Tropical Terror

16

Senior Chief Dobler, with a bandage on his forehead, asked the question first.

“Sir, we going to camp out here for the night?”

“Looks like it, Senior Chief. I bet you forgot your night-night teddy bear.”

“Roger that, sir. And my sleeping bag. Can we put in an order for some more box lunches?”

“Sounds good, and some hot coffee. Get it from the Marines and tell them to send it over by launch. Cost Uncle less that way.”

“I’m talking to the chopper pilot and using his radio,” Dobler said.

Murdock sat on the grass and stared out at the bay. There was a bomb out there that could vaporize half of Oahu. Why had they put it in the water? It had twice the destructive force up on that pinnacle. Here the mountains would protect most of Honolulu. He shrugged. Maybe it was a hoax box after all. They could have put some hot material in the box so it would leak out just enough radioactive signals to make the thing seem real. Sure, but why? He still had the feeling that the bomb was real, a threat, and one they had to deactivate.

Lead blankets. He hadn’t thought about them. He’d call NEST later on and have them bring out a pair. Or he could send the chopper up the mountain with two drivers to see if the Humvees were still functioning and drive them back. They each had a lead blanket. Or did the Chinese leave the lead on the bomb? No, they wouldn’t. Maybe the Chinkos had left the lead blankets where they picked up the bomb.

He went to the chopper pilot and gave him instructions. It was still plenty light enough to find the two rigs.

“Ching and Fernandez, front and center on me,” Murdock said into his lip mike. The two SEALs came up quickly.

“Yes, sir, Skipper?” Ching asked.

Murdock told them the assignment.

“Yeah, should be there unless the Chinese borrowed them,” Fernandez said. “See you when we get back.”

Murdock called the rest of the men around after the chopper took off, explaining where the two men went. Then he told them about the minesweeper coming around the coast from Pearl.

“It can work in the dark, right?” Lam asked.

“Better because the bay will be rid of any chop it might have had from the wind. You can sack out or play pocket pool or whatever. Senior chief has ordered some box lunches and coffee. We might have work to do early on after the sweeper gets here.” The crowd of civilians had tired of watching nothing, and most of them had moved on. The cop came up and looked at Murdock.

“Commander, anything going to be happening here tonight that you’ll need any police involvement for?”

“Not a thing, Officer. Be dark and we’ll be on the bay. How do you like your 9mm pistol?”

“Okay. The Glock. Yeah. Gives us more firepower. I have two thirty-three-round magazines if things get hot. Hell of a lot better than the old five-shot revolvers.”

“Ever jammed on you?”

“Never, and I’ve put all thirty-three through it in less than a minute. Gets warm, but never has jammed.”

“Good. Officer, we’ll be here most of the night, maybe all night. Let your relief know about us so he won’t be surprised. Thanks for your help.”

“Yeah, Okay. Good luck with your hunt.” The cop turned and walked away, looking like he wanted to talk some more.

Murdock checked his watch. Lots of time before dark, and almost two and a half hours before the minesweeper would arrive. Murdock kicked the turf. He hated this inaction. They had to do one more look, get deeper, they might find something. They would go out farther this time.

“Come on, you dildos with ears, let’s get wet.” The SEALs pulled on their rebreathers, fitted feet into fins, and walked backward into the warm Hawaiian water. There was only small wave action here.

“Let’s take another look,” Murdock said. “Search pattern, about five yards apart. We have enough light for a good look. Let’s get down to at least sixty feet and level off. We’re only looking for something on the bottom. That truck we saw sure as hell isn’t going to motor away anywhere. Not much of a current or tide here, so it must have dropped straight down. Let’s do it.”

The SEALs went into the water, worked down to sixty feet, and began their sweep search straight out to the spot where the witnesses said the box got wet. Their Draegrs had been modified with a special gas mix so they could go down to sixty feet.

On the first pass they found nothing. Murdock signaled for them to do one more sweep, and they moved two hundred feet toward the shore, working slowly through the deep blue water. Murdock sent a signal to surface at the end of the two hundred feet. On top they pulled out their mouthpieces and talked.

“Might not be the right spot,” Lam said. “The eyewitnesses could be wrong.”

“Usually they are,” Murdock said.

“How about moving back toward shore fifty yards more and try it again at seventy feet down,” DeWitt said.

“Wish we could,” Murdock said. “But not with these Draegrs. We’ll do another run at fifty.” They pushed the mouthpieces back in and duck-dived, heading down to fifty feet, each man keeping in touch with his buddies on both sides.

The long line of SEALs went to work again. They had only begun their next sweep through the clear waters off Oahu when something large and dark came at them head-on. The SEALs parted and watched the tiny submarine motor past them. Murdock saw it close up.

He signaled the men to the surface and they compared notes.

“Yeah, a two-man submarine,” DeWitt said. “Looked like some of those the Italians designed. North Korea had a whole shit-pot full of them a few years ago, more than fifty.”

“That sumbitch wasn’t no more than fifteen, maybe twenty feet long,” Murdock said. “Hell, we’ve got torpedoes almost that big.”

“Where was it going and what is it doing here?” Dobler asked. “Was it Chinese? I didn’t see any flag painted on it.”

“Out of here,” Murdock said, and began a strong crawl stroke toward the shore. Once there he stripped out of his Draegr and headed for the chopper. It wasn’t back yet from the Hummer run. He yelled for Holt.

The radioman quickly set up the SATCOM and positioned the fold-out antenna. The beep came, showing the antenna was aligned correctly.

“Murdock to CINCPAC.”

“Yes, Murdock. Any progress?”

“Ran into a strange little visitor. Looked like a North Korean two-man submarine. Did the Chinese buy some of them?”

“Our people know nothing about the Chinese having or using any two-man subs. What’s it doing?”

“It’s where we think the bomb dropped. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s looking for the bomb just as we are.”

“See any viewing ports in the sub?”

“No, sir.”

“Then how could it be looking for the bomb? It can’t have anything very sophisticated electronically on board. How long was the vessel?”

Murdock looked at his men, who had gathered around.

“Twenty feet,” Mahanani said.

“Twenty-five,” Ching suggested.

“Twenty, maybe twenty-five feet,” Murdock told the handset.

“We have four antisub chaser choppers at the Marine base there. I’ll get two of them in the air within five minutes. They can drop sonobuoys and pen him in. Which way was he headed?”

“Heading into the bay last thing we saw of him, but we don’t know where he went after that.”

“Stay out of the water, the choppers have lifted off. They are maybe five minutes from you. They will stay on this TAC frequency.”

“That’s a Roger, CINCPAC. We’re out.”

The SEALs watched the sky to the southwest, where the Marine base was situated. Seven minutes later they heard the birds coming. Two choppers in formation.

“Seahawks, the SH-60,” Dobler said. “Prime antisub hunters. This should be fun to watch.”

The choppers parted and the SEALs could see something dropping out of them.

“Sonobuoys,” Dobler said. “They drop them in two lines and wait for one of the sensors to pick up a signal of the sub. Reads out on board.”

The birds dropped another line of sonobuoys, and created a box about half a mile square.

The big choppers worked the area slowly, sometimes hovering at two hundred feet.

“If they get some readings on that sub, can they triangulate and pinpoint him?” Khaki asked.

Canzoneri, their Torpedoman’s Mate First Class, snorted. “Hell, they can do better than that. They can tie down where that sucker is within fifteen feet.”

“Yeah?” Jefferson asked. “So what do they do then?”

Canzoneri laughed. “Like shooting fish in a bucket in here. The Seahawk drops in a Mark 46 homing torpedo. It hits the water and looks for the mass of metal out front, tracks it, and boom, no more miniature sub.”

Franklin looked worried. “So what happens to the nuke out there in the water? Does the blast set off the nuke?”

Canzoneri shrugged. “How’en hell would I know?”

Murdock saw nobody else was answering. “Most nuclear weapons are ultimately safe around explosions and jolts and bombs and earthquakes. They need a special fusing and that fuse has to be activated in a certain way. A strong explosion near nukes can shake up their insides so the firing mechanism might not work right. I’ve never heard of a nuke being set off anyway but by the established trigger and resulting procedure.”

“Now that, Cap, keeps me happy,” Tony Ostercamp said.

They watched the choppers again. They seemed to be concentrating on one section of the bay two miles from the shore.

“Something’s cooking out there,” DeWitt said. One of the choppers had moved in, then backed off and moved up again. They all cheered when they saw a longish object dropped from the chopper.

“That would be our old reliable Mark 46,” Canzoneri said. “The party is almost over for that mini-sub.”

An explosion came a few seconds later. The shock came through the ground, then a distant sound. Then the surface of the bay erupted in a twenty-foot geyser of boiling water.

Holt turned on the radio and tried two channels before he picked up the pilots.

“Bird Nest, this is Low Flyer One. We have made contact and it looks like a hit with a forty-six. Standing by for eval on the water surface.”

“Roger that, Low Flyer One. Confirm, then return to base.”

The water calmed and both helicopters flew over the spot, hovered, then worked a slow circle.

The SATCOM speaker came on again. “Bird Nest, we have confirmation. Lots of debris in the water, and an oil slick. Our sonobuoy readouts have lost the target. That’s a kill.”

“Return to base, Low Flyer One. Good shooting.”

The two Seahawks turned and headed back southwest toward their field.

“By the book,” DeWitt said, dropping onto the grass beside Murdock. “Now where is that minesweeper?”

“Not due for two hours?” Murdock said. “Be dark by that time.”

Murdock stretched out on the grass of the small roadside park. “I’m catching some bunk time. You’ve got the con, JG. If the guys come back with the Humvees, have them park them and wait. I hope these search guys on the sweeper know what they’re doing with their high-tech equipment.”

DeWitt waved at his CO and checked the squads. Half of the men were sleeping. The others cleaned weapons or talked about the operation. It was getting dark fast then.

“Hey, JG, we gonna get any leave time over here?” Ron Holt asked. “I could spend a few days on the beach just watching them bikinis wiggling past.”

“Sounds like a good idea, Holt. We’ll wait and see how this mission turns out. We hope there’ll be a Honolulu left to visit.”

Less than a half hour later, their private chopper came back and settled down on the grass thirty yards from the SEALs. DeWitt talked to the pilot.

“Yeah, we found them. I waited to be sure that both of the rigs started and could drive. They should be back here in less than an hour.”

DeWitt took a walk along the side of the bay. He wondered how Milly was getting along. If this settled down, he’d send an E-mail to their home computer. A sound caught his attention. Then he saw a boat powering toward them. It was a small-class patrol boat and came straight for the point, then turned a little toward the SEALs. Chow time.

The SEALs woke up for the food. The box lunches had double sandwiches, oranges, a turnover apple pie, and two cookies, and there was a thirty-cup-sized urn of coffee. The boat stayed until the coffee was drained, then pushed off heading back to the base. DeWitt kept four box lunches for the Humvee-driving SEALs.

Murdock ate his meal, then went back to sleep. He knew he’d better grab some snore time while he could. Hard telling what would happen next on this crazy mission.

He came awake when the Humvees boiled up on the road and shut down in the parking lot. Then an hour later, just at 2005, the minesweeper steamed into the bay and stopped two hundred yards offshore. By that time it was totally dark. Murdock used his flashlight and sent a Morse code word out. It was “Murdock.”

A few minutes later they heard a small motor, and a gig came in to the point.

“Is Murdock here?” someone called from the boat as it grounded.

“Here and ready,” Murdock said. He, Lam, and Dobler stepped into the gig and it powered back to the ship. The Chief turned out to be 224 feet long. The deck was crammed with machinery and equipment of all kinds. The SEALs went up a ladder and the gig was winched on board.

The ship’s captain, Commander Lawson, met them at the rail.

“Glad to have you on board, Commander Murdock. You’re welcome to observe everything we do. This is not a swift operation like the sonobuoy trick the choppers just worked.”

“Understood. If we get in the way, boot our tails. You have any divers on board?”

“No, sir. I’d imagine that’s where your men will come into play. What we do have is SLQ-37(V)3 magnetic/acoustic-influence sweep equipment. That’s what should do the job. We can only sweep a relatively small section at a time and we move rather slowly, so we have time to evaluate any readings we get. Probably the best spot for you to view the process is at our readout screens. This way.”

“Ever hunted a nuke before, Commander?”

“So far our record is perfect on that score, Commander Murdock. Which is to say, this is the first nuke that we’ve looked for.”

In a map room, Murdock and the captain plotted out a search area. It came out a hundred yards due west of the land on the point, out six hundred yards, then a six-hundred-yard square including that one-hundred-yard point where the witnesses thought they saw the bomb dumped.

“Is that too large a search grid?” Murdock asked. “How long will it take to search that whole area?”

“Twelve to fourteen hours. If we don’t run into too much garbage in the water.”

“Could be too long,” Murdock said. “We don’t know for sure if the Chinese have a method to detonate the bomb underwater without a surface antenna. Could you start at the most likely spot in the center and work outward from there?”

“That’s the way we usually work, Commander. Settle back and enjoy the show.”

They all watched the readout screen. Within fifteen minutes a small bell rang. They had picked up metal, but it turned out to be the rusting hulk of an old motor car. The machines whirled and the ship moved along slowly.

There was no camera on the search. It was all electronic with a readout. Any metal found had to be a certain size to register. Old tin cans did not show up.

A sailor came into the compartment with a message for the captain. He read it and handed it to Murdock.

It was from CINCPAC. “Negotiations with the Chinese have broken down. The Chinese now threaten to set off the bomb at 1200 tomorrow. Suggest all possible speed in the search.” It was over the name of Admiral R.D. Bennington.

Commander Lawson shook his head. “Damn, there is no way we can make this equipment work any faster. Twelve hours, unless we get lucky on the sweet spot in the center.”

Murdock scowled and took a deep breath. This was the part he hated. The whole damn world was about to be blasted into hell and there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it.