"Doi tasta maste," Murdock said, trying to remember how to pronounce the Japanese for "you're welcome." He knew he had clobbered the phrase. The woman smiled briefly. She understood. She was about twenty-five, Murdock figured. She bowed again, then hurried off through the night moving to the south.
They met DeWitt at the jeep. He held a fragger in his hand and motioned to the rig.
"Why not?" Murdock said.
Murdock and Lam ran to the right, and Ed DeWitt pulled the safety pin on the grenade, laid it on the fuel tank, and let the arming handle pop. Then he ran like hell away from the jeep. He had four seconds to get clear of the blast.
He made it. The grenade exploded, vaporizing the gasoline in the tank, which led to an instantaneous roaring explosion that melted down the jeep and set some dry grass on fire.
The three SEALs ran for the rest of their platoon.
A half hour later, Lam came back from the right flank.
"Got an LZ, Cap," he said. "No troops around and a nice flat spot with no trees. Should be a piece of cake."
"Let's do it."
They came to the place ten minutes later. Murdock used the land version of the MUGR to give an exact position to within ten feet with the use of global satellite triangulation. Holt fired up the SATCOM and made contact with the Sea Knight on the first try.
"Yes, SEALs, this is Sea Knight Two. Where?"
Murdock gave him the coordinates.
"Any ground fire expected?"
"Negative, looks clean now, Sea Knight. How long?"
"Eight minutes, unless we get into trouble. A red flare on the LZ? We're lifting off now." "You got the flare. Blink your landing lights twice, so we'll know it's you."
"Not many NK choppers out there. Will do."
The SEALs automatically formed a perimeter defense around the cleared spot, all prone and facing outward. Murdock pushed the light on his wristwatch. It was only 2030. They had been on land less than two and a half hours. A damned warm-up. Unless something else went wrong.
Nothing went wrong.
They landed on the Monroe a little after 2130. Don Stroh knew they were coming in, and nailed Murdock as soon as he stepped out of the chopper.
"Good work, sailor. Now the boss has a really important one that we need to talk about. Oh, you have any casualties?"
"Nice of you to ask. No wounded. Now what's this about a really important mission?"
8
Don Stroh and Murdock talked about the new assignment all the way to the dirty shirt mess, where Murdock had a steak dinner.
"You say this frigate is the largest and most powerful Navy ship that the North has. Why don't you just put an F-18 on it and blow it out of the water with a missile?"
"Because we can't find it when we want to. For instance, the first morning of the war at four-thirty a.m., the frigate showed up three miles off Inchon Harbor and shelled it for fifteen minutes. Then before it was light, it vanished back north into some of the many inlets and harbors up there."
"The whole U.S. Navy can't take care of one little frigate with what, a hundred and eighty men that's about three hundred and forty feet long? I don't believe it."
"True. Second day it did the same thing, and just after dark today it shelled the harbor and the city, then slammed out of there at twenty-four knots and we never laid a hand on her. But we know where she hides out."
"You didn't find her with all the air the Navy has during daylight hours?"
"She vanishes. Now we know why. The Caves of Ponhyon."
"The what? Caves? You telling me she slips into a cave during the day? That's an awfully big cave."
"Short of blasting down the whole damn mountain, there's no way we can get her in the cave. Except…"
"Except by the SEALs. Good choice. How do we get in there and get out?"
"You tell me. The admiral wants this one. He doesn't like to get slapped in the face by a little frigate."
"Yeah, I understand that. Let me sleep on it. We can't do anything until tomorrow night. We could meet her leaving the cave, in the cave, or coming back to the cave."
"Give it your best shot. The admiral's really pissed about this one."
It took Murdock a half hour to get to sleep that night. He kept going over the ways they could get to the ship, how they would blow it or disable her, how to get away. It would be wet, that was the best part. A real SEAL-type job for a change. When he drifted off to sleep, he was imagining the long hull of the ship edging out of the largest cave he'd ever seen.
The next morning in the SEALs' ready room, Jaybird and Ed DeWitt were delighted with the idea. By 0830 they had the details.
"Yeah, this will give us something to get our teeth into," Jaybird said.
"Good," the JG said. "I was wondering if I remembered how to swim. How do we go in?"
They worried it.
"Why not an RIB dropped off a destroyer out about ten miles from the target," Jaybird said. "We can get that middle sized one that does twenty-five knots. It's got plenty of range."
"They can carry nine," Ed said. "Do we take two of them and both squads, or just one?"
"Both squads," Murdock said. "We might need the firepower. These NKs get trigger-happy sometimes." "So we would take two of the RIBs," Ed said. "We have them in Coronado. Are there any in the fleet?"
"Get on the horn and find out, Ed. One of the amphibious ships could have some."
Ed left the small table and moved to a phone.
The rest of the SEALs were cleaning weapons, restocking ammo pouches, and repairing anything that had worn out or been broken. Murdock called them around and told them about the new mission.
"Just one little old frigate?" Douglas asked.
"Hell, Douglas can take care of that himself," Fernandez said. "He can piss it to death easy."
Murdock watched the exchange. He didn't like the tone, or the way Fernandez stared at the other SEAL.
"She hides out during the day, so it'll be a night run," Murdock said. "Maybe early, maybe late, we're not sure." As he spoke, he moved to disrupt the war of stares between the two SEALs. He'd have to ask Ed again about the problem. "How we go in there, all depends on what kind of transport they have in the fleet."
"We could go in on our IBS," Lampedusa said.
"Maybe, let's talk about it," Murdock said. "There are some islands and outposts up there where we might get in trouble. A faster boat might be better if we can wrangle it. Talk to me."
"Hell, we know the IBS," Jaybird said. "We know them inside out. The bigger boat can go faster, but it makes a hell of a racket."
"Have to throttle down when we get in close," Quinley said. "We'd want to swim in the last mile or so anyway."
"Hell we can carry a lot more stuff in the bigger boat," Ron Holt said. "We'll want some limpets or some such to put that sucker in the bottom of that cave, or the channel. I'd vote for the new ten-meter-class RIB. It's got Furno 1730 radar and GPS. Get us in and wait for us and snake us out of there."
They talked it over for another half hour, laying out the tools they'd want to take in, the explosives, the limpet mines, TNAZ as well, and the personal weapons. Murdock had the whole picture by 1000. Ed came back from a trip to see some supply officer and at last had a report.
"The amphib Boxer LHD4 has four of the RIBs. They're the new ten-meter class, which the XO over there said should work fine. He can have one or two of them here for us within two hours of our call."
"Good, let's you and me go see Stroh and then the XO. Looks like we might have a handle on how to do this one."
The XO was Captain Barney Waterton, former CAG and former Wing Leader and F-14 pilot. He grinned at Murdock.
"Damn, we're in the thick of it here, making more combat sorties than anything since the Gulf War. We're geared up to the max on close ground support and rear-area strikes, and still you SEALs can make the admiral jump. Amazing."