Saudi Arabia

Near the Iraq Border

Lieutenant (j.g.) Chris Gardner called his platoon together in the dust and dirt of the Syrian Desert fifty yards from the Iraq border. It had been a rugged day for the man now in charge of the Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven. Twenty-four hours ago they had permission from Saudi Arabia to launch an attack on the bomb factory in Iraq from Saudi soil. They had flown into the small village of Ar Ruthiyah in two helicopters. The settlement was little more than a checkpoint for entry into Iraq on a dirt road. The Saudi army presence there was twelve men and one officer. Since almost no one ever came through the Syrian Desert into Saudi Arabia over this route, the men had little to do.

They were excited about the presence of U.S. helicopters and military men. A Saudi captain made the trip to a.s.sure his countrymen that all actions were under orders. The checkpoint was less than five miles from the border.

"First, we turn on the SATCOM and keep it on at all times from now on," J.G. Gardner said. "It's our only link with the commander and his men in Iraq. We know that the bomb factory is somewhere south of the little Iraq town they pinpointed. Our maps show that we are about eighty miles south of that town. Our last transmission from Murdock put the bad guys maybe ten miles south of the town. So we can chopper into the area and hit an LZ five miles away from the bomb factory at night and stay unnoticed.

"From there we work north until we find the bomb site or we find Murdock and his people. Then we recon the place and figure out how to take it down and get the nukes."

"Didn't Murdock say there could be two hundred troops up there?" Jaybird asked. "Where will they be while we're doing this?"

"Fighting mad, I'd figure," Gardner said. "That's our job. Eliminate the troops, if they are there, then take on the factory."

"Didn't that transmission say the whole place was underground?" Fernandez asked.

"It did. Make it tougher, but not impossible. There must be air vents, exhaust shafts, and probably a good-sized elevator. We'll know more once we get to check it out in the daylight."

"How long has Murdock been in there?" Canzoneri asked.

Gardner wiped his face with his left hand, a small habit he had taken to lately. "That could be a problem. He was on his second night when he called us. That was last night. I hope we didn't miss a transmission while we were in the air since our SATCOMs couldn't hold on the satellite while we were flying. He's somewhere near the bombs now and has been most of today. We'll get in there as fast as we can with first dark, and hope he's still ready to show us the bombs."

"The captain says it gets dark here about eighteen hundred," Senior Chief Neal said. "So we take off in about thirty. Everyone had his gear checked? Double ammo. Miss Garnet, do you have everything in your special kit that you'll need?"

"Yes, sir, Senior Chief. I'm ready to go."

"Good. Senior Chief, you'll take Alpha Squad in one chopper and I'll have the rest of Bravo with me," Gardner said. "Miss Garnet with Bravo. Any questions?"

"We gonna have to walk out eighty miles?" Bradford asked.

"Not a chance. This is in the Iraq Southern No-Fly Zone. We own the air in there. We can call on air strikes if it comes to that. We have along a laser that we can use to pinpoint a target for the air jockeys. When the place is reduced and the bombs destroyed, we'll get our same two choppers in to pull us out. They have a SATCOM on the ground here and can communicate with the radios in the choppers."

"We've got a transmission, Lieutenant," Bradford said.

"Underground One here," the SATCOM speaker said. "Where the h.e.l.l are you guys? Figured you'd be here last night. We've been playing tag and catch me if you can all d.a.m.n day. We're still about five miles south of the plant. My guess is fifteen miles below that little Arab town. The natives seem to go to sleep at night here. That is the Iraq army, which is made up of the elite Home Guard. They headed back toward the factory about an hour ago. Looks like d.a.m.n maneuvers out here. Squads of ten charging all over the place. They had a good workout, but never spotted us. My guess is they don't know we're here. You should be able to chopper in within fifteen miles of that town up there and not be heard by the Iraqis. If we hear you, we'll spot a red flare in a wadi where you can see it and the Arabs can't. Better go. Get in here, you guys, we got work to do."

"That's it, Lieutenant," Bradford said.

"Okay, we have our LZ, fifteen south of Ar Rutbah," Gardner said. "Let's load up. We're leaving fifteen early. Move it."

Five minutes later they lifted off the ground. The pilots had plotted their route to the small city, and the distance. They would come down in an LZ at what they figured was fifteen miles due south of the town. Flying time: twenty-six minutes at 147 mph.

J.G. Gardner still worried it. He wasn't sure he liked having a woman along on a combat mission like this one. He'd talked to her three or four times. She a.s.sured him she could use a sub gun or a rifle and that, yes, she had killed men in combat. She might have killed more than he had. He sat beside her in the chopper. She gave him a thumbs-up and he grinned. Anybody who could win a triathlon must have a lot of guts. From now on she was just another SEAL in a combat situation.

He went to the front to watch out the windows. They were about a hundred feet off the desert. As they pa.s.sed fifteen minutes on the flight clock, the pilot lifted up to five hundred feet so they could spot a flare if one lit off below them. At twenty minutes they had seen nothing. At twenty-four, Gardner yelped.

"Flare, one o'clock, one red. That's our guys. n.o.body else could see their signal." The pilot talked to the other chopper flyer and they had seen it, too. The birds came down fifty feet apart on the desert floor fifty yards from the flare. The second the wheels touched the ground, the SEALs jumped out and ran toward the wadi. They got out of the chopper's wash and dropped to the ground spread out in a defensive arc.

Gardner saw the men coming from the other chopper and waved them to his position.

"Lam," Gardner whispered. "Get up there and make contact. I figured somebody would be up here by now."

"Roger that, Lieutenant," Lam said. He lifted up and moved silently forward. He soon vanished in the night air that was starting to cool. The men were all sweating. They lay in the sand and rocks waiting for the contact.

Less than two minutes later, Lam materialized silently out of the darkness and waved. "We found them. Murdock says come on in."

The rest of Third Platoon hiked the fifty yards to the edge of the wadi and looked down. A small fire burned against the far bank. Four figures waved at them as they slid down the six-foot incline to the flat floor of the dry watercourse.

"Good to see you guys," Murdock said as he stood and held out a hand. Gardner shook it and frowned.

"What is this, chow time?"

Murdock took another bite of one of the cheese sandwiches they had brought with them and grinned. "It is now. I hope you guys brought food and water. We could take another look at the place tonight, but so far I don't see one fantasy way in h.e.l.l that we can even get inside this monster, let alone destroy it with the bombs we brought."

He watched the men greeting each other then got their attention. "Men, I want you to meet the person who found out where this place was for us, and in the process compromised herself and became a kill target. Let me introduce Gypsy, our benefactor."

Gypsy had hung in the background; now she moved up and waved. "My English she isn't so good but best I can do. Better I am here than dead in Baghdad. Where is this woman scientist, this Kat Garnet?"

Kat come up and hugged Gypsy and they moved to the side and began talking.

Murdock sat down with the men. "This sucker is underground all right. We don't know how far. I'd guess it has at least four feet of concrete on top and then two feet of sand and rocks on top of that to make it impossible to spot. You brought that laser the bra.s.s talked about?"

"We did, and we have Prescott, who took a day of training on it and can make it work," Gardner said.

"We sure as h.e.l.l might need it," Murdock said. "Those troops we saw were working the area in a circle around the factory. We heard there were two hundred. Could be more than that. They live out here. We almost ran into two kitchens. No bedrolls-they sleep on the ground. All day is given over to patrols, interlocking patrols with ten-man units. They range from a mile to three miles from the complex, so we never could be sure where they might show up. We had to back off and wait them out."

"So how do we get close enough during the day to get Prescott in there to use the laser?" Jaybird asked.

Murdock scowled. "My guess right now is that we don't. We go in at night and have the bombers primed and ready to go. They are going to need the bunker busters, those babies that can penetrate ten feet of concrete before they explode. Once we laser it and they get their first sightings in on it, they can plaster it with a dozen of the busters and that should do the job."

"So how can we be sure that we've destroyed the four bombs?" Wade Claymore asked.

Everyone looked at Murdock. "We can't. After the bombing, we'll have to send in a small team, three or four with Kat, and see what we can find. Once the place is wrecked, they may pull all the troops out and bring in the scientists and construction men to start seeing what they can salvage. If they do that quickly, we'll have a good chance to get in and get out."

"Sounds like a suicide mission," Senior Chief Neal said. "Doesn't sound like SEAL work."

"We don't do suicide operations," Vinnie Van d.y.k.e said.

Everyone was quiet for a while. The two women had moved back to the group.

"I don't know about you guys, but my job out here is to get those four bombs destroyed," Kat said. "I'm going in there if I have to go alone."

"We won't let you do that," Murdock said. "If it comes to a three- or four-man unit going in, we'll be with you. First we have to find out how to get the d.a.m.n bunker busters in the neighborhood. Bradford, you have our regular SATCOM that sends and receives?"

"Yes, sir. I can have it set up in about thirty seconds."

"Do it."

A minute later Murdock keyed the mike after setting the transmission to the one Don Stroh usually used.

"Murdock to Stroh. Come in, big buddy, we've got a problem."

He waited. Nothing happened. He made the call twice more. There was no response. "Turn it to the CIA channel," Murdock said. Bradford did. "This is Underground One in Iraq. I need to talk to Don Stroh. Can you raise him for me?"

The response was immediate.

"Underground One. Stroh is in Kuwait. He's probably turned off his set. I'll contact him by land line. Call again in thirty minutes. Out."

It took them almost an hour to raise the CIA man in Kuwait.

"Murdock, this better be good. Pulled me away from the best steak I've had in years. These Kuwaitis really know how to cook."

"Bunker busters," Murdock said. "We need a dozen of them out here in the boonies tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow? It's that hard a site? Must be. You know the navy doesn't carry them around. We'll need the air force to fly them in. They can land here in Kuwait, I'd guess. You have the laser?"

"We do, and a man who can work it and a target to set up for you but only at night."

"Night is no problem. Getting the hardware in place might be. I'll call my boss and have him ring some tails. What time is it in DC? d.a.m.n. I'll call anyway. What time tomorrow night?"

"Anytime after dark. We'll set up a time when you get the bombs in Kuwait."

"You know how much just one of those busters costs?"

"You know how much one nuke on San Francisco would cost?"

There was a moment of dead air. Then Stroh let out a long sigh. "Yeah, you're right. I'll get the gears grinding. Might have to fly them in from Germany. I don't know. I've got to make some calls."

"Underground out."

He sat down against the side of the wadi. He had put out two guards, one on each end of the gully. They all had to get some sleep now since tomorrow they would be moving around to stay out of the way of the roving patrols.

Kat came up and sat next to him. "Hey, Gypsy tells me you had some action in Baghdad. Got shot at and everything."

"Yeah, true, but we won." He scowled. "Oh, d.a.m.n. Mahanani, you got your goody kit?"

"Never without it. My CO's orders."

"Find Rafii. He took a round in the arm and I forgot to check it. He could be hurting."

"Rafii got shot and you forgot about it?" Kat asked. "You must have been busy. How could he forget about it?"

"Happens. Heard about this Marine in 'Nam who was in a vicious firefight with rockets and grenades. He was throwing grenades with his right hand and it wasn't until the short firefight was over that he realized that his left hand had been blown off. It can happen. There's such a surge of adrenaline during combat that it wipes out everything else. Rafii wasn't hit that bad, an in and out I think he said. But, yeah, we've been busy."

"Can I help him?"

"Mahanani can do it."

"Good seeing you again, Murdock."

"Good seeing you, too. You married yet?"

"Nope. You?"

"Almost. We have a new condo we bought."

"Sounds serious."

"It is."

"Murdock, we've got to get those four bombs. The President is afraid that Iraq will sell them to the highest bidder, probably some terrorists like al-Qaida."

"You hobn.o.bbing with the President again?"

"When he calls, I drop everything and run right over to the Oval Office. Be surprised how intimidating that place is."

"I've been there."

She nodded. "Right, you told me about that. Anyway we have to destroy those bombs before they get spread around. That's why I've got to go in there and try. Even if I don't come out."

"You'll come out, Kat, or none of us will. Now, get some sleep. I don't want to have to carry you on my back tomorrow."

"Hey, sailor, that will be the day. Remember I can outrun you any day of the moon."

"The moon has days?"

"Absolutely. Good night, sailor."

One of the guards woke up Murdock at midnight. He had the graveyard shift. He always took his turn. Besides, he wanted to see the sun come up over the desert. For the first two hours he played with the thermal imager. Twice he saw small animals. He'd have to find out what they were. Once he thought he saw the flash of headlights far to the north. Then he decided it must be a flash of dry lightning. Too far away anyhow to worry about rain. He remembered once they were almost trapped in a gully when rain in the mountains poured down and the ravine suddenly filled with water twenty feet deep. Not this time.

The sun came over the eastern horizon. At the lip of the wadi he figured he could see twenty miles to the east. The red glow of the sun was muted somewhat by a ground haze that sent slivers of gold and red throughout the desert. Then the huge red orb broke free and the heat warmed him from the night desert chill. All too soon it would be too warm and then hot and then miserably hot.

At first he didn't believe it. Then the spot on the far sky raced closer and he could see that it was an aircraft. A jet? Or an old piston plane? He couldn't tell. He ran back to their camp, roused everyone, and told them to blend in with the sides of the gully in case the plane came directly over them.

Murdock stared at the craft over the lip of the wadi. He couldn't be sure if it was coming right at them. Then it turned, and from what he figured was less than half a mile away, it swept down to a hundred feet and powered straight down the wadi where they hid.