Seal Team Seven by Keith Douglass Read Free Book Online

first time he has to actually kill another human being. Brown had come through his baptism of fire and blood splendidly.
    Rising, Cotter left the shelter of the low ridge and trotted toward the C-130. In the distance, the glare from the exploded SAM bunker had dwindled to a sullen flicker, and the aircraft was almost lost in the darkness. Damn. Where were the rest of the Iraqis, partying in town? Fleeing toward al-Basra? Getting ready to spring their trap? Cotter didn’t like this situation one damned bit.

0245 hours (Zulu +3) Shuaba control tower, Iraq
    The rumbling boom of the explosion had brought him wide awake in an instant. While his partner Ibrahim had stood guard on the walkway outside, Sergeant Riad Jasim had been catching a brief nap in a duty room inside the control tower; but now fire stained the sky, Ibrahim was dead, and strange, black-garbed men were swarming among the shadows beneath the UN aircraft.
    Terrified, Jasim had hidden inside a second-floor storeroom as someone banged up the control tower steps outside. He cringed as they slammed open the door to the storeroom, but he was hidden behind a pile of empty boxes and—praise be to Allah!—the intruders had no time for a thorough search.
    When they left, he sagged back against the concrete block wall, trembling with relief.
    Jasim spoke no English, but he had a good ear. He’d heard the language spoken before, during the heroic Mother of All Battles when his supreme commander, the glorious Saddam, had halted the enemy invaders at the gates of Iraq with the mere threat of his terrible weapons. “Terminal clear! Dry hump!” was English, Jasim was sure of it, even if the words themselves were gibberish. The Americans were here, attempting to liberate their spy plane!
    When the heavy-booted intruders had left, Jasim had slipped out of the storeroom and up the steps to the glassed-in control tower. There, flat on his belly, heart pounding, he edged toward the glass door leading out onto the circular walkway that encircled the tower. He’d left his AKM assault rifle outside, with Ibrahim.
    He was no hero. He’d been a simple farmer from al-Kut until the army had drafted him, but he believed in Saddam Hussein as the soul and savior of the Iraqi people, and he knew that Paradise awaited him if he died fighting the infidel Americans.
    Slipping through the open door, he crawled onto the walkway. Ibrahim lay across his path, eyes open and staring, blood soaking the front of his uniform.
    â€œMy friend,” Jasim told the corpse. “I will avenge you!”
    But the brave words could not stop the trembling weakness he felt within. Somehow, he forced himself to go on. Retrieving his rifle and chambering a round, he inched himself closer to the edge of the walkway.

0248 hours (Zulu +3) Shuaba Airport, Iraq
    By the time Lieutenant Cotter reached the C-130, the platoon was already deploying in a loose perimeter about the aircraft. Two Gold Platoon men, Fernandez and Holt, were already setting out four strobe beacons in a Y-shaped pattern, the top of the Y marking a safe LZ for a helicopter, the tail indicating the wind direction. MacKenzie met Cotter at the perimeter. The big master chief had slung his H&K and broken out his machine gun. Crouching there on the tarmac with that big gun in his hands and a belt of 7.62mm ammo draped over his shoulder, the Texan looked a bit like a black-faced, black-fatigued Rambo.
    Except that Rambo never would have stood a chance against these night-clad killers. They moved with an efficient deadliness Hollywood could never portray and which movie-going audiences would find frankly unbelievable. Cotter felt a swelling, glowing pride for his men as he entered the perimeter. They were the best, absolutely and without qualification.
    â€œPlatoon, this is Blue Five!” Ellsworth’s voice snapped over the radio. “I’ve got movement. Two . . . maybe three hostiles. Bearing one-seven-five,