Though SEALS, unlike their UDT forebears, were trained to operate well inland from the beach, their training constantly emphasized that the sea was the SEAL's natural habitat. When things started to get hot ashore, the water offered cover, security, and escape. The sea lay just ahead, black, featureless, and welcoming, picking up just a hint of the sky glow from the direction of Dubrovnik.
Another forty minutes and they'd be there.
Ncirednik Jankovic's grip on his newly acquired AKM assault rifle tightened as he leaned over to stare out the Mi-8's circular window. It was still too dark to see anything but a faint blur that might have been surf washing up the shelf of the beach. The transport was racing along through the night at an altitude of less than one hundred meters; somewhere just ahead, the second helicopter, the one with General Mihajlovic aboard, was also paralleling the coastline east from Dubrovnik.
The general, Jankovic reflected, certainly knew how to get things moving. They'd flown to the Serbian lines just outside Dubrovnik, and within minutes Mihajlovic had rounded up sixty troops, forming up what he'd referred to as an "ad hoc counterterrorist team." More troops were on the way by road, packed into trucks commandeered at the Serbian camp. Mihajlovic seemed fanatical on the subject of finding the intruders and running them to earth.
Jankovic wondered if the fact that the man's name was Mihajlovic had anything to do with it. Dragoljub Mihajlovic had been a colonel on the Yugoslav Army general staff during World War II, the man who had organized the original Chetniks. He'd been shot by the Communists in 1946 — naturally enough since the Chetniks had in some cases openly collaborated with the Nazis, especially late in the war.
Well, it probably meant nothing. Mihajlovic was a common Serb name. But the general was old enough to be a son or a nephew of old Dragoljub, and such a connection would go a long way toward explaining his ambition… and his enthusiasm for this mission.
Jankovic almost hoped the commandos, whoever they were, had already made good their escape. Their ruthless and deadly efficiency at the monastery had burned the warning into Jankovic's brain. These were not men to trifle with, not men to put into a corner where their only option was to fight their way out.
"Hey! Sergeant!"
Jankovic turned from the window. The kaplar — the corporal — sitting in the next seat grinned at him hopefully.
"Yeah?"
"I hear you actually saw some of these terrorists we're supposed to be hunting. What were they like, huh?"
"Dangerous," Jankovic said. "Extremely dangerous."
"Chopper incoming!" Roselli called. "Take cover!"
The SEAL squad went to ground, still a full hundred meters short of the highway. The helicopter… no, two helicopters were coming in low from the west, with running lights blinking, with searchlights on and painting the road beneath them with dazzling white shafts. The lead aircraft flew past the SEALs' hiding place, racing toward the east, Its rotor wash set clouds of sand swirling in its wake, illuminated by the glare of its spotlight.
Roselli lay stretched out on the ground next to Murdock, his HK's stock pressed to his shoulder. "Whatcha say, L-T?" he asked. "Shall we take 'em?"
"Negative, Razor," Murdock replied. "Some of those Mi-8s sport a fair amount of armor. All we'd do is pinpoint our position."
"Shit. What I wouldn't give right now for a couple of LAWS."
"Just sit tight. We'll wait 'em out."
"I dunno, L-T. Looks like that second bird's gonna touch down right over there."
As the lead Mi-8 vanished toward the east, the second aircraft was flaring out, nose high, settling down toward the road in a whirl of windblown sand. The line of poplar trees beyond whipped frantically in the breeze. As the helo's wheels hit the pavement, the cabin door on the port side slid open, and soldiers armed with AK assault rifles began piling out.
"How many you figure?" Boomer asked from nearby.
"A Hip's normal troop complement is thirty-two," Murdock replied. "Hip" was the NATO designation for the Mi-8 in its troop-transport role. "But I guarantee you there'll be more coming down the road by truck any time now. This'll just be the advance guard."
"Looks like first-string JNA stuff," Roselli said. "They must want us pretty damned bad."
Murdock reached behind him and pulled out his night-vision set, pulled off his hat, and settled the goggles over his head. Roselli already had his goggles on his head, pushed up above his eyes, so he simply slid them down into place and switched them on.
The NVDs didn't make the helicopters that much clearer, not with all the flying sand and dust and the sweep of searchlights, but the soldiers sprang into sharp relief. "No night-vision gear, L-T."
"I see, Razor. That gives us a chance."
It was a little like being the invisible man, Roselli thought. You could see them, but they couldn't see you, wouldn't even know you were there unless you did something stupid like step on a branch or fall over your own two feet. All of the SEALs were wearing the NVDs now, and the scene below them glowed in eerily shining greens, blacks and silvers.
"Here! L-T!" Higgins said. "They're forming up and coming this way!"
While perhaps half of the Yugoslavian troops stayed near the helicopter, the rest were drawing out in a long line along the highway, with eight or ten meters separating each man from his neighbors. NCOs wielded flashlights and barked commands. Sixteen men started forward, walking up the hill toward the waiting SEALS.
"We could go around them, Lieutenant," Mac pointed out. "Cross there, to the left, then move back up the beach behind the wall."
"I don't think so," Murdock replied. "Look there."
A convoy was coming up the road from the direction of Dubrovnik, seven Army trucks, each crowded with troops. From the look of things, they were dropping men off along the road. One stopped several hundred meters further on. Five more grumbled past the tableau on the highway below, edging past the point where the helicopter blocked the road, then racing further toward the east as though they were in pursuit of the other helicopter. The seventh truck pulled to a halt just before it reached the Hip, and men began piling out, calling noisily to one another and tossing helmets and weapons down from the back of the vehicle.
"Definitely regular army," Murdock said, studying the men through his binoculars.
"They sure are loud," Roselli said. "You'd think they wanted us to know they were there."
"They may want to spook us back up the mountain," Mac pointed out.
"Yeah, or they may not care," Magic said. "Shit, they've got an army down there."
"So what?" Roselli replied. "Since when is an army a match for seven SEALS?"
The line of men grew longer as men ran up the hill to join it… and longer… and longer still. Flashlights probed and stabbed the darkness, flashing now toward the waiting SEALS, then away. The troops were closer now, perhaps fifty meters, and a searchlight mounted inside the helicopter's cockpit was being directed at the hillside.
"A cordon," Murdock said, his voice grim. "They know we're up here somewhere. They mean to stretch out a cordon and catch us like fish in a net."
5
Roselli waited, watching the soldier he'd picked out moving closer. The Serb troops were still noisy as they tramped up the hill through the field, but the shouts and catcalls had died away as each of the soldiers concentrated on his steps across the slightly uneven ground with its holes and unexpected mounds of matted grass.
There was no time to try to sidestep the search cordon. In the open field, there was just light enough that one of the advancing soldiers would spot a running, black-clad shape even without night-vision gear. The only option, then, was to sit tight and let the cordon pass. It was Roselli's job to make sure the opening between one soldier and the next was big enough for the SEALs to slip through unobserved.