The men in the Galaxy were not average people. And they rode together, slipping down through the cloudless sky into Hawaii with much on their minds, saying very little, each man trying to imagine what the jail would look like when it was finally located.
In the hold of the Galaxy was stowed an astounding volume of gear, big crates containing all the combat equipment they would use on this mission to split wide apart the military jail that held the Seawolves. There would be no Chinese prisoners taken.
Only 12 men would make the landing underwater, and each of them had packed their own custom-made, highly flexible neoprene wet suits. In fact, there were four extra suits in case of emergency. If these four men were not required, they would go in with the main team. Thus there were 16 pairs of extra-large SEAL flippers, all custom-made, all oversized for extra speed through the water, all bearing the student number awarded to each man as he passed the BUD/S course. The 16 had also packed at least two pairs of modern commercial scuba divers’ masks each, their bright Day-Glo colors carefully obscured with black water-resistant tape.
None of the swimmers would wear watches because of the possibility of a glint shining off the metal through the water alerting a sentry. Instead, the SEALs would swim in holding a specially designed “attack board” in front of them. This is a small, two-handled platform that displays a compass, a depth gauge and an unobtrusive watch. Thus the swimmer can kick through the water with both hands on his attack board with the details of time, depth and direction laid out right in front of his eyes.
Because the target was as yet unknown, it was possible that the SEALs might have to go in underwater, perhaps through a harbor. This meant a heavy supply of Draegers, the special underwater breathing apparatus that leaves no telltale trail of bubbles like regular scuba equipment. The Draegers contain about 13 cubic feet of oxygen at 2,000 pounds per square inch, enough to last a SEAL for maybe four hours. The genius of the device is a recycling system for the oxygen as it is exhaled, mostly unused. This eliminates the bubbles. On land the Draeger is heavy, 35 pounds. In the water it is weightless.
The principal weapon selected for the attack was the elite German Heckler & Koch MP-5, a small, deadly accurate submachine gun, priceless at close quarters, flawless at 25 yards, the SEALs’ most comforting friend. There were 60 of them crated in the hold of the Galaxy. In addition, all the SEALs would go in with their regular Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, in its strapped-down holster containing two extra 15-round magazines right above the flap.
The main assault team was scheduled to take in four machine guns, the “light” M-60 E3, which weighs more than 30 pounds with two belts of 100 linked rounds, ready to fire. But that’s only 20 seconds of sustained fire for the lone SEAL machine gunners, and extra assistance would be required to carry in 12 belts per gun, providing two minutes of sustained fire incase of total emergency.
There were eight carefully knotted black nylon climbing ropes with steel grappling hooks stored in one separate crate, along with a dozen pairs of powerful night-sight binoculars. Eight light aluminum ladders, between 12 and 18 feet high, with eight extensions, had been sprayed jet black, with a matte finish, and were stored in light, strong cardboard containers with handles, easy and not too heavy for a couple of SEALs to transport through difficult terrain. A decision on ladders or grappling irons would be made by Rusty Bennett’s recon team.
In special sealed cases was the SEALs’ supply of high explosives, starting with six limpet mines in case they were required to take out a couple of patrol boats. The mines, complete with “backpack” harnesses for swimming in, were packed together with their magnets and timed detonators. A couple of these little devils, strategically placed, could break the back of an aircraft carrier.
Another case contained a dozen Mk 138 satchel charges, a perfectly simple shoulder bag containing about 40 pounds of explosives, to be primed with a standard nonelectric M-7 blasting cap at the end of its fuse. Lean this innocent-looking rucksack up against the wall of a good-sized detached house, and that house will shortly be a memory.
The SEALs preferred method of blasting anything to smithereens is plastic explosive called C4. It looks like white modeling clay, and can likewise be molded into any shape. C4 works off regular M700 time fuse, the thin green plastic cord full of gunpowder that burns at around one foot per 40 seconds. You can split the end with a knife and light it with a match, but SEALs hate light at night and much prefer the M-60 fuse lighter, a little plastic device with a spring-loaded pin, like a shotgun. It makes only a soft thud, and right after that you start to hear the sizzle of the black powder burning along to the cap. This is an excellent time to run like hell. There was a lot of C4, and a lot of time fuse in the hold of the Galaxy.
There were also several crates of detonating cord, packed in regular 500-foot spools. “Det-cord” is known to Special Forces throughout the world. This stuff looks like regular time fuse, except it’s a little thicker, a quarter-inch in diameter, and instead of burning at one foot per 40 seconds, it explodes at roughly five miles per second, because it’s stuffed with some diabolically high explosive called PETN. SEALs love det-cord because they can wrap it around anything and join up different, separate lengths all to explode at the same time.
In addition to the military hardware there were cases of first aid materials, codeine, morphine, battle dressings, and bandages. There was insect repellent, water purification tablets, lactate solutions, catheter kits for IVs, and groundsheets. The SEALs have never left a man to die. If a colleague is badly wounded, they treat him and carry him out, no matter what. If they’re trapped, they dig in and fight until there’s no one left, but this, of course, normally applies to the enemy.
Other cases contained their communication equipment, which included a small, two-second “shriek” device to the satellites. There were three fairly heavy regular radios with enough range to reach the aircraft carrier, but these would almost certainly not be used because of the risk of interception. Only in the most dire emergency would the SEAL teams fire up one of these. Dire emergency to these men means the threat of certain, imminent death. There was also a case containing state-of-the art GPS systems, 20 of them, because the terrain and countryside surrounding the jail were at this stage unknown to them.
The recon team would also go in with camouflage nets to shield them while they watched, plus trenching tools to dig and bury waste and machetes to hack their way through any bad jungle they ran into. There would be the usual supply of waterproof ponchos. And, of course, two laptop computers for the SEALs who would lie in the forest recording the movements of the Chinese guards. No one is as observant as a trained Special Forces soldier.
The SEALs did not disembark in Hawaii. The refueling was completed rapidly, and the Galaxy was back in the air by midnight, growling its way west, 25,000 feet above the Pacific wilderness, through retreating time zones that would make this an endless night for the sleeping Special Forces bound for Okinawa.
When they landed it should be 9:00 A.M. on Wednesday, July 12. But of course it would not be. Instead it would be 9:00 A.M. plus 16 hours, which made it precisely one o’clock in the morning the next day, Thursday, July 13. To complicate matters even further, it was at that time midday on Wednesday in Washington. And right there, complicated matters were moving almost as fast as the time zones.
“I DO NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND IT!” raged Arnold Morgan. “WE HAVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS’ WORTH OF EQUIPMENT FLOATING AROUND THE STRATOSPHERE, SUPPOSEDLY ABLE TO READ THE GODDAMNED WORTHLESS FUCKING HEADLINES IN THE WASHINGTON POST. AND THEY CANNOT FIND MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED FUCKING SAILORS WANDERING AROUND SOME FUCKING BEACH IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA…”