Paths of Courage

by Mike Woodhams

  Thirty minutes later the coxswain cut the outboard 200 yards from the shore and silently glided the craft through the waves to the water’s edge. Ryder and the others quickly scrambled out and ran up the narrow shingle beach, reaching the tree-lined top safely as the coxswain turned and headed back out to sea.

  Amongst the dense bush, Ryder checked his GPS, disguised as a wristwatch, confirming they had landed in the correct location. Each of the five-member team carried false identity papers, simple food rations of rice, dried fruit and meats, together with basic personal first-aid kits and lightweight thermal sleeping bags. Each also carried a quart of water in a flexible plastic container, together with a small, fold-up water-gathering plastic bag. Ryder, in addition, carried powerful compact binoculars, a map and compass. None carried communication equipment apart from a small battery-operated ‘homer’ hidden within their clothing to use only on their return to the beach. Each carried a 9mm SIG-Sauer P-226 handgun with silencer, together with extra ammunition concealed in a compartment at the base of the sacks. A KayBar combat knife was strapped to each man’s calf.

  A sense of deep foreboding and isolation swept through Ryder as he looked out towards the darkened land. They had no back-up and no one would be around to help if captured. The risk of failure was extremely high, but this was it – there could be no turning back now. He checked the map; the first leg of the journey would present the most risk as they would be skirting moderately populated areas. He glanced at his watch: 2300 hours local time; they must be well inland before dawn. Signalling to the others, he led the group silently into the darkness heading due west. Operation Blue Suit was now well and truly underway.

  *

  From a hideaway amongst the scrub and rocks, Ryder focused binoculars on the tarsealed highway. He swept them over nearby railway tracks on the plain. He estimated that they would have to cross almost midway between Hongwon, six miles to the south, and Sinpo, nine miles to the north. From the map, Ryder gathered this to be the main eastern coastal highway, running some 600 miles from the border with South Korea, up to the Russian and Chinese borders at the town of Unngi in the north. They had been on the move for more than two hours since leaving the North Korean beach, covering ground fast through bush without encountering a single soul and giving wide berth to what Ryder guessed were isolated farmsteads. He estimated they were now approximately ten klicks inland. They had to be well into the hills prior to daylight before resting. He was grateful the virologist had managed to keep up the steady pace without complaint and he hoped she could maintain it until then.

  The cloud cover had thinned considerably, allowing a pale moon to bathe the landscape. In the short time spent observing the road and tracks, five heavy trucks, together with two locomotives pulling a long line of freight cars, had rumbled past. He worried they would have little cover over the open ground between themselves and the hilly, bush-screened terrain beyond.

  The moon disappeared, throwing the landscape into relative darkness. Minutes passed and soon the road was clear; no lights could be seen either way. Ryder gave the order to move out and all five broke cover and ran in a line towards the road. When they arrived at the tarseal, the sudden growl of a heavy diesel engine was heard on the wind. A truck with no headlights swung around the bluff less than one hundred yards away approaching from the left. With nowhere to hide, Ryder did not hesitate and dashed out over the wide highway followed closely by the others.

  Almost at the other side, Grace, last of the group, suddenly tripped and fell. The truck headlamps flashed on and she was caught fully in the glare. The vehicle screeched to a halt. Two men sprang from the cab and rushed forward.

  Ryder raced to Grace’s aid.

  The two men stopped abruptly on seeing him and the others close behind.

  Then, the roar of an oncoming locomotive, its powerful headlamp cutting the darkness, momentarily diverted attention.

  No time to lose.

  Without hesitating, Ryder and the nearest commando leapt forward, knives in hand, grabbed the startled men and slid blades expertly through the ribs straight into their hearts, killing both instantly.

  The bodies were hurriedly thrown into the back of the truck. Ryder jumped into the cab, slammed the vehicle into gear and drove the vehicle off the road and into the scrub. The others rapidly followed, dragging a shaken Grace, reaching cover just before the smoke-belching engine thundered past.

  Grace looked startled and pale.

  “You okay, Dr Seymour?” Ryder asked.

  “Please, please, call me Grace,” she stuttered. “I’ll be okay; just a little shaken.”

  He guessed she was putting on a brave face; perhaps seeing death close-up and personal for the first time. “It’ll get easier,” he said gently, yearning for a cigarette.

  She nodded, head held in hand. He wanted to tell her most sane people reacted like that the first time; he wanted to tell her he found it unpleasant to kill another human being – it was always ugly and mostly messy. Over time he’d insulated himself against empathy and sympathy towards the victims and their circumstances. The price paid: a hardening of the heart and at times a sense of remoteness from reality.

  The two bodies were quickly buried and the truck dumped in a depression away from the scene. Ryder gave the order to move out, glancing at Grace. Seeing that she was still shaken, he felt fleetingly sorry for her and hoped like hell this incident was not an omen for the future.

  *

  Light rain fell as the group of five trudged relentlessly with sacks slung over their backs through the lower foothills that led away from the coastline and up towards the highlands of central North Korea. Since the episode at the railway line, they had travelled almost non-stop through the night and for most of the next day, carefully skirting small villages and keeping to the wooded terrain. They negotiated narrow ridges and sparsely populated valleys, avoiding where possible dirt roads and tracks traversing the landscape. Most of all they kept well away from the townships, even though it meant diverting from the northwesterly direction they were obliged to follow. They were now exhausted and desperately in need of a rest. As twilight fell, the group made camp in a small, deserted hut that was cut into a wooded hillside. The hut was old and had not been used for some time, but at least it was dry. Ryder decided it was safe enough to stop in. With no windows and a small hearth in one corner it was ideal to get out of the drizzle, light a fire and rest up until morning.

  Rations were unpacked and all began to eat in silence, each with their own thoughts. Ryder checked their position and ascertained that they had covered over twenty-five klicks since leaving the beach; at this rate they would be in the search area within the next four to five days.

  He looked across at Grace; she appeared exhausted, huddled in front of the fire. Except for the road incident she had done well and he was surprisingly impressed by her stamina and determination. She did not complain at the pace they made, which he hoped she would be able to maintain.

  “Four to five days, Captain Seymour, and we’ll be in the search zone,” he offered, to help ease her discomfort.

  “Please, call me Grace,” she replied softly. “I’ll keep up,” she added, as if reading his thoughts.

  Crammed closely together as they were, he wondered for the first time how they would manage to give her the space and privacy she needed to carry out her bodily functions and to maintain some form of modesty without causing problems amongst the rest of the group. She was, after all, an attractive woman, even under those baggy peasant garments. This issue would have to be addressed.

  “Captain… Sorry, Grace…” he said hesitantly, looking sheepishly at her and the others. “We’ll bunk down outside to give you some privacy.”

  Her head shot up and she snapped, “You will not! I don’t want any favours because I’m a woman. We’re all in this together. When it’s over I will stink just like you; no change of clothing, no taking them off and no washing until we’re out of here. Let’s get this strai
ght: I’m not trained like you to extreme hardship and deprivation, I admit. But I’ll manage. I’m here to do a specific job and, with your help, I hope to succeed. Is that understood?” She looked intently at each man. “As far as bodily functions go, I promise I won’t look if you don’t. Any questions?”

  The men looked at Ryder in surprise for a response.

  “Well… Uh… No,” he said, a little shocked by the outburst. “If that’s how you want it, that’s fine with me.” Relieved that this issue was out of the way, Ryder eyed the diminutive, dark-haired doctor and her innocent good looks and wondered how the hell she would manage the gruelling operation that lay before them.

  “Okay with you guys?” Ryder looked at the three London- born Korean SAS operatives.

  “No problem,” said Daniel Song, his stocky frame hunched on a log, staring intently at Grace.

  Greg Bom nodded in agreement, then asked, “These ‘hot zones’, are they as deadly as they tell us?” His pock-marked features give him a distinctly menacing appearance, enhanced by close-cropped hair over strong angular features.

  “Very!” warned Grace. “Believe me, a hot zone, or Level 4, is where the lethal viruses are kept. To enter this area without a pressure suit is to invite certain death.”

  “How certain can we be that we’ll find protection if this lethal virus exists?”

  “If a hot zone exists, they will have protection suits available for sure.”

  “I wasn’t clear from the briefings if a respirator could replace the suit in an emergency,” said Campbell Chol, a young operative, who sported soft, round features with close-cropped hair atop a sinewy well-toned muscular body.

  “Definitely not. It may stop you breathing in the viruses, but it will not stop them from entering the body through clothing into other orifices.”

  Silence filled the hut. Grace stared at Ryder. “Those eyes; they look so Korean. Who did it?”

  “Not me,” Ryder replied, hoping the natives would be equally fooled before this op was over. The soft plastic appendages were not uncomfortable and far less intrusive than he’d first imagined. “London specialist.” The attractive female make-up artist he’d spent hours with came to mind.

  He moved on. “Currently, we’re in the southeastern foothills of the Hamgyongs. According to my reckoning, we’re ninety to a hundred klicks away from Pyorha-ri. The range runs roughly east-west parallel with the Chinese border. The town is on the northwestern side, isolated in the foothills about thirty klicks from the border.” Ryder paused to take a sip of water. “We’ll search the area east of Pyorha-ri first, due to its remoteness. If a subterranean base exists, more likely it’ll be there. South of the town the area is more populated; north and west is too close to the Chinese border. If no luck east, we search south.”

  “And if we find one?” Song asked. His open features under his dark, bushy hair gave him a boyish look.

  “Any complex we find is going to be heavily guarded. To get in undetected would be a feat in itself before even reaching the hot zone; let alone with an inexperienced operative.” Frank immediately bit his tongue.

  Grace gave him a faint smile in response. “I did not ask to do this. Whatever happens I will do my best.”

  Ryder nodded. The others glanced at him disapprovingly. He regretted what he had said; she did not deserve that.

  “What happens if we find bugs and can’t do a burn-off? How will we destroy?” Song asked, letting Ryder off the hook.

  The four turned to Grace.

  “Not with explosives; that was made clear at the briefings,” she replied with renewed confidence. “Destroying depends on what we find in the way of containment levels and the amount of stocks held. If only a small amount of virus exists, it will be relatively easy to burn off. But large amounts will present a major problem if we have little time, which is more than likely given the circumstances. The risk of discovery would be too great.

  “All bio-labs have furnaces capable of producing the kind of temperatures to destroy the virus totally, which is around 500 degrees centigrade. Some have larger furnaces than others; the bigger the furnace, obviously the more you can destroy quickly.”

  “Are the furnaces continuously fired up?” Ryder asked.

  “Should be in case of an emergency. They are around the clock at Porton.”

  “And if not?” he pressed.

  “I find that inconceivable. But if not, deep burial in concrete is the only alternative. If a lethal super virus escaped…” She paused, glancing at each of the four men. “Once the genie is out of the bottle, it will be very, very difficult to put it back in without a great loss of life. Most lethal viruses can survive up to twenty-four hours outside a host in temperate climates, but once inside, it will most certainly be passed onto others without degrading. With such a short incubation period – roughly a few hours – these viruses kill rapidly. If we find a lab harbouring super viruses, the prime objective is not to destroy them, but to get out with a vaccine,” Grace finished authoritatively.

  “Right; let’s focus on the route and search area,” Ryder said, changing the subject. He looked at the map and said, “As the crow flies, Pyorha-ri is about ninety klicks northwest of here. In real terms, ninety represents a march of some hundred odd, depending on the terrain. It’ll be rough and craggy, so we’ll keep to the valleys. We should be able to cover sixteen to twenty a day if we tab, putting us in the search area after about four to five days.” In the British army ‘tab’ is slang for ‘force march’ and ‘klick’ for kilometre. He glanced at his notes. “The search area is a sixteen-by-sixteen box, about eight klicks east of Pyorha-ri.”

  Ryder prodded the fire and put on more wood. Although the surroundings were not that dissimilar to what he had experienced elsewhere in the world, he could not shake the strangeness he felt – something about the land seemed so foreign.

  “Sinhung is a large town, approximately twenty-five klicks to the northwest,” he continued. “It sits at the entrance to a long series of valleys heading the way we need to go, terminating at Changjin – another town situated at the south end of a lake of the same name. The lake is a regular klick wide and some ten long, curving towards the northwest where it splits. The top end is only twenty-five or so from the southeastern corner of the search area. If we can use the lake to our advantage we will; otherwise just keep heading northwest overland. If we find nothing in the box, then we work progressively north, south and west of Pyorha-ri until we find what we are looking for. If nothing found, we return to the beach the way we came.”

  “The briefings didn’t say anything about this bloody rain; it’s hardly stopped since we arrived,” said Chol quietly, sitting by the entrance, keeping an eye on the surrounding woods, his strong London accent out of place with his features. “Supposed to be moderate, my arse. Let’s hope they got the temperatures right and we don’t freeze our balls off tonight. Oops. Sorry, Doc.”

  Grace didn’t take offence. “What about the fauna? Do we need to worry?”

  “You mean dangerous animals, apart from man,” joked Ryder, attempting to lighten things.

  “Yes, apart from man,” she shot back with a forced grin.

  “Bear, wolf, wild boar and occasionally tiger roam the mountains,” he replied, stifling a smile.

  “Tigers!”

  “Yes, Siberian – but don’t worry, they’re all but extinct in this part of the world.”

  “Tigers will be the least of our worries,” offered Bom, his London accent only slightly discernible. Frank agreed. He knew that if they found a lab, they would need a whole lot of luck to enter and get out alive.

  Silence descended, then one-by-one, the group began to put away rations in preparation for an early start, come dawn. Selecting an area to bed down next to the entrance, Ryder studied the map, covering the ground they would travel the next day. To the northwest lay Sinhung and the Songchon River, which they would have to cross. Once over they would enter the desolate lower reaches of the southe
rn Hamgyong Mountains. As for the terrain, they faced a myriad of narrow valleys, steep slopes and jagged crests, varying from 2,000 to 5,000 feet, covered mainly in broadleaf and conifer – very dense in places. That was good from the point of view of remaining undiscovered, but not from the arduous challenge it presented.

  Ryder put the map away. “Okay, time to turn in.” He glanced at Song. “Dan, take first watch. I’ll take second. Greg and Cam, take the last.”

  Grace turned sharply to Ryder. “What about me? I’ll take my watch.”

  “Look, Doc,” he replied, irritably. “With respect, you got a big job ahead and it’s our job to get you there to do it in a fit state; you’ll need all the bloody rest you can get. As leader of this team I’m ordering you to stand down from watch duty until further notice. Is that clear?”

  Reluctantly Grace acquiesced. What he said was true. At least he had bothered to explain.

  With that, Song went outside and took up position close by in the bush where he would stay for the next two hours. The others made themselves as comfortable as they could in the confines of the hut.

  The night passed without incident until dawn when Chol urgently entered the hut and shook Ryder awake, telling him a goat herder was approaching.

  Ryder rushed outside followed by the rest. In the half-light the little goat herder had definitely seen them, but kept on coming. When he got closer, the man seemed pleased and waved; his kindly features creased in a toothless grin.

  Ryder hesitated; the man was old and frail. Should he kill him? Would he tell someone? He knew he really had no choice. “We can’t risk anyone knowing we’re here. He has to be taken out.”

  “Why?” shot Grace. “He’s harmless – a goat herder for God’s sake!”

  He didn’t need this shit. “Look, Captain, he’s bloody well seen us, that’s why, and you’ve just shot off in English.”