C.J. laughed to himself. I've never heard of a helicopter having a midair collision with a ship. That was a first. It'll make a great bar story when I get back. If I get back.
Ah, screw it, C.J. thought. He turned to his copilot. "OK, Bud. Let me put it to you in terms you can understand. I'm flying this bad boy and I'm taking it in. If you don't want to go, the door is to your right and you're welcome to leave at any time." The senior pilot brought the helicopter even closer to the earth, negotiating the mountain passes.
12
"His potential is that of a fully drawn crossbow:
his timing, the release of a trigger."
Mitchell counted down for Riley and Comsky; Chong counted down for Trapp. "Five, four, three, two, one."
The three SVD shots sounded as one in the clear night air.
At pump station 5, the watchman stared at his screens in confusion as all three cameras at compound 8 went black. He cursed. It had to be another system malfunction.
"Go," Mitchell hissed.
Hoffman and Smith leapt from the tree line and sprinted. Eighteen seconds later they were at the eastern fence. Hoffman hooked the line charge onto the fence while Smith unreeled the firing wire. Eight seconds later Smith fired the charge and a six-foot gap opened up in the fence, beckoning them in.
Nothing registered at pump station 5. The T sensor on the eastern side of compound 8 had been broken for a week now. As required by the rules, a work order had been submitted for its repair.
Twenty seconds after the hole appeared, Hoffman and Smith were at the berm. They began strapping the charges on the wires. It took them forty-five seconds to put on all six. Hoffman then connected the fuses while Smith placed the platter charge beneath the pipe and laid out the two thermite grenade rafts. The two engineers ran their respective detonating cord back to each other and hooked the wires together.
They turned and ran back toward the hole in the fence, unreeling the det cord. At the fence Hoffman placed the end of the cord into the fuse ignitor. He muttered "boom" as he pulled the ignitor.
At pump station 5 an alarm bell rang stridently. Something was wrong— pressure was dropping rapidly. Pumping was automatically stopped and word relayed along the line: Complete pipe failure somewhere between pump stations 5 and 6.
The team walked quickly through the woods, Chong in the lead wearing goggles.
Hooker had wanted to know if the pipe would drop, Riley remembered. He couldn't wait to tell his battalion commander. Dropped was too simple a word to describe the destruction they had just wrought. Even now the glow from burning oil lit up the sky behind them.
The explosion had worked perfectly. The six wires snapped like rubber bands. The pipe held still for a few seconds, then collapsed into the Sungari River with a roar. While the suspended pipe was going down, the platter charge had exploded, burning a hole cleanly through the bottom of the still-standing section of pipe in the compound. As oil poured out, it was ignited immediately by the thermite grenades.
Perfect, Riley thought. Less than three minutes from start to finish. Perfect.
Olinski had heard the explosion at 2:07 a.m. Thirty minutes ago, as planned, he'd gotten a radio call from Captain Mitchell over the PRC68.
"We're on the way. Everything went according to plan. Complete destruction. Send the PONDER. Out."
Olinski had carefully encrypted the message and now it was ready to go. He burst it out at exactly 1900Z.
Putting the PSC3 radio back in his rucksack, Olinski left Reese watching O'Shaugnesy while he went out to place infrared chem lights into each small depression of the inverted Y.
Hossey anxiously decrypted the message:
ZEROFI VEPOND ERXXXP ONDERX XAAADA
GGERBB BCOMPL ETECCC DDDEEE TELLYO
UKNOWW HOITDR OPPEDX XDOUBL EXXXXX
Using the message format book, he interpreted the codes:
Type: (Target destruction report) PONDER.
AAA: (Target name) DAGGER.
BBB: (Extent of destruction) COMPLETE.
CCC: (Wounded) none.
DDD: (Killed) none.
EEE: (remarks) TELL YOU KNOW WHO IT DROPPED.
DOUBLE.
Hossey felt some of the tension in his body ease, and he allowed himself a small smile. "Sergeant Major," he said, handing the message to Hooker.
Hooker protested the remarks with a grin on his face. "I never doubted that it would drop, sir. I just wanted to see if they had done their homework. Now all we need is a successful exfiltration and we'll be home free. They done good so far."
Finally Meng allowed himself a sigh of relief. The team had interdicted the pipe and, based on his other data, the exfiltration looked good. Both helicopters had left the Rathburne on time. A blow had been struck to an artery of the Dragon. The Old Men would have to notice.
Team 3 was whole again. All twelve members were in the same place for the first time since they had separated at the pipeline three days ago. That made Dave Riley feel a whole lot better. But looking at O'Shaugnesy dampened his spirits.
The man was in bad shape. Comsky had told them, when he'd come up to the rally point, that O'Shaugnesy's condition was deteriorating. Keeping him out of shock was a full-time job for Reese, who was lying with the wounded man in a bivy sack to give him his body warmth. O'Shaugnesy's wounds were starting to smell, which meant that infection had gotten a foothold.
At least the birds were en route, thought Riley. We'll get him out and to a hospital tonight. The man would be scarred for life, but at least he'd be alive.
Riley checked his watch. Forty-five minutes until the birds showed up. They still had heard no activity in reaction to the explosion. More than an hour and nothing. Riley was surprised. But he figured that the Chinese still didn't know what was happening. Riley hoped that by the time they figured it out, Team 3 would be long gone.
The foreman of the pump station had alerted the reaction platoon within a minute of the first indication of trouble. It had taken the platoon more than thirty minutes to get everyone awake and prepared to depart the pump station. The foreman was still waiting for a radio call back from the platoon leader.
He had just received a call from the duty officer of the 118th Division, whose area of responsibility included this section of pipeline. The duty officer reported that the 3d Aviation Regiment, in response to the division's request, had dispatched a helicopter to investigate.
C.J. didn't really trust the Doppler. As he liked to put it — the Doppler might tell you what street you were on, but when you've got to knock on somebody's door, you need to do better. In preparation for this mission, C.J. had memorized the satellite imagery and the location of PZ Drable.