The column slowed as it approached. Then it came to a complete stop. The militia members could see the technicals blocking the road, the overturned SUV, and the corpses of their compatriots—all covered with bullet holes.
If they were paying attention, they would also notice that two vehicles were missing. It was decision time.
The compound was quiet. The only things moving were the flies on the dead bodies.
A militia commander rolled down his window and lifted a pair of binoculars to get a better look. With the right rifle, Harvath probably would have been able to take him out. But his focus wasn’t the militia’s command structure.
He wanted to knock out their technicals—first and foremost the two with the antiaircraft guns. Something easier said than done.
To their credit, these guys weren’t stupid. There was plenty of spacing among all ten of their vehicles. They weren’t bunched up on the road, bumper to bumper, unable to maneuver if they had to.
Two technicals with .50 cal machine guns were near the front and another was in the middle. The technicals with the antiaircraft guns were all the way at the back.
By coming to a halt, the convoy was now in RPG range, but just barely. Harvath wanted them closer. He wanted to stack the deck as much as he could in his favor.
So they continued to wait while the Libya Liberation Front tried to make up its mind.
What he had hoped for was that upon seeing the missing vehicles, the entire column would give chase. As they drove by, he and Haney would then pick them off, one by one, focusing on the two key technicals.
The second-best option was that they divided their forces, sending some to give chase and the others to inspect the compound. What they were doing now, though, was nothing. They were just sitting there.
Harvath could feel a headache coming on. He was hungry and caffeine deficient. He would have killed for a cup of coffee or an energy drink.
“Okay, fellas, what’s it gonna be?” he said, as he watched the militia members. “Are we going to fight, or just stand around pulling each other’s dicks?”
At that moment, the commander got out of his truck and started shouting orders. Up and down the line, militia members began getting out of their vehicles.
Haney looked at Harvath, who shrugged in response, before turning his attention back to the convoy. He had no idea what they were up to.
A group began to amass near the vehicles in the middle. They were armed predominantly with AK-47s, but some had M4s. Harvath didn’t need to guess where those had come from.
When he saw other men begin to hop into the beds of the technicals, he knew they were in trouble.
The militia was going to send a team in on foot to check the compound while the rest of them, along with their vehicles, hung back. The technicals would provide overwatch for them.
“This isn’t good,” Haney said over the radio.
No, it wasn’t. But they were going to have to deal with it.
“It looks like they’re going to send in about twenty guys,” replied Harvath. “That’s nearly half their force. As soon as they’re closer to us than they are to them, we let them have it.”
Haney gave him the thumbs-up and got ready. This was their ambush. And while the militia members might not be fully cooperating by driving straight into it, they still had surprise, speed, and violence of action on their side. Harvath planned to leverage that to the hilt.
Within moments of being assembled, the assault force started moving. But much to Harvath’s chagrin, they weren’t moving alone. One of the technicals was moving with them. Damn it.
Harvath had to think fast. The moment he and Haney fired their rockets, that machine gun was going to rain a world of hurt down on them. And the closer it was to their position, the more accurate its fire was going to be.
They needed to find a way to take it out at the same time they took out the antiaircraft guns. There had to be something.
Harvath racked his brain, but he couldn’t come up with anything. The antiaircraft guns had to be taken out first. If they began firing on their position, it was game over. The technical creeping up on them would just have to come second—an extremely dangerous second.
The assault force moved rapidly. If the compound was as empty as it looked, they needed to clear it and get back on the road. With every minute that passed, their quarry was getting farther away.
He watched as the Libyans came down the road, getting closer and closer with each passing second.
There was a withered crop of shrubs that he had decided on for his marker. Once they had reached that, it would be time to engage.
Perspiration ran down the back of his neck. His palms were slick with sweat. He rubbed them on his chest to dry them before readjusting his hands on the launcher. All the while, he never took his eyes off the fighters converging on the compound.
Eventually, he went from measuring the distance to the marker in meters, to feet. “Get ready,” he said over the radio. “Almost there.”
The technical passed the shrubs first, followed by the militiamen who were on foot. As soon as the last one had reached the marker, Harvath said, “Hit it!”
Simultaneously, he and Haney leaned out from behind the buildings they were using as cover, sighted in their targets, and fired their weapons.
CHAPTER 38
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Before he even knew if he had struck his antiaircraft technical, Harvath retreated back behind the building, dropped his empty launcher, and began running toward the other corner. As he did, he transitioned to his Russian grenade launcher.
In one of the defeated technicals outside the compound, Morrison had found a handful of HEDP—high-explosive dual-purpose grenades.
Used for both antitank and antipersonnel assaults, as long as you got them near a target, they were highly effective.
He heard two explosions up on the road as the technical that was closing in on them then opened up with its .50 cal.
The gunner strafed the part of the compound where he had seen the rockets fired from. The heavy rounds sent bits of rock and cinderblock in all directions.
Now at the opposite end of the main building, Harvath leaned out and let loose. He fired all three rounds in his launcher, reracking it as fast as he could. And more important, he did it before the gunner in the technical could swing the heavy .50 cal in his direction and cut him down.
As he ducked back behind the building, he heard the rounds detonate. There was a massive explosion followed by a roiling fireball that curled up into the sky. He had scored a direct hit.
Slinging the launcher, he ran for the technical that Haney had parked behind the far building.
Out on the road, the other heavy machine guns mounted in the beds of militia pickup trucks began firing and chewing up the compound.