As Mitchell turned toward the bow, Keating appeared once more in the HUD. "All right, Mitchell. You don't have one chopper to deal with--you got two."
And Mitchell didn't need that new intel now. The second bird swept in behind the first, and now both soared back toward their boat, noses pitched forward, gunners taking aim.
If the Ghosts survived this, there was a great lesson to be learned: Never bring an old fishing boat to a helicopter battle.
He cursed then shouted, "Alpha Team, target left chopper. Bravo, take the right. Diaz, go for the pilots. And Smith? Hold fire and deploy my drone!"
Smith dove to the deck and sloughed off his pack. He withdrew the MAV4mp Cypher and tossed it hard like a Frisbee over the side, while the others began firing at the choppers.
Mitchell took control of the drone with his wireless controller and steered it directly toward the chopper on the right.
"Keep up that fire!" he ordered as both helicopters swooped down to strafe them.
Shifting the drone's camera to a forward view, Mitchell took the UAV into a dive, then came right up toward one of the gunners leaning out his open door.
The gunner looked up, frowned, as Mitchell throttled up and slammed the drone directly into the guy's head, even as he continued on, bringing the Cypher inside the chopper.
"Zai jian," Mitchell muttered.
He thumbed a button.
The drone exploded inside the chopper with a small flash and subsequent puff of smoke. Despite the relatively small charges, the self-destruct was still powerful enough to take out both gunners and blind the pilot, who suddenly pulled up, breaking off in an erratic turn.
"Put your fire on him!" ordered Mitchell.
But he'd failed to realize that the second chopper had dropped like a hawk, talons extended to snatch a fish from the water. Streaking now off their port side, the chopper edged closer, the gunner opening fire as Beasley and Smith answered in unison with their MR-Cs, while Diaz released a salvo at the cockpit window.
Ramirez, one-handing his MK14, directed his bead at the smoking chopper, automatic fire chewing into glass and metal.
"Joey!" shouted Smith.
Mitchell craned his head as Ramirez took a round to his left side, near his waist, a round that punched him back, over the gunwale, and into the waves.
"We lost Ramirez!" cried Beasley, his words nearly drowned out by the chopper off their port side, the gunner there now dead, the pilot wheeling off hard to the right.
SAND SPIT
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
SEAL Chief Tanner lay on his belly near the last cluster of trees before the long, sandy beach washing out behind them. Phillips was at his side.
The six sailors from the Chinese patrol boat who had launched in the Zodiac must have either spotted them or decided that the infiltrators had used the spit for their exfiltration, because all six of them, armed with pistols and rifles, had come ashore and were combing the forest.
Tanner imagined what must be on their minds. They had just witnessed the destruction of their beloved patrol boat. They had watched their comrades die. Their hearts were hard and aching for revenge.
And damn, Tanner wished he didn't have to confront them, but he and Phillips had no choice. Tanner had thought that they could don their Draegers and simply hide in the waves while these men searched the spit, but if Mitchell was going to double back and bring the fishing boat around to the east side of the spit to pick them up and take them past the gap (well beyond their own swimming capabilities), then these Chinese sailors needed to die here and now; otherwise Mitchell would have yet another firefight on his hands.
Of course, given the radio transmissions Tanner had been monitoring, there was a good chance that Mitchell and his Ghosts would not make it, stranding the two SEALs.
At that point, the best Tanner could hope for was to kill the Chinese sailors, don their gear, and swim out till they ran out of oxygen.
Higher's insistence that nothing be left behind to indicate this was an American operation worked in their favor. However, Captain Gummerson would still ultimately decide whether a security breach was worth risking his crew and his multimillion-dollar submarine.
Phillips lifted his chin, then gave Tanner a hand signal: movement ahead.
Tanner tensed as two Chinese sailors eased forward, not a meter apart, just three trees away.
Tanner gave Phillips another hand signal.
Phillips nodded slowly and raised his pistol.
Taking in a long breath and holding it, Tanner rolled away from his tree, aimed at the sailor on the left, and fired.
FISHING BOAT
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
"Jenkins, turn around!" screamed Mitchell. "We're going back for Ramirez."
Even as Jenkins rolled the wheel, throwing all of them to the rail, Beasley and Smith shifted their fire to the smoking chopper, whose pilot was still trying to regain control.
Suddenly, a new trail of smoke unfurled from the chopper's tail rotor, and a fire appeared there as Beasley and Smith whooped and reloaded.
"Get him!" cried Mitchell as they came back toward Ramirez.
Jenkins released the wheel, turning it over to Mitchell, then dove into the water as Mitchell killed the throttle.
Meanwhile, the now-burning chopper began spinning and wobbling away from the boat, and Hume cursed that he didn't have a rocket to finish her off. But it didn't matter. The chopper rolled hard onto its side, the main rotor now perpendicular to the water as Mitchell brought the fishing boat around once more, trying to slow up near Jenkins and Ramirez.
The chopper's rotors began slicing into the water, and it suddenly turned once more as it made impact, the rotors snapping like twigs, the cabin slapping hard, waves of white water cascading up around the craft.
"Got that one, sir!" shouted Smith.
At the same time, the remaining chopper and its single gunner came back around for another pass, and that pilot had all the time in the world to get his gunner on target. Now their searchlight swept up, across Mitchell's wake, and found the two men in the water.
"Jenkins, come on!" cried Mitchell.
Chapter Thirty-Four.
SAND SPIT PIER
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
The moment the second sailor collapsed with a bullet lodged in his head, SEAL Chief Tanner and his partner wove back through the woods, heading west to circle around and come in from behind the remaining men.
Tanner and Phillips now held their pistols in one hand, their SOG SEAL knives in the other, the seven-inch blades powder-coated to conceal glare.
They darted to the edge of a slight clearing and crouched in the brush.
Just ahead, one sailor shouted to another, giving up his position--his last mistake.
With their predator's instincts finely tuned on the forest ahead, Tanner and Phillips moved in for the kill.
FISHING BOAT
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Diaz sat cross-legged on the deck and propped one elbow on the gunwale, sighting the oncoming chopper pilot. He roared down at a forty-five-degree angle, lining up on their stern and interrogating them with his searchlight.
Mitchell hollered as the rotor wash finally hit the boat, whipping up a mist that, in the next few seconds, would ruin Diaz's shot.
The chopper's gunner opened fire, and it was Brown who, despite his head injury, held a steady bead on the bird with his light machine gun. He quickly adjusted fire, and the gunner slumped after firing a salvo that stitched across the deck, missing Diaz by an arm's length.