Seal team six extra size.., p.39
SEAL Team Six Extra-Sized Holiday Bundle, page 39
The Wolf walked easily from the street to take up a place behind a concrete column supporting a marquee before a market building. He was calm and his serenity gave courage to the others waiting for their enemy to draw within range.
And the unwitting enemy was now racing for the killing zone.
RPGs were launched almost simultaneously to strike the two lead trucks racing abreast up the avenue. It was as though they had slammed into an invisible wall. Both came to a sudden halt and their rear tires lifted from the street as multiple grenades tore into their front ends. Men and cargo flew from the beds of the trucks to shower the street. More grenades reached them at the end of smoky contrails and the whole street erupted in a field of wicketing steel.
The following loyalist trucks drove up on the sidewalk to get around the blasted vehicles now coming to rest in the center of the avenue in a spreading lake of burning fuel. Automatic fire opened up on the convoy and more RPGs rained down. The vehicles roared away north chased by hundreds of tracers. The Saladin was the main target and fire was re-directed its way. The big truck with tires as tall as a man trundled on blindly through the thick pall of smoke now filling the avenue from side to side. It slammed into one of the burning trucks and violently slewed to one side. Three of its six wheels left the street surface as it leapt the curb and slammed sidelong into the façade of hotel. It brought an awning down atop it. Then it came to rest like a beast too old and too weary to journey further.
Mujahideen ran from cover to expose themselves. They had seen what the machine gun ports along the flanks of the Saladin could do and yet they came on. They risked it in their enthusiasm to blaze away at the stalled armored truck with their rifles. The rest of the convoy behind the Saladin had come to a halt and was trying to reverse its route back down the boulevard and away from the withering automatic fire and falling grenades. A grenade looped high over the avenue and came to rest on the roof of a van and seemed to drive the vehicle into the road as though it had been struck by an enormous hammer. The convoy vehicles executed hasty turns and tore away south away from the fight.
Ilse stood and let out the warbling ululation that Arab women used to express joy. The Balochi grinned and stood by her with the AKM in his fists. He trained the light machine gun on the Saladin and fired long bursts at the big truck. Ilse kept up her trilling cry as she elevated the belt of ammo higher in her hands and fed it into the hungry, hammering action.
Taahid was appalled and thrilled by this vision. He surprised himself with the emotions that were running away and taking his sense of preservation with them. He shouted a wordless imprecation and stood up from cover to pour fire on the steel monster. Their bullets did no more damage than if they had fired them into the sky. Sparks struck from the angled armor plates were the only indication that it was under heavy fire. The Saladin was returning to life to move in reverse away from the wreckage of the hotel front.
The Wolf stepped to the edge of the cloud of acrid black smoke spreading from the fuel fire. He gestured and called the names of two men who came at a run carrying slabs of plastic explosives in their hands.
They ran for the slowly turning Saladin to plant their shape charge. They would punch a hole in the truck's steel skin and then peel it open like a melon.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
LANGLEY
"Status, people," Dana said, her eyes locked on the main monitor showing the LIVE feed from Thing One flying high in the sky over Sirte.
The HD video clearly showed an armored military truck moving along a broad street with smaller vehicles before and after it. It was difficult to tell from the comparative scale but Bob Teranaka assured her they were hauling ass.
"Nothing from them," Eric Bivens said. "The insertion team is radio silent, and I cannot reach them by sat."
"Signals clear," Bob said. "We're reading all four at two mobile locations. Three and one."
"Thing One is tracking the target vehicle carrying O'Donnell," Bouchard said and jinked the joystick to move her drone to a higher altitude. Dana shared the names of the SEALs with her geeks. It made it all more real, more personal, more vital.
"Thing Two is on the chase vehicle with our other SEALs aboard," Spivey said from his station.
"Is the team going to catch up with the captive vehicle?" Dana asked. "Estimates?"
"They're heading in the same general direction in a deliberate manner," Wayne Spivey said and twiddled his controls to bank the drone after the flatbed truck now turning a corner onto a cross street. "They must have some kind of intel on what they're looking for and where it's heading. They're turned north on a street that parallels the one the captive vehicle is on."
"There's still a slim chance they'll find the captive vehicle," Dana said. "Bob, most likely route?"
"All north/south roads feed onto the coastal freeway."
Dana leaned on the high-backed chair behind Kim Bouchard.
"This is our best place to bring the captive vehicle to a stop. Is there a bridge ahead or an overpass?" Dana said. "Anything the drone can drop to slow down the Saladin?"
"Nothing on our most current city maps or sat charts," Bob called out.
"I'll scout ahead," Bouchard said and pulled back on the joystick to make his drone climb. The street and the racing convoy shrank to toy size and the image moved ahead along the boulevard running straight as a string northward. No bridges. No tunnels. No roundabouts. There weren't even any serious obstructions to impede the convoy.
"What was that?" Dana said and pointed at Kim's monitor.
"What?"
"A bunch of vehicles pulled up on a side street."
"I'll go back." Bouchard said and bent the stick left to bank the drone around.
"Go thermal."
The screen switched to shades of squiggly red accented with yellow and orange blobs indicating heat sources; anything warmer than the surrounding air. The desert heat made the distinctions fine. Anyone standing in the direct sunlight would be invisible to the magic eye or perhaps show up a deeper red. Bouchard played with the contrasts to make the gradations a bit sharper.
Thing One swooped back over the alley Dana had spotted on the first pass. On the monitor the trucks in the alley were clearly visible. Over ten vehicles parked and unmoving in the shadows.
"Their motors are still hot," Dana said and indicated the glowing orange nimbus where their engines would be. "They just pulled up there within the last fifteen minutes or so. Where are the riders?"
"There, there and there," Bouchard said and nodded where multiple figures appeared as orange lumps in the crimson shadows along one side of the street at the intersection close to the idle trucks.
"That look like an ambush to you?" Dana said.
"Oh yeah," Bouchard said and worked the stick to take Thing One in a long, looping arc on a return to the chokepoint for a second look.
"What's the significance of this?" DeStefano stepped forward to stand behind the drone stations.
Dana swallowed hard and forced her jaw to unclench before turning.
"The Saladin holding O'Donnell is heading for a bushwack," Dana said. "We have forty or more unknowns waiting in its path. We have to assume they're rebels and that they plan to interdict the captive vehicle."
"The administration's policy is to support the rebels," DeStefano hissed and jerked his eyes back toward Dr. Marberry strolling up.
"These rebels pose a threat to our personnel," Dana said.
"You don't have clearance to act on this," Marberry said with maddening calm. "We can only observe."
"And risk losing a team member?" Dana said through clenched teeth. "Doctor."
"It's an acceptable loss," Marberry said, brows knitted. "It's an expected loss. These men know the risks."
Dana turned back and crouched down by Bouchard.
"Maintain surveillance on the Saladin," Dana said and lowered her voice to a whisper. "And bring your gun on line."
"Roger that," Bouchard said and touched a tab on her stick. A targeting array super-imposed itself on her monitor.
Five thousand miles away the 20mm chain gun mounted into the nose of Thing One went live; the only indication a tiny click deep within its mechanism.
"We're hot," she said soto voce.
"Now we watch and wait," Dana said; the pain in her shoulders felt like a pair of tightening claws.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
THE SALADIN
Bahir blinked through the blood running into his eyes to find the starter switch for the Saladin on the panel before him. His cousin, the major, was screaming in his ear to get the engine started and get them the hell away from here.
They were third cousins in actuality and Bahir doubted that the major remembered that. Besides, the man had shot his own brother in the head. What was a third cousin on his mother's side to him?
In the gunner's seat beside him, Jawdah, another cousin, begged and pleaded for him to start the engine back up. He offered frantic advice about feeding the engine fuel but not too much fuel. His voice rose and rose in octaves until he sounded like a wheedling child. He was whining just as he did when they were little boys and Bahir took his dessert or broke his toys.
The starter ground and ground with an angry burring noise and Bahir swept a sleeve over his forehead to wipe away blood and sweat. He struck the top of his head on the roof of the driver cab when they jumped the curb and creased his scalp. It hurt terribly. But letting the rebels set fire to them or launch a rocket into them would hurt much more. Bullets rang off the armored shell, sounding like pebbles on a metal roof. He pressed on the switch again and again, muttering prayers to Allah, the Prophet all the while. He was finally rewarded with a throaty roar from beneath him. The Saladin lived.
He slammed the big gear lever into reverse and the transmission squawked in protest but the big truck revved backwards. Bahir glanced through the quadruple thick Lexan view ports before him. They were narrow slits and allowed for only the minimum of visibility. And now they were blacked over, scorched by the pool of flames he drove through. He leaned close and peered through the ports as he shoved the stick up and forward through the gears to drive them through and out of this trap.
Through the haze of the blackened pane he could see two men running down the street straight for the front of the Saladin, straight for him. One carried a disc shaped object as big around as a dinner plate. The other was fumbling in a satchel as he ran. They were in the blind spot. The gun ports along the sides could not train on them. Bahir recognized the disc as a shaped charge. Fifteen kilos of plastic explosives capable of punching a hole in the Saladin's hide. He slammed the gear shift forward and his sweaty hand slipped off the shift handle and the big engine stalled.
Bahir squealed and began punching the starter switch over and over. The major renewed his roaring and Jawdah began openly weeping with his hands covering his face.
A roaring, rushing sound rocked the big truck on its springs. Following that a chattering noise swept past outside the Saladin. Bahir looked through the viewport to see the two running rebels vanish in a cloud of dust as the ground all around rose up into the air.
An unseen hand had swept the street before them clear of rebels. It was the power of righteous prayer and Bahir stabbed at the starter and the engine growled to life once more. They lurched ahead and he calmly worked through the gears until they were up to fifty KPH and the trap was far behind them. All the while Bahir silently promised God in Paradise to dedicate his life to the Word and the Cause and to live a life as holy as his former existence had been vile and petty. Jawdah only brayed with laughter as childish as his wailing had been only a moment before.
"Bani Walid," the major ordered, as though giving a destination to a taxi driver, and ducked back into the rear compartment.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THE AVENUE
Taahid watched as a furrow was dug from the street as if by an invisible harrow. It came toward them described by a column of dust and engulfed the two mujahideen running to set charges on the stalled Saladin. The pair turned to bloody fragments as the furrow moved past and ceased just past the intersection.
The Saladin started once again and trundled past them as if the rebels and their guns and grenades were not there. The Balochi stood with his AKM and shrieked in defiance. Ilse followed at his side, feeding rounds into the machine gun with one hand and holding out her phone in the other. While the gun was shuddering in the Balochi's grip, the German girl was aiming her tiny lens at the fleeing Saladin. Warily, Taahid followed. It was all so pointless. The big armored thing was unmarred by their attacks and gaining speed.
There was shouting. Rebels were pointing into the sky.
Taahid shaded his eyes with his hand and could just make out a small black shape against the cloudless yellow sky. It whirled far above like a bird and then turned sharply to drop lower in a steep dive. It grew larger and larger as it soared along a path straight for them over the avenue. As it reached a height just above the rooftops on each side it began spitting white fire. The storefront behind Taahid was transformed into a dense haze of dust. Shards of brick pelted him. The thing in the sky roared past leaving a whirring noise behind it. It was all over in seconds.
The Wolf staggered into the street. Taahid only recognized him by his height. The mujahideen leader was covered in blood. His own. An arm had been ripped off at the shoulder and his carefully tended turban was gone as well as a large portion of his scalp. His eyes stared white rimmed from a mask of scorched flesh.
Dhi'bun Rhas Mohammed, code designation: Appaloosa, stumbled to his knees in the street and sagged slowly to the asphalt where he lay still and shrunken in the rags of a beggar.
Looking skyward, Taahid saw that the deadly bird was wheeling once again to come for them at a different angle. He ran to the middle of the street where Ilse was playing at both journalist and warrior. He gripped her elbow to pull her to cover and she glared in rage at Taahid and pulled away her arm. The Balochi stood in the street, sending arcs of tracer into the sky in the general direction of the drone dropping speedily toward them.
Taahid grabbed up Ilse about the waist. She was so light it surprised him. Her body so thin. She hammered fists on him as he ran away up the street away from the intersection. Her blows stopped after a few seconds and she aimed her phone back at the descending drone in time to capture a plume of white smoke growing from beneath one of its wings. The plume turned to a twisting snake as the Hellfire missile it launched rushed earthward in a spiraling trajectory. It slammed into the vehicles of the rebel convoy. The densely packed trucks and their fuel tanks were transformed into the heart of an inferno as twenty pounds of high explosive anti-tank ordnance was delivered at Mach 1.5 and detonated among them.
Taahid and Ilse were thrown to the curb as the air was blown away from the blast sight. Behind them a tsunami of flame exploded from the alley to fill the intersection with heat. It swept over every living thing there. The Balochi was engulfed in the ball of fire and became a black dancing thing for a few seconds before collapsing in a heap.
Taahid lay covering Ilse as a gush of wind hot enough to melt the soles of their boots washed over them both. He buried his face against her hair and whispered words of comfort. Bits of brick and shards of metal as well as wet chunks of humanity fell all around them. He could feel Ilse struggling beneath him and made a mewling noise. He thought at first that she was crying from fright and trying to escape his grasp. He raised his head to see that she was only reaching out, trying to grasp the smart phone lying inches from her flexing fingers.
He rolled off her and allowed her to retrieve the phone. Ilse stood and aimed the phone skyward to capture an image of the Predator drone winging away seen through a haze of black diesel smoke. The air held the tang of chemicals along with a stench of burning meat Taahid could taste on his tongue. The Lions were nothing but dead, incinerated flesh now.
His war was over, Taahid decided. He would go back to Misrata and make pizza. He would forget dreams of being a revolutionary hero. He would forget his ideas about a better Libya and a better life for himself. He would forget about the cute little German girl and the dangers that could befall her from now on.
Taahid took his rifle and heaved it as far as he could. He turned south to walk away from war and its victims. He wondered idly if he could find the cash that his friend Rab had hidden. He searched his mind for locations he and Rab had shared and could remember none of them. An approaching engine noise made him look up. Was the drone returning for the survivors? Could anyone be that cruel?
A big truck was tearing up the middle of the avenue toward him. He stepped onto the curb out of its path but it came to a halt beside him.
A man spoke to him from behind the wheel. A black man but big and muscular, not like the lean Africans he had seen who came to fight for Gaddafi.
"My friend," the black man said in crudely accented Arabic. "Did a big truck...many wheels...come this way?"
Taahid could only stare. A man in the rear of the truck who was decidedly not Libyan glared at him over the top of the cab.
"A Saladin?" Taahid said.
"Yes!" the black man said with enthusiasm.
Taahid only pointed north and the truck rumbled on away up the avenue.
The man standing in the rear of the truck offered a desultory wave.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
LANGLEY
"I'll burn you down for this, Agent Morton!" DeStefano seethed. "You did not have authorization!"
"I do not believe I needed authorization to defend the life of an American serviceman from hostile forces, sir," Dana said, biting off each word with a snap of her teeth.
"We had no confirmation that those were hostiles. We are officially on the side of the rebel insurgents. This action violates stated policy."
"I consider anyone a hostile who is trying to kill one of our own in the field, sir."
