Carrier c-1

by Keith Douglass

  "And until then?" Gilmore asked. He seemed stronger now, with a new will born of anger. "Is it your intention to continue murdering my men until dawn?"

  Li pursed his lips, as though weighing his words. "Let us simply say that six more of your men will have the opportunity to escape socialist justice between now and the time when I must turn you over to General Chung." He gave the Americans a final contemptuous glance, then departed, followed by Major Po. His guards slammed the door shut behind them.

  "This whole setup stinks," Bronkowicz said after they'd gone. "The bastards are violating every rule of prisoner interrogation going."

  "What'd you expect, Chief?" one sailor asked. "The Geneva Convention?"

  "Shit, no. But they're going about this thing all wrong. You want to brainwash a prisoner, you isolate him, don't let him talk to his buddies. You sure as hell don't try to get him to break in front of his shipmates. That just makes it harder."

  "Sounds like you know something about brainwashing, Chief Zabelsky said.

  "Hell, these are the sons of bitches that invented it. I just can't figure what they're up to, going' about it this way!"

  "They're after me, Chief," Captain Gilmore said. There was anguish behind the eyes. "They got Pueblo's captain to cooperate by threatening to shoot his men, remember? I guess this time they're actually doing it just to prove they mean business. They want me to see you, to feel you dying, one by one, until I agree."

  "You don't agree to nothin', Skipper," Bronkowicz said roughly. "Ain't none of us going to break for those bastards, and you shouldn't either."

  As long as we're together, ain't none of us going to break," Zabelsky said. He glanced meaningfully toward the corner where Lieutenant Novak sat alone.

  "That's not going to last, sailor," Wilkinson said thoughtfully. "He said 'camps,' plural. They're splitting us up. Just to make a rescue harder, if nothing else."

  "They're never going to let us go," one sailor said, a low murmur in the silent room. "They're never going to let us go."

  And Coyote had to agree. Added to the horror of the systematic killings was the chilling certainty that the North Koreans could never let any of them go now, not if the People's Democratic Republic feared the storm of world opinion the stories of Chimera's crew would raise once they won their freedom. Either P'yongyang didn't care about world opinion, or…

  Or they did not plan on releasing them.

  He faced the possibility that he might be forced to spend the rest of his life here, cut off from world and family and Julie.

  "So what're we gonna do?" Bronkowicz asked. He glanced toward the door, as though uncertain whether he should say more. There'd been considerable speculation among the prisoners that the North Koreans might have listening devices hidden in the building walls, but since there'd been no search for the hidden weapons, no indication that they knew their base had been infiltrated that morning, it seemed safe.

  But that could change at any moment.

  "We have to make contact with the SEALS," Coyote said. He forced the image of Julie from his mind. "One of us has to get away, tell them what's happening."

  "Maybe they know."

  "How? They're watching, I bet, probably saw that Hip land. But we have to get word out that we're being moved at dawn tomorrow."

  Coleridge nodded. "If a rescue is being planned, they have to know. Remember Son Tay."

  There was no need to say more. Son Tay was the name of the North Vietnamese prison camp twenty-three miles from Hanoi which had been the target of an American raid in November 1970, a raid aimed at releasing American POWs held there. The operation had been a spectacular success in every way but one.

  The POWs held at Son Tay had been moved elsewhere shortly before the raid.

  It would be ironic indeed if an American rescue mission mounted to free Chimera's crew likewise arrived at the prison, only to find the place empty.

  "I'll go," Coyote said quietly. He glanced up at the windows.

  The late afternoon light was rapidly fading. "As soon as it's dark."

  "Why you, son?" Wilkinson asked.

  Coyote shrugged. "Any of the rest of you guys had survival training?" Several men nearby shook their heads. "E and E courses? No? Well, I guess I'm elected."

  He'd known from the start that he was the logical candidate. Ordinary Navy training included staying afloat and survival at sea, but touched little if at all on the practical aspects of living off the land. As an aviator, Coyote had suffered through more than one survival course. He knew how to evade enemy patrols, how to trap small animals for food, how to find water, how to…

  But then, what he was really counting on was finding the SEALS. There was no point in escaping at all if he had to face a sixty-mile hike to South Korea afterward. He would never make it past the patrols and mine-fields of the DMZ. Besides, any would-be rescuers had to be warned about the impending move.

  "You'll want to take the pistol, then," Bronkowicz said.

  Coyote shook his head. He'd already thought about that and discarded it. "No way. If I'm caught, the Koreans'll know we had outside help."

  "Hey, guy, you can't just-"

  "It'll be okay! You guys keep the gun, like Huerta said. You may still need it if… when things go down."

  "Good God, man, how do you expect to get out?"

  For answer, Coyote walked over to a wooden beam, one of a dozen along the walls of the building which supported the roof. He ran his hand over the age-roughened, splintered wood and smiled. "Someone get that SEAL knife and I'll show you."

  1922 hours

  On a slope above the Nyongch'on camp

  Huerta pressed his eye to the rubber eyepiece of the starlight scope. "They're taking someone now." The whisper did not carry beyond the confines of the SEAL hide. Four other men, including Lieutenant Sikes, lay in the hollow, watching the camp below them through night sights and IR gear. The other SEALS were invisible in the rapidly gathering darkness, spread out along the hillside.

  Sikes took his turn at the scope. "One man, two guards. Think he broke?"

  Huerta shrugged silently. They'd not been able to hear what was going on in the camp, but it was clear something out of the ordinary was happening. A sentry outside the POW building had vanished inside for a moment, then left at a run, returning minutes later with help. Now a prisoner was being escorted across the compound toward the structure already identified as an HQ.

  Jerry Kohl, one of the team's two snipers, shifted, following the men through his G3 rifle's Varo image-intensifier sight. "They're taking him past the fence."

  "Keep cool, everyone," Sikes reminded them. "There's nothing we can do for the poor bastard now."

  1923 hours

  Nyongch'on-kiji

  Coyote deliberately slowed his pace as he passed the ten-foot, concertina-wire-topped chain-link fence which ringed the camp. It was almost fully dark now, but he could see the lights of a village in the valley below the ridge-top saddle in which the camp was built, and the dark masses of surrounding mountains rising on either side, still faintly visible against the darkening sky.

  "P'palli!" one of the guards barked. The order to hurry needed no translation.

  Now what, Coyote asked himself. His pleas to see Colonel Li had been answered at once. Presumably, that was where they were taking him now, flanked by two flint-eyed North Koreans with AK assault rifles dangling from slings over their shoulders and Soviet-manufactured hand grenades on their belts.

  And Coyote's only weapon was surprise, and the wooden stake he had tucked up his left sleeve.

  It hadn't taken long to carve the makeshift blade from a flat sliver of wood peeled from one of the Wonsan Waldorf's roof supports, whittling it to wicked sharpness. With no cutting edge the thing wasn't much as a knife, but it would be deadly as a stabbing weapon if aimed at a soft target. It would give Coyote a single strike, no more, and a few seconds of surprise and confusion. He would have to get it right the first time.

  But it appea
red he had overestimated his own chances… or underestimated the alertness of his guards. The camp perimeter was well lit here, and Coyote could see the shadows of guard towers behind the lights. Everything depended on surprise.

  Deliberately, he staggered, clutching himself across his belly. The guards turned, then closed in. "Irona!" one snapped. "P'palli ose yo!"

  Coyote straightened, the improvised knife firmly grasped in his right hand as he drew it from his sleeve, slashing out and up. The stake entered the guard's throat at the angle beneath his jaw and rammed through into the back of his mouth. The man gave a strangled cry and clawed at his face. Coyote's thrust hadn't been deep enough to kill, but the guard lost all interest in Coyote.

  And Coyote was already grabbing for the guard's rifle.

  Coyote had guessed that the rifle would be charged ― no guard walked into a room occupied by almost two hundred angry prisoners without chambering a round first ― but with the safety on. He didn't bother to take it from the Korean, but dragged his hand down over the selector switch, then closed his finger over the trigger while the weapon was still slung from its screaming owner.

  He fired, a flat burst that stabbed flame into the night and shattered the silence of the camp with hammering autofire. Driving his left shoulder into the guard's chest, he pivoted gun and man together, dragging the flashing muzzle into line with the second guard. The man pitched backward, arms spread, as Coyote smashed the first guard with all the strength at his command before he could pull the wooden knife free. The soldier went down, stayed down.

  Coyote could hear excited shouts as he untangled the AK-47 from the guard's body. He had his surprise. Now he needed to make the most of it.

  Stooping, he unhooked one of the grenades from the guard's belt. It was a Soviet RGD-5, bright apple-green in color with an oversized cotter pin ring and a tall, thin detonator rising from the round body. He yanked out the pin, sent the grenade bouncing toward the fence, and hit the dirt facedown.

  "Chogi!" someone yelled. Searchlights swept across the compound now, and the thin, ragged howl of a siren was starting to wail. There was a brief stab of gunfire from the darkness, then another. "E yop e ult'ari!"

  A long burst of autofire blasted from one of the towers a hundred yards away. Coyote felt something like a hammer blow in his leg, halfway up his thigh. The impact was hard enough to slap his leg aside but, strangely, there was no pain. Then the night erupted in flame.

  1924 hours

  On a slope above the Nyongch'on camp

  "What in the hell is that crazy bastard doing?" Sikes pressed his eye to the night-vision device, straining to gather more information from the oddly flattened, monochrome image it gave him. The flash of the grenade had seared the device's optics for a moment, leaving a fuzzy blind spot which slowly cleared. He could see the bodies of two guards on the ground, could see the American POW scrambling forward on his belly, an AK clutched in his arms. The grenade had twisted the chain-link fence, punching it out from the base enough to offer a determined man a way out.

  "He's making a break!" Kohl said, his face still pressed close to his Pilkington scope's eyepiece. "He's trying to wiggle under the fence!"

  "Shit!" Huerta said, "He's hit…"

  Sikes had only seconds to make a decision which could well spell disaster for his team. If the SEALs tried to help the POW, there was every possibility that the North Koreans would discover their presence.

  But he also knew there must be one god-awful important reason for the man to be trying to escape.

  That decided him. "Kohl! Give him cover!"

  The G3 was fitted with a sound suppressor, and the shots would not be heard over the shouting, gunfire, and sirens sounding in the camp now. The wound inflicted by the 7.62-mm NATO round would be close enough to that caused by an AK-47 round that the Koreans would never know the difference ― certainly not without an autopsy. By the time the Koreans got around to that it would be too late.

  Kohl held the sniper rifle steady on its bipod for a moment, then squeezed the trigger. Even with the suppressor, the shot sounded unnaturally loud among the rocks, and Sikes had to tell himself again that, if the camp guards heard it, they would never be able to tell where it came from.

  In the camp, a guard pitched headlong from one of the wooden guard towers. Kohl selected a new target and fired again. A North Korean guard, running full-tilt toward the disturbance, staggered and dropped.

  "Huerta!" Sikes snapped. When the SEAL faced him, the lieutenant signaled, pointing down the slope. Huerta nodded and slipped over the rim of the hide. Kohl took aim once more.

  CHAPTER 21

  1924 hours

  Nyongch'on camp

  Coyote fired the AK-47 again, a wild spray directed in the general direction of the gunfire probing toward him from the advancing Korean soldiers. He had no idea whether he hit any or not. His single hope was to make them keep their heads down long enough for him to get through the gap under the fence.

  Bullets tunneled into the clay close by, sending up spurts of wet earth almost in his face. The rifle clicked empty and Coyote tossed it aside. Lying on his back, he began wiggling under the skirt of the chain-link fence.

  His plan had already gone sour. He couldn't feel much of anything in his left leg, but there was a deadness there, a gone-to-sleep numbness. When he touched it, his hand came away slick with blood.

  How far could he get, in the dark, in hostile country, with gomers on his heels, and him not even able to stand on his leg, much less run on it.

  But there was no turning back, not now. He kicked out with his right leg, pushing himself backward under the fence. A fresh burst of gunfire splattered the ground close by, and something spanged off the metal of the fence a few feet above his head. A ragged edge of fencing caught his flight suit, pinning him. Nearly panicking, he kicked harder.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a Korean soldier thirty feet away. Illuminated by the beam of a searchlight, the man was moving forward relentlessly, AK raised, his eyes already locked with Coyote's. The AK came up, aiming.

  The top of the Korean's head exploded in a spray of blood and chips of bone and the man lurched heavily to one side, then collapsed. A moment later, the searchlight flared and went out, leaving Coyote in near darkness.

  He kicked again and felt his flight suit tear free. The ground outside the fence dropped away sharply, and Coyote rolled down the hill into the brush at the bottom.

  It was then that the pain hit him, a searing fire in his thigh, midway between hip and knee. He grasped his leg between both hands, squeezing hard. The bone, miraculously, did not seem to be broken, but the wound throbbed and ached like hell. He found he could stand on it ― barely ― that he could hobble forward if he didn't put too much weight on his left leg.

  Coyote's eyes were still dazzled by the camp's lights and he could see little of his surroundings. There were rocks and trees nearby, though, and the black shape of a hillside facing him. He could make out the trees in the illumination spilling from the camp and decided that they offered him his best chance of hiding. Continued shouting from the other side of the fence suggested that the Koreans had lost him, but that wouldn't last for long. Soon they'd be on his trail, possibly with dogs.

  How was he going to find the SEALs before he was run to earth?

  He was limping past the gnarled trunk of a pine tree when hands snaked out and grabbed Coyote's collar and mouth, yanking him to the ground. The shock jarred his leg and he bit his lower lip hard to keep from screaming.

  "You stupid, sorry son of a bitch!" a voice snarled in his ear. "What in the hell do you think you're trying to pull!"

  And Coyote nearly burst out laughing, so sharp was the shock of relief.

  2003 hours

  Flag Plot, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  Admiral Magruder looked at the hard copy of the comsat from Bushmaster and swore. The situation ashore, it seemed, was rapidly getting out of hand.

  The message
had not mentioned who it was that had escaped from the North Korean army camp ― coding and the need to keep burst transmissions short precluded such mundane chit-chat ― but it sounded to Magruder as though the man must be one of the spooks, someone with James Bond-style delusions. He could well have wrecked everything by alerting the North Koreans to Bushmaster's presence. As it was, the SEALs must be going into deep hiding to avoid enemy search parties.

  On the other hand, the information was certainly timely. If TF-18 was going to do anything, it would have to act now, this night… or watch Chimera's crew whisked forever out of reach.

  "Ron?"

  An aide snapped to attention. "Yes, Admiral!"

  He handed him the message. "Copies of this to Admiral Simpson and Colonel Caruso. And Captain Fitzgerald."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And fire up TAC COM. Priority CRITIC."

  "Aye aye, sir." Americans were being shot over there. Damn!

  He wondered what the Washington appeasers and negotiators would think of this. If they didn't get their asses in gear now…

  2044 hours (0644 hours EST.)

  White House Situation Room

  The President looked at the copy of the message relayed from Admiral Magruder and felt the weight of his office pressing down on him. He looked up, his eyes meeting Schellenberg's. "So, Jim, we're going to negotiate with these people? Sit down and talk things out?" He felt his blood pressure rising. He closed his fist and smashed it down on the table. "My God! Three of our sailors murdered in cold blood… and we're going to negotiate with them sometime next week?"

  "I… don't have an answer, Mr. President. Possibly there are communication problems between P'yongyang and Nyongch'on."

  "Communications problems." He sighed and looked away. The others watched him anxiously from around the table.

  Caldwell licked his lips. "Sir, we can't deploy through South Korea before-"