"Then when the Eight Army decides to go north, they want to have the bridge repaired for their tanks in quick order."
"Something like that."
"You have pictures?"
" 'Deed I do. young man. Plenty. Some marked with where the Army tried to get their charges anchored before they got blown away last night."
Murdock took the sheaf of eight-by-ten glossy photos and worked through them. They showed the bridge, its supports, the river below, the banks on both sides. '"Can you do it?" Stroh asked.
"Give me a couple of minutes here, sharp stick. Lots of things to consider." He picked out one shot of a side view of the bridge and another from almost overhead.
"We can give it a try. See this section right here?" Murdock pointed to the lead-in to the bridge from the concrete roadway behind it.
"Yeah, it's on the far side of the bridge."
"It's the only place that can be blown out without damaging the structure of the bridge itself. We blow out that twenty-foot approach and the tanks got nowhere to go."
"Yeah, but what about our tanks that want to get across?"
"Easy. Send a tank out there with an engineering team to put up an emergency twenty-foot bridge. Those guys can do that in about three hours. Then shoot over the tanks and you're on your way."
"You sure this will work?"
"Hell, no, Stroh. Nobody gives guarantees these days. It could blow down the whole damn bridge. It's a risk."
Stroh emptied his second cup of coffee. "Easy talk, but how the fuck do you get over to the far side of the bridge to blow it? The NKs have that whole structure zeroed in with machine guns."
"We go in and they never see us."
"How?"
"I have to give away all my secrets?"
"Damn right. If I'm to get a go from General Reynolds."
"We go in upstream a quarter or half mile, come down the flow, and get out under the bridge. We go up underneath the bridge where the NKs can't see us, set the timers, go back to the water, and go underwater downstream another half mile and get out on the south side."
Stroh looked at the pictures. Slowly he nodded. "All right. You have the right explosives?"
"TNAZ."
"Right. Let me talk to the general. I'll get a go from him, but I'll warn him that the bridge should be fit for use, but it might not. It's a better risk than using smart bombs."
Without a good-bye, Stroh stood and hurried out of the mess. Murdock ordered another plate of hot cakes, and made it into the SEALs' assembly compartment just after 1120.
Jaybird had the platoon working over equipment. Murdock scowled remembering thai he still hadn't gotten any higher rate for Jaybird. He was sitting in a senior chief petty officer's slot and still was first class. Murdock was going to twist some tails somewhere. The guy deserved a higher rate and more pay.
"'What gives, Cap? Do you have that gleam in your eye again?"
Murdock grinned. It was hard to fool Jaybird. "Not sure. Might have another job to do tonight. If it's a go. Don is talking to General Reynolds now over at Eighth Army. Just never can tell. How are we fixed for line?"
"What kind and how long, sir?"
"Man-weighted for at least a hundred feet. We'd have to have at least six of them."
"Nothing like that in our gear. I'd wager we can pick up some line like that from the big boat here."
"Hope so. Why don't you check it out as a possible."
"Right, Cap. Rope work. Yeah, I like rope work. At least a hundred feet? No sweat, Cap. I'm on the phone."
Murdock still had the envelope of pictures. He pulled Ed DeWitt to one side and showed them to him. Ed looked up.
"So, a bridge?"
"Yeah, look at that first on-ramp-type section before it comes to the first bridge main supports."
"Okay, not all that sturdy. We gonna blow it?"
"Could we blow that section away and not damage the integrity of the main span?"
"Yeah, should work. We'd have to get the juice in the right spots. Yeah, I'd say it would work." He looked up. "Stroh must have caught you. He was here looking."
"In the mess. He's talking with General Reynolds over in Eighth Army now. They want the bridge taken out, but so they can use it later."
"Engineers could throw a tank-proof span over that twenty feet in two hours."
"Yeah, I gave them three hours in the dark." "How we get in?"
"Wet. Come down the current underwater. Get out right under the span. Then use ropes over the upper areas and go up the lines."
"How far is it from mud to beam up there?" Ed asked.
"Sixty, maybe seventy feet?"
"My guess is about sixty-five. We'd need a hundred and thirty feet of half-inch line."
"We can get by with three-eighths-inch if it's nylon braid."
Murdock called in Lampedusa, Bradford, and Jack Mahanani. They looked at the bridge and listened.
"So they control both sides of the land and we go in wet, right?" Lam said.
Jaybird came back from the phone. "Hey, yes. What's a Navy without some line? We can get whatever we want. They said a hundred feet in nylon would be easiest to use and get through the water. We can pick it up whenever we need it."
The phone rang and Franklin picked it up.
"Commander," he called, and held up the handset.
Murdock took the instrument and listened. "Right. We'll be ready to get out of here just before dark and move in and pick up a friendly local guide. We can get supplies we need here. Right."
Murdock hung up. Everyone had stopped talking and looked at him.
"Gentlemen, get your gear ready, we've got a wet job to do. We'll use the rebreathers and the water is going to be muddy. We'll shove off from here in a helo about 1700."
DeWitt kept looking at the photographs. He had one out that showed the top of the bridge and the slope above it.
"Cap, looks like there's about a hundred yards from the crest of the hill back there to the bridge. That area must be under fire from the south side. Be fine if we could have some 105's or some fifty-calibers warm up those areas on call. Give the NKs something to think about besides somebody playing with their bridge."
Murdock grunted. "Yeah. Good idea. Get in touch with Stroh and have him put you in contact with the commander in that sector. Set it up so all we need to do is use the SATCOM and ask for the rounds to start. Make it on call. We're not sure when we'll be getting in there. My guess is it would go best after midnight."
"Sounds good. Give the artillery a chance to zero in some firing concentrations to use when we call for them."
Then the platoon gathered around and they began to plan the mission.
"Everybody going, or could eight men do the job?" Jaybird asked.
"Security, we need everyone to give the guys on the ropes some security," Les Quinley said.
"Everyone," Murdock said.
"How many men on ropes?" DeWitt asked.
They kicked it around, looked at the structure of the bridge, and decided that six could do it. They could scramble up the far bank to get their ropes over, then go up the ropes and plant the charges.
Murdock picked out the five men besides himself who were the best at the rope climb on the O course. Franklin, Adams, Lampedusa, Ching, and Sterling.
They decided they'd use smaller charges of TNAZ on the areas next to the main support, and larger charges back where the bridge met the land. That way the whole section should be blown off and drop into the river below.
Ed DeWitt found Stroh, who made the call to the Army people and contacted the commander in the sector where the bridge was. They had concentrations of 105's on the ridgeline behind the bridge. Yes, they would lay in ten rounds on call from the SATCOM to their TAC frequency.
The SEALs left promptly at 1700 in a reliable CH-46 Sea Knight, and set down at dusk near the MLR about ten miles west of Panmunjom. Here the bulge made by the North troops was about seven miles beyond the old DMZ. An ROK captain met them. He would coordinate the artillery. He gave Ron Holt the frequency to use. Holt dialed it up and made immediate contact with the artillery. The ROK soldier there even spoke English.