Firestorm

24

"Stop the truck," Murdock shouted to the driver in the front of the Chinese six-by-six. He waved to the two closest SEALS in the back of the rig who had CAR-15s with grenade launchers.

"Both of you, two HE rounds each at that weapons carrier. Wherever he goes, shoot him up. Do it now." Scotty Frazier jerked the pouch open that held his grenades and loaded one. He had one round off before the other man had his grenades out. Al Adams got his weapon up to use just as the first grenade hit in front of the slowly moving weapons carrier. Adams's first round hit the rig in the middle and exploded with a roar. Two men went flying out of the troop compartment.

Frazier adjusted his aim and put his second round into the carrier as well, stalling it. Adams's second shot hit just behind the rig where half-a-dozen Chinese soldiers had just evacuated the burning weapons carrier. Four of them went down screaming.

"Take it down," Murdock shouted, and the SEALS jumped from the truck and found firing positions. With their silenced weapons at a range of only forty yards, they chopped up the remaining Chinese soldiers. Then a round generated a spark that hit vaporizing gasoline, and the whole rig blew up in one shuddering explosion as the weapons on board went off in the fireball.

They were taking fire now from guards around the target. Murdock put his men in a long line of attackers wherever they could find cover.

Magic Brown, with his sniper rifle and scope, began picking off the outside security.

Murdock and Jaybird checked out the protection around the building. Concrete barriers in front of the place prevented a truck from crashing through the fences. There were barriers inside the fences as well. The fences were chain-link with razor wire on top. As they watched the freigh, they saw two machine guns blasting from the second-floor windows. Magic Brown and Miguel Fernandez, with the other M-89 sniper rifle, concentrated their fire on the chatter guns and soon silenced them.

Murdock didn't know if they'd wiped out the weapons or gunners, or if the fire had been too hot for them and they'd simply pulled back from the window. He'd remember the potential up there. But first came the fences.

"Frazier, put two forty rounds on that chain-link fence gate to the right, the man-sized one. Blow it the hell open."

Frazier heard the orders in his earpiece and loaded a grenade. He had to move to get a shot at the target. He rushed from a stalled truck to an old car of uncertain vintage and bellied down behind it. The shot was easy but would it blast open the door? He aimed, and triggered the launcher. The round hit short and exploded with a roar. His second round hit the gate in the middle and detonated. It blew a foot-wide hole in the chain link but didn't make the gate open. He fired again to the left. This round hit the frame of the gate and blew it off its locks and hinges.

The Platoon Leader grinned and used hand signals as he and three of his First Squad stormed through the gate to the next chain-link fence. Jaybird wrapped primer cord around the gate lock and set a detonator for ten seconds. He jolted away from the spot and the primer cord exploded with a roar. It blew the gate open and Murdock and his First Squad stormed through it to the side of the warehouse.

Ed Dewitt and the Second Squad quickly positioned themselves outside in a defensive formation to provide security for the men inside. They would be needed. Murdock could hear sirens wailing away, and some sounded like they were on rigs moving his way.

Two side doors to the big building were steel, but a small man-sized door in the side of one looked like a possible entry place. Another look changed Murdock's mind. It had sliding steel security bars on this side, and probably inside as well.

To the left was the main entrance, with standard doors. They looked to be wooden with door handles.

Magic Brown shook his head. "Not a chance in hell to go in there," he said. "Fucking doors will be booby-trapped and covered by at least two machine guns inside. They know we're out here now."

Murdock agreed. "Let's try around the corner, a side or back door."

The squad moved with Red out front and the L-T coming next and then the usual combat formation. They took no fire as they went around the corner. There were no doors or windows on this side. The squad sprinted to the back of the building. Two truck doors stood open beside a truck-high loading dock.

Murdock motioned the men to get to each side of the doors. They went in with a rush, weapons at assault-firing positions. They stormed through the doors and met no resistance. They flattened against the sides of the concrete room. One door showed at the end, twenty feet away. The L-T went forward and turned the knob. He eased the door open a crack and looked through.

He saw a long lighted hallway with two doors leading off it. No windows. He swung the door open and motioned his men forward. They spread out at five-yard intervals.

The first door down the hall was locked. Jaybird opened the second door carefully. Inside they found a kitchen with two men working over a stove. Jaybird's MP-5 dropped them with chest shots. The SEALS saw two more doors leading off the kitchen. They checked both. One led into a dormitory of some type. It was dark and they could hear men moving around in it, and one man snoring.

Murdock motioned for them to close the door. He found a wooden chair, pushed the back of it under the door handle, and kicked the rear legs firmly on the floor. To open the door anyone would have to break the chair legs. It was a stopgap operation.

They looked out the other door. It led into the main assembly room. Murdock studied the place from beside the door. He spotted four guards. Two were on balconies that looked as if they were made for protection. Two more roving guards worked the floor.

He stared at the missiles. They looked like the ones they had seen at the docks. They were about the same size.

Ken Ching pushed up where he could see the missiles. "Same damn ones we saw in the other building," he said. "Where are the smaller ones?"

One of the guards noticed the open door and walked that way. Magic Brown cut him down with his silenced sniper rifle. Murdock gave the sign to open fire, and six weapons at the door quickly put down the two men on the second-floor guard posts.

"Let's take a look," Murdock said in his mike. He directed the seven men. Two went on each side and three down the middle of the room. Most of the sleek rocket weapons were on work stands, upright as if ready to fire. Others lay in boxes for transport. Some looked as if they had a lot of assembly work to be done.

Shots came from ahead. They were not silenced. Murdock ducked behind a stack of wooden crates that would soon hold the missiles and looked around the corner. One Chinese with an old rifle steadied his weapon as he aimed over a closed box halfway across the room.

Murdock lifted his MP-5 and sent a three-round burst at the soldier. Two of the rounds caught him in the side and the chest and he fell backwards, his rifle still on the wooden boxes.

"Clear right," Ron Holt said into his mike.

"Clear Harry Ronson said.

Murdock ran down through the center of the big room until he was sure there were no more men there.

"Clear center," Murdock said. "Ching, check the four Chinese. See if any of them can be questioned."

He looked around the complex. The other missiles had to be there somewhere. He remembered the dormitory. Too many men in there could ruin his whole night.

He waved at Jaybird and Magic Brown and called for Ronson on his Motorola. They crouched behind some missile boxes.

"That dormitory sleeping area. We've got to clear it before they surprise us. We'll use half-a-dozen fraggers and then our NVGS for the rest. It's got to be quick. Let's go." They ran back to the kitchen. The chair was still braced under the door. Horse took it out. They each held three fragger grenades, the trusty M-67's. Magic found a light switch and turned off the kitchen lights. They all pulled down their NVGS.

"Horse and Magic, throw deep. Jaybird, middle. Then get back out the door here and I'll do the short ones. Go, go, go."

Magic opened the door and stepped into the semidarkness. He threw his three grenades as did Horse behind him. They surged back into the kitchen as Jaybird and Murdock threw their middle and short ones.

The 4.2-second fuses on the first grenade went off before Murdock finished his tosses. He and Jaybird bumped into each other getting out the door. They surged to the walls beside the door as the inside of the barracks room exploded with the roar of the grenades and the screams of the Chinese troops.

When the last grenade exploded nearby, the SEALS could hear the shrapnel singing through the door. Then they stepped into the open doorway. Horse was in front of his HK 21A1 machine gun. He chattered five-round bursts wherever his green scope showed Chinese defenders. Magic went down the other side of the aisle and began chopping down soldiers wherever he saw them.

"Magic and Horse take the right," Murdock said into his mike. The four messengers of death began working down the rows of bunks. Now they could see there were about thirty bunks in the room arranged two-high. One shot came from halfway down the right-hand side, and Horse hosed down the area with a nine-round burst.

Murdock saw a figure rise up from behind a metal bunk. He jolted three rounds into the man's chest area, the easiest body mass on a target to hit, and the Chinese slammed backward and didn't move.

Jaybird worked ahead slowly, checking under the bunks and on top of them.

"Clear right," Magic said.

A moment later Jaybird fired a three-round burst and then Murdock heard his words. "Clear left."

They worked back up the aisle between the bunks and hurried through the kitchen. Once in the main room they lifted their night-vision goggles, and Murdock heard a voice in his earpiece.

"L-T, I've got a live Chinese who's able to talk. Could you come up here and give me a hand. He's a tough little guy-"

"Right, Ching. Be right there."

Murdock's earplug came alive again. It was Lieutenant Dewitt. "Murdock, we've got trouble out here. Looks like half a company of Chinese regulars. They know how to fight. We're in good defensive positions but we could use that other MG and Magic out here."

"Copy that," Murdock said. "Horse, Magic, Red, and Doc get outside and lend a hand. Use those forty-millimeter rounds. Move."

"Thanks, Skipper," Dewitt said. "We'll hold the fort."

The four SEALS sent outside went to the rear door quietly. Magic shook his head. "Nobody home," he said. They left the back door and hurried around the side of the building like four black shadows. At once they heard the sharp crack of the rifles out front, then the stuttering sound of a Chinese burp gun.

Magic was surprised that they still used them. The only ones he knew about were the.45-caliber squirt guns the Chinese had used in Korea fifty years ago. They couldn't still have those old weapons, could they?

Back inside the building, Murdock found Ching halfway down the center aisle. A Chinese soldier lay on his back. His right side was soaked with blood. His right arm was shattered and bloody from his shoulder down.

"He's tough and still alive, but he doesn't want to talk," Ching said.

"Ask where he lives," Murdock said.

Ching chattered at him in Mandarin, and the man looked surprised and mumbled something. "See if he has a family," Murdock said. Ching talked to the man again. He seemed to relax a little.

Ching pointed to the missile next to them and asked if it was a Dongfeng DF-15. The wounded man said all of them were. High explosives, blow up half of Taiwanese town, he told Ching.

Ching asked him about the smaller missiles, the ones with the poison gas in them.

The wounded soldier's eyes went wild for a moment. He chattered and waved his arm and talked again. Ching had to stop him.

"He says he knows nothing of the poison-gas missiles. They don't have any here. Never did have any." Then he snorted and said, "all lies. That's what the generals tell them to say. The Chinese people are afraid of the poison-gas missiles. So afraid they move from a place where they are kept." Ching asked him if the small missiles were there, the Dongfeng DF-11. The Chinese soldier didn't answer for a Moment. Then he nodded. "Yes, here, right here, but you will never find them," he told Ching in Mandarin. Ching translated for Murdock.

"Why never find them?" Ching asked the man.

He shrugged and gasped in pain from his wound. He said again that the Western devils would never find China's number-one weapon. His left hand worked under his left leg slowly.

Murdock stepped on his wrist and the Chinese screamed in pain.

Murdock reached down and brought out a small-caliber handgun loaded and ready to fire.

Ching talked to the man for another five minutes, but that was all he would say. The missiles were there, but the Western devils would never find them. The Chinese grew weaker as he talked. At last he shook his head, laughed at his questioner, and took a deep breath and died.

Murdock stared at the lifeless body a moment. "So the missiles are here, but we'll never find them. I've got a hunch we'd better soon. Dewitt out front could run into more trouble than he was now."

Murdock touched his lip mike. "Everyone on the inside. The missiles we're hunting are here someplace. They can't be in the second story, so maybe they're in a basement. Everyone get busy looking for any hint of an opening into a basement. Secret panel, stairwell, elevator, anything. Let's move."

Outside, Magic and his three SEALS came to the front corner of the building. They were only four dark shadows. They saw a Chinese six-by-six drawn up fifty yards down the street. Rifle fire came from the protection of the truck. Other Chinese weapons sounded from the buildings on the far side of the street.

Horse Ronson set up his machine gun and fed in a new belt of NATO rounds.

"The damn truck," he said. Magic nodded. Magic faded along the front of the building to a concrete barrier that prevented any trucks from crashing into the place. It also served as a protected firing position.

Red moved next to him, and Doc shared the same twelve-foot concrete barricade.

Ronson opened up on the truck with five-round bursts. The sound of the machine gun brought immediate return fire. Magic and Red concentrated on the fire coming at Ronson. Four bursts later, the truck's gasoline tank blew and the truck billowed into a raging ball of flames. Chinese soldiers rushed away from the rig. It highlighted them for good targets, and half of them never made it into the darkness.

Toward the center of the string of concrete barricades, Ed Dewitt touched his mike. "Good shooting, Ronson. We didn't have a good angle from here. Looks like some of them are getting discouraged."

Those with NVGS used them, and here and there a silenced round drove a Chinese soldier to the ground wounded and hurting. Down the line two SEALS fired 40mm grenades where they saw three or more Chinese in a group. In the distance the SEALS heard sirens, but they didn't seem to be coming toward them.

"Looks like they're pulling back," Dewitt said into his mike. "Let's hold steady and see if they regroup."

Inside the factory warehouse, Murdock stood with his hands on his hips. "If I were a Chinese, where the hell would I hide missiles I filled with poison gas so they wouldn't scare half the population?" The only place he could think of was underground.

"Let's do it again, guys. Go over this floor like it was your bank vault. There has to be something here somewhere to tip us off how to get into the fucking basement."