Tropical Terror

19

It took the four SEALs only three minutes to slip into the SCUBA gear, test the masks and airflow, and work down the ladder into the warm Hawaiian bay. They all had their wrist compasses, and moved out on the l60-degree heading. When they agreed they had covered the 280 yards, they stopped on the surface and treaded water as they talked.

“We all go down and find the box, then Mahanani comes back up. By that time the ship should be overhead, and they’ll pass him a line or a cable and he’ll bring one or two or three down to us. We hook them on, latch them up good and strong, and knock three times on the cable to start the lift. Everyone on the same page?”

They nodded in the dark, then duck-dived and began swimming down the one hundred feet to where the bomb should be.

It had been some time since Murdock had used a standard SCUBA outfit, and the heavy tank on his back seemed out of place and strange. But as he neared the bottom he forgot about it and concentrated on finding the bomb.

The bomb was not there. The bottom showed up darkly sandy with a few scuttering fish, a rock or two, but no bomb. They moved straight ahead down the azimuth reading.

It loomed out of the dusky depths like a freight train gone wrong. It lay on one side, the same fake beer truck they had seen before. Inside would be the wooden box, with slats and holes and holding something dark and dangerous and deadly. They checked it out on all four sides. They gathered and nodded, gave the yes sign. It had to be the beer truck they had seen before.

If the Chinese had coordinated their attack better, surprise might have won for them. But the four Chinese frogmen came out of the gloom one at a time from the same direction, which meant finding the four SEALs there must have been a surprise for them as well as for the SEALs.

Murdock drew his KA-BAR fighting knife from the scabbard on his right leg, and charged the first knife-wielding Chinese. He saw the other SEALs pull out their knives and take up the hunt. The first Chinese may have been their best. He drove in, then darted the other way and made a wide swiping attack with his blade. It missed. That gave Murdock a chance to kick in hard and drive his knife at the Chinese man’s exposed right side while the frogman’s knife was high over his head.

Murdock felt the blade sink into flesh, but the victim twisted away. Not a killing thrust.

They parried, dove in, and then back. Murdock saw that it was a one-on-one fight times four. A SEAL could get hurt that way. He feinted one way, caught the Chinese frogman defending that way too far, and kicked hard through the water and sliced his heavy blade through the air hose right below the Chinese frogman’s face. Air gushed out. The eyes of the man through the face mask were wide and filled with panic. Then he began to stroke upward toward the surface. Murdock caught his legs and held him down. Bubbles exploded out of the Chinese frogman’s tank. His hands stabbed at Murdock’s arms around his legs. Slowly his struggles eased, then stopped. He was dead.

Murdock turned just as one of the Chinese swam away from his fight with Lam to attack Murdock’s unprotected back. Murdock swung his KA-BAR and saw blood from a slashed wrist stain the blue of the water. He followed up kicking the man in the stomach, then driving his blade into the man’s chest. Murdock yanked the blade out with an effort, and saw the Chinese man go limp and drift away with the gentle current.

Remembering his near-fatal mistake, Murdock spun around now quickly to check for any attacker near him. He saw Mahanani grab his challenger from behind and drive his KA-BAR deeply into the man’s chest, then let him go and watch him settle to the bottom.

Ed DeWitt swam toward the rest slowly. One hand held his air hose to his tank. A few bubbles seeped out around his hand.

He pointed upward and Murdock nodded. He pointed to Mahanani to go up, bring down the cables, and be sure that the JG made it to the top.

The two pushed off, working slowly toward the surface, hoping there wouldn’t be any air-bubble trouble.

Murdock nodded. At only a hundred feet depth they shouldn’t have any problem going up rather fast. The two SEALs left on the bottom pushed on to the beer truck. It lay partly on its side. It had only half the weight here it would on deck. They found that with a lot of shoving they could rock it, and then they heaved, and it tilted over and bounced on its flat tires, sitting upright. It was in a position now so that they could attach cables and hooks to four places on the frame, two in front, two in back. Murdock edged into the truck cab and looked in back. Yes, the same wooden crate was there. The bomb was still on board.

There was no sign of the sling that had brought it here. It could have come undone and floated away as the truck went straight to the bottom.

They waited. It wasn’t long, but just staring at the device that could vaporize him and half of Oahu in a heartbeat left Murdock a little unsettled.

The damn lead blankets. He’d forgotten about them. Where were they? Yeah, on the point in the Humvee. Have to get them to the ship fast as soon as they got up. Or he could send Mahanani back up as soon as they got the cables down there and ask the captain to go get the blankets.

The Hawaiian came down then with a diver from the minesweeper. They each carried the end of two one-inch-thick cables. They were let out gently from on top so the men wouldn’t be crushed by the weight of the heavy steel wire.

Murdock swam to Lam, and all four worked with the heavy cables to attach them to the frame. Hooks worked on the front. In back they had to loop the cable around the frame and secure the hook on the cable. Lam nodded. Murdock knew he had to go topside and have the lead blankets brought out to the minesweeper to cloak the bomb on board so no Chinese radio signal could set off the bomb. No way he could tell anyone else down here to go get the blankets.

He worked upward slowly. Then when he realized there were no bad effects on his bloodstream, he hurried and surfaced twenty yards from the boat. A crewman helped him up the ladder.

Commander Lawson was there waiting.

“It’s the bomb, the same one you saw before?”

“Yes, and we need those two NEST lead blankets we have onshore. Can we get a boat and a crew to go get them so we have them here when the bomb hits your deck?”

“Oh, God, yes. I’d forgotten about that.” He yelled at a chief, who lowered a twenty-foot boat over the side and took a crew of four and powered for shore.

Murdock went over by the winch where the cables were attached, and watched. DeWitt was there as well, showing no ill effects from the close encounter below. Soon a clanking came from the cables.

“The signal, sir, from below,” said a sailor who sat on the winch seat in front of the controls.

“Ease her up gently three feet and see how she holds,” Commander Lawson ordered.

It was done.

Twenty minutes later, the top of the beer truck broke the surface next to the minesweeper and the crew cheered. They hoisted it on the stern, and six men quickly opened the rear doors and covered the wooden crate with the two lead blankets from NEST.

“Better tell the admiral we have his bomb,” Murdock said. He slumped to the deck and let the tension and exhaustion drain out of him.

Commander Lawson came back a few minutes later and squatted beside Murdock.

“We’ll put you and your men off at the point. The admiral told us to get up speed and start moving straight north away from the islands. He’ll let me know when to stop. My guess is we’ll go out far enough to get a chopper to lift it off and move it somewhere else. Just where, I’m not certain. The admiral wants it off the islands as far as possible. He said if we try to deactivate it the way we do our own, there could be some break-to-make circuits inside that would set it off.”

“He could always fly it and a crew to Midway Island.”

“Or one of the far-out northwestern Hawaiian islands. The chain stretches almost to Midway. I guess it’s the end of the chain.”

“How does he get it there fast?” Murdock asked.

“His problem as soon as he lifts it off my ship.”

Ten minutes later, the SEALs had shucked out of the SCUBA gear and were back on the point of land at the top of Kaneohe Bay.

Senior Chief Dobler met them at the beach where the boat from the minesweeper had deposited them.

“We got the bomb, Senior Chief. Anything else cooking from Stroh or the admiral?”

“Nary a beep. Skipper, looks like time you had some quality sleep.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost 0500. Sack time.”

Murdock nodded, found some grass next to the Humvee, and slid down. He was sleeping before he could get his eyes closed.

Senior Chief Dobler watched the four divers find spots and go to sleep. He hadn’t heard anything from the admiral, mostly because he told Holt to leave the SATCOM radio turned off. They deserved a little bunk time for a change. He wasn’t sure when he had slept last, but he could get along with very little shut-eye.

He’d done this before with the other platoon. This was the second platoon he’d handled, and he figured it might be his last. He was coming up on thirty-eight years old. Dobler sighed and rubbed his left calf. An old injury. No, an old wound. A knife had gone in and all the way through. The bastard who cut him didn’t live two minutes after that. A good trade-off.

When would he throw in the damn towel and call it a career with the SEALs? He had no notion just when. The first time he couldn’t keep up with the platoon on a forced march, or couldn’t lift his share of the burden on a mission, he would be out of the SEALs. Well, maybe not out of the SEALs, but for sure out of the platoons.

He could always get another spot in SEAL Team Seven. Lots of billets he could fill. He had in nineteen, only needed one more for retirement. Right now he had no idea of abandoning the ship on twenty. Maybe twenty-five or thirty. He hadn’t promised his wife he’d quit at twenty. Some of his buddies had done that, and gotten in a whole shit-pot full of trouble. He grinned. Had to keep a strong hand at home just like with the platoon.

At 0800 Senior Chief Dobler roused the platoon and had Holt turn on the SATCOM to receive. It spoke at once. Murdock and the rest of the platoon had just come together to figure out what to do next.

“Lieutenant Commander Murdock, respond to CINCPAC. We’ve been trying to reach you. We have a problem. Contact us at once.”

Holt passed the mike to Murdock.

“CINCPAC, this is Lieutenant Commander Murdock responding to your message.”

The set spoke quickly.

“Good. Your position and situation, Commander.”

Murdock told the speaker.

“Good. Use your transport to come to CINCPAC HQ at Pearl. The admiral has an assignment for you that we’re two days late on already. Report in at the earliest possible time.”

“Roger that, we’re on our way.”

DeWitt said what all of them were thinking. “The admiral has a project for us that we’re two days late on already? What the fuck does he mean by that?”