“Yes, sir, Commander. We have two fifty-caliber machine guns that can do a lot of damage if they provoke us. We should be able to keep their heads down long enough for your team to get on board. We just heard on the radio that our cutter that went out to stop that freighter was fired on. We put two rounds from our twenty-five-millimeter Bushmaster over their bow and they kept going for a mile. A second round just in front of the bow brought the ship to a slow stop. They are about half a mile off the tower. They’re now anchored, and our plane has reported there is movement from the tower to the freighter in two boats.”
“They must have known we were coming,” Murdock said. “First we need to take down the tower. I’d guess they will have riflemen on the tower now as well. Can your cutter stop any boarding of the freighter by those boats?”
“We’re doing that. The small boats can’t get to the rope ladders the freighter has put overboard. So far the other cutter reports there are about ten men in the boats trying to get to the freighter. Unfortunately, they have rifles as well, and are using them.”
“How long until we get to the tower?” Murdock asked.
“Another ten minutes,” Lieutenant Wilson said. “We’re making eighteen knots. That’s our flank speed.”
Murdock went below and told the men the situation. “If they fire at us, we’ll let the Coast Guard return fire with their Fifties. When we get close enough we’ll hose the place down with our MP-5’s.”
“Civilians?” Donegan asked.
“If they don’t have sense enough to hide, some of them might get shot,” Murdock said. “They knew they were playing a dangerous game. Some of them might lose.”
The cutter came within five hundred yards of the tower and she began to take rifle fire. The two fifty-caliber machine guns on the cutter returned fire and quieted the tower rifles for a while. Then the shooting began again, and Murdock edged up to take a look. “Three hundred yards,” he told DeWitt, who was just behind him. “Wish we had brought at least one Bull Pup.”
One Coast Guard shooter took a round in the leg. Another man grabbed the machine gun and kept it shooting.
Two hundred yards. Murdock decided. “Alpha Squad on deck and fire at will. Three-round bursts.” The eight SEALs scattered around the front of the cutter and chattered out a thundering volume of fire. After all the SEALs had emptied a magazine, they noticed that the firing from the tower had stopped.
“Cease fire,” Murdock said on the Motorola. The SEAL guns quieted. At a hundred yards the rifles on the tower fired again. “Commence firing,” Murdock said, and the eight weapons blasted another thirty rounds each into the tower, 240 9mm slugs jolting into it, glancing off steel and splattering on more steel. Windows in the top level shattered.
“Bravo Squad, get ready to board the tower. DeWitt, we’ll keep up covering fire as your men work up the tower. When you want us to cease fire, call it out.”
Bravo Squad crouched behind the superstructure of the cutter as it eased up to the small floating dock at the base of the oil-rig tower. The eight men jumped to the platform and scurried up the steel ladders. Murdock motioned the cutter to back off so his men would have better targets. They then fired at anyone they could see on the tower. Whenever a Korean rifleman lifted over a beam or peered around a doorway, he was met with a dozen rounds of hot lead.
DeWitt scrambled up to the first level and called for the cease-fire. Then he worked up cautiously, through the boring level where the drilling had stopped. On up to the areas above where there would be living quarters, a kitchen, and on levels four and five, the control rooms and offices.
The third level proved to be the hardest. It was a maze of small bedrooms plus a kitchen. DeWitt and Franklin worked up to the first door and kicked it in. A man inside held up his hands.
“Don’t shoot, I’m an American. Joe Fisher.”
“Joe, we’re Navy SEALs. Are there any more Americans on this floor?”
“This is where they keep all of us when we’re not pretending to be drilling. About twenty of us. Most of these doors are locked.”
“Kick them in,” DeWitt told his men. “We have to clear this level before we can move up.”
They began smashing in the doors, and found only Americans, who DeWitt ordered to stay put so they didn’t get shot by the North Koreans.
“Where are the rest of the Koreans?” DeWitt asked an American.
“Hell, all over the place. Now they mostly are on the levels above. I can show you. Lots of the little bastards. They wouldn’t let us off. Made us run the rig whenever anyone came around. Prisoners, hostages is what we were.”
“Show us where the Koreans are,” DeWitt said. The man nodded, and ran ahead of them down the hall to a stairs and up it. He peered over the top into the fourth level.
“Most of them lived up here, and worked the radios on top and in the bunker they built underwater.”
DeWitt pulled him down, lifted up, and looked around quickly, then dropped down. A shot slammed into the steel frame behind the stairs. DeWitt lifted his MP-5 over the top of the stairs and sprayed six rounds into the big room, then jolted upward and scanned the place. A man behind a desk on the far side lifted up and brought a submachine gun to bear on him, but DeWitt drilled him with three rounds before he could fire. They found another man with four slugs in his chest next to a door.
DeWitt ran to the first Korean and kicked away the weapon.
“All gone,” the Korean said. “American, you lose.” The Korean coughed, screamed once, and died.
The American ran up. “Hey, good, you got him. Next level is where most of the gooks worked. Bunch of radios like I’ve never seen before.”
“They still up there?” Murdock asked.
“Probably not,” Fisher said. “I saw them bugging out in those two boats.”
DeWitt sent Victor and Jefferson up the stairs to check the next level. A few moments later the radio spoke.
“Clear on this level, Lieutenant,” Jefferson said. “But really a lot of radios, all kinds.” The rest of the SEALs went up the steps and looked at the communication center jammed with screens and radios.
“Murdock, can you read me?” DeWitt asked on the Motorola.
“Fives, DeWitt. You clear there?”
“Looks clear.”
Just then submachine-gun fire erupted from a doorway at the far side of the fifth level. The SEALs dove for the floor. DeWitt felt a burning in his right leg as he pumped a dozen rounds into the offending doorway.
Franklin had fired too, but then stopped. Fernandez kept firing into the doorway as he charged the area. He dodged behind a desk and sent six more rounds into the closet area the doorway opened into. No more firing came from the closet. Fernandez charged it and kicked the closet door open. He fired one shot, then turned.
“We have five KIAs here. I wondered where all that rifle fire came from. They’re all wasted.”
DeWitt sat up and looked at Franklin. He lay where he’d dropped when the firing began. DeWitt scowled and knelt beside Franklin. He had taken three rounds, two in the chest and one in the forehead. DeWitt swore at himself for assuming the floor was clear until he checked.
“Murdock, we’ve got a KIA here. Franklin caught one in the forehead. He’s gone.”
25
Murdock squinted against the bright sun and cursed the whole bloody Navy. “Take care of him, DeWitt. Anyone else wounded?”
“Anybody hit?” DeWitt called on his radio.
“Yeah, I got one in the shoulder, up high,” Canzoneri said. “Shouldn’t have come up to that damn stairway when I did.”