"Roger that, Mr. Murdock."
"Go get them."
DeWitt grinned and waved his men forward. "Silenced weapons only unless we get in a jam. Two men for each tank. First we reduce anyone outside the rigs, silently." They moved up cautiously. DeWitt sent Douglas and Mahanani to the left for the farthest tank. One of them had TNAZ.
Fernandez and Quinley took the center tank. DeWitt and Franklin and Adams aimed for the far right. Each team had TNAZ and grenades and knew what to do. They worked up slowly, crawling the last thirty yards to get a good field of fire. Three men sat around an open fire. DeWitt saw a soldier working on the treads of one tank.
When DeWitt had his men in position, he used the mike.
"Silenced only. Let's do it." He fired a three-round burst at the men around the fire. One went down. The other two tried to crawl away. They died in the dirt. The man at the tank treads took two slugs from one of the Colts and went down clawing at his weapon. Two more rounds stopped him. Nothing moved around the tanks.
"TNAZ on the tank tread, four-minute timer, then two grenades down any open turret," DeWitt said in his radio. "All of you, go."
Adams ran forward, his Colt at the ready. Nobody tried to stop him. He put the TNAZ on the front roller where it left the tracks, pushed in the timer, then vaulted on the tank to where the turret was open. Adams pulled both pins on grenades and dropped them into the tank top, then jumped off the tank and ran flat out for the place he had left near DeWitt.
The two grenades went off 4.2 seconds after Adams dropped them inside the tank. Smoke drifted up from the turret.
Twenty seconds later the grenades in a second tank went off; then the men of the Bravo Squad were all back together and running hard for the rest of the platoon.
The first TNAZ bomb went off before they made it. The heavy tank lifted up, its tread shattered and the roller blown completely off its axle.
The two other explosions shattered the cold Korean night sky a moment later.
"Let's move, double time," Murdock said. DeWitt got back with the unit, prodded the general and his colonels to move it, and jogged away from the site.
"We nailed the three tanks," DeWitt said on his radio. "Four NKs outside the tanks now in touch with their ancestors."
"Let's hope it doesn't attract too much attention," Murdock said.
Lam led them on down the rise, past a farmhouse and three rise paddies now frozen solid. Ahead Lam saw a small stream, which they crossed getting wet only to their knees.
"I'm not getting my feet wet," the general snorted.
DeWitt was right behind him. "Sir, you either get wet, talk your men into carrying you across, or sit out the rest of this little war in a POW camp, because I'm sure as hell not going to pack you over the stream." The general glared at DeWitt in the gloom, and stepped gingerly into the water.
A half mile from the tanks, Murdock slowed them to a walk. Lam had found a trail heading south that they took now. It wandered between rice paddies and past two small buildings that had been blown apart.
Murdock went up and walked with Lam.
"We should be within half a klick of the damn MLR," Murdock said.
"Yeah, but maybe two klicks to one side from where we came through. That's two to the west of our spot."
"Where's our Korean guy?" Murdock said into his mike. "Whoever knows, send him up front. Gonna have some work for him to do."
Another two hundred yards ahead, they came to a road. Lam lay near it for five minutes. Two trucks with splashy yellow lights rumbled past.
"We get the men lined up along the side of the road, then go across all at once," Lam said.
Murdock gave the orders on the mike, and soon the SEALs and their package were spread along the road at five-yard intervals.
Another truck rolled past. In the rear they could see several NK soldiers.
When it was past. Lam looked both ways, "Now, move," he said into his mike. The man ran from their sparse cover near the road, across it, and to the far side and into a small patch of woods and brush. Even the Army brass made it with no problem.
Lam stared ahead from his position a hundred yards ahead of the men. He didn't like it. They had hit a section of the North Korean MLR that also held a rear camp of some kind. He spotted more than a dozen trucks, some emergency lights rigged on poles, and a dozen or so twenty-man tents.
"Hit the deck," Murdock said on the Motorola as he slid into the dirt and weeds beside Lam.
"This is another fine kettle of fish you've got me into, Ollie," Murdock said.
Lam shook his head. "The only luck we've had on this mission has been bad luck. What the hell we gonna do now?"
13
Major Streib had crawled up beside them. He scanned the area, borrowed Murdock's binoculars, and took a closer look.
"Oh, yeah, that is more like it. It's set up like a repo depo, full of supplies and replacements of troops for a big push."
"Supplies?" Murdock asked. "Like any concentration of fuel?"
Major Streib grinned in the darkness. "Great minds have a way of doing it," he said.
Murdock called for Holt, who squirmed up beside him. "See if you can get that Lieutenant Lewiston on the air again."
Holt tried, and got him on the second call.
"You talk," Murdock said, giving the handset to the major. Streib filled in the American on the situation. "Say you lob in a dozen rounds of artillery and we'll be your spotter. Coordinates? We don't even have a map. Can you see on this side the MLR a half mile? We'll lob some forty mikes in and try to set something on fire. We're about a mile and a half west of where we left your MLR. You take your sightings from the fire and tell the artillery guys."
"Yes, sounds reasonable," the American on the south side of the MLR said. "I'll have to go through channels… "
"Murdock here." He had grabbed the handset from Streib. "Look, you take time to go through channels and your package won't get delivered. We need a major diversion and we need it right now. We'll start shooting in ten minutes. You have those guns ready in ten minutes or kiss your general and his friends good-bye. No way they can infiltrate through two MLRs. You read me loud and clear, Lewiston?"
There was a moment of silence. "Yes, sir, Commander. We'll get it done. Ten minutes from now, mark."
Murdock pushed the timer on his stopwatch. "Now, all we have to do is find what we can set on fire the easiest."
They had six Colt M-4Al's with the grenade launchers below the barrels. Murdock called the men with the launchers up and explained what they were going to do. "How many WP do we have?"
They counted up. Eighteen WP rounds.
"We're looking for some stored gasoline drums, but not sure we'll find them. We'll need almost maximum range on these forties. Let's try to hit something. As soon as you fire the last rounds, we'll be moving to the left a quick half klick, then due south. Stand by."
Murdock and Major Streib took turns with the binoculars. It was Lam who found it.
"Just to the left of that second tent, the one with the lightbulb hanging outside. Looks to me like about twenty barrels of fuel."
"Oh, yes." Murdock passed the word to each of the forty mike shooters and set them up fifty yards closer to the target. He sent Jaybird with the Army brass a half klick to the left. When his stopwatch showed ten minutes had elapsed since they'd talked with Lewiston, he told his Colt men to start firing.
He watched the first round hit. Short of the barrels, but it set a tent on fire. Almost at once three more 40mm rounds landed. One hit a truck and the gasoline tank exploded. Six more rounds hit in rapid order, and one blew up right beside one of the drums of gasoline. They had fire, but the WP wouldn't rupture the drums.