“Cap, they’re past. I got a closer look. Must have been about fifty troops. They had what I guess were automatic rifles and an MG or two. Maybe a reinforced platoon. Figure they were out hunting us or whoever made the noise with the firefight. Somebody might have radioed in at that last hit we made.”
“Roger that, Lam. Let’s get our men up to you and we’ll try to backtrack them right into their soup kitchen. Any idea how far these troops came to get here?”
“They weren’t dragging, no one lagging back. My guess is that they were fairly fresh, say not more than two miles into their hike.”
“We’re moving, SEALs. Let’s find Lam and go after the home base. Jaybird, I want you in sight of the last man as our rear guard. What we don’t want is them yahoos storming up on our tail end without our knowing it.”
They hiked along the mashed-down half-track trail for almost an hour before Lam called a halt. DeWitt, Master Chief Dobler, and Murdock went up to where the scout stood looking down a slight grade at a camp. There were dozens of fires. Most of them small, as if serving as cooking fires for squads.
“Two thousand down there?” Dobler asked. “That’s fifty platoons of forty men each. That many guns can do a lot of damage.”
“Anyone see a pattern to the fires?” Murdock asked. “Like maybe they are in lines or squares to show where the units are set up. Would they have two-man tents or be roughing it?”
“I’ve heard that the Chinese Army doesn’t believe in tents, except for its officers,” Dobler said. “My dad said he never saw a Chinese tent in the Korean War.”
“What kind of targets do we have?” DeWitt asked.
“Those half-tracks would be good ones,” Lam said.
“Maybe we could spot a tent used for a CP,” Murdock said. “Two thousand men. That would rank at least a major as the commander. He’d have a deluxe tent somewhere.”
They watched the site. A few fires went out. Some new ones sprang up. The new ones were larger. Murdock looked at his watch and punched the light. It was almost 2100.
“We’ll move down until we hit an outpost, go around it, and try to follow the tracks to the rigs. If no luck, we send out two patrols to find and blow two of the half-tracks. If no luck getting to the rigs, we pull back to a thousand yards and shell the place with 20mm exploding. Say we dump a hundred rounds in and around those fires, we should have a good body count in the morning.”
DeWitt nodded. “Yes, I agree. Let’s get it moving. Lam will stay out front.”
Third Platoon was on the move again. Excitement had begun to creep into the men’s actions and faces. This would be a real test of their abilities to get a job done. The half-tracks were the key. They moved quicker now, knowing where they were going and what they would be doing.
It took them an hour more to come up on the Chinese camp. It was huge, spread out along a valley with a small stream. When they were a mile from the camp, Lam slowed the pace watching for the first guards.
The first guard post had a fire going and rifles stacked like they were in their barracks. Lam led them around the outpost and another half mile before they came to the next guard post. This one was well manned and alert. The SEALs went around the outpost without a sound and followed the half-track’s trail.
A quarter of a mile ahead they came to a stop. Lam told Murdock what he found.
“A perimeter defensive line, Cap. Looks like a sentry about every twenty yards. I can take out two of them and we’ll walk right through.”
“Meet me,” Murdock said. He took Jaybird and worked forward until they found Lam. He pointed out the nearest two guards.
“Each of you take out one silently. Then give us a double click on the Motorola and we’ll come through.”
Jaybird and Lam melted into the moonlit moderate growth of trees and brush. Jaybird had seen his target. He was just below a good-sized koa tree. Jaybird would come up behind the man.
The next fifty feet, Jaybird slithered along on hands and knees and belly, his MP-5 tied over his back. He spotted the big tree, then the Chinese soldier slumped under it. He had not dug in. Good. Jaybird went twenty yards behind the sentry, then began working silently toward him.
Jaybird was the best silent mover in the platoon. Sometimes he scouted when Lam was wounded. He inched his way toward the sentry, who he now saw had slid down the koa tree and sat leaning against it, his rifle in his lap. Jaybird pulled the fighting knife from his left-ankle scabbard and lay silently watching the man. Sleeping or just quiet? He didn’t know.
Jaybird moved ahead another six feet. The soldier sat against the koa tree three feet ahead and to the left. In one fluid movement, Jaybird came upright and held the knife in his right hand. The blade had been sharpened on both sides of the point for slashing either direction. He held it waist high, stepped around the tree, and swiped the blade across the Chinese soldier’s throat.
The only sound was a soft gurgle by the soldier before his head fell forward blocking the spray of blood from his left carotid artery. Jaybird held him against the tree for fifteen seconds, until he was unconscious, fast approaching death.
Jaybird eased away, leaving the soldier leaning against the tree. Then he looked to the left to see if he could spot the next Chinese soldier in the defensive line. He couldn’t. Which meant that the enemy soldier couldn’t see him either. He clicked his radio twice and waited.
A minute or two later he heard two clicks in his earpiece. Lam had finished his task. The platoon would be coming. He lifted up, pulled the MP-5 subgun around from his back so he could use it if he had to, and made sure the silencer was in place. He had taken only three steps toward the center of the cleared zone when he spotted a Chinese officer walking quickly toward him. Another thirty feet and the man would start looking for the rifleman on the perimeter duty.
Jaybird froze where he was. He had to do something and do it damn fast or the whole operation could be blown right out of the water.
5
Jaybird still held the bloody knife in his right hand. As long as he didn’t move, the officer wouldn’t see him for a few more seconds. He kept coming closer. Now he was twenty-five feet away, then twenty. Jaybird pulled up the knife holding the blade above the blood.
Three seconds later the Chinese lieutenant looked directly at Jaybird and started to yell. The knife was already on its way. It spun once and the blade jolted through the officer’s tailored shirt, driving through his rib cage, and piercing all the way through his heart. He stumbled, tried to grab the pistol at his side. Before he could get to it, his knees buckled and he fell forward on his face in the dead leaves and grass of the forest floor. He never moved again.
Jaybird retrieved his knife, wiped it clean on the officer’s shirt, and hurried toward the center of the cleared section. He saw movement ahead and whipped up his MP-5, then saw it was Horse Ronson. He ran to Ronson and fell in behind him.
Lam worked back to the head of the column, and kept them moving for fifteen minutes more before he stopped. Murdock and DeWitt went forward and checked it out.
“Six campfires dead ahead,” Lam said. “I don’t see the damn half-track anywhere.”
“Figures,” Murdock said. “A blocking force. Smart. Makes me wonder who’s running this invasion. Why are they letting this outfit just sit here? It could be going over the mountain or do an end run along the coast for Honolulu.”
Murdock stared at the six campfires. “So, we split up. DeWitt, you take your squad and Lam and go around the left side. Circle around looking for those half-tracks. Alpha Squad will do the same thing on this side. If you don’t find a target by midnight, pull back eight hundred yards and fire sixty of the exploding twenties at tents or any target you can find. The range finder doesn’t care if it’s dark or not.”