Brannigan grinned. 'What makes you think I've got something on my mind, Senior Chief?'
'You got a devious look in your eye, sir,' Dawkins said with country-boy candor. 'You look like an ol' bear that's just sighted a beehive of honey.'
Brannigan lowered his voice. 'I'm thinking of springing an ambush.'
Dawkins glanced around the immediate area. 'This looks like a pretty good place. What's up on top?'
'I've sent the Odd Couple to find out,' Brannigan said. 'Hang in there. I'll be getting back to you.'
'Aye, sir.'
Brannigan went on down to where Chief Matt Gunnarson, Bruno Puglisi and James Bradley, the hospital corpsman, were strung out along the ravine. The chief also gave him a shifty look, so Brannigan beat him to the punch by saying, 'I'm seriously considering setting up an ambush right here.'
'All right, sir!' Gunnarson exclaimed. 'Is that why you sent Assad and Leibowitz topside for a look-see?'
'You bet,' Brannigan said. He nodded at James. 'The guys may be getting pretty tired before this is all wrapped up.'
'I've got some pep pills that will give them some oomph,' James said. 'I think we might end up with a water problem though.'
'Nothing is ever easy in this line of work,' Brannigan remarked, moving down the line.
Lieutenant Jim Cruiser nodded a greeting to the platoon commander as he approached. 'Welcome to the aft end of the column, sir.'
'Thank you:' Brannigan said. 'How's it going?'
'Fine, thanks,' Cruiser said. 'Milly Mills and I are hanging in here while Joe Miskoski and Gutsy Olson are playing tail-gunners. I thought it would be a good idea if Milly and I relieved them for a while. They need a break.'
'Don't bother about it right away,' Brannigan counseled. 'I'm working on setting up a special reception for the rag-heads at this spot. I'll be getting back to you later.'
He walked back toward the front, reaching Frank just as Mike and Dave slid back into the ravine. Mike did the talking. 'There's a flat area about a kilometer to the front where we could go after we break contact from the ambush.'
'I didn't say anything to you two about an ambush,' Brannigan said.
Dave shrugged. 'Hell, sir, it was obvious as hell.'
'Right, sir,' Mike agreed. 'Me and Dave found a place where it'd be easy to get back into the cover of the ravine.'
'Right,' Dave agreed. 'We'd be long gone by the time the bad guys recovered from the attack.'
'What about cover and concealment along the top of this area?' Brannigan asked.
'It couldn't be better, sir:' Mike said. 'You can look right down into this fucking ditch without having to worry about anybody spotting you from below.'
'Okay,' Brannigan said. He pressed the throat mike of the LASH. 'All right! Listen up. We're going to set up an ambush here. I don't want to waste grenades since the mujahideen are going to be pretty much confined in this space. They'll make very easy targets.'
Senior Chief Buford's voice came over the system. 'What kind of ambush do you have in mind, sir?'
'A line ambush:' Brannigan said. 'To refresh your lessons from Ambush 101, let me remind you that means we will be deployed parallel to the bad guys' direction of travel. In other words, we'll be positioned for flanking fire. And that means it has to be heavy.'
'But no grenades?' Bruno Puglisi asked.
'You'll have to control your base emotions, Bruno,' Brannigan said. 'You'll do more damage with your M-16. Anyhow, there'll be too much of a chance that those steel pellets would fly back in your face in this confined space. Okay. Listen, guys. Here's the order of battle. The rear security force will be the Deltas, with the responsibility to see that none of the enemy escape back in the direction they came from. Understood, Delta Leader?'
'Yes, sir:' Chief Gunnarson responded.
'The front security force will be the Charlies,' Brannigan said. 'It's your job to make sure no bad guys charge forward to safety. Okay, Charlie Leader?'
'Got it, sir:' Jim Cruiser said. 'Right now we're under strength since Kevin Albee is KIA and Gutsy Olson and Joe Miskoski are assigned to rear guard.'
'Thanks for reminding me,' Brannigan said. 'Olson and Miskoski, you will rejoin the Charlies. After this thing goes down, you can be the rear guard again.' He waited a moment. 'The entire First Squad--I say again--the entire First Squad will be the attack force. That means delivering heavy fire into the target. Remember, men, we don't want any of those sons of bitches getting through the ambush at the front or running away at the back. Got it? Good! The firing will commence when Charlie Fire Team sees that all the bad guys have passed into the kill zone.'
'When does the firing halt?' Milly Mills asked.
'When every one of those raghead bastards is dead,' Brannigan said. 'Now let's climb up there on the edge of this gulley and get set up.'
The platoon began scrambling to get out of the ravine.
.
0930 HOURS LOCAL
CHIEF Matt Gunnarson had spent a bit more than half an hour keeping an eye on the location where the enemy would enter the ambush kill zone. Now he tensed as he watched a three-man point team of mujahideen walk slowly into the killing area, pausing to take a careful look down the ravine. A couple of beats later they resumed their walk, moving toward the end where the Charlies formed the final firing line.
When the main column of ragheads came into view, they were relaxed and confident with the certainty that their point crew had cleared the way ahead. Gunnarson waited patiently, noting when the last of the group came into view. One of the mujahideen was a tall, lanky guy who reminded the chief of photographs he had seen of Osama Bin Laden. When Gunnarson determined this was the last guy, he aimed carefully at his upper body. At the exact moment the mujahideen came to a point to his direct front, the SEAL gently squeezed the trigger. The jolt of the bullet slammed the SEAL: raghead against the far wall of the ravine, and he crumpled to the ground.
Immediately the First Squad--seven men strong--opened up with three-round automatic bursts of 5.56- millimeter. The salvos whacked into the mujahideen, shaking them violently as they toppled to the ravine's floor. The enemy point team panicked and made a run forward, but the weapons of Charlie Fire Team blasted an instantaneous volley of a dozen shots that cut the trio down before they went five meters. Then the Charlies raised the barrels to blast into the front of the enemy column. The air was filled with the ear-shattering reports of a dozen CAR-15s and two M-16s.
It was all over in ten seconds.
Thirty mujahideen were down, slumped and sprawled in piles of two and three. The sounds of moaning could be discerned coming from the fallen men, while a few twitched in the agony of their death throes.
Brannigan spoke firmly into the LASH. 'Cease fire!' He got to his feet and surveyed the scene for a moment. 'All right! Assad and Leibowitz on the point. Charlie Team take the rear guard. Let's go, people! Move out!'
The platoon hurried forward a kilometer along the flat terrain before slipping back into the cover of the ravine.
.
1000 HOURS LOCAL
CAPTAIN Lakhdar Tanizai watched the wounded being carried out of the ravine, back to a wider area in the gulley for treatment. There were no proper stretchers to transport the stricken mujahideen, so they were rolled onto blankets for an uncomfortable, jarring trek of fifty meters back to where the medics had set up a treatment center. With only the barest of medical supplies available, the injured men were quickly divided into two groups. The first was made up of wounded who might survive to fight another day. They were given top priority. The poor bastards who didn't have a chance for recovery were laid out to survive or die as dictated by Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Tanizai had sent the rest of his company forward of the ambush site to occupy the ravine and the high ground on each side. They went into a purely defensive mode, nervously wondering if the infidel devils would reappear from nowhere to deal more death and maiming to them.
