"And that is?"
"We don't understand why Mitchell and his team didn't join the navy."
Gummerson had grinned and dismissed them.
Now they sprinted up from the beach and reached the woods, where they wove a breathtaking path through the trees and neared the pier, just as Gummerson called to say there'd been trouble back at the boat dock. Four soldiers dead. More undoubtedly on the way. The Ghosts were loading up now, but they couldn't sit at the dock. They'd have to putter down the coast a thousand yards or so, slip up to another pier, and wait there, while hell broke loose behind them.
So Tanner and Phillips had even less time to get the job done. Wearing a pair of NVGs, Tanner studied the ferry and crane, just as the operator lowered a pallet of fifty-five-gallon fuel drums onto the pier under the watchful gazes of three members of the barge crew.
Tanner gave Phillips the signal.
They moved in.
Mitchell had ordered Jenkins and Beasley to haul Buddha's body onto the fishing boat and lay him along the rail. Boy Scout lay beside him. The DIA had been emphatic about returning the bodies and not allowing them to remain in China, where they might provide clues that could topple an even larger network of spies still in the country, some of whom also worked for the National Security Agency.
Mitchell remained on the deck at the stern, monitoring the SEALs' progress via his HUD, while Jenkins took the wheel. They chugged slowly away from the pier, everyone down low, weapons at the ready. Dark waves thumped and lapped at the hull, and their foamy wake was quickly swallowed back by the harbor.
About a kilometer ahead, to the southwest, the pier jutted out from the sand spit, and Mitchell barely made out the silhouette of the crane with his naked eye.
"Well that didn't take long," said Diaz, pointing toward the stern.
A pair of headlights came down the shoreline road, and the vehicle appeared, another military truck turning toward the boat docks.
"Jenkins, throttle up a little bit," said Mitchell.
"You got it, Boss."
"Joey, how are you doing?" Mitchell asked, raising his voice over the engine's higher-pitched gurgles and whine.
"Alex gave me that shot," answered Ramirez. "Arm's numb."
"The dragon didn't pounce on Taiwan, but it stepped on us pretty good, eh?" asked Mitchell.
"Yes, sir. But it was worth it."
"I agree," added Diaz. "In more ways than one." She pursed her lips and nodded at Mitchell.
"Captain, I can see the patrol boat," said Jenkins. "And I'm not sure, but I think she sees us."
"Get up close to that pier!" shouted Mitchell. "Now!"
Mitchell brought up his tactical map and studied the patrol boat, red diamonds flashing over its dark outline displayed in his HUD.
A flickering light emanated from the end of the pier, and Mitchell zoomed in on that area, even as Jenkins said, "Fire on the pier, Captain."
"All right, everybody. Stand by. Let's see if they take the bait."
Tanner and Phillips had used a small amount of C-4 to set off one of the fuel pallets on the pier before dropping back into the murky water. Tanner swam toward the crane, while Phillips worked his way around to the fuel barge.
The patrol boat was already en route to investigate. If Tanner were the captain of that Shanghai, he, too, would want to know why his gas station was on fire.
Tanner swam around the crane's floating platform, keeping the crane between him and the oncoming patrol boat. The crane operator and his assistant had run down to the edge of the barge for a better look at the fire, allowing Tanner to climb up onto the platform and race across it to the crane's cabin, where he placed his C-4 then dove into the water, swimming hard and fast back toward the pier.
A minute later he came up under one of the pilings and stole a breath.
He waited another thirty seconds, then began to grow tense. Abruptly, Phillips's head popped up a few meters behind him. "We're all set. Come on!"
Together they swam along the pier, and by the time they reached the shore and huddled beside the first pair of pilings, the patrol boat was drawing up on the crane and barge.
"Ghost Lead, this is SEAL support. Get ready for a big salute to the Chinese who invented gunpowder!"
Tanner knew he'd catch hell for his glib remark over the radio, but he didn't care. He glanced over at Phillips, who was studying the patrol boat through his binoculars.
"They're almost lined up," said Phillips.
"Good."
"Don't move," screamed someone in Mandarin.
Tanner glanced directly up into the eyes of a man, presumably a member of the fuel barge crew, who was pointing a pistol down at them. Where the hell had he come from? How had he been so quiet?
Though his Mandarin was rudimentary, Tanner knew enough to get by. "All right, we will come with you."
"No, you don't move." The man glanced up and began screaming to those still aboard the fuel barge, something about him catching thieves who might be trying to hijack their shipment. He couldn't tell in the dark that they were Americans, especially while they wore their dive suit hoods.
Tanner exchanged a look with Phillips.
Mitchell realized with a start that a third individual was at the end of the pier with the two SEALs, and his attempts to contact SEAL Chief Tanner went unanswered.
He got on the network, reported the news, and General Keating chimed in, "Mitchell, trust those SEALs to get the job done. Just get out of there, son! Move!"
"Jenkins, hit it! Everything she's got!" Mitchell ordered.
"But, Captain, they haven't—"
"I know. Just do it!"
"Sir," called Diaz, who was wearing her own ENVGs. "The patrol boat's slowing, and they've launched a Zodiac with six guys. They're heading for the pier. What the hell are those SEALs waiting for?"
"There's a third guy. Don't know who he is. But we're out of time."
"Mitchell, Keating here," cried the general. "Remember those soldiers you took out? Well, we got new intel. Those guys were part of Admiral Cai's defense plan. And I got more bad news. Seems there's an R44 police chopper in the air — but there's a catch. We've intercepted their communications. Montana tells us it's being manned by Cai's special ops people. He sent his attack choppers up north as part of Pouncing Dragon, so these guys must've commandeered this bird. This isn't the local puppy patrol, Mitchell. These are hardened Chinese fighters up there. ETA to your location: two minutes."
THIRTY-THREE
SEAL Chief Tanner wouldn't let some punk with a cheap pistol ruin his night. Phillips's eyes said likewise.
In unison, they squeezed the triggers on their remote detonators and rolled under the pilings, out of the barge worker's aim.
The guy fired, the shot ricocheting off the rocks behind them, just as the first pair of detonations resounded so loudly that even Tanner, a veteran of blowing stuff up, was awed by the initial cacophony and blast wave, which threw him and Phillips back against the rocks.
It was the fuel, all that fuel, whose sound and detonation Tanner could not have anticipated.
Then came the reverberation ripping through the pier like an earthquake, tearing up the farthest planks in succession as he and Phillips got back to their feet, dashed below the pier, and came up the other side, where the barge worker had turned to face the dozens of fireballs lighting up the entire spit.