The satellite imagery had arrived and Meng listened with interest as General Olson was briefed by his staff. Colonel Moore, who seemed more and more to Meng to be the key man on the USSOCOM SFOB staff, was handling the talking.
"We've got pretty good imagery of the area the Talon said they were receiving the radar output from. The pictures show a Komar-class Soviet patrol boat moving roughly in a northeast direction along the coast. Plotting the ship's course out, if it keeps going at the same speed and in the same direction, it will be four hundred kilometers north of the point where the Blackhawks plan on crossing the coast."
Olson nodded. "What do you have on the ship?"
The SFOB S-2 handled that. "Our intelligence on that ship indicates it does have the Pot Drum early warning radar. That system is rated out to less than twenty kilometers and definitely has no over-the-horizon capability. They shouldn't be able to pick up the birds going in or out. Besides, the Soviet radar is so lousy, they could be only ten kilometers away and I don't think they'd pick out those birds coming in over the wave tops."
"What kind of armament on the ship?" asked Olson.
"It's pretty outdated. Two launchers for SS-N-2A, which are surface-to-surface missiles, and one twin 25mm cannon in the front. The cannon can be radar controlled against air targets by the Pot Drum, but it has to acquire first. The Komar-class boats are mainly used for close-in coastal patrolling or attacking surface targets. They're the oldest active patrol boats in the Soviet fleet."
Meng was relieved to learn that the potential problem could be discounted. The last thing he wanted was to lose one of those aircraft. They had to get the team out on the first try. If they didn't succeed on the first attempt they wouldn't have another chance, because the Chinese would be alerted after destruction of the pipeline.
Olson seemed relieved too. He ordered his staff to tell the FOB not to worry about the radar. He also commented that he was quite impressed with the simulation's realism — finding that Soviet ship and using it in the play of the problem.
At the end of his two-hour shift, Olinski woke up O'Shaugnesy and handed him the night-vision goggles. Olinski wearily crawled into his bivy sack and was asleep in minutes.
O'Shaugnesy was tired. He hung the goggles around his neck and lay his MP5 down at his side as he leaned back on his rucksack and looked out into the darkened pickup zone. Between pulling security and making contacts, O'Shaugnesy had had only two hours of sleep since leaving the FOB more than twenty-four hours ago. He slowly scanned the open area.
An hour had gone by and O'Shaugnesy felt himself nodding off. He jerked himself awake, then cocked his head to one side. He thought he'd heard something. There it was again. Something was moving behind him in the trees. O'Shaugnesy turned slowly and peered through the woods.
The meager light from the stars and moon didn't penetrate the foliage. O'Shaugnesy couldn't see anything, but he could hear it. Something big was moving out there and it was damn close. He reached down, picked up his MP5, and slipped the safety off, placing the weapon on semiautomatic.
He peered into the darkness. Whatever was out there was big, man-sized, and it was coming this way. One-handed, he reached down, grabbed the night-vision goggles where they rested on his chest, and slowly brought them up to his eyes. He turned them on. The darkness disappeared and the area in front of him suddenly became clear.
O'Shaugnesy swung up his MP5 and pulled the trigger. Whoever was standing there was only five feet away, on the other side of the sleeping bodies of Reese and Olinski. The gun made a soft chunk as the first round fired. There was a yell of pain and the figure leapt at O'Shaugnesy. He got off one more shot before he was overwhelmed.
Olinski awoke as he was knocked aside by the figure charging O'Shaugnesy. O'Shaugnesy screamed as Olinski swung up his shotgun. In the moonlight Olinski saw two figures, the smaller of whom had the outline of an MP5 in his outstretched arm.
Olinski hesitated briefly, then fired. The initial buckshot round separated
the two figures. Olinski fired the rest of his shotgun rounds into the larger figure as fast as he could pull the trigger.
Riley was shaken awake. Trapp put his head next to the team sergeant's and whispered in his ear, "I think I heard shots."
Riley's senses swung into full gear. "How long ago, how many, and what direction?" he asked.
"Just about a minute ago. I waited before waking you to see if there were any more, but there haven't been. I think I heard seven or eight. They were real faint. I'd say a couple of klicks. Off to the west maybe. I really can't be sure."
"Who's on security with you?"
"Comsky."
"Get him over here," Riley ordered. He pulled himself clear of his bivy sack and put on his shirt against the chill night air. He woke Mitchell.
West, Riley thought. That's the direction of the pickup zone. There's nothing else out there. Trapp had said a couple of kilometers away. That ruled out someone on the service road, which was only four hundred meters away.
Comsky made his way over to Riley in the dark.
"Did you hear anything, Comsky?" Riley asked. Mitchell sat up, trying to clear his head.
"Shots, I'd say eight or nine. Pretty far away. If it wasn't such a clear night I never would have heard them. They were real faint. I really couldn't tell what direction. Sounded to me like a shotgun. There was one, about a second pause, and then all the rest came real fast, like someone blasting away as fast as they could pull a trigger."
"OK, thanks. Get back to your post."
Riley turned to the captain. "Jim heard the same thing and woke me up. He thinks the shots came from the west. If you add it all up, it sounds like Olinski. He has the SPAS 12 and it's the right direction and distance. Hell, O'Shaugnesy could have fired a thousand rounds, too, and we'd never have heard it. I don't think anybody is going to be up in the middle of the night hunting here."
Mitchell looked at Trapp in the dark. "What do you think? Could it have been the pickup zone team?"
Trapp thought for a few seconds. "Sir, it's been a long time since I've heard firing in the distance like that. In Vietnam, I could have told you the azimuth, distance, and type of weapons involved with no problem. But it's been awhile.
"I think Comsky is right. It was a shotgun. Definitely wasn't an AK; I've heard enough of them fired at me to remember what they sound like. Wasn't a SAW, even fired on semiautomatic. Shotgun sounds right, and, as fast as those rounds were fired, it was either a semiautomatic or two guys firing pumps as fast as they could in succession. Most likely a semi. Which I very much doubt anyone in this area has."
Mitchell and Riley considered this. Riley stirred. "Damn! What the hell was he shooting at? You heard no return fire, yet it sounds like Olinski emptied the entire magazine. No explosions, no nothing. Maybe he pulled off a very effective ambush. But then why use the shotgun and not the MP5? Or maybe they used them both? But who the hell would they be ambushing in the middle of the night down there?"
Mitchell spoke slowly. "All right. This is what we'll do. Before we go blundering off in the dark, we'll see if they come up on the FM radio at," he looked at the glowing dials of his watch, "2400, in twenty-five minutes. Hell, turn the damn thing on now, in case they're trying to reach us. Even if they aren't, we'll come up and ask them if they're OK and what the hell happened. If we get no answer at 2400, we'll send some people over right away. I'll go with Comsky in case they might need a medic. Trapp too. We'll leave Smith here with the demo, Lalli to make commo, and Devito to take care of Lalli. What do you think, Dave? I need to leave you here 'cause one of us has to stay. I want to confirm the pickup zone anyway."