Huerta checked his watch, peeling back the velcro to briefly reveal its luminous dial. It was nearly 0145, and there was a long way yet to go. Silently, he led his two partners toward the Wonsan Waldorf, retracing his steps of the night before.
0150 hours
Intruder 555, over the Kolmo Peninsula
Lieutenant Commander Greene kept his attention fixed on the VDI display as he banked the Intruder slightly west, lining up for the final run. For over thirty minutes, the Death Dealers had struck at targets up and down the Kolmo Peninsula. Flames licked at the sky in a dozen places now, where flak batteries and petroleum tank farms were burning. Intruder 555 had dropped the last of its bombs, a pair of five-hundred-pound Mark 82 GPs released over the south end of the airfield runway. There was no way to tell what had been hit, exactly, but the TENCAP photos had shown what looked like aircraft hangars in the area. Something big had gone up; flames painted the runway in lurid reds and yellows, and the glow lit up the sky.
Jolly had seen no MiGs during his passes over the field. They'd either been in the hangars ― in which case they were burning now ― or they'd been pulled out before the attack. No matter one way or the other; the runway had been struck again and again by Snakeeye retarded bombs and GPs, leaving the concrete cratered and broken.
"Feet wet," he announced over the radio as the Intruder swept eastward over the surf. The other Death Dealers were already heading back toward the Jefferson, or would be as soon as they dropped the last of their ordnance. "Take a coupla cold ones out of the fridge, guys, we're coming' home."
"Copy, Intruder Five-five-five," a voice replied. That would be Lieutenant Harkins, down in CATCC. "Come to zero-nine-eight and goose it. Can't help with the beer, but we've got a fresh load of Mark 82s waitin' for you."
Jolly looked over his left shoulder, at the fires highlighting the spine of Kolmo.
"Yeah, well, it beats hell out of target practice. Triple Nickle, coming in."
0230 hours
Over Yonghung Bay
By the time Jolly Greene was back on Jefferson's flight deck, other American aircraft were again approaching the North Korean coast, helicopters this time, four monster CH-53E Super Stallions flying off the Chosin as minesweepers. Each helo strained against its load, a Mark 105 sled dragged through the water by a cable hung astern. Intelligence believed that the sea lanes and approaches outside of Wonsan Harbor were clear of mines ― there had been no cessation of seagoing traffic in or out of the city in the past week ― but the technology of mine warfare had improved at least as much as the technology used for clearing them. It was possible that there were seabed mines in place, awaiting only the throwing of a switch ashore to arm them. The sleds, mimicking the sounds and changing water pressure and magnetic profile of a warship, would trick the mines into exploding, if any were in place and active.
So far, intelligence had been proven right… a fact which promised healthy profits to those sailors and Marines who had bet against the odds.
Farther at sea, reveille had been called aboard the Chosin and her Marine Expeditionary Unit escorts, breakfast served, and inspections held for all hands with weapons and full kit.
Within the cavernous aft bay of the U.S.S. Little Rock, Marines were already loading themselves and their equipment onto the pair of odd-shaped vessels resting in the LPD's flooded docking well. Preparations were also underway on board the LST Westmoreland County, where AAVP7 amphibious tractors and LCVPs were being readied for embarkation. Farther out at sea, the rotors were already turning on four RH-53D Sea Stallions resting on Chosin's flight deck, as Marines filed up an outboard ladder, moved along the catwalk, then bent nearly double for the race across open deck and up the lowered rear ramps.
And farther out still, the U.S.S. Jefferson maintained her heading into the wind, launching aircraft almost as quickly as she recovered them. From now until Operation Righteous Thunder ended, there would be no rest at all for her crew, especially for the men of her deck division and air wing. Two of her four tankers were kept aloft at all times, refueling the planes awaiting their turn to trap, landing only when they themselves ran low on fuel. By 0230 hours, the second Alpha Strike was airborne and heading west, searching for SAM sites and radars which had eluded the first attack.
Jefferson's flight deck was a continuing whirlwind of activity, with red shirts hauling bombs and munitions up from the bowels of the ship, with the purple-shirted grapes refueling aircraft as quickly as they could, with exhausted hook-and-cat men continuing the never-ending ballet of breakdown, ready, shoot, and trap. The aviators and RIOs, if they were lucky, grabbed a few minutes' sleep at a time in their ready rooms. Most were too excited to do so, however. At long last they were being allowed to strike back at an enemy that had snickered at them, doing the jobs for which they had invested so much of their lives. Morale was good, expectations high.
And disaster was something even the most pessimistic man aboard simply refused to think about.
0320 hours
Nyongch'on-kiji
Most of the charges had been planted by now, but the SEALs wanted to wait as long as possible before springing their surprise on the unsuspecting North Koreans in the camp. The idea was to wait until 0430 hours, to give the Navy air strikes more time to hit their targets, but Huerta didn't think they'd be able to wait that long.
The truck pulled up from the direction of the HQ building, carrying two officers, a major and a captain. The four KorCom soldiers standing outside the prison compound gate stood hastily when they saw them climbing out of the cab.
The three SEALS, Han, Huerta, and Vespasio, had found cover beneath another truck parked across the road from the Korean guards. From there, Huerta could hear their voices clearly across the thirty feet which separated the soldiers from the hidden SEALS. Silently, he signaled Han. What are they saying?"
BM/1 Charlie Han was an American-born Angeleno, the son of South Korean immigrants. He was also one of three SEALs on the team who spoke Korean ― the best that could be done for a team assembled with such haste. Han listened for a moment, then leaned over, cupping his hand between his mouth and Huerta's ear.
"New orders," Han whispered, his voice so low it did not travel more than inches. Something about 'get them ready to move right away.'"
Huerta licked his lips. To be so close… He reached up and switched on his tactical radio. He did not speak, both for his own safety and for Sikes's. Instead, he punched the squelch button four times in rapid succession, the prearranged click code for the situation they'd all hoped would not arise: They're moving the prisoners. Orders?
There was a long pause. The answer, when it came, was three clicks, a pause, and three clicks more, the answer Huerta had expected. Silently, he touched Vespasio and pointed. The SEAL nodded, slid backward on his belly, then rolled out from under the truck. In seconds he was gone, a shadow moving through the night. Huerta looked at Han and grinned. The word was go!
Across the road, two more KorCom sentries trotted up, members of a roving patrol about the POW compound. More orders were given, something about leaving the wounded until later. Apparently, more trucks were being readied over at the motor pool. Huerta wondered if Robbins and Pasaretti had mined them yet.
Carefully, he raised his M-760 and slipped off the safety. At his side, Han brought his Uzi up. Seconds slipped by as they waited for Vespasio to get in position.
But there was no more time to waste. Four of the guards were already going through the gate, heading toward the building Chimera's crew had named the Wonsan Waldorf. It was now or never.
He squeezed the trigger, holding the weapon's barrel down and dragging the muzzle back along the line of KorCom soldiers visible through his night sight. The suppressed weapon bucked and kicked in his hand, the staccato roar muted to the sharp, slap-slap-slap of the bolt as it ratcheted back and forth. Empty brass cartridges spun and danced, clinking as they struck the underside of the tank inches above his head. Han opened up with the silenced U
zi, loosing precisely controlled three-round bursts into the enemy troops.
The Koreans walking toward the POW building twisted, spun, and fell, or collided with one another as it registered on them that they were under fire. One man gasped, a sound more of surprise than of pain, and then a second round spun him about and slammed him to the ground seconds before one of his comrades dropped across his body. The captain staggered as three rounds stitched up his spine, marking his back with spreading patches which looked black through the starlight goggles. A soldier next to the officer turned and stared, mouth open, not realizing the man had been shot until one 9-mm round punctured his throat and a second crushed his skull. The smash and tinkle of shattered glass was louder than the gunfire. In the cab of the truck, the driver threw hands over face, then tumbled sideways out the open door.
Huerta ceased fire long enough to drop an empty magazine and slap in a fresh one. Vespasio's Colt Commando opened up from across the street at the same moment, chopping into two soldiers who had taken cover behind the truck. One man screamed, a sharp, shocking yell above the hammer of 9-mm rounds striking the truck's side.
"Chosin!" the major shrieked, and then he went down as well. The last soldier managed to unsling his AK-47 and drag the bolt back as he searched wildly for a target. Rounds slammed into his chest and knocked him down.
And then it was over, the North Koreans sprawled dead behind the still-idling military truck. The entire firefight had lasted less than four seconds, so brief a time that the Koreans had not even been able to shoot back. Huerta rolled out from under the tank, stood, and raced across the street, drawing his hush puppy as he ran. By the time Vespasio and Han joined him, he was already putting silent mercy rounds into the skulls of the men sprawled on the ground. There was no time now for prisoners, and the risk of taking them was too great.
Huerta didn't know if the men he shot were still alive or not. Han helped finish the job with a silent, thin-lipped ferocity, while Vespasio stood guard.
The street was deserted, except for the three SEALs and the bodies. Even the Wonsan Waldorf was silent and dark. Despite the yells, the clatter of falling weapons, the thump of rounds striking the side of the truck, no one seemed to have noticed the brief and savage firefight which had just taken place. Perhaps they'd just bought the op a precious few minutes more.
Huerta gave orders to the other two. Swiftly, they began picking up bodies and tossing them one by one into the back of the truck. He stepped aside and kept his eye on the surrounding, darkened buildings as he opened his radio's tactical channel. "Bushmaster One, this is Bush Five," he whispered, using the code-name which would identify him to Sikes. He received two clicks for answer: Go ahead. "Sentry point secure. No alarm."
"Keep it that way," the lieutenant replied. "We need more time."
"I'm leaving Han on guard here. I want to check the motor pool with Vespasio." He was thinking about the trucks the KorCom officers had mentioned. "Things may be going wrong over there."
Sikes clicked the squelch twice for answer and Huerta signed off. Han had already found a jacket and pants unmarred by bullet holes or blood and was pulling them on over his combat blacks. An AK-47 and a soft, shapeless cap with a red star above the brim completed the impromptu disguise. He was still wearing black combat boots instead of the soft, high-topped boots usually worn by KorCom soldiers, but it was unlikely that anyone would get close enough to him to notice. Han should pass any casual inspection for the few minutes that Huerta and Vespasio would be away, and his knowledge of Korean and his Oriental features should let him field questions by anyone wondering where the small army guarding the POWs had gone.
"I'll tell them that everybody else went to get the trucks," Han said, grinning.
Which was exactly what Huerta had in mind. Nine bodies ― six guards, a driver, and two officers ― lay on the truck's flatbed, concealed by a roll of camouflage netting found in the back. The SEALs would park the vehicle near the motor pool, where the bodies should remain undiscovered until it was too late.
Without another word, Huerta brushed broken glass from the driver's seat and climbed in behind the wheel, ignoring the blood splattered across the upholstery. Vespasio got in on the passenger's side.
The motor pool was less than a hundred yards across the darkened compound. Huerta gunned the motor to life and turned into the road. Behind them, Han waved once and took the position of a lone sentry on a boring night watch.
0338 hours
Outside Anbyon, PDRK
Anbyon was a fair-sized city in the mountains south of Wonsan, and the location of an important military reserve depot located on the single highway running south across the Taebaeks toward the Demarcation Line, seventy-five kilometers away. Captain Sun Dae-jung of the People's Air Defense Forces climbed onto the aft deck of his ZSU-23-4 and scanned the darkness of the northern sky.
Wonsan was twenty kilometers away and he didn't really expect to see any sign of the air attacks which the port city had reported. Still, his orders carried a sense of raw urgency. Every available reserve unit in the area was to be mustered for the defense of the city.
The four ZSU's of Sun's company could get there within the hour. Sun had been born and raised in Wonsan, and he knew the area well. From the hills south of the harbor, where the road from Anbyon joined the coastal highway, they would have a splendid command of the skies over the harbor.
And he knew his vehicles, deadly looking antiaircraft vehicles which Sun knew by their Russian name: Shilka. Their quad-mounted 23-mm cannon would be only marginally effective against supersonic aircraft such as the American Tomcats and Hornets, but their radar-controlled precision, their sheer volume of fire would spell doom for any helicopter or subsonic ground attack that came within range.
The engine spat and roared as the driver cranked it to life. Behind him, the other three Shilkas shuddered and rumbled, exhaust fumes roiling across the pools of light cast by the Anbyon base's lights. Elsewhere, trucks and small military vehicles scurried about like insects. Every soldier in the People's Democratic Republic would be awake by now, Sun thought, ready to defend the fatherland.
But his company would be on the spear-point of that defense.
"Kapsida!" he shouted over the engine roar to his driver. "Let's go!"
With a lurch, the tracked vehicle thundered ahead, making Sun grip the edge of the open hatch to keep from being thrown. He hoped the American aircraft were still over Wonsan by the time he reached the city. In the pre-dawn darkness, his squat vehicles would be next to impossible to see ― a real surprise for the overconfident Imperialists.
Sun smiled to himself as his column clanked ahead toward the mountain pass at Nyongch'on.
0352 hours
Inside the Nyongch'on camp
Boatswain's Mate First Han heard the approaching Korean soldier an instant before he saw him, a confident swish-click of boots on the pavement a few yards away. He did not unsling his AK-47. A burst from the unsilenced weapon would awaken the entire compound. Instead, his right hand fished for the Mark 22 hush puppy he'd tucked into his web belt at the small of his back.
He faced the newcomer. "Kogi nugu'se yo?" he said, his tone challenging. "Who's there?" If there was a password or countersign he was dead, but if he could take the initiative before the other man's suspicions were aroused…
The Korean was close enough now that Han could see his features in the dim illumination from a light outside the darkened camp. He was a typical-looking soldier, with a sergeant's rank tabs and an AK slung muzzle-down, a pail in one hand. Han caught the sour tang of kimchi… dinner for the squad on duty.
The soldier glanced about once, then looked hard at Han, his eyes hardening with sudden suspicion. "Nuku'simnikka?" the North Korean snapped. "Who are you? Where are the others?"
Han knew at once that his carefully prepared story would not convince this man. The KorCom soldier's free hand was already going for the pistol grip of his AK-47, snapping the selector switch to ful
l auto, dragging the muzzle up in a one-handed attempt to shoot Han before the SEAL could react.
But Han already had his hush puppy out, whipping the pistol around and squeezing the trigger. The heavy-barreled weapon thumped once… twice. The Korean stumbled, his feet tangling with the bucket of kimchi as he fell.
The blaze of autofire stabbing into the sky from the soldier's AK-47 shattered the camp's silence. Across the compound, lights were coming on…
"Saram sallyo yo!" the wounded guard screamed. He'd emptied half his magazine into the sky. "Help! Intruders!" He struggled to aim the AK at the SEAL.
Han fired again and again until the screams were silenced, but it was already too late. He could make out running figures farther down the street, and more and more lights were coming on, bathing the area in pools of harsh brilliance.
He dropped the hush puppy and unslung his stolen AK. Gunfire barked from a building across the street, and a bullet sang off the chain-link fence at his back. Close by, men ran past the truck parked at the side of the road, racing in his direction.
"Korean!" a voice shrilled. "Halt at once!"
Han spun. Gunfire crashed once more from the shadows beside the truck. Rounds slammed into the SEAL's chest and side, hammering him to the ground.
For a dizzying, pain-clouded eternity, there was silence. Han lay facedown on the ground, gasping for each breath against the hot blood he felt welling up in his throat. He tried reaching for the AK he'd dropped.
Then rough hands knocked the AK aside and rolled him over. Someone kicked him in the side, then probed his clothing for hidden weapons as rifle muzzles pressed against his head. A face, a Korean face, grinned down at him from inches away. "So!" the man said. "South Korean Special Forces, I presume?" The face puckered, then spat.
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