The Target

by David Baldacci

  Then they separated. Reel went left and Robie and Sook went right.

  Reel spoke into her headset to Robie. He listened and said, “Affirmative. Three count on second hand sweep at twelve.”

  He pulled two tranquilizer pistols from holsters and aimed each at a different guard. Now that they were inside the camp they didn’t want to make any unnecessary noise. Based on the satellite reports and intelligence on the ground, they both carried two dart guns, for a total of four shots, equaling the number of anticipated guards. Fortunately, that number had not changed.

  On the other side of the hut Reel was doing the same. It was more difficult than it looked, aiming two guns simultaneously at two different targets, but they had no choice. Dropping less than all four guards with the first volley would allow the others to react and shoot back. The entire camp would be alerted.

  They each looked at their watches until the second hand hit twelve. Then they took double aim, counted “three Mississippi” in their heads, and fired both weapons.

  Four men fell.

  Sook rushed forward and into the hut.

  Robie and Reel were right on his six.

  Du-Ho and Eun Sun were not asleep and were dressed in their work clothes. Sook explained to them who their rescuers were and what they were about to do. They asked no questions, but merely nodded and followed them out.

  They were through the hole in the fence and had fled down a path toward the woods when it happened.

  A siren went off.

  As they looked back, lights in the camp blazed on and they heard feet rushing and motors starting.

  Robie pointed up an embankment. “This way. Now.”

  They ran up the embankment. Luckily, Du-Ho and Eun Sun were young and in good shape. They had no difficulty keeping up, also no doubt energized by the realization that if they were caught they would be executed.

  As Robie and Reel rushed along she said, “Do you think we were set up?”

  Sook answered. “I just heard on the walkie-talkie. The guards you shot on the perimeter were found.”

  “Great,” said Robie. “Let’s double-time it.”

  “This way,” said Sook, pointing to his left. “It’s a shortcut to where we left the scooters.”

  The five fled along the dark road. Robie kept a hand on Du-Ho and guided him along using his night optics while Reel did the same with Eun Sun.

  They reached the scooters and Eun Sun climbed on with Reel while Du-Ho boarded Robie’s. They hurtled down a path toward the road. Looking behind her, Reel saw headlights on the road. She spoke into her headset, telling Robie of the bogies coming.

  Robie stopped his scooter and got Du-Ho to climb on with Sook.

  “Good luck,” Reel told him.

  “If I’m not back in two minutes after you reach the RIB, go. Don’t wait for me.”

  They set off and Robie doubled back, carrying a weapon over his shoulder. He knelt down on a knoll overlooking the road, took aim, and fired.

  The RPG round hit the lead truck right in the radiator. It exploded, sending debris hundreds of feet into the air. It also did something else; it effectively blocked the road.

  But the firing of the RPG had revealed his position, and bullets started flying at Robie from the other trucks. He loaded in another rocket, took aim, and fired at the second truck even as a round thudded into his chest and knocked him on his ass.

  The second truck blew up and Robie heard the screams of men who were probably torn apart or burning to death.

  He looked down at his chest where the round had nearly gone through his armored vest. He could feel the bruise on his sternum. It felt like he’d been hit by a car.

  He rose and picked up his rifle.

  There were two more trucks back there, but they couldn’t get through the obstruction formed by the pair of destroyed vehicles. The troops were running past the flames and firing at his position.

  Robie readied his auto rifle, set out the bipod support legs, got in a prone position, exhaled a long breath, nestled his chin against the weapon’s stock, sighted through the night scope, took aim, and fired. And he kept firing. Acquiring a target and pulling the trigger. Acquiring another target and pulling the trigger.

  He could have been on a firing range calmly mowing down paper targets. Except that here men were shooting back at him. Bullets whipped all around him. But he had the high ground and he kept firing. And with each shot a man died.

  As he ran out of ammo the first mortar round exploded barely fifty feet from him, shaking the earth so violently that his rifle fell over and his face was driven into the dirt.

  The next round fired, he knew, would be closer.

  He couldn’t stay here any longer. The only thing he could do in the face of superior fire and manpower was retreat.

  He ran back to his scooter and climbed on.

  With only one person on it the scooter’s speed was much improved.

  He zoomed down the path, then veered left and down the embankment and onto the road. He wound the scooter up to its top speed while shots whizzed past him. He rode for about five minutes, putting as much distance between him and his pursuers as possible.

  He realized he was not yet out of range of the mortar when a round struck ahead of him, lighting the night sky like a million candles. He had to cut the scooter sharply to the right and up an embankment to avoid being hit by debris.

  He flung himself off the scooter as another mortar round hit less than twenty feet from him. The impact again shook the earth, and the concussive force of the explosion sent him tumbling painfully along the rough terrain.

  When he rose, covered in dirt, a pain stabbed through his leg. He felt around his thigh and his hand came away wet and reddened.

  When he hustled back and looked down at the scooter his spirits sank. The front wheel was shattered. He looked up ahead of him. Still miles and miles to go. It would take him forever on foot. The boat would be long gone.

  He looked behind him. They were still coming.

  Well, Robie thought, this is it. But he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  He pulled his pistols from their holsters and made sure they were fully loaded. He started running, but his bad leg made it difficult. Still, everything about his job was difficult, so he forced the pain from his mind and just sucked it up.

  He had covered about two painful miles when he heard it.

  The whump-whump was a familiar sound to him.

  The North Koreans had called in air support.

  Well, that was smart. And also the end of the road for him.

  He looked to the sky and saw the darkened silhouette of the chopper. There were no running lights on the bird and he wondered why. He expected a searchlight to start probing the ground for his location.

  Instead, his earwig crackled.

  “Agent Robie, this is Lieutenant Commander Jordan Nelson of the United States Navy in the chopper. We understand you might need some assistance.”

  “That’s a roger.”

  “We’ve been tracking you via the electronic location signal you’re wearing, but can you give us your precise coordinates, sir?”

  Robie looked at the illuminated device on his wrist and reeled off his exact position to Nelson.

  The chopper immediately circled and then came down closer to the ground in an opening among the trees.

  Nelson’s voice came on the earwig again. “Afraid you’re going to have to make a skid grab, sir. We can’t land properly here.”

  “On my way.”

  Robie hustled across the open ground to where the chopper was hovering about six feet off the dirt.

  Nelson’s voice said warningly, “We’ve got bogies on your six and four at ten meters. We have to go, sir. Right now.”

  The North Koreans had made up a lot of ground. Maybe they had moved the trucks and gotten vehicles through. And now the chopper was acting like a beacon for them. None of it was good.

  Bad wheel and all, Robie ran like he never had be
fore. This was his absolute last chance.

  Three feet from the chopper, with incoming fire slicing through the air, he jumped and his hands smacked against the left skid of the bird. He immediately wrapped his legs around the skid and held on with all his strength.

  “Go! Go!” he screamed into his headset.

  The chopper shot vertically with such speed that Robie’s stomach felt like it had been left back on the ground.

  With rifle rounds still pinging all around them, the chopper cleared the trees, banked hard to the left, shot across the sky, and righted itself, and then the pilot slammed the throttle forward.

  As they raced west across the darkened sky, the chopper’s side door slid open and a helmeted man peered down at him. He shouted, “Would you like to ride in the first-class section, sir?”

  “If you’ve got room,” Robie shouted back. “Coach kind of sucks.”

  The chopper’s winch was deployed and a weighted cable was lowered down to the skid. The pilot cut back on the power so the wind forces on the cable would be reduced.

  Robie grabbed the cable, which had a harness attached, and wrapped it around his middle, cinching the belt tight. He gave the helmeted man a thumbs-up and the chopper reduced speed and hovered in the air.

  Robie let go of the skid and swung out into space. The cable motor was engaged and he slowly rose. When he reached the door, two men there, who were attached to cables so they couldn’t fall to their deaths, maneuvered the winch closer to the chopper and then helped him inside. They took off the harness and the winch was retracted to its original position. The chopper’s door slid shut and Robie managed to grab a seat right before the pilot pushed the bird to full throttle and they raced across the sky.

  “Are you injured, sir?” asked one of the men.

  “Nothing that’ll kill me. But I need you to get a message to Agent Reel. I don’t want her to—”

  “Already done, sir. She was the one who sent for us to assist you. They have reached their RIB and are on their way back out to sea. We’re from the same carrier that will be picking them up in Korea Bay. USS George Washington. We’ll rendezvous there.”

  “Exactly what I wanted to hear,” said a relieved Robie.

  “Oh, and Agent Reel asked me to pass a message along to you.”

  “What’s that?”

  The helmet came off, revealing a sandy-haired young man of about twenty. He was grinning. “To quote, sir, you owe her a kickass dinner and a very expensive bottle of wine.”

  Robie smiled back. “Yes, I do.”

  Chapter

  58

  USS GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS A floating city carrying thousands of personnel, nearly eighty aircraft, and a massive missile payload. Its bridge rose over seventy meters from the surface of the water. It displaced almost a hundred thousand tons and was longer than three football fields. When the chopper’s skids landed on the carrier’s deck, Robie breathed a final sigh of relief. He climbed out of the chopper under his own power but gripping his injured leg. The young airman on the chopper put an arm under his shoulder, supporting him.

  “We’ll get you down to sick bay, sir. They’ll fix you right up.”

  “Can a guy get a cup of coffee on this boat?” asked Robie with a weary smile.

  “Hell, sir, this tin can is nothing but a big coffee pot.”

  The ship’s doctor was nearly done taping up Robie’s wounds when Reel walked in.

  He looked up at her. “So you didn’t think I could get my ass out without help?”

  She perched on the side of the bed and said, “No, I just figured the chopper guys needed some practice in land grabs on North Korean soil, and I know how accommodating you are.”

  The doctor smiled and said, “I’m pretty sure I’m not cleared for this.”

  “Then you better leave,” said Reel. “I need to talk to this guy.”

  The doctor put one last strip of tape over the gauze on Robie’s thigh. “All done. Have your chat.” He walked off.

  Reel held up a thermos she pulled from the pocket of her jumpsuit. “Thought you might need a refill.” She topped off his cup of coffee and then drank directly from the thermos.

  “How are the others?” Robie asked.

  “Sook is fine. A real trouper. Du-Ho and Eun Sun are still a bit shell-shocked, I think. But pretty damn happy not to be where they were.” She looked down at his bandaged leg. “I take it things got hairy back there.”

  “A little. Well, more than a little. The North Koreans regrouped a lot faster than we anticipated. But for the chopper?” He held up his mug of coffee. “Let’s just say this ending was much preferred over what would have been.”

  “It’s good to see you, Robie. It really is.” There was a catch in her voice.

  He sat back against his pillow and studied her. “So Du-Ho and Eun Sun will be relocated and put into what, Witness Protection of some sort?”

  Reel nodded. “That’s the gist of it. I think they’re going to engage Sook to help them with the transition.”

  “Pyongyang will know exactly what happened.”

  “Yes, they will. If we weren’t on the most powerful warship on earth right now, I’d be expecting incoming fire at us.”

  “So we won the tactical battle.”

  “But the strategic one is still out there.”

  “They’re going to retaliate for sure. Pak was bad enough.”

  Reel sipped from her thermos and nodded. “We struck on their home turf. They’ll feel they have to do the same.”

  “But where?”

  “And what? Or who?” added Reel. She gazed off, her features tired, spent.

  He said, “Is the plan still to airlift us to Seoul and a private wing ride home from there?”

  She nodded. “That’s the last I heard.”

  “And then what?”

  She looked at him. “Then we stand down until they call us back up.”

  “Really?”

  “What else?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You thinking of hanging it up?”

  Robie cracked a smile. “I know a certain DCI who would be just thrilled if we did.”

  “Isn’t that reason enough not to retire, then?”

  Robie’s smile faded. “Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t know what I want, Robie. I just know what I’m supposed to want.”

  He lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Well, you might want to take some time to figure out what it is you do want, Jessica. And leave ‘supposed to’ in the trash can. Because neither one of us is getting any younger.”

  “So are you saying fifteen years ago you wouldn’t have needed the chopper ride to get away from the bad guys tonight?”

  “Do you want the truth or what I’m supposed to say?”

  “The fact is, Robie, we are highly trained and can do lots of amazing things, but we’re still only flesh and bone.” She tapped his chest. “And here we’re as vulnerable as anybody else. I certainly found that out, didn’t I?”

  “Part of living. Part of dying.”

  “The good with the bad?” she asked. “It’s hard to imagine we still live in a world where people live in concentration camps. Where they’re treated like animals.”

  “You don’t have to go to North Korea for that, Jessica. Happens all over the world. Some places just aren’t as obvious. Which makes them even worse in my book.”

  “I know.”