Tropical Terror

7

Tran “Train” Khai went to the fence and looked at the locks and the electrical connection.

“No big problem, Commander. We still have that roll of commo wire?”

“Yeah, in back somewhere,” Jaybird said.

“We cut off the locks, then do a splice on one end of the electrical and tie it in on the other end with the twenty feet of commo wire. The circuit won’t be broken when we cut the present wiring, open the gate, and drive through holding the commo wire high overhead of the vans.”

“Do it,” Murdock said. “We’ll take along two EARs this time. I want the two snipers to use them. Leave your regular weapon in the truck.”

Horse Ronson brought up the long-handled bolt cutters, and took out the two padlocks in two quick snips. Train had the ends of forty feet of commo wire tied in with the ends of the electric cord. Then he cut the short electrical circuit and they pushed the gates open. The vans slipped under the commo wire, and they moved ahead down the lane.

Lam had come back from a quick recon.

“Cap, there are lights about a mile ahead. Looks like we’re in the middle of a huge pineapple plantation. There are one hell of a lot of lights. Outside security, it looks like.”

The vans had been driving with lights out. They kept moving until they could see the mansion’s lights around a corner. Murdock called a halt and checked the area through his field glasses.

“It’s a mansion, all right. Looks like they have put in a lot of security recently. A new chain-link fence for sure.”

DeWitt came up from the second van. “Surprised they don’t have a guard post out here on the road,” DeWitt said.

“Let’s dismount and form up,” Murdock said to the mike. “Alpha Squad move out of the van.” Murdock looked at the driver. “Can you handle a firearm?”

“Yes, sir.”

Murdock gave him an automatic pistol. “Don’t let anyone surprise you, and protect this rig and the gear inside. We’ll be back.”

“When?” the driver asked.

“Depends. A few hours, a few days. Take care.”

They moved toward the lights in patrol formation. It was the same formation they had used since BUD/S training in Coronado, a large diamond for quick deployment and total security all the way around.

Three hundred yards from the wire, Lam stopped and gave the down signal, and they all went to ground. Lam came back to Murdock and shook his head.

“Looks damn secure, Cap. There is one gate in this side section of the chain link. Can’t tell from here, but the fence looks like it could be electrified.”

“What are they doing in there?” DeWitt asked. He had come up beside the other two.

“Waiting for their money and guarantees,” Murdock said. “I can’t see how this was part of the overall invasion plans. This one had lots of preplanning and cooperation with the owner of the mansion.”

“So how do we get into this place?” Lam asked.

“Get Jaybird and Dobler up here,” Murdock told Lam. “This one is going to take some planning work.”

Inside the mansion at the pineapple plantation, Sing paced the elaborate living room. It was filled with hand-carved koa wood furniture, had silk prints on the walls, and fine carpets covering hardwood floors.

Sing wore the dress-blue uniform of a Chinese Naval commander. His lower jaw now slanted out as he stared at the monitors set up on one wall across from the large fireplace.

“Where is the night-vision camera? We are blind here without it. An enemy could now be slipping up on us and we would never know it until they killed us.”

An older Chinese man dressed in a simple robe of pure silk sat in a recliner, puffing contentedly on a marijuana cigarette.

“Young man. Did I tell you that these marijuana joints, as you call them, do little for me? There is a pleasant feeling, but that’s all. There is not the jolt of joy and wonder that the waterpipe can bring.” He was in his seventies. He frowned and stared at his wife’s second cousin from Beijing.

“You were asking about night vision. You have out your security guards. Surely that will be enough. There is little chance that the authorities will know you are on Maui, let alone find this retreat.”

“Honored Grandfather. I have not stayed alive this long in the Chinese Navy by working on a ‘little chance’ basis. I deal in absolutes. I won this assignment over a dozen other highly qualified candidates. If all else fails in this invasion attempt, this part of the plan must succeed. It is vital to the prestige and face of China.”

“From what you’ve told me, grandson, this is a fool’s errand carried out by idiots. What were your commanders thinking? Strike at the center of power of the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor? Come with one aircraft carrier and only thirty planes and poorly trained pilots to compete with the U.S. Navy’s crack carrier pilots? Someone is truly out of his head. Already I hear reports of one invasion force pasted against the mountains near Kaneohe on Oahu. What a stupid place to invade.”

Sing surged across the space between himself and the older man and lifted his hand to slap his grandfather, but at the last moment stopped.

A siren went off. Sing turned and ran out of the room to a smaller one where more electronics and controls were set up. The old Chinese man walked over and looked into the room.

“Couldn’t find us, could they?” said the lieutenant. “My sensors show a force of at least sixteen men is now approaching the north side of the plantation working through a pineapple field. Traitor! How did you tell the Navy where we were? How did you do it, old man? You have twenty seconds to tell me before I shoot you in the head.”

Jiang Peng smiled. He had long ago confronted death and it held no terror for him. The young countryman was not a danger.

“Young man, I do not fear death. I am not afraid of you. The Americans are close, so now you have much work to do to move your captives to the secret places you have prepared. Don’t worry about me. I did not notify the authorities. Why should I?

“Now, what defenses do you have and how much time to get done what you need to do?”

Sing hesitated. He shrugged and pushed the pistol back in his belt. Then he nodded.

“Yes, the men I have in front can handle a lot of problems. At best they have traced our radio signals. I thought I had the best technology. Somehow they defeated it. So I go from there.

“First the secret place. Yes.” He turned and hurried through the room to a long attachment that had once been a part of an early pineapple operation. He kept going to another shed, then into a hidden door that led to an underground area. It had been constructed some years back for a special mushroom-growing operation that never proved out. Now Sing had turned it into a hiding place for the captives.

He checked with the three guards on the walled-off section. The gate was strong and triple-locked. The guards had submachine guns and plenty of magazines. He nodded at them and hurried back to the previous section. Now he pushed a switch on the wall, and a jagged section lifted from the side and pushed in front of the walled-off section. It had dirt and litter and broken equipment in front of it.

Yes. The deception was complete. No one could suspect there was any structure beyond this point. He hurried back to the house and checked with the guards by radio. He had guards posted fifty yards from the mansion on all sides. Eight men lay in wait for any possible attack.

He had left the destroyer with fifty men in three small boats. He’d lost three of the men in the surf landing in the night. Now there were four men lost at the main radio transmitter.

At least the old man had shown him about the secret underground area and the fake wall. Jiang had had it built early on when he was doing a bit of smuggling. Four times the authorities had searched his lands and buildings, but had found none of the hidden goods.

Back in the mansion Sing checked the monitors. He had intrusion alarms set off in one section. The intrusion alarms were the vibration type that gave the intruder no warning that he had been spotted. How many of them? Where would they attack? Would it be with rifle fire or machine guns? His men could stand off a good bit of firepower.

Quickly he called half his defense forces to the side of the building where the sensors had gone off. Then he scowled at the monitor displays. He could see sensors going off all around one side of the place. It was as if hundreds of men were moving in at every angle to the mansion. Impossible. Rabbits? Maybe. He hurried to the side door away from the main thrust of the intruders and checked his pickup. It was gassed and ready. It was a two-year-old four-wheel-drive rig that could move out of the area quickly and into the back country with a select group of protectors. That would be a last resort, and he was sure he could stand off the squad of men he figured were out there. The other sensors? Now he understood it. There could be one or two men making a recon jogging around the mansion. That would set off the other sensors. Yes.

He went back to the north section, where the threat was. He had five men there with submachine guns. Sing took the night-vision glasses from his top man and studied the area in front. At first he couldn’t see anything move. Then he did. It looked to be no more than a squad or two of men moving forward cautiously. They were about two hundred yards away.

The lights were off in the rooms where he had his men stationed. He had two men open widows from the bottom and set up their submachine guns there.

“I have another section to get ready,” he told them. “In two minutes I want you to fire a hundred rounds at the intruders and scatter them.”

Sing nodded. That would scare them off. He hurried to the next room.

Outside, on the flat land inside the rows of pineapple, Murdock stopped his men at the two-hundred-yard point. He brought his platoon up to an assault line and kept them five yards apart. The chain-link fence had been only four feet high and was not electric. It also had two gates in it. It had not been put up for security. He used the Motorola.

“This is as close as we get. Who has the EAR rifles?”

Bradford and Fernandez spoke up on the radio.

“Have a man beside each of you use a 5.56 round and blast two windows on the ground floor in those two sections just ahead. One on each side of that side door. Then, with the windows punched out, put a round from the EAR in each area. Then we wait and see what happens. Set up and fire when ready.”

One sharp 5.56 round went off almost at once, followed by a second. Then the warmed-up EAR weapons gave off their hiss as the bolt of compressed sound slashed through the air, shot inside the building, and exploded with a withering sound that reminded Murdock of a clap of thunder going off next to him.

They waited. There was no return fire. There had been no lights on in the rooms closest to them. Lights still showed in other sections of the spread-out one-story mansion. Murdock could see the tennis courts in the moonlight. There were two of them side by side, probably near the swimming pools.

Five minutes later by his watch, Murdock moved his men forward. Lam took the two hundred yards at a sprint. At once he saw that all the glass in the windows had been blasted out and the door stood open, sagging on only one hinge.

Lam edged close to the door and peered around it using his NVGs. Inside the room in the dull green glow of the night-vision goggles, he saw books and papers scattered, some light furniture tipped over, and near the front windows, he found four men set up with submachine guns. All were unconscious. He darted in and tied all of them with riot cuffs on ankles and wrists, then met Murdock at the door.

“All down and out in here, Skipper,” Lam said. “Probably the same on the next section.”

Murdock used the radio. “We’re in. Let’s move forward and clear the building. Remember, there is valuable cargo here somewhere.”

They cleared three more rooms. Then, toward the center of the spread-out complex, they came to lights. It was a huge living room with a massive fireplace, and to one side they found an old Chinese man in a finely brocaded silk robe smoking a hand-rolled reefer.

The man was so calm, Murdock wondered if he was conscious. Then the old Chinese man waved the reefer and smiled faintly.

“Ah, yes, the ones who attack my home. I assure you, sir, that I have nothing to hide.”

Murdock sat down on a finely made sofa and watched the ancient man. He had no idea how old he was.

“We’re looking for the Chinese sailors who evidently took over your plantation. Where are the rest of them?”

“They were led by a young commander. He was here, but when you made such a dramatic and loud entrance, he moved on, probably to the far end of the house or into the packing sheds. This is a working plantation, you know. I grow some of the best pineapple in the islands. I’m not with any large company. I grow my own fruit. Did you know that it takes three years to produce a marketable pineapple?”

“I didn’t know that. Where are the two American Navy admirals and their families?”

The old man took another puff and offered the roach to Murdock, who shook his head.

“I saw them when they arrived, but have not seen them since. The young military man did not ask if he could come here. He invaded me. I am the victim here of a foreign attack. I’ll want compensation from the Chinese government.”

“You’ll have to get in a long line for that one. If you don’t mind, my men and I will check out the rest of your buildings.”

“Please. That young Chinese sailor was not at all the kind of person I wish to have in my home. Thank you for driving him away.”

“Oh, I don’t think that he’s too far away. We’ll find him. Enjoy your smoke.”

Murdock waved the rest of his SEALs through into more rooms. They found six bedrooms, three baths, two more large assembly rooms, and then at the back, a long refinished area that might have been part of the packing operation years ago. Now it was set up more like a playroom, with pool tables, Ping Pong, shuffleboard, and half a dozen dart boards.

They went through it quickly and came to the current packing sheds. Murdock met DeWitt coming back the other way.

“Nobody home, Cap. We’ve checked out the rest of the packing sheds. Found a barracks-like place with thirty sleeping bags in it and a whole shit-pot full of U.S. MREs. The foreign troops are getting desperate.”

“So he had thirty men here. We captured five up front. Where are the rest of them?”

“I checked with Lam with his rear guard at the back,” DeWitt said. “He said that no one had bugged out the back door. They’re still here somewhere.”

“Nooks and crannies wouldn’t do it. There has to be a secret room or a tunnel out of here somewhere. Let’s take this mansion apart until we find it. Won’t do any good to talk to the old Chinese guy who owns the place. He’s yelling for a payback for the damage to his windows.”

They went through the house again, and then a third time. After they had checked the house the first time with no escape out the back, Lam and his two men came in to help on the search. They turned on every switch they could find until the house blazed with light.

Still they found nothing.

Murdock noticed it first. There had been a four-by-four Ford pickup truck, a 350, the big one, parked alongside one of the packing sheds the first two times through. This time the pickup was gone.

Lam checked the tracks in the area. “Looks like eight or ten men pushed the rig down the slight slope all the way to the little road over there between the pineapples. Then they could start the engine and not be heard.”

“So, we’ve got two problems,” Murdock said. “We need to find the two fucking admirals and their families, but we can’t let the kidnapper get away in his pickup.” He stared into the night. “Guns Franklin,” he said on the radio. “Leave your combat vest and weapon here and run back to the vans, and have them both drive up here as damn fast as you and they can get here. Go, now.”

“Roger, Cap. I’m out-a-here.”

“Hey, JG, I think I’ve found something,” the radio chirped. “Down at the end of the packing shed. It looks like a door that leads down into some kind of underground tunnel or room or something.”

“Hold right there,” Murdock said. “We’re coming down there to take a look.”