“We can with the EAR weapons. We give them about three shots on each angle and wait and see what happens.”
“Think it will work?” Murdock asked.
“One fucking way to find out.”
“Then you and I go in on point and recon the place for survivors?” Murdock asked.
“You bet. Hell, you want to live forever?”
Murdock stared at the building again. Damn few windows. They would have to get shots through two of them. At least now they knew the sound blast would go through the average windowpane.
“Yeah, gung ho, let’s do it,” Murdock said. “Give me three clicks when you’re set up and ready with the EAR.”
Bravo Squad moved out two minutes later. They jogged like dark ghosts through the soft Hawaiian moonlight, past some trees and brush, and made it to the forty-five. Murdock moved his squad up to the right angle and called up Bradford, who carried the EAR weapon.
“Three shots through any two of those windows on the first floor. Only is one floor. Any questions?”
“We have that ten-second charge-up time between rounds, remember,” Bradford said.
“Yeah. Get me three good ones. Then DeWitt and I are going in to check your handiwork. Make it damn good. I’m not ready to take ten or twelve NATO-sized rounds in my chest.”
“No sweat.”
Murdock grumbled. “You know that’s exactly what Houdini said just before he tried that last escape trick that killed him?”
“Cap, who the hell is Houdini?”
Murdock snorted. Bradford didn’t know. Figured. He settled down in the grass and made sure his Bull Pup was primed and ready. Then he waited for the three clicks on the Motorola.
They came a few breaths later. “Fire,” Murdock said to Bradford. The big guy leveled in and checked for the red light, then pulled the trigger.
The swooshing sound came and Murdock tried to follow the blast of the highly compressed dart of ambient air. The window broke, and then inside there was a thumping sound, not nearly as heavy as the one at the mansion.
Another shot came from in front of them with the same results. It must be a wide-open area inside.
Ten seconds later both weapons fired again, then a third time.
“Moving out,” Murdock said into the lip mike. “Just DeWitt and me. The rest of you stand backup.” He came to his feet and sprinted the forty yards to the one door on this side of the structure. He saw DeWitt coming from his position. They had heard nothing from the building since the rounds from the Enhanced Audio Rifle went off inside. Non-lethal. They had to be non-lethal. No way he would say he’d killed two admirals.
DeWitt hit the wall next to the door. He nodded. Murdock turned the knob. The door opened inward. Ed kicked the door and dove through to the left. Murdock took the right, rolled once, and came up with the Bull Pup ready to blast.
Murdock coughed. The inside of the building was one huge dust cloud. He stifled the next cough and listened. He heard another cough to his left. He moved that way. DeWitt went the other direction. The man coughed again.
Could you cough when you were unconscious? He decided that a body could do that. He flipped down his NVGs and looked through the dust. Better. Another cough. He saw a man to his left. He lay on the floor, a submachine gun in his hands. Unconscious. Murdock tied riot cuffs on his hands and ankles and moved on. The dust settled more now, and he could see it was a large, open-beamed building with rows and rows of tables in it. Maybe a packing shed.
There were no lights.
“Found one out like a light,” Murdock told the lip mike.
“I have one more over here.”
“Where are the rest of them?”
Sing struggled through the darkness, glancing over his shoulder now and then at the packing plant that was supposed to be his salvation. He had radioed the chopper to come in. By this time he and the two American admirals should have been halfway to the coast in the helicopter heading for the deck of his destroyer.
He swore and stopped. It would take the Americans some time to clear the whole packing shed. He had left three men there to slow down the advance. It just might give him time to get into the town and fade into the Chinese community. That was one good part about being Chinese. There were ethnic Chinese in almost every nation in the world. With his good English, he would fit in perfectly. The seven men with him would have a harder time. It was better than being shot as invaders.
He had seven men, two automatic rifles, and the radio. He wondered if another Chinese destroyer would send in its helicopter on a dangerous mission to rescue him and his two prisoners. One might. He would try later when they were nearer to the coast. He had spent a week in this area and knew it well. He was four miles from the coast, and another mile or so to a safe house where he could settle down, get more American clothes, buy some identification, and become an American.
Where had it gone so wrong? The master plan had been a good one. Not even the admiral thought they could invade Hawaii and conquer it. Just a thrust to tell the world that China had reached the level of the other great powers. They had made a good start with the strike at Pearl Harbor with the missiles. Fired from over four hundred miles away from their best submarine. They carried only explosive warheads, but usually were fitted with nuclear warheads.
The two American admirals remained a problem. He had them tied together and hobbled so they could take only small steps. If he melted into the Chinese society, what did he do with the admirals? Should he kill them and hide the bodies? Would the Americans keep hunting him down if he did that? He was sure they would.
He nodded when his lieutenant came up.
“Sir, we have no word from the three men we left at the packing shed. I assume they were killed or captured.”
Speaking was his second in command, who had been a strong leader during the mission.
“We head for the coast as fast as we can,” Sing said. “A mile from here we will tie the two Americans and leave them unharmed. Then we get to the coast and have the submarine come into shore and pick us up. It is our only chance. Tell the men. We’ll be working hard the next few hours, but it could mean our rescue.”
He ordered the men to change into the civilian clothes they had brought in their packs. Every mile they would discard uniforms well off their trail. By the time they reached the beach settlement, they would be eight civilians on a hike. By then they would have hidden their weapons and be totally defenseless — but also that much harder to identify as Chinese invaders.
Sing stripped out of his commander’s uniform and folded it carefully, then hid it under leaves and dirt well off the trail they were making through the countryside. It appeared to be a pasture on rocky ground. He had half his men put on their civilian clothes here. Then they left the admirals tied securely and jogged across the land toward the coast. By the time they came to the first row of houses and streetlights, they were seven civilians walking toward the coast. Sing was the only one who spoke English, so he was at the front of the group. They expected no trouble before they came to the sea. The radio with its powerful signal was stowed safely in the backpack one of the men wore. Now all they had to do was find the beach.
The Chinese officer led the men around a street blazing with lights. It was a business section. Two miles later they came over a green stretch of land and looked down at the Pacific Ocean. He smiled. It was like coming home. They jogged the last quarter mile, and huddled behind a small sand dune as the radioman took out the radio and began making his calls.
The plan was simple. They would call in the submarine, which would pinpoint their transmission location. It would come in to within a half mile of the shore. The men would swim out to meet the sub. The waterproof radio was also equipped with a sonar device to send a signal underwater to the sub for tracking. With no mixups, the last of the Chinese force sent to capture the two American admirals would be safely on board the submarine within two hours.