Flashpoint sts-11

by Keith Douglass

  They dug the ditch a foot deep and rapidly moved it down the hill, angled for the white powder. Before it was done, Murdock had three men lugging rocks from the area to build a small dam across the four-foot-wide stream. Once the rocks were in place, he had them pile dirt in front of them to seal off the damn.

  “Ready with the ditch,” DeWitt called. Lam dug out the foot-wide section to open it up to the stream, and the water flowed rapidly downhill toward the cocaine. Two men filled in the last of the dam, and more water surged into the canal.

  Two SEALs poked the mound of cocaine a little at a time into the water. It swirled and at last overflowed the small depression. When the white powder hit the water, it dissolved at once. The coke-loaded water ran under the burned-out floor and down the side of the hill.

  It took them two hours to melt down the mountain of cocaine they had. When the last of it fell into the water, the SEALs let out a cheer, and Murdock shoveled dirt into the canal to shut off the water supply.

  Murdock watched the water drain out and cheered with the rest of them.

  “Treats are on me, men. I’m a big spender. MREs for everyone.”

  They hooted him down, but most of them flaked out and had a meal ready to eat.

  Captain Herrera came up to Murdock.

  “The workers. What about them?”

  “Put all of them you can on those two trucks and the one car I saw and drive them into Cali or let them off along the way if they want that. Otherwise, it’s a long walk.”

  “The three prisoners?”

  “Turn them loose and let them walk back.”

  “They looked at the dead men this morning and said the lab boss and his assistant were not there. They must have run away at the first sound of gunfire.”

  “Figures,” Murdock said.

  “We need to take a walk,” Captain Herrera said.

  They went to the first lab building and viewed the destruction.

  “One problem here,” the captain said. “Somebody else could come in and use the vats. They are made of metal and some kind of coating to withstand all the chemicals, and were not hurt a bit by the fire.”

  “Looks like we’ll have to use our explosives and blow them up,” Murdock said. They went back to the combat vests, and Murdock took a quarter pound of TNAZ and a detonator/timer and they moved back to the first lab. Murdock placed the bomb under the lip of the vat halfway down so it would ruin the structure even if it didn’t shatter it completely.

  He set the timer for five minutes, and the two men walked away.

  The blast came right on time and jolted most of the SEALs who didn’t know what had happened.

  “Relax, SEALs,” Murdock boomed in his parade ground voice. “Just a little experiment.”

  Half the SEALs looked at the results. The ten-foot-square vat had a two-foot hole blown in it, and the near side crumpled until it touched the far side.

  “Should be sufficient,” Murdock said. The Colombian captain nodded his agreement.

  “Senior Chief,” Murdock called. Dobler hurried over, showing only a hint of a limp.

  “Senior Chief, we need to blow all of the vats like this one. As I remember, there are something like twenty of them. Check out our supply of explosives and get the job done. After that, we’ll be heading back for hot chow and showers.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Dobler said and moved away with more of a limp now that he wasn’t thinking about it. He called the men around him, and they went to their gear and gave him a total on the quarter-pound charges they had. They were short.

  “A whole case of C-4 in the truck,” Jaybird said. Dobler told him to go get it.

  For nearly thirty minutes the hills rang with the sound of explosions. The SEALs set them off one at a time until the last vat was punctured and twisted beyond all repair.

  The trucks had pulled out an hour before with all of the workers. They were packed in tightly but didn’t mind. They were being freed of a kind of slavery that only the homeless and truly destitute know.

  It was just 1000 when the destruct job was done, the dead men buried, and the SEALs and Captain Herrera pulled away from the former major cocaine processing plant.

  “Somebody in Cali is going to be angry,” the captain said.

  “I’d like to meet him face-to-face,” Murdock said. “He wouldn’t be angry long. He’d be dead.”

  Herrera put on a crooked smile, and Murdock wasn’t sure what he believed about the cocaine traffic. He was following orders, but that might be the extent of his anti-cocaine feelings.

  The truck was two miles from the burned-out cocaine lab when Murdock asked Ostercamp to stop so Holt could key in the SATCOM.

  “It’s set up to receive, Cap,” Holt said. “How long you want to wait for a message?”

  “We’ll cool it here for ten minutes and see if anything urgent is popping,” Murdock said.

  It was just past five minutes when Murdock thought he saw something move in the brush a hundred yards down the little valley. He was about to say something about it when a shot snarled in the deep green and a round slammed into the overhead canvas covering on the back of the truck.

  “Down!” Murdock bellowed. “Sniper moved to the left front about a hundred yards out. Long guns, do it.”

  The sniper rifle responded first, but not before another round came smashing into one of the roof struts. Bill Bradford sent six rounds into the general area, then saw movement and changed targets and fired six more times.

  Ronson got his H&K NATO round machine gun up and working and sprayed the same area with hot lead. The 5.56 weapons scattered shots into the same spot, but Murdock figured the sniper had moved on by that time. It would be impossible to find the man, let alone track him in the heavy brush.

  “Cease fire,” Murdock boomed to get over the sound of the weapons. “Get us out of here fast, Ostercamp.”

  The truck jolted forward on the narrow lane and soon passed the spot where the sniper had been. Another half mile down the trail, and the men relaxed a little.

  “Anybody get hurt on that last go-round?” Murdock asked. He was thankful that no one had. He looked at his own arm. He had forgotten about his wound. Proved it wasn’t much. He grinned. This would be his thirty-seventh purple heart if he was receiving them.

  He had four men with semiserious wounds already, and the mission was just getting moving. He hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those times when every man in the platoon came home and reported at once to Balboa Naval Hospital.

  The rest of the ride was uneventful, and they came into Camp Bravo a little after 1400. Murdock and Dobler went to the hospital. They had their wounds checked, treated, and were released. They went up a floor to find Canzoneri.

  When they came to his bed, he was sitting up talking to a pretty little nurse. He chattered some Spanish words at her and she giggled and shook her head and said them the correct way.

  “Hey, slugger, looks like you’re feeling better.”

  “Told them I was fine. Conchita here is teaching me some Spanish. So far I know perro, which is dog, and qué lastima. That means what a pity.”

  “So, what she’s telling you is that it’s a real pity that you’re a dog,” Dobler said.

  “Hey, that’s not it. So you guys were shot up, huh? You guys here professionally? You get nicked?”

  “Just a scratch,” Murdock said. “I need to find that nurse that speaks English.” He found her and she looked at Canzoneri’s chart. She smiled.

  “He can go back to his unit now, but he should come in after two days for us to change the bandage and look at the wound.”

  “Good,” Canzoneri said. “Where are my pants?”

  Back at the barracks, Holt had the SATCOM on receive. He handed Murdock a note.

  “Stroh called a half hour ago. He says get you on the horn as soon as you get here. He says this is flap city, and he’s the fucking mayor, whatever that means. Should I get ready to transmit?”

  “Probably. Maybe we sh
ould have some chow first.”

  “He seemed insistent that you get back to him ASAP.”

  Murdock snorted. “He’s always in a rush. Yeah, beam me out, Scotty.”

  Stroh answered as soon as Murdock’s message went out.

  “You’re back. Good. We’ve got a problem.”

  “I have no problem except having a big supper, a hot shower, and about twelve hours of sleep. We just came in, Stroh.”

  “Good, glad you made it. What I want to talk about is a serious situation. The American embassy in Bogotá has been invaded and captured by Colombian military forces. They used three tanks and a flamethrower. Your job is to go in and get the hostages out before anything else happens.”

  “How? We’re a hundred and seventy miles from Bogotá. If you come in from the Pacific, it’s about two hundred and seventy miles. That’s an RT of five hundred and forty miles. We don’t even have a bird that can do that.”

  “So, it’ll take some planning. From Cali up and back would be only three hundred and forty miles. You’re directed to talk to the captain and air boss here on the carrier. They have some ideas. We don’t have a hell of a lot of time. They took over the embassy this morning just before noon. The ambassador figured some trouble was coming, so they flew most of the personnel out. The ambassador is still there, and he says they have only twelve Americans left there. You get in touch with Captain Ingman here on the carrier. He’s the man you’ll have to coordinate things with. I’ve talked to him, but you’ll need to do the overhead planning.”

  “Yes sir. We better go through Lieutenant Commander Emerling. He’s my contact. Can you phone him and get him up there and have him set up a time for me to call the captain?”

  “Can do. Soonest. Talk later. Stroh, out.”

  18

  Camp Bravo

  Cali, Colombia

  Murdock, Jaybird, DeWitt, Lam, and Dobler sat on bunks at the far end of the barracks, thinking through the problem.

  “Makes more sense to go and come from here,” Jaybird said. “We’re only a hundred and seventy miles away, maybe a hundred and twenty of that over hostile territory. We can resupply from here. The chopper could come in here from the carrier with no sweat.”

  They had agreed that a chopper rescue was the only reasonable way to get the remaining twelve Americans out of the embassy.

  “Yeah, if they’re still there,” Dobler said. “Remember the embassy in Iran? They had our people out of the embassy almost at once and scattered all over the city.”

  “From what we know so far, the Americans are still at the embassy,” DeWitt said.

  “So which chopper has the range and capacity to go in and back three hundred and forty miles and carry up to thirty passengers?” Murdock asked.

  “Old reliable, the Sea Knight, the CH-46E,” Lam said. “We’ve used them before.”

  They looked at Jaybird, the statistics man.

  “Sea Knight, okay. Most of them are out of service now, but some are left in the fleet. They can do a hundred and fifty-four miles an hour cruising and get up to fourteen thousand feet ceiling. Range is four hundred twenty miles loaded with up to twenty-five fully equipped Marines.”

  Murdock stood and walked two bunks down and came back. “So the Sea Knight would do it, if this task force has one. What about protection? They have two .50-caliber chatter guns on them, but that’s not much against a few fighter jets.”

  “Bring along some air cover, like a pair of F-18s,” Lam said.

  “Overflight of a sovereign country,” DeWitt said. “Will the Navy and the U.S. State Department let us do it?”

  “Hell, Colombia violated international law by capturing our embassy,” Murdock said. “A little technical matter like an overflight to rescue the Americans isn’t going to raise any eyebrows. Colombia probably expects it.”

  “So they’ll be waiting,” Jaybird said. “Maybe it’s a trap to send all of their aircraft after the rescue chopper and escorts.”

  “That we can let the brass figure out,” Murdock said.

  A short time later, the SATCOM came to life, and Holt handed Murdock the mike.

  “Yes, Home Base, this is Rover. You have some suggestions on the embassy situation?”

  “Yes, Rover. This is Captain Ingman. We have the CAG here with us. It obviously has to be a chopper rescue. Does that work with you?”

  “Yes, Captain. We are talking about the Sea Knight. Do you have any in your task force?”

  “Sea Knight,” a new voice said. “This is the CAG. We have two that had been working PAV Low Three. We can pull out some gear and get it to you. Be best to go from Camp Bravo to the embassy?”

  “That’s our thinking, Captain. We figure a hundred and twenty miles over hostile territory to get to Bogotá. What about some fighter cover?”

  “Getting touchy there,” the CAG said. “State and Stroh tell me to do it with just a chopper. I don’t like that.”

  “Won’t work, CAG. No way. They can find the chopper with one fighter and knock us down going in or coming out. I’d guess at least six Eighteens or Fourteens would be needed. No sense getting the ambassador and his staff off the ground just to KIA them in the jungle somewhere.”

  “Agreed, Commander. We can request the overflight fighter protection, but State and the President will have to decide that one.”

  “What’s our timetable?”

  “Soonest.”

  “What we want, then, Captain, is one hot Sea Knight with six F-14s for cover in and out. Suggest you fly the Knight in here as of now and if you get a go on the Fourteens, they can catch up in a rush. Our troops are ready with sixteen for combat. We’ll be at the Camp Bravo airstrip in two hours.”

  “We’ve sent a request through to the White House and to State and the CNO. We should have a reply in the requested half hour. This is number one on their list, so they’ll decide in a rush. Flight time from Bravo to the embassy should be about an hour. You want a day mission or night?”

  “Night would be better for us. Let’s hope the Colombians keep the Americans at the embassy.”

  “We’ve launched a Sea Knight. They may remove some equipment and leave it there at Bravo. Flight time to you is less than an hour. Keep your set on receive and we’ll call as soon as we get a decision one way or the other.”

  “That’s a roger. Bogotá is a big place. Hope your pilots will know how to find the embassy.”

  “We have that pinpointed, SEALs. Good luck.”

  Murdock stood and bellowed at his men. “We have thirty minutes to pack up, get ready for a mission. Clean your weapons and resupply regular loads of ammo. We’re going to fly into Bogotá for a quick little vacation. This is a room-to-room clearing operation, so we’ll take the MP-5s instead of the Bull Pups. Move it.”

  “What about that chow and hot showers?” somebody called.

  “Hell, you fight better when you’re dirty and hungry,” Senior Chief Dobler called. “We’ll try for some box lunches for the one-hour flight to the target. Let’s get humping.”

  Dobler ran to the jeep out front and drove to the mess hall. They told him they could have box lunches ready in twenty minutes.

  A half hour later, word came through from Lieutenant Commander Emerling on the carrier that approval had just come in from the chief of Naval Operations that the President had approved the flyover of Columbia by the chopper and six fighters to rescue the captured embassy personnel. By then it was almost 1700. It would be dark by the time they flew into Bogotá.

  Twenty-eight minutes later, the sixteen SEALs were in the air heading for Bogotá. Canzoneri had been released from the hospital and was more than anxious to get in on the next mission.

  “This time I get to be in on some of the fun, too,” Canzoneri said.

  Once in the air, Murdock went up front to listen to the radio chatter. It was in the clear, no encrypting, and he wondered what Colombian operators who understood English would make of it.

  “Slow Moe, this is Fast Duck. We
have you on our magic box. We’ll circle you for a while, then will be replaced by Fast Duck Two.”

  “Fast Duck, glad you’re on board. Always use a little help from our friends.”

  The chopper pilot, Lieutenant (j.g.) Anderson, waved at Murdock. “Glad to have you with us, Commander. We’re forty minutes out from target. Bogotá is a big gunner, almost seven million people. We have a pinpoint on the embassy and good sight lines to it.”

  “Hate to drop in at the wrong embassy,” Murdock said.

  “No sweat. You want us to stay on the ground or drop you off and cut out?”

  “We don’t know what kind of forces they have at the embassy, so it’ll be best if you cut and run. We’ll call you back in on the SATCOM or if it goes out, we’ll give you a red flare for when and where.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Anderson said. “If we don’t get company, we’ll be spooling around at about ten thousand so our radar can get a good sweep.”

  Before Murdock could reply, a silver streak flashed in front of the low-flying chopper. The pilot had kept it to less than two hundred feet above the series of mountain ranges they flew over. The jet raced away, and they saw it make a slow turn.

  “I have the local fly boy on my scope,” the U.S. fighter pilot said. “That was evidently an ID run. He won’t have time to make a second. I’m locked on and firing. One AIM Sidewinder away.”

  Murdock looked at the pilot, who shook his head. “We just have to wait and see. Those Sidewinders choggie along at Mach 2.”

  “Oh yeah, splash one bogie,” the F-14 pilot said. “That one slipped in under our radar. We’re moving our whole system down a few thousand to get better concentration. I’m rotating out. Number two coming in. He knows what went down. Good hunting, you Slow Moe guys.”

  “Thanks, Fast Duck, and take care,” the chopper pilot said on the radio.

  “Time left?” Murdock asked.

  The pilot looked at his instruments and then his watch. “About twenty. Time to get your men ready. I know you’ll get your troops out of there quickly. I don’t want to be grounded more than twenty seconds at the most.”