Commander Hunter’s one problem so far was the possible discovery of the bodies. There would almost certainly be a watch change at 0400, but by that time the SEALs would be, hopefully, long gone, and the base would be, hopefully, nonoperational. Nonetheless there was a chance that a patrol might call at the little guardhouse sometime before 0400. Finding it deserted was one thing. Finding two plainly murdered occupants was quite another.
Rick’s instinct was to disable the televisions so that no one else could look at them, but he did not dare for fear the disconnection could trigger an alarm that would send more engineers down to the guardhouse. It was the lesser of two evils, but he elected to leave them operational, counting on no one else seeing the pictures before the 0400 guard change.
Rick watched the bodies being dragged out through the hole in the wire and hidden in the long grasses through which they had just walked, at least 50 yards away from the fence. They clipped the wire back into place. If a patrol did show up, it would be confronted with a mystery, but not with unmistakable evidence of an attack on the base.
It was 0150 when they began their advance on the Chinese dockyard. The 12 black-clad figures walked steadily toward the lights of the main complex, a distance of 200 yards. According to Rick’s map, there were five main buildings — the power station, the main control and communications room, a large accommodation block, a long warehouse facing the surface ship jetties and an ordnance store right next to it.
Beyond here was the wide sea inlet where the Chinese had constructed jetties for their patrol boats, and farther in, two large dry docks, the type that flood down and sink to allow ships to navigate in and then wait for the docks to pump out the ballast and rise again to the surface.
Opposite the patrol boat landings were the submarine jetties, but according to Coronado’s latest Intelligence, there was no underwater boat in residence. And then, even farther along the shore, was the fuel farm, containing 12 massive holding tanks, an area 200 yards long by 150, containing a million gallons of diesel. Between the fuel farm and the refueling jetties there was a main fuel-control block, a sizable three-story building 240 feet long. With that out of action, and possibly a bad fire among the holding tanks, the base would be totally diminished as a possible operations center. That fuel-control block was the farthest building from the SEALs’ point of entry. It was also their first target.
And Rick Hunter led his men on a 300-yard diagonal route across the rough ground between the outer fence and the accommodation block, deep in the interior of the base. It was all surprisingly badly lit, for which each of the SEALs was grateful, particularly the two rookies bringing up the rear, carrying the big machine gun and ammunition belts that Lt. Allensworth would handle in an emergency. A big weight like that always makes assault troops feel vulnerable, slow and less mobile than everyone else. And the two rookies, carrying the machine gun between them, preferred the dark to the light.
The Commander led them carefully, and they made no sound as they crossed the uncut, uneven grass. They saw no one, and even as they passed the rear of the accommodation block there was no discernible light in any window. Rick was trusting his map now, because the base was unknown territory, and the map was telling him that at the end of the accommodation block they would make a right-hand turn and see in front of them a floating pontoon dock, with a gantry crossing the sea inlet, right behind the innermost dry dock.
The gantry was better lit than any other area, and Rick decided that if they were going to be seen, and caught, it was going to be as a team right in the middle of that illuminated bridge. He thus decided to regroup on the pontoon and send each man over the bridge one at a time, nice and slowly, attracting no attention. He sent Dallas MacPherson over first, and the young Lieutenant did as he was ordered, strolling nonchalantly over the metal bridge as if he owned the place.
One by one they made the crossing, until 11 men were over. Then Rick Hunter picked up the big machine gun on his own and walked it over the gantry to join the others. And right then the pace stepped up about 200 percent. There were almost no lights on this side, just a low four-foot steel-railed fence to protect the fuel farm.
Rattlesnake and Buster cleared it together, racing through the holding tanks and planting a powerful, high- explosive Mk-138 satchel bomb against each of the two central ones. They joined them with det cord and wired it into the detonator, setting the timer for 0345. Then they jumped the eastern fence and worked on two more bombs, carried in and left in position on the outer back wall of the control center by Rick and Bobby. Each satchel held 10 blocks of explosives. There was enough TNT against that wall to knock down Yankee Stadium, and Rattlesnake thought privately,
Meanwhile Dallas and Mike Hook were edging around the control block searching for a main electricity inlet or outlet. The other team, Rick Hunter and Bobby Allensworth, was searching for the main fuel lines, which they never found. Dallas and Mike, however, were lucky. They opened up a big manhole in the ground and found a labyrinth of heavy-duty cable, coated with plastic, in brown, red and blue. Dallas said to wind six turns of det cord around the central point and set the timer on the detonator for 0345.
“Okay, guys, we’re done on this side of the inlet,” whispered Rick Hunter. “Let’s round up the lookouts and head right back over that creepy little bridge.” Twenty minutes later they were back in the shadow of the accommodation block, their loads lightened considerably.
It was 0225. And there were two targets left, the control and communications block, which represented about 5 percent of their problem, and the power station, which was the other 95 percent. The control block was important because, without it, the Chinese would be unable to contact the outside world. But the power plant represented a fighting chance of obliterating the entire Naval base.
With incredible stealth, the SEAL team moved way back into the rough ground over which they had walked from the guardhouse. And now they could see the silhouette of the station, and as Dallas MacPherson oberved, “It looks a whole hell of a lot bigger right here than it did on the photograph.”
And Dallas was right. The building loomed high, maybe five stories up. On its southern side it was 90 feet long, and it was plainly bigger than that on the western and eastern walls. The only door they could see was set into the wall on the west side, right-hand corner looking in. There was a high outside metal staircase running up the east wall, probably for use as an emergency exit.
A high chimney jutted out of the roof, probably to release surplus steam.
To the right of the station, as the SEALs lay watching, was the control and communications block, situated centrally between the station and the dockside warehouse. They would deal with that first, because it was relatively simple, the mere placing of two bombs strategically.
The planners in Coronado had discussed the possibility of getting a couple of guys on the roof and winding a few coils of det cord around the entire bloom of rooftop aerials, but decided, in the end, against it: too hard to climb it without special gear, and the SEALs were already fully loaded; too much chance of being detected, even stranded up there if things went awry below; too little advantage gained, since there was soon to be no electricity whatsoever throughout the base. Or whatever was left of it.
This time the bombs would be placed by Buster and Rattlesnake, both experts in such matters. Mike Hook, carrying the big gun for covering fire, accompanied them across the ground assisted by one of the rookies. They set themselves in position covering the main door of the building and the short southern wall. They could also cover the blacktop perimeter road.
The two SEALs from Louisiana moved like lightning to the building, and their luck held. At the rear of the structure there was a short flight of concrete steps going down to a semibasement, and remarkably, the door was open. Buster and Rattlesnake crept in and placed their two satchel bombs right by the main boiler. They spliced in the wires, set the detonator for 0345 and moved briskly out of the area, shutting the door carefully behind them. And still no one disturbed their lethal tasks. It was exactly 0245. And they were now running a half hour late, not 20 minutes.
But no one could deny that the Fates had been with them. The base, though occupied by a large number of military personnel, was, like all bases, quasi-civilian in character. One of the two duty guards had been an engineer/electrician. All the men on duty in the power station were civilians, and there was no duty guard whatsoever in there. They had seen no patrols along the docks either, presumably on the basis that no one was expected to attack a Chinese guided-missile warship with several hundred trained Navy staff on board.
And now, late or not, the SEAL team was moving forward to its main objective, taking no chances, moving on elbows and knees through the rough grass. The plan had been perfectly memorized by each one of them. Commander Hunter would enter the station, backed by Lt. Allensworth, Catfish Jones, Mike Hook, Dallas MacPherson and two rookies. They would take in with them the two steel armor-piercing bombs and four sizable
