In the Grey

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  “The Calico shall be your prize,” Alex smiled.

  She took the MP5 from him, checked it, and slung it over her shoulder. They strapped Bowie knives to their left calves before pulling on their black balaclavas.

  “Warm enough?” Raz asked Max.

  “Finally,” Max said. “I’ve been freezing.”

  “Mind if I have a minute?” Raz asked.

  “Go ahead,” Max said. “I’m going to check in with Ji. We leave in five.”

  Alex nodded. A Pave Hawk helicopter, with an American flag and a large Vivaldi “F” on the back, landed near the other helicopters. Cliff was here. Raz pulled her to the side.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Raz asked.

  “I feel fit,” Alex said. “MJ and Colin both gave me the okay.”

  “Here,” Raz put his hand over her heart.

  She smiled at him. He grinned back.

  “I will always come for you,” Raz said. “I will always find you.”

  She nodded. She would have hugged him, just to feel the warm, safety of his arms, but there were too many strangers around. She needed to be manlike, tough, and direct. He gave her a soft smile as if he understood.

  “Alex!” Max yelled. He waved and stepped into the passenger compartment of a Chinese helicopter.

  “Time to go,” Alex said. “See you on the other side.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alex gave his hand a quick squeeze and ran to the helicopter. She had just stepped in when the helicopter took off. They flew an easy four miles to the Yalu River on the border between China and North Korea.

  Their reconnaissance had confirmed that Steve was being held six miles from the Chinese border in what intelligence thought was an unused mine near a Korean People’s Army supply base. Alex thought it was odd that he was being held so close to the border, but the Chinese intelligence officer assured her the western slope of Chang Bai Shan was inhospitable making it a great place to hold someone.

  While Alex had nodded and smiled, she couldn’t shake off Cee Cee Joiner’s last words – “joke’s on you.” Did he mean they’d lose the secretary of state if they retrieved Steve? She knew him better than anyone else. She should know what he meant. But she didn’t have a clue what “joke’s on you” meant.

  If she was talking to Raz, he would tell her to let things unfold. Ben would move his head up and down in a socially acceptable nod to acknowledge that he’d heard her. She would feel better for having told him. But Ben and Raz weren’t with her.

  She bit her lip to keep from longing for the Fey Special Forces Team. She opened her eyes and saw Jesse standing in the middle of the landing zone.

  Alex hopped out of the helicopter and followed Max into the back of an ancient Korean People’s Army personnel carrier. They were given ill-fitting uniforms and told through gestures to squeeze onto the bench seat near the cab of the truck. Ji sat across from them. Max slapped a North Korean armored hat onto her head and gave one to Ji. She glanced at Ji. Buttoning his uniform, he looked like he was going to crawl out of his skin. She smiled to steady him. He nodded at her effort.

  The truck’s gears ground, and the vehicle shook before starting up a narrow dirt road into the mountains. Pressed tight against Max, Alex closed her eyes and tried to clear her head. Her anxious thoughts bounced with the tempo of her butt on the bench.

  Why was Steve Pershing taken?

  What condition would he be in?

  What did Steve have to do with the mind control subjects?

  How was Trece doing? At the thought of Trece, her stomach turned over. The warden had informed Matthew that Trece had been in a fight. Trece was now lingering in the SHU. She worried about his mental state. His first round prison had nearly destroyed him.

  And what about Wyatt? Neev had been working with him, but she had no idea if Neev was effective. Joseph had met with Neev a few times, but said he didn’t trust her. He preferred to work with his VA therapist. What if working with Neev didn’t work?

  What did Cee Cee Joiner mean when he said “joke’s on you?” She opened her eyes to ask Max and noticed that the hostility in the truck had risen while she had been thinking. The North Korean soldiers looked like they were going to eat Ji. While the Korean People’s Army was assisting in the retrieval of Steve Pershing, the matter was classified. The soldiers in their truck had no idea why they were traveling with them.

  “Do you come here often?” Alex asked the young man sitting next to Ji. “Fancy meeting you in a place like this.”

  She intentionally spoke in English to see if she could get a laugh. These standard pickup lines were well known around the world. The young man grinned. He repeated her words in Korean. The men laughed and the mood lightened. Ji shot a grateful glance in her direction.

  The truck made a labored stop at a check point. The canvas flap covering the back of the truck flicked open. The frigid wind blew snow and ice into where they were sitting. The North Korean soldiers complained bitterly about the cold. Max and Alex scooted down in their seats. There was no way to know what might happen at the check point. The guard shut the flap with no more than a cursory look. The engine revved, the gears clanked into place, and they were once again bumping along the dirt road.

  Alex leaned into Max, and he leaned into her. She closed her eyes to focus on the nagging buzz of “joke’s on you.” Bouncing along for another hour, the “you” became a cartoon fluffy white sheep with knock-knock jokes cut into its fleece with a razor. Cee Cee Joiner kicked his leg over the sheep’s back, and the sheep fell flat on her face. The ewe bleated, and Alex chuckled. Max shook her shoulder. She squinted at him.

  “We’re here,” Max said.

  The brakes squealed, and the truck came to a slow halt. They climbed over the North Korean soldiers and jumped out. The truck rumbled, the gears clanked, and it continued up the road.

  “Over here,” Ji pointed to three all-terrain vehicles parked along the side of the road. They jogged to the vehicles.

  “Our headsets should work,” Alex said.

  She started her ATV before tossing a headset to Ji and Max. She stuck hers in her ear and turned it on. They were treated to a rousing argument in Mandarin about the wonders of Asian-style sex. Alex groaned.

  “Nice to see you’re getting along,” Ji said in Mandarin into his headset.

  “Is the LC . . . ?” Royce started in English. “Shit.”

  “Every. Single. Time,” Alex said in Mandarin. “Someday I’m going to join in, and you’re going to not sound like horny teenagers.”

  “Not likely,” Ji’s team lead said. Everyone laughed.

  “Radio silence,” Alex ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” the teams called.

  “It’s another six or seven miles, and then we hike the rest of the way,” Ji yelled over the noise of the all-terrain vehicles.

  “We’ll follow you,” Max said.

  “Do we know when . . . ?” Alex started.

  In the distance, a land missile being launched with a loud boom followed by the high-pitched squeal of the mortar falling. The Korean People’s Army had started their assault on the mine shed. Ji glanced at Alex and Max to make sure their ATVs were working, before taking off up the creek bed. The rat-a-tat-tat from a machine gun echoed through the gully. People in the compound were prepared to defend it. A ground-rumbling flash of light and fire indicated that the first of many missiles had landed.

  Under the cover of the Korean People’s Army, the plan was that the Russian Vympel team and the Chinese Furious Tigers would secure the building. Alex, Max, and Ji hoped to slip in and grab Steve. The Fey Team and Ji’s team were to assist Alex, Max, and Ji in Steve’s rescue, as well as gather intelligence about what was going on in the mine shed. As soon as they had obtained Steve, the teams would slip away, leaving the Korean People’s Army to finish the fight.

  Alex followed Ji in a bone-rattling ride up the creek bed in the pitch black night. She pushed her ATV until engine was steaming with
effort. She was moving so fast that she overran the headlights. A Pave Hawk helicopter with the Vivaldi “F” on its tail flew low over them on its way to the mining compound. The Russian and Chinese helicopters carrying the special operations teams flew low over the area.

  “Any intel?” Ji asked the Furious Tigers over the communication feed.

  “No movement on the ground,” the Chinese special operations team leader responded. “Are we sure they’re there?”

  “We have them on radar,” Raz said from inside the Fey Team helicopter. “In what looks like an office in the mine shed.”

  The machine guns fire came from the roof of the mining shed.

  “Returning fire.” The Chinese helicopter fired on the people in the mine shed.

  Alex felt something on her face.

  “Snow,” she said. Snow streaked down in front of her.

  “Sir?” Sergeant Dusty’s garbled voice came from halfway across the continent to her headset.

  “Dusty?” Alex asked.

  Alex leaned hard to her left to miss a tree in the middle of the creek bed.

  “The action has begun,” Sergeant Dusty said from Pakistan.

  “And the phoenix?” Alex asked. She ducked a branch and sped to catch up with Ji.

  “As you thought,” Sergeant Dusty said.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Raz said from the Fey helicopter. “We’ll relay further messages from here.”

  “Roger that,” Sergeant Dusty said. “We’re following procedure B.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Alex said. There was a click on the line indicating her line had been separated from Sergeant Dusty’s feed. She fought with the ATV and the creek bed, while she waited for Raz to return to the line.

  “Sir?” Raz asked.

  “The SSG?” Alex asked if Pakistan’s special operations group, the Special Services Group, had responded to her call for assistance.

  “Surrounding the building,” Raz said. “Fey Team is an hour out still.”

  “Procedure B it is then,” Alex said.

  “Yes, sir,” Raz said. “You are within range of the mine shed.”

  “Recent maps?” Alex asked.

  “No need,” Raz confirmed that the head and radar maps she’d seen hadn’t changed.

  Before Alex could ask for him to check again, Ji screeched his ATV to a stop and hopped off. He ran up the hill. She pulled her ATV next to his and waited a moment. Max jumped off his ATV before it came to a stop. The ATV banged into hers and they ran to catch up with Ji. Between the deep night, the wet snow, and his dark clothing, Ji was almost impossible to see. They found him waiting for them at the edge of the compound.

  “Go,” Ji said.

  The Russian and Chinese helicopters landed on the site. The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment team floated down in parachutes. The people in the mine shed responded with machine gunfire.

  Alex pointed to the back of the mine shed. Built into the mountain, the flat-roofed building covered three floors of the elevators into the mine. The main entrance was on the backside, single story portion of the shed. From where they were standing, they saw three floors with windows into the shed.

  According to Raz, Steve was being held in the bottom-floor office near this side of the building. They hoped to get to him before he disappeared into the mine or the North Koreans destroyed the building. They had to move fast.

  Alex glanced to her right. In the cold and dark of this North Korean slope, she felt a wave of relief. Even though she couldn’t see them in the dark, her team was nearby. A female member of Ji’s team lit a propane torch and gave it to Troy. She lit another torch, and they began cutting into the aluminum wall of the building. She raised her fist to tell Max and Ji to wait.

  A US soldier from Delta, a friend, ran past her into the dark and she smiled. She’d thought it was fishy that a Delta team was hanging around. They were clearly using this action as their ticket into North Korea.

  Troy and Ji’s team member stepped back. Matthew kicked the aluminum wall. A four foot square of aluminum fell into the building. Matthew stepped back. Alex ran to the opening. At the building, she waved Ji and Max to her.

  “Sir,” Raz called from his position in the Fey helicopter. “We have visual confirmation that the phoenix is eating dinner. Fifteen minutes until landing.”

  Unwilling to risk the noise, Alex didn’t respond. She pulled her balaclava so that only her eyes were visible. She pushed her black, knitted cap low on her head. She loosened her bow and unstrapped her machine gun so that they would be ready for use if she needed them.

  Alex dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through the space. Ji followed her. Max took the rear. They were standing in the hallway around the edge of the building. The mine elevator took up in the center of the building. Offices lined either side of the hallway. The Fey Team and Ji’s team would follow them into the building after they were out of sight.

  “To your right,” Raz said.

  Alex moved to her right with silent ease. She stopped. Ji and Max caught up with her. She peered around the corner but saw no one. Hearing a noise behind them, they scooted around the corner. An armed guard had noticed the hole in the wall. He was lifting his walkie-talkie to his mouth when Max’s arrow stopped his report. A man from Ji’s team slipped through the entrance hole to dispose of the body.

  Alex gave Max and Ji a quick nod. Max ran down the hallway. The dim light and dust gave the hallway a paranormal feeling. Alex wondered if there were ghosts waiting and watching to see what was going to happen. Almost on cue, Jesse appeared up ahead. She smiled.

  Ji followed Max. She waited until they had reached the end of the hall before following them.

  The ground shook from a large explosion in front of the building. Max and Ji struggled to stay standing. She heard the faint echo of voices drifting through the building.

  “Two doors,” Raz yelled over the bombs. “Left.”

  Alex raised two fingers. She took a step forward, when Jesse flew in her direction.

  “Get down!” Jesse yelled.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Alex turned and threw herself on top of Ji and Max. A fireball blew through the hallway, adding force to her tackle. They slid in a pile until they hit the hallway wall with a thump.

  “ALEX!” Raz yelled.

  “Trap,” she grunted. “All breathing.”

  “They know we’re here,” Ji said.

  She looked up at Jesse. In American Sign Language, she signed “Please find Steve.”

  “Don’t have to find him,” Jesse smirked. “I know where he is. But you have company.”

  He pointed down the empty hall. Three men with machine guns turned the corner. Seeing them, the men started running and firing in their direction.

  Alex rolled off Ji and Max. They lay flat on their bellies. Alex grabbed her compound bow and threaded an arrow. She fired at the man on the far left. Max shot at the person in the middle. Ji released a razor-sharp, steel throwing star. The arrows hit their assailants’ throats a second before the star hit the third man in the eye. The force of the arrows caused Alex and Max’s targets to fall back. Ji’s target crumpled in place.

  She looked at Max. He nodded. They looked at Ji. He’d taken the brunt of the slam into the wall. He nodded that he was all right. He ran to pick up his star.

  “Where to now?” Ji whispered.

  Jesse waved her forward.

  “Follow me,” Alex said.

  She notched another arrow into her compound bow. Max loaded his bow. Ji slipped a throwing star into each of his hands.

  “We go together,” she said.

  The men nodded. She raised three fingers and counted down to one. They moved as one unit down the hallway and stopped at the corner. From the hole in the wall, Colin whistled once. There was a pause and he whistled again.

  There were two people standing in the hallway.

  Alex glanced at Ji and Max. She nodded and they turned the corner.

 
; Ji’s quick hands threw the stars at the moment Alex and Max released their arrows. The men dropped to the ground. While Alex and Max loaded their bows, Ji retrieved his stars.

  Jesse pointed at a door. He held up a hand. Five men were inside.

  “This way,” Alex signed.

  She stopped short at the door, and Max ran into her. Ji fell in at their side. Ji turned his back to them to cover the hallway. Alex kicked open the door. She fired on the man standing next to the entrance. Out of the corner of her eye, she tracked Max’s arrow as it pierced the eye of another captor.

  The bright flash of one of Jesse’s energy balls lit up the room. Ji’s flying stars sparkled like diamonds in their light. She was about to point it out to Max when she saw Steve.

  Bruised and bloody, he was tied to a chair with a filthy rag tied around his eyes. His clothing was ragged, and his cheeks gaunt. His hair held the dirty sheen of someone who had been dunked or water-boarded. His left ring finger was missing, and the rest of his fingers were broken. His feet were shredded and swollen from beatings.

  “Sensei,” Alex yelled.

  “Kill them all,” he growled in Spanish.

  The man standing next to him grabbed a syringe and leaned over Steve. Alex jumped onto the man’s back and broke his neck. As he fell, she grabbed her Bowie knife to cut through the ropes that held Steve in the chair. She rolled around the chair and cut the ropes on the other side. She heard Ji fighting with a man in the corner. Spinning in place, she loaded her bow and shot the man Ji was fighting. A man rushed toward her. Max slammed his bow into the man’s face and then shot him with an arrow. For a moment, the only sound was falling bodies.

  The ground rocked with another explosion.

  “Time to go,” Ji said in English. “They’re bringing the building down.”

  Alex pulled Steve to standing. Ji took one side of Steve, and Max took the other. Alex ran to the door and peeked out. Several armed men ran down the hallway. She signaled for Max and Ji to stop moving. They waited for the men to turn into another hallway. Max and Ji dragged Steve from the room. They shuffled to the exterior hole where the Fey Team and Ji’s team waited for them.