The pilot shrugged. “My skipper says to come home. We should land in about twenty minutes. Plenty of fuel. I’m going to stay over the ocean all the way down instead of cutting across. All of the commercial flights must be down. Good thing it’s light enough for them to land.”
Murdock went back to the troops and shouted the news to them. Sadler scowled. “Who the hell did it?” he asked.
“Could have been a power grid accident, explosion, almost anything to put down the whole West Coast grid,” Lam said.
“Who has our SATCOM?” Murdock asked.
“Back at the base,” Sadler said. “Didn’t think we’d need it.”
“Looks like we do, Senior Chief. But I don’t know if we could use it inside this bird or not. From here on out, I want that SATCOM glued to somebody’s back. Wherever we go, training or an operation. We have waterproofing for it?”
“No, sir,” Jaybird said.
“Everything except training swims and wet operations, we take the set. Senior Chief, get it waterproofed as soon as possible. Must be some gear that will do the job.”
“Copy that, Commander.”
DeWitt slid in beside Murdock. “Suppose this is some more of the North Korean attack?”
“Hadn’t thought about it, but sure as hell could be. Doesn’t take much to throw the whole grid into a blackout. All they would have to do is pick the right relay stations and a few major transmission lines.”
“How long was the power out before?” DeWitt asked.
“Don’t remember exactly. They found the problem almost at once and fixed it. As I recall, ten or twelve hours. Caused a horrendous mess.”
“Yeah, and now with the Internet and e-mail, think of the trouble it will cause. All business is shut down at the git-go. Can’t run a store without lights and cash registers. Oh, little places can get by, but not the big ones. Any on-line outfits are dead for the day or the week, and the stock market is deader than last year’s Super Bowl tickets.”
“Thanks, and the market was just starting on an upward trend,” DeWitt said.
Murdock went back to the pilot. “Check to see if there will be a bus or trucks waiting for us at your field.”
“My commander told me that the bus is there waiting. Has been since you took off. It can drive through Coronado, but there’s a huge traffic jam there with folks coming to work at North Island. No traffic lights. He says there are two radio stations still on using emergency generators. They keep telling people that when they come to an intersection to treat it like a four-way stop. Coronado has cops at the major intersections, but the whole thing is one huge mess. You might get back to your quarters faster if you hiked.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. We’ll see the lay of the land when we get there.”
A few minutes later, the twenty-four SEALs stepped out of the CH-46 after it had landed at North Island Naval Air Station, six miles from the SEALs headquarters. Murdock looked around. It was a little after 0745. He didn’t see the usual activity around the big base. The SEALs trooped fifty yards to the Navy bus waiting for them, and boarded with all their gear.
“Can you get us through the traffic?” Murdock asked. The Navy second class driving the bus shrugged. “Don’t have the faintest. The station sent most of the civilian workers home as soon as they got here, and that’s caused a reverse traffic jam. We’ll work it out and go around the ocean side. Might work.”
A half hour later the bus stopped in the NAVSPECWARGRUP-ONE parking area, and the SEALs traipsed over the Quarter Deck and into their quarters. Murdock and DeWitt stopped to talk with Master Chief Petty Officer Gordon MacKenzie. They had known each other for over six years.
“Well, Commander, lad, sir. A fine mess you’ve got us in this time. No juice at all, up the whole damn coast. Nobody has a shot glass of an idea what caused it, and evidently no idea about how to fix it.”
“You using your SATCOM?”
“Aye. Picking up lots of transmissions on all frequencies. Most are just short of panic calls.”
“Anything official?”
MacKenzie pulled out a small radio and turned it on.
“So, this is KFMB, one of two radio stations in San Diego still functioning. Our big turbine is spinning away driving the large generator and providing our station with power. So far we have received little information from the network. We have some receivers on covering many bands and frequencies. Up to now this is all we know for sure.
“Power is out all along the coast from the top of Washington State to San Ysidro. Most stores and businesses are closed. Traffic is snarled. No TV stations in town are on the air. Television takes a tremendous lot of power. We’re trying to get our sister TV station up, but so far no luck.
“What caused it? Nobody knows. Some emergency government agencies are swinging into action. We understand the county emergency radio system overlooking El Cajon has been staffed and will soon be operational. Power is out in what is called the Pacific Electrical Grid, which covers the coast states and most of Idaho, part of Montana, and all of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. It could be a long day and a horrendous night if they don’t figure out the problem.
“I have just received a call from a ham radio operator. All of you hams out there get your sets into operation and see what you can find out. This is a transmission from a woman north of Redding who says she witnessed a gigantic explosion in a huge electrical substation near her home. Redding is in the Central Valley about a hundred and ninety miles north of San Francisco. It’s a center where high-voltage power lines come in and power goes out in several directions. She said she’s seen a transformer explode on a pole.
“She assured my contact that it was a hundred times that big and loud. The whole area was covered with sparking wires and snapping and smoking for a half hour before it calmed down.
“Now, the question is, was there just one explosion like this one? Was it done deliberately or was it an accident? Could one large power substation blow out the entire electrical grid to seven-and-a-half states? I don’t know.
“A small update for you. Yes, most telephones are working. However, if you have a cell phone, it probably won’t. The cell phone repeater antennas need electricity to function. If you have a cordless phone that plugs into a socket and transmits your voice from handset to base, it probably won’t work. Ordinary phones use a very small amount of electrical power and are not connected to the electrical lines. So, you can call, but most circuits are so jammed that you can’t get through. Just sit tight, hang on, welcome your day of vacation, and hope they put the grids back on line soon. By the same logic, most long-distance calls won’t go through since they are often sent through microwave relay stations. Those stations here in the affected area are also down and out, so no long-distance calls.”
Murdock and DeWitt listened to the radio. Murdock shrugged. “Hey, I have an after-action report to do. I can write it on my battery-powered laptop, but won’t be able to print it. So I’ll print it out later.”
Murdock had just sat down in his small office at Platoon Three when his phone rang. It startled him. He grabbed it. “Murdock here sir,” he said.
“Good, you’re back.” It was Commander Masciareli, Murdock’s immediate superior. “I have my SATCOM on and just received a mission-well-done from the CNO. He also said nobody knows much about the power blackout. He suggested that your platoon be on standby. He had just come from a meeting with several federal agencies and they were concerned with the power blackout. By now they concede that it is sabotage, probably by the same North Korean elements who attacked San Francisco and shot down the jet passenger liner.”
“Yes, sir. I’d say that’s a good assumption,” Murdock said.
“He said one of the large power stations blasted is in the desert north of Palm Springs near Yucca Valley. Two witnesses saw the huge power substation there blow up; then two cars full of men drove off into the desert south toward the Little San Bernardino Mountains. So far nobody has tried to chase them down.
He wants your men to get airlifted up there and use your choppers to locate them and capture them if possible. The report said six to eight men in two vehicles.”
“Sir, we just got back.”
“At ease, mister. I know where you’ve been. You’ll have two hours of prep time, then lift off North Island at 1000 in two Forty-Sixes. Take all the ammo and weapons you can carry. The choppers will be your horses. Each will have a door gunner. That’s a go, Commander. You better get cracking.”
13
Murdock stepped into the assembly room where the SEALs were stowing gear in lockers, cleaning and oiling weapons, and filling their combat vests with the usual gear.
“Listen up,” Murdock said with more force than usual. “We’re on the button again. The CNO wants us to check out some men who blew up a power substation up by Palm Springs. We take off in two hours, so let’s pack up and get ready to move.”
“This is gunna ruin my love life,” Jaybird yelped.
“Hey, that redhead you dated last week said your love life had been ruined years ago,” Howard gibed. They all laughed, and it helped relieve some of the tension.
“These guys North Ks?” Lam asked.
“Nobody knows,” Murdock said. “We’ll go up and track them from the chopper, find, and engage. The boss wants a prisoner. We’ll have two birds with one squad in each.”
“Weapons mix?” Senior Chief Sadler asked.
“DeWitt, your call,” Murdock said.
“Take all seven Bull Pups, one EAR, one MG per squad, one sniper rifle per squad, and the rest MP-5’s. Let’s get working, people.”
Murdock repacked his combat vest along with the rest of them, and cleaned his Bull Pup. Then he slipped a standard-band battery-operated radio into one of the pockets. They might learn something from a radio station if he could find one. He made certain that the SATCOM had a fresh battery and that it was glued to Bradford when they stepped on the chopper.
* * *
The two CH-46’s flew on a straight line from North Island Air Station to Indio, jumped over the Little San Bernardino mountain range, and began a low-level search for tire tracks working north.
“We’re in the edge of the Joshua Tree National Park,” Murdock told the men in his bird. “Don’t know what we’ll find.”
The choppers were down to a hundred feet, roving along the edge of the mountains in a search pattern that moved slowly to the north. They passed Key’s View, and swung west with the curve of the mountain ridges, and were almost to the Black Rock canyon area before they found the twin tracks of two wheeled rigs entering the desert terrain.
“Got them,” DeWitt called on the Motorola. “Let’s swing around and follow them south. Don’t see where the hell they could hide in this wide-open desert kind of country.”
“Maybe back in one of the canyons leading into the mountains,” Murdock said. “Keep a sharp look.”
Lam went to one of the open side doors and sat there watching the terrain a hundred feet below. Sand, cactus, stunted desert growth. Not the Sahara, but not much plant life here either, with only three inches or less of rainfall a year. Here and there a gully showed where runoff came after a hard, quick rainfall. Along these watercourses, now long dry, there were smatterings of brush. Nothing large enough to hide a car.
They kept looking.
“There,” Franklin called. “I’ve got one rig turning off into that small watercourse moving into the hills.”
“We’ll take the turnoff,” Murdock shouted. “DeWitt, stay with the other one.” The commander went forward to tell the pilot to follow the turned tracks. Ahead they could see no sight of a car or anywhere it might hide. The arroyo became deeper, now ten feet below the level of the desert floor and twenty feet wide. It made a slow turn to the left, and ended suddenly a hundred yards ahead where a sheer rock wall a hundred feet high blocked the gully.
“What the hell?” Murdock asked no one. He had stayed in the small cabin.
The pilot looked at him. “Want me to lift up and see what’s above the rock wall?”
“No use, the car can’t go up there. Put us down back here about fifty yards from the wall and we’ll do some exploring.
“DeWitt,” Murdock said on the Motorola.
“Copy that,” DeWitt responded.
“We’ve found a dead end on the tracks against a stone wall. We’re landing and taking a look. This one car has to be here somewhere. You stay with the other tracks.”
“Got, it Commander. Will do. We’re still moving generally south, but have seen no car.”
Murdock touched the pilot’s shoulder. “As soon as we get off, you lift away and wait for us out of range. Could be some weapons down there and an RPG or two. We’ll use a red flare when we want to be picked up.”
The chopper slowed and lowered gently to the ground. Murdock stepped into the big cargo area.
“We don’t know what might be out there, so we take it slow and easy. I want a line of skirmishers and we’ll work up this side of the gully. I saw the car tracks back there about a hundred yards, so it has to be here somewhere.”
Murdock took the end of the line next to the gully, and looked at it carefully. Patches of soft sand showed the tire tracks. Where the hell could that vehicle be? They walked slowly forward, weapons with rounds in the chambers and safeties off.
Forty yards from the end of the gully, Murdock halted the men. Something wasn’t quite right about the bottom of the rock wall. If this gully had been gouged out after hard rains when the water had no place to soak in and came down this way, the water would have had to come from high in the mountains and spill over the sheer wall. A waterfall that high would carve out a serious hole in the sand in front of the wall. It could be ten or twelve feet below the level of the arroyo. There was no such hole here.
“Hit the dirt, men, and get behind any cover you can find. I’m going to shoot the wall at the end of the gully with a twenty and see what reaction we get.”
Alpha Squad dove to the ground, some men rolling into small depressions, or moving behind a handy rock. Murdock went prone, aimed at the center of the wall where the water should be coming from, and fired. The contact fuse detonated on impact, and when the smoke cleared, showed a two-foot-wide hole punched through a non-rock wall.
“Twenties, two rounds each at that wall. It has to be a cave in there. Fire when ready.”
The first three rounds shattered what turned out to be a wood wall built into the side of the granite slab. The next rounds slammed deep into the tunnel and exploded. When the fourteen rounds finished their killing ways in the cave, Murdock and the men sprinted for the side of the wall next to the opening. Smoke and dust filtered out of the cave.
“DeWitt. We’ve found a cave and it looks like one of the cars ran right into it. Do you have anything on the other rig?”
“Not yet, but we’re getting closer. We can see a dust trail ahead from the tires. Keep us informed.”
From what Murdock could see, the blasted opening was about eight feet high and ten feet wide. “Lam, take a look. Don’t go inside.”
Lam edged around the side of the cave and past a blown-apart stud wall, and peered inside from ground level.
“Can’t see much, Cap. Looks like one dead body about three feet back. He has a weapon. Still smoky in there.”
“No sign of the car?”
“Not a trace. It could have been driven back in there. The place is plenty big enough.”
“You sense any air currents coming out of the opening?”
“Yeah, now I do. Yes. Something is blowing the smoke out of the place. So it must have an air inlet somewhere.”
“Maybe a chimney or another entrance,” Murdock said. “Let’s give it five minutes to clear out and then we’ll work our way inside. Who brought flashlights?” The two-cell lights were standard on missions, but many times the men didn’t carry them. Murdock received ayes from five of his seven men. “Good, we’ll need them. Patrol order when we go in. Remember to
hold the lights at arm’s length from your body. Lam, edge into the place ten feet and hold, let me know what you can see.”
“Copy that, Skipper.”
Lam squirmed around the jagged piece of the wall and into the cave. At once he felt a temperature change from hot to less than hot, but not yet cool. He used the ambient light to stare into the cave, but could see little. The dead man’s head was turned away from him, so he couldn’t tell if he was Korean. He gave up and turned on the Maglite, holding it in his left outstretched hand. He scanned the floor just ahead of him checking for trip wires or pressure plates for mines. Nothing. He sectioned the rock floor and eased forward. When he was ten feet inside the opening, he had found nothing but rock walls, rock ceiling, and rock floor. It didn’t even look like it could be the channel of an underground river.
“Nada, Skipper. Just the one body and a whole potful of rock. No car, no tracks, no trip wires. Clear and benign.”
“Roger, Lam, we’re moving in. Take it easy and go out another twenty feet, but slowly and clearing the terrain as you go. Keep up a running commentary to us as you move.”
“Copy that, Skipper. Yeah, now I see where one of our twenties must have hit. Shattered some rock and dropped it on an otherwise clean rock floor. Might have been water that washed this rock clean of dust and dirt, I don’t know. Can’t figure it. Where the hell can it go? Can’t tell if it’s a man-made tunnel carved out of the rock, or if it was some kind of a volcanic tube. Don’t see how it could have been cut by this small volume of water coming through. This is solid damn granite.”
Lam kept moving. When he was twenty feet inside the cave he spotted a booby trap. “I’ve got a trip wire, Skipper. Not sure what the hell to do with it. Oh, yeah, followed the wire up the wall to a claymore. Looks like one of our own. Can Canzoneri get up here and disarm this thing?”
“No sweat, Chicken Lam,” Canzoneri said. “Hell, that’s the easiest kind to deactivate. Be there in about three if you guarantee there are no trip wires between you and me.”
“Guarantee. Bet your life on it. Move.”
Payback sts-17 Page 14
