The Koreans thought he was a ROK commando. Somehow, the irony seemed impossibly funny. Laughter turned to agony, though, as his breath rattled in his chest. Han knew he was drowning in his own blood.
"Palli!" the KorCom officer snapped. "Quickly! Get the prisoners!"
Then the darkness closed in and BM/1 Charlie Han died.
CHAPTER 24
0354 hours
Inside the POW compound, Nyongch'on-kiji
HM/1 Bailey's whisper was harsh. "They're coming!"
They'd heard the disturbance outside half an hour earlier, sounds like silenced gunfire, sharp yells, the hammer of bullets striking metal, the crash of broken glass. Then, the sound of a truck being driven off, followed by a silence so complete it might never have been broken. Sailors at the windows could see nothing. The entire camp was blacked out. Searchlights swept the clouds in the distance, and the wail of sirens, the yap of barking dogs could be faintly heard.
Then, suddenly, the Americans had heard a Korean challenge, harsh voices… and then the ear-shattering yammer of an automatic weapon firing in the night. The firefight had lasted only seconds, but the silence was truly ended now by the slap of boots on pavement, shouted orders, and the sound of vehicles arriving outside.
Something's going down," Chief Bronkowicz added. "Sounds like someone's stirred 'em with a stick!"
"We can't let 'em take us," Zabelsky said. He clenched his fists, his eyes on the door as guttural voices sounded just beyond. "Those bastards are never gonna let us go… you guys know that, right?"
"Where's the gun?" Commander Wilkinson asked. In the back of the long room, one sailor climbed onto another's shoulders, searching by feel among the rafters for the hidden weapon.
Gunfire inside the camp could only mean that the SEALs had been discovered. Anything could happen now… including the wholesale massacre of the American prisoners.
"Bailey!" someone shouted. "Where are you, Doc?"
"Here!" The ship's senior hospital corpsman seemed an unlikely choice as gunman for the group. In wartime it would have been against the rules of the Geneva Convention for him to carry a weapon, though plenty of corpsmen had violated those rules in Nam two decades earlier. A quiet canvassing of all the men of Chimera's crew, however, had revealed that HM/1 Herb Bailey had been a member of the IPSC before he joined the Navy, had even qualified for the Bianchi Cup pistol shooters' match, though he'd never participated. He knew handguns and how to use them.
Perhaps most important, he wanted to do it and knew he could. A sailor passed Bailey the Mark 22 and its magazines. He took them without a word, snicked the magazine into the pistol grip, and dragged the slide back to chamber a round. The rattle of keys in the lock was already sounding through the room as he took his position to one side, ten feet from the door, the pistol concealed behind one of Chimera's men.
The door banged open and three Koreans burst into the room. They were angry and shouting, gesticulating with their AK-47s. None spoke English, but their demands were unmistakable. Hands up! Move out! Obey!
Bailey heard Gilmore's quiet voice just behind him. "Bailey? Let's do it, son."
Outside, he heard other soldiers shouting to one another. Killing these three would only delay the inevitable. But better for them all to go down fighting than the slow horror of watching shipmates being shot, one by one.
He shoved the sailor aside and raised the silenced pistol.
0357 hours
Inside Nyongch'on-Kiji
Sikes had heard the AK fire from across the compound and knew that the party had just begun in earnest. He exchanged a look with Larry Gordon, the first class torpedoman who had accompanied him to the area outside the North Korean barracks.
Earlier, during the air raid to the north of the camp, several hundred men had poured out of the three-story barracks and clambered into a system of trenches dug near the base perimeter, a crude but relatively effective air raid shelter. Once things grew quiet again, most of the KorCom troops had filed back into the barracks, though a large number had been reorganized into patrols and sentry bands. Sikes and Gordon had been busy since then, planting the claymore mines they'd carried in their packs.
Claymores were curved, rectangular boxes that were placed upright and set to detonate in any of a number of ways, from electric circuits to tripwires. Behind the neatly stenciled lettering which spelled FRONT TOWARD ENEMY, each claymore packed a pound and a half of C4 plastic explosive and seven hundred steel marbles. The device could be aimed, with the end effect a kind of gigantic shotgun. "Looks like it's time, Lieutenant," Gordon said.
"Right." He opened his tactical radio. "All units, this is Bushmaster One. On my signal, rock and roll. Acknowledge!"
"Bush Two, acknowledge!"
"Bushmaster Three, acknowledged!"
"Bush Four! Affirmative!"
"Bushmaster Five, acknowledged. We're with Bush Six. We've left Han outside the POW compound."
Another burst of gunfire echoed from the direction of the compound. Sikes couldn't know for sure, but it sounded as though it might be Han who was in trouble. The original idea had been to stay clear of the POWs until the last minute. When they saw the SEALS, they might make a lot of noise and it would be difficult to control them.
But now was the time.
"Copy, Bush Five. Take Six and get back to your target on the double. Secure the prisoners."
"Roger that."
"Okay." Sikes took a deep breath. "Take 'em down!"
There was a pause, and then the sky lit up orange in the direction of the airstrip as a fireball rolled into the night from a gasoline storage tank. An instant later there was a flash like the popping of flashbulbs, and the microwave antenna over the communications shed shuddered, sagged, then toppled slowly toward the fence. The crash was submerged in the ratcheting blast of plastic explosives detonated in a daisy chain under the bellies of trucks and other vehicles parked in the motor pool. The Mi-8 helo added the contents of its fuel tanks to the conflagration, transforming the camp into an inferno of flames and light and wildly shifting shadows.
The camp's siren began its mournful wail, and soldiers raced once more out of the barracks building, yelling and shouting to one another as they pulled on articles of clothing, stopped to lace boots, or worked the actions on their rifles. Sikes and Gordon lay still behind a hummock of earth, each man holding a small firing device connected to a battery. Men began leaping into the air raid shelter ditches.
Someone touched a tripwire carefully hidden in the ink-black bottom of one of the trenches, and claymore mines set into either end of the ditch triggered simultaneously. A hell of noise and smoke and shrill screams rose above the shouts of running soldiers. Claymores in a second ditch triggered, followed closely by a third. The soldiers still outside of the ditches became a mob surging back toward the barracks.
Sikes flipped the safety bail on his firing trigger and squeezed hard. A claymore nestled into the shadows near the barracks fired, cutting a bloody swath through the mob. Gordon fired a second mine an instant later. The yells and shouted orders were gone now, replaced by the shrieks and screams of the wounded. Bodies lay in front of the barracks in cordwood stacks, mowed down by repeated scythes of steel ball bearings. By the time Gordon opened up with his M-60, only a few Koreans remained standing.
The morning's festivities were off to a great start.
0358 hours
Inside the POW compound, Nyongch'on-kiji
The first explosion rattled the walls on the POW building and silenced the angry shouts of the Korean guards. As the second explosion roared in the near-distance, HM/1 Bailey squeezed the trigger on the Mark 22 and the weapon bucked with a sharp chuff submerged by the far louder thunder outside. The soldier's head jerked back, suddenly bloody. The corpsman was already tracking his second target… and then his third.
A fourth Korean screamed in the door, then leaped backward, out into a night suddenly afire. Chief Bronkowicz scooped up one of the AK-47s, check
ed it, and handed it to one of the men. "The SEALS!" he yelled. "Now's the time!" The prisoners now had three assault rifles besides the pistol, and a chance to fight back.
The hand grenade sailed into the room through one of the windows high up along the north wall. It was one of the Soviet-made, apple-green RGDs and it skittered across the floor, bounced off the south wall, then spun in the middle of the floor.
"Grenade!" Coleridge screamed, and men dropped to the floor or tried to crowd back. There was a blur of motion as someone in khaki leaped toward the grenade instead of away, sprawling on top of it, gathering it in against his stomach.
The explosion was deafening, though the flash was smothered. The body of the man who had thrown himself across the grenade jerked a foot into the air, and bloody gobbets spattered across the floor. There was a lot of smoke, and a harsh mingling in the air of seared meat, blood, and feces.
The men crowded close. "Oh, God!"
"Who is it?"
"Did you see that?"
"Is he alive?"
Bailey knelt at the man's side, gently rolling him over. Lieutenant Novak's eyes met his for a moment, then glazed over. Much of his abdomen had been blasted away. The shredded remains were spilled across the floor and blood was gushing from the emptied cavity.
The lieutenant was dead in seconds.
Explosions continued to echo and reverberate from outside, and a flickering glow from the west spoke of fuel tanks going up in flames. Inside the room there was a momentary silence, reaction to the horror that was Novak's mangled body, reaction to the knowledge that the man had blamed himself for what had happened.
Seconds later the spell was broken by the yammer of AK fire from close by. Zabelsky had climbed up to the window through which the grenade had come and was firing short bursts into the night.
"Come on, you guys!" Chief Bronkowicz said. His eyes were locked on Novak's gory corpse and the spreading pool of blood. "Let's make it count for something'!"
Bailey rose, still gripping the pistol. Everyone had been so sure that Lieutenant Novak was a coward…
Bailey went to the door, a new and dangerous rage boiling inside. He half expected a blaze of autofire from outside, but events seemed to have thrown the Koreans into as much confusion as their captives. He spotted movement in the darkness and snap-fired, his shot rewarded by a groan and the clatter of a dropped rifle. Bronkowicz stepped past him, brandishing an AK, closely followed by half a dozen sailors armed with nothing but their fists. "Go, Chimeras!" someone yelled. Another sailor let out a spine-chilling rebel yell.
The corpsman looked back at Gilmore, who grinned weakly and gave him a salute from his makeshift bed. "Those SEALs are going to need help, son."
Bailey grinned, saluted, then joined the crowd running into the night.
0401 hours
Outside Nyongch'on-kiji
Coyote turned his binoculars on the camp. "God, the whole place is going up!"
Kohl pressed the night-sight of his rifle to his eye. "The guys have been busy." His rifle cracked once. Even with the suppressor, the sound was uncomfortably sharp and loud. On the camp perimeter, a KorCom soldier pitched headfirst out of a guard tower, struck the barbed-wire topping of the compound fence, and hung there, head down. Kohl shifted targets and fired again.
In the lurid, wavering illumination from a burning fuel dump, Coyote could make out individual figures spilling from the Wonsan Waldorf. The chatter of automatic fire carried across the distance, almost lost in the rising cacophony of fire, explosions, and yelling voices. A building exploded in white flame and collapsed, burning fiercely. The wail of the siren was chopped off as though by a descending ax blade. "There goes the HQ," Kohl said softly. Coyote could only watch and marvel at the slaughter. The SEALS, it appeared, were efficient killing machines.
Minutes passed. Coyote knew from the final briefing earlier that night that Sikes's team was counting on a quick kill and a quick seizure of the camp. The battle for Nyongch'on couldn't be allowed to go on for more than a few minutes, or inevitably SEALs would start dying.
If there were three hundred troops inside Nyongch'on, there were another three thousand in other bases close by… possibly more. By blowing the radio tower, Sikes's men had cut the camp off from its neighbors; with luck, nearby KorCom Army posts would assume Nyongch'on had been hit by another American bomber raid and delay an immediate investigation.
The SEALs could not rely on luck for long, however, or even on the disorganization of the enemy. When North Korean troops arrived at Nyongch'on, they would come in strength, and fourteen SEALS, even reinforced by Chimera's crew, would not be able to hold out for very long.
Though the SEALs would never have admitted it, they needed help. That help had already been factored into the rescue plan.
"Bushmaster Seven, this is Bush One," Sikes's voice said from the backpack radio which had been left in the hide. "Do you copy? Over."
Coyote picked up the handset. Kohl was still busy picking off Korean sentries who had escaped the general slaughter in the camp. "Copy, Bush One. Go ahead."
"Make signal: Sunrise Blue."
That was it! The code message which meant that Nyongch'on and the prisoners were secure! "Copy, Bush One. Sunrise Blue!"
"After you secure the transmitter, get your tails on down here. We've got a way to go yet before we collect our paychecks."
"Roger that." Coyote glanced at Kohl, who was already slinging his rifle. "We're packing up now."
"Bush One, out."
The diminutive satellite dish was already set up, aligned with an invisible point in the southern sky. Coyote flipped switches on the backpack radio as he'd been shown earlier, listening to the hiss and crackle of static over the handset speaker.
"Homeplate, Bushmaster," he said. "Homeplate, this is Bushmaster."
After an eternity, a static-charged voice replied, "Bushmaster, this is Homeplate. We copy."
"Sunrise Blue! I say again, Sunrise Blue!"
"Copy, Bushmaster. Sunrise Blue. The cavalry's on its way!"
Coyote had never heard such beautiful words.
0403 hours
Over the Yonghung Man
The four RH-53D Sea Stallions of Cavalry One had been orbiting their marshall point for several hours, refueling once from one of Jefferson's KA-6D tankers. The noise in the cargo cabin was deafening, too loud for normal speech. When the word came through over his headphones from the pilot that Sunrise Blue had been received, Lieutenant Victor A. Morgan merely turned and gave a thumbs-up to the waiting, watching Marines crowded into the compartment.
The answering roar momentarily drowned out the Sea Stallion's engine noise, as forty Marines shouted in unison, "Gung-ho!"
Morgan rested one hand against the Sea Stallion's bulkhead and patted it fondly. Eight Sea Stallions had been part of the Eagle Claw operation in 1980, the Delta Force attempt to rescue fifty-three American hostages in Iran, and the hydraulic failure of one of them in the harsh desert conditions over the Dashte Kavir had been largely responsible for the abort on that mission. The task force had been in the process of pulling out when another helo collided with a C-130, capping the raid with disaster. Two of the eight dead at Desert One had been Marines.
This morning, though, the Marines were giving the old Navy workhorse a chance to redeem herself. Cavalry One consisted of four RH-53Ds; three carried forty-two-man rifle platoons, a fourth a weapons platoon and headquarters element. Altogether, the cavalry for this particular rescue made up a complete Marine rifle company under the command of Captain Samuel L. Ford.
Upon receiving the Sunrise Blue code, the four aircraft dropped to wave-top height and raced toward the Korean shore at 160 mph. By this time, all identified SAM sites and antiaircraft batteries had been hit by the hunting packs of Jefferson's Hornets and Intruders. Lone North Koreans wandering around on the ground with shoulder-launched Grails or machine guns still posed a threat, but not a large one. By contour flying, hugging the shape of the ridg
es' broken terrain, the helos would give little warning of their approach, and at low altitude they would not be in sight for more than a few seconds. Tomcats circling overhead would provide cover against enemy MiGs, but it was surprise and speed which would get the Sea Stallions to their landing zone.
Getting them out would be another problem entirely, but Lieutenant Morgan was more than happy to leave that worry to the operation's planners. For the moment, his only thought was to get his platoon to the Nyongch'on LZ fast, before the SEALs found themselves facing more than they could handle. It would be his first time in combat.
With the shriek of GE turbines and the heavy clatter of rotors, the cavalry thundered toward the beach.
0411 hours
Outside Nyongch'on-kiji
It took several long minutes to dismantle and fold the satellite dish and stow it with the radio in its pack. The gunfire from the camp had entirely died away. So far, there was no sign that the capture of Nyongch'on-kiji had been noticed by any of the other PDRK Army commands in the area. That wouldn't last for long.
"You going to be able to make it with that leg?" Kohl asked.
"I'll make it." Coyote was already wondering if he could. The pain was much worse. It felt like his left knee would buckle if he put any weight on it at all.
"Here." Kohl unslung his G3 rifle and handed it to Coyote, exchanging it for the radio pack which he shrugged onto his back. "Safe's on. Don't lean on the suppressor." He stooped and unscrewed the night sight, which he packed away into a padded tube which looked like a camera lens case. Coyote found that by planting the butt of the weapon on the ground and leaning against the foregrip he could stand. Most of the trip would be downhill, a cautious series of sideways steps using the rifle as a cane.
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