He felt the Huey swerve slightly and slow. The pilot, in the right-hand seat, was wearing a heavy, masklike headset that covered his eyes, with night-vision goggles that let him pick out details of surface and surroundings in near-total darkness. According to Tse, these helo crews were expert at finding their way to particular unmarked patches of ocean in the middle of a moonless night with uncanny precision. He just hoped their sense of altitude was good in those things; they were flying at something like twenty feet above the waves, way too low for the altimeter to be at all useful, low enough that the slightest miscalculation could slam them into the water and end their mission right then and there. The other three helicopters should be strung out behind the leader, staggered in echelon formation so that jumpers from one helo wouldn't come down on top of other jumpers already in the water.
If these guys knew what they were doing.
Their speed should be dropping to about twenty or thirty knots, no more. Any faster and the SEALs would slam into the water hard enough that it would feel like a stone wall. Men had been killed in training accidents when pilots had signaled the helocasters to jump and were flying too high or too fast. Morton leaned forward, looking down into blackness. The moon had set several hours before, and the night was overcast and dark. He could just make out a glimmer of light reflecting from a black, oily surface, but it was almost impossible to gauge altitude by eye alone.
Time for a final equipment check, to pull masks down over painted faces… and turn on the gas flow from rebreathers.
The copilot reached back again, gave a clenched-fist signal, then pointed. It was time… now!
Two by two, from the open cargo deck doors on either side of the Huey, the SEALs planted their feet on the helicopter's runners and pushed themselves off backward into black emptiness. Morton shoved hard with his feet, holding his breath and squeezing his mask down hard against his face. An instant later a cold, explosive collision engulfed him when he hit the churning black water.
Helocasting was only a slightly updated form of the original UDT deployments off patrol boats or landing craft during World War II and Korea. Frogmen trained to jump off the side of a speeding boat into a raft secured to the boat's side, and then on command to roll over the edge of the raft and into the water. The maneuver permitted them to deploy with considerable precision, carefully spacing the combat swimmers out in a line.
This was much the same, but from a low, slow-flying helicopter instead of a boat. Aircraft gave them considerably better maneuverability than boats would have allowed. Their flight path had been carefully contrived to take them north from Kinmen toward the mainland, then swinging west parallel to the invisible border between ROC and PRC territory. Kinmen was only about four miles off the Chinese coast; the line of UH-1s would have been apparent on every PLA radar screen from Xiamen to Shenhu. The watchers along the coast might even suspect that a frogman insertion was under way, but they would have no way of telling exactly where the commandos had dropped off.
Kicking gently, Morton approached the surface. When his head broke through to open air once more, he could hear the dwindling flutter of the helicopters continuing to fly west, parallel to the border. Eventually they would swing south, out over the strait, and make their way back to Taiwan.
But thirty-two black-clad combat swimmers remained, moving through the inky darkness with slow, silent kicks. The luminous LED compass on Morton's wrist gave him his bearing of 325 degrees; the mainland coast ought to be just over two miles ahead, that way… an easy swim.
And a lonely one. He knew there were thirty-one other men out there, but he could see nothing, could hear nothing but the hiss of his own breathing, the thud of his own heartbeat in his sea-muffled ears. Slipping back beneath the water, he concentrated on holding his stroke to a measured beat per second, counting each kick in order to estimate his progress.
At a yard per kick, seventeen hundred and some yards per mile… call it an hour to cover two miles. Kick…kick… kick…
His progress was helped by the inflowing tide, and a two-knot current along the coast, running east to west, had been accounted for in the op planning. Now was the time, though, to wonder what they'd missed, what factor, forgotten, was going to turn around and bite them.
Kick…kick… kick…
SEALs were trained to be patient, to hold on, to endure. Thrusting steadily along, he stayed just beneath the surface. Once, thirty minutes into the deployment, he heard the growling rasp of a boat's engine growing louder, and he jackknifed at the waist, going deeper. He had to be careful of his depth. Draeger units had the unfortunate habit of causing oxygen poisoning at depths much below thirty-two feet. The growl grew louder, louder… then faded away behind him. Presumably, the PLA had boats out on patrol, guarding against just such a visitation as this one. They would also have listening devices of various sorts planted… and possibly mines as well. They would not have motion detectors, since those could be triggered by any large, passing fish. And there might be nets, but they couldn't encase the entire coast in antiswimmer netting.
He heard a sudden, dull thump and felt a quick pressure in his ears. He stopped, hovering in the darkness, listening. Another thump, farther off this time. Those were explosions…probably hand grenades tossed into the water. He felt a stab of concern, then pushed the emotion down. Almost certainly, a PLA surface patrol was tossing grenades into the water at random, hoping either to catch enemy swimmers by chance or to bluff them into showing themselves. If they'd actually spotted some of the Red Dragon swimmers… well, there wasn't a lot that could be done, save to press on. After another three distant explosions the thumps ended.
Morton kept swimming.
Almost an hour after the helocast, his flippers brushed against stony bottom. He swam on a few more yards, then carefully maneuvered himself upright and again broke the surface.
He was adrift in a gentle offshore swell. He could see the coast clearly a few hundred yards ahead, the city of Xiamen was close, a mile or so to the southwest, and the sky glow reflected off overcast and water made the surroundings visible, especially to eyes dark-adapted by an hour of swimming in pitch-darkness.
For a long, long time Morton floated there, watching the coast. He could see the beach as a gray streak edged by the slash and churn of rolling surf. Above the beach was forest, black and impenetrable. There were lights on a hill in the distance — a house, perhaps, or a small building. There were no nearer signs of habitation.
Ten minutes passed. He could feel himself being dragged east by the current and kicked slowly to hold himself in place. This was one of the crucial points of the insertion. Somehow, thirty-two swimmers who'd jumped into the ocean an hour ago and two miles away from that beach had to rendezvous with absolute stealth and silence. The only way to do that was to have two men — Petty Officer Second Class Li Ho and PO First Class Chiang Soon — go in first and alone as pathfinders. Once they found the right spot of beach and made sure it was clear, they would—
Yes! There! A light winked briefly above the beach to the right — two shorts and a long, the agreed-upon signal. Morton began kicking again, striking out toward the indicated section of beach.
He felt the bottom rising beneath him, felt the surf grow stronger, more turbulent, roiling the surface and propelling him forward. He let an incoming wave lift him and send him gliding forward; he hit wet sand and clung there as the wave burst over his back and head and shoulders, hissing, then trickled away, leaving him on wet and gleaming sand. He crawled forward, staying flat, as another wave broke across his legs and splashed around his face.