Free Battleground by Keith Douglass Page A

rounds, and the small bomb dropped out of the Kenyan’s hand and three seconds later exploded.
    Fernandez looked back at Lincoln and nodded. He sent covering fire up the stairs until he felt Lincoln slide into place beside him.
    “No response up above,” Lincoln said. “Might just have solved our little problem.”
    Fernandez used the mike again. “L-T, we could use about four good men in here. The stairs is ours.”
    Moments later Adams, Lampedusa, Bos’n’s mate Ted Yates, and Quinley ran into the room and found cover.
    Quinley had a shortened pistol-grip shotgun with no stock or much of a barrel, and five rounds of double-aught buck.
    “Quinley,” Lincoln said. “You and me up the stairs. Side by side. You’ve got the left. Blast at anything that moves.”
    Quinley pulled down his night-vision goggles, and the two ran for the stairs and up them.
    Quinley fired one round upward as they hit the bottom step. When they got to the top they dove to the floor and surveyed the scene. Just in front of them lay a green-clad Kenyan ranger with his head half blown off his shoulders. His AK-47 lay just beyond his stiffening fingers.
    Ahead they saw a long hall with lots of doors opening off it.
    “Shit,” Lincoln said. “We got to clear every fucking one of those rooms.” He touched his mike. “Bring up the troops,” he said. The other four SEALs ran up the steps and went flat on the floor at the top.
    “Rooms to clear,” Lincoln said. “Two men to each room, just like in training. We do three rooms at the same time. Move out.”
    The first three rooms contained no enemy troops. The next three had two men in one who didn’t get off a round before they had half-a-dozen 9mm slugs in their vital organs.
    Fernandez looked at the last two rooms. The doors were farther apart. So far they had found only sleeping quarters for two to three persons.
    Fernandez motioned to Quinley, and they took the far door. Lincoln and Adams had the near one. The other two pointed outward as security.
    On signal they kicked in the doors and charged inside.
    Fernandez saw it was a three-room suite. Maybe the ambassador’s. The main room was clear. They swung openanother door and found a bathroom. Adjoining it was the master bedroom. Once inside the bedroom, Fernandez swore. One woman lay dead on the big bed. She was naked, and her breasts had been sliced off. The other woman, a redhead, lay on the floor, naked as well, with several big-caliber slugs in her body.
    “Gonna be hell to pay,” Quinley said.
    Fernandez nodded. “Hope to hell I get to do the collecting.”
    Lieutenant Ed DeWitt ran into the room, and shook his head. “The bastards.”
    He went out to the hall. At the end of it there was another corridor at right angles. There were only six doors on this side. Before they got into the line of fire from down the hall, DeWitt sent a three-round burst down it.
    Two weapons answered him.
    “One came from the second room on the right,” Quinley said. He had been flat on the floor peering around the wall. “The other one was farther down.
    “They don’t have NVGs,” Quinley added. “If they did they would have seen me.”
    “How in hell do we get down there and not get ourselves shot to hell?” Fernandez asked.
    “I’ll go,” Quinley said. “Hey, I’m the smallest one here. I’ll take fraggers and crawl down there along the wall. You guys give me some cover fire three feet high. I get to the second door. Must be open or they couldn’t fire out of it. I cook a grenade for two seconds, then throw it in, and two seconds later, whammo.”
    “Could work,” DeWitt said. He touched his mike. “Front side, we’ve got a holdup here on the second floor. We’re working it out.”
    “Need any help?” Murdock asked.
    “Negative, front side. Hang on.”
    They fired from the wall opposite the one that Quinley crawled along. Bursts of three rounds, then single shots, never in any pattern. Some shots went to the third and