The ground literally shuddered. In fact, the whole darned island shook from end to end. The flash from about fifty thousand-pound bombs lit up the night. Three minutes later, staring from the hill on which they had paused, the SEALs could see plainly the raging fires in the shed at the perimeter of the airfield.
They could also see headlights from two or maybe three vehicles speeding toward the area, down the track. Rick stared at his watch and just faintly discerned another shudder in the ground as all fifteen aircraft back down the runway exploded with dull numbing force.
None of them would ever fly again, and Rick doubted if the Argentine military would even have noticed, given their present proximity to perhaps the mightiest blast in the Southern Hemisphere since Krakatoa blew its stack in 1883. Even if they did, they would surely have put it down to yet more detonations in the ammunition store.
"That's it for us, guys," he snapped. "Now, to utilize an old SEAL phrase, let's get the fuck out of here."
He checked the compass, checked the GPS, and led the way. They ran three times as fast as they had on the inward journey. Except for their weapons and ammunition clips they were empty-handed, racing across the biting wind, over the flat, cold, sparse ground, headed straight for the beach.
They covered the final half mile in probably record time and raced into the hide, hurling themselves into the shelter of the rocks, Dallas and Ron Wallace laughing, gazing back at the brightly lit sky to the west, watching the occasional violent explosion.
The time was 0230 and the sea was still pounding.
"We going, sir? In this?" Mike Hook sounded concerned.
"We're going, Mike. In this," replied Rick. "Because at first light someone's going to know we were here, because they'll find the blown aircraft. It'll take 'em about an hour to have a massive search party operational, and they'll be combing this island with helicopters. I don't care where we are six hours from now, just so long as we're not on Pebble Island."
For the next half hour the SEALs ate on the run. Ed Segal made ham-and-cheese sandwiches, while they carried their gear down to the water's edge. Then they upended the boats and carried them both down to the same spot. Separately they hoisted the engines down to the boats, and bolted them on to the stout wooden transom of the inflatables, connected the fuel lines and the electric wires to the oversized batteries. Finally they went back for the extra fuel cans and carried them down to the departure zone.
They were all wearing their heavy-duty wet suits and life jackets, but in this surf there was no question of keeping the boats sufficiently still in the water to load them while they floated. So they piled their gear into the inflatables at the seaward end of the beach. Then came the tricky part.
Once more Rick Hunter lined his four-man team up. In the lead boat he was taking Mike Hook, Bob Bland, and Ron Wallace. Don Smith would provide the heavy muscle at the starboard bow of the second boat with Dallas, the second Team Leader, on the port bow. Brian Harrison and Seaman Segal would work at the stern.
With the inflatables now loaded with all the SEALs' worldly goods, they simply could not afford to capsize, and, standing in the shallows, Commander Hunter went over the drill again.
Wait for the wave to break and roll in, then haul the boat in 'til it floats…then take your positions and shove like hell, straight at the next wave…head-on to the break…
Rick pumped his right fist and added, "The moment you feel the bow riding up …Get in!!..Up and over the side…Helmsman!! Hit the ignition and open the throttles…The other three get on the bow…Weigh the nose down…and for Christ's sake, hang on to the handles."
Commander Hunter did not hear one "Aye aye, sir." However, he did hear two "Fuck mes," a couple of "Holy shits!" and a "Jesus Christ!" Personally, he had but one nagging thought in his mind…If Di could see me now she'd have a heart attack.
He made one final check, saying quietly, "Everything loaded…no traces left behind?"
"Only the biggest fire since the Brits burned down Washington," muttered Dallas, in his Southern drawl, pronouncing the armies of His Britannic Majesty Bree-yuts.
Everyone grinned in the dark, and Rick Hunter said firmly, "Boats to the shallows…we're going together…watch for the wave…and when I shout ‘Go,' move it!!"
They seized the handles and hauled the boats down the slope and into the inches-deep foaming water. Despite the lightness of the rubberized hulls, the SEALs were appalled at the weight now that the engines were fixed. Rick and Dallas primed the fuel lines and quickly tested the ignition and starter motors. Then they stood, facing the incoming Atlantic, waiting for Commander Hunter to select the right wave.
All seamen know the ninth wave in the succession is often markedly bigger than the previous eight, and Rick waited, counting and watching for the big one. When it came the water came tearing in around the SEALs' knees. And Rick knew the next one would be smaller.
"Okay, guys…into the water and let the next wave suck out…we'll go on the following wave…"
The next wave came in with a crash, but not so heavily as the previous one. The moment it started to suck out, Rick Hunter roared, "Go!! Go!! Go!!" And they heaved the boats forward until the water took the weight away, and then they shoved with every ounce of their considerable strength.
The inflatables surged forward for twenty yards as they hammered through the surf in the pitch dark, guided only by the phosphorescence in the ocean. They could see the next roller coming straight at them, maybe eight feet high. And they felt the bow rise, until Rick bellowed above the buffeting wind, "Now!!..Get in!!..For Christ's sake, get in!!"
All eight of them grabbed and leaped, floundering inboard with the boat's bow rising upward. Ron Wallace was first. He hit the starter and the big twin Yamahas roared. The other three dived onto the bow and hung on.
In the other boat, Ed Segal hit the starter two seconds behind Ron. Both helmsmen hit the button to lower the engines fully and simultaneously rammed open the throttle. They surged up the face of the wave, but in the rush for the bow, now rising forty-five degrees from the horizontal, Mike Hook slipped and slithered over the side, half in the water, half out, still hanging on, but with only one hand.
With a totally outrageous display of strength, Rick Hunter, lying flat on the short curved bow, grabbed Mike's elbow, left-handed, and hauled him back on board.
And now the wave was breaking, and threatening to turn the boat over backward, but Ed held the throttle open, and suddenly they burst through the crest in a gale of windswept foam and roared forward into the calmer waters beyond the surf.
Rick glanced right and saw Ron Wallace come surging toward him, and the big Zodiacs bumped together.
"Hell, Rick, that was beyond the call of duty," yelled Dallas.
"Duty?" called Mike Hook. "He just saved my fucking life."
"Shut up, Hook," said the Commander, "or I'll have you charged with desertion in the face of the enemy…now fall in, guys, and follow me through the Tamar Pass…it's gonna be a little rougher out there…and we got an eight-mile run along the shore into the Sound…just follow our speed. We're staying real close to the shore."
"We turning in at White Rock Point?" asked Dallas.
"No choice, kid. And anyway, if there's any Args still up there, you can be damn certain they're pretty busy staring at that airfield right now. We'll just creep around slowly, but I'm damn sure that garrison is deserted."
Dallas and his team fell in, line astern, and Rick ordered Ed to make for the flashing light up ahead at flank speed. "This channel's deserted," he said. "We gotta make time while we can. It's 0400 and we need shelter before 0600 when it starts to get light."
The twenty-four-foot Zodiacs made for the pass, making twenty-five knots through the short, choppy sea, slicing through the tops of the waves, riding the stump caused by the howling propellers.
Ed Segal, steering the lead boat, could see the flashing light coming up, on his starboard bow, and arrowed the Zodiac forward, coming off red
two degrees, to leave it a hundred yards off his beam. And as he did so, they felt the swell of the open ocean deepen, and the bow rode up alarmingly.
They surged down into the trough, and Ed Segal, with a seaman's instinct, rammed back the throttle just in time, cutting the speed instantly back to five knots, allowing them to ride up the incoming wave rather than plummet headlong into its front wall and take a half ton of green water on board.
"Great job, Eddie!" called Rick above the wind, and he glanced behind to note Ron Wallace had similarly cut his speed. Then the Commander stood and yelled to everyone, "This won't last…it's just where the tide is rushing through this bottleneck…soon as we break to the right, it'll flatten out a little…but it'll still be rougher than it was in Pebble Sound…Now keep it moving!!"
In another age, Commander Rick Hunter would surely have stood shoulder to shoulder with Jones in the burning Bonhomme Richard.
They chugged through the seething tide for another four hundred yards, then made their ninety-degree hard turn to starboard. Right now they were being pursued by a driving four-knot Atlantic surge on their port quarter. It made steering tough because it threatened to nudge the boat ever inshore, toward the rocks.
But Segal and Hunter were its masters. Rick ordered the helmsman to come off eight degrees from their due east, zero-nine-zero course…Come left…little more, Ed…this way we'll get a decent shove from the tide without being forced inshore all the time…now make your speed fifteen…no more for the next half hour…that's for seven miles…then we better slow right down.
Hard astern the sky was still lit up by the burning ammunition store, but right ahead there was a heavy darkness, visibility not twenty feet, even with a bright western horizon. According to the softly lit GPS they were only 350 yards offshore, but the depth gauge showed a hundred feet of water.
This was surely the most dangerous part of the operation — exposed out here right off the north shore of West Falkland, easy prey for any Argentinian warship or helicopter. The slightest suspicion of the SEALs' presence would have put the entire Argentinian Army, Navy, and Air Force into a collective war dance swearing vengeance. Rick Hunter shoved the thought to the back of his mind.
And Ed Segal and Ron Wallace kept going forward into the night, confident of the U.S. military intelligence, sure of their leader, and certain these seas were utterly deserted, as specified by SPECWARCOM in their last satellite communication.
The Argentine military had switched off here in the waters north of the Falkland Islands. Their enemy had gone home, and so far as they could see, nothing else was threatening — except for a band of sheep-stealing brigands who appeared to have kidnapped a four-man patrol somewhere to the landward side of Port Sussex over on East Falkland, twenty miles away from Pebble.
The calm in these northern waters was, of course, a situation that would hold only for perhaps four or five more hours, until the Air Force ground staff established incontrovertible evidence that someone had blown the bombers on the Pebble Island air base. And then all hell might break loose. Nothing was more important for Rick Hunter than to get as far away from here as possible, and pray that SEAL Team Two would blow up Mare Harbor and everything in it sometime this morning and give his guys a bit of breathing room.
They pressed on along the coast, gaining some shelter from the offshore wind, which had now backed around to the southwest. But it was still freezing cold, and whoever had insisted the SEALs wear their wet suits for this entire operation deserved, in Commander Hunter's opinion, some kind of a medal.
The maximum possible speed, without swamping the boat and jolting the hell out of everyone, was still fifteen knots. The Zodiacs were outstanding in a sea, once they were riding the stump of the Yamahas, driving smoothly along the wave tops, drawing less than a foot of water. The trick was to get the speed dead right — thirteen knots would have been choppier as the boat sagged into the water, but eighteen knots would have thrown them out of tune with the quartering sea. On second thought, Rick Hunter decided, both helmsmen, Ed and Ron, deserved medals.
Huddled behind the windshields, trying to keep down out of the cold, the U.S. Navy SEAL team took another half hour to make White Rock Point. They never saw a boat, never heard an aircraft, never even saw a light, neither onshore nor at sea.
They cut back the throttles at the sight of the flashing beacon on the point, and came trundling slowly over the shallow kelp beds with engines slightly raised, and into Falkland Sound. Rick Hunter ordered a course change to one-seven-zero to bring them back into the south-running channel, and at this speed, on much calmer waters, they made hardly a sound, even in the shattering silence of the night.
But they did make some sound, and an alert military surveillance system would have picked it up. Commander Hunter could only ascertain there was no one around, that the Argentinians had abandoned all forms of observation in the remote, scarcely populated northern waters of both West and East Falkland. Coronado, as usual, was correct.
After two miles, running at only eight knots, Commander Hunter ordered another change—"Two-two-five, Eddie…we want to head down the shore of West Falkland, slowly, for about eight miles. That's when we turn away and find shelter…"
"You know where we do that, sir?" asked Ed Segal.
"Sure," said the Commander. "We'll head into Many Branch Harbor…that's to our right, a landlocked bay with only one narrow entrance…"
"Wouldn't want to get caught in there, would we?" said Mike Hook. "Not with only one way out."
"It would be almost impossible to get caught in there," said Rick. "It has probably six narrow bays within the bay, three of them a couple miles long. And there's probably another three just as sheltered. Plus the place is surrounded by mountains, some high, some lower, but protective hills. We could hole up in there for a month and never be found."
"Unless we got spotted by some goddamned shepherd, sir — isn't this place supposed to be covered in sheep?"
"Not in Many Branch Bay, Mike. It doesn't even figure on Coronado's Falklands farming chart — and the words settlement or sheep station do not appear in a fifteen-mile radius of the harbor. These Royal Navy charts are excellent, and this doesn't show even a dock, or a group of moorings."
"Anyway, we land in the dark, and leave in the dark, right?" said Mike. "How long are we in there for?"
"If we get through to Foxtrot-three-four — we'll be gone by 2030 tonight."
0900, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27
ARGENTINE MILITARY GARRISON
GOOSE GREEN, EAST FALKLAND
Goose Green — Mount Pleasant HQ. We have reports of a massive attack on the airfield at Pebble Island. All fighter aircraft destroyed, ammunition dump still blazing, everything destroyed. No casualties, but Pebble air base requests assistance for aerial surveillance. Proceed all three helicopters to Pebble Island immediately, with troops embarked. Repeat, proceed to Pebble Island. Runways and landing areas intact.
Will extra assistance fly up from Mount Pleasant?
Affirmative. Six helicopters and three fixed-wing aircraft, containing a detachment of seventy-five troops.
Do we have a warship in the area?
Negative. But destroyer scheduled to depart Mare Harbor at 1100 today.
We're on our way, sir.
The problem with that final piece of Argentinian naval intelligence was that it would never happen. Even as the radio communications flashed between Mount Pleasant and Goose Green, U.S. Navy SEAL Lt. Commander Chuck Stafford and his underwater team were edging their way back to their base camp meeting point on the shores of East Cove.
They had been holed up for three days, with all their gear and two inflatables in a deep cave right on the shore, which had the inestimable advantage of flooding to a depth of almost two feet at high tide. This meant they kept everything in the boats, and jumped aboard, all twelve of them, when the cave floor started to submerge.
Their getaway was timed for the rising tide at 1900 this evening, when there
would be just sufficient water in the cave to escape fast, approximately ninety minutes before the tide peaked at 2030.
More significant, however, was the fact that the veteran explosives expert Stafford and five of his crack underwater crew had attached limpet bombs to all four of the Argentine warships currently moored in Mare Harbor, two old Type-42 destroyers and two guided-missile Exocet frigates.
They were timed to detonate at 2230, which gave the fleeing SEALs ample time to make the three-mile journey back to their cave, over very rough ground, and then get well under cover for the blasting of Mare Harbor.
Right now, Lt. Commander Stafford and his team were cooking hot soup on their Primus. And no one south of Coronado, except for the crew of USS Toledo, had the slightest idea they were there.
Forty miles away to the northwest, Commander Hunter's team were hunkered down in the long narrow landlocked bay that runs to a cul-de-sac, southwest out of the main harbor, following the line of the shore.
After a two-hour search they found this utterly desolate spot and chugged into a fifty-foot inlet surrounded by rocky cliffs perhaps fifteen feet high. Rick Hunter had taken one look at it and ordered Brian Harrison to jump out and see what he could see from the cliff top to the east.
The SEAL Petty Officer climbed the easy sloping rock face and was gone for fifteen minutes. When he returned, he told them, "There's a line of low hills about two hundred yards from here. From the top I can see the Sound, way beyond the entrance to the harbor. Aside from that there's nothing, not even a house, not even a shed. And no sheep."
Rick Hunter had already dismissed the idea of any warship coming after them because the water through the harbor entrance was too shallow, maybe eight feet. Even a patrol boat would think twice.
Which essentially meant that the two teams of United States Navy Special Forces, the specialists from SPECWARCOM, were, for the moment, safely in their daytime quarters, unseen, and unknown to their enemy. Which was the way they liked it.
On the other hand, on the far distant shore, Captain Jarvis and his team were slightly the worse for wear. They had made their way to a lonely hillside above Egg Harbor, and positioned themselves in a gully from where they could see down to the waters of Falkland Sound. However, the damn place had little vegetation, and they'd used up much of it on the first night, when they cut the gorse and pulled up grass to give themselves shelter from aerial search.
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