Tropical Terror

5

Jaybird still held the bloody knife in his right hand. As long as he didn’t move, the officer wouldn’t see him for a few more seconds. He kept coming closer. Now he was twenty-five feet away, then twenty. Jaybird pulled up the knife holding the blade above the blood.

Three seconds later the Chinese lieutenant looked directly at Jaybird and started to yell. The knife was already on its way. It spun once and the blade jolted through the officer’s tailored shirt, driving through his rib cage, and piercing all the way through his heart. He stumbled, tried to grab the pistol at his side. Before he could get to it, his knees buckled and he fell forward on his face in the dead leaves and grass of the forest floor. He never moved again.

Jaybird retrieved his knife, wiped it clean on the officer’s shirt, and hurried toward the center of the cleared section. He saw movement ahead and whipped up his MP-5, then saw it was Horse Ronson. He ran to Ronson and fell in behind him.

Lam worked back to the head of the column, and kept them moving for fifteen minutes more before he stopped. Murdock and DeWitt went forward and checked it out.

“Six campfires dead ahead,” Lam said. “I don’t see the damn half-track anywhere.”

“Figures,” Murdock said. “A blocking force. Smart. Makes me wonder who’s running this invasion. Why are they letting this outfit just sit here? It could be going over the mountain or do an end run along the coast for Honolulu.”

Murdock stared at the six campfires. “So, we split up. DeWitt, you take your squad and Lam and go around the left side. Circle around looking for those half-tracks. Alpha Squad will do the same thing on this side. If you don’t find a target by midnight, pull back eight hundred yards and fire sixty of the exploding twenties at tents or any target you can find. The range finder doesn’t care if it’s dark or not.”

“Where we going to hole up for the daytime?” Lam asked.

“How about up the slope here a ways,” Murdock said. “Gives us a good lookout and we can see what the Chinese are doing.”

“How will we find you?” Lam asked.

Just follow the delightful aroma of the MREs.” Murdock chuckled. “We’ll be working the half-track search from this side. If we don’t find anything we’ll shoot our sixty rounds at midnight. Otherwise, blow the half-track, then shoot the sixty rounds. If one squad finds a rig before midnight, the other will jump in with the twenties at the same time. Let’s do it.”

The squads split, giving the blocking force plenty of room, and went around it. Jaybird worked the point for Alpha Squad, and they soon found a faint track that Jaybird said probably was one half-track instead of four or six on the same trail.

The track through the brush and trees made hiking much easier than it would have been crashing brush. They’d be doing plenty of that before this mission was over.

Ten minutes ahead they came to another campsite. This was the main one. Over fifty fires were still burning. The SEALs were close enough to see figures around the fires. They saw only a few tents, the size that the U.S. Army used to use for officers.

Jaybird shook his head. “No sign of the half-track. It turned in here, but nothing shows.”

The camp was pasted against the side of the sudden rise of the Koolau mountain range.

“Maybe some altitude will give us a better idea where to look,” Murdock said. “That first little ridge up there maybe three hundred feet.”

It took them a half hour to climb up the slope, which was steeper and tougher than it looked. Once up, Murdock told the men to flake out for a while. He found a lookout spot, dug out his binoculars, and studied the moonlit camp below him. It stretched to the right for a quarter of a mile, maybe more.

Some background sound kept nudging at his consciousness. He listened closer and then had it. A small gas-powered generator motor. That would be for the major and his staff. But Murdock had no idea where it was. There were no electric lights burning anywhere that he could see.

Murdock made a note to get the generator when they could find it, then looked at the rest of the situation.

He tried the radio. DeWitt came in on the second try.

“Barely hear you, Cap. We’ve got a line on two of the half-tracks. One is almost on the edge of the camp, the other one fifty yards inside past about a hundred sleeping men.”

“Do the first one with C-5 if you can, and target the second one with your twenties,” Murdock said. “What’s your timing?”

“We’re set up now. I’d say Lam and Train Kahi will go in about fifteen minutes. Your twenties into the camp will help us on our getaway.”

“Good, circle to the south. We’re about a third of the way along the camp and on a cliff three hundred feet over the valley floor. When you get closer we’ll give you some directions.”

“That’s a Roger. We’re in motion here.”

“Good luck.”

Murdock spent the next ten minutes placing his weapons. Ronson still had his H & K 21-E machine gun. Bill Bradford had the sniper rifle. The rest of the squad had the twenties, and they all would fire into the camp as soon as they heard the first blast from Bravo Squad.

“As soon as we fire, we’ll bug out and move at least two hundred yards up the ridge, so if they have any large counter-battery, it won’t touch us,” Murdock said.

A few minutes later the silence of the Hawaiian night burst open with a brilliant flash followed by a slow-moving crack of a dozen thunderclouds as the C-5 went off in the Chinese camp below.

“Let’s do it,” Murdock said into his radio mike. The machine gun chattered first. His shots fell short, and he raised his sights and kept firing five-round bursts. The range finder laser beams had done their work, and the first few rounds hit squarely in the middle of the rash of campfires below.

The airbursts tore into anything they could find, from sleeping bodies to supplies, weapons, and food. A large fire started that Jaybird said looked like a tent to him. Each of the five weapons fired twelve rounds. Then the sniper rifle and the MG closed down as well, and the men moved to the right more toward the center of the long thin camp. They found a new ledge off the ridge that would serve them well, and settled down.

They had heard firing from across the way, and it continued a short time after their own rounds had been used.

Murdock tried the Motorola again.

“Ed, you still there?”

“Fit and hearty and moving. Lam got the half-track, blew it to hell, and got out all right. We’ve taken a little return fire, but not much. So far no casualties.”

“Bug out around the north end of the camp and get up against the hills. We’ll get you into home port here somehow. Let us know if you hear or feel any kind of pursuit.”

“Roger that. We’re jogging. Out.”

They waited. Half the fires in the camp below went out. Murdock figured that within ten minutes the rest of the fires would be snuffed and the camp would revert to just another shadow in the green Hawaiian hills.

He pulled Ron Holt up with the SATCOM, and they tried to remember what frequency the carrier Jefferson used. Holt tried three, and on the third one received a response.

The conversations were all encrypted and spat out, then turned back into the spoken word on the other end through the right encrypter machine.

“Jefferson, this is Murdock. Who am I speaking with?”

“Commander Hollingsworth. We’ve been told to watch for your signal. A party named Stroh has urgent need to contact you. He said if you call to ask you to get on TAC fourteen at Pearl. He said any time day or night. Any problems we can help you with?”

“Not at the moment. Thought I might have a target for you, but it’s dark down there now. We’ll call Stroh. Keep our gear safe. We’ll be back to the ship eventually. Murdock out.”

“TAC Fourteen? We don’t have a Fourteen,” Holt said.

“Is it on a dial?”

“Yeah.”

“Dial in fourteen and see what happens.”

“Okay, yeah, I did. The number is holding. I’ll give it a try.”

Murdock contacted Stroh on the third call.

“Murdock, glad I caught up with you. You’re operational there now, I know, but a few dozen other items have come up. How is it going?”

The CIA man received a quick summary of activities from the SEAL. “Tomorrow morning we’ll see what kind of damage we did and decide what else to do,” Murdock said. “On the other hand, the Chinese may put out two hundred troops on a destroy mission and we’ll be running for our lives. You at Pearl?”

“Yes, and with some news.”

“Hold the news. Tell our liaison there that we may want that red-signature chopper back here for a pickup at any time. I want that bird on ten-minute call for us and nobody else.”

“We can do that. Admiral Bennington is pleased with your work on the commo shack. I’ll talk to Commander Johnson and keep the bird ready for you.

“Next, they found out an hour ago that there has been an invasion of Kauai. The admiral is putting together a task force to head out there. Recon planes estimate the forces there at something like fifteen hundred. Our other recon shows the Chinese stalled against the mountains inland from Kaneohe. Why the hell did they come onshore there and drive into the mountains?”

“Could have been a mistake. Probably their target was Kauai with the rest of the troops. I’d suggest you tell the admiral we think an air strike on these men would be advisable. Can’t hurt any civilians. There aren’t any out here now if there were in the first place. Some air strikes would keep them occupied and cut down the number you’ll have to mop up with the Marines sooner or later.”

“I’ll tell him you suggest the air strike. It could come from the Jefferson. She’s steaming closer to shore now off Maui. You have your Mugger along so you can give them precise coordinates?”

“Affirmative. What else?”

“They may want your guys to check the underwater approaches to Kauai. I know, I know. How much could the Chinese construct in twenty-four hours? Then there has been a concern about a pair of missing admirals who were vacationing on Maui with their families.”

“Do you know how the Chinese slipped up on Hawaii even better than the Japs did fifty years ago?”

“It was a friendship tour of a Chinese strike force. Labeled as a goodwill gesture for all our differences in the past. State loved the idea. My boss hated it. He said just one miscue and the whole of Hawaii could go up in smoke. As I guess it is. So what should I tell the admiral?”

“About what? We’re not done here yet. In the morning we’ll take a look and see what’s happening. A sunup missile and straffing attack would be good, before they have a chance to disperse.”

“I’ll tell the admiral.”

“Tonight.”

“It’s a little after midnight, Murdock.”

“Good, give him something to do. Tonight.”

Lam brought Bravo Squad into the area and three radio directions later, the group hiked up to the rest of the platoon.

They had out two guards that night. Murdock took the first two-hour shift until 0200. He woke up Ronson and told him to get Ching up at 0400.

Murdock listened during his watch, but he didn’t hear the Chinese moving out of their camp. It would be a complicated operation. Where could they move to?

Murdock was up with the sun. He hoped to see at least ten Navy fighters jolting across the Chinese camp below. Then he realized that he hadn’t given Stroh the coordinates. No matter, the camp wouldn’t be hard to find.

He went out on the edge of the ridge and looked down at the Chinese camp. He saw the burned-out tent first. Could have been a mess tent or for officers. Smoke came from what he guessed was the kitchen. With his field glasses he could spot the individual clusters of men. They must be in company groups. Fifty platoons of forty men each.

For a moment Murdock felt cold sweat on his neck. What if all two thousand of them turned and stormed up the hill on assault fire? He and his men wouldn’t have a chance. Below him, he saw the camp slowly come to life. He wasn’t sure how they cooked, but there was no central mess. Maybe each company had a cook. Just as he was about to wake up the rest of the platoon, two F-18’s came slamming over the valley no more than twenty feet off the tops of the greenery. They made one sweep across the Chinese camp, then another the other way.

A chopper lifted up from behind some trees and a bullhorn blared out a message in Mandarin. Ching ran up beside Murdock and translated.

“Men of China. You have been led on a suicide mission. You are unsupported. Last night you took deadly fire. The warplanes that just departed will be back unless you fly a white flag and surrender at once. If you need medical help, a medical unit will be flown in within the hour to treat your wounded. Signify your acceptance of the surrender with white flags. Do it now.”

To Murdock’s surprise white flags were waved in every section of the small valley.

The chopper came closer to the edge of the camp.

“Very well. Now put your weapons in stacks in each of your units. Lay them down, unloaded, and form up in a column of fours.”

As the Chinese did as instructed, four Sea Knight helicopters lifted from below some trees and swept into the camp. They landed in four spots well apart from each other, and twenty-five Marines in full combat gear poured out of each one.

The Marines settled the Chinese down in their formations. They inspected each man, then when satisfied, marched the Chinese out of the area in groups of two hundred.

The chopper with the bullhorn had been quiet while the Marines completed the surrender. Then the sound came on again.

“Commander Murdock. If you and your men are in the area, give us a green flare.”

“Got it,” Jaybird said, and fired a flare from his Colt Commando carbine.

“Good, Commander. You’re wanted back at Pearl. If you and your men can work down to the camp here, we’ll get you outbound on the first chopper. There is some urgency. It’s a red-signed order.”

“Let’s move it,” Murdock said into the Motorola. “We wouldn’t want to keep Admiral Bennington waiting, now would we?”

They hiked down the hill and watched the last of the Chinese move out with their Marine escorts. The chopper with the bullhorn had landed, and now a Marine captain came over to meet Murdock.

“Commander, looks like your attack last night changed some minds down here. The hospital chopper is on the way. We have twenty-seven dead and over a hundred wounded. The minor wounds are marching out. There are still thirty that need attention here.”

“Murdock grinned. “Captain, we do our best. Which chopper is ours? We have to make a stop at a burned-out house down the valley a ways. Have some goods and ammo to pick up from our stash.”

They landed at Pearl about an hour later and Murdock, DeWitt, and Senior Chief Dobler were driven to the admiral’s headquarters. The admiral looked like he hadn’t slept all night. He hadn’t.

“Is it Kauai, Admiral?” Murdock asked.

“No, no. The aircraft carrier Jefferson took care of that late last night and early this morning. No, we have a much tougher problem. Sit down, gentlemen. This is going to take some time, and some planning.

“It’s those two admirals you’ve heard about. A highly radical nationalistic cell from one of the Chinese destroyers went onshore at Maui two days ago and kidnapped the admirals and their whole families. They are demanding the release of all captives and reparations for Chinese killed and ships sunk or damaged. If we don’t agree to their demands, they will send us the head of one of the members of the admirals’ families every four hours, starting with the youngest and working up. We already have the head of a little girl of five or six. I don’t want to see another one. The deadline for hearing from us is twelve hundred hours.

“Commander, you have to take your men in and kill those sonsofbitches and rescue the admirals and their families before anyone else is murdered.”