Rick Hunter said, “I gotta brief your guys.”
“I got eight fast inflatables on the beach,” rapped the SEAL leader. “Each boat takes eight with one on a stretcher, nine without. I’m takin’ three boats with nine guys, that’s twenty-seven. With five stretcher cases, we got forty more places in the first wave…that’s a total of sixty-seven I want ready to leave right away. Do
“They’ll carry the stretchers, guide you down to the beach. There’s a team there to get y’all aboard. Then you got a thirty-minute ride to a submarine. GO, TEAM.”
Judd Crocker added, “Shawn, do the head count. Andy, take care of Brad. He’s on a stretcher for the ride.”
Rick checked the courtyard for American guns or equipment that might have been dropped in the general melee. Dan Conway and Buster Townsend led the orderly stampede down the half mile to the beach where Lieutenant Commander Bennett awaited them, still covered in mud, blood and gunpowder. With his face blackened and his “drive-on rag” spattered red, he looked like Crazy Horse’s half-brother after Little Bighorn.
The night was still hot, but, as if on cue, it began to rain again, and it was slanting, tropical monsoon rain that lashed down on them, refilling the long puddles in the courtyard and soaking the winding column of men that had formed behind the lead SEALs.
Dan and Buster led them to the north for a very slow 400 yards along a rough path hacked out of the undergrowth by Olaf’s men an hour earlier, as soon as the jail had fallen into American hands. But the jungle was lower here as the land fell away toward the sea, and there was a lot of overhang, wet branches and undergrowth. The rain was belting down so hard it was forming small lakes instantly along the little track, and the SEALs up front, carrying the five stretchers right behind Buster, were slipping and sliding and cursing in the pitch dark.
Progress was painfully slow. It took 10 minutes to cover that first quarter mile, and nothing much improved when Dan changed course, now heading northeast. The terrain was, if anything, worse as the jungle thinned out above this particular stretch of beach. There were deep puddles and areas that were almost a quagmire, and they were unavoidable because nobody could see them until they were in them, up to their ankles in mud. It was very tough for the stretcher-bearers to keep their balance, and sometimes they didn’t. But no one capsized and 17 minutes after they had left the jail, the long column of Americans reached the beach.
“Christ, we thought you’d never get here,” said Lieutenant Commander Bennett, walking up to meet them. “Better hurry before the boats fill up with rainwater and sink.”
Dan Conway chuckled and followed the SEAL beach boss down to the water where the Zodiacs were moored on the sand, with their bows facing the short surf rolling in from the east. The little waves caused each boat to rise very slightly with the tide, but only the first three feet of the Zodiacs was in the water.
“Okay, guys,” called Rusty. “Let’s get one stretcher in each of the first five boats, and while we’re doing that, Buster, count out the next twenty-seven men and have them report to the last three inflatables in the line. I got two guys on each boat, the driver and one other to help with the launch…only the drivers go.”
Since everyone on the beach was in the Navy, it was a well-disciplined operation. Only the stretchers were difficult, but the SEALs had done it before, and they laid each one flat on the temporary decking they had fitted to the frame before last night’s launch. They centered the stretchers forward, which would allow other passengers to sit or kneel in a line facing aft, holding on to the handles if the sea got up.
It was complicated, but by the time Rusty had the operation halfway complete, the three boats at the far end were loaded and ready. Lt. Commander Linus Clarke was in one of them.
Rusty sent them ahead. This was no time to hang around. It was already 0335 and it would be light in less than three hours, and that was really bad news, because if the Chinese wanted to wipe them out, they could bomb and strafe this beach with absolute impunity as soon as their helicopter pilots could see the evacuation taking place.
He walked down to the end Zodiac, which was now floating 30 feet out from the beach, its painter held by a SEAL standing up to his chest in the water. And he called out through the rain, “Okay, guys, start the engines and head on out…southeast for three miles, then sou’-sou’west, course two-zero-two for six…you gottit all on the GPS tracks…just remember what I told you…when you’ve been running at twenty knots for nine miles — nearly half an hour—
All the SEALs loved the last phrase. It was a Rusty Bennett trademark, and since they all hero-worshiped the iron-souled lieutenant commander from the coast of Maine, each driver felt that it was a personal goodwill message to him alone. Which is, in a sense, what real leadership is all about.
Back on the beach, the remaining personnel heard the big powerful engines on the Zodiacs growl into life. And they heard the long straining beat of the motors as they fought to lift their heavy loads up onto the “stump” of the wash. Then they heard the acceleration as the inflatables found their high-speed trim and literally flew over the calm water, all three together, racing beam on beam, bearing the President’s son and 26 other crewmen to safety.
When the next two boats, carrying stretchers, were ready in the water, held by SEALs, Rusty ordered them to leave. That way he had three out in front, two a couple of miles back on the same course, and there would be a group of three Zodiacs bringing up the rear. No one would be far from help if anything went wrong mechanically. Which it had better not, otherwise the engineers, who had meticulously prepared the Zodiac outboards, would probably end up on the wrong end of the modern-day equivalent of a thousand lashes. At least that’s what Lieutenant Commander Bennett told them would happen.
And now, as the last of the engines died away in the rainswept distance of the South China Sea, there was little more they could do but wait for an hour for the boats to return. The next time, the eight boats would take 72 more off, but by then it would be 0445. And there would still be 30 men on the beach, with no hope of escape before 0555, a few minutes before dawn. And then they would be running south for almost a half hour in gathering daylight.
“This,” muttered Rusty Bennett, “is going to be tight. Fucking tight. ’Specially as me, Rick and Ray Schaeffer will be in the last boat to leave.”
But the new column was arriving now, more than 100 men walking slowly toward the beach in the dark and rain, the SEALs, weapons at the ready, marching to the side, watching the jungle edges, even though they knew there could not be any more Chinese guards on the loose. Not unless there was a parachute drop they didn’t know about. Nonetheless, a stranger would have thought the crew of the late USS
By the time everyone was on the beach, almost 20 minutes had passed since the last Zodiac had left. The jail was now deserted, and would remain so until the gassed personnel in the dormitory began to recover in the small hours of tomorrow morning.
Judd Crocker was still on the island, and would leave in the last boat carrying his crew members, sometime in the next 45 minutes. Like the final dozen men in the first eight-boat flotilla, Judd would be transferred to the USS
He was talking to Rick Hunter right now, expressing his concern over the condition of Brad Stockton, who had been savagely interrogated, mainly because the Chinese thought he was the most senior man in the crew, aside from the CO.
“I wouldn’t worry too much, sir,” said the SEAL leader. “We have a Navy doctor who specializes in torture- type damage in each of the submarines. They’ll get him fixed up. Anyway, we’re making the transfer to the carrier within a very few hours, and there’s a full-blown hospital in there.”
Judd Crocker nodded, and Rick Hunter asked suddenly, “Was it bad, sir?”
“Well, it wasn’t great.”
“What did they want from the crew members?”
“They really wanted information. But they wanted it in a very specialized form…you know, they wanted a guided tour of the combat systems by Lieutenant Commander Rothstein. I expect you know this, but these are among the most complicated systems on the ship…and while they would certainly be able to copy them, make plans, and for all I know, remove certain parts, there’s nothing like having the man who works them in your corner.”
