U.S.S. Seawolf (34 page)

The journey took less than a couple of minutes. They never even bothered to shut the main door before it was time to drop the two-inch-thick line out, directly down to the foredeck, right in front of the great round dry dock recently fitted to the Los Angeles-class 7,000-tonner.

All six of the SEALs wore heavy leather welder’s gloves, and they lined up behind Lt. Commander Bennett as the Sea King hovered. He grabbed the rope and stepped out through the doorway, dropped like a stone for 20 feet, the line racing through his hands, then tightened his grip, applying the brakes hard, and came to a near-perfect halt two feet above the deck. By the time he touched down, Lieutenant Conway was already on the rope and on his way down, followed in quick succession by Rattlesnake, Buster, Catfish and Chief McCarthy. Three and a half minutes after the takeoff from the flight deck of the carrier, the helicopter was on its way back for the other six. That’s fast-roping.

At 1104 all hatches were shut and clipped, masts were lowered, and seawater was thundering into the ballast tanks as Commander Tom Wheaton took USS
Greenville
deep and aimed her straight at the southern approach to Xiachuan Dao, seven hours away.

“
Bow down ten…four hundred. Steer course three-zero-zero…flank speed
.”

All 12 of the SEALs were given bunks to rest on during the journey, and most of them slept. Catfish Jones and Olaf Davidson did not do so. They stayed up the whole time, poring over the map of the island, selecting the assault beach for Sunday night. They tried to watch a video, but lost interest almost immediately and returned to the charts. The two strongest men in the reconnaissance team had a lot on their minds.

At 1400 they were served an excellent lunch/dinner: thick, perfectly grilled New York sirloin steak, baked potatoes and salad. Afterward they all charged into Goliath-sized wedges of apple and blueberry pie with ice cream. It would be their last proper meal for two days.

At 1700 they changed into their wet suits, all 12 of them, including the four men who would work under the water, manhandling the ASDV out of its tunnel and then bringing in the Zodiac inflatable. They would also need wet suits in case of an accident or an attack that might put them in the water. SEALs by nature cherish the ability to go deep, where their training gives them inestimable advantage.

At 1730, Rusty Bennett and his seven colleagues, faces blackened by water-resistant oil, began to embark in the ASDV. They climbed up through the first dry hatch, which is sealed into the dry dock, and then boarded with slick expertise the 65-foot-long miniature submarine, through the hatch on its keel. The two men from
Greenville
’s crew who would drive and navigate the quiet electric boat inshore were already in position in the two bow seats.

Lt. Commander Davidson and his team waited by another exit hatch for the moment when they were informed that the USS
Greenville
could go no farther, because the water was becoming too shallow.

The final four heard the call at 1752: “Captain-Sonar—I’m showing one-twenty feet on the sounder…”

“Captain-Navigator…right now we’re at position
21.16N 112.315E…thirty miles due south of the target beach.”

Commander Wheaton said quietly, “Okay, guys, this is it…just about as far as we can go. You wouldn’t want to get back here for breakfast on Sunday morning and find us stuck in the mud, eh?”

The ship was now silent with anticipation. Anyone within range was watching the massive Olaf Davidson, who stood quietly below the hatch to the flooding compartment through which he would exit the ship. His face blackened, the veteran SEAL commander was holding his left forearm with his right hand, as if trying to take confidence from his enormous strength.

Finally he disappeared up through the hatch, followed by his three colleagues, and those working below the casing could hear the muffled bumps as they wrestled the ASDV away from the dock, out into the vastness of the South China Sea.

With Olaf’s SEAL team back on board, the engines of the ASDV finally kicked into life and it moved forward, its course steady on three-six-zero, making a fast 18 knots through the warm, sandy water, 50 feet below the surface, leaving hardly any wake in the rainswept, desolate seascape.

The eight SEALs could speak to each other if they wished, but no one said anything. Their talking was done, their plans perfectly memorized. Their training had taught them that noise, any form of noise, is magnified under the water. And the silence was all-enveloping as each man dealt with the pressure in his own way.

Up front, the CO and navigator could see nothing. The entire journey was made on instruments, and it drew to its conclusion precisely where they knew it would, 120 minutes later, a little over a half mile off the southern peninsula of Xiachuan Dao.

The CO spoke tersely. “This is about it, guys, sounder’s showing we have around ten feet under the keel, but it’ll shelve up quite rapidly. Time to go.”

Unlike most previous SEAL delivery vehicles, which flood up completely for the swimmers to exit, this new advanced version allowed pairs of SEALs to clip on their Draeger breathing gear, and enter a small compartment that then floods. Then they just drop straight through and exit feet-first under the keel, same way they came in, leaving the rest of the submarine dry.

At this point the first pair leaves, wasting no time around the submarine, and using their precious air strictly for the swim-in. And now Lieutenant Commander Bennett dropped through the hatch, his huge flippers on, his attack board held tight in both hands. Right behind him came young Buster Townsend, on his first mission, and as he swam forward, he reached out for his leader both mentally and physically.

Buster was afraid, here in this deep water with, for all he knew, several thousand Chinese lying in wait for him on the beach. But he had been trained for this, or something very like it, for years, and he knew what to do, and he placed his right hand on the broad left shoulder of his leader, and together the two Americans kicked hard toward the prisoners of Admiral Zhang Yushu.

Rusty quickly found his course, due north as planned, and he and Buster got their kicks synchronized…KICK…one…two…three…four…KICK…one…two…three…four. Each one took them 10 feet closer, and they would need 300 kicks, one every five seconds, a 25-minute swim.

It sounds simple, but it is only simple to those who have hammered their bodies into shape on the anvil of U.S. Navy SEAL training and discipline. And now, as Rusty and Buster knifed their way through the water, they were both asking big questions of their bodies, and they were both getting all the right answers.

On a swim like this, SEALs reckon to feel tiredness late in the second mile. This short-haul run thus counted
as little more than a sustained sprint, and when Rusty suddenly noticed his attack board grounding in sand, he knew it was over, and he was not surprised to see Lieutenant Dan Conway and Rattlesnake Davies pop up right behind them. Chief McCarthy and Paul Merloni came next, with Bill and John almost level.

The Islands

It was nearly eight in the evening now, and the beach was in a shadowy twilight, the sun having set to the west beyond a heavily wooded headland. Rusty was glad of the last of the light, because it confirmed what they had
been told: they were in a wide, gently curving bay, and the place was deserted, save for the jail complex six miles to the northeast.

From the land it would be impossible to spot anything on the dark water. There was no moon, and the rain clouds still hung over the entire area. Rusty sat in the shallows up to his neck in water and motioned for the others to join him. “I think we’ll stay here for ten more minutes,” he said. “Just until it gets really dark…if we make a run for it now up that wide, white beach we’d stand out like a dog’s balls, if there happened to be anyone around. I’d rather play it dead safe.”

Everyone agreed, and they sat silently in the warm water until they could no longer see even the beach. They never saw the Zodiac either, never even heard it as Olaf Davidson and his crew slipped the craft across the bay, with short, beautifully timed strokes, the paddles hitting the water as one, almost noiselessly, tirelessly. This quartet would have put a Harvard crew four to shame.

“Watch where you’re going, you crazy fucker,” said Rusty softly as the rubber boat almost bumped Buster in the back of the head.

“Jesus,” said Catfish. “What the hell are you guys doing, sunbathing?”

The SEALs stifled their laughter as the crew stepped out into the shallows, and they all pulled the boat in, spinning it expertly around, the engine raised, landing it stern-first. Even in mild shore waves these boats immediately ship water over the stern if they spend even a few seconds in the shallows. The trick is to get the bow around to face the ocean.

This particular boat was moved with extreme speed, six SEALs on either side, using the specially fitted handles, positioned so that eight men could put all their strength into lifting and dragging the heavy end. They had it out of the water, up the beach and into the trees inside 90 seconds.

It was very dark the moment they left the white sand,
and it was beginning to rain again. Rusty was not crazy about the first spot they chose because it afforded no cover or protection from the seaward side. In short, if anyone arrived on the beach, the SEALs could be seen.

Rusty took a short walk in company with Dan Conway, and 40 yards to the east they found an outcrop of rocks, around five feet high, running right back into the trees for 30 feet. “That’s for us,” said the recon team leader. “We’ll get the boat in behind there, under a waterproof shelter, and we’re golden…the watchmen can cover the beach and the landward approach with the machine gun—the guys can sleep in the boat…because no intruder could see anything.”

For the next 30 minutes the SEALs got themselves thoroughly organized. The boat was camouflaged and covered with the waterproof shelter, which they rigged up about three feet above the hull. They took some palm branches and carefully brushed out their tracks in the sand, then used them to hide the boat even more thoroughly. They rigged up the radio in case of emergency, and fitted the ammunition belt to the machine gun.

When the exercise was complete the entire thing was virtually invisible. And when Rusty Bennett was finally satisfied with the safety of the position, he and his seven teammates prepared to leave.

They removed their wet suits and climbed into their light jungle combat gear, brown T-shirts with green and brown camouflage shirt and trousers, and long soft lace-up boots. Each man then applied light and dark green greasepaint to their faces, with the occasional splotch of brown. Rusty Bennett never wore a hat, preferring his dark green headband, which he called his “drive-on rag.” When they were all fitted out they made a final weapons check: the pistol, the MP-5 automatic, the ammunition, the fighting knife. And then they shouldered up their packs, including two trench shovels, and very formally shook hands with the four men who were staying behind.

They had a radio frequency between themselves and
their new base camp, but it would never be used unless something absolutely shocking happened. SEALs don’t speak much. The two most lightly packed members of the team, Paul Merloni and Rattlesnake Davies, carried the big machine gun between them. Chief McCarthy and Buster had the machetes, and Rusty led the way with the compass.

It was 2104 when the red-haired lieutenant commander from Maine turned north up the peninsula, checked the bearing three-six-zero, and led his team into the sopping-wet jungle. In fact, they could have walked the first one and a half miles along the beach, but Rusty had dismissed that out of hand after studying the map. He knew it would probably have been quicker, but it also made them vulnerable to any observation from a Chinese patrol boat cruising the shoreline checking for intruders. They might even have run into a Chinese foot patrol, which would have spelled the end of the entire mission.

And so the SEALs did it the hard way, walking through the rain forest, a hundred yards inshore, out of sight, almost nonexistent. They traveled in single file except for the two men with the big machine gun, who brought up the rear. And it was very difficult terrain, heavily overgrown every yard of the way for the first half mile. They were almost ready to start swinging the machetes, but the noise factor was uppermost in their minds, and they just kept pushing forward, stopping every 100 yards to listen. But there was always silence.

Rusty signaled a course change to zero-four-five at the head of the southeastern bay, and they moved on, keeping the ocean to the right, but remaining under the cover of the forest. It was at this point that the going became noticeably easier, with very little undergrowth beneath a canopy of extremely tall trees. However, an all-encompassing darkness made it difficult not to walk into the trunks, and Rusty kept his left arm outstretched in front of him, pushing on into the great unknown. So heavy was
the overhead cover that Rusty doubted it would have been much lighter at midday.

Underfoot the ground was very wet and soft. It was impossible to avoid long muddy puddles, which turned up frequently, and each man was glad of his waterproof boots. Once they almost blundered into a fast-flowing stream, but Rusty managed to call a halt just in time, which was a considerable feat since they were all confined to the merest whispers.