Olaf, Catfish, Buster, Rattlesnake, Syd, Fred and Charlie arrived outside the gates next, all of them covered in either mud, dust, blood, or smoke burns. As soldiers go, they looked ghastly with their black faces, grim expressions and long strides forward.
“Terrific job, guys,” said Rick again. To the three bloodstained SAS men, he just said, “A special thank you, gentlemen. We’re all grateful for the real rough end of the mission you carried out.”
“Don’t mention it, Ricky my old son,” said Syd jauntily. “All in the line of duty.”
“A bit beyond that,” said the SEAL commander. “Now, gentlemen, let’s go and get the guys free…and for Christ’s sake be careful inside the cell blocks. There’s armed Chinese guards in there, as we know, so don’t fire randomly or we might hit the prisoners.
“Let’s go…nice and careful…fire to kill, but selectively.”
11
0218. Monday, July 17.
The Jail on Xiachuan Dao.
Lt. Commander Rick Hunter issued his last orders before entering the wide gap where the main jail gates had been a few minutes earlier. “Okay, guys…we know there are still Chinese guards in here, in the cell blocks, and possibly in the building on the left as we enter. Therefore we go in as if we’re attacking a fortified area…strong frontal attack, heavy covering fire against the cell block, but don’t, for Christ’s sake, hit anyone inside.”
“Sir, what’s the door to the main cell block made of, and is it likely to be locked? Don’t wanna get caught outside against the wall with our shorts down, right?”
“I’m assuming it’s steel, Paul…anyone know better?”
“The door on the individual cell block on the right is steel,” said Syd Thomas. “And it was locked. I gave it a shove, turned the ’andle and it never budged.”
“Okay, let’s blow it right now. Det-cord, someone…”
“Right here, Rick.” Dan Conway had a big reel he’d been carrying around for five minutes in anticipation of this.
“Who’s going?”
“I’ll do it,” said Buster. “I got fucking speed to burn.”
They all laughed as the SEAL from the bayous grabbed the loose end and told Dan to hang on to the reel and play it out. “Right now I’m gone…”
Buster flew through the lefthand side of the gateway and made for the small cell block on the left, racing into the shadows. He paused for a moment and then ran along the edge of the wall, just as a machine gun opened up from the main cell block window. They all saw Buster go down, and Rick ordered instant gunfire at the window from which the fire had come.
Steve Whipple delivered it from the big machine gun he had positioned just inside the gate behind the rubble of the guardroom. The clatter of the gun silenced the Chinese resistance for the moment, and as it did so, Buster sprang to his feet and charged on to the door, still holding the end of the det-cord.
They all saw him reach the door and start winding the stuff around the handle and the gap around the lock. He reached for his knife, wound another length in around the hinges and then spliced the ends together.
Then he turned and raced back the way he had come, just as Steve pounded another 25 rounds through the silent window.
“Fuck me,” said Rick. “I thought they got you.”
“What? Those assholes? I’ve fought fucking alligators a lot more scary than them. Blow it out, Dan.”
Lieutenant Conway cut the length of cord and hit the fuse, instantly blasting the steel door off its hinges and leaving it leaning halfway into the cells.
Rick Hunter signaled his 20 troops in, and they set off at a jog for the main cell block, with Steve Whipple still firing short, steady bursts at the window where once there had been machine-gun fire.
Twenty yards from the block, the giant SEAL leader increased his pace and made for the door. He slammed his boot into it, kicking it in, and swung right, firing from the hip straight down the outer corridor, at the same time yelling, “All right, guys. This is a force of the United States Navy here to liberate our prisoners. Any Chinese guards, come out with your hands high.”
Dan Conway stood at Rick’s shoulder just as the two duty guards burst from cover at the end of the corridor and opened fire. At least, they tried to open fire, but Rick Hunter and Dan Conway cut them down in their tracks with their trusty MP-5s. Each of the Chinese guards took 10 rounds before they hit the floor.
“That’s pretty good shooting, pal,” said a deep American voice from inside the first barred cell on the left. “I’ll say one thing, you guys sure know how to make a fucking noise.”
Rick Hunter could have died with relief. This was the first real hard evidence he and his team had that the American crew were here at all.
“Cover that end of the corridor, Dan, Bobby,” he said. “Anything moves, blow its head off.”
Then he turned toward the cell, and saw a brawny arm sticking through the bars.
It was dark inside, and the face was hard to see, but the voice was firm and the grip strong.
“Am I glad to see you. I’m Captain Judd Crocker, USS Seawolf.”
“Hello, sir. Lieutenant Commander Hunter. SEALs.”
Judd looked at his blackened face, battle dress, bandana, hot machine gun. “I didn’t think you were from public relations,” he said, chuckling.
All the SEALs within earshot laughed at the still-droll submarine commander. “I suppose we haven’t got any keys, have we?” said Rick.
“If we had, we probably wouldn’t be here…and I don’t think the guards carry any. When they open the cell doors, which ain’t that often, a special little lieutenant comes in and does it himself.”
“Okay, sir…I thought we might have that problem. We’ve got plenty of small charges, and the little lieutenant is probably dead somewhere. Rattlesnake!”
The other SEAL from the bayous came forward and stuck a handful of white plastic C4 on the lock. “Stand back, sir…geddown over there against the wall…rest of you get back while I fire this…”
He fixed the firing cap and the C4 blew the lock clean off the door. Seawolf’s CO was free.
Judd came out and shook hands with his rescuer, telling him, “There’s just two single cells here, the rest are communal, I think eight of my guys in each one — some of ’em not in great shape, but I think we’re mostly alive.”
Rattlesnake blew the next door lock, and then shouted back, “Hey, sir…there’s no one in here.”
“DAMN!” snapped the captain. “That’s Linus. I thought I heard them move him about an hour ago. You guys didn’t destroy the big building to the right of the gates going out, did you?”
“No, sir. We hit one room only, left of the front door.”
“Good. That’s where the interrogators sit. I think we might find a couple of our guys in that building, down at the other end — my XO and the combat systems officer, Cy Rothstein.”
“Okay, sir…lemme just hand this locksmith crap over to Lieutenant Conway, then we’ll put Lieutenant Commander Davidson to work on the other two smaller cell blocks…meanwhile, let’s just sweep this place for guards, then we’ll go and find the two officers in the interrogation block.…Quick, Buster, Paul, Bobby, come with me…Rattlesnake, try not to blow us up as we come by.”
The four SEALs moved to the end of the corridor. From inside the end cell, a voice said quietly, “Careful, sir…there’s one of them still around that corner…the lieutenant…little bastard.”
“Any of our guys in that area around the back?”
“Nossir. We’re all in the area along this corridor. Ten big cells, eight of us in each. I’m Lieutenant Warren, sir. Officer of the Deck.”
“Okay, old buddy. We’ll have you all out of here in a minute.”
“Are you guys SEALs?”
“’Fraid so.”
Rick Hunter turned to Lieutenant Merloni and said, “No reason to take chances…gimme one of those hand grenades, willya?”
He gripped it in his hand, wh
ich was like putting a marble in the joint of a leg of lamb. Then he pulled the pin and hurled it around the corner. The impact inside the building was an ear-shuddering thud, and the guard lieutenant died with his boots on.
“That’s all of ’em, sir,” yelled Andy Warren. “I count the little pricks in every night, and I count the little pricks out again in the morning.” Arnold Morgan would have been proud of his phraseology.
By now Rattlesnake Davies had found a rhythm, and he was blowing locks at a fast rate. Lieutenant Conway was going inside each cell, occasionally calling for Olaf’s team to bring in a stretcher. The men from the first cells, nearest the obliterated door, were beginning to file out into the yard, and Chief McCarthy was suggesting they line up in some sort of order in case there were people missing.
“Right here we got a crew list,” he said. “I’ve given one to the captain, but we really don’t want to leave anyone behind, so can I ask you to get into lines…anyone want a crew list, I have ’em right here…anyone knows of a missing person, lemme know, okay?”
“They shot Skip Laxton dead on the first day,” someone called.
“And we haven’t seen Brad Stockton or Cy Rothstein for a coupla days.”
Chief McCarthy noticed that the men looked terrible, hollow-cheeked, haggard, many with bruises on their faces, some with blood. The second stretcher was coming out with a crewman strapped in, his leg fractured by a rifle butt. The first one had contained another crewman who kept drifting in and out of consciousness after a very bad beating. He had worked for Lieutenant Commander Rothstein.
Captain Crocker himself looked pretty battered. Both his eyes were blackened, and his right cheek was swollen. There was blood caked around the corners of his mouth. But he seemed to be able to move around without pain, and now he emerged from the cell block with Rick Hunter.
Before him was a scene of chaos. A thick pall of smoke hung over the jail, and there was still fire, which could be seen above the walls, from the exploded helicopters and fuel dump. There were scattered bodies all over the place, none of them SEALs.
Judd and Rick walked past the men, heading for the interrogation block in company with SEALs Buster Townsend, Paul Merloni and Bobby Allensworth.
At the door, Lieutenant Commander Hunter said, “Sir, you’d better not come in here…we might get resistance.”
“If I don’t come in, you might get killed. I’m an expert on the layout of this place and I’m the only one you’ve got.”
“Okay, sir,” said Rick, drawing his service revolver. “You know how to use this thing.”
“Expert,” he said. “I’m the fucking Wyatt Earp of the deep. Okay, follow me into the hallway, which you seem to have already demolished. Then I’ll follow you guys down the passage.”
Judd Crocker stepped over the rubble, followed by Rick and Bobby. But before they reached the end, Lieutenant Allensworth put his hand on the captain’s shoulder and said, “Wait, sir. Let me just stick a gun barrel in that doorway, see if anyone’s left alive. It’s better I shoot him than he shoots you.”
“No argument from me,” said Judd.
Bobby shoved his MP-5 around the corner and opened fire immediately. But there was no need. Whoever had been in there was no more, buried beneath the rubble.
Judd led the way down the corridor to the three rooms. Two were open, with lights on, the doors just ajar. The third room was closed. Buster came forward and booted wide the door of the first room. He entered and hammered four rounds into the panel of the door just in case someone was hiding behind it. Then he did the same to the second room, and there was no one there either. Which left the room where the door was shut.
“LIEUTENANT COMMANDER LUCAS!” yelled Judd.
“In here, sir,” came a muffled reply.
“Steady, sir. Don’t touch the door…leave it to us…Paul…”
Lieutenant Merloni, unrecognizable in the dust and smoke, stepped up beside the mission leader.
“Ready?”
“Sir.”
Rick Hunter, with an outrageous display of strength, booted the door off its hinges with two massive kicks, one high, one low. And as he did so he jutted his machine gun, but not his body, around the corner, and they all heard the Chinese guard open fire, straight at the barrel of Rick’s MP-5.
Unhappily for his family, the guard did not see Paul Merloni slide around the doorway on the floor and open up, shooting from low down at point-blank range with a wall of fire that killed the guard instantly. And now they could see Linus Clarke tied to a chair, a soaking-wet bath towel on his lap.
The second guard, Commander Li himself, dropped his rifle and put his hands in the air, just too late. Judd Crocker came through that doorway like a charging bull, fueled by the frustrated fury of almost two weeks of captivity. He rammed his left hand hard up under Li’s throat and carried him back ten feet from the wall, holding him suspended three inches above ground level, his feet kicking wildly.
Then the CO drew back his right fist and smashed it into the Chinese commander’s face, letting him drop to the floor.
“STAND BACK, SIR! RIGHT NOW. HE’S STILL ARMED…WATCH THAT PISTOL…SIR…SIR…STEP ASIDE!” Paul Merloni was not joking.
But Judd Crocker was not stepping aside for anyone. He drew Rick Hunter’s service revolver and shot Commander Li clean through the forehead, twice.
“That’s for a young friend of mine named Skip Laxton,” he said. “You murderous little bastard. Call it frontier justice.”
As he stepped away, Rick Hunter could see tears rolling down the CO’s bruised and battered face.
By now, Buster had cut the XO free and Linus Clarke finally stood up, throwing the towel to the ground. He did not look anywhere as beaten up as the rest of the crew, but it was clear that he had been through some kind of trauma. He was shaking, but he was clean and looked better fed than the others. Also, he was wearing a Chinese uniform shirt and shorts.
However, there was no one else left alive in the building, and Rick Hunter ordered everyone out, back into the courtyard to assess the damage done to Judd Crocker’s crew.
By the time they retraced their steps along the corridor, the lights were beginning to fail, and they kept fading, then surging back on again. This was scarcely surprising, given the general pounding the place had taken. Both searchlights had now gone out, and the lines of men now stood in almost complete darkness.
Judd Crocker shouted to ask if anyone had seen Lt. Commander Cy Rothstein, but no one had. He turned to Rick Hunter and said, “That’s the combat systems officer, cleverest man on the ship. He was under heavy interrogation…I’m extremely concerned about him.”
The SEAL leader asked if everyone was out of all three cell blocks. “Affirmative, sir,” replied Chief McCarthy.
“Make one more search, Chief…take flashlights…we gotta very important guy missing…Lt. Commander Cy Rothstein…start calling out his name.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Anyone else, Chief?”
“No, sir. All present and correct, sir. Except of course for Skip Laxton.”
“Anyone know if he could have been taken off by air?”
“Nossir,” said Lt. Shawn Pearson. “He and I were communicating through the wall until about three days ago. He’s been in the interrogation block, and I saw the same guard take him back there…it’s just that I haven’t heard from him since…”
“Jesus Christ,” said the CO. “The little bastards have killed him.”
A few more minutes passed, and then the searching parties began to arrive back. “There’s no one left in the cell blocks, sir. No one alive.”
“Well, there’s no one in the interrogation rooms, either,” said Rick. “We’ve checked them. The guardroom’s rubble. The comm room’s rubble, the dormitory badly damaged, but most of the personnel have been gassed, and anyway he couldn’t be in there. I must therefore conclude that Lieutenant Commander Rothstein has been killed. And in any event, I’m afraid we cannot remain a
moment longer or else we’ll all end up dead. We have to get off this island.”
“Right, Lieutenant Commander. I understand that. Judging by their methods of interrogation, I hold out absolutely no hope whatsoever for his rescue.”
Just then a sporadic burst of gunfire burst from the hill overlooking the southern wall of the jail. The bullets flew into the big crowd in the jail yard and two seamen went down out on the left.
“IT’S THOSE TWO LITTLE BASTARDS WHO GOT AWAY FROM THE OUTSIDE PATROL!” yelled Bobby Allensworth.
“GET IN UNDER THE WALL, EVERYONE…TAKE COVER RIGHT NOW…BOBBY…GIMME ONE OF THOSE FLARES…” Rick Hunter was moving fast. He lit the flare and held it in his gloved hand, letting go at the last minute when it sparked and made liftoff. They all watched it head into the night sky, burst and illuminate the entire hillside.
Buster yelled first. “THERE THEY ARE, SIR, RIGHT UP THERE…LEFT OF THE TREES…”
“Paul, Rattlesnake, Buster, Steve…follow me. We have to get rid of them. Bring the big machine gun…otherwise they’ll try to pick us off all the way to the beach…take care of those two wounded men, Olaf…THE REST OF YOU STAY AGAINST THE WALL TILL WE GET BACK…”
Rick Hunter headed left, up the hill, in the cover of the trees, running softly through the dark, followed by four of his most trusted men. “Keep right on this treeline till we get above them…cut ’em off from cover…keep ’em pinned down on the hill…so their only way out is toward the beach…”
Rick issued his orders as he ran, and when he was high enough above the last known position of the two remaining Chinese guards, he told Paul to loose off another flare, this time through a proper launcher, rather than hand-held.
It arched like a big rocket high up over the hill, and burst in a dazzle of light. “There they are, sir…right down there…nearer the jail than when we last saw them…”
“TAKE ’EM OUT, STEVE…MACHINE GUN…”
The big petty officer opened fire immediately. Paul sent up another flare and they all saw the last of the patrol guards get up and run for higher ground. But they never made it, and the five SEALs packed up their flares and ammunition belts and headed back down to the jail.
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