by L. J. Martin
As I’d hoped, the spotlight swings from Sook and mama-san to me and the girls, both of whom are screaming at the top of their lungs. But with the light now on me, I could care less how much noise they make.
The large patrol boat has at least eight feet of freeboard at the bow, and I fear my M4s are not elevated enough to get to whoever’s manning the machine gun, which has just spit its first burst our way. It’s easily seen, as every fifth round or so is a green tracer.
As it seems he’s zeroing in on us, I break hard right, and when I figure I’m eighty yards, with the patrol craft behind us, I begin to hit the trigger of the aft-facing grenade launcher. I overfly the first shot, but looking back over my shoulder, I see it’s a phosphorous and has exploded on the far side of the boat but in the water. Still it has arched and showered the deck with white hot globules of chemical.
I don’t wait but fire all five from one launcher in half-second intervals and don’t bother looking back to see…. Instead, I concentrate on getting as deep into the bank of fog as I can, as quickly as I can.
Now it’s time to see what these Ski Doos can really do, for the sky at my six is beginning to lighten.
Ji Su, a team member and the bird pilot; Archie Thurston, NSA; Terrence Walters, DOD; and Constance Nordstrom, CIA, are gathered around Pax, and all are concentrating on the red dot representing Reardon and, hopefully, Sook and the three ladies. The dot is moving at a high rate of speed down the Taedong River and is less than a click from open sea, and five clicks from its scheduled rendezvous with Juliet, AKA Maine Systems Ghost. Four clicks behind, the merged blue and yellow dots representing Jin and Gun are moving — not as quickly as Reardon, but moving.
As they stare at the screen, the hatch flies open, and Pax glances back to see Von Reif, followed by Captain Brinkerhoff, first mate Skogen, and Mike’s old force recon commander, Tomas Scroder.
“Not now,” Pax snaps. “We’re minutes away from picking up the women.”
“I’m calling Juliet off,” Von Reif says and moves to Constance Nordstorm’s computer station. “Move, Connie,” he commands.
“We’re minutes away,” Pax says.
“Tough shit. I’ve got a crew and an expensive vessel at risk, and this is it.” He moves Connie aside and puts his hands on her keyboard.
Pax rises, and, in a swift movement, gathers up Terrence Walters’ laptop and uses it as a sledge, kicking Von Reif aside, still in Constance’s wheeled office chair. He rolls away and slams against the bulkhead. Pax pounds Walters’ laptop into Constance’s, smashing both.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Pax yells at Von Reif, his eyes spitting fire, his tone fearless.
Von Reif rises but does not charge Pax, as Pax seems to expect. Rather, he turns to Captain Brinkerhoff. “Have your security remove him.”
Brinkerhoff shrugs and turns to Scroder. “Who the hell’s in charge here?” he asks.
“Reardon is team leader — ”
“And I’m second,” Pax says emphatically, returns to his laptop, and glances up at the main monitor. “Juliet is well inside NK water. She’ll pick up the women in less than eight minutes.”
“And,” Von Reif is yelling, “if you’ll look at the Korean forces monitor, you’ll see a flight of MIGs leaving Pyongyang Air Base. They are less than fifteen minutes to target.” He turns to Brinkerhoff. “Use your ship’s radio to call Juliet off, Captain.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Pax says. “We’re a little busy.”
As they watch in absolute silence, the icon representing Juliet is moving at more than fifty knots on a course that will converge with the red dot that represents Reardon and, hopefully, the women.
“Goddamn it,” Von Reif shouts, but Pax glances back to see Scroder escorting the other three out. “Your ass is mine!” Von Reif shouts as the others move him along.
Ji Su moves and closes the hatch behind them.
“Sorry about your computers,” Pax says over his shoulder to Constance and Terrence.
“Government property,” Constance says with a laugh. “You’ll probably get a bill.”
They watch as the icon and the red dot merge, and both come to a standstill for less than a minute.
Then, drawing a gasp from all of them, the red dot moves at what must be nearly a hundred clicks per hour back toward the mouth of the river.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Pax mutters.
24
As we approach the unmarked U.S. Naval vessel Juliet, actually the product of Juliet Marine Systems and technically known as a Ghost, I get the feeling we might actually pull this off.
After the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, where some scruffy terrorists in a piece-of-shit boat managed to kill seventeen sailors on a billion-dollar destroyer, an inventor named Gregory Sancoff decided the Navy needed a vessel that could combat such a threat, and Juliet was born. A thirty-eight foot dual-pontoon, supercavitating stealth, radar-avoiding hull is powered by twin gas-turbine engines reaching a published speed of fifty knots…who knows what’s classified. She can carry up to eighteen passengers or a weapons load that rivals an attack helicopter. The version to which I’m delivering the ladies has twin 20mm Gatling guns, Griffin rockets, and Spike fire-and-forget rockets. The Spikes are Israeli fourth-generation, man-portable anti-tank guided missiles and anti-personnel weapons with a tandem-charge HEAT warhead, developed and designed by the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. With this load, she will carry only eight passengers.
But armed as she is, she fears little.
As we disembark the ladies — none too soon, as I believe they would soon die of exposure — my radio vibrates.
“We gotta go,” one of Juliet’s three-man crew yells at me as I fish the radio out of a thigh pocket and hear Jin’s voice.
“We got two patrol boats on our ass and another out front. But you must have done some good work on the big one, as she’s on fire.”
“Gun?” I ask.
“In and out of consciousness. I don’t know…”
“Keep moving. I’m coming back for you.”
“Nothing you can do — ”
“Coming back. You copy?”
“Copy.”
As I know Sook’s weapons have yet to be fired, I change horses and yell at the crew member who’s waving me over the pontoon and into a hatch. But I wave him off and yell, “Get the women to the ship.” I put the throttle to the bottom, and the little Ski Doo damn near jumps out from under me.
The hatch slams behind me, and, from my peripheral vision, I see Juliet throw out a rooster tail from both hulls as she spins, rises out of the water, and is gone.
I turn back into the sun, which is now a fine silver line on the distant horizon.
I’m having to throttle back as I’m still in the sea, not the river, and the undulating rise and fall won’t allow me to full throttle. Then the surface begins to flatten as I enter the wide mouth of the river. In less than five minutes, I can see the flaming seventy-foot patrol boat, now dead in the water. My phosphorous grenades, even though they had not made a direct hit, must have caught the wooden superstructure afire. She’s almost totally engulfed, and crew members are leaping off the stern into the water.
As I swing to pass her on the bow side, I catch a glance of Jin and Gun passing on the stern end, and, rounding the patrol boat, I see two more smaller craft, now backlit by the sun, coming at full speed no more than a quarter-mile behind, throwing whitewater wakes on either side, muzzles of machine guns spitting fire.
I’d like to close and get my aft end their way, the end that bites with both phosphorous and frag grenades, but with two of them firing machine guns, I fear it would be suicide. So I spin and set a course that will bring me alongside Jin and Gun.
As I near, I can see a row of water spouts from machine guns as the pursuing patrol boats zero in on their small craft.
I want to yell at Jin to swerve, but it’s fruitless as the engine noise precludes the sound carrying. But just
as the water spouts swing over their target, Jin swings a hard-starboard turn. But it’s too late, as I see Gun’s side explode and fire shooting from the exhaust of the small craft. Had Jin not turned, the big shell would have gotten both of them. Then I realize their Ski Doo is faltering. Its bow dips, and I realize it’s merely coasting, steaming from the engine compartment, which must have taken a hit.
The bottom falls out of my stomach, and my gut aches. I know myself and silently quell my anger and my ache for revenge.
Roaring up alongside, it’s clear Gun has bought the farm as there’s a gaping, fist-sized hole in the side of his chest, and his head is flopping from side to side. My stomach roils as I realize we’ve lost a man, my jaw clamps so hard I’m afraid I’ll break teeth, and adrenaline floods my backbone. A dangerous proposition as anger causes one to get reckless…and reckless gets one a toe tag.
I reach for Jin but realize he’s belted to Gun. Somehow their battle-rattle belts are attached, so Gun can’t fall off the Ski Doo. Tracers are cutting the air around us, and there’s no time for anything but escape — if there’s time for even that.
I’m expecting a shell the diameter of my thumb to eviscerate me any second.
With Jin on behind me and Gun dangling behind him, flopping like a fish out of water, I hit the throttle, and the game little craft leaps away. And it’s a good thing, as both patrol boats are almost on us. They’re both flanking us, both firing, and, rather than give it full throttle, I cut it, come to a rapid stop, and they shoot by, not a hundred yards between them, with us centered. How they miss us I don’t know, but they do.
And, to my great surprise, one of them explodes. The dumb fucks have shot each other. My first laugh of the day. A sardonic one, but at least a laugh.
In the faint light of morning, I see a side channel, maybe a creek merging with the main channel, and gun the Ski Doo at the opening, only twenty or twenty-five feet wide. I’m hoping against all hope that the channel or creek is not deep enough to accommodate the patrol boat.
When I’m only fifty yards or so into the channel, I figure on firing some grenades. Then I realize that Gun’s body is still trailing and is likely situated over the muzzles of the launcher. Had I fired, we’d surely have been blown all to hell with our own weapons.
We barrel in between five-foot-tall cattails marking the edges, and soon are two hundred yards into the winding creek and out of sight of the patrol boat.
Then I realize there’s a bridge over the little creek, and I ground the Ski Doo in the darkness beneath.
I help Jin free himself from Gun’s body, and we drag it deeper up the slope beneath the bridge, which is only one lane wide. We quickly camouflage him with mud and debris. My stomach is roiling and heat floods my backbone as we put a comrade in hiding. But neither are so bad as my heartsickness.
Both Jin and I still have our M4s slung over our backs with their grenade launchers. As quick as I can move, I go back to the Ski Doo and dig a half-dozen grenades from its saddlebags and a handful of clips for the M4s. Then I free it from the bank, turn it downstream, and gun it into the current back toward the patrol boat. I stuff my extra ammo in my rucksack. Crabbing, I follow Jin as he moves up the slope of the creek bank through the cattails…and realize the bridge is a single railroad crossing.
We reach the track, and I hear the chatter of the twin machine guns on the patrol boat, and, as there’s no lead cutting the air overhead, I smile as I hope they’re making Swiss cheese of the Ski Doo and will spend lots of time looking for the bodies.
I get my third smile of the morning as there’s a train chugging along our way, its headlight still brilliant even in the morning light. It’s an even more brilliant light than the patrol boat’s flood.
“Ever hitch a train?” Jin asks.
25
“I haven’t hitched a train in thirty years, but she’s moving slow. The wrong fucking way — upstream — but slow. I guess they won’t hunt for us going deeper in-country.”
“Train’s not a bad way to see the country,” he says, and I scuttle along behind him through the cattails, staying low so we can’t be seen by the engineer.
We let a half-dozen cars pass, and then we chug alongside and swing up between what appears to be empty coal cars.
Settling down between the cars, I see Jin reach for his GPS and put in a waypoint. He sees I’m curious and offers, “I ain’t leaving Gun’s body there. Sure as this is a shithole of a country, I’m coming back to get him.”
“No man left behind,” I agree, and we lean back to enjoy the ride but fear the gathering light of what appears to be a clear day.
We’ve got to find a place to dismount and hide out.
That may be more easily said than done, as with no lights shinning, we couldn’t see how many houses filled the landscape, but, now, with the sun over the yardarm, it seems there’s a farmhouse every hundred yards.
And plenty of folks moving around, welcoming another joyous day in North Korea.
It’s a good thing that we’re still dressed in KPA, Korean People’s Army, uniforms and that Jin is fluent in the language.
Otherwise, we’d be in a little trouble.
Of course, if we’re caught dressed in KPA uniforms, we’ll be shot as spies. Which is a laugh, as we’d be shot, or worse, nonetheless.
Leaning out after we’ve traveled a half-mile, I see a group of clapboard buildings, one of them a barn large enough to hold a couple of semi-truck-and-trailer rigs. The train is picking up speed, and, if we wait, she’ll be going too fast to risk a jump. I poke Jin. “Time to dismount,” I yell, and he nods.
Jumping, I do a parachute-landing roll and end up on my feet. Then Jin crashes into me, and both of us fly into a field, ending up on our bellies among broad-leafed stalks more than two feet tall…and the odor almost makes me dizzy.
“Horseradish,” Jin says and laughs.
I rise up enough to see farmhands entering the field a couple of hundred yards away; the area around them is devoid of stalks. They’re carrying baskets and, I presume, harvesting the pungent crop, or the adjoining crop, which looks to be onions or garlic.
“Let’s wander down the track like we’re somebody,” I suggest, and both of us rise. After a few strides I come upon a basket that’s been cast aside, its bottom rotted out. I pick it up and carry it along. It likely looks odd with our uniforms, but, then again, what person carrying a basket full of garlic—even though there is none—would be suspected of doing any wrong?
We walk along the tracks until we’re hidden by the barn, and then we dash inside. There are six-foot-by-ten-foot bins full of garlic in various stages of drying, and several of horseradish, lining both walls, with a twelve-foot aisle between.
Covering ourselves in pungent garlic stalks, in the rear of one of the bins, we hide out. Wishing it could have been potatoes, or carrots, or even radishes, as they would assuage our hunger, we bury ourselves. One can consume only damn little garlic and horseradish. Wish we’d found a barn full of fried chicken and French fries.
It’s a good thing we’ve hidden ourselves well, as, at the end of the day, two dozen workers stumble in and empty three wagons full of baskets of harvested stalks and bulbs.
Then they vacate the place.
We decide it’s time to move on, and, after a half hour of silence, we extricate ourselves. I’m pleased to discover a large chicken coop just outside the far end of the barn, and we recover a few eggs. Damn, looking like a couple of egg-sucking skunks, we took our fill…and I have to smile, as even they taste of garlic.
The TOC erupts in a cheer when Juliet arrives back at Black Gold with the ladies aboard. With the exception of Pax, all descend several stories to the ocean-level deck to greet the women, who disembark the twin-hulled boat wrapped in blankets but still shivering.
And all are healthy, if cold.
As soon as they are safely in the wardroom of the drilling ship, sipping tea and warming the women up, Von Reif gets on his SATphone and ca
lls his superiors in Langley. “Mission accomplished. It’s a go for the ambassador.” Then he rings off and turns to the rest of them. “Mission accomplished, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s wrap it up.”
Connie turns and surveys the room. Not seeing Pax Weatherwax among the group, she asks her boss, “We still have people in-country?”
Von Reif shrugs. “Independent contractors. They’re on their own. I told them the op was over.”
Ji Su looks incredulous and snaps at him. “Bullshit! You gave them assurances.”
“You have the Company’s agreement to pay on delivery. That’s all. Those of you who survive have a check coming.” Then he turns back to Connie, his employee. “Break down our equipment, and get ready to load up on the service boat.” He glances at his watch. “She makes a run back in an hour.”
“An hour,” Connie says. “We still have people on or near the Taedong and the Potong.”
Von Reif smiles as tightly as snake-lips and then asks, “What’s this ‘we’? You got a mouse in your pocket? Those are tough guys...they’ll get home. The Company is packing up and going home, and, as far as I can remember, you work for me and the Company.”
Thomas Scroder steps forward. “Mr. Von Reif, the service boat is, as of now, cancelled. The chopper was retained by Houston Offshore, and she’s not going anywhere until our people are back.”
“This is a CIA op — ”
Scroder steps up until he’s only a foot away, face to face with Von Reif. “Sir, the Black Gold is a Houston Offshore ship, and you just said your ‘op’ was over. So unless you want to be confined to your cabin until transportation is available — and it won’t be until Reardon and his group are all accounted for — you’ll stay below in the ward room or in your cabin.”
“The hell I will,” Von Reif snaps, pulls the SATphone off his belt, and starts to poke in a number.
Scroder snatches it out of his hand and slings it, in a high, arching path, overboard. Von Reif’s chin drops to his chest with astonishment; then he recovers and turns to Connie.
