Stryker pointed off to one end of the refinery where a series of tall, vertical towers or tanks could be seen. "That look kinda like what we're after?" he asked.

Raines nodded, checking the drawing against what they were looking at.

Jerry Shaw, one of Stryker's men, spoke up. "Why not just blow the s.h.i.t outta everything and be done with it?" he asked, looking at the other men to see if they agreed.

"Because Ben doesn't want to completely destroy the refinery," Raines said. "The world needs the oil too much to put it totally out of commission. He just wants us to shut it down for six or eight months, long enough to defeat the man whose family owns it."

"And taking out the cracking plant will do that?" Stryker asked.

Raines nodded. "Yeah. Ben figures it'll take the Iraqis at least that long to get someone to sell them the equipment to repair it, and by then this war with Farrar will be over, one way or another."

"Bolt cutters," Stryker said, holding out his hand.

Shaw pulled a three-foot-long pair of bolt cutters from his pack and handed them to Strykei, who used them to cut a large hole in the fence.

He turned back to his men. "Okay, guys, here's the deal. If we can get to the cracking plant and set our explosives without being seen, we'll set the timers for an hour. That'll give us a good chance to get away before the s.h.i.t hits the fan. If we get in a f irefight and the guards are alerted, then all bets are off and we blow the plant right away and worry about our escape later."

"Fat chance of that," Shaw said grinning. "I have a feeling when thisthing goes off, it's gonna make the Fourth of July look like a picnic."

"All right, let's get started. We'll go single file with every- 287.

one keeping a sharp lookout for guards or workers. If you have to fire, make sure your silencers are attached and try to keep your bursts short."

As they rounded the last corner before coming to the cracking plant, the men came face-to-face with two Arabs in coveralls who were carrying large wrenches.

Stryker didn't hesitate, but let go with six rounds from his Uzi. The men crumpled without a sound as the machine gun spat bullets into them while making only a soft coughing sound.

"Pull them over there behind that pipe outta sight," Stryker whispered while looking around to see if anyone had heard anything.

Once the workers were hidden from sight, Raines and the SEALs ran weaving around and between tanks and pipes and small buildings until they were at the base of the cracking plant.

Raines checked his drawing again. "This must be the furnace room that heats the oil," he said.

Stryker gestured to one of his men. "Johnny, put a couple of packets of C-4 on each of these walls."

While he was doing that, Raines led the rest of the men around the building. "Each of those vertical tanks has gotta go," he said, pointing to a series of huge pipelike structures sticking straight up into the air.

Stryker nodded and his men fanned out, one to each of the pipes, and began to attach canvas sacks containing a couple of pounds of C-4 plastique and a timing device and fuse to the metal with duct tape.

The packets were expertly placed in corners and behind other pipes so as to be out of sight and not easily found in case an alarm was raised.

The timers were set for one hour, and then the men were done, mission so far accomplished.

288.

"Now to see if we can get out of here without being seen," Stryker said, setting off back the way they'd come.

They were almost back to the hole in the fence when a shout rang out behind them, followed closely by the sound of a rifle shot.

Billy Bartlett, one of the SEALs, cried out and was thrown onto his face.

The SEALs circled around him and began to return fire, shooting first at the large spotlights arrayed around the refinery.

Stryker walked over to Billy and saw a spreading stain of crimson in the small of his back."Billy, Billy," Stryker said urgently.

Bartlett opened his eyes, his face a mask of pain. "d.a.m.n, I can't move my legs, Chief," he said.

Stryker glanced at Raines as his men poured round after round of automatic fire at guards who had come running to the sound of gunfire.

"He's been hit in the spine," Stryker told Raines.

He looked back down at the wounded man. "Billy, put your arms around my neck and I'll carry you outta here."

Billy pushed him away. "Bulls.h.i.t, Chief," he groaned. "You can't carry me five miles across the desert and you know it."

Stryker, knowing the man was right, just looked at him without speaking.

"Here," Bartlett said through clenched teeth. "Prop me up against the fence and leave me a couple of extra magazines for my Uzi, then get the h.e.l.l outta here."

"Shaw," Stryker said in a harsh voice, "gimme a couple'a magazines."

Shaw reached into his pack and tossed three magazines to Stryker, who handed them to Bartlett.

Bartlett laid them on his lap, gave a lopsided grin, and said, "Hoist one for me when you get back to base."

289.

289.

Stryker punched him lightly in the arm. "You know it, pal," he said through a tight throat.

"Now get outta here before the whole place goes up," Bartlett said, holding the Uzi up and beginning to fire.

Stryker waved his arm and his men followed him through the fence, running crouched over and immediately spreading out to make less of a target for their pursuers.

As they jogged across the desert, looking for the road they'd followed in, they kept a sharp lookout for sentries.

Shaw was suddenly knocked to the ground by a burst of automatic-weapons fire from the left, but the two sentries there were shot dead by the other SEALs before anyone else was wounded.

Stryker knelt next to Shaw, who was dead from a head wound.

Raines picked up his Uzi and waited while Stryker took the dog tags from Shaw's neck and put them in his breast pocket.

They ran another hundred yards before stumbling almost by accident onto the road leading back toward the sea.

Twenty minutes later, as they jogged down the road, a mighty blast wentoff in the distance behind them and sheets of orange and red flames shot hundreds of feet into the air.

The men all stopped and stared in awe as secondary explosions rocked the refinery, cutting off all the electric lights and spreading flames throughout much of the structure.

"s.h.i.t!" Stryker said. "Looks like we mighta used a bit too much C-4."

Raines shrugged. "That's all right. Better too much than not enough."

He glanced down at the dial on his GPS. "We've only got another couple of miles until we get to where we hid the Zodiac," he said.

290.

"That's good," Stryker said, " 'cause we're gonna have company soon."

He pointed off in the distance where the searchlights of several helicopters could be seen circling near the refinery.

291.

When the team was less than a mile from where they'd stashed the Zodiac, their luck ran out. A search helicopter came out of nowhere and swooped low over them, pinning them momentarily in its thousand-candle-power searchlight as it pa.s.sed.

"s.h.i.t! Take cover!" Stryker hollered to his men as he dove to the ground.

"What cover?" Jacob Samson hollered back as he hit the sand and rolled over onto his back, his Uzi pointed at the sky above him.

He was right. There were no trees or boulders or anything else that would offer even marginal protection against the helicopter attack they all knew was coming.

As he watched the chopper make a broad sweep to the left in preparation for its strafing run, Stryker yelled, "Put your Uzis on full auto and go for the tail rotor. It's about the only thing these little nine-millimeters will hurt."

The men spread out in a wide circle so as not to give the helicopter gunner a single ma.s.s to target, selected full automatic on their weapons, and lay on their backs, waiting for all h.e.l.l to break loose.

"Well," Raines said to Stryker as he a.s.sumed the same position, "we almost made it."

292.

Stryker gave a harsh laugh. "Don't give up yet, Buddy. As long as we're breathin', we got a chance."

The helicopter tilted forward, its nose down and its tail in the air as it came screaming at them low over the ground, its 20mm canon under its nose chattering away, sending out streams of orange flames ahead of it.

As the ground all around the SEALs began to geyser under the onslaught of thousands of sh.e.l.ls, the SEALs began to fire their Uzis, aiming atthe nose so by the time the sh.e.l.ls got there, they would hit the tail. .

. hopefully.

The noise of the chopper's big turbine engines, its 20mm cannon, and the firing of the Uzis was deafening, and the smell of cordite and dirt and av-gas filled the desert air.

One of the SEALs screamed in pain and buckled under the impact of fifteen bullets, dead before his scream stopped echoing in the chaos of the attack.

Just as the chopper pa.s.sed, it began to wobble and jerk and jive uncontrollably as its tail rotor was shattered by the combined bullets from below.

The pilot fought the stick and collector with all his might as the big bird jogged up and then down and then began to gyrate in a wide circle.

For a moment, it looked as if he might make it down safely. Then the chopper dropped straight down the last twenty feet, exploding in a giant fireball of flame and oily black smoke.

Stryker got to his feet and ran to check on his man. When he saw the dead SEAL with multiple gunshot wounds, he snapped his dog tags off, stuffed them in his pocket, and yelled, "Come on! We gotta get moving before the other birds arrive."

By the time they got the Zodiac uncovered and pulled into the water, there were four more helicopters nearby, crossing back and forth searching for them.

As Raines got into the Zodiac, he shook his head. "There's 293.

no way they're not going to see us out on the water," he said to Stryker.

Stryker grinned and said, "You reckon not with the SEALs' ingenuity, my friend."

Once all of the men were loaded and the boat was easing away from sh.o.r.e through the small breakers, Stryker turned the sand-colored tarp over and on its other side it was coal black.

He gave a corner of the tarp to two men in the front and two men in the back of the boat.

A helicopter dipped out of the night sky and began to course toward them, its searchlight illuminating a broad swath of ground as it crossed the beach and headed out to sea.

"Now!" Stryker yelled, and ducked as the men pulled the tarp over the boat and held the corners down close to the water all around the boat.

The chopper pa.s.sed fifty feet above them and never slowed down as its light pa.s.sed over just another dark spot on the ocean.

Raines was sweating heavily in the mugginess under the tarp, but he laughed as he heard the chopper's engines retreat into the distance."d.a.m.n!" he exclaimed, slapping Stryker on the back. "We've got it made."

Stryker grinned slightly. "Yeah, if we can make it to Kuwait before dawn. This black tarp ain't worth a d.a.m.n in the sunlight."

"What?" Abdullah El Farrar screamed into the cell phone he was holding, making both Mustafa Kareem and Osama bin Araman wince in fright.

Their leader had received so much bad news lately, they both thought it might drive him mad.

294.

"When did this happen?" Farrar asked, his knuckles white where his hand gripped the phone.

He listened a few more minutes, pacing the room with eyes wide and wild with anger.

"What about the additional troops and equipment I ordered? Are they on their way here?" he asked, trying to force his voice to become calmer.

Kareem and Araman flinched again as they saw his face blanch and become even paler with what looked to be more bad news.

"But Father," he said, a note of whining coming into his voice. "There was over a billion dollars in that account."

He listened for a few more minutes, then nodded, as if the caller on the other end could see as well as hear him speaking.

"Yes, Father. I will do what I can with what I have. Let me know if your inquiries at the bank find anything out about the theft of the money."

He pressed the disconnect b.u.t.ton on the phone, looked at it for a moment, then whirled and threw it against a far wall with all his strength.

The phone shattered into a hundred pieces, which showered Kareem and Araman like so much shrapnel.

Kareem hesitated, wondering whether he should ask about the news from home or wait for Farrar to decide to tell him in his own time.

Finally, Farrar walked over to sit at the table with Kareem and Araman.