Read Online Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire by Keith Douglass - Free Book Online

chambers on a six-gun.
    Two of the men chose the Welby RIC with a two-and-a-half-inch barrel and packing six chambers of. 45 heavy-hitting slugs. When they all had made their picks, the men behind the tables gave each 250 cartridges for his hideout weapon. They would pick up the rifles and sub guns the next day along with the ammo.
    Stroh looked at the language coach, Marwan Jablah. “Now, gentlemen, if you will follow me to the classroom, we’ll get back to our language study.” Jablah said it in Arabic and all but Jaybird understood the thread of what he said. Jaybird grinned and followed them.
    The rest of the afternoon and evening were devoted to Syrian culture, everyday customs, and the use of money.
    “In Syria we use the Syrian pound, currently worth about fifty cents compared to a dollar. Two Syrian pounds equal one U.S. dollar. Remember that if you get to haggling with a merchant. And haggle they will.” He had said all of this in Arabic. They had learned the words for haggle and pound before. Now they understood the system a little better. At 2200, Jablah closed his book. He reverted to English.
    “Gentlemen, it’s been interesting working with you SEALs. You do things most men just dream of doing. I hope our sessions here have been a help in giving you some tools to use in completing your mission in Syria, and in saving your own lives. I wish you good fortune, long life, and that all of you will return from this mission alive and well.”
    Murdock shook the man’s hand, then turned to Stroh. “Come on, CIA big shot. Tell us what we’re going to be doing over there.”
    Stroh wouldn’t budge. He shook his head, put on his game face, and waved Murdock off. “Tomorrow morning is your briefing. Then you’ll fly out tomorrow afternoon. Now get a good night’s sleep and be ready for what’s going to be facing you in the next week.”
    Jaybird snorted. “Hell, Stroh, we figured out that much. You won’t tell us anything else, so I’m putting a Jaybird double whammy on you, so you won’t catch a single fish the next time you come out to Lotus Land.”

5
    Murdock and the five other SEALs, wearing their Syrian outfits, sat in the conference room in a large office building and waited for the admiral to appear with the CIA director. Don Stroh hovered over the six like a mother ruffed grouse, reminding them to sit up straight, not to speak unless spoken to, and to leap to attention when the admiral came into the room.
    “Stroh, we been doing that stand-up thing for a hundred and fifty years,” Jaybird said.
    “Just don’t forget.”
    Stroh wiped his forehead with a linen handkerchief, walked to the door, and came back. The conference room was one he seldom was in. He wasn’t in high strategy sessions that went on around the twelve-foot polished oak table. Pens and pads of paper and glasses of water perched at each place around the table, waiting to be used. Bradford had used his already, sketching Jaybird in his Syrian outfit. It was in ballpoint pen but a remarkable likeness.
    “Teen-hut!” Jaybird barked. The SEALs jolted to their feet and stood stiffly at attention. Two men walked into the room. One a civilian, short, thin, with a nearly bald head and piercing eyes that swept the room, concentrating on Murdock. He smiled and Murdock gave a curt nod.
    “As you were,” came the gruff voice of the most recent chief of naval operations, Admiral Alonzo H. Hagerson. The admiral was six-four, had played tight end for the Navy football team and turned down three pro contracts to stay in the Navy. He was considered by all who knew him as a team player with a sharp temper and a wary stance on anything not Navy.
    “Be seated, gentlemen,” Admiral Hagerson said. “You’ll be standing up and running enough before long.” The director of the CIA sat as well but Hagerson remained standing. He moved to a display pull-down immediately behind the conference table. Don Stroh remained standing at the back of the