“No, I am Chinese.”
The air was dead for some time.
“General, are you still with me?”
“Yes, I am here.”
“It is time for you to put down your arms, to order your men not to fire, and to come in to the village and surrender. There is no dishonor in ending a good fight with an honorable closure.”
“I will never surrender.”
“The lives of your men depend on your decision. Are you willing to see them slaughtered by overwhelming forces, just so you can have your last moment of glory?”
“Yes, more than willing. You may never find me.”
“We will find you. We have many ways. For instance, right now our surveillance planes are tracking your radio signal.”
“That is not true. I am not stupid. It would take triangulation by at least three receivers to locate my signal. You don’t have that.
But it was a good try.”
In the dead air time, Ching turned to Murdock and summarized what they had said, and the position of the general that he would never surrender, even if it meant the deaths of all of his men.
“Afraid of that,” Murdock said. “He’s on the Japanese warrior crusade. We’ll have to dig him out, wherever he lights. Try him again.”
“General Nishikawa. My commander understands your position. He wants to meet with you, face to face, and negotiate.” There was no response, only dead air.
Ching tried to contact the general again, but he had no answer.
“He’s probably turned his set off,” Ching said. Murdock looked ahead with his NVGs. “It was a good try. Do you have an evaluation of him?”
“I’d say he’s a typical Japanese warrior. He’ll go flat out for what he believes. I also got the impression that there’s something of the samurai in him. No idea how that might play out in a showdown.”
“That’s what we’ll have, it looks like. A showdown. The only trouble is, he’s been here longer than we have. He probably researched the place before he came. He might know of some places to hide out and defend that we don’t.”
The big truck rumbled on at twenty miles an hour on the rutty, pothole-filled road near the Pacific Ocean.
Five minutes later, Murdock heard his SATCOM radio speak.
“SEALS, this is Night Fly. Did you get that transmission from Home Base on TAC One?”
“Negative, Night Fly,” Ron Holt said.
“Home Base says they have radar showing a Russian hovercraft fast approaching the southern shore of your island somewhere north of the village. They assume it’s a Russian landing of troops, Marines or commandos.”
“We’ll switch to TAC One, Night Fly, thanks.” Holt turned the knobs.
“Home Base, this is SEAL.”
“Yes, SEAL. We have a possible landing by the Russians. We’ll give you an approximate site in tenths of a mile north of the village of Golovnino. It looks like they will be landing to the north.”
Murdock took the mike. “Understood, Home Base. This is Murdock.
Can the admiral talk to Admiral Rostow? We have the situation under control. There is no need for Russian troops.”
“Negative, Commander. We’ve tried twice to reach the admiral on the right frequency, but the Russians do not respond. We believe they’re mad about that hovercraft we shot up.”
“Roger that. Give us that landing spot as soon as possible. We’re about five miles north of the village. We’ll hold here for the landing location.”
“SEALS. You might want to reverse course. The hovercraft is past that position already. Estimate they are three miles from the village.”
“Will do, Home Base.” Murdock punched Douglas. “Turn it around and motor three miles back south and watch the surf for company.”
They rode back the way they had come. At the three-mile mark, they stopped and waited. “Turn off the motor,” Murdock said. They listened.
Lam heard it first.
“Something out there is making noise, Commander. Could be the damn Ruskies slipping into shore.”
“With a hovercraft you don’t sneak in anywhere,” Jaybird cracked.
Then they all heard it. The hovercraft was coming at the beach fast, and couldn’t be more than a quarter of a mile away.
“Put up a white flare,” Murdock said. “Then we’ll see how in hell we can meet these guys without both of us getting our asses shot off.”
23
Murdock watched the white flare burst fifty yards at sea. The road swung within seventy-five yards of the beach here. When the flare died, Murdock pulled down his NVGs and watched the water. At first he could see only the Pacific waves rolling into the sandy beach. “Everyone out, disperse along the road and in cover,” Murdock said in the lip mike.
The SEALS left the six-by and spread out along the road ten yards apart.
The sound of the hovercraft increased.
“Try them on TAC Two, Holt,” Murdock said. “Tell them there are friendly U.S. forces in front of them. We fired the star shell.”
Holt sent the message twice, but had no response.
“Don’t think they heard you, SEALS,” the radio reported. “This is Night Fly One. They’re damned near the beach.”
“Thanks, Night Fly One,” Holt said. “We’ve got them.”
“Fire another white flare,” Murdock said. Jaybird fired one over the edge of the beach. It burst, and now in the glow, they could see the hovercraft heading straight at the beach fifty yards south of them.
“Ching, on me,” Murdock snapped on the Motorola.
Ching ran up, and flattened out beside Murdock.
“You and me, Ching. We’re getting as close to that landing area as possible. When the hovercraft motors stop and it goes quiet, I want you to yell at them in Russian that the United States SEALs are here and we’re friendly. Ask them to hold their fire.”
When they’d checked the Russian hovercraft in the book on the carrier, Murdock saw that this larger boat had four 30mm/65’s with twin-mounting AK630’s with six barrels per mounting. They could fire three thousand rounds a minute up to two kilometers. Murdock didn’t want them to think they had to soften up their landing site with a few thousand rounds.
Murdock’s request to hold fire was said so the rest of the men heard it on the radio. Then Murdock and Ching rose up and ran bent over toward where the Russian hovercraft would come out of the waves and power straight up on the beach over the sand. It would continue over the grass and land until the drivers wanted to stop it.
The pair was still twenty yards from the big craft when its fans blew dry sand into a cloud as they rammed the air-cushioned craft onto the beach and across it, and came to rest on the dry land covered by grass and weeds.
The big propellers pushing the craft forward slowed and died. The huge fans that had lifted the boat on a cushion of air off the water and the land wound down. A minute and a half after the craft came to a halt, the last motor sounds faded to silence.
Murdock tapped Ching on the shoulder.
Ching took a deep breath and yelled in Russian.
“Hey, Russian friends. Hold your fire. We are United States SEALs here putting down the Japanese invaders.”
He stopped, and both men dug low against the ground in case of any Russian fire. Nothing happened. Ching yelled out his welcome again.
Two minutes later, a thin voice came back. Ching translated.
“How do we know you are friendly? You disabled one of our hovercrafts and killed three men.”
“If we had not been friendly your craft would have been sunk,” Ching said in Russian. He whispered what he had said to Murdock, who nodded. There was a long silence. “Tell them about the prisoners and the HQ,” Murdock said. “We have captured the military headquarters building and twenty-five Japanese soldiers. We have released your local Russian garrison from the Japanese prison. They now control the HQ.