“That’s a Roger, DeWitt.”
All Alpha Squad watched for the truck. Ching hugged the right-hand lane at fifty miles an hour and let the traffic slice past him. They were on Hawaii Highway 1 for only a few minutes when the radio came on again.
“This is State Trooper Philbin. Saw your beer truck, it was in the slow lane on the other side, heading west. Not sure, but it probably was on the off-ramp to the Pali Highway Number 61. If so, he was heading north up the grade.”
“Do it,” Murdock growled. “Let’s go north. The off-ramp is coming up.”
Ching hit the cloverleaf off-ramp and nailed the Pali highway.
“If that was the rig and it came this way, he couldn’t be more than a few miles ahead of us. Can you get any more speed out of this wreck?” Murdock asked.
With the load of the lead blanket and the SEALs, the Humvee was straining to keep up with traffic up the Pali Highway. They couldn’t pass many cars, so Murdock wasn’t sure they could catch the truck ahead of them.
He checked with DeWitt on the SATCOM. DeWitt had heard the transmissions and would turn north when he came to the Pali Highway. He figured he was still about six or seven miles from it. Murdock reported to CINCPAC that he and the other Humvee were heading up the Pali.
This all might be a wild-goose chase, but it was their wild goose and the only one in town right now.
At the first gas stop, they pulled in and Murdock talked to the attendant.
“Beer truck?” the redheaded kid asked. “Hail, no, bro, I ain’t seen no beer truck up this way. Fact is, don’t ever remember seeing one. I think they go around the mountain.”
The second gas stop, and then the third, proved to have the same message. If there had been a one-ton-sized beer truck, the attendants hadn’t seen it.
They took the turn toward Kaneohe on the other side of Pali, and Murdock began thinking. The beer truck guys might be heading for the Chinese troops over there. It was a chance.
Murdock talked to two more gas stations, and on the last one he hit gold.
“Beer truck? Yeah, never heard of that brand of beer. I asked the guy about it. He said he was sold out on this run, but he’d drop me off a free bottle next time he came through. Looked like the rig was still heavily loaded, but I didn’t say nothing.”
“Which way did they head when they left?”
“Guy asked me how to get to the Valley of the Temples, so I told him. On up the coast. Highway Number 83. Can’t miss the signs to the left.”
Murdock reported in to CINCPAC where he was and the first positive sighting of the beer truck and where it might be heading. Murdock grinned when he angled the Humvee back on the highway. “Oh, yeah, he’s heading for the Chinese invasion force up here that we and the Marines captured. Wonder if he thinks they are still here, or if we didn’t get all of them.”
They drove.
It was less than half an hour later that Murdock recognized the valley where the chopper had dropped them off before. “These guys weren’t looking for the Valley of the Temples, but the road this side of it,” Murdock told Ching.
They pulled in a hundred yards and stopped. Murdock used the SATCOM and talked to DeWitt. He would be through Kaneohe in half an hour. Murdock decided to wait. He had the men check their equipment, reload their weapons, and get ready for some action.
DeWitt turned up in twenty minutes. He and Murdock talked, and then they headed the two Humvees up the dirt road that led to the valley where they had found the Chinese invasion force before. It was a little spooky, Murdock admitted to himself. But if all the Chinese were gone from this area, why would they tell the truck driver to bring the bomb out here?
A half mile up the road Murdock had Ching pull over. Lam checked the dirt and gravel road. There was almost no development up toward the hills here. No reason for a blacktopped road.
Lam came back with a big grin.
“Oh, yes, one set of fresh tire tracks. Soft place back there where I could make out the tire tread pattern. I’ll know it if I see it again. They’re moving up this road.”
“Not far up here to the mountains,” Murdock said. “Not too far to where we took on that battalion. We cleaned up on them and the Marines mopped them up and took away the POWs. Why is the bomb coming up this way?”
“Maybe we didn’t get all the guys who came ashore,” Lam said. “How about another battalion hiding in the trees and brush and laying still waiting for the Marines to go away?”
“Could have happened,” Murdock admitted. “These guys are bringing the bomb up here for some reason. We better take it easy. Get Tran out there with you, Lam, and do point for us about a quarter of a mile ahead. Tell us if you run into anything that looks like a roadblock or an outpost.”
They kept the Humvees in low gear with the lights off, and moved up the dirt road only by the light of the waning moon.
They had gone little over a half mile when Tran came out of the darkness and waved them down.
“Commander, we’ve found it. The beer truck is up ahead in a small clearing. Trouble is, there’s at least fifty or sixty men around it in a perimeter defense. Lam says they’re Chinese with weapons and dug in with good firing positions. He said no sign of any white men up there.”
Murdock and DeWitt talked it over with Senior Chief Dobler.
“Twenties,” DeWitt said.
“Damn right, but what’s that going to do to the beer truck?” Murdock asked.
“Kill it probably,” Dobler said. “Course we can always roll it down the hill. We’re up here a ways on the slope.”
“Going to blow all the tires if we do a job with the twenties,” DeWitt said. “But if they’re dug in, that’s about the only way we can beat them.”
“The EAR?” Murdock suggested.
“Won’t be that effective in the open. We could nail about a third of them, but that leaves a lot of firepower up there.”
“Will the twenties hurt the bomb?” Dobler asked.
“Not so you could notice,” DeWitt said. “First the shrapnel has to get through the sides of the truck, then hit the wooden crate. Going to stop most of it.”
“It must have an antenna on it somewhere if they plan to set it off by radio signal,” Murdock said.
“Yeah, or maybe the keepers attach the antenna when they get the word to do so,” Dobler said.
“Attach it and say hello to their ancestors.” Murdock snorted.
He scratched his chin. “We leave the rigs here and move up on foot. We’ll set up an arc and use the twenties. Then when we have them beat down, we’ll fire six shots from the EAR and move in.”
“Hoping the rest of the battalion doesn’t rush down here and get in our way,” DeWitt said.
“We worry about moving the rig after we get it,” Dobler said. “We can always tow it with one of the Humvees.”
Murdock called the men around and explained the situation and what they would do. There were no questions. The six men who usually used the Bull Pup twenties loaded up with ammo, and the rest checked their usual weapons.
Tran took them up to where Lam waited. He had pulled back to three hundred yards.
“Twenties?” he asked Murdock. The commander nodded. “How about I put two red flares in there for you to get your lasers on?”
Murdock said to do it when the troops were ready. He spread them out ten yards apart in a gentle arc around the near side of the target. He could make out part of the truck now with his NVGs. He spotted a few of the mounds of dirt.
“Go on the flares,” Murdock said softly into his lip mike. Two reports came as the rifle flares were fired at the beer truck. One hit just behind it, and one twenty yards to the side. Both gave the Bull Pup’s range finders and video cameras targets to laser on.