Counterfire sts-16 Read online

  Counterfire

  ( Seal Team Seven - 16 )

  Keith Douglass

  Their power is awesome…

  A group of Palestinian extremists have acquired a nuclear warheard with the capacity to kill three million people.

  Their demands are simple…

  Israel must evacuate all civilians and military personnel from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, or the bomb will detonate in the middle of London harbor.

  And now, their fate is sealed…

  Seal Team Seven has been called in to answer the threat — with deadly force.

  Keith Douglass

  Counterfire

  To those untiring, determined,

  and uncompromising

  397,000 U.S. Navy men and

  women on active duty, who stay

  the course and defend

  our nation with pride

  and honor.

  FOREWORD

  Some of you have written to me with regrets about the loss of some of the old hands in the Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven. It happens in combat more often than we would like, but we have to be realistic. In this line of work, men get wounded and killed. There are also replacements needed due to training accidents and the unusual and tough wear and tear on all of our Navy SEALs. That’s why there are always new SEALs coming up through BUD/S training program. If you’ve ever wished that you could be a SEAL, and are in the Navy or want to join the Navy, now might be a good time to talk to the Navy people about the program.

  It isn’t an outfit that you can automatically join. You must apply, then pass a series of tests, including tough physical and psychological testing. That’s how the SEALs get the best and toughest men in the Navy. Just a thought.

  So, how is it going with you? How did you like this SEAL adventure? Let me know. Hey, I can take your criticism and even weather a pat on the back. If it’s okay with you, I might use a quote from your letter in a special page in one of the books that show what you think of the series. Write to me at: Keith Douglass, SEAL Team Seven, 8431 Beaver Lake Dr., San Diego, CA 92119.

  You have a good day now.

  Keith Douglass

  SEAL TEAM SEVEN

  THIRD PLATOON[1]

  CORONADO, CALIFORNIA

  Rear Admiral (L) Richard Kenner, Commander of all SEALs.

  Commander Dean Masciareli. 47, 5'11", 220 pounds. Annapolis graduate. Commanding officer of Navy Special Warfare Group One’s SEAL Team Seven.

  Master Chief Petty Officer Gordon MacKenzie. 47, 5'10", 180 pounds. Administrator and head enlisted man of all SEAL Teams at Coronado.

  Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock. Platoon Leader, Third Platoon, 32, 6'2", 210 pounds. Annapolis graduate. Six years in SEALs. Father important congressman from Virginia. Murdock recently promoted. Apartment in Coronado. Has a car and a motorcycle, loves to fish. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round. Alternate: H & K MP-5SD submachine gun.

  ALPHA SQUAD

  Timothy F. Sadler, Senior Chief Petty Officer. Top EM in Third Platoon. Third in command, 32, 6'2", 220 pounds. Married to Sylvia, no children. Has been in the Navy for fifteen years, a SEAL for last eight. Expert fisherman. Plays trumpet in any Dixieland combo he can find. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm and 20mm explosive round. Good with the men.

  David “Jaybird” Sterling. Machinist Mate First Class, Lead Petty Officer. 24, 5'10", 170 pounds. Quick mind, fine tactician. Single. Drinks too much sometimes. Crack shot with all arms. Grew up in Oregon. Helps plan attack operations. Weapon: H & K MP-5SD submachine gun.

  Luke “Mountain” Howard. Gunner’s Mate Second Class, 28, 6'4", 250 pounds. Black man. Football at Oregon State. Tryout with Oakland Raiders six years ago. In Navy six years. SEAL for four. Single. Rides a motorcycle. A skiing and wind surfing nut. Squad sniper. Weapon H & K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle.

  Bill Bradford. Quartermaster First Class. 24, 6'2", 215 pounds. An artist in his spare time. Paints oils. He sells his marine paintings. Single. Quiet. Reads a lot. Has two years of college. Platoon radio operator. Carries a SATCOM on most missions. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.

  Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa. Operations Specialist Second Class. 21, 5'11", 175 pounds. Good tracker, quick thinker. Had a year of college. Loves motorcycles. Wants a Hog. Pot smoker on the sly. Picks up plain girls. Platoon scout. Weapon: H & K MP-5SD submachine gun, alternate Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.

  Kenneth Ching. Quartermaster First Class. 25, 6' even, 180 pounds. Full-blooded Chinese. Platoon translator. Speaks Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. Bicycling nut. Paid $1,200 for off-road bike. Is trying for Officer Candidate School. Weapon: Colt M-4A1 rifle with grenade launcher.

  Vincent “Vinnie” Van Dyke. Electrician’s Mate Second Class. 24, 6'2", 220 pounds. Enlisted out of high school. Played varsity basketball. Wants to be a commercial fisherman after his current hitch. Good with his hands. Squad machine gunner. Weapon: H & K 21-E 7.62 NATO round machine gun.

  BRAVO SQUAD

  Lieutenant Ed DeWitt. Leader Bravo Squad. Second in command of the platoon. 30, 6'1", 175 pounds. From Seattle. Wiry. Married to Milly. No kids. Annapolis graduate. A career man. Plays a good game of chess on traveling board. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round. Alternate: H & K G-11 submachine gun.

  George “Petard” Canzoneri, Torpedoman’s Mate First Class. 27, 5'11", 190 pounds. Married to Navy wife, Phyllis. No kids. Nine years in Navy. Expert on explosives. Nicknamed “Petard” for almost hoisting himself one time. Top pick in platoon for explosive work. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.

  Miguel Fernandez. Gunner’s Mate First Class. 26, 6'1", 180 pounds. Wife, Maria; daughter, Linda, 7, in Coronado. Spends his off time with them. Highly family oriented. He has family in San Diego. Speaks Spanish and Portuguese. Squad sniper. Weapon: H & K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle.

  Colt “Guns” Franklin. Yeoman Second Class. 24, 5'10", 175 pounds. A former gymnast. Powerful arms and shoulders. Expert mountain climber. Has a motorcycle, and does hang gliding. Speaks Farsi and Arabic. Weapon: H & K MP-5SD submachine gun.

  Tracy Donegan, Signalman Second Class, 24, 6' even, 185 pounds. Former Navy boxer, tough, single, expert tracker and expert on camouflage and ground warfare. Expert marksman. Platoon driver, mechanic. Frantic Chargers football fan. Speaks Italian and Swahili. Weapon: H & K G-11 with caseless rounds.

  Jack Mahanani. Hospital Corpsman First Class. 25, 6'4", 240 pounds. Platoon Medic. Tahitian/Hawaiian. Expert swimmer. Bench-presses four hundred pounds. Divorced. Top surfer. Wants the .50 sniper rifle. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round. Alternate: H & K MP-5SD submachine gun.

  Frank Victor, Gunner’s Mate Second Class, 23, 6' even, 185 pounds. Two years in SEALs. Radio, computer expert. Can program, repair, and build computers. Shoots small-bore rifle competitively. Married. Wife, Phyllis, a computer programmer/specialist. No children. Lives in Coronado. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo & 20mm explosive round.

  Paul “Jeff” Jefferson. Engineman Second Class. Black man. 23, 6'1", 200 pounds. Expert in small arms. Can tear apart most weapons and reassemble, repair, and innovate them. A chess player to match Ed DeWitt. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.

  1

  Sierra Leone

  Africa

  Ground fire ripped through the night sky, leaving glowing red tracer patterns, as the big VTOL Osprey came in fast, turned its engines into the vertical position, and lowered gracefully to the ground where two red flares burned. Two rounds hit the bird near where Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock crouched. He swept back the door and the moment the wheels touched the soft black Sierra Leon
e soil, he jumped to the ground with Quartermaster First Class Ken Ching and Electrician’s Mate Second Class Vincent Van Dyke right behind him.

  Murdock pointed to the left, where they saw muzzle flashes a hundred yards away. They all hit the dirt, and Murdock and Ching brought up their Alliant Bull Pup duo rifles and each sent a 20mm high-explosive round into the trio of gunfire flashes. The twenties shattered the Sierra Leone darkness, and the fire from that sector cut off just after a wailing scream.

  Three U.S. Marine Recon fighters followed the SEALs out of the plane. Murdock motioned them to the left, and he and his two men darted to the right and charged out forty yards, then went prone with weapons pointing outward. They were on perimeter defense for the VTOL birds. Now Murdock saw the other five Osprey craft where they had landed in a rough triangle about thirty yards apart. Six men from each bird were deployed outward as security.

  Sporadic rifle- and machine-gun fire blasted from the other side of the aircraft. Murdock heard three twenties explode and the small-arms fire stopped. Ten Sierra Leone soldiers dashed past the perimeter defense and to the birds, now with doors wide open. They began unloading their payload of rifles, submachine guns, rockets, RPGs, and thousands of rounds of ammunition from the birds. Murdock had had a chance to check the cargo over on the short ride from the U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, CVN 70, just off the coast of the small African nation.

  Enough weapons and ammo to start a war, or to finish off a group of sadistic rebels the current regime had been battling for six months. Now the government forces of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah had a chance to deliver the killing blow if they had enough weapons and ammo. This was it. Three SEALs from Third Platoon, Team Seven, were on each of four birds, and two on each of the other two, for security.

  Murdock sensed movement to his right and pulled down his night-vision goggles. A squad of rebels about a hundred yards out crept forward through the black night that was turned into a light green shooting ground by the goggles. He lasered the troops, fired an airburst, and cut down six of the eight men with the shattering 20mm round. The other two men in the rebel squad limped away into the heavy growth near the edge of the field.

  Behind him, Murdock could hear the native soldiers panting as they rushed to unload the arms and ammo. There was supposed to be a force of over two hundred government troops in the area, to sweep it clean of rebels, but several small groups of rebels had penetrated, and now Murdock heard more firing to the left on the other side of the VTOL birds. He signaled to the Marine sergeant to keep his men there, then he spoke on the Motorola personal radio. They were now using shoulder mikes, which had proved to be sturdier and easier to work with.

  “Ching, Van Dyke, let’s hit the other side of the birds and see who we can scare. Move. Now.” The three lifted up and raced under the wing of the big Osprey, across the open space, and under the next VTOL being unloaded. They went out thirty yards beyond it, then dove to the ground seven yards apart. More muzzle flashes showed directly in front of them.

  “When ready,” Murdock said, and dropped a 20mm HE round on the flashes of two guns he saw out two hundred yards. The shooters must have fired and moved. “I’ve got them right ten yards. Ching, do a twenty at ten to their left.” They waited, and at the first flash of new firing both SEALs launched a laser 20mm. They exploded over the target, and this time there was no counterfire.

  All was quiet for a moment; then they heard the rumble and clank of what could only be a tank. Murdock hit the mike. “SEALs, perimeter. I hear a tank. When you see him, blind him with some rounds of WP, then try for his tread with the twenty HE. Who has him?”

  “Sounds like he’s coming my way,” Frank Victor, gunner’s mate second class and new to the platoon, said.

  “Victor, is that you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anybody near Victor down there?”

  “Nearby,” Mahanani said. “Critter is coming up on us fast. Any more support in here? Jefferson?”

  “Yeah, man,” Jeff said. “I’ve got him. Big sucker, coming up fast, then he slowed down. Don’t think he’s gonna shoot yet. Maybe a hundred yards out there in the dark. No NVGs. Anybody else see him? Has he got ground troops following him?”

  “Can’t see him, Jeff. I’m charging out there a ways to blind him, then try for the treads,” Mahanani said. “Who else over here has the twenties?”

  “Got one,” Jefferson said.

  “Yeah,” Franklin said. “I’m with a twenty. Where are you guys?”

  “On the point of the triangle heading north.”

  “Don’t leave home without me,” Franklin said. He sprinted across the open space. Two rifles made tries for him from the woods, but missed. He slid in beside Victor.

  They ran doubled over and ten yards apart to the woodsy edge of the clearing, and hit the dirt. Now they could hear the engine of the big tank, but it wasn’t moving.

  “How do we know it’s not a government forces tank?” Murdock asked on the net.

  “Damn, didn’t think about that,” Victor said. “If he shoots at the birds, we’ll know.”

  Just then a machine gun on the tank stuttered out two ten-round bursts of fifty-caliber.

  “Go,” Murdock said. “He hit one bird. Not sure how bad.”

  “I’ve got smoke in,” Franklin said. He aimed ten feet in front of the tank, a huge dark blob among the dark trees, and fired. Then he put another one in front of the tank.

  As he did, the other two SEALs sighted in on the side tracks of the monster and both fired about the same time. The tank lurched forward to get out of the smoke. Franklin put two more 20mm smoke rounds in front of it, and Jefferson and Victor both fired the twenties again, two rounds each. The last two rounds found a weak spot on the churning tracks and blasted off the motive force of the tank. It spun around as if it had fully braked one tread. Then the engine whimpered to a halt. The lights snapped off, and the SEALs heard the hatch open but couldn’t see anything. Both SEALs fired an HE round at the tank; then they retreated to the fringe of the woods.

  “Coming in, three friendlies,” Victor said on the Motorola. “Don’t get your rocks off on us. We’re on your side.”

  The three charged into the triangle of aircraft, then found their defensive spots again, and bellied down, aiming their weapons outward at the heavy growth of trees and brush.

  “Trouble from this other side,” Murdock said. “At least a company of rebels moving up. No firing yet. I’ve got them on the goggles. Anybody else with goggles see them?”

  “I’ve got them,” Lieutenant Ed DeWitt said. “Looks more like two companies. Where the hell are all those government troops supposed to be? This hardware gets into rebel hands, it’s good night, Irene.”

  “I need three more Bull Pups on the east side,” Murdock barked. “Sound off.”

  “Sadler coming.”

  “Jaybird on the move.”

  “Fernandez almost there.”

  The SEALs found their leader in the murky half-light of the moon and spread out along the east side.

  “We’ve got six or seven Pups over here. For those who can’t see the target, the lieutenant and I will put airbursts on the rebels, then each one of you fire three rounds and hold. Ed. When you’re ready.”

  Murdock sighted in with the laser on the slowly moving group of men still bunched up out about two hundred yards. He fired. The resulting crack of the airburst was quickly followed by a second; then moments later six more exploded in the air over the first firing point.

  Murdock checked through the NVGs. A few of the troops took cover behind trees. Dozens turned and ran.

  “Raise twenty-five yards,” Murdock said, and fired again. More rounds exploded as they tracked the men running away.

  “Murdock, Marine Sergeant Nelson. There’s a jeep coming hell-bent for leather through the west side. I’ve got two Marines here and M-16’s. We can’t stop him. Tried tires and windshield. He’s into the clearing heading for the first VTOL bird.�
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  “I see him,” Tracy Donegan, signalman second class, shouted into his shoulder mike. “He’s too close to the bird for me to use the twenty. Shit, he’s going to crash into the nose of the plane.” They heard the explosion. The large Osprey erupted in flames; some small-arms ammunition still inside began cooking off and firing in every direction. Moments later the fuel tanks went up in a gigantic, roaring fireball.

  “Suicide mission,” Donegan said. “Damn, I couldn’t stop him.”

  “Lieutenant, how close to unloading are you?” Murdock asked on the mike. The Navy officer had been given a Motorola.

  “Almost done. We’re taking off the second two birds now. Marines and SEALs grab the next bird you can. Make your man count. We lost the pilot and copilot and two crewmen in that fire. They were about ready to leave. Let’s move it. Two and three, get out of here.”

  “Head for the birds, Marines and SEALs,” Murdock bellowed. His mike caught it, and so did half a dozen Marines who had been firing into the target with their M-16’s.

  “Ed, take one bird and count,” Murdock said.

  He sprinted to the closest VTOL bird and found a SEAL and two Marines inside. Two minutes later he had five SEALs and eight Marines. He reported his numbers to Ed and Sergeant Nelson.

  “We’ve got all the Marines, Murdock,” Ed said. “We have thirteen SEALs in this one.”

  “We’re short two SEALs,” Murdock said.

  The crew chief of the bird ran in and closed one door. Murdock moved to the other one. “Get out of here. No telling what else the rebels have out there. I’ll see you when I see you.” Murdock jumped down from the Osprey and ran for the fringe of brush as the engines wound up and kicked up dirt and dust while the VTOL slowly lifted off straight into the air. Two rifles picked up Murdock on his run, but missed hitting him. He crashed into the growth a dozen feet, then bellied down in the brush and touched his shoulder mike.