“Very well, Birdgame Two. Stand by for continuing orders.”
“Survivors?” the other chopper pilot asked.
“At fifty or sixty feet there should be dozens. Sub like that should carry seventy-five men. If it’s one of their attack boats.”
“Birdgame Two, drop flares over any wreckage spotted and watch for survivors. Fifty Marines from the air base there are on the way to pick up and control any survivors. How is your juice?”
“In the seventy-five-percent range, Home Base.”
“Stand by.”
Murdock had Holt switch the SATCOM to the CINCPAC channel. He got contact on the second call.
“Murdock, just heard about the Chinese sub. We’re inserting the minesweeper again, but she tells me there will be junk and metal all over the place now, and that will make it a dozen times harder to find the device.”
“Commander Lawson on the sweeper was hunting for the right frequency on a transponder. Did he have any luck?”
“Didn’t mention it. He’ll be on station in a little over an hour. He’ll call you on this channel when he’s in position again.”
“Thanks, CINCPAC. Will contact him then. Out.”
Most of the SEALs went to sleep then, half in the Humvees, half out. The rescue operation went on most of the night with choppers showing lights and the Coast Guard and Marine boats picking Chinese sailors out of the bay. Last count Murdock heard was forty-five, some with serious injuries.
The Chief came back on-station and contacted Murdock on the SATCOM.
“Murdock, good work on that sub. Now, how do we find the damn bomb? I’m not at all optimistic about a quick find. We’ll have dozens of chunks of metal all over this end of the bay.”
“What about the right frequency for the transponder we think is on the bomb?”
“Not a lot of help. We have three that could work. We’ll try them when we get some of this junk out of the way. The survivor guys are just about ready to wrap up. They’ll be back with the daylight to pick bodies off the shore and out of the surf line.”
“The Chinese know by now that they lost the sub. They’ll be furious and might just shoot the bomb. The quicker we can find it the better.”
“You can send out a signal to that transponder?”
“We have the gear. You want to come on board with three of your divers so you’ll be ready if we get a contact?”
“Good idea. Can you send a boat?”
“If you don’t want to swim out.”
“Please send the damn boat.”
Murdock rousted out the best swimmers and divers he had. Ed DeWitt would be one, Mahanani and Lam the other two. They stepped into the boat from the Chief at a little after 0400, and were met at the minesweeper with dry cammies, jackets, hot coffee, and sandwiches.
Commander Lawson took them into a room filled with electronics. “We do a lot of work from here. We have seven frequencies we want to try out. So far the first two did not produce any return. We’re on number three now. We transmit for thirty seconds, and do that three times. If we hit it right, there should be an almost immediate response.”
Fifteen minutes later they were on the next-to-last frequency. The technician triggered the transmission and sat back as he had done more than twenty times before.
“We have a response, sir,” the chief said. “We have a continuous reply on that frequency. I can have direction for you in a few seconds.” He worked some instruments in front of him. “Sir, that’s at one hundred sixty degrees. You want sonar to give us a range?”
“Yes, Chief. That would be good.”
“Range is two hundred and eighty yards.”
Commander Lawson looked at Murdock. “Don’t just sit there, SEAL. Go get into your diving gear and let’s retrieve us a damn nuclear bomb.”
19
It took the four SEALs only three minutes to slip into the SCUBA gear, test the masks and airflow, and work down the ladder into the warm Hawaiian bay. They all had their wrist compasses, and moved out on the l60-degree heading. When they agreed they had covered the 280 yards, they stopped on the surface and treaded water as they talked.
“We all go down and find the box, then Mahanani comes back up. By that time the ship should be overhead, and they’ll pass him a line or a cable and he’ll bring one or two or three down to us. We hook them on, latch them up good and strong, and knock three times on the cable to start the lift. Everyone on the same page?”
They nodded in the dark, then duck-dived and began swimming down the one hundred feet to where the bomb should be.
It had been some time since Murdock had used a standard SCUBA outfit, and the heavy tank on his back seemed out of place and strange. But as he neared the bottom he forgot about it and concentrated on finding the bomb.
The bomb was not there. The bottom showed up darkly sandy with a few scuttering fish, a rock or two, but no bomb. They moved straight ahead down the azimuth reading.
It loomed out of the dusky depths like a freight train gone wrong. It lay on one side, the same fake beer truck they had seen before. Inside would be the wooden box, with slats and holes and holding something dark and dangerous and deadly. They checked it out on all four sides. They gathered and nodded, gave the yes sign. It had to be the beer truck they had seen before.
If the Chinese had coordinated their attack better, surprise might have won for them. But the four Chinese frogmen came out of the gloom one at a time from the same direction, which meant finding the four SEALs there must have been a surprise for them as well as for the SEALs.
Murdock drew his KA-BAR fighting knife from the scabbard on his right leg, and charged the first knife-wielding Chinese. He saw the other SEALs pull out their knives and take up the hunt. The first Chinese may have been their best. He drove in, then darted the other way and made a wide swiping attack with his blade. It missed. That gave Murdock a chance to kick in hard and drive his knife at the Chinese man’s exposed right side while the frogman’s knife was high over his head.
Murdock felt the blade sink into flesh, but the victim twisted away. Not a killing thrust.
They parried, dove in, and then back. Murdock saw that it was a one-on-one fight times four. A SEAL could get hurt that way. He feinted one way, caught the Chinese frogman defending that way too far, and kicked hard through the water and sliced his heavy blade through the air hose right below the Chinese frogman’s face. Air gushed out. The eyes of the man through the face mask were wide and filled with panic. Then he began to stroke upward toward the surface. Murdock caught his legs and held him down. Bubbles exploded out of the Chinese frogman’s tank. His hands stabbed at Murdock’s arms around his legs. Slowly his struggles eased, then stopped. He was dead.
Murdock turned just as one of the Chinese swam away from his fight with Lam to attack Murdock’s unprotected back. Murdock swung his KA-BAR and saw blood from a slashed wrist stain the blue of the water. He followed up kicking the man in the stomach, then driving his blade into the man’s chest. Murdock yanked the blade out with an effort, and saw the Chinese man go limp and drift away with the gentle current.
Remembering his near-fatal mistake, Murdock spun around now quickly to check for any attacker near him. He saw Mahanani grab his challenger from behind and drive his KA-BAR deeply into the man’s chest, then let him go and watch him settle to the bottom.
Ed DeWitt swam toward the rest slowly. One hand held his air hose to his tank. A few bubbles seeped out around his hand.
He pointed upward and Murdock nodded. He pointed to Mahanani to go up, bring down the cables, and be sure that the JG made it to the top.