“Yes, sir, Netscape. I can find anything.”
Ten minutes later, they had the laptop computer plugged in to the 120, and hooked up to a phone line. Somebody said that more than sixty percent of the men and women on the ship used computers and E-mail to keep in touch with the home folks.
“Okay, do a search on non-lethal weapons. Must be a lot of stuff.”
“You mean we might actually have to go into that island without our weapons?” Jaybird asked.
“If things go from bad to worse, and Russia gets frisky, and the Japanese Diet holds its position, and the Japanese give us permission to go in at all, it could be with kid gloves and no bang-bang.”
“Great, just what I signed on with the SEALs for, some combat wrestling and judo practice,” Jack Mahanani said.
“Got something,” Jaybird said. “It’s about the S. I.P. E. system tested by the Army back in ninety-two. Enhanced and secure infantry protection equipment. Here’s a rifle with a sensor on it for infrared imaging, laser sight. A helmet with built-in night vision, and heads-up displays like on jets.
“One evaluator said the elements of the system would be too heavy for the average GI, would be too awkward, and hard to maintain.”
“That’s their idea of non-lethal?” Murdock said. “Try something else.”
Jaybird clicked on another location, typed in the key words again, and yelped.
“Yeah, here’s about twenty of them. This one is interesting. It’s from the Department of Peace Studies in England. Says there’s a whole new generation of non-lethal weapons from battlefield lasers which blind enemy troops, to acoustic weapons designed to disorient and demoralize.
They say an entire battalion can be disabled without the attackers firing a single shot.”
“I’ve heard about some of the enhanced acoustic weapons,” Murdock said. “Wonder if NAVSPECWAR would have anything like that?”
“I’d ask them if I knew their E-mail address, Skipper.”
“Didn’t you tell me once that you had Don Stroh’s E-mail address in D. C.?”
“True, in my little file.”
“Dig it out and let’s send him an E-mail.”
“Let me get out of the Web, and to the good old Internet.”
Twenty seconds later, he grinned. “Got it. DStrohaol. COM. What do you want to ask or tell our spook buddy?”
“Subject non-lethal. Don. Does NAVSPECWAR section have any non-lethal weapons we might be able to use if we have to go into that island sans bullets? Any other non-lethal devices, ultrasound, chemical, or biological, that you know about you can airmail to us in two days? Must know soonest. Use Jaybird’s E-mail address for reply.
Hope you read your E-mail often. If no reply in twenty-four, I’ll phone you.”
Murdock used the phone in the room, called his liaison commander, and got the name and number of the top ordnance man on the ship, a Lieutenant Commander Rawlins. Murdock called him. He had a quick answer.
“Commander, I don’t have any of that fancy stuff you’re talking about in non-lethal. All I have are rubber bullets for NATO-sized rounds, and six stun guns the master-at-arms sometimes checks out to handle unreal wild men. You know, they’re good only for three or four feet, not much more, and are attached to wires. Only other thing remotely in that field is the flash-bang grenade, which I’m sure you know about.”
“Yes, we use them. You don’t have any of the ultrasonic guns that I’ve heard about?”
“I haven’t even heard about them. Wish I could help you. Maybe NAVSPECWAR in Coronado could do you some good.”
“Good idea, Commander, thanks.”
Jaybird kept working the Web.
“Some crazy ones here, Commander,” Jaybird said. “How about this one. It’s a rifle that shoots a thin nylon webbing out and over a guard or sentry, tangling him up in it so the attackers can go up and cuff him.
“Or this one that shoots out a sticky substance like a flamethrower would, only this is so sticky the target can’t use his weapon, or even walk out of the stuff.”
“We need something off the shelf,” Murdock said. “Keep looking.
I’m going to see if I can get a call through to Don Stroh. We don’t have the time to wait twenty-four.”
Murdock called Don Stroh’s office. The call went through encrypted, bounced off two satellites, and then de-encrypted before Murdock heard the response. The sound of Stroh’s voice was a little strange, but it was him.
Murdock laid out the idea for non-lethal weapons.
“Yeah, we thought about that. Not much you have. You aren’t even supposed to know about the ultrasonic acoustic weapons.”
“Sure, sure, but can you get us some? Do we have to carry a fucking generator with us? Are they portable or worked from a chopper?
Give some information here, Don. Otherwise we could be going in and arm wrestling these guys for control of the chunk of rock just about the time the Russians let loose half a dozen big rockets on it.”
“Easy, down, boy. It’s still in the talking stage.”
“Yeah, Stroh, talking. Like ultimatums and deadlines and threats.
How about NAVSPECWAR in Coronado? They have anything we can use?”
“Murdock, you’re a pushy bastard.”
“That’s why I get along so well with an asshole like you.”
They both laughed.
“Okay, we have what is now called an enhanced acoustic rifle,” Stroh said. “It’s self-contained, has a range of five hundred yards, and can slam a sound blast into a room or against a sentry that he’ll never hear, and it’ll put him down and unconscious for up to six hours.
After that, he returns to normal with little or no damage.”
“Sounds perfect. Can you get us twenty of them in two days?”
“I can scrounge up two, if I’m lucky. We have one out at Langley for testing, and I’ll get one or maybe two more. But don’t tell anybody you have them, or the NAVSPECWAR guys will roast me head-first over an open campfire.”
“Colorful, you’re colorful. You mean they were right there in my front yard and I didn’t know about them? How many shots to a weapon?”
“They work off a high-charge special battery. It takes up the whole stock. I don’t even know how it works. We’ve used one ten times before having to plug it into one-twenty for four hours to recharge.”
“Great, so we’d have twenty to thirty shots, and maybe a hundred Japs running around the island.”
Hey, be politically correct. That’s Japanese Home Guards. We lost “Japs’ back in World War II. Now, one blast of the acoustic into a room will knock out everyone inside. They are especially effective in a contained space. They are ultimately directional, line of sight. They won’t go through a house, but will go in a window or an open door. Some guys could bounce them off trees and walls like you do a beeper for your car lock. Anyway, you just cut off the head of that Self Defense general over there, and the rattlers won’t do much harm.”
“Talking in riddles now. I get it. Might be enough to get us onshore and to find the headquarters. Which comes to my next question.
Do you have any satellite shots yet of this island? You’ve had plenty of time.”
“We can’t shift orbits of those babies in a few seconds, you know, laddie. Takes some time. We’re working on it. As soon as we get anything on that little town on that first island — Kunashir, I think it is — we’ll fax them to your little boat.”
“Thanks, and the blowguns in forty-eight?”
“Faster if I can find the right aircraft connections.”
“Put them in one of those business jets and scoot them across the pond. How are things in Korea?”
“Settled down a little. Your task force will still sail down that way when you clean up the Japanese problem. Anything else?”