The light over the doorway outside had to go. Jake reached up and broke it with the silencer on the end of the submachine gun. Then he inched his head around the corner of the hangar. Just bodies visible. He ran the length of the building as fast as his sore leg would allow and paused at the next corner by the sentry box, then cautiously inched his head out.
There was a trailer or something, a dozen or so armed Iraqis, some of them looking this way. He jerked his head back.
The fat was in the fire. They must have seen him. A grenade!
He got one from his web belt, pulled the pin, then threw it as hard as he could around the corner. When it blew he leaned out a few inches and let go with the silenced weapon.
Three men were down. The nearest man was picking himself up off the concrete, just twenty feet away. Jake’s slugs smacked him and he went over backward, his weapon flying. Jake sprayed another burst at the men by the trailer, then ducked back into shelter.
Bullets splattered into the metal of the hangar just above his head as the ripping of a weapon echoed off the clustered buildings. Jake crouched, looking for the muzzle blasts. There! He squeezed off a burst as he scuttled sideways for the dubious safety of the sentry box.
More bullets spanged in.
Now he took his time, sighting carefully: this was what the Iraqi hadn’t done. He squeezed the trigger and held the muzzle down. And saw the Iraqi fall from behind a barrel where he had taken cover.
Quickly he took the empty magazine from his weapon and inserted another. Now back to the corner. Another burst at figures now trying to get behind the trailer.
There was a car there. A car? A limo, it looked like.
Shots from inside the hangar. Toad must have gone in.
Jake heaved another grenade.
After it exploded, he looked again. The car was right beside the trailer, the passenger door open. Two men were hosing lead in this direction. The car was also facing this way.
Jake got down on his belly and aimed his weapon at the front tires of the car. The two men who were upright now went down, dropping their weapons. Jake gave the tires a whole clip.
New magazine inserted.
Even though its front tires were flat, the limo started to move. Grafton pumped a burst into the engine compartment and watched as a cloud of steam came out. The limo stopped.
The gunfire on the western side of the base was building into a sustained racket. Grafton looked around. A SEAL was running toward him, his weapon at the ready.
The SEAL flopped down behind Jake. “Go into the hangar and help out,” Jake said. “One of our guys is in there. Be careful where you shoot.”
Without a word the other man got up and went into the hangar.
Jake lay where he was, watching the limo and the trailer by the hangar wall. No one moved.
A helicopter swept over. Then another. Running without lights. Rockets rippled from a third machine and streaked away to the west. Now Jake heard the roar of a 30mm cannon. This machine was barely moving, pouring fire at several tanks just outside the perimeter fence. The wash from the rotors of this machine fanned Jake.
Two figures rose from a low place out on the airfield and came slowly this way, bent at the waist. They stopped and crouched occasionally. They approached the car.
“Don’t shoot him,” Jake shouted during a momentary lull in the gunship barrage going on just behind him. “Take him into the hangar.”
With that he got up and opened the hangar door.
Inside the foyer he wiped the perspiration from his eyes, got a good grip on the submachine gun, then jerked open the interior door and dived through.
He slid right into the body of an Iraqi soldier. His throat had been cut. More bodies lay near the eastern door, the one that led to where the trailer was parked. Jake inched forward and looked carefully around. A group of Iraqis was standing near the west wall of the hangar with their hands up. Three missiles on trailers sat against the north wall, and here and there, several compact, cylindrical devices — warheads. Piles of wooden crates sat in one corner. A Scud on its launcher sat against the west wall.
“Toad?” Jake made it loud, because the noise from outside was reverberating inside this large metal building.
“Over here, CAG.”
“Everything under control?”
“Seems to be.”
“Are you behind something?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay there. I’m gonna take a look out this east door.”
Jake walked across the hangar warily. He didn’t take time to count the warheads, but there were a lot of them.
Approaching the door he stepped to one side. The door was ajar. He eased it open and inched his head around the jamb for a look. This was, of course, an excellent way to get his brains blown out, but right now didn’t seem to be the time to play it safe.
Three bodies were lying near the door. Four more were visible to the right, toward the south. And fifty feet away the limo still sat, the two SEALs kneeling behind it. Jake stepped out and walked toward them.
“There were about a dozen men here when I first saw them. Did you guys see where the others went?”
“They went hoofing it toward the north. There’s a network of trenches over there, I think. You’ll find their bodies about fifty yards up that way.”
As helicopters crossed above and the whuff of Hellfire missiles and rockets being launched washed over them, one of the SEALs seized the front door of the car and jerked it open. The driver sat with his hands on the steering wheel, offering no resistance. “This guy’s been watching too many American cop movies. Okay, Ahmad, outta there.”
The rear door on Jake’s side of the car opened. He stood ready, the submachine gun leveled, his finger on the trigger. First a leg came out, a leg clad in uniform trousers. Then an arm and head, then the man was standing there. He was bareheaded, wore a long-sleeved uniform shirt without a tie or jacket, and had a thin brush mustache on his upper lip.
Jake gestured with his gun. “Raise ’em.”
The man obeyed.
“Okay, Saddam,” Jake said, stepping aside and jerking his left thumb at the door, “let’s join the others at the party.”
Jake stopped outside the door and got out his radio. He selected the proper channel and checked in. “The weapons are here. The dance is on.”
He waited for an acknowledgment, then turned down the volume of the radio to save the battery. He kept it in his hand though.
Right now the SEALs were establishing a perimeter around this building and locating the remainder of the Iraqi Republican Guard troops. The Apaches were working over the Republican Guard camp and the nearby barracks. Yet this was makeshift, a temporary expedient until the helicopters with the 101st Airborne Air Assault troops and their heavy weapons arrived. Outside the base fighter-bombers would attack the Republican Guard without mercy and hopefully prevent Iraqi troops from amassing sufficient combat power to retake the base or hinder the American buildup. As usual in modern war, timing, mobility, and firepower were the key.
Commander Lester Slick came striding in. His radio was also squawking in his hand. “Admiral, we have four dead that I know of and about twenty men unaccounted for. One of them is the reporter.”
Jake merely nodded.
“We’ve scouted out most of the base and neutralized some of the opposition, but the bulk of my men are setting up lights for helo landing zones. The choppers should be here in about a minute, sir.”
“Runways intact?”