Firestorm

13

The pair of IBSS rode off the aft deck of the submarine and slid into the China Sea a little over a mile off Foochow. The silent-running motors powered the little boats away from the wash of the sub and toward land to the west. Murdock checked his watch. Two minutes behind schedule. Close enough.

Murdock went over the plans again. He could find no flaw. They would motor into the Min River Bay, which they estimated to be three miles long. If they could work the IBSS in that far, they would leave them in a brushy marsh on the left-hand shore almost near the end. They would deflate the boats and hide them for use later.

If all went according to plan.

The airfield was about three miles from the bay to the north. They would infiltrate to the border fence and determine if they had a good field of fire. There was no telling how far the fence was from the parked planes, or if the planes would be in the same position as four hours ago.

The men in the two inflatables stayed in visual contact with each other. They would use up most of an hour moving against a slight current and the start of an outgoing tide, but there was no way around that.

Later Murdock checked his watch. He had just heard the first sound of the surf. It was 0116. Still pretty much on schedule. They prepared to go through the surf. Murdock had checked his compass twice in the past five minutes and was sure they were on the right line. But the surf shouldn't be this high if they were at the bay.

They were still fifty meters off the breaker line when he saw the bay opening to the left. He got the attention of the second boat and powered parallel to the beach until they were in the quieter waters of the bay mouth.

He checked the shore a quarter of a mile on each side. He found no guards, no military. He drove the small boat into the center of the bay mouth through swells that didn't break, and then they were inside.

The left shore held trees and grassy areas. The right had houses and shacks and buildings. They hugged the left shore.

Lights blossomed on the left shore, and they heard a truck start up and gear down as it rolled away from them.

"Troops?" Jaybird asked in a whisper.

Murdock shook his head. No way to tell. They moved through the bay expecting at any moment to meet a patrol boat or to be targeted with a searchlight and a stuttering machine gun. Nothing happened.

They could see the dim outline of the end of the bay ahead, and Murdock checked the shore, then steered the boat into the edge of the water and grounded it. Six men jumped out and pulled the boat up the grassy bank. One man hit the valve that held in the air, and the boat deflated quickly.

Five minutes later both IBSS were buried under a scattering of dirt and leaves and tree branches.

"Now, let's remember where they are," Jaybird said. He found three flat rocks and piled them on top of each other near the shoreline. It would do.

As they worked on the IBSS, Red Nicholson had taken a quick scout beyond the woods and to the north. He came back with his report before they were ready to leave.

"Nothing between us and the boundary fence of the airfield, L-T. But you ain't gonna be happy with the view."

"Why, Red?"

"Can't see the planes at all. This is in a little low point and there's a rise on the runway and no fucking way can we hit them planes from down here."

Murdock noted the report and spread out his men in the usual formation. He put Nicholson on point, followed by himself and then his radioman, Holt. Besides their short-range Motorola MX-300 belt radios, they had a backpack radio. It was the new AN/PRC-117D. It weighed only fifteen pounds, was fifteen inches high, eight wide, and three deep. Holt carried it on his back, sometimes under protest.

The tactical radio operated on several modes and multiple frequency bands and replaced three different radios the SEALS had used before.

It picked up and sent UHF satellite communications called SATCOM. It could reach anywhere in the world through that linkup. It had a UHF line-of-sight ability to talk to aircraft and direct air strikes. It handled VHF or FM, used for tactical contact by most armies in the world, which was the same band their Motorola MX-300 walkie-talkies used.

Holt could change bands by flipping a switch and setting up an antenna. Power went anywhere from ten watts down to one-tenth of a watt. A special encryption system for coding transmissions was built into the radio. The crypto system could be changed at any time by entering a new set of numbers. They could also transmit with compressed data bursts that lasted only a millisecond.

With this radio Murdock could talk directly with the President, the CNO, or Coronado's Third Platoon day-room.

If they needed some help in a rush they could ask for it. Here in the wilds of China the odds of them getting any close air support, say, was not good. But they could ask.

Red led them through the woods and parallel to the fence. All growth had been cut back ten meters on both sides of the fence, which was chain-link with razor wire on the top. They could cut through it if they had to.

A half mile along the fence, the land rose and they could see the aircraft parked on the hard runway. They were at least seven hundred meters away.

"Too damn far," Murdock said. He sent a guard both ways thirty meters along the fence, then called on Gunner's Mate Second Class Greg Johnson, who had a pair of wire cutters with fold-out handles for lots of pressure on the blades.

"Right here, Johnson. We want a three-foot-high hole and we need it last week."

Johnson ran for the fence, touched it briefly with his fingers, then began slicing the chain-link fence wire. It took him four minutes to cut a line three feet high and three feet across the top. Then he folded back the far side and slid through the opening.

The rest of the platoon followed him and they established the point man again with Second Squad fanned out behind the First in a proper diamond. Dewitt served as rear guard.

The land had been bulldozed, some of it recently, and they found the remains of houses, stock pens, and water holes. It wasn't a neat job, but it had knocked down everything that would interfere with a jet plane landing or taking off.

Two hundred meters from the fence, Red Nicholson hit the dirt and the rest of the SEALS ate dust like dominoes. Murdock ran up to Nicholson bent over, and flattened out beside him. "What?"

"Mounted patrol. Looks like an old jeep. Coming along a dirt track about a hundred meters ahead of us."

Murdock could see the rig then and the lights. It did not have a searchlight that was turned on and probing.

"Let him pass," Murdock said.

Red nodded. He pointed to the left where a low building of some sort stood. It looked to be made of concrete block or stone. It had no electronics on it and was over two hundred meters ahead. If they could reach the building, it would put them in range of the middle of the parked transport planes.

Murdock watched the transports through his night-vision one-lens glass. He spotted figures moving around the planes. Service personnel or guards, he couldn't tell which.

The jeep rolled past, shifting gears to get out of what looked like a spot of soft dirt or sand. When the rig cleared, the SEALS waited two minutes, then moved again to the left at a slow jog to eat up the distance.

Thirty meters from the concrete block building, Red stopped and waited for Murdock.

"Nothing shows from this side. Thought I saw a shaft of light a minute ago, like a door in front had opened and let out some yellow rays."

"Let's check." Murdock and Red eased up to a crouched position and ran to the rear of the building. Now they could tell it was twenty by forty feet and had no windows in the back or the side they could see. They edged around to check the far side. There was no alarm. Evidently no sentry or guard was outside.

They checked the front. It had three windows, all wide and low. The structure was no more than eight feet high. One door on this side opened inward. As they watched, the door swung in and a khaki-clad man came out, walked ten meters away from the building, and urinated.

Red gave a throat-slash move, but Murdock shook his head. They held still as the man went back in the door. He didn't have to unlock it to get inside.

Murdock took out a fragger and a flash-bang grenade. He motioned to Red who took out one fragger. They both pulled the pins on the grenades but held down the arming spoons. Then they edged up to the door. Murdock went past it to the far side. He looked at Red and nodded. Murdock rammed open the door and threw both his grenades inside. Red pitched in his fragger and they let the door swing shut.

The five ear-shattering blasts of high explosives from the flash-bang was followed by a string of bright strobing light pulses. The flash-bang went off just before the two fraggers. The three windows in front blew out and the strobe lights winked through them.

When the last grenade exploded, Murdock charged through the door and covered the right half of the room spotting with his NVG. He saw two bodies on the floor writhing. He sent two silent rounds into both with his CAR-15 and swept the rest of the room with the night-vision goggles.

Red had fired three times, and Murdock saw the bodies spasming on the two bunks to the rear.

"Clear," Red said.

"Clear here," Murdock said. Then the Platoon Leader continued. "Make sure," he said. The SEALS went to the bodies and put a round in the head of each. Now they were sure.

Murdock examined the place. It was one large room. The fraggers had blown out any electric lights that had been on inside. Below the windows were panels that at one time must have been useful. Now they were scraped and torn and twisted from the shrapnel. The windows looked out directly down the first runway. The SAC-YD transports were parked cheek to tail fin on a taxiway fifty meters to the left of the runway. Murdock figured they were within two hundred meters of the near end of the line and four hundred meters from the far end of the parked transport planes. Fish in a fucking barrel.

"Bring up the squads," Murdock said into his lip mike. "We've found our firing positions."

As the men came up to the blockhouse, Murdock placed them. He put the four RPG men with two rounds each, including himself, on top of the building, which he found had a solid tarpaper and rock roof. The other men with RPGS would fire them from the sides of the blockhouse. These men also had their M-88.50-caliber rifles locked and loaded and ready to go.

Murdock made a radio check. All thirteen gave him a quick "ready" on the Motorola. He had told them which areas of the line to fire in. Those on the roof took the far half of the line. The men on the ground drew the closer targets.

"Check your range and hit those motherfuckers," Murdock had told each man.

Now he sighted in on the center of the line of planes. As soon as he fired the rest would blast away. He concentrated on the sights, armed the rockets, and pulled the trigger.

The whoosh from behind him was always a surprise on an RPG. He could follow the trail of fire as it arched into the sky, then came down. Before it hit six more RPGS were in the air. Murdock watched his round hit. It blew up directly under one Chinese transport on the near side of the parking lot. A moment later the fuel tank exploded showering burning jet fuel over a dozen of the big SAC-YDS. He knew they had thirty-eight-meter wingspans. A lot of fuel in there.

Then the other RPGS began hitting. Three flew farther than Murdock's did. One fell short; two more landed among the parked planes and went off with a roar. Then RPGS began to fall on the planes closer to them. Three hit their targets, and one exploded beyond the planes in a hangar.

A moment later the heavy.50-caliber rifles began to speak. The rounds were aimed at the wing tanks and cockpits. Murdock caught himself watching the show, then remembered his last round. He fired his last RPG at maximum range, and figured they would not destroy the planes all the way to the far end with the RPGS. He watched four more hits in the row of planes. Sirens walled and red lights from fire trucks blazed through the night. He could hear loudspeakers blaring in Chinese.

Then he saw the domino effect take over. One plane exploded, and that set off two more, which roared into a firestorm exploding their fuel tanks, which set off half a dozen more planes as the whole row soon began burning.

He rolled off the roof, went below, and told the riflemen to concentrate on the far end of the row. One plane began taxiing away from the fireballs. Magic Brown put four slugs into the ship before it got far, and it burst into flames from the exploding rounds and kept on rolling as a blazing inferno.

Two planes closest to them had escaped the destruction. Murdock pointed them out and Ronson and Johnson drilled them with a half-dozen rounds, resulting in one of the planes blowing sky-high and taking the undamaged one with it in a flaming toast to Sino-American relations.

An armored car of some kind faded from the firelight and rolled toward the blockhouse. The troops inside the building began taking machine-gun fire. The sniper fifties returned fire and knocked out the rig with ten rounds. The armored half-track surged to one side, rolled, and wound up on its roof.

Murdock watched his handiwork. Not a single transport had escaped. He touched his lip mike. "Let's get the hell out of Dodge," Murdock said. They grouped up behind the blockhouse. A mortar round exploded fifty meters to the right. "Any casualties?"

He heard no response. "Let's move it then, double time. You know where we're going, to that hole in the fence. We'll have company before we get there. Let's keep our rough diamond formation. Go, go, go."

They trotted back toward the fence. All were considerably less loaded down than on the march in. They were still a hundred meters from the fence when a mortar round went off thirty meters in front of them. Another one bracketed them twenty meters behind.

"Right flank!" Murdock shouted. "Run like hell, we're bracketed!"

They charged to the right and before they had moved thirty meters, they heard the whispers of mortar rounds, then the flash of six fire-for-effect HE rounds as they exploded tearing up the airfield landscape where the SEALS had been moments before.

They hit the fence and moved to the left. They found the hole and were through it when two mortar rounds hit in the trees beyond the fence.

"Stay with the fence and run downstream!" Murdock bellowed. "Keep away from any airbursts in those trees!"

They ran again keeping a suggestion of a formation. More mortar rounds hit behind them walking through the trees to the bay.

Murdock cut their pace to a fast walk. "They think we're in the trees. The problem is they know someone is down here. Before we can get to our boats and inflate them, there will be some Chinese navy boats swarming all over this bay."

"We've still got our fifties," Magic Brown said.

"Sure, but they'll have mounted fifty-caliber machine guns and maybe some forty-millimeter stuff."

They cut to the shore of the bay and Red Nicholson swore. He had just stumbled over the pile of three rocks they had left as their marker.

Murdock had never seen his men work faster or with more skill. They unearthed the IBSS, inflated them, and had them in the water in platoon-record time. He put three men with the fifties in the front of each boat, and they began moving downstream on the bay toward the ocean.

Murdock looked at Jaybird. He had an amazing knack for tactics. "Shoreline or center of the bay?" Murdock asked.

Jaybird shook his head. "No contest. We stick with the shoreline. We can vanish in these trees a lot easier than getting sunk in midstream. We don't have the equipment we need to play frogmen this time."

"You're right."

That was when they heard the growl of the high-speed patrol boat heading their way from the mouth of the bay.