The six thunderous explosions of the flashbang tore through the enclosed structure, immediately followed by six shatteringly brilliant strobe lights. The sound and light were designed to make the soldiers inside temporarily blind and deaf, but not to injure them.
With the last strobe of light, Murdock, Ching, and Ronson raced through the door into the brightly lighted room. They found four more guards. Two had been sleeping, two others eating. Now all were on the floor holding hands over their ears and with their eyes tightly closed.
It took four minutes to get the Koreans on their feet and propelled outside, where they were bound by their wrists and taken away from the building.
As this took place, Joe Douglas and Bill Bradley had planted four heavy charges of TNAZ explosive in four vital parts of the building. Murdock liked TNAZ because it was fifteen percent more powerful than plastic explosive C-5, and it weighed twenty percent less.
Douglas came around the building and gave Murdock a thumbs-up. Murdock had told him to set the timers for ten minutes. They were ticking away.
"Let's get the hell out of Dodge," Murdock said into his lip mike. The SEALs left their captives in the brush and began to double-time back the way they had come.
About eighty yards away from the structure, Murdock stopped the men and they turned to watch behind them.
The explosives went off within a few seconds of each other, and the two-story building erupted in a roaring, blasting explosion that sent wood soaring into the sky and a huge fireball that surged upward over the treetops. Then all they could hear was the sound of the flames consuming what was left of the building.
To the left and the right they heard truck engines start, and the rigs converged on the fire. Murdock motioned to three of the men with grenade launchers. They each fired two rounds out as far as they would go back beyond the burning building. The first to hit were HP, the next WP.
At once they heard the trucks racing in the new direction.
"Moving," Murdock said into his Motorola. Each SEAL had a personal communication radio with lip mike and earpiece. A transceiver was fastened to each SEAL's belt.
The fifteen men hiked toward the beach. A hundred yards from the sand, Murdock found Lam standing behind a tree. He pointed ahead. A line of ten Korean soldiers, all with rifles at the ready, were positioned across the beach and facing shoreward.
Murdock gave a sigh. He'd hoped that this one was about over. He whispered in his lip mike. "A line of skirmishers up here in the brush. We have ten Koreans out front. Fire between them. Make damn sure you don't hit anybody. Five rounds between them and we'll see what happens."
It took the SEALs three minutes to get into position. Murdock asked for a platoon check. All fourteen men reported ready on the radio.
"On mine," Murdock said, pushing the safety off his H&K MP-5SD submachine gun. He lifted the weapon and aimed between the two nearest Koreans. They stood ten yards apart. He fired three rounds and before the last one was out of the barrel, the other fourteen SEALs opened fire.
Five seconds after the last SEAL weapon fired, the ten Korean soldiers on the beach were screaming in surprise. Some ran to the left, others to the right. In half a minute none of the Korean GIs could be seen.
"Let's take a swim," Murdock said into his Motorola. Then he pulled off the components of his radio and stowed them in the waterproof pouch on his combat vest. He slung the submachine gun over his back and ran toward the dark waters of the Yellow Sea.
After a quarter-of-a-mile swim off the point of land, they made contact with the Pegasas that had been waiting for them.
"About time," the coxswain called. "Figured you guys were gonna hang around for breakfast in there."
The SEALs climbed on board the boat and Murdock fired a green flare. A few minutes later a South Korean patrol craft surged alongside the long, slim boat and stopped. She was the Sea Dolphin 292, a craft that Murdock had been on before. Murdock and DeWitt climbed a ladder for a conference on board the South Korean boat.
'That's my report, Colonel. From a security standpoint, there was little or no coverage of the beach. We swam up, ran across the beach, then surprised one sentry who came strolling along. The security inland was worse. The mounted patrol was decoyed off its station and the guards around the 'prize' building were lax, casual, and ineffective."
The South Korean Army colonel scowled in the dim lights of the boat. "Did you use live ammunition, Commander?"
"We fired between the guards they had put on the beach. None was hit, all were frightened out of their skins. They ran away as fast as they could." Murdock paused.
"Colonel, these troops have never been under fire before. They need a firm hand. But if I were grading them on their defense of this sector and their security of the building, it would be a dismal failure."
The colonel nodded. "It is true. Our men need better training. We may ask your captain if you could do some of that training for us."
Murdock smiled. "Colonel, I always follow orders."
The South Korean colonel nodded, turned sharply, and walked to the bow of the ship.
Murdock and DeWitt stood there a moment, then hurried to the ladder to get back in their taxi for a quick ride out to the carrier.
"Glad that's over," DeWitt said as they settled into the Pegasus. "How many of these test situations have we done now in the past three weeks?"
"That's the seventh or eighth, I can't remember. If I thought it was doing any good, it wouldn't be so bad."
"Hey, could be worse. Better this than the bad guys shooting at us."
Twenty minutes later, Don Stroh met them as they walked into their assembly room on the carrier. The SEALs were not happy.
"Hey, Stroh. When the hell we get off this tub and go home?" Les Quinley, Torpedoman Third Class, yelled.
"Can't tell. Not yet. Hear you kicked ass out there again tonight. The ROKs are gonna be glad to see you go… anywhere." He laughed at his own joke as the SEALs stripped out of their wet combat gear and wet suits. He held his fist in the air, and the room went silent in a second.
It was a holdover sign from the BUD/S training in Coronado, and still served a good purpose.
"Fact is, I wanted to talk to all of your about that. Things are heating up in Panmunjom. I'm going over there tomorrow morning for a big conflab. The second-highest-ranking North Korean general, Soo Chung Chi, is going to be at the table. On our side will be Vice President Wilson Chambers. We're rolling out our big guns for this talk, and I want to be there. I want to hear what both sides have to say."
"If those two guys kiss and make up, we'll all go home," Jack Mahanani, Hospital Corpsman first Class, roared. Everyone laughed.
Might not be quite that easy," Stroh said. "What happens tomorrow is going to have a huge bearing on whether you go home or not. Thanks for the last training bit. The South Koreans could stand a lot more work, but I don't know who is going to teach them. Now, you guys get some sleep. I've got to get ashore and be ready for the big yahoo tomorrow."
Murdock walked Stroh to the deck, where he would catch his helo.
"Is there really going to be a chance to work things out tomorrow with the North guys?"
Stroh shook his head. "Don't think so. The Vice President has a lot of packages for the North, if they'll take them. I just can't read the Korean faces, on either side." Stroh shrugged. "Hell, we'll just have to wait and see what goes down tomorrow."
Murdock watched Stroh take off. His men were rested after the hard mission in the Kuril Islands. They were ready. He'd been a SEAL for six years now, commander of this platoon for the past two. He'd wet nursed some of them, come down hard on others. They were SEALs, the best trained special operations fighting men in the world. Quick Response was their middle name. He and his men would be ready, no matter what happened at that conference table tomorrow.