Red came back laughing. "Now that's the kind of army to be in. There were six soldiers in the back of the six-by-six with a lantern hanging on the inside, and there were four or five naked women with them just loving up a storm."
"Wish more of these Chinese were lovers and not fighters," Murdock said. "Let's get back on the road."
A mile down the paved highway they came to an intersection with road signs. Ching got out and read them. He came back nodding. "We're on the right road. The sign says the coastal town of Hiwang is ten kilometers straight ahead."
Murdock wanted to relax a little, but ten klicks were a long way in kilometers or miles. A damn lot could happen between here and there.
Ten minutes later it happened.
The road had changed from paving to gravel. It was fairly well maintained, but the truck had slowed down to thirty miles an hour to stay on the road. They had just made a forty-five-degree turn when they saw and heard a tank directly in front of them no more than a hundred yards ahead.
Lincoln hit the brakes. Murdock's jaw dropped. Ching swore.
"One of their older models," Ching said. "Has a cannon about seventy-five millimeters and twin machine guns. My suggestion would be that we exit this target as fast as possible."
"Everyone out!" Murdock bellowed. Men jolted out of the three-quarter-ton rig and charged for each side of the road. The tank had paused. Now it rolled forward on its metal tracks making enough noise to rouse a seriously hung-over college freshman the morning after a frat rush.
Murdock used his radio. "The tracks. When he gets close enough we use two of those RPGS for the tracks. One man on each side of the road. Sound off."
Doc Ellsworth chimed in first. "Doc for one on the right-hand side of the road facing the beast."
"Adams on the left. I'll take a shot."
They waited. The tank was naked. No platoon of foot soldiers followed it along the road. Murdock wondered if it was simply moving from one area to another or was it out hunting them?
A minute later his answer came with a single shot from the cannon that sent an HE round into the medium-sized truck they had just left, blowing it into three thousand pieces. Little was left to burn.
The tank kept coming, its great metal treads clanking and creaking as it dug up the road moving at a walking pace. Murdock still could see no troops behind it.
The machine gun on the front opened up splattering the land on both sides of the roadway. Murdock lunged behind a sizable tree and the rest of his men bored into the ground, behind whatever cover they could find.
"Sound off if you get hit," Murdock said in his lip mike.
"Yeah, and if you wind up dead be sure to tell us right away so we keep our records straight."
Murdock grinned, not sure who had cracked the joke. It helped right then. Nobody reported being hit.
The tank was almost even with them. He and his men had gone to ground thirty yards from the roadway. They were ten yards apart from each other in good combat disposal. Murdock heard an RPG fire off. He saw a swoosh of smoke behind the rocket and then the trail as it slanted up a little, then down, and hit the left side of the tank's track and exploded with a punishing snarl.
The big tank shuddered and rolled on for a moment. Then a great grinding and screeching of metal on metal sounded, and the tank chewed up many tank parts before it came to a stop. The motor still roared.
"He's down," Murdock said. "Adams, you have any fraggers?"
"Roger that."
"Get up on top of that sucker and if he pops his hatch, feed him three fraggers and then get the hell off that thing."
"Aye, sir."
Murdock waited. The tank made two tries to get moving. One track kept turning, and spun the tank around in a small circle since the other track wouldn't move at all. As the tank came around, Murdock saw a shadow jump on the back of it and work forward. That would be Adams.
The tank stopped. The machine gun chattered, firing down the road and to the side well away from the SEALS.
Nothing happened for three or four minutes. Murdock was getting ready to haul ass when he heard a clank and the top hatch of the tank lifted up, then swung backwards. Murdock saw the shadow on the back of the tank stand up near the hatch. Then it leaned in and dumped something down the hatch opening. At once Adams jumped off the rear of the rig and stormed for the trees on the other side of the road with his arms pumping like a hundred-yard-dash winner.
One grenade went off with a mild thump, then two more went off, followed by what must have been the rest of the 75mm rounds in the tank. Fire and smoke belched out the tank turret and from view slots at the front.
Murdock nodded. "Men, it looks like we're down to shank's mares. Let's see if those twenty-mile training hikes did you any good. We'll use the road unless we meet headlights or troops. Then we hit the boonies and decide what to do. Let's form up on the road fifty yards beyond the tank and get moving. We're on the road to water. The sooner the damn better."
Murdock called Dewitt and Jaybird up and they worried it. "That tank was looking for us, I'd bet a sawbuck," Jaybird said.
"He could have been a probe, to try to draw our fire," Dewitt said. "Then he'd report us by radio and wait for help."
"Only he don't need help anymore," Murdock said. "He must have got a message off. So we can expect company. Right up this road. Which means we move off the road now a half mile to the right and keep it in our sights as we head for the beach."
"How far, L-T?"
"Jaybird, wish I knew. Last estimate about eight klicks. Let's get an ammo count. How many of those AK47's and rounds we have left. How are the casualties?"
"Frazier is up to speed," Dewitt said. "Fernandez has his arm in a sling. He can't use the eighty-nine. Lincoln has it. Fernandez can fire his Sig.45 if we get in trouble."
"We'll find trouble. They know where we are now. They must be sending in a regiment in trucks to cut us off. They know we're moving toward the coast."
"So hello, Mother," Jaybird said. "Gonna be a hot time on the old China coast tonight."
"Yeah, and maybe tomorrow if we don't get out of here in the next three hours," Murdock said. "Daylight is not our best friend right now."
Murdock led them off the road to the right, moved out a half mile so he could still see the track of a road, and then continued on south.
The moon was three-quarters full. The moonlight came as a big help. Murdock could see a half mile and keep on course. At five miles an hour it would still take them two hours to get anywhere near the water. If nobody objected.
Again someone did object.
Murdock could hear them. He never did see them. Airplanes, big and slow, the ideal kind for dropping paratroops. He shook his head in disbelief. Who else would they throw into this fight to save Chinese face?
He didn't see any of the parachutes open, but by the sound of the three planes he knew when the troops had jumped. Each time the craft's engines speeded up, Murdock could tell by the sound that the troops were away. Three planes, he was sure. How big? Twenty men in a stick? Or more? At least sixty heavily armed Chinese soldiers would soon be up front somewhere watching, waiting, and actively hunting them down like small foxes at an English fenced-in hunt club.
Murdock wasn't sure why he looked up. When he did he saw six white parachutes drifting down directly toward his men. Murdock said "Right above us. Do it."
He lifted his MP5 and fired at the parachutists.
27
The Chinese paratroops above began firing automatic weapons, but they were at a terrible disadvantage. Three of them were shot dead in the first volley from the SEALS. The other three survived for another twenty seconds before they died in a murderous cross fire from the men on the ground.