by Ward Larsen
A pause. “I am.”
“Kids?”
“Two daughters,” Rhea said.
Slaton explained the true reason behind what he was asking—that his wife and son were being held in a compound at the given coordinates.
Gonno went silent for a very long time.
Slaton said, “If you want, I can shoot up your cockpit some more. Make it really convincing.”
More silence. Then, “How old is your boy?”
“Two and a half,” Slaton said. “He never lets you forget the half.”
He knew he’d made his case when the navigation course line suddenly shifted northward. TRGT1, which had been offset to the right, was now directly in front of them. Its color changed from green to blue.
No longer a reference fix—it was now their destination.
“Thanks,” Slaton said.
“You will owe me a beer for this.”
“Maybe two.”
EIGHTY-ONE
The last refueling went smoothly, and on Slaton’s request there was no banter between Rhea and the tanker crew. He didn’t want to broadcast his intentions to anyone—it would all become clear soon enough.
They flew high and fast for another thirty minutes. As they did, Fast Eagle 2 strayed farther and farther off their original course, north toward enemy lines. Slaton was sure that Sorensen, Coltrane, and the rest had by now realized something was going very wrong. To compound their worry, he’d directed Rhea to ignore all inbound communications. There had already been a half-dozen attempts to reach them, each more frantic than the last. Right now, Slaton guessed, there were some deeply furrowed brows in command centers all across D.C.
“Our best chance is to go in low and fast,” Rhea said. “Coming in over water there’s nowhere to hide. But since we’re fast and alone, we might take them by surprise. Once we’re in the hills, masking behind terrain is our best defense against missiles.”
“Okay. How long until we reach our target?”
“After feet dry, it’s about a forty-mile run. At the speed we’ll be holding, maybe five minutes.”
The term “feet dry,” Slaton knew, meant crossing the beach.
Rhea added, “I’m seeing some radar activity, but no targeting yet.”
“Keep flying, Commander. You’re doing great.”
“The coastline is painting now.”
Slaton looked at the display and saw a ragged perpendicular radar return in front of them.
“Here goes,” Rhea said.
They’d already begun a gentle descent, and from twenty thousand feet Rhea nosed over further. Slaton watched the airspeed build. The sun had set again when they’d slowed for their final refueling, and now blackness had taken hold. They were heading for the deck twenty miles from the coast, clean and fast at seven hundred knots. Slaton discerned a few lights along the coastline, which made it that much more real. That much more extreme. They were about to penetrate the border of the most repressive, unpredictable nation on earth.
He watched the radar altimeter as they got lower. Rhea leveled out thirty feet above the sea—almost low enough, he imagined, to leave a rooster tail. The airspeed was bleeding down now, high subsonic—Rhea had explained that avoiding sonic booms would be for the best.
“Seven minutes to target,” he said, “feet dry in two.”
Slaton closed his eyes. Running just below the speed of sound, skimming above the water, he induced his body to relax. It was an exercise he’d performed many times as a shooter. Tune out the chaos to place his body in a more restive state. Easier said than done—but it was possible. A shooter’s trance.
He let himself think about Davy. The holidays they’d shared only weeks earlier on Sirius. Baking sweet bread, stringing lights on the mast. He and Christine hovering over Davy’s bed, watching him sleep with that peaceful innocence reserved for children.
For Slaton, this moment seemed a summation of his life. It all came down to the next hour. He would find them. Get them safe.
Nothing else mattered.
Nothing.
* * *
The variance in Fast Eagle 2’s flight track had been noted immediately in halls across D.C. Concern grew markedly when all attempts to contact the Hornet were met with silence. With the jet on the verge of violating North Korean airspace, a conference call was set up that included CIA Director Coltrane, Anna Sorensen of the Special Activities Division, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the president of the United States.
“Do we have any idea what the hell they’re doing?” the president demanded, a staunch Christian who was not prone to strong language. “Is our jet launching some kind of attack?”
“This … Hornet is unarmed,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, having to check the f-bomb from his own response—he was, after all, a career Marine. “It’s carrying no weapons that could be used in an attack.”
Anna Sorensen, linked in from the comm room of the carrier Stennis half a world away, felt compelled to speak up. “Actually,” she said, “I’m not so sure about that…”
She explained her suspicions, and after a brief silence, the president said, “I don’t see how that could work … but all the same, is the precaution we discussed relating to the Black Hawk mission available?”
It had come up in the planning stages, a back-pocket insurance policy managed by the NSA. The director of national intelligence said, “I’m told it’s ready … all we need is your go-ahead, sir.”
“Then do it,” the president said.
* * *
Had Corporal Hwan Yoo not been nearing the end of his sixteen-hour shift, things might have turned out differently. The unpopular schedule was an initiative brought by their new commander: raising the number of staff required to be on duty with no attendant increase in manpower. Everyone knew new commanders had to do something to make their mark, yet on that evening the practical result was that after staring at a radar screen for fifteen and a half hours, Corporal Hwan’s eyes were glazing over.
He was seated in the air defense complex at North Korea’s Wonsan Air Base, a knot of six cold and clammy bunkers on the southeast corner of the airfield. If Hwan’s attention was waning, it was not for lack of activity. Contrary to the intent of the commander’s new model, he was at that moment monitoring Sector Four, which covered a large swath of the Sea of Japan, all by himself. The two other technicians assigned to his sector, both senior to him, had taken leave to the adjoining room. Twenty minutes ago, rumors began circulating that there was some kind of crisis in Pyongyang. All leave had been cancelled, and Wonsan was on lockdown. It was probably just another exercise, he thought, but his compatriots in the bunker were feverishly exchanging theories.
Hwan had a more pressing concern.
He’d been watching a target for the last ten minutes, coming in fast from open water. In truth, approaching so fast he thought it might be a technical glitch—their old Russian equipment was notoriously unreliable. Yet the blip kept coming. Hwan was on the verge of calling his supervisor back from the break room when his mistrust of the equipment was confirmed. His screen flickered once, then went completely blank. The lights in the bunker extinguished, and the emergency backups came on—or at least the ones that worked.
Hwan heard commotion from the break room, and his sergeant popped his head in the doorway. “Another power outage,” he said.
Duh, Hwan thought, as he said, “Yes, Sergeant.”
“Has there been any activity?”
Hwan paused wearily. If he said yes, the dodgy contact would have to be reported via landline to Command Central—assuming that phone still worked. Hwan would then face a mountain of paperwork, another hour at least before he could return to the barracks. Anyway, he decided, as fast as the target had been moving—it had to be an anomaly.
“No, Sergeant,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Nothing at all.”
EIGHTY-TWO
By the light of the half-moon, Slaton saw hills rushing past on either side.
The infrared view out front dominated one of his displays, the oncoming forest converted to shades of light and dark. He kept checking the time-to-target clock in one corner.
“Ninety seconds,” Rhea said, confirming what Slaton saw. “We’re gonna pop-up now, slow to the speed we briefed.”
“Do what you have to, Commander.”
“Double-check that lever.”
Slaton looked down. “NORM position confirmed.”
“Okay.” A pause. “Thirty seconds.”
Slaton was pressed into his seat as the G-forces increased. The ground seemed to fall away. On the screen a distant man-made structure stood out, all hard angles and heat clear against the cool forested hillside—three miles on the range scale.
Three miles, he thought. So close.
“Last chance to change your mind,” Rhea said.
Slaton didn’t reply. His focus was elsewhere. On the map display. On the clock. Going over how he would handle the parachute. How he would find his way to the residence. Striving for any advantage in a situation drowning in obstacles.
Rhea whispered something from the front.
“What?” Slaton asked.
“Nothing. Ten seconds. Remember the position—spine straight, look forward.”
“Got it.”
“And by the way … best of luck, Killer.”
“Thanks. And thanks for getting me this far.”
Slaton reached down, gripped the yellow handle between his thighs.
“Two … one … go!”
* * *
To eject from a fighter jet is an act of controlled desperation. A last-ditch roll of the dice when the only alternative is death. Yet in spite of its desperate nature and apparent chaos, ejection actually relies on engineering of the highest order.
The entire process is governed by an electronic timer, an unseen internal clock which allots milliseconds to various components in a graduated sequence. It begins sedately as the occupant’s harness and leg restraints retract, locking limbs into place—necessary to prevent flailing injuries during high-speed ejections. An emergency beacon is activated next along with an oxygen supply, and airspeed-sensing pitot tubes deploy on the seat’s frame. Only then does the real journey begin. The hundred-pound aircraft canopy is blown clear by an explosive charge. Fractions of a second later, gas pressure catapults the seat upward on a telescoping rail. Only at that point, once clear of the cockpit, do squibs fire the seat’s rocket motor.
After a programmed delay to clear the aircraft, the emphatically unaerodynamic seat-pilot package is stabilized, and then separated from one another, using a combination of a drogue and standard parachute. The end result, assuming all goes well, is an aviator hanging from a parachute, and beneath him a survival kit attached by a lanyard. The seat, having done its duty, falls spent to the earth.
David Slaton never knew any of that. He only knew that if he pulled the yellow handle, his family had a chance. So there was never any hesitation. Already sitting ramrod straight, just as he’d been told, he held his breath as he pulled the handle.
It all happened in a blur. Sensory overload like nothing he’d ever experienced. The seat seemed to seize him. Explosions above and below. What felt like being shot vertically out of a cannon. A two-hundred-mile-an-hour wind striking him in the face. There was an impression of weightlessness and tumbling, no sense of up or down. Darkness all around.
Then, oddly … peace.
The next sensation was one of pain. And reassuringly familiar.
His parachute opened, the harness digging hard into his legs and chest. That physical discomfort put him back on familiar ground. Slaton looked up, and in the dim light he saw a full canopy. Looking forward, he found the horizon. All good. He’d gotten a full chute, and was right where he wanted to be. On enemy ground, with a loose idea of where to go.
He scanned all around, and over his right shoulder he saw a cluster of lights. They were grouped on the side of a hill, perhaps three hundred yards distant. It had to be the place. Rhea had told Slaton he’d be bailing out at roughly three thousand feet—that gave little time to maneuver. He looked down. The first thing he saw was his survival kit hanging by a cord. The ground was barely visible in the darkness, a handful of muted shadows. Picking out a favorable landing zone was hopeless. He was headed for the trees, and very soon.
His parachute was a basic canopy, nothing designed to be flown or steered. All the same, he reached up for the risers—a round chute gave almost no forward motion, but in the best case one could rotate and face into the wind. Right before punching out, he’d checked the GPS-computed wind display on the navigation panel—at last look, ten knots from the east. He combined that now with the orientation of the moon and a particularly bright planet—the kind of celestial reference whose military value far predated Super Hornets. He decided a ninety-degree twist to his left might help.
Slaton pulled down on that riser. He’d not yet completed the move when he crashed into the treetops.
* * *
The ejection from Fast Eagle Two took but seconds to register in the White House Situation Room. They were already monitoring the jet’s every move, and one of the consequences of any ejection—unless disabled during preflight for missions into combat zones—is the activation of an emergency locator transmitter. The JCS chairman rushed to a phone to inquire about the situation. His call lasted two minutes, and by the look of surprise on his face there was more to come.
The president asked, “Well? Has our jet been shot down?”
“Not exactly,” the four-star hedged. “The Navy just got a radio call from the pilot, Commander Rhea. There was some difficulty in understanding him due to the wind noise, but apparently Slaton has bailed out of the back seat leaving Rhea in the Hornet. The commander is flying back to the border as we speak, although at an unusually low speed since he no longer has a canopy on his airplane. Barring any engagement by SAMs or triple-A, he should cross the DMZ any minute.”
There was an interlude of silence, before someone asked, “Did we take down North Korean air defenses in that sector as well?”
“We did,” the DNI replied.
The president spoke again, his eyes on CIA director Coltrane. “So just to be clear—this jet just deposited your Israeli friend on top of Park’s compound. Which we estimate will become a hornet’s nest of activity in…”
An army colonel filled in the blank. “The inbound convoy of North Korean regulars should arrive in thirty-four minutes.”
* * *
As tree landings went, it could have been worse. Slaton kept his legs together and used his arms to protect the vital arteries around his neck. This was the primary risk of landing in trees—lacerations from sharp branches. The second most common setback was getting suspended by your harness fifty feet in the air. Here Slaton caught a break, although he didn’t know it right away.
He pinballed down through countless limbs until his parachute finally caught on something. At that point things stabilized, and Slaton opened his eyes knowing he was hanging in midair. When he looked down, he was relieved to see the ground little more than ten feet below.
He performed a quick self-assessment, and everything seemed to work. Having survived the most violent part of the ordeal—at least to this point—it was time to get moving. He reckoned that somewhere in his survival vest there was a line he could attach to the risers and use to lower himself from the snagged harness. Not knowing where it was, or having the time to find out, he cleared the shadowed area below, assumed a safe posture, and pulled both harness releases.
Slaton dropped like a stone. He rolled on impact and ended up lying on his side in thick underbrush. He removed his helmet and went to the next critical step, already practiced during his time in the Hornet—he knew exactly where the flashlight on his vest was located. With the light in hand, he quickly located the seat-mounted survival kit that had been attached to his harness by a lanyard. He opened it and made a quick series of decisions. He discarded s
ea dye markers, a life raft, food rations, and bandages. Into his pockets went an IR strobe light, flares, survival knife, and compass. The flashlight and gun were a given.
He then took in hand his most important asset: a survival radio. With the aid of the flashlight, Slaton found the power switch. As soon as he turned it on he heard a high-pitched warble from the speaker. He changed settings until the emergency signal was silenced. He checked the selected emergency frequency and poised his thumb over the transmit button. Then he hesitated. The radio was tuned to 243.0 MHz, the UHF emergency frequency. But who would be more likely to hear him—North Koreans or a U.S. military outpost? That question was answered as he stood pondering it.
“Fast Eagle Two Bravo, do you copy?” came a male voice over the speaker.
Slaton saw a pair of earbuds and quickly plugged them in—he didn’t know exactly how close to the compound he’d ended up.
“Two Bravo backseater is here,” he said in a hushed voice.
A pause.
“Two Bravo, this is Anna.”
Slaton felt a lift. The voice hadn’t changed, still male. It was obviously not Sorensen. But the meaning was clear—whoever he was talking to was legit.
“Anna” kept talking. “Two Bravo, be advised this channel is not secure. Are you harmed?”
“I’m good.”
“Are you mobile?”
“Affirmative. I could use a vector if you have my present position.”
Five seconds, then, “Your objective is southwest, one point five nautical.”
“Any change in the situation there?”
“Not yet. But we expect big changes in twenty-six mikes.”
“Okay, I’m outbound.”
“Suggest you power down for comm-sec. Check back at intervals.”
Slaton turned off the radio. He checked his compass once, then set off through the darkness on a trot.
