The eight men of Third Platoon lifted off the deck and stormed the small shaft in the middle of the cavern. It was only thirty-five meters away. There was no opposition. Not a shot was fired.
Murdock came around the side of the shaft, which was made of heavy steel plates, and looked at the front. It was an elevator, and evidently fully operational. The door stood open.
"Sign says safe occupancy by no more than ten people," Ching said.
"Ching, Brown, Doc, we're going for a ride down. The rest of you spread out and keep this thing operational. If it's clear down there, we'll send it back up for reinforcements. Bring down two more men and leave Holt and Nicholson up here for security. We want to be sure we can get back up this shaft."
Murdock waved the men on board. Ching studied the control panel.
"Only two operational buttons, L-T. One is down, the other up."
"Let's go down, Ching, and see where the hell this goes to and what the cluster-fuck in July is down there."
Ching pushed the button. The door closed and the elevator started down.
Murdock nodded. Now they would see what the Chinese had developed in their nuclear weapons program.
11
The enclosed elevator car felt like a tomb for a moment. Then Murdock looked at Ching. "Any indication how far we're going down?"
"None, L-T. It's quite a drop even though we aren't going fast like the ones do in the Empire State Building."
"This will do. When we stop I want us lined up in back of the car. Have your weapons aimed at that door when it opens. We don't know what the fuck we're going to find down here. That guy on the loudspeaker has to be somewhere. He could alert them that we're coming down."
The car slowed and ground to a stop. Doc stood in the center of the rear of the car, his shotgun pointing at the door. It slid open with a slight whine and two Chinese soldiers gaped in surprise at the weapons aimed at them. Their own rifles were slung over their shoulders with muzzles down.
As the doors opened, Doc got off one round from his shotgun. The thirteen.32-sized slugs tore into both men. Half the torso of one billowed with blood and internal organs spewed out. The man beside him had his arm torn off and enough of the slugs drilled into his heart to kill him instantly.
Murdock looked around the door of the car. They were in a much smaller cave, one that looked to be blasted out of granite. Three steel huts were at the near end of the room. It was no more than twenty meters long and about that wide. The overhead was only four meters above them.
Murdock saw no other guards. The four SEALS darted from the elevator to the closest of the steel buildings. They had no obvious doors, no windows. Ching read the sign on the front.
"This sealed container holds two nuclear devices, ready to be given the final charge and the arming detonator."
"Maybe six bombs," Murdock said. "Check the other two huts."
Ching ran to them and came back nodding. "Six must be their total. What now?"
"We mess up everything down here that we can. Those electric forklifts, put small charges on them with two-hour timers. Nothing that will break down the steel doors to the hutches. Get on it now. You have five minutes."
He grabbed Ching. "Let Brown juice the forklifts. Suggestions on how we wreck this place?"
"We don't know how solid those steel buildings are, so we better not blast the ceiling down. I'd say we blow everything down here, then go up the elevator, set a moderate charge with a timer, and send the box down here. Then we blast the top of the elevator."
Murdock nodded. "About what I'd been thinking. Then we blast every tunnel shut as we leave it. Take them a damn long time to haul out all of the rubble. Good, start laying your charges with that TNAZ. Remember, it's more potent than the old C-4 we usually use."
Magic Brown came back in four minutes. "I put one-eighth of a stick on four of the forklifts and latched them together. They all have delay timers set for an hour."
"We're ready. Let's move up the ladder."
Murdock led the four into the elevator and they pushed the up button.
At the top of the ride, the four SEALS stayed at the sides of the car as the doors opened. Rifle fire tore into the back wall of the elevator. The fire let up and Murdock yelled, "Cover us!" He heard MP-5's chattering to the left, and the rifle fire held off. The four SEALS came charging out firing with all the power they had.
Murdock saw the rest of his men crouched behind some upturned tables to the left and sprinted that way.
The four men dove behind the tables just as the Chinese rifles opened up again, the flat crack of the venerable AK-47 on automatic fire.
Murdock skidded to a stop half on top of Jaybird.
"What's happening, Chief?"
"Six of the dry-humpers came out a hidden door down to the left. They fired on us before we knew they were there. We nailed two of them, but four have us pinned down."
"Fraggers," Murdock said. "The range can't be more than thirty meters. How many fraggers we have?"
They found six among the men. The best throwers took the small bombs. "Two at a time, then wait for a reaction," Murdock said.
Brown and Horse lifted up and threw the grenades with the 4.2-second fuses. They didn't let them cook at all. The distance would mean almost instant detonation on contact. Both bombs went off with a sharp roar and they heard shrapnel zinging all over the place. One Chinese soldier screamed.
The firing from behind the tables across the way stopped.
Murdock nodded, and the men threw two more. These dropped over the edges of the tables and went off at once. More screaming came, and then the survivors began to retreat. Brown shifted to his sniper M-89 and picked one soldier off before he could get through the hidden door in the wall. The second one made it.
"Checkout time," Murdock said. "Go, go, go!" He stood with the MP-5 on his hip and charged forward firing three-round bursts at the tables where the Chinese riflemen had been. The other men of First Squad were beside him as they rushed the strong-point where the Chinese had hidden.
They kicked over the tables and sprayed the bodies there with more rounds.
"As you were!" Murdock bellowed, and the firing stopped. "Let's get those charges set so we can get out of here."
Ching and Brown ran back to the elevator. They set two charges, one on each side of the car, and wired them together. Then they wired them to a thirty-minute timer-detonator and punched the down button on the elevator. It still worked. The doors closed and the car headed for the cavern below and the six Chinese nuclear weapons.
As soon as the car cleared, Ching had the second charge ready to demolish the top of the elevator. Nobody would be bringing out any nukes from that cave below for a long time.
"Set that one for half an hour," Murdock said. "Now, let's move out of here. Jaybird, you take the point and keep Brown close behind. Doc, you bring up the rear. Let's move."
When they hit the mouth of the tunnel leading away from the large cavern, Magic Brown had a charge of TNAZ ready. He plastered it against the tunnel ten feet inside from the mouth and set a fifteen-minute timer-detonator, and they moved away. At the end of that tunnel they set another charge with the same-timed detonator. This was where they had blasted in a door with the RPG. Ching set a charge, and dialed the timer for ten minutes.
They hurried across the assembly area. There was nothing there worth blasting. They found the up-slanting tunnel on the far side of the huge natural cavern. There was still the smell of smoke in the tunnel. They set another charge in the tunnel twenty feet in from the cavern and positioned the detonator for ten minutes. By now the charges were placed and the timers set almost without missing a step.