“Yeah, sure, Jaybird. About the same time elephants fly.”
Jaybird looked at Murdock. There wasn’t anything either of them could say.
“Back to our hide holes,” Murdock said. “We may have some more aircraft over here.”
It took them fifteen minutes to get back to their camouflage area with the small brush. Murdock checked his watch. It was 1400. Where the hell was that chopper?
They got into their camouflage spots but didn’t cover up. They would have warning enough if they needed to.
Lam stood up. “I hear a chopper. Faint.” He scowled than shook his head. “Shit, it faded out. Had one for a while. Not even sure what direction it was.”
They waited.
Half of them went to sleep beside their holes. The rest probably thought about food and water, Murdock figured. He stood and scanned the skies to the south. Not a damn thing.
“Got it again, damn right,” Lam shouted. “Stronger now and getting stronger, coming from the damn west, not the south.”
“Holes, everyone,” Murdock bellowed. “We don’t know who this could be. Cover up. Wake up the sleepers. Let’s move, people.”
They slid into holes and covered up with the leaves and dirt. Murdock sat up and watched west.
“Still coming, Lam?”
“Yeah and getting louder. You should be able to hear it.”
Then, Murdock could. It was a chopper. But he had no idea if was theirs or ours.
“Yeah, I hear it,” Bradley said. Then the others came on with shouts.
“Hold it, men. It could be another Chicom.”
“Coming from the west?” Franklin asked.
They waited.
Five minutes later Lam saw a smudge on the flat horizon to the west. “Oh, yeah, he’s coming this way. He’ll go half a click to the south of us.”
A few moments more and Jaybird cheered. “It’s a damn forty-six, I’ve heard that sound before. Got to be a forty-six.”
Lam nodded. “Sounds like a forty-six, Cap. We’ll know shortly. Yeah, he’s swinging north. Damn, looks like he’s coming dead at this island.”
“Hey castaway little buddies, you looking to the sky for some help?” the sound came from Jaybird’s Motorola.
“Oh, yeah are we ever? Mahanani, is that your bones?”
“Sure as sour cream curdles, pardner. How would you like a short lift in some first-class accommodations?”
“Oh, yeah, bring that lovely, beautiful, amazing forty-loving-six right into papa.”
Soon it was close enough that they could see the white star and bars on the fuselage and the “U.S. NAVY” print on the side.
Then the chopper sat down on a flat stretch fifty yards upstream from them and the big rotors idled.
“Move it,” Murdock bellowed. “Get in that bird. Dobler, on me. Take it all with you. We don’t want the Chicom to know we were here.”
“What about that twenty-mm brass up on the hill?” Fernandez asked.
Murdock scowled. “Fuck it, leave it there. Let’s get in that lovely little chopper.”
Murdock and Dobler were the last ones in. Mahanani had the chopper’s first aid kit opened and put Dobler on the floor of the bird and checked his leg.
“Thought I told you to stay off this leg and get bedrest and look at pretty nurses with big boobs, Chief. What the hell happened?”
“Shit happened, Doc. It always the fuck does. Got any joy juice? I could use some.”
Before the conversation was over the doors slammed and the bird took off in a blast of dry sand.
Murdock talked with the pilot.
“Damn glad we found you, Commander. Those two guys of yours flagged us down on our eighth or ninth trip up one of these wide fucking channels. Must be twenty of them. We spotted your guys’ flares and then I thought they would wave their arms off.”
“Good men. Where we going?”
“Orders say to take you directly to Calcutta for medical. Then you’ll pick up orders there. I saw a COD hanging around the field, maybe it’s for you.”
“Could be,” Murdock said. “You have anything to eat? My boys haven’t had a sugar tit to chew on for going on twenty-four.”
“Nothing but some emergency MREs.”
“Sounds like a banquet. Your crew chief can get them?”
The SEALs gratefully gobbled up the MREs long before they sighted Calcutta. Then the CH-46 came in and landed at the military airfield near the big town. The SEALs were taken to a barracks and told chow would be served in half an hour. Murdock and Dobler headed for the base hospital.
The doctors fussed over Dobler for a half hour. None of them had seen a shrapnel wound like that one before. They cleaned it, stitched it up and bound it firmly.
“Your man should stay off that leg for a week,” the doctor said. “I suspect you’ll be traveling. If you do, have your medic watch the leg closely. Should heal up with no problems. We just don’t want the stitches to break open and it get infected.”
They released Dobler, who had a wheelchair ride to an ambulance, which took him and Murdock to the barracks.
The Indian Air Force had some orders for Murdock from the U.S. Navy. The first envelope held a radio message from Don Stroh:
Congratulations on the Bangladesh Embassy rescue. All the nationals from there are safe in Calcutta. Hear you were picked up an hour ago by a chopper in the Ganges Delta area. A wet place. You’ll get orders to hang out with the Indians there for a day or two. The brass here and in Washington aren’t sure what to have you do next. Evidently, there is a whole pot-full of projects needing your special touch. Whatever it is, it will be interesting. Yes, I’m still going through channels, Navy channels, that is. So take the day off, go fishing, play pocket pool, have fun. The next job probably will be a bit more complicated than this one. But I’m still going through channels.
Murdock read it, then read it to the rest of the men who were back from the special chow.
“Sounds like that wimp Stroh is cooking up a good one,” Jefferson said.
Murdock opened the second envelope. It had a computer printout Navy logo on the top of the page.
Lieutenant Commander Murdock:
Well done on the embassy run. Glad you made it back with only one wounded. You are to remain in place for up to two days. New orders coming.
In the Bangladesh invasion, China and Pakistan overflew parts of India north of Bangladesh. India is furious. They have threatened to shoot down any more aircraft from Pakistan or China that try to fly over the area. India’s Air Force has the planes to match the Chinese MiGs. Be aware of this critical situation.
Orders will follow in this form through e-mail since it’s our only military hard copy equipment available to deal at these distances.
It was signed by Captain Irving Robertson II, captain of the Stennis, CVN 74.
Murdock read the orders to the men.
“What the hell does that mean?” Jefferson asked.
“Means we have all day tomorrow to clean our weapons and wash our clothes,” Ostercamp said.
The same day the SEALs went into Bangladesh to bring out the embassy people, the Chinese and Pakistani peppered the sky over the corridor of India between Bangladesh and China with more than fifty transport planes with paratroopers. Fighter-bombers took out the main military airport near Dhaka and the civilian airport, blasting them into junk but not damaging the runways.
It took the jumpers just six hours to secure the military airfield, then the planes came in with resupply, food, and essentials to an army in the field. It went just the way the Chinese had planned it. By nightfall of the first day, more than half of Bangladesh was in control of the paratroopers.
The surprise raid on the military air field wiped out two squadrons of MiG-29s of the Bangladesh Air Force and three transports and six Chinese-made P-5s and F-6s. The Bangladesh Air Force had been destroyed except for one squadron of the older MiG-19s. The Chinese didn’t know where that squadron was home based.