Murdock checked his attack board again, made a slight change in direction, and swam forward at an even fifteen feet below the increased chop of the Taiwan Strait. He knew exactly how many minutes it would take him to swim a mile.
It was a little over a half hour later that Murdock and Holt surfaced in the rough waters. They looked around and saw no one else in the three-foot seas.
Holt let out and activated a tethered sonar signal ball that the submarine could home in on.
Murdock found the right flap in his gear and took out a heavy folded plastic package the size of a cell phone. He unfolded it, pressed a small trigger, and watched the plastic inflate with helium into a ball a foot in diameter. The inflation broke two chemicals inside the tough plastic and when they interacted, produced a fluorescent glow in the ball. A ten-foot-long monofilament line held the ball in tow. Murdock tied the mono to his webbing, and it rose to the end of the ten-foot line.
It was an SLVB, a Self Lighting Vue Ball, to serve as a guide at night on land or water with a visible signal locator device. It could be used in various ways, but always when there was no danger of enemy activity. This particular model could be seen for about half a mile when Murdock rode to the top of the swells. He and Holt settled down to wait for their chicks to come home.
It gave Murdock time to think about Mr. Hang, the CIA operative in Fuching. He had made his choice. Murdock could tell the man was terrified of falling back into Chinese Communist hands. They would continue the "death of a thousand slices" and find more ingenious ways to torture him until he at last could feel the release of death.
He had chosen not to face that kind of an ending. The heart thrust had been deliberate, skilled, and fatal. Mr. Hang knew exactly what he was doing.
So far, it had been a productive mission. They had the plans. Whether they were useless or earth-shaking was yet to be determined.
A pair of swimmers stroked in from the north. David "Jaybird" Sterling, Platoon Chief and machinist mate second class, waved and pushed his rebreather out of his mouth.
"This is a fucking mile? Somebody's stroke count has gone haywire. I wouldn't want to say whose it is, but there ain't many of us kicking shit here."
Murdock snorted. "Good to have you among the living, Chief. Where's the rest of your asshole crew?"
They heard splashing to the left and two more came in. Ten minutes later all but one team had joined the platoon leader.
"Missing?" Murdock asked the platoon chief. Jaybird had been keeping track.
"Lampedusa and Johnson."
"Mr. Dewitt, any intel on that?" Murdock asked.
"Lampedusa said he caught a ricochet back on the beach but it was nothing but a scratch."
"I should have looked at it," Doc said. "Why didn't I know?"
"Lampedusa and Johnson were the last ones off the beach," Dewitt said. "He assured me that he was fit for duty and would have no problem with a mile."
A hundred meters to the north, the sea foamed and a huge black hull rose out of the depths like some prehistoric sea monster. The nuclear submarine Dorchester flattened out and reversed engines, and came to a stop fifty meters away.
"Move out and board," Murdock said. He gave the vue ball to Holt and untied him from the buddy line. "Fasten this to the tower somewhere up high."
Murdock followed his men to the side of the sub, where they were helped on board. He stood on the deck watching the dark water around him. Where were they? He'd only lost one man on a mission and he didn't want to double that score now.
He scanned the waters on both sides a dozen times. A two-striper came out and paced with him.
"Two men short?" he asked.
"Right."
"We can give them a half hour. Then we move out."
"They'll be here," Murdock said. He spun on his heel and walked the other way down the sub's deck.
Five minutes later, Murdock heard a splash and looked starboard. Two figures moved slowly toward the big black fish. He soon saw that one man swam and one was being towed.
A half-dozen sailors jumped to the spot and helped get the SEALS on board.
Ten minutes later in the sick bay, Joe Lampedusa, Operations Specialist Third Class looked up at his skipper and shook his head.
"Damn it, L-T, I knew I could make it. Wasn't bleeding much at all. Just a nick on my upper arm."
Doc Ellsworth scowled. "You dumb-assed shit-for-brains stupid dry-humping moron. An arm wound always gets worse when you swim. I would have put you on a tow float from the git-go. Now pay attention while these Navy medics get some piss-blood back in you and take about twenty stitches in that little 'scratch' you got. Some damn scratch. I'm not losing anybody because of a fucking, somebitching, whore-chasing scratch."
3
Thursday, May 14
0415 hours USS Dorchester Taiwan Strait It had taken fifteen minutes to get Joe "Ricochet" Lampedusa into sick bay on the submarine and start treatment. Murdock had been met as soon as he came inside the submarine by the boat's skipper, Captain Johnson, and Don Stroh, the CIA spook who had been chaperoning and passing orders to the SEALS lately.
Murdock had been respectful but firm. "First I see that my man gets the medical attention he needs. Then we talk. Fifteen minutes isn't going to kill anyone." The captain's brows went up in surprise at the abruptness, nearly insubordination, of the junior officer, but Don Stroh took the man aside and explained it to him.
Stroh told him about the SEALS' unity, their cohesion, the way they were closer than most families and how they depended on each other for their very lives. It was a bonding that was equaled nowhere else in the armed services.
When Murdock met the other two in the officers' mess nearly twenty minutes after their first talk, the captain looked uneasy. Don Stroh waved Murdock to a chair with a pair of cold Cokes on the table in front of it.
"Now," Stroh said. "Murdock, let's see what you fished out of Mainland China for us."
Also on hand was Kenneth Ching, Quartermaster's Mate First Class, the Third Platoon's language expert, newly signed on. He'd been a SEAL for four years, had seen his share of the action, and was fluent in reading and writing Chinese and speaking various dialects. A civilian Chinese man who came with Stroh was also present.
Murdock took out the documents from inside his shirt and gave them to Stroh. He opened the plastic and scanned the papers a moment, laughed, and gave them to the Chinese civilian. "It's all Chinese to me," he said. Nobody laughed.
Stroh motioned to Ching, and he and the Chinese civilian looked at the papers critically.
"I am Hubert Wong," the Chinese civilian said to Murdock. "These characters are in the simplified Mainland style, perhaps Mr. Ching will do better on these papers than I can."
"What does it say?" Stroh asked. "What's the title page say?"
Ching looked up at Murdock, who nodded.
""Classified Secret' is all over the first page. A stamp of some sort. The lead title is "Final Plans for Invasion of Chinese Island of Taiwan.'"
Stroh shouted in delight. "Good. Now we've got our work cut out for us. Let's get to it."
Murdock signaled Stroh and stood. "Let me know what they are doing. Then maybe we can work out some way to help stop them. I need to check on the rest of my men."
He left the room, and again the captain lifted his brows.
Murdock made sure his platoon had quarters, a place to shower, and fresh uniforms. The EM mess would be open to them as soon as they were ready. He went to his assigned quarters, a closet-sized room, and showered, then put on dungarees to match the ones worn by his men. Next he called the steward and had him bring a large steak with all the trimmings and two cups of coffee to wash it down. By then he felt ready to face the committee and the Chinese plans for an invasion.
By the time he got back to the conference room two hours after he had left, sleeves were rolled up, papers littered the table, and Ching kept translating the documents, with occasional help from Hubert Wong. Much of it consist
ed of orders for various units and troops. These were stacked to one side.
Soon it was evident that there would be four main parts to the invasion of Taiwan by the Mainland Chinese forces.
Captain Johnson frowned at the CIA man. "Mr. Stroh, sensitive information like this must be on a need-to-know basis. This is top-secret material. What's an enlisted man doing here? And what's the clearance level of Lieutenant Murdock?"
Stroh smiled. "Captain Johnson, let me put you at ease. Your security clearance is the lowest of any man in this room. This is on a need-to-know basis, and if at some point I have to ask you to leave, I'm sure you'll understand."
The captain scowled for a moment, then nodded. "Aye, aye, sir. I'll be getting back to running my boat. Let me know of any special orders you have for me." The captain saluted Stroh, lifted off his chair, and marched out of the small room in a bad mood.
Stroh waited for the door to close, then looked at Ching and Murdock.
"So what the fuck do we have here? Looks like they have hard plans for invasion. Is there a date on their attack?"
Ching looked up and nodded. "Today's the fourteenth of May. Their target date is May eighteenth. We have four days."
"Not long enough," Stroh said. "What were those four main attacks they planned?"
Ching looked at his notes. "First, they will detonate a small nuclear weapon fifty miles south of Taiwan over the South China Sea to demonstrate the power of the blast. Second, they will launch poison-gas-filled missiles from two ships in the strait, striking each of the fourteen major Taiwan military bases to kill everyone on them and for two miles around.
"Third, they will send transport aircraft aloft with three thousand paratroopers to drop into key strategic points on the island and capture those areas. They will fly from a mainland air field.
"Then, when port facilities are secured, China will send three transports loaded with fifteen thousand troops for three separate dockside landings in Taiwan to facilitate the capture and total occupation of the island."
Stroh stood with a sheaf of notes. "I'm going to get on the radio and run this past my people as well as State, Defense, and the President. Some high-level decisions have to be made quickly if we're going to stop this without a full-scale war on our hands."
He looked at Murdock. "Does this sound like an interesting exercise for your men? I want you to start planning now how you could take down one or all of these operations and stop the invasion cold. Preplanning to be sure. Even if we don't move on this, you've lost nothing and it will be a good practice exercise. I understand the bulk of your equipment is on the carrier. We'll move toward the flattop at max speed as soon as I notify the captain.
"Mr. Ching, you should go over the plans again to see if we missed anything or if any other interpretation could be put on those documents. Wong, you help him out. Let's all get to work."
Murdock found his men in a small day-room the submariners had turned over to the SEALS for temporary use. Most were cleaning and oiling their primary weapons. They had on clean dungarees and had been fed.
Platoon Chief Jaybird Sterling got to him first. "What's up, Skipper?
That paper we brought back tell them anything?"
"We could be busy for the next few days." He gathered them around and briefed them on what the secret Chinese plans spelled out.
"They're finally gonna try it," Gunner's Mate Second Class Scotty Frazier said. "After threatening to do it for fifty years, they're gonna give it a try. Damn me."
"We don't know if it's a go for us or not," Murdock said. "Stroh is on the horn right now with the brass and the President figuring it out. What we need to do is get down to the dirty-dirty here and do some planning. How can we be four places at once, and how can we shoot down this planned invasion before it gets started? Any ideas?"
Most military commanders are shocked to their core by the SEAL methods. Every SEAL operation is a joint process. Planning and tactics and operations are all worked out by the men who will be doing the mission. Officer and enlisted rank means less here than in any part of the military. Every man does his job or he's booted out of the SEALS and back into the "real" Navy where he can chip paint, swab decks, and clean latrines.
Combat veterans of the SEALS know what it is to put their lives in the hands of their team members. They all have been through the most rigorous training in the world, have experienced pain and fatigue and cold and months of harassment and more pain. Few men can stay the course and graduate from BUD/S at Coronado, California. Those who do come out scarred, cocky, self-assured, profane, talented, and with an undying devotion to every other SEAL who has passed the test and weathered the system for six months or more to get his Budweiser pin. That's an eagle, a trident, and a flintlock pistol--the emblem of the SEALS.
The SEALS are a breed apart, and not at all loved by the rest of the Navy, and certainly not by many of the penny-pinchers in Washington when they find out that it costs 80,000 in cash to turn a sailor into a SEAL.
"Let's take them from the top," Platoon Chief Jaybird Sterling said. "That's the big bang. How do you stop somebody from dropping a bomb?"
"Easy," Magic Brown said. "Don't let them get the boom-boom on the delivery vehicle, whether it's a boat or plane."
Murdock nodded. "Bottle up the heavy stuff wherever they hold it. Our people should know where the Chinese have their atomic weapons manufacturing and storage facilities. The word is that there aren't a lot of finished nukes in China's arsenal yet. They must have at least one or two. If this mission is a go, we'll get info from Stroh and his satellite friends about the China nuke workshop and storage. What's next?"
"The poison gas," Seaman Ross Lincoln of the Second Squad said. "What kind is it and where do they store it? They plan to deliver it by ship, you said, so that means naval cannon rounds or missiles."
Doc Ellsworth had just broken down his MP-5 and was in the middle of oiling and reassembly. "I've heard about some of the gas warfare stuff the Chinese have. One great one is the HDL-7. A nerve gas that is as potent as anything our chemical boys own. It's said that a teaspoonful in a big city water supply can kill a hundred thousand people in an hour."
"So we go after the supply and the delivery," Chief Sterling said. "Twice the fun. Can we find out where they store the goodies?"
Lieutenant Dewitt chimed in. "Washington has a complete rundown on the Chinese chemical warfare capabilities, and I think that includes where they make the stuff and store it. We'd need to know what class of ship will be used for the delivery, probably one of their missile-cruiser class. That would cut down on the number of ships needed."
Murdock sat back and listened to his men. None of them were dummies. Most of them read a lot--between brawling, whoring, and drinking, that is. After all, they were SEALS. He wondered how the work was going in the conference room with the interpreters. He also was more than a little interested in how Stroh's talk with the President was going. He'd be surprised if they got any kind of a go-no-go for a covert action within twenty-four hours.
4
Wednesday, May 13
1815 hours White House Conference Room Washington, D.C.
"Yes, sir, that's thirteen hours, precisely, that Mainland China's west coast is ahead of us timewise," Secretary of State Matthew Burdick told his President. "It's now 615 P.m. here, so it's 715 A.M. tomorrow morning in Taipei and China."
"That's because of the International Date Line, correct?" the President asked.
"Yes, sir."
There were only five of them in the Oval Office clustered around the big desk. Burdick had loosened his tie. He puffed on a big cigar, to the annoyance of the others, who nevertheless didn't comment. "Damned difficult situation," he said. "We've halfway committed to telling the Mainland Chinese that they can have Taiwan back eventually. Yet we throw up a fleet of carriers and hundreds of warplanes when they hold live missile-firing exercises in the Taiwan Strait."
Across from him sat Lambert J. Waldpole, the current direct
or of the CIA. He was a tall man, with gray hair, a full salt-and-pepper beard kept trimmed to half an inch, and gray, watery eyes that never let you know what he was thinking. "We've got to give the Navy SEALS the go-ahead and try to stop this invasion," the head spook said. "If we don't, we could get sucked into a full-blown war with one and three tenths billion Chinese. We don't need that. I've seen the results of these commando SEALS. They are ten times as good as any of the commandos who operated during World War II, ours or the British."
"A damn bunch of cowboys," the next man in line growled. He was Secretary of Defense Franklin Inge. He sat slumped over, small and wiry, with a cherub face and a big smile, behind which was a deftly concealed sharp knife looking for an opening.
"What can half-a-dozen men do against Mainland China, for gawd's sakes?" Inge asked. "A division of Marines, maybe. We're playing with fire. Sure, keep it as covert as hell, but what if something blows, or we leave some dead SEALS or U.S. equipment behind? What the hell happens then, win or lose in our strike?"
"Then the international shit hits the big fan," the President said. He looked at the last man in the room, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lucian Quenton. He was the first black four-star admiral in the U.S. Navy.
"Lucian?"
"As everyone has said, a tough call that only you, Mr. President, can make. I know these SEALS. I've seen them train. I've walked through what they call a Kill House and seen the precision, the skill, the speed with which these men function. If it can be done in three days, this platoon of SEALS can do it. I'd vote for a go."
They talked over every aspect of the situation for another half hour. The group was split on which way to go.
The President stood, picked a quartet of multi-colored MM's off a dish on his desk, and popped them in his mouth. He walked to the end of the room and came back. His hands had been clasped behind him. He nodded at them all.
"Gentlemen, thank you for your time. I'll let you know what I decide within a half hour." They all stood and started for the door.
"Oh, Lucian, would you remain, please," the President asked.
The admiral sat back in his chair, his hands on the upholstered arms. When everyone else had left and the door closed discreetly, the President turned to Quenton with a slight frown.
Seal Team Seven 5 - Firestorm Page 3