The other Communist grunts never got a round off as the SEALS blasted them into instant communication with their ancestors with three-round bursts from the MP-5s.
Murdock made his plan in a heartbeat. They were now thirty yards from the beach. He heard Chinese troops approaching along the street just behind the house.
With hand signals he put Magic Brown on one side of the house and Gunner's Mate Second Class Miguel Fernandez on the other side. Both men had the Mcmillan M-89 sniper rifles.
"Hold them off two minutes, then regroup on the beach directly in front of us here," Murdock whispered to Magic.
Murdock signaled the others, and they lifted off the dirt and ran — low and fast — toward the beach and past two houses. They heard the coughing of the silenced M-89s behind them; then two M-40 grenades exploded courtesy of Gunner's Mate Third Class Al Adams, who had paused a moment with Fernandez and fired the rounds before he caught up with the group.
Red Nicholson beat them all to the beach. He paused to wait for the rest, and Murdock motioned them to go prone on the beach. He checked his men. All present except the two rear guards.
He waved at Harry "Horse" Ronson, Electrician's Mate Second Class, to bring up his machine gun. He spotted it just at the edge of some tall grass where a street ended and the beach began.
"Cover for the two rear guards," Murdock whispered.
Horse nodded, set up his bipod, and angled the weapon toward the houses in front of him.
Murdock waited. He heard firing from in front that covered up what must have been the silenced rounds from the two M-89s. Then two black shadows surged from beside the last house and charged the beach. As soon as they cleared the line of fire, Horse drilled a series of bursts from the MG alongside the house. The chatter of the machine gun shattered the sudden silence.
Murdock sent the two rear guards racing to the beach with the others and told them to tell the rest to put on their fins.
After the MG had chattered a half-dozen times more, Murdock touched Horse Ronson's shoulder. "Let's haul ass out of here."
By the time they got to the others, all were ready to swim. They all backed silently into the sea. None of the Chinese soldiers had come near the water to challenge them. They were sixteen dark shadows merging with the equally dark water.
Just before they slipped underwater, Murdock saw two Chinese fighters silhouetted against a searchlight they had driven up that was far too late. He slapped on his mask, ducked into a wave, cleared the mask, and swam into the dark water.
Murdock had tied his buddy line on to Holt just before they submerged, and now pulled up his attack board and angled directly away from shore and into the Taiwan Strait. They had a mile swim and plenty of time. Their radios had been stashed in waterproof pouches on their webbing, face masks and Draeger rebreathers positioned. Murdock sank fifteen feet below the surface and began the clockwork swim along his compass bearing.
He had the plans. Now if they were everything that the CIA thought they would be, it would be a good night's work.
Keeping his platoon together in the opaque darkness underwater was a problem for every SEAL commander. Not all of them could have attack boards. The buddy lines helped, but all sixteen couldn't be tied together.
There had been no chance to use their IBSS on this mission. They were too easy to spot, even at night. The Inflatable Boat, Small would hold eight SEALS, and with silenced motors helped the team move quickly and quietly. But not on this mission.
There could be no radio contact underwater. They had gone over the exfiltrate plans a dozen times in the submarine. Each SEAL had a waterproof wrist compass. Each man knew the correct azimuth to swim to, and with two men in each team reading the lighted devices, they should be able to rendezvous somewhere near the right spot.
Murdock checked his attack board again, made a slight change in direction, and swam forward at an even fifteen feet below the increased chop of the Taiwan Strait. He knew exactly how many minutes it would take him to swim a mile.
It was a little over a half hour later that Murdock and Holt surfaced in the rough waters. They looked around and saw no one else in the three-foot seas.
Holt let out and activated a tethered sonar signal ball that the submarine could home in on.
Murdock found the right flap in his gear and took out a heavy folded plastic package the size of a cell phone. He unfolded it, pressed a small trigger, and watched the plastic inflate with helium into a ball a foot in diameter. The inflation broke two chemicals inside the tough plastic and when they interacted, produced a fluorescent glow in the ball. A ten-foot-long monofilament line held the ball in tow. Murdock tied the mono to his webbing, and it rose to the end of the ten-foot line.
It was an SLVB, a Self Lighting Vue Ball, to serve as a guide at night on land or water with a visible signal locator device. It could be used in various ways, but always when there was no danger of enemy activity. This particular model could be seen for about half a mile when Murdock rode to the top of the swells. He and Holt settled down to wait for their chicks to come home.
It gave Murdock time to think about Mr. Hang, the CIA operative in Fuching. He had made his choice. Murdock could tell the man was terrified of falling back into Chinese Communist hands. They would continue the "death of a thousand slices" and find more ingenious ways to torture him until he at last could feel the release of death.
He had chosen not to face that kind of an ending. The heart thrust had been deliberate, skilled, and fatal. Mr. Hang knew exactly what he was doing.
So far, it had been a productive mission. They had the plans. Whether they were useless or earth-shaking was yet to be determined.
A pair of swimmers stroked in from the north. David "Jaybird" Sterling, Platoon Chief and machinist mate second class, waved and pushed his rebreather out of his mouth.
"This is a fucking mile? Somebody's stroke count has gone haywire. I wouldn't want to say whose it is, but there ain't many of us kicking shit here."
Murdock snorted. "Good to have you among the living, Chief. Where's the rest of your asshole crew?"
They heard splashing to the left and two more came in. Ten minutes later all but one team had joined the platoon leader.
"Missing?" Murdock asked the platoon chief. Jaybird had been keeping track.
"Lampedusa and Johnson."
"Mr. Dewitt, any intel on that?" Murdock asked.
"Lampedusa said he caught a ricochet back on the beach but it was nothing but a scratch."
"I should have looked at it," Doc said. "Why didn't I know?"
"Lampedusa and Johnson were the last ones off the beach," Dewitt said. "He assured me that he was fit for duty and would have no problem with a mile."
A hundred meters to the north, the sea foamed and a huge black hull rose out of the depths like some prehistoric sea monster. The nuclear submarine Dorchester flattened out and reversed engines, and came to a stop fifty meters away.
"Move out and board," Murdock said. He gave the vue ball to Holt and untied him from the buddy line. "Fasten this to the tower somewhere up high."
Murdock followed his men to the side of the sub, where they were helped on board. He stood on the deck watching the dark water around him. Where were they? He'd only lost one man on a mission and he didn't want to double that score now.
He scanned the waters on both sides a dozen times. A two-striper came out and paced with him.
"Two men short?" he asked.
"Right."
"We can give them a half hour. Then we move out."
"They'll be here," Murdock said. He spun on his heel and walked the other way down the sub's deck.
Five minutes later, Murdock heard a splash and looked starboard. Two figures moved slowly toward the big black fish. He soon saw that one man swam and one was being towed.