Jake opened the gate and hobbled toward the hangar as fast as he could go.
The shooter by the hangar wall watched him come. When he was five feet away, the man said, “Jesus, CAG, what happened to your leg?”
Toad Tarkington!
“Banged it up. You okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. Landed on some concrete. But I don’t think this hangar is the one we want. Aren’t we on the wrong side of the airfield?”
“You’re assuming this is the right airfield.”
“Don’t tell me.” Toad Tarkington pulled a compass from his shirt. He consulted it. “This has got to be the right airfield, but the wrong hangar. Ours is over there.” He pointed.
Missiles streaked overhead before they could react. They heard the explosions of the warheads detonating, then the roar of jet engines at full military power.
More jets. One went over with his cannon spitting bursts.
Jake Grafton sat on the ground. He pulled his map and a pencil flash from a leg pocket and studied it while the jets worked over the Iraqi armor beyond the field perimeter. Finally he replaced the map and flash in his pocket. “Help me up.”
“How bad’s your leg?”
“Ain’t broke. Come on. Let’s go.”
With Toad leading and Jake hobbling along behind, the two of them headed into the darkness of the center of the field toward the distant hangars on the other side.
They had gone no more than a hundred feet when they heard the small-arms fire. It seemed to be coming from the perimeter.
“Well, they know we’re here,” Toad muttered.
They came to a drainage ditch and were wading through the mud in the bottom when they heard the first chopper. It swept across the field only a few feet above the ground without a single light showing. Somewhere off to the left it slowed, almost a hover, then kept going toward the airfield perimeter.
Jack Yocke heard the background hum of the chopper engines, and he heard several more of the machines coming across the city. These were the Apaches, he assumed, the gunships that were to act as heavy artillery under the direction of the SEALs on the ground.
But he was on the wrong side of the fight. He was supposed to be inside the airfield perimeter, under cover.
Goddamnit!
Nothing in war ever goes the way you planned it. Wasn’t that what Jake Grafton told him as they waited to board the plane?
Explosions ahead. Flashes, and after a few seconds, the noise, which swept down the night streets in waves that could almost be felt. And the roar of automatic gunfire. Burst after burst.
A man opened a second-story window and stuck his head out. He saw Yocke and ducked his head back in.
That lump in the pit of Yocke’s stomach turned cold. He was sweating profusely now. Unable to do anything else, he kept going, toward the gunfire.
He came to a corner and approached it carefully. The firing was loud now, no more than a block away. Close against the side of a building and sheltered in darkness, he waited until a helicopter swept over and eased his head around. And found himself staring straight into the face of a man just a few feet away.
Yocke swung the weapon and pulled the trigger. Nothing. Mother of God! The safety! He tried to find it.
There was no time. The Iraqi came for him in a rush.
Yocke swung the gun barrel, still trying to find the safety, and literally pushed the man away with the barrel. But he kept coming.
Galvanized, Yocke pushed him again, this time using his left hand.
He felt the bite of the knife on his arm. It stung.
The knife gleamed in the man’s right hand as he crouched, then flung himself at the reporter.
Yocke was at least six inches taller than the Iraqi and twenty pounds heavier and his terror gave him tremendous strength, which probably saved his life. Somehow he got hold of the Iraqi’s right wrist and began to twist. As the two men fell to the ground the knife came loose.
Yocke got it.
And rammed it into the Iraqi’s body. Twice, three times, jabbing with all his strength.
The Iraqi groaned once, almost a scream, then the strength drained from him.
Yocke stabbed him three or four more times, then rolled away.
He lay beside the dead man, trying to get his breath.
Sticky. His hands were sticky and wet.
His arm was burning.
Horrified, he looked at the blood. On his hands, his arm, his clothes, the gear he wore. On the Iraqi. Smeared on the sidewalk.
Jack Yocke managed to get to his feet and stood swaying as the sounds of battle came echoing down the empty street. Amazingly, he discovered he still had the knife in his hand. He opened his fingers. The knife made a hollow sound when it bounced on the sidewalk.
Sobbing, Yocke examined the submachine gun still slung around his shoulders and found the safety. He flicked it off.
The Apache helicopters were pouring fire into an area by the main gate, about two hundred yards away, as Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington lay in the darkness on the edge of the concrete parking mat and studied the hangar looming ahead of them. Lights mounted above the center of the main door and by a sentry box at the left corner were still illuminated.
What the lights revealed were bodies. Jake counted. Eight. Even as he watched, one of the men lying near the hangar moved, and drew immediate fire from out of the darkness on Jake’s right. With the goggles on, Jake could see the prone figure who had just fired.
“The SEALs are here,” Toad whispered. “Isn’t this Saddam’s safety-deposit box, the Treasure Chest?”
“I think so.”
“There’s a personnel door over behind that sentry box. We might be able to get in there.”
“Let’s check in first. Keep an eye peeled.”
Jake extracted his radio and fumbled with the switches. Then he held it to his ear and keyed the mike. “Snake One, this is the Doctor.” Snake One was the commanding officer of the SEAL team, Commander Lester Slick. Slick was a hell of a name for a naval officer but if anyone snickered they did it well away from Lester, who had the body of a professional wrestler and the scarred face of a man who liked to fight and had done far too much of it.
“Snake One, aye. Say your posit.”
“By the target hangar, west side.”
“Wait one.”
They waited in the darkness, listening to the battle. Jake removed his night vision goggles and let his eyes adjust.
The radio squawked. “Snake One, this is Snake Four. There’s four of us out here in the middle of a whole goddamn raghead platoon.”
“Fight your way in, Snake Four. You’re behind schedule.”
That was Lester Slick. If you wanted sympathy, write home to mama.
“Roger.”
Jake looked at his watch. In six minutes the first of the Blackhawks was scheduled to arrive.
“Okay, gang, this is Snake One. Let’s start moving in on the Treasure Chest.”
Jake and Toad rose from the ground and scuttled toward the hangar. As they came into the light he saw five other men, SEALs, coming at a trot. “Let’s get inside,” Jake told Toad, and went for the personnel door by the sentry box.
Jake opened the door and stepped into a foyer, a dead space to keep out blowing sand. Toad was right behind him. They paused and listened, then Toad opened the inner door several inches while Jake peeked through the opening. He stepped back and motioned for Toad to close the door.
“Over a dozen men. Some armed,” Jake whispered.
“The nukes?”
“A lot of them.”
“Whoo boy!”
“There’s a door in the east side, by the aircraft door,” Jake said. “It’s open. I’m gonna step out and look around the corner. Open the door for me.” His heart was hammering, he was perspiring freely, and he was breathing hard, as if he had run ten miles, but when Toad opened the door he slipped back outside.