Seal Team Seven by Keith Douglass Page A

had never been pleasant. . . .
    He caught the wink of a full-auto muzzle flash in the corner of his eye, felt rather than heard the savage snap of bullets cleaving the air inches above his head. Arkin was ten feet away, his back to the SEAL lieutenant, completely unaware that they were being shot at. Without thinking, Cotter launched himself forward, tackling the CIA man from behind just as the unseen gunner corrected his aim. Arkin oofed as he went down hard beneath the SEAL and the briefcase skittered loose across the tarmac.
    Something slammed into Cotter’s side, then his right arm, then his back, the impacts painless but savagely hard, like hammer blows. For a dazed moment, he didn’t know where he was. Why was he on his back, on the ground? . . .

0250 hours (Zulu +3) Shuaba Airport, Iraq
    Roselli had seen the Lieutenant knock the UN guy flat, then seen Cotter plucked from the man’s back by an unseen hand and rolled off onto the tarmac. He’d not heard the gunshots above the roar of the helicopter, but he could tell from the way the Lieutenant had been thrown that they’d come from high up and that way, from the top of the terminal building tower.
    He cut loose with a long burst from his MP5, screaming “Cover! Cover! Sniper on the tower!” as loud as he could. Other SEALs reacted in the same instant. MacKenzie sent a stream of green tracers slashing through the terminal’s windows, and then Garcia’s M203 spoke, slamming a 40mm grenade into the tower walkway, where it detonated with a flash and a bang and a sparkling shower of steel fragments and broken glass. Bodies . . . no, pieces of bodies spun lazily through the air, accompanied by an avalanche of shattered bricks and concrete.
    Roselli was beside the Lieutenant in a second, crouching over him. “L-T! L-T! Can you hear me?” Oh, God, his blacks were sticky with blood. Shit, shit, shit ! Where was all the damned blood coming from? The Skipper was wearing a Kevlar bullet-proof combat vest, of course, but it looked like he’d taken a round in the right shoulder. That was okay . . . sure. A ticket home and his arm in a sling, but he’d be up and back in full working mode in a few weeks, just like in the fucking movies. . . .
    â€œOuta my way, Chief!” Doc Ellsworth was there, shoving him aside. Roselli didn’t want to leave. “Damn it, Chief, out of the way! I’ve got him!”
    Turning, Roselli stared up at the control tower. The large, slanted windows had been blown out, and one side looked as though a giant had taken a hungry bite out of it. “Two-IC!” he yelled over the tactical channel. “This is Roselli!”
    â€œDeWitt here,” he heard. “Go ahead.”
    â€œThe L-T’s down! Damn it, I thought you said that fuckin’ tower was fuckin’ clear ! ”
    â€œOkay, Razor. Chill out.” He heard a click as DeWitt changed channels. “Platoon, this is Two-IC. The Lieutenant’s down. I’ve got command. Acknowledge!”
    â€œI hear you,” MacKenzie’s voice replied. “Blue copies.”
    â€œAcknowledged, Lieutenant,” Chief Kosciuszko’s voice added. “Gold copies!”
    The man Cotter had knocked down was sitting up nearby, cradling his arm and rocking back and forth. “I’m hit! I’m hit! God, I’m hit!”
    Roselli crouched beside him. It looked like a round had punched through the guy’s safari jacket sleeve, bloodying his arm. A graze, nothing more. “You’ll live,” he said bluntly. “Hold still.” He popped open one of his pouches, pulled out a roll of gauze, and quickly wrapped the man’s arm.
    â€œMy attaché case. Where’s my attaché case?”
    Roselli retrieved it. “Here. Now get the fuck back with the rest of your people.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œ Move it, you numb-nuts dumb-ass son of a bitch!” The UN man blinked at him in