really, we just gotta check out that it’s safe, and if not, locate another one…just so you guys know where we’re working.
“Tonight we’ll go and have a look at the water, right after dark. We don’t want to guide the inflatables onto a pile of rocks. Meanwhile, Paul, I want you take Chief McCarthy and try to get some accurate measurements of the jail size, and distances between points. Try to get an accurate fix on the height of the walls, the gate and the towers. And try to find out how they lock the fucking door, since we need to blow the sonofabitch off its hinges tomorrow…I still think we’ll go with det-cord.…
“Rattlesnake and John, stay up here and keep watching…recording all movements down below. I noticed through the glasses the Chinese have obviously been trying to clear some areas of vegetation, but they haven’t done much of a job…and luckily there’s a lot of very good cover, very close to the jail wall in several spots. Mark them on the laptop. So Dan and the chief should be able to get in close…but not too close, for Christ’s sake. We’ll meet back here and compare notes at, say, fifteen hundred.”
“Okay, sir, we’ll get moving now.”
The SEALs split up, six of them heading back up the hill into the trees, making a circular route to their allotted operational areas. All the routine tasks with which they were charged were achieved in silence and stealth. The area for the assault chosen by Colonel Hart was perfect. Rusty and Buster planted a rock in front of the trees where the big team would enter the forest. Behind there, in deep shadow, they cut a clearing for the boys to gather tomorrow night and sort out their positions.
Two hundred yards away Bill lay on the bank of a stream that flowed past the jail to the north and watched for interruptions. If anyone approached either him or the beach, he would duck back into the trees and make contact with Dan Conway, who would race to alert Rusty and Buster to keep the noise level way down.
But not one of the Chinese guards ventured anywhere beyond the jail compound, except to patrol the outside wall. It was, as Lt. Commander Bennett had said earlier, beyond their imagination that the Americans would actually attack their own jail, on their own remote island, right offshore, surrounded by thousands of miles of the South China Sea, plus half of the Chinese Navy, just a few miles from the city of Canton.
By the time they regrouped in the hide they had a ton of information. The patrol boat had gone out shortly after 1000 and stayed out until 1400. There was a long stone jetty where it moored alongside, 600 yards precisely from the assault point. They’d send a couple of SEALs over the side of the incoming Zodiacs and have them stick a couple of limpet mines on the hull, timed to detonate precisely when the choppers went up and the comms room did an imitation of Hiroshima.
John McCarthy was a very experienced mountaineer and he could throw a long grappling iron like Peyton Manning going for the end zone. But he was plainly worried about this attack.
“The walls are fifteen feet high, made mostly of smooth concrete, but with a flat wooden frame right to the top, like beams in an old house. I can hit the top beam with a grappling iron and climb up the knotted rope inside one minute. But we do not have long. I think we’ll have to take out the outside guards first, which is not good. I would have preferred to have four climbers on top of the wall, unseen, and then climb the ladder to the tower top.
“Quite frankly, I cannot imagine our four men all getting to the top without being seen by the tower watchmen. Then we’d have to shoot them, and that would make noise, ten minutes before we want anyone to know we’re there. In my view, we desperately need those ten minutes, and the only way I can see to nail the tower guards in silence is if it rains. And I’m recommending we wait until it does.”
Rusty did not like it, but he understood. “The noise?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Yessir. When we had that very hard rain shower around thirteen hundred today, I was lying in the undergrowth right below the northwest tower. I was about thirty feet away, across the path watching the guards. As soon as it rained, they both pulled on a kind of plastic cape, hooded. The rain was blowing right in, and it must have affected their hearing.
“Sir, if we attack in heavy rain, I believe we could all get up there and take the guards out, then we could operate the lights for a few minutes, just enough time for the guys to swarm up the walls, take out the four duty foot guards from the top, while another couple of our guys eliminate the guard room. At that moment we blow all forms of Chinese communication.
“But if we are caught on the way up the watchtowers we’ve had it, we’ll have to open fire…and there’s comms in the watchtower, I could see the electrics. As soon as we pull a trigger, all hell will break out, and they’ll have time to regroup, get going with a couple of machine guns and mow our guys down on top of the wall. Plus they’ll have that few minutes to alert Canton they’re being attacked…then it’s over. We’ll never get out.”
Lt. Commander Bennett was thoughtful. “I guess this entire operation depends on taking those watchtowers quietly.”
“Correct. And we can’t use grapplers to get up the last bit, we’d probably hit one of the guards in the back of the head.”
“Do you have a recommendation, Chief?”
“Yessir. I think we should get four guys up there early. And I think we should use ladders. They’re quieter, and faster. The wall’s a consistent fifteen feet high, so we want four fifteen-footers, nothing bigger so it doesn’t jut above the parapet. There’s a four-foot strip right along the rear of the cell block flat roof. It’s in perpetual pitch dark, literally under the towers. The guards can’t see anything there. The boys can pull the ladders to the roof and then make a synchronized attack, straight up the sides of the towers, exactly where no one would dream of looking.”
“Aluminum ladders rattle a bit,” said Rusty, somewhat wryly.
“Not if they’re ultralight and bound in thick black cloth. Those guards aren’t sharp. They’re just up there, bored to death, trying to stay dry. Wouldn’t be surprised if one of ’em was asleep while the other guy worked the light. If we can wait for rain, sir, I have a high level of confidence in this. We’ll make it.”
“I’m not sure we have much choice…and I agree with what you say. We have to take the watchtowers, and we have to take ’em quietly.”
“The thing is, sir, if we can get those towers without anyone knowing, the guys can take out the patrol in the courtyard and then hit the guard room. The moment that explosion is heard, we slam the boat, the choppers and the comm room. With any luck, they may
“Now that would be fantastic, because it would give us another hour to evacuate the place in peace.”
“Not sure I’d go that far,” said the chief. “This thing’s likely to resemble a major war, at least for fifteen minutes.”
“Right. And now we have just two priorities left — the big building opposite the choppers…we don’t know much about that, and we have to find out whether the patrol boat goes out in the evening…we know it goes in the early hours…meanwhile we have to keep watching that big building, and we should get down there when it’s dark. Luckily it is the farthest point from the main Chinese patrol.”
And so, as darkness fell over the prison, the SEALs once more moved into the trees and made a circuitous route to both the complex and the jetty. It was raining again, which made their tasks less hazardous but no pleasure. Rusty, Rattlesnake and Buster found a position at the back of the building and quickly worked out that it was a dormitory for the guards. Rusty did not much like the idea of killing men sleeping in their beds, but if he left them they’d rush out and start killing Americans. As usual, on SEAL missions, there was no alternative to the harshest possible course of action. Anything less, you’re likely to end up dead yourself.
They had a while to ponder the situation, keeping the stopwatch on the guards, checking the watch change at 2000. Outside the dormitory there was just one guard, and he was relieved every two hours, the door being mostly open with men obviously sitting around on their off-duty evenings.
And then, at exactly nine minutes after nine, one of those million-to-one chances actually happened. The single guard suddenly began to walk right toward the precise piece of ground where the three SEALs were lurking. They all saw him coming. The distance was only 40 yards, and in the light from the building, they saw that his rifle was slung over his shoulder, and his right hand was unzipping his fly. The guy was just coming over for a pee in the
