“Floorboard that crate and get it up here. Make sure your driver knows where the best and closest emergency room is. You’re backup for Jaybird into the operating room. Take no shit from nobody. Get it done. We’re at an old farm with three buildings. Ronson, put up a green flare, now.”
Lam had led the rest of the platoon through the complex and cleared it, and now he took out his three-cell flashlight and began searching the area. He found tire tracks at once.
“Tracks, Cap. Looks like at least two rigs. I’d say they are off-road or utility rigs. Lots of bootprints around the last set of tires.”
“Estimated number?” Murdock asked.
“Can’t tell. A lot of over-printing. Ten to thirty. Two utility vans could haul thirty men.”
“Keep looking. DeWitt. Check the guy in the first room. Looked like he had a broken neck. Solves the prisoner problem.”
Murdock went outside to where the flashlight glowed. He came up to Lampedusa just as he bent and picked up something.
“Oh, shit, this is not good,” Lam said.
“What is it?”
Lam held it out. “A thirty-round magazine, like they use on submachine guns and on some automatic rifles. Looks like the guys we’re chasing have more than one automatic bang-bang.”
9
Commander Blake Murdock looked at the magazine. It carried 5.56mm rounds, which could be used in dozens of different international weapons. There was trouble ahead. So they’d snatched the two admirals. What were they going to do with them? Hold them hostage for some ridiculous prize was not reasonable. They must have a more practical plan.
“Holt, let’s get on the air.”
Ron Holt came up with the SATCOM radio, broke out the antenna, spread its little dish antenna, and aligned it with the right orbiting satellite. When the set beeped that it was in the right position, he gave the handset to Murdock. Only then did the commander look at his wristwatch. He punched the light button and saw that it was only a little after 2100.
He had a response from CINCPAC after the second transmission.
“Mr. Stroh is not here. He’s on the phone with Washington. Admiral Bennington is anxious to hear about the two officers you’re hunting.”
Murdock brought the man up to date, and he said he’d relay the information to the admiral and to Stroh.
“Tell Stroh we may need some backup. The Jefferson could send us a pair of fully armed Sea Cobra gunships. Ask him to have the carrier put a pair on standby for us. Our Sea Knight choppers should be at the airport here for transport. We flushed out one bunch of armed Chinese, but the two admirals are still missing. We’re moving out.”
“That’s a Roger on the aircraft, Commander. I’ll get the signal off at once. Your red-signature order is still in effect.”
“Good. We’re out and gone.”
The white van ground up to the front of the old house, and Murdock and Mahanani carried Jaybird to the van and laid him on the wide seat.
“Franklin, keep some pressure on that belly wound,” the corpsman said. “Don’t let it bleed. Keep him secure on the seat.”
“Driver, you know where there’s a hospital with an emergency room?” Murdock asked.
“Yeah, I been figuring the shortest way there. It’s no more than six or eight miles from here. I’ll get him there as fast as I can without wrecking this thing.”
Murdock nodded. “Good. Franklin, you stay with him, keep his gear. Leave his weapon and vest and any explosives and ammo in the van. Move it.”
Murdock watched the van roll out of the yard into the track of an old road and pick up speed.
“Now, ladies, we move into the interesting part of our demonstration. We find those bastards and kill them all. Let’s move out. Lam, you’re out in front as far as you can be and still see me. Go.”
They moved through a field, past some dark houses, but Lam could tell that the trail did not divert to the houses. “The Chinese seemed to be in a hurry,” Lam said.
Just over a small hill they came to what looked like an old manufacturing plant.
“Maybe used for pineapple processing,” DeWitt said.
“Or sugarcane,” Jefferson said. “Lots of cane back there a ways.”
Murdock stared at the dark building a quarter of a mile away. He didn’t like it. Too damn convenient. What did they have to gain going there? Murdock couldn’t think of a thing they could benefit from. Get the two admirals on board a Chinese warship and they would have a bargaining chip. This way?
DeWitt squatted beside Murdock. “What in hell they doing out here with the top brass? How can they benefit?”
“What I’ve been trying to figure out.” Murdock stopped. “Let’s move up on them. We need about fifty more yards. Too damn far off here. We go now, troops.”
The SEALs walked through a field that might have once raised sugarcane. There was little cover. About forty yards from the building they found what looked like an old irrigation ditch. Murdock put them in the grass-covered depression and watched the building again.
“See anything, anyone?” he asked the mike.
“Nada,” somebody said.
Murdock waited for another two minutes, then frowned.
“Hear that? Lam?”
“Yeah, Cap. I’ve got it. Coming in from the beach. Some kind of a chopper, but not the Sea Knight. Not big enough. Coming this way fast.”
They watched the sky to the west, but could see nothing. Then the bird came almost directly over them.
“Four-place job,” DeWitt said. “Yes. I can see the red and yellow star over the red and yellow outlined bar of the Chinese Air Force.”
“Take it down with twenties,” Murdock thundered. He had his own weapon up and sighted in with the laser. Three of the Bull Pups fired at nearly the same time. One airburst came just in front of the chopper. Two other rounds exploded against the side and rear of the ship on contact. The engine sputtered, then died. The rotors spun on automatic as the air rushed passed them and the bird fell from three hundred feet straight down. The small helicopter burst into flames when it hit, and there could be no survivors.
“Move it fast,” Murdock barked into the mike. “Fifty fast yards to the left, go now. Go, go, go.” They jumped up and ran flat out for the fifty through what appeared to be a pasture. Moments after they left their previous position, it was raked with more than a hundred rounds of machine-gun fire.
Murdock took another long look out front at the old packing plant. He had spotted at least three muzzle-flash areas. He had no idea how many weapons had fired at them.
DeWitt slid to the ground beside Murdock. “Now why in hell didn’t they make a stand at the mansion? They had much better defenses over there.”
“I’ll ask them when we catch them. Lam says there can’t be more than ten or twelve men left. They have the advantage because they know we won’t open up on them as long as they have the two valuable admiral chips.”
“The chopper,” DeWitt said. “Coming in to take the admirals for a ride out to a Chinese destroyer?”
“Probably, then to their carrier. They have to have one out there somewhere. Why didn’t the Navy see it? Maybe they did. Was it part of their goodwill visit as well, I wonder?”
“We have to take down that building or blow them out of there,” DeWitt said.
“Great. How?”
“We’ll use the old forty-five. I’ll take Bravo Squad out to the far side and set up at a forty-five-degree angle to the target. You move up from here to a forty-five from this same side. We won’t shoot up each other and we have a cross fire on the turkeys inside.”
“We still can’t blast away with the two chips inside.”