Death Blow sts-14

by Keith Douglass

  Murdock nodded in response. He saw Stroh sitting across the table from them and waved at him.

  “This little Chinese village is three miles inland, and about seven hundred miles by air from us here,” the admiral continued. “We have some assets in the area, namely two destroyers and a light cruiser. The destroyers are about a hundred miles off Macao and steaming south as we speak to get in position as close to the village as possible while staying twenty miles at sea.”

  “Yes sir,” Murdock said. “We can work off a destroyer if it’s cleared to land a CH-forty-six.”

  The admiral looked at one of his aides.

  “In that area is the Guided Missile Destroyer Gonzalez,” a three-striper said. “I know that she can service and rearm the SH-60 chopper.”

  “That fits,” Jaybird said. “The sixty has a rotor diameter of just over fifty-three feet. The forty-six has a rotor diameter of fifty-one feet so it should work.”

  The admiral looked at Murdock. “Sir, I rely on my men to assist in all phases of an operation. If Jaybird says the CH-46 will fit on the deck, sir, it will.”

  The admiral frowned, then shrugged. “Fine. Now how to we get a forty-six to the Gonzalez?”

  “Sir, we have the Amphibious Assault Ship Bataan about two hundred miles north and west of the Gonzalez,” a captain near the Admiral said. “She has six or eight of the CH forty-sixes. The Bataan is about four hundred miles south of Kaohsiung on the tip of Taiwan. We have three of the forty-sixes there.”

  “So she’s within range of the destroyer.” The admiral looked up. “I can order the chopper to fly to the destroyer whenever you say, Commander. I’ve had word through channels directly from the CNO that you are to get whatever you want.”

  “Thank you, sir. We’ll need two hours to plan out the operation. Do we have any kind of visual on the area, on the house, or the beach along there?”

  The admiral looked at his staff. Each man shook his head.

  “Not a thing. You’ll be going in blind. I do have one directive. We are not to commit any more aircraft than absolutely necessary to the operation. One chopper in and out would be the preference of the CNO. He said that way there will be less flack when China accuses us of violating her airspace and committing aggression on Chinese soil.”

  “And we accuse her of kidnapping three U.S. citizens,” Murdock said.

  “Two of whom have dual Chinese citizenship,” Ed DeWitt said.

  “Really?” Admiral Chalmers asked.

  “Yes, as I understand Chinese law,” DeWitt said.

  There was a pause. Everyone looked at the admiral. He reached for his pipe. He picked it off its decorative stand on his desk, carefully cleaned the bowl while the others waited. Then he put the stem in his mouth and nodded.

  “All right, let’s see what you men come up with in two hours. My planning people will also be working on an extraction plan. Let’s see who can make the better one.”

  Ten minutes later, back in their assigned building, the SEALs gathered around a fold-out table and began to put ideas down on paper. Ed DeWitt held the pencil and pad. Don Stroh came in and walked up to the table.

  “Well, well, the honorable Donald P. Stroh of the elite CIA,” Murdock said. “Have you asked for detailed satellite shots of that village? When can we have them and any other intelligence details you CIA guys have on that area?”

  “Just as soon as they fax it to me. I requested it five hours ago, so it should be coming soon, if we have anything. Murdock, do you know how many little villages there are in the world? You can’t expect us to have details about every one.”

  “Just this one would be fine,” Murdock said. “We’ll take what you give us. Now who has some ideas?”

  “To start, we fly off the destroyer the twenty miles to shore and three miles inland,” Joe Lampedusa said. Then he laughed. “Not a chance. We’d have a jillion Chinese rifles pointing at us before we got ready to fly out.”

  “So we go in by a launch of some kind and the last five miles by rubber duck,” Jaybird Sterling said. “We go in quiet. We get inland as far as we can without a sound. Use suppressed shots if we need to.”

  “Quiet approach,” Murdock said. “Put that down. What else?”

  “We use the EAR whenever practical,” DeWitt said. “That way the China News Agency won’t have any bodies to show the world on TV for a month after we leave.”

  “Yeah, I like this. But how do we find the guy?” Dobler asked. “They said he has a SATCOM. Can we contact him at a specific time and have him give us directions from the beach?”

  “Good point,” Murdock said. “Stroh, can you get what frequency he’s using so we can contact him from here or from the ship? We want to have him describe everything to us before we take off.”

  “I’m on my horse to the radio. If we don’t get anything visual, he can fill us in about the area. I’m outa here.”

  “So it has to be a night operation,” Lampedusa said. “We hit the beach at 0100. Most of the locals should be asleep or drunk by then. Should leave us plenty of time to run in three miles and walk out, get to our boats and leave.”

  “Flotation with three extra bodies?” Dobler asked.

  “The IBS can take two hundred more pounds easily,” Jaybird said. “If there’s any problem, we dump overboard all of our ammo, that’s easy two hundred pounds per squad.”

  “What if we run into an army patrol?” Murdock asked. “The report said there were two soldiers with submachine guns at the house.”

  “The two Chinks we can convince not to hamper us,” DeWitt said. “The EAR would be ideal.”

  “What about a patrol?” Murdock pressed.

  “Everything we take with us is silenced,” Dobler said. “If we stumble into a patrol, or if they spot us, we fire silenced, work our way out of it. As the last resort we take off the suppressors and cut loose.”

  Murdock gave him a thumbs up. “We get to the beach, load up, and motor out to our yacht and get on back to the destroyer.” He looked around. “Any final words of wisdom? No choppers, all silenced. In and out attracting as little attention as possible. Let’s go back and see the admiral.”

  A half hour later, the SEALs stood in front of the same group as before in the admiral’s office. Only Don Stroh was missing.

  DeWitt laid out the plan for the Admiral and his staff.

  “So, Admiral Chalmers. We think a launch from the destroyer at the ten-mile limit, then the IBS boats for the last two miles will give us a silent approach and exfiltration as well. We might be able to get in and back out with the packages and not ruffle more than a few Chinese soldier’s feathers.”

  The Admiral turned to his men at the table. They conferred for a moment. Before they could make any comment, Don Stroh came into the room with a sheaf of papers.

  “Admiral, sir. I have some late developments.”

  “Pertinent, Stroh?”

  “Absolutely. They could change our plans.”

  The admiral settled back, picked up his pipe again, and put it in his mouth. He nodded at Stroh who stood beside Murdock.

  “We have a group of faxes from my office. Nothing that gives us much to go on. One aerial shot of the general area of Zhanjiang, but that’s twenty miles from ground zero. What I do have are some printouts of transmissions from the senator within the last half hour by SATCOM.

  “He says their small village is on a river that runs fifty feet in back of their house. It isn’t large but he’s seen thirty-and forty-foot craft moving up and down the river. They don’t look to be flat-bottomed boats. They are three miles from the ocean, but the river runs almost straight from their house to the beach.”

  “Anything else, Mr. Stroh?”

  “Yes, the senator has given me detailed directions how to come up the river and where to land. He can talk the SEALs in with his SATCOM if they have any trouble. The river looks to be our best bet.”

  The admiral looked at Murdock.

  “Yes sir, I agree. A slig
ht change in plans. The amphibious landing ship should have a Pegasus on board. If they can airlift it to the destroyer, we can use that for our run in and back from the river. It can throttle down for the last five miles, putting us within two miles of the mouth of that river. Then we go by IBS to shore, up the river to the house, take out the guards with our enhanced acoustic rifle, a non-lethal weapon, grab the packages, and have them in the IBS craft and back down the river before the Chinese change guard shifts.”

  The admiral looked at his staff. Two nodded. The captain lifted his brows. “Looks better than what we had in mind, Admiral. Let’s go with the commander’s plan.”

  “When?”

  Murdock looked at the admiral. “Sir, that would be insertion from the destroyer so we could hit the river at 0100. With a good operation and no surprises, we should be back to the Pegasus not more than two hours later.”

  “Entirely covert, Commander?”

  “If at all possible. If we can use the EAR. The soldiers hit will be unconscious for four to six hours and will wake up confused, slightly nauseous, but not having the slightest idea what happened.”

  “Very well. Commander, what’s the present position of the ships involved?” The admiral looked at his staff.

  “The Bataan is four hundred ten miles from the airfield at the bottom of this island. She’s on a southwest course at eighteen knots. The Gonzalez is roughly fifty miles off the target and about two hundred and fifty from the Bataan.”

  The admiral checked his watch. “Gentlemen, it’s a little after 1235 here local time. I know you’ve been across the International Date Line and six or eight time changes, but sun time here is just after noon. The COD doesn’t land on our amphibs, so we go with a Sea Knight. Martin, check with the Bataan to be sure she has a Pegasus available to airlift to the destroyer. Also alert them of a mission and to have a Sea Knight flight checked and ready to go in seven hours. The usual signals to the two ships involved in the action and their part in it.” The admiral turned to the SEALs.

  “Men you have a little over five hours of flight time in those choppers. One from the air field in the south to the amphib, another one to the destroyer. I’ll have them airlift the Pegasus from the amphib to the destroyer. This all should put you on the Gonzalez at about 1900. Then you can push off in time to get the Pegasus to that river mouth by 0100.”

  “We can be ready to take off in a half hour, sir,” Murdock said. “Oh, one last request. Could you see if the Bataan has a pair of expendable IBS units they could have deflated and in the Pegasus or tied on board?”

  “That’s a roger, Commander.” The admiral pointed to one of his men who stood and left the room.

  “So, we’ll see you at the airstrip at 1305.”

  South China Sea

  Off China

  Navy air power performed flawlessly, and the sixteen SEALs stumbled out of the CH46 onboard the gently pitching chopper pad on the Gonzalez twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Most of them had slept on the two legs to the amphibian ship and then to the guided missile destroyer.

  A four-striper met them on the deck and hurried them into the compartment they would use for their short stay.

  “We heard you were coming,” the commander said. “I’m Randolph.”

  “Murdock here,” Blake said and shook the man’s hand. “Do you have a Pegasus for us with two IBS craft?”

  “We do. Right now we’re back up to speed and making thirty knots toward your small stream. It’s called the Yibin River on my chart and shows navigation up about twenty miles. We’re still eighteen miles off shore and paralleling it until we come off the Yibin. Another two hours at the most. How about some hot chow? I’ve alerted the mess and your men can order whatever they want from steak to lobster. It isn’t often that we get a combat mission onboard the Gonzalez.”

  The sixteen SEALs ate, slept a while, and were on the fantail on the chopper pad twenty minutes early and ready to go down a rope ladder off the stern into the Pegasus, which rode gently as the destroyer made five knots forward in a slow three-mile box ten miles off shore from the Yibin River.

  A coxswain came up and talked to Murdock.

  “Sir, I’m your driver. We’re ten miles off the river. I understand you want to move in modestly, then the last five miles at no more than ten knots. We stop two miles off and put you in the IBSs.”

  “Correct, Coxswain. Then you meander around out there for about two hours when we should be two miles out in the IBSs to meet you with the three packages.”

  “We have a SATCOM on board,” the coxswain said. “We’re set on channel one and will wait for a radio check with you when you get your packages in the boats in the river.”

  “Sounds good. We’ll have light sticks for the pickup. If you hear any firing at all, come in closer, we might need more help than we figure right now. You have live ammo for your shooters?”

  “Absolutely and good men with the guns.”

  “Great, time we get onboard.”

  Murdock lined up his men in their combat gear and with their weapons and then went down the rope ladder into the gently bobbing Pegasus. Ed DeWitt brought up the rear. Any nervousness Murdock had felt evaporated once he stepped on the Pegasus and moved forward. This was it. Once more into the fray, into the breach, as the poem went. He never went into a mission thinking that this could be his last. It wasn’t in his nature. He went in knowing that he would come out. Knowing that he was serving his country and doing a damn good job. But this wasn’t just another mission. This was the one right now, the most important one he had ever been on. The current one had to feel that way.

  He turned and hurried the men into their seats in the cramped insertion craft that could do forty-five knots in a calm sea. Good, the quicker they got up that river the better.

  Now that it had started, Murdock couldn’t wait.

  3

  South China Sea

  The loaded Pegasus growled along at twenty knots and Murdock went to the coxswain.

  “Making too much noise, Chief. Cut her down to ten knots and we’ll listen. Not supposed to be any Chinese out here, but we can’t count on that.” The coxswain cut the speed. The new sound of the big twin 4,500-horsepower diesels was a lower growl, but Murdock shook his head and asked to cut down the speed again. At last they crept through the soft swells at five knots and Murdock was satisfied.

  “Our timetable isn’t important going in,” he told the driver. “I don’t want to alert anybody along shore that some boat is heading toward the river.”

  “Hey, I don’t want to get shot at either,” the coxswain said.

  Murdock called for a full stop when he figured they were a mile and a half offshore of a cluster of lights. Dobler inflated the first IBS and put it in the sea. The Pegasus had stopped, and the big engines idled.

  Bravo Squad went in the first IBS and then Dobler inflated the second one and dropped it in the wet. Alpha Squad and Murdock moved into it, drag bags and all, and cast loose. The two boats were tied together with a forty-foot line as they turned toward shore. Both engines started on the second pull and they purred along at five knots, heading in with what Murdock decided was an incoming tide.

  All of the SEALs had on their personal Motorola radios. They had a transceiver clipped on the belt, an earpiece, and a mike that fastened around their neck and perched a half inch from their lips.

  Murdock made a radio check, and all fifteen men signed on in the correct order. “Ten minutes to the river mouth. If there’s no traffic, we go right up the middle of the stream,” Murdock told the SEALs. “Doubt if we can keep the SATCOM antenna on target for a talk with the senator, but we have detailed directions how to find him. Up the river two miles then a slight bend to the left. His house is another mile on beside two tall trees. He’ll have the lights on and be on the riverbank with a flashlight if he can get there without the guard spotting him.”

  “How close do we motor to the house?” DeWitt asked.

  “Let’s beach it
a hundred yards before we get to the right place,” Murdock said on the Motorola. “Jefferson, it’s your turn in the barrel. You’ll stay with the IBSs to ensure that we’ll have them safe and secure when we come back and save a five-mile swim.”

  “Yes, sir, Commander,” Jefferson said.

  “All of you make sure your weapons have suppressors on them, that your mags are full, and that there’s a round in the chambers. No twenty-millimeter mags in the Bull Pups, at least not yet.”

  The men ducked low in the rubber ducks as they passed over a small bar and into the channel of the Yibin River. It was no more than forty yards across here. Murdock wondered how it could be navigated for twenty miles upstream.

  The cluster of lights turned out to be three buildings near the left-hand side of the stream. They had a dock with night lights. One boat had tied up there, but Murdock could see no people. At less than thirty yards they motored quietly past the lights and back into the dark.

  Clouds scuttered over the moon. Now a dark period. Murdock watched along the left-hand shore for the features that the senator had told Stroh about. He saw a temple to the left. Yes one sign post. A short way on a small stream came in from the left. Second indicator.

  A shot jolted into the quiet night. The men in both boats ducked lower. The sound came from the right.

  “At ease,” Murdock whispered into his mike. “That was a rifle shot but it was half a mile off. No concern of ours. Stay low.”

  A boat came chugging toward them showing one pale light forward.

  “Left shore now,” Murdock said to the mike. Both boats turned sharply toward the left shore and stopped against a grassy bank. The diesel engine chugged along, and the small wooden boat steamed downstream.

  “Fishing boat,” DeWitt said. “Getting an early start. Must be some good shoals or banks offshore.”

  The boats moved back to the middle of the stream. Now they could see houses and sheds crowding the bank on both sides. How could they spot the house they needed? Murdock wondered.