Attack of the Seawolf

The men at the table had eyes staring blankly like that, except haunted by madness rather than mere fear.

Buffalo looked toward the wall of the room opposite his door and saw Buckethead sailing into the room. For a moment he wondered what had taken Williams so long, but then as he saw the way Buckethead’s body seemed to float slowly into the room he realized that he was experiencing the dilation of time peculiar to intense injections of adrenaline, and that he himself had only been inside the room for less than a second. Williams saw the scene in the corner of the room at the same time Buffalo did.

A Chinese guard had a pistol to the head of one of the officers seated at the table. As he watched, the guard pulled the trigger. Before Buffalo or Buckethead could react, the guard turned his pistol to the next man at the table and fired. The man slouched in his chair, his head hitting the table. It was only then that Buffalo realized that the men against the far wall had their heads on the table because each of them had already been executed.

For a moment Buffalo was thrown off-balance as the guard continued to execute the men at the table rather than defend himself by shooting at the invading SEALs, and by the awful reality of watching men being executed at a table without resistance. What had these men seen that paralyzed them so, even in the face of certain death?

One answer came as Buffalo aimed his MAC-10 at the guard and squeezed the trigger, the HydraShok bullets exploding the interior of the guard’s abdomen, his pistol dropping to the ground as his body slammed against the aft bulkhead and slipped toward the deck.

The answer in Buffalo’s mind kept his trigger finger tensed, continuing to shoot into the guard’s body.

These men had seen things so horrible that they no longer wanted to live. For them, death was a deliverance.

Buffalo was suddenly thrown into the sideboard by the force of the ship turning, the deck tilting as the ship came around. He found himself staring into the glassy eyes of the man lying on the deck, the one who had been lucky enough not to have had to sit and stare at the rotting corpses. The man wore the single silver bar of a junior-grade lieutenant on the collar of his coveralls. Above his left pocket was a set of gold submariner’s dolphins. His eyes were dead, as if he had been lobotomized. Buffalo waved his hand in front of the man’s eyes. At first the man blinked, then shut his eyes. Buffalo shook him, heard mumbling. He put his ears next to the man’s lips, straining to make out a voice distorted by thirst and hunger and sickness and fear. Finally came the words.

“What took you so long? God, what took you so damned long? …”

The man lost consciousness, collapsing in Buffalo’s arms. Buffalo glanced at Buckethead Williams, whose jaw had tightened.

Buffalo reloaded his MAC-10 while speaking into his lip mike, trying to raise the men he’d sent to the chiefs quarters, “Peach” Pirelli and “Roadrunner” Kaplan.

“Peach, Roadrunner, you up?”

“Roger, One.”

“What’s the status?”

“CPO quarters are a meat grinder Mr. Buffalo.

They’d executed five of the chiefs before we could nail the guards. Just like the crew’s mess. Almost as if they were carrying out orders in case of a raid. Like they were expecting us.”

“How are the survivors?”

“Pretty bad, One. Must have been tortured. They seem like they’re in deep shock.”

“Roger. Keep Roadrunner there and meet me in the passageway to make sure the level is clear.”

Any remaining guards hiding in cubbyholes or staterooms would need to be dealt with before the middle level was considered secure. When it was, they’d help the other teams on the other levels. Until then, it would be best to stay out of the line of fire.

As Buffalo made his way down the narrow passageway, he almost hoped to see another Chinese guard.

The more he saw of the prisoners, the greater the itch in his trigger finger.

CHAPTER 22 SUNDAY, 12 MAY 1907 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

GO HAD BAY, XLNGANG HARBOR

USS TAMPA

0307 BEIJING TIME

Leader Tien Tse-Min felt the rush of air as the bullet flew by his ear, felt a sticky wetness on his neck from the blood that came from Captain Murphy, who twitched in his arms. The commando had shot at him and instead hit the captain. He dropped the hostage and the pistol and bolted for the ladder behind him, thrusting himself out of the cavern of the submarine, wondering if he would feel the rounds of the American’s machine gun crashing into him. What he heard were the sounds of the commando’s footsteps as the man ran toward him, but fear propelled Tien out of the hatch and onto the deck before the man got to him. Tien wondered momentarily if the commando had been running to catch him or to attend to the captain. It no longer mattered. He felt more than heard the two additional bullets from the direction of the American, but the shots missed and by then Tien had reached the top of the ladder.