Far ahead, he saw a faint glow. It had to be the town of Osadi.
According to their best maps, this was the only town in the whole territory for fifty miles around. It was why El Raza had chosen it as a haven from the Iraqi Army. He felt isolated and safe. When he’d deserted, he’d taken a company of his men, and all the arms they could pile on armored personnel carriers.
Twenty minutes later, the soft glow ahead had turned into fuzzy lights. They were low enough that Murdock could see some of the terrain below. Desert, a few ravines, a scattering of low brush and weeds, lots of sand and rocks. Good old desert.
“Looks like we’re dead-on on the old cracker barrel on this one, people,” Murdock said. “My skyhook shows that we’re at just under five thousand feet. We could come in a tad short, so don’t waste any altitude maneuvering. Ed, can you see all of your men?”
“All but one. I think his glowworm died. He was close in last I saw him.”
“Yeah, Commander. Franklin here. My light died like a stiff prick at a church service. I got glowworms on both sides of me.”
“Roger that, Franklin,” Murdock said.
They came to ground a half mile short of the village. Everyone made it down without any injuries. They had practiced this landing enough that they should know how by now.
They didn’t bother to bury the chutes.
“They’ll know we’ve been here tomorrow, so why bother?” Murdock said. They checked equipment and got their issue weapons in their hands, and Murdock moved them out.
The scout, Joe
“Ricochet” Lampedusa, Operations Specialist Third Class, led the troops, with Murdock right behind him and Ron Holt, with his SATCOM, right behind Murdock in case he was needed in a rush. First Squad scattered out behind at ten-yard intervals. The ten yards was standard for most combat situations. One lucky explosive round or one hand grenade wouldn’t put down more than one man at a time.
Second Squad, with (j. g.) Dewitt in the lead, followed the First Squad. They both were in a modified diamond formation, and hiked along at a pace of fifteen minutes to the mile.
A half-moon cast a suggestion of light over the desert. Here there were occasional tufts of grass, a few cacti, and now and then a low growth that must hug runoff gullies formed when sudden downpours bathed the desert.
Still a quarter of a mile from the first lights, Lampedusa went down, and the rest of the SEALs dropped into the dirt as well. Murdock met the motorcycle enthusiast halfway. “Some kind of a truck, no lights,” Lam said. “Parked out there about a hundred yards from that last building.”
“A roving mounted patrol?” Murdock asked.
“Doubt it. The rig hasn’t moved for five minutes. I’ve been watching it.”
“Let’s pay your truck a visit.” Murdock turned, and motioned for the rest of the men to stay where they were. In the darkness, the signal went from one man back to the next, until it worked all the way through Second Squad.
Murdock and Lam bent over, and ran silently toward the truck.
Murdock saw that it was some type of Russian personnel carrier. It had a machine gun mounted facing forward. The rig was parked so it nosed away from the settlement.
Without warning, the truck’s headlights blazed a path through the desert night. Murdock and Lam were well out of the beam, but they went to ground and didn’t move. Murdock figured it was two minutes later before the lights snapped off. He had kept his eyes tightly closed during the light show. When he opened his eyes, he found his night vision not affected. He snapped up the NVGs, Night Vision Goggles, and checked the truck.
He could see a man at the steering wheel, but he wasn’t sure if there was another man in the cab. Murdock motioned, and he and Lam moved to the left to come up more on the side of the rig. Murdock carried his standard-issue weapon, an H&K MP-5SD submachine gun with the stock extension closed. It had been customized for the SEALs with a special stock, handgrip, and safety. It had tritium dots on the sights for night shooting. It could spit out one 9mm round at a time, bursts of three, or full-auto fire.
The scout carried his usual Colt M-4A 1, a .223-caliber that fired single shots or full automatic at seven hundred rounds per minute. Like all SEAL M-4AI’s, his also had an M203 40mm grenade launcher under the barrel.
They moved forward in a crouch until they were forty yards from the rig, then went down to a crawl. Cradling weapons across their arms, they went by elbows and knees another fifteen yards. Both weapons carried sound suppressors. Murdock used the NVGs again, nodded, and brought up his H&K. He sighted in and put a three-round burst through the open side window.
After the silenced burst, the two SEALs came to their feet and charged the small truck. They found two uniformed men in the front seat, both dead. There were no troops in the back.
Murdock stood and waved the SEALs forward. He had silhouetted himself against the town’s lights. The men came up in formation, and the platoon moved forward.
Lampedusa knew where the fortified house should be. He checked the buildings, then swung around to the right.
Murdock figured there couldn’t be more than two hundred inhabitants in the place. The house they wanted was in the second row from the outside. They weren’t blocks exactly, more like cow paths or maybe goat trails.
Lam went down again to the dirt fifty yards off the first row of buildings, and Murdock crawled up to him.
“Figure it should be right in there, between these closest two buildings. Looks the same as the satellite pictures we got.”
Murdock put his NVGs on the slice of territory they could see between buildings. As he watched, he saw an armed guard walking across the area.
“Must be it, they have sentries out.” He touched his lip mike.
“Dewitt, up here.” They hadn’t worked out the final assault on the place because there wasn’t enough intel. Now they would parcel out the assignments.
Murdock and Dewitt talked for three minutes; then Murdock moved ahead with the First Squad. There were no people on the streets. There were streetlights only every two hundred yards. None shone on this area.
First Squad slid between the buildings, which looked like commercial enterprises, and spread out along a narrow street that fronted the target house. It sat twenty yards in back of the avenue, and had a stone wall around it that was only three feet high. The house itself had two stories, was made of stone and mortar, and looked sturdy.
Ed Dewitt brought his men up, and sent half of them to each side of the house between buildings, and wherever they could find an open field of fire against the house.
The guard Murdock had seen before came again, evidently walking a circuit around the house. He carried a rifle over his shoulder, and walked at a leisurely pace as if thinking about what he would do when he got off duty.
They waited. Another guard came out of the shadows, and talked with the rover, then went back where he had been. Now, with the NVGs, Murdock could see him. Murdock searched other shaded areas, and found another front guard.
“Dewitt. Check for fixed guards on the sides. We’ve found two out here.”
“Roger that.”
Murdock pointed to Bill Bradford, the new sniper for the First Squad with his H&K PSG 1. It fired a 7.62 NATO round from the high-precision sniping rifle. He had a 20-round magazine, a long, heavy barrel, and a pistol grip at the trigger. It had a fully adjustable stock, a 6 x 24 telescope, and a sound suppressor.
Bradford lifted the rifle, and looked through the scope. The light-gathering properties brought the target into clear focus. He checked the first hidden sentry, then zeroed in on him and fired. He shot just once, then moved to the other sentry and cut him down with one round.
“Take ‘ down if you got ‘, Ed,” Murdock whispered into his mike. He heard two muffled rounds from the side, then silence.