flew down the stairs to the first floor and reached the steel door to the outside. He pushed it open a crack, and to his horror heard voices and footsteps. For one appalling moment he thought he had been seen, and that a patrol was on its way in to search for him.
He eased the door shut and waited. Then he opened it again and there was silence. Up ahead he could see two guards disappearing around a corner. He checked again that the street was clear; then he slipped outside, and walked resolutely the 50 yards to his car. He started it quickly and drove around the back of C Block, avoiding the guard to whom he had spoken earlier.
At the main gate, he was stopped and asked if he had finished his work. Dong replied that he had, and that he had advised the other guard that he could lock the building up.
“Okay, sir…see you tomorrow?”
“’Specially if the lights don’t work in B Block!”
The duty guard laughed and waved him through the gates for the last time. Thirty minutes from now, he and Lin and their little boy would be on the road south toward Kowloon, where the American agent had new identities for them all. Dong and his little family would be on the evening flight to Hawaii, and then Los Angeles.
Lt. Commander Olaf Davidson and his team had deflated their Zodiac, buried it with most of their equipment, and left the original rendezvous point on the distant southern peninsula of the island. And now Catfish Jones and Al, fully armed, faces blackened, carrying the big machine gun, were moving into a spot right above the new landing beach a half mile from the jail, still in sight of the patrol boat, which had just left the jetty.
Olaf himself was up in the SEALs’ hide with Hank, overlooking the jail, checking off Rusty Bennett’s list of guard times, numbers and patrols both inside and outside the wall. The slightest change in the pattern would be noted and assessed. But so far the SEAL commander had recorded every movement precisely as it had been for the previous two days and nights. The only minor variation was the seven-minute lateness of the patrol boat’s departure and the arrival earlier in the afternoon of a big Russian-built helicopter. There were, however, still only two on the landing pad, as there usually were, according to Rusty’s report.
Down at the beach, in the gathering darkness, Catfish had the night-sight binoculars trained on the jetty, where two seamen had cast off the patrol boat’s lines and now stood talking. Rusty’s notes said they always left the area as soon as the boat departed and returned to the dormitory. Catfish hoped they would do the same in the next half hour, otherwise he and Al would have to kill them.
Meanwhile Al made ready the signaling lights and established the machine gun in a position covering the approach to the jetty. If the big SEALs landing party was sighted and the Chinese swarmed down to the beach to repel them, the first 50 of them would never get past the wall of.50-caliber bullets that would spit death at them, straight out of the jungle.
Up in the hide, Olaf Davidson checked his watch. It was 2103. The guard change outside the jail had taken place right on time, and he could see the four men walking in pairs slowly around the jail. If things went according to plan, this was their last patrol. The boys would be in less than two hours from now.
Lt. Commander Joe Farrell glanced up at the island. The red light signaled four minutes to launch. Ahead of him, through the cockpit window, he could see the brightly lit runway stretched out in front. All around him the launch men were moving into position. Even stationary, the big engines screamed at the slightest touch on the throttle of the supersonic F/A-18 McDonnell Douglas Hornet.
The aircraft would effortlessly carry 7.7 tons of bombs if necessary, but tonight she carried just one, the 14- foot-long Paveway with its laser-guidance system and 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead.
Two minutes went by, and now the light blinked to amber. The crewman crouching right below Joe, next to the aircraft’s nose, signaled him forward and moved underneath the fuselage, locking on the thick catapult bridle.
High above him the light turned green. The “shooter,” Lieutenant Dale, pointed his right hand at the pilot and raised his left, extending two fingers:
Joe Farrell opened the throttle, releasing the howling, murderous energy of the engines. Lieutenant Dale flattened out the palm of his hand, staring hard at the pilot:
Lieutenant Commander Farrell saluted formally and leaned forward, tensing for the impact of the catapult. The shooter, his eyes locked into Joe’s, saluted back. Then he bent his knees and touched two fingers of his left hand onto the deck.
He gestured
Joe Farrell, throttles open wide, gripped the stick, his knuckles ivory as the Hornet screamed flat-out down the catapult, leaving a hot blast in its wake. Every veteran pilot and air crewman watching the takeoff held his breath. Up in the island, Colonel Frank Hart, standing with the admiral, found his hands shaking at the sheer formal drama of the moment as Joe Farrell set off to destroy USS
The nose of the Hornet rose as she thundered forward, and a collective sigh of relief broke out as the spectacular U.S. Navy fighter attack aircraft rocketed off the deck and then lumbered into the night sky, carrying her deadly steel burden below, making almost 200 knots, climbing out to port. “Tower to Hornet one-zero-zero…good job there…you’re cleared out.”
“Hornet one-zero-zero, roger that.”
10
Lieutenant Commander Farrell had his eyes down on the instrument panel as the fighter attack aircraft screamed across the South China Sea, 250 feet above the waves, covering six and a half miles every minute. This was the most demanding part of the combat flyer’s art, staying low, below all military radar, knowing that one too- firm touch on the stick will send you hurtling upward onto the screens of the enemy, or alternatively straight into the sea and instant death in a pirouetting fireball.
U.S. Navy pilots practice low-level flying constantly, but the dangers remain, and the concentration required to stay precisely 250 feet above the water at high speed is nothing short of awesome, especially at night.
Farrell’s Hornet was cruising at only 400 knots, but any time he saw a light on the ocean up ahead, say 1.5 miles ahead, he was past it in 13 seconds. And he held the stick hard, his gaze switching from course to height, from windshield to trim, murmuring occasionally into his microphone, back to the carrier, which was now 120 miles astern, 15 minutes into his journey.
And now he made a course change, just as he howled across the unseen line of longitude at 113.30 degrees, due south of the port of Macao. He turned the aircraft north for the 30-mile run up to the mouth of the estuary to the Pearl River, straight over the Wanshan Dao, less than five minutes flying time.
He saw the island lights right below, and over to the left was the brightness of Macao. He swung nine degrees west of due north, settling momentarily on course three-five-one, hugging the shore in the shadow of the 1,500-foot mountains west of the city of Sanxiang.
One touch on the stick and he was out over the central channel of the river, east of Kowloon, passing the island of Qiao, and then he turned back with split-second timing onto course three-five-zero, right over the vast wetlands. He rammed open the throttle and felt the surge in power as the Hornet accelerated to a speed just below 600 knots, just short of the speed where she might make a giveaway sonic boom. He had her on a beeline for the Canton dockyards right now…and he was ten miles southeast…nine…eight…seven…the miles scorched by under his wings…and now it was six. His automatic preset bomb sight, counting down the seconds, told him to pitch up.
Lieutenant Commander Farrell reached out with his gloved right hand and made the PERMISSIVE button. He pulled back on the stick and the Hornet, for the first time, gained height, coming up on a precise 45-degree climb
