he guided Lt. Mills in until the submarine was 150 yards off its southernmost point. They took a visual, and Matt could see its shape jutting out of the water.
“Okay, guys,” he said, “this is where we say ‘so long.’ Your landing place is dead ahead. Steer three-two- zero, for no more than 350 yards. Right there you’ll be in the marshes, north of that river, so you won’t have to cross it. You just got a short walk in from there.”
Rick began to distribute big plastic cups of cold water. “I’m suggesting you drink one of these before we go. Because we’re probably going to get hot, and we have no time to get our suits off. Just don’t want anyone getting dehydrated, because it makes you feel lousy.”
The SEALs drank, pulled up their hoods, loaded up with six satchel bombs, plus medical supplies, radio and one shovel. They took the greatest care loading up two of the rookies with two 50-foot rolls of “det cord,” the hugely volatile detonator link that burns at the rate of
Then they slung their personal weapons on their backs, the Heckler and Koch light submachine guns packed in waterproof cases. And they lifted out the bigger M-60 machine gun, which would be used only in a dire emergency, if they had to fight their way out. But their most precious cargo was two heavy armor-piercing bombs, about three feet long in special waterproof carrying cases. These had been especially adapted by Naval ordnance in San Diego. They would not explode in contact with other explosives: they would only explode with heavy impact on the point of the nose cone. And heavy impact they were going to get.
Inside the ASDV, Draegers were connected and tested, masks pulled down, flippers fitted on and several belts of ammunition in waterproof sheaths were split among the SEALs not using attack boards. The vicious-looking kaybars were adjusted in combat belts, ready for easy access.
At 0016 they began to exit the submarine, one by one, each man rolling out of the deck hatch and into the still, calm waters of the Bassein Delta. There was a pale moon rising to the east casting low, ghostly shadows on the water. And there was no sign of life save the increasing number of black-hooded heads above the surface, each man breathing in the fresh night air deeply, treading water and waiting for the adrenaline to die down.
It was 0026 when Dallas MacPherson, manhandling the big machine gun with Bobby Allensworth, slithered down the hull and essentially fell into the water, the heavy gun now made much lighter by the special air pockets inside its waterproof cover.
Rick Hunter dived to their swim depth of 10 feet, adjusted his attack board and kicked forward on the short swim into the marshes. Ten minutes later all ten of them grounded into long marsh grass growing out of firm sand. Rick stood first and listened, pulling back his hood and shoving his mask into a holster on his belt.
They had already decided to hide the Draegers. They were too heavy to carry, and they walked on together to the beach, found a wooded area beyond the sand and dug out a hole to bury them. In an emergency they could run back and find them, if they needed to escape. If not, no one would ever find them. They covered them over with grass, then wet sand, and dumped the shovel under thick undergrowth.
The six men with the light attack boards clipped them onto one another’s backs; the bombs were similarly carried. The SEALs drew their weapons, Rattlesnake Davies held the wire cutters, and Rick Hunter checked the compass and decided on a tight group in single file walking carefully through the light grasses 100 yards inshore from the beach.
The landscape was uninhabited as far as they and the satellite could tell. The first sign of life they would encounter would be in the guardhouse right on the south perimeter wire. And so they went forward, moving steadily across the ground, their start point no more than 1,200 yards from the fence. Their watchword was
It was imperative that no one see them and live more than three seconds. It was the opinion of the Coronado brains that the guardhouse would contain a bank of television screens, closed-circuit from all over the base. That way one man could watch over the entire complex, positioned down on the main perimeter fence that guarded the base from the outside world — one guard with access to a panic button that would summon heavy reinforcements immediately. The only colleague he would require through the night would be an engineer ready to attend to any problems in the electric generation plant, the refueling areas or anywhere else in the high-tech areas of the Naval yards.
The SEALs’ plan was almost primitive in its lack of subtlety, but everyone thought it would work. The one thing they must not do was cause a panic in the guardroom, which would cause the guard to hit the appropriate button. And they walked on, each man certain in his own mind of the sequence of their actions in the next 10 minutes.
At 0110 they picked up the lights inside the fence, and it was plain they were not designed as a security aid, but rather to light a blacktop interior path along which a jeep carried the guardhouse personnel. The lights were dim and focused on the ground, not the fence. The SEALs could see only one light along the fence, not high, about 100 yards from the guard-house itself.
It was thus dark as they made their approach, and they had no need to hit the ground and snake their way forward on elbows and knees until they were as close as 50 yards.
They reached the fence in good order, and Rattlesnake began to cut a hole in the wire in a dark area 40 feet from the little building. It took just a few minutes, and Buster Townsend folded it back away from his buddy’s hands as the thick strands were severed. The hole was five feet wide by the time Dallas MacPherson and Bobby Allensworth hauled the big gun through, followed moments later by the entire team with all their equipment. Thus the Chinese guard and engineer, watching the television inside the brightly lit room, were in fact sitting 40 feet from one of the most lethal platoons of fighting men in the world.
The only man not through the wire was Chief Petty Officer Mike Hook, and no one could see him crouched outside the fence in deep grass carefully aiming a silenced M-14 rifle, the only one they carried, at the light nearest the guardhouse on the wire. At 0130, right on time, the veteran SEAL pulled the trigger and shot the bulb out the first time, missing the metal cover. There was not a sound. But inside the guardhouse a tiny light flickered, confirming that a bulb had gone out somewhere along the south fence. Instinctively the young guard stood up and walked to the screen door, opened it, stepped through and looked along the fence, noticing immediately that the light they could see through the window was no longer there.
In Cantonese he called, “We have a light blown, Tommy — we may as well replace it now. The television program is awful.” At which point the engineer also walked out into the night, carrying a white box and a tall stepladder. It was obvious that the cheap Korean bulbs blew out on a regular basis, even without Mike Hook’s valuable assistance.
And now both men were outside in the dark, the guardhouse unmanned. And right then the SEALs pounced. Rick Hunter took the guard from behind, breaking his neck with a tremendous blow from the butt of his machine gun. The man fell dead without a murmur, mainly because the SEAL leader had a massive hand clamped across his mouth as he died.
The engineer never even saw it, because Bobby Allensworth slammed a blow into his throat at the same time as Rattlesnake rammed his kaybar into the man’s heart. Two down, the guardhouse in SEAL control. Not a sound as they fell. It was 0136.
Rick and Dallas raced into the guardhouse and stared at the screens. From there it looked as though the place was deserted. There was no sign of a human figure on the top line of three screens. On the second line there was also no sign of life. The trouble was the lettering under the screens was in Chinese, and the two SEALs were unable to read which television recorded which area.
They stayed watching for a few moments, and then suddenly there was life on screen six in the lower line, four men walking across a room, dressed in engineering overalls. In the background there was a tall construction, which seemed to have a large wheel on top, but the quality was not good enough for an accurate assessment. In Rick’s opinion it was almost certainly the interior of the electric power station.
No surprises. They had guessed there would be little night security, in a remote Chinese base in the middle of a Burmese river, literally hundreds of miles from
