Payback

13

Murdock stepped into the assembly room where the SEALs were stowing gear in lockers, cleaning and oiling weapons, and filling their combat vests with the usual gear.

“Listen up,” Murdock said with more force than usual. “We’re on the button again. The CNO wants us to check out some men who blew up a power substation up by Palm Springs. We take off in two hours, so let’s pack up and get ready to move.”

“This is gunna ruin my love life,” Jaybird yelped.

“Hey, that redhead you dated last week said your love life had been ruined years ago,” Howard gibed. They all laughed, and it helped relieve some of the tension.

“These guys North Ks?” Lam asked.

“Nobody knows,” Murdock said. “We’ll go up and track them from the chopper, find, and engage. The boss wants a prisoner. We’ll have two birds with one squad in each.”

“Weapons mix?” Senior Chief Sadler asked.

“DeWitt, your call,” Murdock said.

“Take all seven Bull Pups, one EAR, one MG per squad, one sniper rifle per squad, and the rest MP-5’s. Let’s get working, people.”

Murdock repacked his combat vest along with the rest of them, and cleaned his Bull Pup. Then he slipped a standard-band battery-operated radio into one of the pockets. They might learn something from a radio station if he could find one. He made certain that the SATCOM had a fresh battery and that it was glued to Bradford when they stepped on the chopper.

The two CH-46’s flew on a straight line from North Island Air Station to Indio, jumped over the Little San Bernardino mountain range, and began a low-level search for tire tracks working north.

“We’re in the edge of the Joshua Tree National Park,” Murdock told the men in his bird. “Don’t know what we’ll find.”

The choppers were down to a hundred feet, roving along the edge of the mountains in a search pattern that moved slowly to the north. They passed Key’s View, and swung west with the curve of the mountain ridges, and were almost to the Black Rock canyon area before they found the twin tracks of two wheeled rigs entering the desert terrain.

“Got them,” DeWitt called on the Motorola. “Let’s swing around and follow them south. Don’t see where the hell they could hide in this wide-open desert kind of country.”

“Maybe back in one of the canyons leading into the mountains,” Murdock said. “Keep a sharp look.”

Lam went to one of the open side doors and sat there watching the terrain a hundred feet below. Sand, cactus, stunted desert growth. Not the Sahara, but not much plant life here either, with only three inches or less of rainfall a year. Here and there a gully showed where runoff came after a hard, quick rainfall. Along these watercourses, now long dry, there were smatterings of brush. Nothing large enough to hide a car.

They kept looking.

“There,” Franklin called. “I’ve got one rig turning off into that small watercourse moving into the hills.”

“We’ll take the turnoff,” Murdock shouted. “DeWitt, stay with the other one.” The commander went forward to tell the pilot to follow the turned tracks. Ahead they could see no sight of a car or anywhere it might hide. The arroyo became deeper, now ten feet below the level of the desert floor and twenty feet wide. It made a slow turn to the left, and ended suddenly a hundred yards ahead where a sheer rock wall a hundred feet high blocked the gully.

“What the hell?” Murdock asked no one. He had stayed in the small cabin.

The pilot looked at him. “Want me to lift up and see what’s above the rock wall?”

“No use, the car can’t go up there. Put us down back here about fifty yards from the wall and we’ll do some exploring.

“DeWitt,” Murdock said on the Motorola.

“Copy that,” DeWitt responded.

“We’ve found a dead end on the tracks against a stone wall. We’re landing and taking a look. This one car has to be here somewhere. You stay with the other tracks.”

“Got, it Commander. Will do. We’re still moving generally south, but have seen no car.”

Murdock touched the pilot’s shoulder. “As soon as we get off, you lift away and wait for us out of range. Could be some weapons down there and an RPG or two. We’ll use a red flare when we want to be picked up.”

The chopper slowed and lowered gently to the ground. Murdock stepped into the big cargo area.

“We don’t know what might be out there, so we take it slow and easy. I want a line of skirmishers and we’ll work up this side of the gully. I saw the car tracks back there about a hundred yards, so it has to be here somewhere.”

Murdock took the end of the line next to the gully, and looked at it carefully. Patches of soft sand showed the tire tracks. Where the hell could that vehicle be? They walked slowly forward, weapons with rounds in the chambers and safeties off.

Forty yards from the end of the gully, Murdock halted the men. Something wasn’t quite right about the bottom of the rock wall. If this gully had been gouged out after hard rains when the water had no place to soak in and came down this way, the water would have had to come from high in the mountains and spill over the sheer wall. A waterfall that high would carve out a serious hole in the sand in front of the wall. It could be ten or twelve feet below the level of the arroyo. There was no such hole here.

“Hit the dirt, men, and get behind any cover you can find. I’m going to shoot the wall at the end of the gully with a twenty and see what reaction we get.”

Alpha Squad dove to the ground, some men rolling into small depressions, or moving behind a handy rock. Murdock went prone, aimed at the center of the wall where the water should be coming from, and fired. The contact fuse detonated on impact, and when the smoke cleared, showed a two-foot-wide hole punched through a non-rock wall.

“Twenties, two rounds each at that wall. It has to be a cave in there. Fire when ready.”

The first three rounds shattered what turned out to be a wood wall built into the side of the granite slab. The next rounds slammed deep into the tunnel and exploded. When the fourteen rounds finished their killing ways in the cave, Murdock and the men sprinted for the side of the wall next to the opening. Smoke and dust filtered out of the cave.

“DeWitt. We’ve found a cave and it looks like one of the cars ran right into it. Do you have anything on the other rig?”

“Not yet, but we’re getting closer. We can see a dust trail ahead from the tires. Keep us informed.”

From what Murdock could see, the blasted opening was about eight feet high and ten feet wide. “Lam, take a look. Don’t go inside.”

Lam edged around the side of the cave and past a blown-apart stud wall, and peered inside from ground level.

“Can’t see much, Cap. Looks like one dead body about three feet back. He has a weapon. Still smoky in there.”

“No sign of the car?”

“Not a trace. It could have been driven back in there. The place is plenty big enough.”

“You sense any air currents coming out of the opening?”

“Yeah, now I do. Yes. Something is blowing the smoke out of the place. So it must have an air inlet somewhere.”

“Maybe a chimney or another entrance,” Murdock said. “Let’s give it five minutes to clear out and then we’ll work our way inside. Who brought flashlights?” The two-cell lights were standard on missions, but many times the men didn’t carry them. Murdock received ayes from five of his seven men. “Good, we’ll need them. Patrol order when we go in. Remember to hold the lights at arm’s length from your body. Lam, edge into the place ten feet and hold, let me know what you can see.”

“Copy that, Skipper.”

Lam squirmed around the jagged piece of the wall and into the cave. At once he felt a temperature change from hot to less than hot, but not yet cool. He used the ambient light to stare into the cave, but could see little. The dead man’s head was turned away from him, so he couldn’t tell if he was Korean. He gave up and turned on the Maglite, holding it in his left outstretched hand. He scanned the floor just ahead of him checking for trip wires or pressure plates for mines. Nothing. He sectioned the rock floor and eased forward. When he was ten feet inside the opening, he had found nothing but rock walls, rock ceiling, and rock floor. It didn’t even look like it could be the channel of an underground river.

“Nada, Skipper. Just the one body and a whole potful of rock. No car, no tracks, no trip wires. Clear and benign.”

“Roger, Lam, we’re moving in. Take it easy and go out another twenty feet, but slowly and clearing the terrain as you go. Keep up a running commentary to us as you move.”

“Copy that, Skipper. Yeah, now I see where one of our twenties must have hit. Shattered some rock and dropped it on an otherwise clean rock floor. Might have been water that washed this rock clean of dust and dirt, I don’t know. Can’t figure it. Where the hell can it go? Can’t tell if it’s a man-made tunnel carved out of the rock, or if it was some kind of a volcanic tube. Don’t see how it could have been cut by this small volume of water coming through. This is solid damn granite.”

Lam kept moving. When he was twenty feet inside the cave he spotted a booby trap. “I’ve got a trip wire, Skipper. Not sure what the hell to do with it. Oh, yeah, followed the wire up the wall to a claymore. Looks like one of our own. Can Canzoneri get up here and disarm this thing?”

“No sweat, Chicken Lam,” Canzoneri said. “Hell, that’s the easiest kind to deactivate. Be there in about three if you guarantee there are no trip wires between you and me.”

“Guarantee. Bet your life on it. Move.”

Canzoneri arrived a minute later and moved his flashlight beam along the wire and up to the claymore. The blue mine was about four inches high, eight inches wide, and two inches thick. It had been taped to the rock wall and aimed toward the cave mouth. Inside, it was little more than a slab of C4 explosive behind up to two hundred steel pellets that formed a killing field sixty yards in front of it. Canzoneri was the platoon explosives maven. He checked the mine itself, then adjusted a lever on the back and eased the claymore off the wall. He pointed it away from the entrance and then snipped off the trigger wire. It didn’t explode.

“Not sure if any of these have a delay mechanism on them, but would be a great idea for the future. Then you get it disarmed, which is really a second way to arm it, and in ten or twenty seconds it goes off.” He paused. “Okay, the twenty seconds are up. I’d say we’re home free.” He put the claymore down on the side of the cave with the face of it on the rock.

“I’m moving forward,” Lam said. He continued to scope every foot of the cave floor as he walked. For fifteen feet he found nothing unusual. Then another body. This one was definitely Korean. He’d taken a dozen pieces of shrapnel in his chest. He still cradled a submachine gun. Lam reported it and continued. Ahead twenty more feet, the cave became smaller, but still large enough to drive a car through. It took a turn to the left. Lam went to the left side of the cave wall and edged up to where he could see around it. He shone his light down the cave, and took a burst of three rounds from a submachine gun. They missed his light and his arm. He jerked both back.

“Heard it,” Murdock said on the radio. “Sub gun. Hold there.”

Two minutes later Murdock was beside Lam. “We could use some more twenties, but the brass wants one alive. Who has the EAR? Get your ass up front now.”

Frank Victor came up behind them. “Ho, Cap. The EAR is here.”

Murdock moved back. “Ease the barrel around the wall and send one shot down there. Then after ten seconds give them one more. When you’re ready.”

The first whooshing sound came from the weapon, and Murdock realized there was something of a rear blast of air as well, but not as concentrated as the front one. He counted down the ten seconds with elephant-one, elephant-two. Then Victor fired the second round.

“We three,” Murdock said. “We move down quickly, watching for trip wires. They’re like rattlesnakes, always travel in pairs.”

They worked ahead faster than before. Twenty yards down they found a shooter. He had a sub gun and was prone facing toward them. He was breathing and unconscious. They bound his hands and feet and moved on. Another twenty yards ahead and the size of the cave shrank again, but it was still seven feet high and eight feet wide.

“The damned vehicle could still get through here,” Lam said. “Where the hell is it going?”

Around another small bend in the cave they found three men down and out. All had weapons. It looked like they had been eating a meal. A blown-down mantle gas lantern lay to one side.

“Base camp,” Murdock said. “But where is the car?” They tied up the unconscious North Koreans and continued. They found the car a dozen feet down the cave. Inside were explosives, mines, weapons, and lots of ammunition.

“They came to fight a war,” Murdock said. He checked the arms, and all of them looked shockingly familiar. “This is all U.S.-made weapons and ammo,” he said. “Where did they get it?”

“Not too hard these days with some connections,” Lam said.

“We’ve accounted for six men so far,” Murdock said. “The caller said six or eight. Where are the other two?”

Lam had worked ahead of the car. “Might be a clue up here. We’ve got some dirt and dust on the rocks now. I see two sets of boot prints moving away from us.”

“Let’s go get them,” Murdock said, and the three charged up the cave at a jog, using the lights just enough to stay on track, not worried now about trip wires. The two men ahead were running for their lives.

Around another bend, the tunnel became sharply smaller. It was still high enough to stand in, but now was only six feet wide. The boot prints showed the men were running. Lam stopped and lifted his hand. He licked a finger and held it up.

“Oh, yeah, fresh air coming in from ahead. Have we been going uphill or downhill?”

“I’d say slight uphill,” Victor said. “Got to be an old lava tube or a damn powerful underwater river.”

They ran again. This time, far ahead they could see a faint light. The tunnel took a steep slant upward, and they walked instead of ran. Now there were moist spots on the rocks.

Murdock didn’t know if it was from condensation, or if there had once been a furious river flowing through here. The tunnel kept getting smaller and smaller, and soon they had to bend over to move ahead. But the light was coming closer.

“There’s an opening ahead for damn sure,” Lam said. “From here on we’re going to have to crawl to get to it. Hands and knees should do it.”

Lam led the trio. He moved quickly, and for a moment the light ahead cut off and Victor yelped. Then it came on strong and Lam was gone.

Victor crawled up to the opening and pushed his head out. “Be damned, Skipper. We’re back in the open halfway up the mountain and at the end of a good-sized arroyo.” He pushed out and let Murdock crawl out.

The three stared at the runoff scene. “The water must come down the slope; part of it goes into this hole and down through the tunnel, and the rest of the water goes on down this gully,” Murdock said. “So where are the other two Koreans?”

Lam did a quick scan of the country ahead of them, the mountains. He spent five minutes on it, then came back to one spot a third time.

“There, on the side of the slope maybe a half mile over. See those two figures moving?”

“Oh, yeah,” Murdock said. He lasered the figures and pulled the trigger. Seconds later the SEALs saw the flash, and then the sound came drifting over.

“They still moving?” Murdock asked.

“Not that I can see. But a small tree that was nearby just lost all of its leaves and a lot of branches.” He kept watching. “Not a sign of movement. Either they are good at playing dead, or they got the real roles.”

Murdock used the Motorola. “DeWitt, what’s with you guys?”

The sound came back faint. “Almost out of range. About six miles south of you. Found the car. The men scattered when they heard us coming. My guess is there are just three of them, but could be more. We’re tracking them. One is a KIA, one a POW, and the third one is still running. Jefferson is on him with a Bull Pup, so I’d put a bundle down that Jefferson wins this one.”

“We found the first car. Tell you about it later.” Murdock pushed the mike back up to his floppy hat. “Let’s find the mouth to that cave and see what we can take back for show-and-tell.”

Six miles south, Jefferson struggled through a sea of huge boulders. They were everywhere, and from house size to basketball size. He moved up the side of one, stared ahead over the devil’s marble yard of huge rocks, and tried to find the running Korean. The man didn’t have a weapon; at least Jefferson didn’t think he did. Jefferson jumped off the rock just as he felt splinters of granite fly as a bullet missed him by a foot. He reconsidered.

This time he moved more cautiously. He had an idea where the Korean was, but getting to him was another problem. If Jefferson could pinpoint him well enough, the laser and an airburst should do the trick. The SEAL found a point where he had cover, and fired six rounds of 5.56 at the area forty yards ahead of where he thought the Korean had picked for his defensive position. A moment later the man fired a round from just to the left of where Jefferson had targeted. Jefferson moved to the 20mm, lasered a spot on the rocks to the left of his former target, and fired. Then he fired a second lasered round.

The sharp report of the airbursts came through the clear air with a deadly crack, and Jefferson watched and listened. He heard a low moaning sound that rose in pitch until it was a high keening, and it put Jefferson on his feet running around and over the boulders to the spot where he had fired.

He peered around the last boulder and saw the man lying on his back, one hand over his eyes, the same high-pitched wail coming again and again. There was no weapon in sight.

Jefferson charged the position, and kept the Korean under his gun until he searched him and threw away an ankle hideout revolver. The Korean’s second hand held his chest, where he was vainly trying to hold in his blood. It coursed through his fingers and pooled under him in the rocky ground.

A moment later the Korean tried to sit up. He screamed and fell back to the ground, his head turning slowly to the side so his unseeing dead eyes seemed to stare directly at Jefferson. It took the SEAL a few minutes, but he found the rifle the Korean had used. He put it beside the man, and looked around for three rocks he could lift. He found them and piled them on the nearest large boulder. The three-rock stack would serve as a marker, because he knew he was going to have to lead some officials out here to pick up the body. He took the rifle and made his way back to the out-of-gas car where the rest of Bravo Squad waited.

By the time Jefferson came to the car, the chopper had already landed and they were waiting for him.

“Damn, but you’re getting slower and slower killing these damn Koreans, Jefferson,” Donegan chided.

“Would have been faster but the sonofabitch actually took a shot at me. Slowed me down some.”

“He’s dead?” Fernandez asked.

“Hey, a man don’t give up his rifle when he’s alive and kicking,” Jefferson said.

“Murdock told us to meet him back at the turnoff to the cave,” DeWitt said. “Let’s get loaded up.”

Back by the cave entrance, the two officers conferred.

“What the hell county are we in?” DeWitt asked. “The county coroner is going to be interested in all these dead bodies.”

“The county sheriff too, unless we can shortstop them. With the coast still blacked out and no military around, our best bet is to call Stroh and let him sort it out. Bradford, front and center with the SATCOM.”

“Right there, Skipper.”

It took four tries before they made contact with Don Stroh in his office in Virginia across from Washington, D.C.

“Heard about you boys on an outing,” Stroh said. “What happened?”

“Tracked them down. One may have got away. We have the rest. Five of them are still alive, and six more cashed in. We can’t contact anybody locally to take care of those who perished.”

“Call your CO and have him contact the Riverside County authorities. I’m sure that’s the county you’re in. He should be able to get them by phone or through some emergency ham operators. Best to sit right there until the sheriff gets there. Yeah, I know, a hassle, but the locals have certain rights too.”

“Since when did you get to be such a going-through-channels guy? A change of spots for you, Stroh. Hell, might as well call Masciareli. Take care, Stroh. Out.”

The top frog in San Diego said he’d take care of it, and yes, they should stay put until the sheriff’s chopper arrived. Shouldn’t be long.

By the time the sheriff and three deputies arrived, they had been well briefed by the military that this was a highly classified mission and that it was a matter of national defense. The SEALs could be questioned, but not quoted. The military would arrive as quickly as possible to take charge of the live Koreans for questioning. The dead ones were to be referred to the United Nations.

Sheriff Windy Wheeler stepped out of his chopper two hours after Murdock’s call. He had on khaki pants and shirt and a .45 on his hip. The SEALs had carried the dead out of the cave, and walked out the live ones, then retied their feet.

It was nearly dark before the sheriff’s vans had loaded up the dead and the prisoners and left the area. Sheriff Wheeler shook hands with Murdock and DeWitt and grinned.

“Be damned. You got the bastards that helped turn the coast into a black hole. I don’t know what kind of a report I’ll make, but you gentlemen won’t ever be mentioned. We’ll send out a search party tomorrow to scour that hill you showed me to see if you did nail the other three North Korean bombers up there. You say a 20mm rifle? Damn, I thought that was a cannon the jet fighters use.” He shrugged. “Whatever, it worked damn good. I think I can release you boys so you can scoot back to Coronado. Of course, I never have met you or seen you and these deaths are by person or persons unknown. Oh, yeah! You boys have a safe trip now.”

It was a quick flight back to Coronado. Some of the men slept, some relived the chase of the bombers. Murdock tried to remember when he’d had a good night’s sleep. Maybe tonight, if he could drive through the two traffic lights he had to pass to get to his condo. He hoped traffic tie-ups were smoothed out by now. Sleep, yeah, maybe tonight.