65 Below

by Basil Sands

  She reached with one hand to her belt for her cuffs and put the other on his shoulder. “Please turn toward the wall and put your hands on your head.”

  As she pushed his shoulder with her hand, the older man suddenly spun and grabbed her wrist. He shouted in Korean. “Aniya! Get your hands off me, woman!”

  He turned so fast, she feared he might twist her arm off. Instinctively she moved with the man’s grasp, spinning in the direction he had twisted her arm, and grabbing the back of his shirtsleeve with her free hand. She tumbled forward. Her weight and momentum took him down with her.

  Before Kim could recover, she had rolled completely over and righted herself into a sitting position, pinning his arm to the floor. He struggled against her grip and tried to gouge at her left thigh with his hard, thin fingers. Wyatt raised her right leg and came down hard on the back of his head. A thud resounded through the room and signaled the momentary end of Mr. Kim’s conscious thought.

  The other troopers and policemen in the room stared at her in wide-eyed shock.

  “Whoa, Wyatt,” someone mumbled. “You go, girl!”

  She looked up at them and said, “Hap Ki Do—Tae Kwon Do’s meaner, more flexible cousin. I’m a third-degree black belt in both.” She smiled flirtatiously. “Keep that in mind, fellas.”

  “Duly noted,” replied one of them.

  “Man, don’t let her teach that to my wife,” said another.

  She looked up at them and said, “Now, will a couple of you studs take this man downstairs for me, please?”

  Two of them complied and lifted the unconscious Mr. Kim, carrying him down the stairs to the medic. He was placed on a gurney under restraint and rolled outside into an ambulance.

  As Kim was being carried out of the room, an officer who was searching through a closet in the back of the room called out. “Hey, check this out. What in the world do you think this is?”

  He pointed at the floor of the closet at a pair of two-inch thick, square metal boxes. Each had a numbered keypad and a round handle in the middle that was flush to the surface. The officer reached into the closet to pick one up.

  “Stop!” Another SERT officer shouted. “What’s the matter with you? That thing could be a bomb!”

  The officer reflexively pulled his hand away. He stood, then backed away from the devices.

  “Oh, crap!” He sounded suddenly nervous. “It does kind of look like a land mine, doesn’t it?”

  The officer who had sounded the warning keyed his radio. “7-4, this is SERT-Alpha 1, we need to evacuate the building. There are what appear to be two bombs, possibly land mines or some kind of IED up here in the bedroom closet.”

  “Got it, Alpha-1. Let’s get everyone out. I’ll call the bomb squad in.”

  Within seconds, the house was empty, and minutes later, the police had formed a perimeter of vehicles around the building. Several officers went door-to-door, evacuating all the houses for a hundred yards on either side of the Kim residence.

  The Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team had been on standby, a standard procedure when SERT deployed. It only took ten minutes for them to arrive on scene. Two bulky figures in full body armor got out of a panel van and strode heavily into the house like giant armored turtles.

  Trooper Wyatt stood by her cruiser, talking to one of the officers as they inspected the weapons that had been found in the room.

  Commander Stark called out, “Wyatt!”

  “Yes, sir?” She turned toward his voice.

  “Get over to the hospital. The guy who was shot with the beanbags is talking, but doesn’t speak English. See if you can get anything out of him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She handed the AK assault rifle back to the other officer, got into her patrol car, and left for Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

  Chapter 17

  It was ten forty-five when she pulled her cruiser into the space marked “Police Only” near the emergency room doors at the hospital. She got out and walked quickly into the ER through the door reserved for police and emergency personnel that lead directly to the nurses’ station area.

  “Good evening, Trooper Wyatt,” greeted the nurse behind the counter. “I assume you’re here to see the Korean patient with the gunshot wounds?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lonnie replied.

  “He’s in the secure ward with two AST guards at the door. He started to get violent, so we had to pump him with some drugs. He is pretty sedated, but still mumbling a lot in Korean. The troopers with him wouldn’t let our hospital translator in for fear she would get hurt.”

  “Thanks. I’ll head back there.”

  Wyatt left the nurses’ station and walked down the carpeted corridor to the electronically locked doors that lead to the security ward of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. The security ward consisted of a pair of halls with ten patient rooms on either side of a nurses’ station and video cameras in the rooms and corridors. It was reserved for violent or suicidal patients who needed to be kept under guard.

  Faloa Tualoloa, a huge Samoan man, was the uniformed night security guard at the booth in front of the double-door entry that lead into the security ward. A twenty-something white man in a white janitor’s smock and scrubs leaned up against the podium, chatting with Faloa as Wyatt approached. Both men stopped mid-conversation and stared at her as she moved toward them.

  “Evening, Trooper Wyatt,” said the Samoan guard in a deep voice with an easygoing South Pacific accent. A sheepish grin spread on his face as Lonnie Wyatt approached. “Always a pleasure to see you here.”

  “Hi, Faloa. Quiet night?”

  “It was, until your crazy man came in and tried to trash the place. He sure did a lot of damage for such a little guy. It took me and two troopers to hold him down. He’s in 2-5.”

  She approached the door and held her ID badge to the small gray box on the doorframe. A red LED light turned green on the box. A high-pitched beep emanated from the lock, followed by a metallic click that signaled the door was ready to open. As she walked through the heavy wooden doors, Wyatt heard the voice of the janitor behind her. “Man, I’d like to have her frisk me. Good God! That is one hot cop.”

  “Shut up, Arnie,” Faloa responded. “That’s Lonnie Wyatt—she’s a really nice lady. And besides, you’d end up getting your butt kicked. She’s pretty, but she’s a black belt, too. I’ve known her since high school.”

  The janitor snickered. “I wouldn’t mind a little rough stuff with her.”

  “I’m warning you, Arnie,” Faloa said sternly. “If you talk about her like that, I’ll kick your butt.”

  “You like her, don’t you, you big Samoan teddy bear.” The janitor laughed. Their voices faded as the doors closed behind her. She walked to the second corridor and then around a corner. A tall trooper stood outside the door of 2-5.

  “Hey, Edwards,” Wyatt greeted the trooper standing at the door. “What’s going on?”

  “Wyatt, glad you’re here,” replied Mike Edwards, a calm and gentle giant. Even without his smoky hat, Trooper Edwards stood six-and-a-half-feet tall. With the hat, he was seven feet. Edwards poked his thumb toward the door to room 2-5.

  “That guy has been jabbering in Korean non-stop for the past half hour. He was unconscious when we got him here, but woke up as we wheeled him down the hall. The little bugger jumped off the freakin’ gurney and walloped the medic who was next to him, busted the poor guy’s jaw. He started going nuts on everyone around. We had a hell of a time trying to restrain him.”

  Edwards shook his head as he relived the wild moment in his mind’s eye. “It took me and Harland and Faloa everything we had to hold that dude down. He was doing all kinds of serious martial arts crap on us. Once we had him down, they doped him up pretty hard until he was out again, and we got him strapped down to the gurney.

  “He’s still drugged up, but they had to lower the dosage because of the wounds on his chest—they were afraid his heart or lungs might fail. I guess the beanbag SERT hit him with
was a little too close range. It shattered a couple ribs and may have bruised his heart. Harland is in there with him now while the nurse is checking his IV connections.”

  “Thanks for the info,” Wyatt said. “I’ll go in and see if I can figure out what he’s saying.”

  She went through the heavy wooden door into the room. Trooper Harland stood just inside. Where mild-mannered Trooper Edwards allayed children’s fears with rows of stuffed animals in his cruiser window, Harland was the opposite. He was a short man, barely matching Lonnie’s five-foot-four height, but built like an iron battleship. He had a troll-like face that could frighten a Rottweiler. He nodded to Wyatt as she walked past him and approached the single hospital bed in the center of the room. The patient lay with his upper body elevated. A nurse stood next to the bed, writing on a page attached to a clipboard.

  A clear plastic IV bag hung from a metal stand. Its tube ran through a computerized box that dripped a mechanically metered injection of medication slowly into the flow of saline solution. A sick-looking yellow-tinged bruise circled around the outside of the deep purple bruise where the IV was inserted. The patient’s chest was bared, revealing a massive deep purple, red, and blue bruise across the left half. His right cheek was raw with a bright red abrasion, rug burn from the fight in the hall.

  The nurse looked up from the patient. She was young, about twenty-five, probably just out of nursing school. Her straight, yellow-blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a red cloth scrunchie. A stethoscope hung around her thin neck, the ear pieces dangled over her right breast, the diaphragm over the left. The nametag on her Hawaiian-pattern scrub shirt read Lynda Rosen, RN.

  Nurse Rosen set down the clipboard and started working with the IV tubing in the Korean patient’s left arm.

  “Are you the interpreter?” Her voice had a flat, nasal Minnesota accent.

  “Yes,” Wyatt responded, than asked quietly, “What are you doing?”

  “His IV keeps slipping out and the solution is spilling under the skin in his arm. That’s what’s causing the yellowing around the bruise. He struggled so hard, I think the veins are in shreds in there.”

  “Why don’t you use the right arm instead?”

  “I’d love to, but one of your troopers squeezed too hard in the scuffle, and his right arm’s veins are even worse.”

  Wyatt looked back at Trooper Harland, who merely shrugged as if to say, “What was I supposed to do? Ask him politely to stop?”

  “I guess he really didn’t want to be arrested,” Trooper Wyatt answered.

  The man started muttering something in Korean. Lonnie listened, intently but could only make out parts of it. “The general… earth ….. uhhh…..Choi found …. pay….”

  She spoke to him in Korean. “Sir, what were you doing at Mr. Kim’s house? Why were you there?”

  “Colonel Kim……ask Colonel Kim….get the guns and turn off the lights.”

  The military title grabbed her attention. “Who is Colonel Kim?”

  “Juche… the general starts…” He coughed a deep wet gurgling rumble. Blood spattered out of his mouth.

  “Oh, my God!” exclaimed the nurse. “His lungs are filling up.” She hit the intercom button and called for a doctor to come to the room. She pressed the foot pedal and raised the head of the bed to keep him from choking on his own blood.

  “You will have to question him later, Trooper. He can’t take too much right now.”

  “It can’t wait,” Wyatt responded, then switched back to Korean. “What is your name?”

  “Lieutenant Ho Jik Hyun,” he muttered. Red froth foamed at the edge of his lips.

  “Lieutenant in what?” she asked. “Are you in the Army?”

  “People’s Army,” he replied.

  Wyatt snapped her eyes to the other trooper. “Harland, you’d better get the chief over here. Tell him this guy is North Korean.”

  Harland stepped out into the hallway, pulling his radio close to his lips.

  A beeper went off on the medication meter connected to the patient’s IV. The nurse pressed a button to stop the noise. A message flashed on the small LCD screen on the device. “Medication Empty. Replace Vial.”

  “Oh, my God,” exclaimed the nurse, tension rising fast in her voice. “He’s swelling. We have to loosen this strap ASAP.”

  Nurse Rosen motioned to Wyatt. “Trooper, help me here. Hold him up so he doesn’t tip over while I loosen this strap a little.”

  Wyatt put her hands on his shoulders to keep him from falling forward as the nurse unbuckled the strap across his mid-section, which held his wrists tightly to the bed. She then started to do the same for the one across his chest. The man groaned deeply as the pressure was released.

  The nurse released the buckle from the metal pin that had held it tight and started to slide the buckle to the next hole in the leather strap when suddenly, the man’s right arm flew up in a blur of motion. He threw the loosened strap off and pounded the side of his fist in a hammer blow straight into Wyatt’s forehead.

  Trooper Wyatt reeled backwards. She crashed into the heating unit under the windowpane.

  Lieutenant Ho brought his fist back with equal speed and delivered a crushing punch to the nurse’s chest. The young woman crumpled to the ground, a rush of air leaving her lungs in a great whoosh. She toppled over, unconscious.

  Harland and Edwards burst into the room at the noise. They rushed toward the patient on the bed. Lieutenant Ho ripped the IV tube from the machine that metered his medication, stuck it into his mouth, and blew hard into the end.

  The troopers leaped onto Ho to hold him down. Edwards squeezed on the blood vessels that crossed under the armpit in an attempt to stop the air bubbles from entering Ho’s heart and killing him. As hard as he pressed, Edwards felt not one, but several, small bubbles pass under his hand through the blood vessel.

  Wyatt tried to stand and help, but was overcome by dizziness and slipped back down to the floor. The room spun around her.

  Lieutenant Ho’s body convulsed. His face twisted in a grotesque mask of pain. He screamed a terrible shriek, and then went into spastic convulsions. His body suddenly went rigid, eyelids stretched wide open staring into space. His face turned a deep purple. His eyes rolled up in their sockets and he slumped back into the bed.

  The heart monitor sounded an even steady tone.

  The troopers started CPR. Moments later, a whole cadre of doctors and nurses rushed into the room. Some tried to revive the man, while others moved the two injured women out of the room. After several attempts with a defibrillator, the doctor in charge gave the signal. Lieutenant Ho Jik Hyun of the People’s Army of North Korea was dead.

  Chapter 18

  A nurse attended to Wyatt in a room across the hall from the dead North Korean lieutenant. The blow to her head had been hard. She had been winded by the fall back against the heater unit. Her body armor had protected her from any broken bones or cuts.

  Other than a bruise on her forehead and a moderate headache, she felt fine. The nurse gave her a couple of aspirin and said to call immediately if she started to feel dizzy again.

  As the nurse walked out of the exam room, Commander Stark entered. A frown creased his face.

  “What in God’s name happened in there, Wyatt? I sent you over here to translate for the guy and he kills himself.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she replied, “I did get some information while he was groggy, but then his medication ran out and he started to swell up and spit blood at the same time, so the nurse wanted to loosen the straps. Somehow the guy came to and managed to mash me in the forehead before I could do anything about it.”

  The commander stood there, staring at Wyatt. He rubbed his fingers down the length of his chin. “According to Harland, he threw you half way across the room. Then he pulled the IV tube from the unit and blew into it till his heart exploded.”

  “Yeah. I saw part of it,” she said ruefully. She rose from the exam table. “Sir, he was a N
orth Korean soldier. While he was still under the influence of the drugs, he told me his name was Lieutenant Ho Jik Hyun, People’s Army. Then he mumbled some crazy stuff about a general and something in the earth, a man named Choi finding it, and someone paying. When I asked him about Mr. Kim, he called him Colonel Kim, then said ‘get the guns’ and ‘turn off the lights’. That’s when everything happened. As the drugs ran out, he must have sobered up long enough to realize what he had said and killed himself before he could do more damage.

  “Sir, he used a specific word—Juche,” she continued, “It’s a North Korean term for their religion of communist philosophy. This guy was a North Korean spy. And our Mr. Kim is his boss. And his boss is some general.”

  “Damn!” Stark ran his fingers stiffly across his furrowed forehead, trying to squeeze the stress out. “Albanian terrorists, North Korean spies—this thing is getting bigger by the minute. Looks like we have no choice but to bring Homeland Security into this thing. ”

  “How’s Kim?” she asked.

  “He’s coming around, but he ain’t talking about anything. We’re going to have to put a suicide watch on him as well until we get this thing figured out.” Stark pulled his hand away from his forehead as if remembering something. “Those supposed land mines, by the way, weren’t explosives at all. They were some kind of electronic gadget. The CSI guys are trying to figure it out, but they are some kind of complicated computer device that no one there could readily identify. They got some ex-Navy weapons expert who works at TVEC to look at the things.”

  The two got up to leave.

  “Sir.” Lonnie waited for Commander Wyatt to make eye contact with her. “I think Marcus may be in this thing too.”

  “Your ex-boyfriend is a terrorist?”

  “No, sir, he’s on our side—that much I know. But when I was at his cabin earlier this evening, a bunch of rough-looking men pulled up and started loading weapons and gear onto several snowmobiles, the tactical, quiet kind used by Special Ops. At first, he said they were buddies of his and he was helping them on a training mission, but the feeling in the air was different. They were headed onto the back range of Eielson somewhere, and would have left about an hour before I got to town.”