Flashpoint

22

Murdock watched the warehouse area with the floodlights blazing. They had snapped on when Lam broke some beam or tromped on a movement or vibration sensor. These drug cartels could afford the best in protection. But what about personnel?

Bill Bradford slid in beside Murdock with his H&K PSGI sniper rifle with a suppressor. He began taking out the lights with the deadly cough of the NATO round.

Murdock worked on two close lights and snuffed them with his silenced MP-5 on single shot.

On the other side of Murdock, Jaybird began taking out lights with his MP-5. Two Colt Commander carbines came on line, and within two minutes, all the lights on their side of the building were shot out. When the firing stopped, Murdock and Lam listened to the silence. A dog barked far off. Some kind of a night bird shrieked as it dove on a mouse. They heard no trucks, no alarms. No men running. The siren had cut off when the first floodlight smashed.

Murdock used the radio. “DeWitt. Get your squad up here and take the front of the building facing the water. Alpha, let’s get the side in the dark and test the back. Go inside if you can, DeWitt, and see what our situation is. Let me hear. Go.”

Murdock’s squad boiled over the small berm and darted across the blacktop to the side of the now-dark building. They paused but could hear no opposition. The back of the building had not been lit up. Or had it and all the lights went out due to a short when the others were shot out? Probably. Murdock and his men charged around it to the dark far side and then to the front.

“Cap, we’re inside,” DeWitt said on the Motorola. “This is the place. Maybe two hundred barrels of ether in here. No interior guards.”

Alpha Squad ran through the truck-sized door in the front of the building and stared in amazement at all the barrels. They were stacked four high on steel racks along the walls, three high on the floor. Dozens were in rows with alleys between them. Enough ether to run a drug cartel for a year.

“TNAZ on three locations would do the job,” Canzoneri said.

“Go,” Murdock said. “Set the timers for ten minutes, but don’t activate them. Lam, Ching, out front and watch for any arriving cavalry. There must be some military here somewhere.”

Canzoneri picked up TNAZ from two other SEALs and plotted out his charges. He put three quarter-pounders of TNAZ in one spot about a third of the way into the building. The explosives went under one barrel so the blast would be reflected upward from the concrete floor.

The second one he put a third of the way into the warehouse down a row of three high stacks of barrels. This one he put between the containers six feet off the floor for a spread pattern blast. Again he used three quarter-pounders. One quarter-pound chunk of TNAZ was enough to blow apart the average-sized three-bedroom house.

He put the last bomb closer to the door so the upward blast would carry into the steel frames that held up barrels around the sides of the building.

Canzoneri came up to Murdock. “Charges set, Cap. Rigged them for ten minutes. I’m clear here. Haven’t activated the timers yet.”

The radios buzzed. “Commander, some native sons approach in trucks. Four trucks. Not sure how many troops. We have the fifty?”

“In a drag bag,” Bradford said. “Back by the bay.”

“No time,” Murdock said. “Activate the charges. Everyone pull back to the water. This is one fight we don’t want unless they cut us off. Go, go, go.”

Canzoneri ran to the charges and activated the timers, then was the last man out of the big warehouse. The oncoming troops couldn’t see the front door as the SEALs jolted through it and raced for the pier. Canzoneri had set a countdown watch on his wrist. He limped as he came over the edge of the rocks and underneath the rotted wooden pier.

“How did it go?” Quinley asked. He was with Fernandez, who lay on the edge of the bank. He had Fernandez’s rebreather in place and his gear all on. Murdock knelt down beside him.

“Hey, man, how do you feel?”

Fernandez looked up at him and tried to grin. “Hurting like a bitch in heat, Cap. I’m not gonna be much on swimming.”

“No sweat, Fernandez. Our job is to get you back into the wet and out the harbor.” He turned to the others. “Suit up,” Murdock said. “Rebreathers and fins and we hit the water.”

“Six minutes,” Canzoneri said. “Best if we can get off another three hundred yards or so. Gonna be one fucking big blast in another six.”

“Jefferson, Bradford, over here,” Murdock called.

They came up and looked at Fernandez. “Palm off your drag bags. You two are going to work with Fernandez until we get a pickup.”

They tucked Motorolas in waterproof pouches, grabbed their drag bags, and slid into the murky water of the bay. They knew the compass course out of the bay, dug down fifteen feet to the usual SEAL water highway, and swam.

Bradford and Jefferson took turns towing Fernandez through the dark water. Two other SEALs took their drag bags, and they all swam.

As time for the explosion came, the SEALs popped out of the water two at a time to watch. They were about two hundred yards off the pier when the first charge went off. It was partly muffled, but the blast was stronger than they had heard for a while.

Murdock watched as one section of the roof blew off and a boiling cloud of smoke and fire streaked into the sky. The second blast came before the first had finished its havoc, and this one flattened the rest of the building, launching burning barrels of ethyl into the sky like rockets, some soaring out a quarter of a mile, Murdock figured. One landed behind the SEALs with a huge splash and created a massive cloud of steam as the burning ether barrel sank, putting out the fire.

The third blast eclipsed the other two. Building on the heat and open fuel, it sounded like a doomsday bomb. The SEALs instinctively dove underwater before the compression wave of hot air stormed past them. They came up a few moments later and stared in awe at the huge fire.

Murdock gave them some time to check their handiwork, then moved them back toward the bay mouth. He had to find some dry land and take out the SATCOM. He surfaced every five minutes and found his spot on the third lift. He grabbed Jaybird going by and had him swim forward and head the SEALs to shore. Most of them landed thirty yards down the bay.

Holt came out of the water and had the SATCOM out of its waterproof housing and ready to work in two minutes.

“Home Base, this is Rover.”

The response came at once.

“Rover, location and requirements.”

“Home Base, moving down the channel to the bay mouth. Suggest pickup in forty minutes about half a mile offshore with the Sea Knight. That should be the one with resupply of ammo and TNAZ. I show the time as 0110. That would put the pickup about 0150. You copy?”

“Copy, Rover. That bird is ready for takeoff. Resupply on board. Stay due west of the bay. Copy pickup in forty at about 0150.”

“Home Base. We have one badly injured. Request change in mission after pickup to return wounded man to Home Base and continue the mission with first dark tomorrow.”

“Rover. Will consult and have word for you at the pickup. Good swimming. Out.”

Holt had the SATCOM turned off the minute the “out” was said, and had the fifteen-pound radio back in its waterproof house two minutes later. They walked down to the other SEALs, and Murdock checked on Fernandez.

Mahanani had given him another shot of morphine, and he was a little woozy.

“Fernandez, we’ve got a chopper coming. Hang in there for us. In a half hour, we should be out of the wet.”

Murdock motioned the men back into the water. Jefferson and Bradford helped Fernandez into the wet. His buoyancy in the water made it much easier to move him than it would have been on land.

They swam. Murdock and Holt led the group at the usual fifteen feet. They surfaced twice to check their position, then felt the pull of the tide stronger as they went over a shallow bar and surged into the Caribbean Sea.

Murdock checked his watch: They had another twenty minutes to get offshore a half mile. No sweat. They all surfaced by arrangement at 0120 to help them keep together. Murdock counted thirteen heads. He pulled out his mouthpiece.

“Is Fernandez here?” he asked.

“Don’t think so, Cap,” Jaybird said. “They were falling behind.”

“Lam, swim back surface and see if they have come up. Give me two short whistle blasts if you find them.”

The rest of them waited. It was nearly five minutes on his watch before Murdock heard what he thought were some whistles. Jaybird nodded.

“Yeah, Cap. That was Lam. He’s got them.”

Nearly ten minutes later, the four SEALs came up to the rest. Murdock had Mahanani check out Fernandez.

“He’s in rough shape, Cap,” the corpsman said. “Must have lost a lot of blood. Not a damn thing we can do here. He’s in and out of consciousness. Better keep him on top.”

Murdock nodded. “Ching, Dobler, front and center and take over Fernandez. Keep him topside. We’ll all stay on the surface for the rest of the swim. Anybody else hurting?” He received no response. “Let’s move, due west. Don’t worry about the time.”

Murdock put Fernandez at the head of the line. They would swim at the speed that Dobler and Ching could move him. So they would be five minutes late at the meet; it wouldn’t matter.

Murdock felt himself relax. He was at home again, in the water. SEALs always felt safer in the water where they were better than any enemy. Here he and his men were in their element. The swim went a little faster than Murdock thought it would, but they had fresh legs on the towing work.

Lam heard the chopper coming in before anyone. “Chopper to the east,” Lam shouted. They all stopped swimming. Murdock took out a red signal floating flare, lit it, and thew it twenty feet to the side. The red glow blossomed on the sea.

The big Sea Knight came in gently, found the flare, and lit up a circle of light that pinpointed the SEALs. The first thing down was a basket from the side hatch. Dobler helped Fernandez into the aluminum basket. He strapped the wounded man in and gave a thumbs-up to the operator.

Once Fernandez was inside the bird, the rear hatch opened, and the rope ladder dropped down. Jaybird made it to the ropes first and began climbing up. Two more SEALs grabbed the bottom rung to hold it steady, and the SEALs scurried up the ladder as if it were a set of steps on dry land. Murdock was the last one up, and the ladder swung free, making it twice as hard to climb. He came over the lip of the rear hatch and bellied into the ship with the help of two handy SEALs. Once he was inside, the hatch swung upward, closing.

“Commander?” A youngish looking lieutenant (j.g.) asked.

Murdock rolled over where he lay on the floor and nodded.

“Right. Any word on our direction?”

“You’ve been ordered back to the Jefferson, sir. Glad we found you. Anything I can get you and your men?”

“What about some nice hot coffee and sandwiches?”

“Surprise, Commander. Somebody named Don Stroh got all over my lieutenant until he took on board this special box. Yeah, hot coffee and monster sandwiches. Enjoy. We have about a forty-minute ride back to the ship.”

Murdock laughed. There really was hot coffee and sandwiches. Not your usual Navy sandwich, but humongous built things that looked like they came from the neighborhood deli. Murdock had two of them and three cups of the black, scalding-hot coffee.

Mahanani came over, shaking his head. “Don’t know about Fernandez. He doesn’t respond. I had a radio message sent to the carrier. They’ll have an emergency team with a gurney on deck when we get there. His vitals are all way down, but he’s fighting.”

Murdock went over and sat beside the wounded man. He was unconscious but breathing. Mahanani sat on the other side, monitoring him every second.

Stroh tried to meet them at the deck of the Jefferson, but the corpsmen and three doctors were at the door waiting for a litter to bring Fernandez out. Mahanani had stripped off the top of the wet suit before landing, and once Fernandez was on the gurney, the doctors and nurses began working on him. They hung a bottle of blood and some clear liquid and put needles into his arm. They tested him with stethoscopes as the gurney rolled across the flight deck.

Murdock walked alongside; stripping off his combat gear and handing it to Jaybird, who trailed him. DeWitt had told Murdock he would get the troops back to their assembly room and quarters.

Five minutes later, Murdock paced outside an operating room as the doctors went to work. It took them over an hour. Murdock had downed three cups of coffee a steward brought him. Every time someone came out of the operating room, he questioned the person, but no one would tell him anything.

At last he sat down, exhausted. It wouldn’t look good if he went to sleep on his feet, leaning against the wall.

“Commander?”

Murdock looked up and shook his head. He had dozed off. “Yes?”

“He made it. The boy should be dead. He lost a lot of blood. The bullet punctured his left lung, but somehow the hole closed up and the lung didn’t collapse. His shoulder wound is actually more serious now. We did some rebuilding on one area, and he should have full use of the shoulder. Right now, it’s broken and in a cast. We have his uniform and gear in a bag you can take with you if you wish, Commander.”

Murdock stood and swayed a moment.

“Are you all right, Commander?”

“Yeah. I’ll make it. Thanks for your work on Fernandez. He’s a good man. I’ll check with you in the morning.”

“That’s not long now, Commander. Maybe this afternoon.”

Murdock found his way to the SEALs’ assembly room. It was deserted. He went to his quarters and fell on his bunk as soon as he took off his wet suit.

Murdock heard someone get up from the four-officer compartment much later, but he didn’t even check the time. He went back to sleep at once. It was noon again before he came to reality. He showered and put on clean cammies and went to check on Fernandez.

The doctor shook his head. “Fernandez took a turn for the worse early this morning, but we have him stabilized again. The surgery is solid. His lung is responding. We pulled the last of the bullet out of his shoulder before we repaired it. Now it’s mostly up to him.”

“He has to make it, Doctor. He has a family back in San Diego waiting for him. Do your best.”

Murdock had lunch, then went to the assembly room. Half of the men were there. Dobler had taken Canzoneri to the hospital. His stitches had pulled out. They were sewing him back together.

“Don Stroh was in half an hour ago, looking worried,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “Something about throwing his timing off. He said he has to talk to Washington, and then he’ll be back.”

“Not every operation goes the way we plan it,” Murdock said. “Stroh knows that. If we hadn’t brought Fernandez back here last night, he’d be KIA by now.”

“You going to E-mail his wife?”

“Not until he’s out of danger. The doctors are still worried about him. I think he’s going to make it.”

Don Stroh strode into the room with a frown clouding his face. He saw Murdock and sailed straight for him.

“You threw off our damn timing,” he said.

“What timing? What are you talking about?”

“Today you were supposed to be raising hell at Plato, the airfield, production facilities, and storage area for the Medellin cartel. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Today also was when there would be six or eight of the top men in the cartel meeting at a luxury residence in the complex. We had hoped that some of the men would have an accident. You were supposed to be the accident.”

“You didn’t tell us that on our briefing.”

“Not the sort of thing we put on paper or over the air. Our country has an antiassassination policy, remember?”

“But accidents are all right?”

“Who can predict an accident? They happen.” Stroh chuckled. “But now I find out that we may have lucked out on this snafu. Turns out our source says that the meeting has been held over another two days, and a fresh crop of dancing girls has been flown in.”

“Can we get some air support this time?” the platoon leader asked. “Say we go in with a Sea Knight. The most firepower it has are two fifty-caliber machine guns. How about a Sea Cobra from the Marines with its firepower? We fly in together. We drop off three hundred yards from the complex. Our Sea Knight’s fifty shoots up the place, and then the Cobra hits them with its seventy-millimeter rockets. They can cause a whole hell of a lot of damage.”

“Then you go in and clean up and dispatch any of the bad guys who haven’t had the good manners to die?” Stroh asked.

“Sounds good to me. After that, we do in the processing plants and the storage areas and the planes and trucks, then we try like hell to get out of the place. It’s only sixty miles to the water.”

“Another incursion over a foreign nation without its permission? State and the Joint Chiefs will never go for it.”

“Give them a try. Take along the CNO. He’ll love it.”

Stroh groaned as he pushed away from the bulkhead. “Now all I have to do is go fight with my chief and then the CNO and then talk to the President. Be glad you don’t have my job.”

Three of the SEALs working nearby went into a fit of crying. Stroh grinned and hurried out the door to make his radio calls.

“Think they’ll go for it?” DeWitt asked.

“Depends how much they want these Medellin people dead,” Murdock said. “And if they think we can get away with it.”

Two hours later, Stroh was back.

“I didn’t even get my chief. Small arms rounds they can’t identify. But those seventy-millimeter rounds they can. We don’t want any worldwide uproar about a big power play here. We’ll go with your guys, one Sea Knight in the dark, and hope nobody can spot it. Can we do it all in the dark?”

“Maybe,” Murdock said. He looked at DeWitt, who shrugged. “Say we hit the coast at first dark. Sixty miles to the target, which is another twenty minutes. Say three hours to reduce the luxury residence, but then we don’t have much time to do the rest of the mission in there.”

“The cooking vats, the storage, and the planes and trucks,” Stroh said. “Those were your first targets.” They looked at each other.

“What the hell is going on here, Stroh? You want us to forget the first target and take out the brass or what? Tell me.”

“That was the first thought of my chief. Then he backed off. He wants that facility burned down to the ground. We knock off the head men, they have twenty fighting to take each of the top spots.”

“So, we’re talking two days. We clobber the big house the first night and try for the production vats. We’ve done that before. Then we cut into the woods or jungle or whatever they have there and play hide-and-seek during the day.”

“By then there will be at least a battalion of military there hunting us, guarding the rest of it,” DeWitt said. “So how in hell do we take out the storage and the planes and trucks without getting ourselves killed?”

“Carefully, with the usual SEAL nerve, guts, and ability,” Stroh said. “You do this all the time. Anyway, we have no reports of any army facility anywhere near this place. It was originally built away from the military because it was illegal. So why bring in military now? I think you have a good go at it.”

“Tonight at 1730?” Murdock asked.

Stroh grinned. “Attaboy, knew you could do it. I’ll alert the CAG and get that chopper ready. You need any more toys?”

“Yeah, the rest of our supply of twenty-mike rounds,” Murdock said. He stared hard at Stroh. The CIA man lifted his brows, then shut his eyes a minute.

“I don’t know what you said. I can’t remember, but they will be on the chopper. Just don’t blow up any of your people with one of those Bull Pups.”

“No fear,” DeWitt said.

“Let’s get the men ready to rumble,” Murdock said.