Stroh tried to meet them at the deck of the Jefferson, but the corpsmen and three doctors were at the door waiting for a litter to bring Fernandez out. Mahanani had stripped off the top of the wet suit before landing, and once Fernandez was on the gurney, the doctors and nurses began working on him. They hung a bottle of blood and some clear liquid and put needles into his arm. They tested him with stethoscopes as the gurney rolled across the flight deck.
Murdock walked alongside; stripping off his combat gear and handing it to Jaybird, who trailed him. DeWitt had told Murdock he would get the troops back to their assembly room and quarters.
Five minutes later, Murdock paced outside an operating room as the doctors went to work. It took them over an hour. Murdock had downed three cups of coffee a steward brought him. Every time someone came out of the operating room, he questioned the person, but no one would tell him anything.
At last he sat down, exhausted. It wouldn’t look good if he went to sleep on his feet, leaning against the wall.
“Commander?”
Murdock looked up and shook his head. He had dozed off. “Yes?”
“He made it. The boy should be dead. He lost a lot of blood. The bullet punctured his left lung, but somehow the hole closed up and the lung didn’t collapse. His shoulder wound is actually more serious now. We did some rebuilding on one area, and he should have full use of the shoulder. Right now, it’s broken and in a cast. We have his uniform and gear in a bag you can take with you if you wish, Commander.”
Murdock stood and swayed a moment.
“Are you all right, Commander?”
“Yeah. I’ll make it. Thanks for your work on Fernandez. He’s a good man. I’ll check with you in the morning.”
“That’s not long now, Commander. Maybe this afternoon.”
Murdock found his way to the SEALs’ assembly room. It was deserted. He went to his quarters and fell on his bunk as soon as he took off his wet suit.
Murdock heard someone get up from the four-officer compartment much later, but he didn’t even check the time. He went back to sleep at once. It was noon again before he came to reality. He showered and put on clean cammies and went to check on Fernandez.
The doctor shook his head. “Fernandez took a turn for the worse early this morning, but we have him stabilized again. The surgery is solid. His lung is responding. We pulled the last of the bullet out of his shoulder before we repaired it. Now it’s mostly up to him.”
“He has to make it, Doctor. He has a family back in San Diego waiting for him. Do your best.”
Murdock had lunch, then went to the assembly room. Half of the men were there. Dobler had taken Canzoneri to the hospital. His stitches had pulled out. They were sewing him back together.
“Don Stroh was in half an hour ago, looking worried,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “Something about throwing his timing off. He said he has to talk to Washington, and then he’ll be back.”
“Not every operation goes the way we plan it,” Murdock said. “Stroh knows that. If we hadn’t brought Fernandez back here last night, he’d be KIA by now.”
“You going to E-mail his wife?”
“Not until he’s out of danger. The doctors are still worried about him. I think he’s going to make it.”
Don Stroh strode into the room with a frown clouding his face. He saw Murdock and sailed straight for him.
“You threw off our damn timing,” he said.
“What timing? What are you talking about?”
“Today you were supposed to be raising hell at Plato, the airfield, production facilities, and storage area for the Medellin cartel. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Today also was when there would be six or eight of the top men in the cartel meeting at a luxury residence in the complex. We had hoped that some of the men would have an accident. You were supposed to be the accident.”
“You didn’t tell us that on our briefing.”
“Not the sort of thing we put on paper or over the air. Our country has an antiassassination policy, remember?”
“But accidents are all right?”
“Who can predict an accident? They happen.” Stroh chuckled. “But now I find out that we may have lucked out on this snafu. Turns out our source says that the meeting has been held over another two days, and a fresh crop of dancing girls has been flown in.”
“Can we get some air support this time?” the platoon leader asked. “Say we go in with a Sea Knight. The most firepower it has are two fifty-caliber machine guns. How about a Sea Cobra from the Marines with its firepower? We fly in together. We drop off three hundred yards from the complex. Our Sea Knight’s fifty shoots up the place, and then the Cobra hits them with its seventy-millimeter rockets. They can cause a whole hell of a lot of damage.”
“Then you go in and clean up and dispatch any of the bad guys who haven’t had the good manners to die?” Stroh asked.
“Sounds good to me. After that, we do in the processing plants and the storage areas and the planes and trucks, then we try like hell to get out of the place. It’s only sixty miles to the water.”
“Another incursion over a foreign nation without its permission? State and the Joint Chiefs will never go for it.”
“Give them a try. Take along the CNO. He’ll love it.”
Stroh groaned as he pushed away from the bulkhead. “Now all I have to do is go fight with my chief and then the CNO and then talk to the President. Be glad you don’t have my job.”
Three of the SEALs working nearby went into a fit of crying. Stroh grinned and hurried out the door to make his radio calls.
“Think they’ll go for it?” DeWitt asked.
“Depends how much they want these Medellin people dead,” Murdock said. “And if they think we can get away with it.”
Two hours later, Stroh was back.
“I didn’t even get my chief. Small arms rounds they can’t identify. But those seventy-millimeter rounds they can. We don’t want any worldwide uproar about a big power play here. We’ll go with your guys, one Sea Knight in the dark, and hope nobody can spot it. Can we do it all in the dark?”
“Maybe,” Murdock said. He looked at DeWitt, who shrugged. “Say we hit the coast at first dark. Sixty miles to the target, which is another twenty minutes. Say three hours to reduce the luxury residence, but then we don’t have much time to do the rest of the mission in there.”
“The cooking vats, the storage, and the planes and trucks,” Stroh said. “Those were your first targets.” They looked at each other.
“What the hell is going on here, Stroh? You want us to forget the first target and take out the brass or what? Tell me.”
“That was the first thought of my chief. Then he backed off. He wants that facility burned down to the ground. We knock off the head men, they have twenty fighting to take each of the top spots.”
“So, we’re talking two days. We clobber the big house the first night and try for the production vats. We’ve done that before. Then we cut into the woods or jungle or whatever they have there and play hide-and-seek during the day.”
“By then there will be at least a battalion of military there hunting us, guarding the rest of it,” DeWitt said. “So how in hell do we take out the storage and the planes and trucks without getting ourselves killed?”
“Carefully, with the usual SEAL nerve, guts, and ability,” Stroh said. “You do this all the time. Anyway, we have no reports of any army facility anywhere near this place. It was originally built away from the military because it was illegal. So why bring in military now? I think you have a good go at it.”
“Tonight at 1730?” Murdock asked.
Stroh grinned. “Attaboy, knew you could do it. I’ll alert the CAG and get that chopper ready. You need any more toys?”
“Yeah, the rest of our supply of twenty-mike rounds,” Murdock said. He stared hard at Stroh. The CIA man lifted his brows, then shut his eyes a minute.
“I don’t know what you said. I can�
�t remember, but they will be on the chopper. Just don’t blow up any of your people with one of those Bull Pups.”
“No fear,” DeWitt said.
“Let’s get the men ready to rumble,” Murdock said.
23
Pacific Coast
Near Plato, Colombia
The Boeing Vertol — built Sea Knight helicopter slammed across the Colombian coast at two hundred feet. Full dark had just covered the land, and the Navy bird with its cargo of SEALs powered through the night air at her maximum speed of 165 miles per hour. The pilots didn’t want to be over hostile territory any longer than they needed to be.
The air distance from the coast to Plato was sixty miles. The pilots had planned a twenty-two-minute flight into an isolated area ten miles outside of the small city of Plato. They were told the spot would be easy to find. It was lit up like a birthday cake, would have landing lights on a concrete aircraft runway, and there would be more than a dozen houses, warehouses, and other sheds along with a half-dozen good-sized planes near the hangars.
The SEALs were ready. Six men had the Bull Pup twin-barrel weapons and sixty rounds each. Bradford carried the big .50 caliber sniper rifle with an MP-5 submachine gun strapped on his back. Each man had two pounds of TANZ and C-4, along with the needed timer/detonators.
“We do the fancy hotel-like mansion first,” Murdock reminded the men. “When we get it cleared, we move on to the next closest target.”
“We don’t know where they are?” Jaybird asked.
“About the size of it. Not enough intel on this one, it came up too fast. We don’t have a handy satellite assigned to Plato, Colombia.”
The crew chief from the chopper came back from the cockpit.
“We’re three minutes out, so get ready. The rear ramp goes down. You guys have done this before, right?”
“Three hundred and seventy-eight times,” Lampedusa said. “Yeah, we know this bucket pretty well.”
The crew chief grinned. “Good. You guys kick ass for me out there, you hear?”
Murdock checked out a small porthole window and could see light below, then water, and more lights.
A speaker came on in the cabin. “Thirty seconds to touchdown,” one of the pilots said. “We’ll be about a hundred yards from this big lit-up mansion. Biggest thing around here. After you exit, we lift off and give you support fire with our fifties. Good luck!”
The chopper touched down with a light thump, the crew chief dropped the aft hatch, and the SEALs charged out in squad formation.
Lam had the point on Alpha Squad, with Murdock right behind him. Ten seconds after the last SEAL hit Colombian soil, the chopper lifted off and pounded .50 caliber machine gun fire into the fancy mansion. Murdock saw windows shatter and round after round jolt into the place.
“Squads front for some assault fire,” Murdock said on his radio. The SEALs spread out ten yards apart in a long line and kept running for the house, their weapons firing short bursts as they charged across the open stretch of land.
A few winking lights showed return fire, but nothing came close. They came in on the side of the place.
“DeWitt, take Bravo to the front and get inside if you can. We’ll go to the rear and try the same thing. If you get in, tell us so we don’t shoot each other.”
“Roger that,” DeWitt said. “We’re swinging that way as of now.”
The flat crack of an AK-47 on full auto sounded from the mansion.
“Anybody spot that AK-47?” Murdock asked on the net.
No response.
“Watch for him.”
Alpha Squad went to ground thirty yards from the rear doors of the big mansion. It would be the kitchen, Murdock guessed. He could see garbage cans and food containers around the rear door. As he watched, the door slammed open and four men with rifles rushed out. SEAL guns cut down two of them, but the other two dove to the left behind a three-foot-high stone wall. They lifted up and fired over the top at the SEALs.
“Get the floodlights,” Murdock said. The Bull Pup’s 5.56 rounds on two-round bursts quickly blasted the bulbs into darkness.
Murdock pulled a fragger grenade from his combat harness and jerked out the safety pin. Not more than twenty-five yards to the two riflemen. He lifted up and threw the bomb, hearing the arming spoon spin off. The M-67 sailed through the air, hit on top of the rock wall, and bounced straight up before it went off in a deadly airburst.
“Move up,” Murdock said into the mike, and the SEALs charged the rear door, jumping over the low wall and skidding to a stop against the mansion’s rear wall. Lam pulled the door, and it swung outward. The room inside was lit. Lam made a quick look, saw nothing, and charged inside, diving to the left. The small room held only kitchen stores and food supplies.
“First room rear is clear,” Lam said. Murdock and Jaybird rushed inside.
Near the front of the house, DeWitt found more protection. Three men had been on guard there as he came from the side. They fired on the SEALs as soon as they could see them, then ducked into planned defensive positions.
One guard huddled behind a rock fountain. Ed DeWitt used his Bull Pup and sent a 20mm round into the wall directly behind the man. The round exploded on contact, showering shrapnel backward on the hiding man. He bellowed in pain and ran for the front door.
Quinley cut him down with a two-round burst from the Bull Pup’s 5.56 barrel.
The other two guards were behind a low rock wall that ran across the front of the compound. Ostercamp threw a grenade, saw it bounce against the mansion wall, then come back toward the guards. It exploded a moment later, and one of the guards screamed in pain, then went quickly silent.
They saw nothing more of the third guard. DeWitt figured the man crawled behind the wall to the far end and vanished into the night.
The front door stood open. “Let’s get over the stones out there to the mansion wall,” DeWitt said into his mike. The SEALs lifted up and ran for the front wall of the big residence. They took no enemy fire. DeWitt edged toward the front door. It was still open.
“Franklin, with me. I have the right, you go left. Now.” The two SEALs charged the door, dove in left and right, their weapons up ready for any enemy.
DeWitt came up on his stomach and cleared his half of the room. It was an entryway with two soft couches and chairs and a table filled with liquor bottles and mixers.
“Over here, JG,” Franklin said, his voice husky. DeWitt looked at the other side of the room. A man sat in one of the soft chairs. The whole side of his head had been torn off, probably by a fifty-caliber round. Beside him on the chair sat a shapely naked woman who looked up at them with a tear-stained face.
“You bastards, you fucking murderous bastards!” she screamed.
“We’re inside at the front,” DeWitt said into his mike. “We have one DB, one naked lady alive. She speaks English.”
“Shake the place down,” Murdock radioed. “Careful on the shooting.”
DeWitt brought the rest of his men inside and watched both doors leading off the entryway. He sent Franklin to one, and he took the other one. They both pulled the doors open at the same time. Shots boiled through Franklin’s door. He had flattened against the wall, and the rounds missed him. He dropped to the floor and edged out to look into the room from that level. He spotted two gunmen standing with handguns up, waiting. He pulled back, pushed his MP-5 around the doorjamb, tilted it up, and ground off ten rounds. On his next look, he saw one man down, the second one sitting against the wall, holding his stomach. Franklin hit him with three more rounds, and he crumpled.
“Clear left,” Franklin said.
Franklin took Canzoneri and Quinley into the room. It had one door leading out.
DeWitt took Mahanani, Ostercamp, and Jefferson into his room and eyed the next door. Suddenly, it burst open, and four women ran through it. All were young, all pretty, and all birth-naked. They stopped when they saw the cammy-clad warriors. One shrieked. Another one fainted and slumped to th
e floor.
DeWitt waved them through the room. He stepped around the unconscious woman and looked into the next room. Two men sat at a desk. Both were Colombian, both dressed impeccably, both with stacks of banded money in front of them.
“Gentlemen, it seems there has been a serious misunderstanding. We have no fight with the United States Navy SEALs. You are free to come here as you please. We ask you no more gunfire. Some of our people have been hurt, and we’re seriously upset about this turn of events.”
DeWitt stood openmouthed even as he aimed his Bull Pup at the men. He found his voice. “You an American?”
“No, actually no. You see, I lived in Miami for several years, so I picked up the language. English is easy. But we’re getting off the subject. Those of us here today wish to make a deposit in your retirement account.”
DeWitt motioned with the Bull Pup muzzles. “Away from the desk, and keep your hands up. Move.”
“Of course. We’re reasonable men. We have cash for you, no wire transfers and no problems. On the table are eight million dollars in one hundred dollar United States currency bills. It’s yours for the taking.”
“Murdock. How far front are you? I have a non shooting problem here.”
“About two rooms away. No opposition. Problem?”
“Eight million dollars, U.S., in cash.”
“Cash?”
“Greenbacks. Get in here.”
DeWitt motioned Jefferson to check the far door. He opened it and looked around the next room. “Clear,” he said.
He looked again. “Right in here, Cap,” Jefferson said.
Murdock came through the door cautiously. When he saw the situation was under control, he marched to the desk and looked at the stacked and banded bills. They were all hundreds in packs of what he figured were 100. Ten thousand to a bundle.
“Counterfeit,” Murdock said.
“We couldn’t stay in business a week if we used counterfeit bills,” the Colombian said. “We would be cut down in a tornado of hot lead. You know that’s legal tender. It’s yours. Your platoon can split it any way you choose. Sounds like a half million each. Sailor, what could you do with five hundred thousand dollars, all tax free?” The Colombian had directed his question to Canzoneri, who stood closest to him.
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