Tropical Terror

3

Already DeWitt had jerked the safety pin from a flashbang grenade and flipped it around the wall down the corridor.

“Grenade,” someone in the hallway bellowed.

“Cover up,” DeWitt said into his lip mike. “Flashbang.”

The SEALs had just time to cover their ears with hands and shut their eyes tightly when the series of jolting explosive sounds took place, followed by six super-brilliant flashes of light that penetrated their eyelids even though they were closed and around the corner from the grenade.

A second after the last flash, the SEALs pushed around the corner and opened their eyes. Six men writhed on the floor. One with a submachine gun leaned against the wall. DeWitt drilled him with two rounds of 5.56mm from his Bull Pup.

Another man staggered to his feet. He had on civilian clothes and held an M-l6 rifle. Lam dropped him with a three-round burst from his MP-5. A blue-shirted sailor jumped on a third man who was groping for his weapon.

“We got them all,” the second class said when he saw the three SEALs come around the corner. “Need to tie this one up or waste him.”

DeWitt tossed the sailor a plastic riot cuff, and watched as the man tied the terrorist’s hands behind his back. Now DeWitt saw that the man was Chinese.

“How many more of them in here?” DeWitt asked.

A chief rolled over and got to his feet. He shook his head again and kept blinking. “Can’t hear a damn thing yet, sir, but I’m damn glad to see you. They got us hog-tied upstairs. Must be twenty of them. All Chinese bragging about an invasion. They really land troops over on Kaneohe Bay?”

“What we hear.” DeWitt looked at the rest of the sailors. “Men, we need two of you who know this place best. The rest of you get outside and well away from here. Who can help us go after these Chinks?”

The chief brightened. “I heard that. I can help. Me and Allison. The rest of you, out the back door. Move.”

They rushed out. Lam put another riot cuff around the prisoner’s ankles and the chief shook his head again.

“Damn those bastards are loud. First time I ever heard one. Okay. We’re in the west wing. Nothing in here but admin. No Chinese at all. Most of them are upstairs. Two at the main door and one as a connecting-link man halfway up the stairs to the third.”

“You have any casualties in the takeover?” DeWitt asked.

“Two dead, six wounded. Our CO, Captain Browder, thought they were joking. They shot him in the head. Couple of our guys had hideouts on their ankles. Killed one of the bastards before they ran out of ammo.”

“How do we get to them?” DeWitt asked.

The chief waved them forward. “Oh, Lieutenant, I’m Master Chief Carpenter, top EM in this place. Got a spare weapon?”

DeWitt handed him a.25-caliber automatic from his right ankle. Carpenter chambered a round and waved them forward. They went the same way the Chinese had been going.

“Back stairs,” Carpenter said. “Nothing much on the second floor but some offices. Head man is on the third with the vital transmitters, the one studio, all the electronics and readouts and screens so we know what the fuck we’re doing. This end we’re going up holds records, transcriptions, the big humidity-and-temp-controlled storage room for all our mainframe tapes. Doubt if they’ll have a man in there.”

“So how close to the terrorists can we get?”

“They tell us they aren’t terrorists, they are soldiers. Either way, we can get within maybe a hundred feet of them. I’d guess you don’t want to blow up any of our equipment up here if we can help it?”

“Right. The admiral wants to be back on the air ten minutes after our takedown.”

“Sounds like old Hairy Ass. That’s what we call the admiral. He’s got more body hair on him than Robin Williams, the comedian.”

He held his finger to his lips now as Ed DeWitt and Lam and the whole Bravo Squad started up the wooden stairway. Not a board creaked. The second floor proved to be clear. Lam and Ostercamp checked it out. Then they worked on up the steps.

At the third floor they came to double doors. Master Chief Carpenter held up his hand and they all froze. He edged the door inward an inch and studied what he could see through the opening. He let it ease closed.

“Two of them, with weapons slung. You have any suppressed weapons?”

DeWitt took a look, then waved Colt Franklin up.

“Single shots. Silenced. Two of them, make sure.”

Franklin nodded and edged the muzzle of his weapon through a two-inch opening between the door and the jamb. He waited a moment, then pulled the trigger, moved his sights, and fired again. He held up two fingers and then pointed his thumb down. Lam edged the door open and slipped through, followed by DeWitt and Carpenter and then the rest of the squad. Lam checked the two Chinese soldiers. Both were dead of heart shots. There was a partition ahead and another door. This section of the third floor was about twenty feet long, which left the main part beyond the wall ahead. They found the temperature-controlled area and dozens of racks of storage for tapes and supplies.

The area was clear of any more Chinese.

DeWitt waved his men forward toward a pair of doors in the wall between them and the rest of the Chinese. They were spread out with four at one door and five at the other when a pair of Chinese in civilian clothes ran through the doors shouting something in Chinese, both with submachine guns up ready to fire.

Below in front of the communications building, the EAR rounds had produced exactly one Chinese man who jumped out a ground-floor window and kept rubbing his eyes as he ran right into Alpha Squad. He was quickly tied up and left behind the wall.

“Do the door,” Murdock said in his mike, and Jaybird and Master Chief Dobler sprinted for the front door. There were no shots at the two SEALs. They applied the explosives, set the timers, and faded along the wall fifty feet, then held their hands over their ears. The explosions of almost a full pound of C-5 were enough to blow down a small building. In this case it blasted the double doors off their hinges and slammed them backward into the building.

The SEALs charged the opening, darted through it, and the acrid smell of the explosive, and into the main entryway of the communications building.

The two chunks of the big door lay against the wall twenty feet from where they usually perched. Someone cried out in pain near one of the doors. Murdock found a Chinese soldier with one leg blown off. He died a minute after Murdock found him. Jaybird found another dead Chinese. Then they took fire from someone on the stairway. The figure fired, then scurried on up the steps and out of sight on the second floor.

“Ronson, Bradford. Cover each other up the steps,” Murdock told his lip mike.

A loudspeaker on the ground floor snapped on and a voice came out that spoke perfect English but had a bit of a Chinese accent.

“Yes, American force. We know you are inside the building. We have hostages here. If you do not vacate the building in two minutes, we will start shooting hostages. We are starting the timing now.”

“Let’s clear this floor,” Murdock said. “Half of you each way.”

Murdock’s order was obeyed as two of the remaining SEALs went each way into the series of offices, hallways, and more cubicles and storage areas. Three minutes later they came back to the stairs.

All clear.

“Up the steps,” Murdock said. He had heard on the radio earlier that DeWitt and his squad had penetrated the place and were moving past the second floor to the third, where the enemy had holed up with all of the vital broadcasting equipment and the hostages.

“On our way up the middle stairway,” Murdock radioed.

“We’re at the far end moving in,” DeWitt replied. “You heard that about hostages? We have two of our EM who work here. The Chinese shot the captain in the head just after they took over. Don’t plan on a quick surrender.”

DeWitt sniffed. There was only a slight hint of tear gas in the air. Some damn efficient air filter had wiped the air clean before it exhausted it into the system. He checked his pockets.

“Let’s go with flashbangs,” he said quietly to the radio mike. “I want three men to throw two bangers into the main room. Get them as far inside as possible. Get them out and ready. Five seconds.” He waited for a count to seven. “Throw them now.”

He cracked the door and three men threw the non-lethal grenades into the other room, then let the doors close.

Inside the larger area, the flashbangs wouldn’t be as effective, but they could easily put down and out of combat half the terrorists inside. When the last of the flashes blasted through the crack in the door, DeWitt and his men charged into the room.

It was one large area, with all sorts of communications gear. Three civilians with weapons tried to stand, but were cut down at once by 5.56mm rounds from the Bull Pups and the Colt Commandos. There were two aisles that led to the doors. Each had a group of partitioned offices with the walls seven feet high. DeWitt charged them, found two more Chinese civilians with guns and holding their heads. He kicked away weapons and had the men cuffed.

“I’ve got three over here,” Jefferson said. “Hiding behind some expensive-looking hardware.”

“Save the equipment,” DeWitt said. “But don’t get hurt. Maybe another flashbang beside them.”

The room shook with the vibrations from the cracking explosions of the grenade. Then the strobes of intense light cut through the already bright room lights.

“Oh, yeah,” Jefferson said. “Tony and me got the fuckers. Still holding their ears.”

DeWitt heard Murdock bring Alpha Squad through the twin doors.

“What’s the score?” Murdock asked on the radio.

“We’ve accounted for about twenty hostiles,” DeWitt said. “Checking the rest of the area.”

The Navy communications personnel began coming out from under desks. Two dozen had been locked in a storage room. The rest of them filtered back to their workstations.

A three-striper came boiling up and looked at Murdock. He held out his hand.

“Damn glad to see you and your men, Commander. They caught us with our pants down for damn sure. Won’t ever happen again. This will be a personal-weapons station from now on.” He paused. “Oh, I’m Commander Lethridge, operations officer.”

“Lieutenant Commander Murdock here. The admiral said he wants the whole damn operation back in gear in ten minutes. Better call him right now and let him know you’re on the way.”

The commander shouted some orders, and the men and women sailors in the room settled into their assigned tasks, getting the communications system up and operating.

“Casualty report,” Murdock told his lip mike. “Alpha Squad?”

The men chimed in one after the other in their line-of-march order. No one had even been scratched except for Lam. “Picked up a ricochet somewhere, Cap,” Lam said on the net. “Figure it was in the hall and that first fire we took. Left arm, Band-Aid type.”

“Jack, take a look,” Murdock said.

Bravo Squad reported in with no injuries.

Commander Lethridge detailed some of his crew to haul the dead Chinese to the ground floor. He put the tied-up prisoners there as well.

The admiral telephoned his congratulations to Murdock, then went back to running his war.

Murdock took his platoon out of the building and gathered them in the parking lot in back of the commo building. The truck and two Humvees were there waiting for them. Murdock had Holt listening on the SATCOM for any news he could find. Several of the units were using SATCOMs as the only way to communicate with each other.

“Hey, Cap,” Holt called. “The Jefferson heard about the invasion on Kaneohe Bay on the windward side and sent twenty F-18’s over there. The pilots say they hit at the Chinese boats in the bay and some more coming in. The troops on the island were invisible. They had landed and moved inland through the civilian houses and into the country toward the hills of the Koolau ridges. No real targets on land, but they shot hell out of those landing craft.”

“Keep up the eavesdropping, Holt. We need to know everything we can. Now, let’s mount up and go back to the quarters we had before that training exercise this morning.”

An hour later, they had their weapons cleaned and new loads of ammo in their combat vests when Murdock received a call. They had a new mission. Admiral Bennington was in full command again and was worried about the estimated two thousand men the Chinese had landed at Kaneohe Bay. They were somewhere in the green belt behind the highway and the town itself and the Koolau Range. Just where they were and what they were doing was a major concern.

The area was not densely populated, with fewer residents the closer you went to the mountains.

“Murdock, I want you and your team to go in there and find the enemy, then harass them. Cut any supply lines they may have, disrupt their communications, hit and run, night raids. Do anything you can do to keep them tied up and busy so they don’t go pouring down the highway toward Kailua or try to get over to the highway heading for Honolulu. We can resupply you with arms and ammo and explosives by chopper out of Pearl or from the Jefferson, whichever is closer. I want you to be a damn loose cannon in there rattling around in their belly.”

“Aye, aye, sir. We can go in with first dark if you have a Sea Knight chopper that can get us into the area.”

“Commander Johnson is still your man. He can arrange it. You get my red-signature approval on anything asked for. Good luck.”

“We’ll stay in contact with you on the SATCOM for any change in orders.” They hung up, and Murdock saw a Humvee pull up outside their barracks/operations center. Commander Johnson jumped out and ran for the operations center door.

He came in and wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. “Hey, Commander Murdock. We’ve got our commo back again. The admiral says you need a chopper, a Sea Knight. I’ve put in the order with the air commander at Pearl. His aide said with the red-signature order he’ll have one ready for combat in thirty minutes.”

“Good, Johnson. Stick close to me. We’re about to have a planning session like you probably haven’t seen before.”

Ten minutes later Murdock had DeWitt, Jaybird, Master Chief Dobler, and Lam sat around a table. All had pads and ballpoint pens.

“Now, you know our mission, so how do we best work it?” Murdock asked.

“No EAR rifles,” Jaybird said. “We leave them here and use our twenties.”

“Agreed,” DeWitt said. “But we need the sniper rifles and the MGs.”

“Amen to both of those,” Murdock said. “I’m taking an MP-5 sub gun on my back. Anyone who wants to can have a second shooter.”

“Hit and run, sounds like fun, but where do we stash our extra ammo?” Lam asked. “We’ll be all over the place. We establish a cache of ammo and explosives that we can’t carry?”

“Double ammo if we can pack it,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “Yes, I’d agree, we need a stash somewhere. Maybe more than one.”

They went at it for an hour and came out with their operations plan. Johnson was amazed.

“I’ve never seen an outfit work this way before,” Johnson said. “Usually the officers work out the plan and the details. I like this way better. Everyone knows what’s happening and you get input from your smartest EMs as well.”

“You got the idea. You want to work the field with us?”

Johnson laughed. “Hey, I’m a desk guy. Last infantry-type shit I did was in boot camp. I don’t even have my shots.”

Murdock looked at his watch. It was l630. “When does it get dark here?” Murdock asked.

Johnson frowned. “This time of year, about 1930, more or less.”

“Be damn handy if we had a map of that area with the spot marked where the admiral thinks the Chinese are,” Dobler said. “Then we can figure out where we drop in and set up our stash.”

By 1800 they had a map.

The chopper was waiting on the pad at the runway.

Master Chief Dobler had the troops ready with fifty percent more ammo than normal. Six drag bags were loaded with ammo, grenades, explosives, and more ammo. They had an expanded first-aid kit as well as Mahanani’s regular corpsman’s gear.

Murdock checked everything. “Looks like we’re about ready,” he said. “Ed, you happy with your mix of weapons?”

“Right. We have the sniper and MG, five Bull Pups, and three MP-5 submachine guns as doubles.”

“What’s our mix on WP versus HE on the grenades?”

“Two HEs to one WP.”

Murdock turned to Johnson. “How far is it to that chopper?”

“About a mile and a half.”

“Have it set down in the parking lot behind this building within thirty minutes.”

Johnson shook his head. “Can’t do it, Commander. None of our choppers are cleared to land anywhere but at the regular designated areas.”

Murdock grinned. “Commander, let’s see just how good that admiral’s red signature is. Tell whoever you contact the level of the order and see what happens.”

Johnson laughed. “Yeah, let’s see. It should work like a charm. I don’t get to play with that red sig often. In fact, never before.”

Murdock got the right TAC frequency, and used the SATCOM to talk directly with a recon plane over the Kaneohe invasion zone.

“The town itself was bypassed,” the observer said. “They have some half-tracks, maybe six of them. Hard to hide their trails. They swung north of the town and moved about three miles from the coast in toward the mountains. Damn strange. They don’t seem to be going anywhere. Just sitting there. Maybe waiting for orders. Maybe the Chinese command didn’t think they would even get onshore.”

Murdock told the observer his mission.

“Where do you suggest we sit down and set up our stash?”

“Not more than two miles from the beach. There’s a little stream comes out in that area. Just to the south of their half-track trail.”

Right on schedule, the Sea Knight, a CH-46 with the two big contra-rotating, three-blade main rotors, dropped in as requested. It kicked up a storm of dust even from the blacktopped parking lot.

The Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven moved on board, loaded on the drag bags at l935, and lifted off two minutes later. Murdock showed the pilot on his map where he wanted to drop in.

“A recon plane reported that there should be no ground fire from that area,” Murdock said. The kid flying the chopper looked barely old enough to be out of high school. Actually he was a JG with probably five years of duty.

“Bring you in at that point in about eighteen minutes, sir,” the JG said. He wiped sweat off his forehead. “Sir, does this mean I’m getting combat pay?”

“Good guess, JG. Just be sure you live long enough to spend it. If we ask for a resupply, you’ll probably be coming in to the same spot we land today. Memorize where it is.”

They swept up and over the Naval base, then the town of Aiea. Beyond that it was green. This part of Oahu seemed to be made up of three elements, housetops, blacktopped streets and parking lots, and lush green foliage. Below, the landscape began to rise as they headed for the north end of the Koolau mountain range. The trees, shrubs, and grasses below were intoxicatingly green. Murdock knew that if he were down there they would even smell green.

They had planned to come in from the north, following Highway 83 from the village of Kahaluu south. When about two miles from Kaneohe they would swing inland and watch for the half-track trail through the brush and trees. By this time it was almost dark. Dusk came and went in a moment, and the pilots used night-vision goggles to check the landscape below.

It was a harder target than in daylight, but after five minutes of slow moving along the highway, the chopper pilot spotted the smashed-down grass and small trees. He picked out a cleared area nearby with a stark stone chimney standing by itself, all that was left of a previous dwelling.

“We go in about a minute,” Murdock told the troops. They were up in marching order, ready to run out of the bird as soon as the rear ramp dropped to the ground.

A light turned from red to green over the ramp and it lowered. The SEALs charged out, established a point twenty yards from the Sea Knight, then went back for the drag bags filled with ammo, explosives, and grenades.

Four minutes after landing, the Sea Knight took off and went back the way it had come to the north so it might escape detection by the Chinese troops on the ground.

The SEALs divided the bags and put two in each location. One by the chimney, the others by a struggling koa tree, about sixty feet tall.

Murdock had the men spread out, and used the Motorola to talk to them. “Recon said the main force of the Chinese is to the left, tucked up against the first rise of the mountains.

“We sit here for half an hour and see if they send out a patrol to investigate. If not, we move toward them or any elements they may have strung out around their main force. Remember, there are two thousand guns out there. We will not get in an all-out firefight with that kind of odds. We punch and run, shoot and haul ass. No heroics, nobody taking on a company or any of that shit. Everyone read me?”

He got a chorus of chirps on his earpiece.

“Good. Someplace along here the mountains come down closer to the ocean. Sometimes they hang back. This is one of those spots. In twenty-five minutes more we take a hike a mile due west and then start working south to find the bad guys.”

Lam, the platoon’s head scout and tracker, came on the net.

“Cap, we may not have to do much searching. Somebody is coming our way and not trying to be quiet. I’d guess there are six or seven of them, not more than fifty yards dead ahead.”