Under Siege (11 page)

The two men cleared the rest of the room and then reported to Murdock.

“What can you see out the front windows?”

They went to the windows and checked. “Not much. Cap,” Bradford said. “Half a dozen more buildings, all one story. Big open pit behind two of them. Huge building in the middle of it all. Must have a generating plant up here somewhere. Don’t see any people. Where are the workers?”

“Maybe Badri rounded them all up. Hold there. We’re moving into the ground floor. Engle, what’s with your side?”

“My two men cleared the third building. Nobody there, but they found some brass. We’ve got at least one more hostile in the area.”

“Roger. Take the building and hold until we know what we have ahead of us.”

Murdock went to the second story and found Bradford wrapping up Ching’s left arm.

“Just a scratch,” Ching said.

“Hopefully. Now, what do we have out front?” Murdock checked out the window. The complex was laid out like a large “U” with low buildings around the edges and a large building in the center with huge doors on the near end. Outside
the doors he saw four large self-propelled earth-moving machines. All four stood waiting, heaped with dirt and small rocks. There was no activity. He watched carefully, sectioning the area, but no men showed, no work was being done. The place looked closed down.

“If he’s here with the First Lady he’s lying low,” Murdock said. “Which means we have to clear each of these buildings as we move around the outside. We’re at the end of the U. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Ed and Engle, you see the layout?” Murdock asked on the Motorola.

“See it, don’t like it,” Ed said.

“Yeah, Captain,” the Delta man said. “Big layout. What’s in most of these buildings?”

“We’re going to have to find out. You guys move to the bottom of the U and work the other way. We’ll come from this end around to the base. It’s damned house-to-house, so be cautious. Ching got nicked. We don’t want any more casualties. Let’s go.”

In the fifth building in the U, they found one area that had a large locked room. Lam pounded on the door and was surprised to hear pounding reply from the inside. He called Murdock over.

“Anyone inside speak English?” Murdock bellowed.

“Yes, English. Let us out.”

Murdock nodded and Lam opened the doors and ten men came bursting out. None had weapons.

“Thank you, thank you,” one man cried. “They came yesterday with guns. Shot one of us and put most of us in here. Who are they?”

“Robbers,” Murdock said to keep it simple. “How many of them?”

“Eight or nine. They made us stop the machinery, close down the work. They wanted the diamonds we have found.”

“Did they get them?”

“Some, most we had hidden.”

“Did any of them leave in a truck or their Land Rovers.

The man shrugged. “We have been in here for many hours.”

“Murdock. Some news.”

He recognized Ed DeWitt’s voice over the Motorola. “We found one hostile. He got away, but we wounded him. We’re about halfway done on these buildings. We think we’ve chased the guy up to the end place.”

“We need one alive, if possible.”

“We’ll try.”

Murdock turned back to the spokesman of the group. “Is the big building where you process the ore?”

“Yes, sir. Tons and tons of it to find a few stones. But evidently it is a paying proposition. The government runs this mine.”

“Trouble,” Bradford said from the window. Murdock looked out. Four men, with arms bound behind them and paper sacks over their heads and tied together, had been led out by a man in green cammies carrying a submachine gun. He lifted a bull horn.

“Attention, attention. These four men are about to die, unless whoever is shooting at us lays down their arms and surrenders. You have five minutes to come out and line up and put down your weapons. At the end of five minutes the first man will be shot in the head. Your choice.”

Murdock broke out the window. “We hear you. Give yourself up, you don’t have a chance. Badri left you here as cannon fodder. You’ll never get out alive if you fight us. We have fifty men. You’re down to two or three.

The man with the submachine gun lifted it and shot the first man with a three round burst in the back. He fell and went still.

“No joke. You have five minutes.”

Murdock hooded his eyes. His lips quivered. “Any sniper have a clean shot at him?” he asked on the radio.

Three answers in the negative came back. The killer had
moved in close against the backs of the hostages. Even a clean shot from behind could go right through the man and kill one of the hostages.

“Ed?” Murdock asked.

“We could shoot low, trying for his legs. At least we wouldn’t kill any of the hostages.”

“Captain Engle?”

“I can work two men around for more of a side shot at him. Tricky and dangerous, but it may be all we have.”

“Send them, but hold on the order to fire.” Murdock saw something below a moment ago that caught his eye. What was it? He scanned the area in front of the big building again, then he saw it: a bulldozer, maybe a Cat D-8 or D-10. None of his men could run one. He looked at the civilian workers from the plant. He motioned to the spokesman.

“Who can drive that bulldozer down there?”

“I can.”

“Do you want to save the lives of those hostages?”

“Yes, they are friends.”

“Will you help me? It could be dangerous.”

“Yes, help. Anything.”

Murdock grabbed the man and they ran down the steps to the ground, around several buildings until they were directly across from the bulldozer. The hostages were thirty yards away, closer to the smaller buildings. Murdock was still forty yards away from the big tractor.

“We get to the dozer and I raise the blade to protect us, then we drive it toward the killer?” the civilian asked.

“Yes. What’s your name?”

“Altoba. I am assistant manager here.”

“Good, I’m Murdock.” They shook hands.

Murdock used the radio to tell the troops what he was going to try. “If he comes away from the hostages and anyone gets a clean shot, take it. Any questions?”

“You want any covering fire around the guy?” DeWitt asked.

“Yes. As soon as we start running across the open spot. send him ten or twelve rounds, spaced out.”

He looked at Altoba. They stood at the side of one of the buildings. “Ready?”

The black man nodded and they surged into the open and across the unprotected no-man’s land. Murdock carried his Bull Pup at port arms ready to use it if he had to. Sounds of firing came from two sources, and in one quick look, Murdock saw the gunman with the hostages step between them for cover.

Murdock realized he hadn’t breathed since the start of the run, when they slid to a stop behind the dozer. Altoba climbed on board and patted a place on the seat beside him. Murdock sat down. Both ducked down as low as possible. They could see the gunman and hostages. Altoba started the engine and Murdock saw the gunman turn and look at them. He lifted his submachine gun but didn’t fire.

His delay was a mistake. As soon as the engine roared to life, Altoba hit the hydraulics and lifted the blade, blotting the hostages out of sight. Only then did the man fire, and Murdock heard half a dozen slugs hit the front of the big steel blade and whine off into the distance.

Murdock slapped the driver on the back. “Let’s go get him,” Murdock said. Altoba hit the levers and the big dozer clattered forward on its treads. He turned slightly and angled directly at the gunman and his hostages.

Murdock lifted up so he could see over the blade. A round slammed past his head only inches away. He saw what he wanted to: The gunman was still between the hostages. If he shot them down his protection would be gone. If he waited, Murdock would run right up to him and put a carefully placed single round in his heart.

The big dozer clanked forward. They were twenty yards apart when Murdock lifted up again, this time two feet to the right of where he had looked before.

“No clean shot yet,” DeWitt said in Murdock’s earpiece.

Murdock sneaked a peak and dropped down. The gunman had closed the remaining three hostages around him to protect him. There would be no clean shot.

“He’s trying to move the group toward that building on his right,” Jaybird said. “It’s about twenty yards, but the dead man is tied to the others and they have to drag him. It’s slow going, but there’s not a fucking thing we can do to stop him.”

Murdock took another quick look. The killer was fifteen yards from the building. He dropped down.

“He’s getting away,” Murdock said to Altoba. “Only one thing we can do to stop him. Go faster, pull up right behind him, and drop the blade on the dead man.”

“No, I can’t. I know him.”

“If you don’t, the other three will die. Do it! It’ll jerk the other three hostages down and I can shoot the gunman. Do it!”

The man looked up with tears in his eyes, then he nodded and gunned the motor and the dozer surged ahead. Altoba lifted the blade a little more: just enough so they could see under it, but the gunman would still have no shot. The clanking roaring machine bore down on the five men. At the last moment the gunman saw the danger and tried to drag the dead man out of the way, but the big blade came down solidly on the corpse’s legs and the three hostages stumbled and fell. For just a fraction of a second the gunman stood alone. Murdock was ready, and his Bull Pup chattered three rounds, hitting the Iranian in the chest and driving him backward away from the hostages.

Altoba lifted the blade, then killed the engine and rushed forward to help his countrymen. He lifted off the paper sack hoods and untied the men.

Murdock jogged over to the closest building. “Ed, what’s our status?”

“We’ve been clearing the rest of the buildings. My guess is that this was the last rear guard. We have only two more buildings to check, then we’re done.”

“Our next job is to find a truck that will haul us and get on the road after Badri. He’s got a bigger lead now. He bought time with two of his men’s lives. Hard telling where he is by now. We’ve got to get out there and find the First Lady.”

Near Bahktaran, Iran

On the Iran/Iraq Border

General Majid stood in front of his armored motor home on a slight hill overlooking the border. In front of him were his Lightning Units. They consisted of a spearhead probing recon group of sixteen T-55 tanks, older Soviet models that still packed a punch with their 105mm cannons and fifty rounds in each unit. They would slash through the border defenses and roam ahead at twenty miles an hour shooting up everything that moved.

Directly behind them came the armored troop carrier fighting machines, with a 40mm cannon and twin .50 caliber machine guns that could fire 360 degrees from the turret. They were called the Panthers and held eight combat troops equipped with automatic rifles and armored vests. They would slash in behind the tanks, engaging any pockets of resistance or by-passed troops and take them out.

The general watched the dawn coming. They would push off precisely at daylight. His field commanders had their orders and would launch one massive drive with the probing tanks and the surprise weapon. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Any minute now the tanks would fire at the close-in border defenses, then charge forward. They would present a six-tank front with the vehicles two hundred yards apart as they swept forward.

He stood on the step of the motor home to see the attack
better. A twenty-power scope hung around his neck on a cord. He wanted to see it all.

It started. Well behind the border, Iranian artillery fired twenty rounds into the border fortifications. The thundering roar of the 155mm rounds exploding on the ground less than half a mile in front of him brought tears to the general’s eyes. He wiped them away and studied the area through the single-lens scope.
Yes!
He saw a shell burst five hundred yards away. The explosion showered a circle of white powder for fifty yards in every direction.
Yes!

He ducked into his motor home and checked through the heavy glass viewing ports. As he did an assistant bundled him into a biological warfare suit and gas mask. He saw the powders raining down on the area. Saw men running from it. The Iraq soldiers had no protection from the anthrax.

Five minutes after the artillery struck, the tanks charged ahead, firing at anything that got in their way. They dodged around the anthrax pockets where they could see men gagging and going down. They hit roads and a small village. The village had been hit with the anthrax as well. Now and then the big guns on the tanks thundered away at Iraqi tanks in the distance.

General Majid had discounted reports that Iraq had over five hundred Soviet T-72 tanks with their bigger guns. His spies had seen many of the tanks in storage areas where they were slowly falling apart in the desert environment. Most had no tracks and no weapons on them. They were in a huge graveyard of over 200 tanks rusting into scrap metal.

His radio bristled with reports from the lead elements. Yes, in ten minutes the tank spearhead had penetrated over five miles into Iraq. The fighting personnel carrier Panthers had followed quickly, mopping up the shellshocked troops. They circled around the anthrax-saturated areas, letting the poison do its job.

He heard chatter from the pilots in the sleek jet fighters overhead. They had temporary control of the skies. The F-84s and the F-86s dove into Iraq defensive ground forces far in advance of the tanks. They also worked tank-killer missiles, taking out the occasional Iraqi tank they spotted.

So far he had heard of no fighter aircraft from Iraq. He knew there were reports that Iraq had over three hundred fifty aircraft, including the old Mig 21s but also the Mig 29s and the Mirage F-1. Where were they? Had they also suffered in the desert without adequate maintenance and care, changing from fighting machines to piles of metal and useless armament? He wondered.

A half-hour into the attack he knew. The Iraqi air power had finally shown over the battle field and the air war was engaged. General Majid counted on his better trained and more experienced pilots to win the day for him in the air.