards past the line when a single rifle shot sounded behind and to the right where the center of the picket line had been. “Double time, let’s get out of Dodge,” Murdock said into his mike.
They ran forward. Murdock heard movement to his right. He stared into the darkness, then used the NVGs.
“Hold it in place and in the dirt,” he said into his mike. A second later a flurry of rifle and submachine gun fire erupted to the left.
“I spotted about twenty troops over there just before they opened up. Some flankers. They know where we are. Fire at those muzzle flashes now!”
The stretch of desert erupted with the SEALs’ firepower. The snipers with NVGs picked off targets that showed themselves. Most of the Iraqis were flat on the ground firing at where the SEALs had been standing.
Murdock figured the range: two hundred yards. Maybe less. “How is our supply of forties?” he asked on the mike.
Radio reports came in that they had twenty-four rounds.
“Let’s each man shoot half his rounds. Make them on target, no more than two hundred yards. Fire now.”
The MP-5 weapons were of no use. Silenced, they were effective at no more than fifty yards.
Murdock wished now that he had a long gun. All he could do was watch. He concentrated on using the NVGs.
“Five of them moving up on the left flank,” he said into the mike.
At least three guns shifted fire there, and the flankers fell back dragging two wounded.
The 40mm grenades began dropping on the enemy troops. They took several direct hits along the line of shooters. After taking ten rounds of the grenades, the Iraqi troops surged ahead fifty yards to get out of the barrage, and went on firing.
The two SEAL machine guns worked overtime as the Iraqis moved up, cutting down five of them. “How many out there?” a voice on the Motorola asked. “I’ve got about twenty left,” Murdock replied. “Get those forties back on target.”
Another half dozen of the grenades dropped in on the Iraqi troops.
The firing died off for a moment, then picked up as some of the troops ahead of them made a fast retreat to the rear and vanished — probably into a wadi, Murdock decided.
Then the retreated troops covered for the rest of the soldiers as they raced to the gully and out of sight.
“Hold your fire,” Murdock said into the mike. “Looks like the bad guys have had enough for now. Anybody pick up a wound?”
The net went silent for a moment; then a voice came on, and Murdock was sure who it was.
“Yeah, got a scratch, upper right leg. Hurts like hell.”
“Ching, that you?” Doc Ellsworth asked.
“Yeah, not sure how fast I can walk.”
“Where are you, middle of the line?”
“Front, near the front.”
Murdock ran that way, and saw Doc ahead of him. Doc got there first. Kenneth Ching was down, and holding his right leg.
“Ed, get the rest of the platoon out of here, and take Salwa with you,” Murdock said into the mike. “Due southwest. Move them. We’ll catch up. Watch out for Gonzalez. Trade off on the men carrying him.
Move.”
Doc examined the leg with the help of a shaded mini-flash hung around his neck. “Bullet went through. Looks like it missed the bone.
Hurts like hell.” He bandaged it and got Ching on his feet.
“Limp a little and see if you can walk,” Doc said.
Ching tried. Limped and walked. He made it ten yards with Doc and Murdock beside him. Murdock had Ching’s Colt carbine.
“Yeah, I can make it. Got one of them shots, Doc?”
Ellsworth used a one-time shot of morphine, and Ching perked up.
“Yea, let’s go,” Ching said.
They caught the rest of the SEALs three hundred yards ahead. The main body had slowed. Doc left Ching, and went to check on Gonzalez.
They had stopped, and Fred Washington and Fernandez were taking turns carrying the hurt man.
Gonzalez couldn’t hold on anymore. His eyes were going glassy and he mumbled.
“Fireman’s carry,” Doc said. “It’ll keep his head down and he won’t fall off that way. We better move again.”
Murdock came to the front of the column with Salwa. They kept walking across the desert at a slower pace. The coolness of the desert night crept into their cammies and neutralized the sweat.
Another half mile, and Murdock called a halt. It was almost 0500.
“Salwa, where’s the damned border? Is it marked here?”
“It should be close. I’ve been here a dozen times, unless … “
“In an hour it’s going to be light,” Murdock said. “They’ll have every plane in this sector up searching for us to burn our asses.”
“Sorry. My mistake. I thought we would be in Saudi Arabia by now.
We must be in a slightly different area.”
“Just slightly,” Murdock said, his anger edging through.
Murdock checked on Ching. He was limping worse, but he waved away any help. “Hell, I’m a fucking SEAL,” he said.
They walked for another half hour at three miles an hour on the same compass bearing. The darkness began to evaporate around them. It would be dawn in half an hour.
Murdock stopped the men and dispersed them. He turned to Salwa.
“Now what? Just where the fuck are we?”
Salwa studied the landscape ahead of him. It looked much the same all the way around to Murdock. Salwa turned to Murdock, smiling. “Yes, yes, now I see. We hit the notch. A small area of Iraq that bulges into Saudi Arabia. It’s not more than three miles deep. We hit it almost in the center.”
“Three more miles, you’re sure?”
“No, we’re two thirds of the way there. A mile more. Yes, absolutely. Guaranteed.”
Murdock had just about given the order to move out when he heard the jets. “Figures,” Murdock said. “They can’t miss us out here.” He hit the lip mike. “Company. Probably Migs. Not sure what number, but doesn’t matter much with targets like us. If they spot us, and they almost certainly will, we disperse at least twenty-five yards apart.
Got that? At least twenty-five. We want to be as lousy a target as possible. Let’s stretch out our diamonds now and move. Salwa says we have another mile to the Saudi border. Let’s move out.”
It took the Migs ten minutes to find them. They had been on a grid search, and when they turned and came over the SEALs at sagebrush level, Murdock knew their ID had been confirmed. “Ground fire when they come back,” Murdock radioed. “You know the drill, fire in front of the bastards, long lead. Ground fire can be damned effective. Give it a try.”
The two Migs came one at a time, and the machine gunners and the long gun men had time to fire at both in succession. The jet fighters used their cannon, spraying the area with 20mm explosive rounds.