"Why never find them?" Ching asked the man.
He shrugged and gasped in pain from his wound. He said again that the Western devils would never find China's number-one weapon. His left hand worked under his left leg slowly.
Murdock stepped on his wrist and the Chinese screamed in pain.
Murdock reached down and brought out a small-caliber handgun loaded and ready to fire.
Ching talked to the man for another five minutes, but that was all he would say. The missiles were there, but the Western devils would never find them. The Chinese grew weaker as he talked. At last he shook his head, laughed at his questioner, and took a deep breath and died.
Murdock stared at the lifeless body a moment. "So the missiles are here, but we'll never find them. I've got a hunch we'd better soon. Dewitt out front could run into more trouble than he was now."
Murdock touched his lip mike. "Everyone on the inside. The missiles we're hunting are here someplace. They can't be in the second story, so maybe they're in a basement. Everyone get busy looking for any hint of an opening into a basement. Secret panel, stairwell, elevator, anything. Let's move."
Outside, Magic and his three SEALS came to the front corner of the building. They were only four dark shadows. They saw a Chinese six-by-six drawn up fifty yards down the street. Rifle fire came from the protection of the truck. Other Chinese weapons sounded from the buildings on the far side of the street.
Horse Ronson set up his machine gun and fed in a new belt of NATO rounds.
"The damn truck," he said. Magic nodded. Magic faded along the front of the building to a concrete barrier that prevented any trucks from crashing into the place. It also served as a protected firing position.
Red moved next to him, and Doc shared the same twelve-foot concrete barricade.
Ronson opened up on the truck with five-round bursts. The sound of the machine gun brought immediate return fire. Magic and Red concentrated on the fire coming at Ronson. Four bursts later, the truck's gasoline tank blew and the truck billowed into a raging ball of flames. Chinese soldiers rushed away from the rig. It highlighted them for good targets, and half of them never made it into the darkness.
Toward the center of the string of concrete barricades, Ed Dewitt touched his mike. "Good shooting, Ronson. We didn't have a good angle from here. Looks like some of them are getting discouraged."
Those with NVGS used them, and here and there a silenced round drove a Chinese soldier to the ground wounded and hurting. Down the line two SEALS fired 40mm grenades where they saw three or more Chinese in a group. In the distance the SEALS heard sirens, but they didn't seem to be coming toward them.
"Looks like they're pulling back," Dewitt said into his mike. "Let's hold steady and see if they regroup."
Inside the factory warehouse, Murdock stood with his hands on his hips. "If I were a Chinese, where the hell would I hide missiles I filled with poison gas so they wouldn't scare half the population?" The only place he could think of was underground.
"Let's do it again, guys. Go over this floor like it was your bank vault. There has to be something here somewhere to tip us off how to get into the fucking basement."
25
It took the SEALS five minutes to find any hint of a basement. Then Ron Holt realized that one section of the floor was made of wooden planks.
"Could be something down there, L-T," Holt said. They checked how big the wooden area was. It covered nearly a third of the floor.
"Scour the whole section of the plank floor," Murdock said. "Look for anything that might be able to move."
Five minutes later, Magic Brown stumbled on it. There was a slot in the floor against the far wall and next to it an open space. Against the wall was a panel that Ching said read "Lights." They opened it and found a series of buttons. Ching read the markings under them and began pushing green buttons.
At once a section of the floor detached and swung downward. The part of the plank floor that moved was twelve by fifteen feet. It swung down on hinges, and at once an elevator platform filled the void, rising into the place where the floor had been.
"Let's take a ride," Lieutenant Murdock said, and the four men stepped on the elevator. Ching pushed another button and they were lowered into the basement area. It had a twelve-foot ceiling and was brightly lit. They saw no workers, no guards.
At once they saw the missiles, the smaller ones.
"These are the Dongfeng DF11," Ching said. He read the markings on them. "They also don't look like HE rounds. The nose cones are different. These are larger and with silver and green streaks of paint down them."
"Careful down here," Murdock barked. "No shooting unless absolutely necessary to save your life. Now, Ching, what can we do to disable these babies?"
Ching frowned, then shook his head. "Damned if I know. We need Scotty Frazier in here." Murdock used his Motorola and called Frazier off the security detail.
Ching rode the elevator up, and brought him down two minutes later. Frazier looked at the missiles.
"They loaded with the bad juice?" Frazier asked.
"We have to assume they are," Murdock said. "How do we disable them?"
"We don't blow them up, burn them down, or shoot them full of holes, that's for damn sure. We try that and we all fucking die along with half of Amoy. Mechanical. There must be something I can do to the propulsion."
He started at the closest missile and began tinkering with it. He pulled out a pair of pliers, a crescent wrench, and a screwdriver and went to work.
Murdock hovered over him, saw it bothered Frazier, and walked away.
"That's one of them, L-T, but we ain't got time to do them all," Frazier said. "Take three or four hours. Up topside Mister Dewitt said he thought some more troops were coming. My suggestion is to lift up the elevator and disable it, so they can't get the fucking missiles out of this cave."
Murdock nodded, but kept looking around. His gaze swept over a coiled fire hose against the wall. He grinned.
"Maybe we turn this place into a swimming pool. That wouldn't do the missiles any good at all, would it? Then we jam the elevator. Turn on every fire hose you can find down here full blast."
The SEALS scurried to the hoses, strung them out, and turned them on. There were no keys or safety measures. Soon water began to cover the floor.
"Let's move it, guys," Murdock said. They ran to the elevator platform and Ching hit the buttons to move them up. At the top, he studied the panel a minute, then took out his Sig-Sauer.45-caliber P266 pistol and put six of the big rounds into the control panel. He didn't have the silencer on the heavy weapon, and the crashing sounds of the six shots billowed through the building.
"Let's get out of Dodge," Murdock said, and the five men trotted toward the door and the hallway to the back entrance. They went outside and came around the side of the building into a firefight.
Murdock used his radio. "Lincoln, where the hell's that Chinese truck?"
"Half a block down," Lincoln said. "I can get to it from here. Where do you want me to pick up you guys?"
Murdock had been thinking about that. There was an alley along the side of the building across a thin wooden fence.
"Alley down this side of the building, the right-hand side if you're facing the way we drove up here. Got it?"
"Yes, Sir. Be right with you."
Dewitt spoke into the net. "Skipper, want us to make a slow withdrawal to the right side of the building?"
"Roger that. Start to pull some men over. Be at least five minutes before Lincoln gets here. Don't let them know you're moving."