“So, Murdock, can you read me,” he said after swinging the lip mike down from where it rested near his floppy hat brim.
“Just about five by five, Mr. DeWitt. I’d say we have a winner here that will mesh nicely with our other sets.”
The phone rang and Murdock picked it up. “Team Seven, Third Platoon, Murdock.”
“Murdock, stand by. The admiral sounded like he almost wet his pants when I told him about the antennas. He’s sending a fixed-wing sniffer plane up there in ten minutes. It can detect any radio signal from half a watt up to broadband and pinpoint where it’s coming from. We should know about the radio transmissions in an hour. Let’s say we need to blow a big hole in that concrete bunker down there. Can our big limpet mines do the trick?”
“The heavy ones could, or we could rig them with four pounds of C-5 to boost things along.”
“Good, draw the mines now. Make it six, and get the extra C-5 or TNAZ. Get on it. I’ve sent a CH-46 to North Island to be on standby. My guess is that your platoon will be moving within two hours. Hold training. Get your men ready for a swim.”
“That’s a roger, Commander.”
DeWitt had come back in, and looked questioningly at Murdock. “Masciareli again?”
Murdock told him the situation. “I’ll go with Senior Chief Sadler to supply right now and draw those limpets and the TNAZ,” DeWitt said. “How do we attach that explosive to the limpets?” He shrugged. “We’ll figure that out in the chopper, or back here if we have time. Hey, the Navy can move ass-fast when it wants to.” He turned and hurried out the door.
Murdock went into the squad room. “Listen up,” he bellowed in his best parade-ground voice. The room quieted immediately. “We’re probably going for a swim. Remember that concrete blockhouse we found on the ocean floor up near that oil-drilling platform? There’s a chance we may go back up there with a fistful of limpet mines and blow a hole in it. The admiral is on it, sent a sniffer plane up there to check on radio transmissions coming from the oil rig. That could be the GHQ for the North Korean operation.”
“Hell, wish we had known that a week ago,” Jaybird said.
“So do the rest of us. So, no training today. We could be moving in as little as two hours. Get your wet gear ready. Full wet suits. We also have six new underwater personal radios that work as well submerged as they do on dry land. Three in each squad for now until we can get the rest of our order. Mahanani, Jaybird, Franklin, and Lam check out the new gadgets from the senior chief. I’ll be in touch.”
“Weapons, sir?” Sadler asked.
Murdock stopped. “The Bull Pups won’t be much good seventy-five feet down. How many of those short spear guns do we have, Senior Chief?”
“Last time I looked we had ten.”
“Issue five per squad. What about bang sticks?”
“I thought the Navy gave up on them, used them just for shark attacks,” Mahanani said.
“The brass might have, but we didn’t. How many, Senior Chief?”
“Have to scrape the back of the weapons room, Commander. We’ve loaned some out that didn’t come back. I’d say maybe ten.”
“Issue each man without a spear gun a bang stick. Probably a one-shot affair with them. The spear guns have three of the short spears?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If this goes down, we’ll take on the tower first, so bring weapons. My guess here is to go with all MP-5’s. We have enough, Senior Chief?”
“Aye, that we do, Commander.”
“So use the modified water-to-land combat vest with your pockets filled with magazines for the Five. Let’s get to work.”
Murdock went to his equipment locker and checked his gear. The new Draegr was ready. He had one of the short spearguns. They were rubber-tube fired and could be reloaded quickly. He checked his KA-BAR. They had a cutdown version of the combat vest that worked with the wet suits. They would take that to support their MP-5’s. They didn’t know what they would find on the tower. If the North Koreans there chose to fight, it could get deadly in that cramped space. The civilians working there must know something strange was going on. They must be getting triple pay to stay working. How many civilians would there be? Ten, maybe fifteen to run a rig like that. At least to run it during the day and when any ships came near.
Sadler came up to Murdock. “Wet suits and knives and the bang sticks and spearguns and good old MP-5’s. What else are we going to need?”
“We’ll have the large limpets to get down there. Rustle up six float bags we can use half filled so we don’t go down too fast.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Murdock went back to his office and found himself watching the telephone. He snorted and looked away, pulling out paperwork he should have done two days ago. It would keep him busy the rest of the morning. If they had the rest of the morning.
DeWitt came in grinning. “We brought the limpets in a Humvee parked outside. Supply also gave us some epoxy glue that will stick anything to anything. We’ve pasted the half-pound blocks of TNAZ around the face of the limpets. Four pounds on each one. We’ve got to be sure every one of our men is above water before those babies go off.”
“Good work on the limpets. Heads out of the water, we can do that. Check your squad. Let’s be ready.” DeWitt went back to the squad room.
The more Murdock thought about the oil platform and the sunken bunker, the more certain he was that he was right. The North Koreans had been planning the attack even while the SEALs had crawled around the outside of their GHQ. The tower must be where the leaders of the attack lived when not down below organizing and managing the hits on the U.S. He wondered again how many of the American men on the tower were in on the game. They had to have a few oilmen on the rig to keep it drilling, or at least give the appearance of drilling. The SEALs would find out soon. The tower attack would come first — if indeed they were ordered to take out the tower and then the underwater bunker.
At 1000 Murdock called the commander. “Sir, it’s been over two hours. Anything from the admiral?”
“Yes, we’re working on it. The plane reported massive amounts of radio signals coming from the tower. Some in code, some in Korean voices, some in bursts too fast to intercept. The admiral has ordered a hit on the tower. To be sure we surprise them, your platoon will chopper to Santa Barbara and take a Coast Guard cutter out to the tower. The Coast Guard will move you in close enough to land on it. If there is any weapons fire from the tower, you are authorized to use all of your weapons to capture it. When the tower is in friendly hands, your men will go below and blow the blockhouse.”
“When do we fly out of North Island?”
“We had it set for 1300. Just a minute. The other line.”
The phone went dead when the commander switched. Murdock hung on, and felt like he had one foot out of a chopper to jump into the ocean and somebody had stopped him and said to wait. When Commander Masciareli came back on the phone, his voice had risen two notes.
“That was the admiral. The spotter plane has found a freighter moving up slowly toward the oil rig. It’s a mile away, but definitely headed that way. Freighters usually don’t sail that route. We’re thinking that the freighter has come to take the North Koreans off the tower and out of the bunker below the water. We don’t want to let them get away. He’s ordering your men into the choppers as quickly as you can make it. A Coast Guard cutter will stop the freighter and board her for a health inspection. Get your men moving now, Murdock.” Commander Masciareli’s voice boomed over the handset and held a great deal of satisfaction. He had been in on setting up this mission.
The sixteen SEALs crowded together in the cabin belowdecks on the Coast Guard Cutter Reliance, a 210-foot ship with sixty-three men and twelve officers. Just after it pushed off from the Coast Guard dock in Santa Barbara, Murdock talked with the skipper, Lieutenant Wilson.