They would carry the potent TNAZ explosive as well. It was Trinittroaze Tidine which had replaced plastique C4. It had 15 more bang and 20 less volume and weight than the C4.
He turned over again.
Before he knew it, his mental alarm went off and it was morning.
He had a quick breakfast at the officers' mess and beat everyone but Jaybird to the training room. The rest of the troops poured in quickly. Among them was Joe Ricochet Lampedusa with a large bandage on his arm. It was the first time they had seen him out of sick bay.
Murdock called him and Dewitt over to one side.
"Lampedusa, you won't be going on this mission. That slug dug in deeper than we thought."
The seaman scowled and nodded. "About what I figured. Damn, I'd like to be along."
"Not a chance, Richochet," Dewitt said. "We'd lose you on the first swim and we could have three or four more depending on how it goes."
"Understood. I just don't like it."
"You want to get flown back to Balboa Hospital or stay here? We could use you here for our contact. We'll need new supplies and gear for our second night's work."
"Yes, sir. I'd like that. Whatever I can do here. I want to stay with the program."
"Fine. See me after this rehearsal."
They had a full commander who was the resident expert on nuclear warheads. He told them what the Chinese might have.
"We know it isn't highly sophisticated. We also know that it works. What we don't want is to set off one or all of their nukes in that cave. It could blast the whole island apart and spread radiation across half of China.
"We figure that their triggers are put in place just before arming. That would be done in the plane. Yes, we also have about decided the best bet is that they have an airdrop device. So we treat it with care. If they are plutonium-powered, the problem is greater. The big program here is not to subject any of the devices to what we consider a triggering force.
"True, we don't know just how much that force is, but we have a ballpark figure of five thousand pounds of TNT."
"Sir, how much of this is speculation and guesswork and how much is fact?" Murdock asked.
"Damn few facts here, Lieutenant. We go with what we know and build on that. Best we can do. Best anyone can do. I don't know your plans, but they could change once you get on-site.
"Any more questions?" the commander asked. There were none. Murdock thanked the three-striper and he left. It was evident that the rag-tag bunch of SEALS made him nervous.
Murdock took over the meeting again.
"Schedule We chow down at 1200 hours. We make final assembly of our gear for both hits and chopper out of here at 1800 hours. Gets dark in this latitude about 1900 hours. This carrier is steaming on its regular circuit around Taiwan as it's been doing for months. The mainland won't even notice. The chopper will get us to our meet point with the same sub we were on before. She'll be our base cps for both missions.
"We leave the gear on her for the second hit, then get out our IBSS and head for that little nuke island. The sub will get us within five miles, then kick us off. We motor into the nuke island and take it down. Any questions?"
"Yeah." It was Jaybird. "How close can the sub come to the nuke island in case we run into trouble? A couple of rounds into those IBSS and we're fucking swimming."
"Covered. The sub can come in submerged within a mile of the island if they get a signal from us from a homing sonar."
The big Sea Stallion CH53D put them down within two feet of the submarine's aft deck, and the fifteen SEALS tugged out their equipment and hustled it into a hatch. The last bits out were the IBS bundles. The SEALS at once began inflating the boats and stowing their gear inside. "Time?" Murdock asked Dewitt.
"It's 1905. We're about five minutes ahead of sched. The boat commander said as soon as the chopper leaves he'll start moving toward the island. We're about ten miles off it now. He can come into five miles on the surface without wetting his drawers."
"Good, let's check the boats."
The big chopper edged away from the submarine, then churned gently away from the mainland heading back to the carrier. The submarine got under way nosing toward land.
"We should be on station in twenty minutes," Murdock said. "Let's double-check everything again." They carried four rocket-propelled grenades. They had two sets of cutting charges that would use their shaped form to cut through six inches of steel.
Half the men carried the HK MP5SD4 for close-in work. One man in each squad used the HK HK21A1 machine gun with 7.62 NATO rounds. Magic Brown and Red Nicholson had the Mcmillan M89 silenced sniper rifles, as did two men in the Second Squad. Doc Ellsworth carried his favorite toy, a fully automatic shotgun with a five-round magazine.
Fifteen minutes after the chopper left, the men boarded the two IBSS and checked equipment. Fins and rebreathers were stowed. They would motor straight into the beach a hundred yards from the front gate of the facility.
"Time," an officer on the conning tower called. The SEALS unlashed their IBSS and the big boat began to slide under the water. In a matter of seconds they were floating, the nearly silent IBS motors powering them away from the rear of the submarine and the turbulence caused by submerging.
The SEALS wore black Nomex flight suits under their combat webbing, which was loaded with tools of their trade. They also wore American Body Armor operations vests. They had pouches on the front for loaded magazines. A waterproof pouch was in back for each man's encrypted Motorola MX walkie-talkie. There were grenade pouches with room for more goodies.
Each man wore a headset and earpiece inside his left ear. A wire went down his neck and plugged into the Motorola unit in his harness. A filament mike perched just under his lower lip. A touch on the transmit button brought a tsk-tsk through the headset.
Murdock listened for the series of signals. All of his men were hooked up and tuned in. They wouldn't use the radio until they had to. He checked the azimuth and corrected the boat slightly as it powered gently through the swells toward Mainland China.
They were doing something no U.S. military unit had ever done, invading modern Mainland China. They'd better do it right or there would be hell to pay, and a chance at starting World War III.
Murdock pulled down his night-vision goggles from his forehead. He had a Litton single-lens version. You could use it with one eye and keep the other eye available for normal night vision. He studied the lime-green view and found the other IBS ten yards to port. He powered closer to it until he could see it through the China night without the NVG.
It would take them the best part of an hour to travel the five klicks at five knots. There was no other choice. The submarine couldn't risk moving in any closer. Radar might pick it up. There was little chance that even the best radar could pick up the IBS. They lay low in the water and the movement wasn't fast enough to cause a blip on the radar screen.
Later, Murdock heard the surf before he saw anything. It sounded like a moderate set of breakers. It was a sand beach, and they would leave the IBSS inflated and ready for a quick exit.
Murdock moved his IBS closer to the other one and with hand signals indicated that he would go in first, followed by the second boat.
A minute later he could see the outside of the swells. They were larger than he had guessed and they broke rather sharply. He watched them through the NVG a minute, and decided he had to charge straight over the top of the breaker and try to keep the boat right side up. All of their equipment was tied down if the inflatable did flip.
Then they were riding the top of the swell. It rose and rose, and then he saw the white curl, and a moment later they came crashing down a four-foot breaker of foaming seawater. The bow of the IBS nudged under the sandy water, then righted, and the breaker slapped it forward like a roller coaster taking that first high plunge.