“All right, let’s see what you men come up with in two hours. My planning people will also be working on an extraction plan. Let’s see who can make the better one.”
Ten minutes later, back in their assigned building, the SEALs gathered around a fold-out table and began to put ideas down on paper. Ed DeWitt held the pencil and pad. Don Stroh came in and walked up to the table.
“Well, well, the honorable Donald P. Stroh of the elite CIA,” Murdock said. “Have you asked for detailed satellite shots of that village? When can we have them and any other intelligence details you CIA guys have on that area?”
“Just as soon as they fax it to me. I requested it five hours ago, so it should be coming soon, if we have anything. Murdock, do you know how many little villages there are in the world? You can’t expect us to have details about every one.”
“Just this one would be fine,” Murdock said. “We’ll take what you give us. Now who has some ideas?”
“To start, we fly off the destroyer the twenty miles to shore and three miles inland,” Joe Lampedusa said. Then he laughed. “Not a chance. We’d have a jillion Chinese rifles pointing at us before we got ready to fly out.”
“So we go in by a launch of some kind and the last five miles by rubber duck,” Jaybird Sterling said. “We go in quiet. We get inland as far as we can without a sound. Use suppressed shots if we need to.”
“Quiet approach,” Murdock said. “Put that down. What else?”
“We use the EAR whenever practical,” DeWitt said. “That way the China News Agency won’t have any bodies to show the world on TV for a month after we leave.”
“Yeah, I like this. But how do we find the guy?” Dobler asked. “They said he has a SATCOM. Can we contact him at a specific time and have him give us directions from the beach?”
“Good point,” Murdock said. “Stroh, can you get what frequency he’s using so we can contact him from here or from the ship? We want to have him describe everything to us before we take off.”
“I’m on my horse to the radio. If we don’t get anything visual, he can fill us in about the area. I’m outa here.”
“So it has to be a night operation,” Lampedusa said. “We hit the beach at 0100. Most of the locals should be asleep or drunk by then. Should leave us plenty of time to run in three miles and walk out, get to our boats and leave.”
“Flotation with three extra bodies?” Dobler asked.
“The IBS can take two hundred more pounds easily,” Jaybird said. “If there’s any problem, we dump overboard all of our ammo, that’s easy two hundred pounds per squad.”
“What if we run into an army patrol?” Murdock asked. “The report said there were two soldiers with submachine guns at the house.”
“The two Chinks we can convince not to hamper us,” DeWitt said. “The EAR would be ideal.”
“What about a patrol?” Murdock pressed.
“Everything we take with us is silenced,” Dobler said. “If we stumble into a patrol, or if they spot us, we fire silenced, work our way out of it. As the last resort we take off the suppressors and cut loose.”
Murdock gave him a thumbs up. “We get to the beach, load up, and motor out to our yacht and get on back to the destroyer.” He looked around. “Any final words of wisdom? No choppers, all silenced. In and out attracting as little attention as possible. Let’s go back and see the admiral.”
A half hour later, the SEALs stood in front of the same group as before in the admiral’s office. Only Don Stroh was missing.
DeWitt laid out the plan for the Admiral and his staff.
“So, Admiral Chalmers. We think a launch from the destroyer at the ten-mile limit, then the IBS boats for the last two miles will give us a silent approach and exfiltration as well. We might be able to get in and back out with the packages and not ruffle more than a few Chinese soldier’s feathers.”
The Admiral turned to his men at the table. They conferred for a moment. Before they could make any comment, Don Stroh came into the room with a sheaf of papers.
“Admiral, sir. I have some late developments.”
“Pertinent, Stroh?”
“Absolutely. They could change our plans.”
The admiral settled back, picked up his pipe again, and put it in his mouth. He nodded at Stroh who stood beside Murdock.
“We have a group of faxes from my office. Nothing that gives us much to go on. One aerial shot of the general area of Zhanjiang, but that’s twenty miles from ground zero. What I do have are some printouts of transmissions from the senator within the last half hour by SATCOM.
“He says their small village is on a river that runs fifty feet in back of their house. It isn’t large but he’s seen thirty-and forty-foot craft moving up and down the river. They don’t look to be flat-bottomed boats. They are three miles from the ocean, but the river runs almost straight from their house to the beach.”
“Anything else, Mr. Stroh?”
“Yes, the senator has given me detailed directions how to come up the river and where to land. He can talk the SEALs in with his SATCOM if they have any trouble. The river looks to be our best bet.”
The admiral looked at Murdock.
“Yes sir, I agree. A slight change in plans. The amphibious landing ship should have a Pegasus on board. If they can airlift it to the destroyer, we can use that for our run in and back from the river. It can throttle down for the last five miles, putting us within two miles of the mouth of that river. Then we go by IBS to shore, up the river to the house, take out the guards with our enhanced acoustic rifle, a non-lethal weapon, grab the packages, and have them in the IBS craft and back down the river before the Chinese change guard shifts.”
The admiral looked at his staff. Two nodded. The captain lifted his brows. “Looks better than what we had in mind, Admiral. Let’s go with the commander’s plan.”
“When?”
Murdock looked at the admiral. “Sir, that would be insertion from the destroyer so we could hit the river at 0100. With a good operation and no surprises, we should be back to the Pegasus not more than two hours later.”
“Entirely covert, Commander?”
“If at all possible. If we can use the EAR. The soldiers hit will be unconscious for four to six hours and will wake up confused, slightly nauseous, but not having the slightest idea what happened.”
“Very well. Commander, what’s the present position of the ships involved?” The admiral looked at his staff.
“The Bataan is four hundred ten miles from the airfield at the bottom of this island. She’s on a southwest course at eighteen knots. The Gonzalez is roughly fifty miles off the target and about two hundred and fifty from the Bataan.”
The admiral checked his watch. “Gentlemen, it’s a little after 1235 here local time. I know you’ve been across the International Date Line and six or eight time changes, but sun time here is just after noon. The COD doesn’t land on our amphibs, so we go with a Sea Knight. Martin, check with the Bataan to be sure she has a Pegasus available to airlift to the destroyer. Also alert them of a mission and to have a Sea Knight flight checked and ready to go in seven hours. The usual signals to the two ships involved in the action and their part in it.” The admiral turned to the SEALs.
“Men you have a little over five hours of flight time in those choppers. One from the air field in the south to the amphib, another one to the destroyer. I’ll have them airlift the Pegasus from the amphib to the destroyer. This all should put you on the Gonzalez at about 1900. Then you can push off in time to get the Pegasus to that river mouth by 0100.”
“We can be ready to take off in a half hour, sir,” Murdock said. “Oh, one last request. Could you see if the Bataan has a pair of expendable IBS units they could have deflated and in the Pegasus or tied on board?”