Johnson ran for the fence, touched it briefly with his fingers, then began slicing the chain-link fence wire. It took him four minutes to cut a line three feet high and three feet across the top. Then he folded back the far side and slid through the opening.
The rest of the platoon followed him and they established the point man again with Second Squad fanned out behind the First in a proper diamond. Dewitt served as rear guard.
The land had been bulldozed, some of it recently, and they found the remains of houses, stock pens, and water holes. It wasn't a neat job, but it had knocked down everything that would interfere with a jet plane landing or taking off.
Two hundred meters from the fence, Red Nicholson hit the dirt and the rest of the SEALS ate dust like dominoes. Murdock ran up to Nicholson bent over, and flattened out beside him. "What?"
"Mounted patrol. Looks like an old jeep. Coming along a dirt track about a hundred meters ahead of us."
Murdock could see the rig then and the lights. It did not have a searchlight that was turned on and probing.
"Let him pass," Murdock said.
Red nodded. He pointed to the left where a low building of some sort stood. It looked to be made of concrete block or stone. It had no electronics on it and was over two hundred meters ahead. If they could reach the building, it would put them in range of the middle of the parked transport planes.
Murdock watched the transports through his night-vision one-lens glass. He spotted figures moving around the planes. Service personnel or guards, he couldn't tell which.
The jeep rolled past, shifting gears to get out of what looked like a spot of soft dirt or sand. When the rig cleared, the SEALS waited two minutes, then moved again to the left at a slow jog to eat up the distance.
Thirty meters from the concrete block building, Red stopped and waited for Murdock.
"Nothing shows from this side. Thought I saw a shaft of light a minute ago, like a door in front had opened and let out some yellow rays."
"Let's check." Murdock and Red eased up to a crouched position and ran to the rear of the building. Now they could tell it was twenty by forty feet and had no windows in the back or the side they could see. They edged around to check the far side. There was no alarm. Evidently no sentry or guard was outside.
They checked the front. It had three windows, all wide and low. The structure was no more than eight feet high. One door on this side opened inward. As they watched, the door swung in and a khaki-clad man came out, walked ten meters away from the building, and urinated.
Red gave a throat-slash move, but Murdock shook his head. They held still as the man went back in the door. He didn't have to unlock it to get inside.
Murdock took out a fragger and a flash-bang grenade. He motioned to Red who took out one fragger. They both pulled the pins on the grenades but held down the arming spoons. Then they edged up to the door. Murdock went past it to the far side. He looked at Red and nodded. Murdock rammed open the door and threw both his grenades inside. Red pitched in his fragger and they let the door swing shut.
The five ear-shattering blasts of high explosives from the flash-bang was followed by a string of bright strobing light pulses. The flash-bang went off just before the two fraggers. The three windows in front blew out and the strobe lights winked through them.
When the last grenade exploded, Murdock charged through the door and covered the right half of the room spotting with his NVG. He saw two bodies on the floor writhing. He sent two silent rounds into both with his CAR-15 and swept the rest of the room with the night-vision goggles.
Red had fired three times, and Murdock saw the bodies spasming on the two bunks to the rear.
"Clear," Red said.
"Clear here," Murdock said. Then the Platoon Leader continued. "Make sure," he said. The SEALS went to the bodies and put a round in the head of each. Now they were sure.
Murdock examined the place. It was one large room. The fraggers had blown out any electric lights that had been on inside. Below the windows were panels that at one time must have been useful. Now they were scraped and torn and twisted from the shrapnel. The windows looked out directly down the first runway. The SAC-YD transports were parked cheek to tail fin on a taxiway fifty meters to the left of the runway. Murdock figured they were within two hundred meters of the near end of the line and four hundred meters from the far end of the parked transport planes. Fish in a fucking barrel.
"Bring up the squads," Murdock said into his lip mike. "We've found our firing positions."
As the men came up to the blockhouse, Murdock placed them. He put the four RPG men with two rounds each, including himself, on top of the building, which he found had a solid tarpaper and rock roof. The other men with RPGS would fire them from the sides of the blockhouse. These men also had their M-88.50-caliber rifles locked and loaded and ready to go.
Murdock made a radio check. All thirteen gave him a quick "ready" on the Motorola. He had told them which areas of the line to fire in. Those on the roof took the far half of the line. The men on the ground drew the closer targets.
"Check your range and hit those motherfuckers," Murdock had told each man.
Now he sighted in on the center of the line of planes. As soon as he fired the rest would blast away. He concentrated on the sights, armed the rockets, and pulled the trigger.
The whoosh from behind him was always a surprise on an RPG. He could follow the trail of fire as it arched into the sky, then came down. Before it hit six more RPGS were in the air. Murdock watched his round hit. It blew up directly under one Chinese transport on the near side of the parking lot. A moment later the fuel tank exploded showering burning jet fuel over a dozen of the big SAC-YDS. He knew they had thirty-eight-meter wingspans. A lot of fuel in there.
Then the other RPGS began hitting. Three flew farther than Murdock's did. One fell short; two more landed among the parked planes and went off with a roar. Then RPGS began to fall on the planes closer to them. Three hit their targets, and one exploded beyond the planes in a hangar.
A moment later the heavy.50-caliber rifles began to speak. The rounds were aimed at the wing tanks and cockpits. Murdock caught himself watching the show, then remembered his last round. He fired his last RPG at maximum range, and figured they would not destroy the planes all the way to the far end with the RPGS. He watched four more hits in the row of planes. Sirens walled and red lights from fire trucks blazed through the night. He could hear loudspeakers blaring in Chinese.
Then he saw the domino effect take over. One plane exploded, and that set off two more, which roared into a firestorm exploding their fuel tanks, which set off half a dozen more planes as the whole row soon began burning.
He rolled off the roof, went below, and told the riflemen to concentrate on the far end of the row. One plane began taxiing away from the fireballs. Magic Brown put four slugs into the ship before it got far, and it burst into flames from the exploding rounds and kept on rolling as a blazing inferno.
Two planes closest to them had escaped the destruction. Murdock pointed them out and Ronson and Johnson drilled them with a half-dozen rounds, resulting in one of the planes blowing sky-high and taking the undamaged one with it in a flaming toast to Sino-American relations.
An armored car of some kind faded from the firelight and rolled toward the blockhouse. The troops inside the building began taking machine-gun fire. The sniper fifties returned fire and knocked out the rig with ten rounds. The armored half-track surged to one side, rolled, and wound up on its roof.
Murdock watched his handiwork. Not a single transport had escaped. He touched his lip mike. "Let's get the hell out of Dodge," Murdock said. They grouped up behind the blockhouse. A mortar round exploded fifty meters to the right. "Any casualties?"