North Korean Blowup

by Chet Cunningham

  “Roger that.

  The darkness drifted away in bite sized gulps, and light daggered in from the east. As it grew lighter, the SEALs found a target here and there in the still smoldering tents. One tent remained intact. When Hunter saw it still standing, he fired two twenties into it and set it on fire. Three men dashed out and were cut down by MP-5’s.

  “Anyone see any targets?” Hunter asked.

  “Got to be some alive in there somewhere,” Senior Chief Chapman said.

  “Let’s go find out,” Hunter ordered. “Assault fire, a round every five seconds as we walk up to the camp. Then we hold fire for targets. Go now.”

  They stood, fired, and walked the twenty yards to the edge of the camp. One Korean soldier lifted up from behind some metal kitchen fixture and fired ten rounds from an AK-47 on full auto. Three SEAL rounds cut him down.

  “Let’s clear it,” Hunter said. They walked through the remains of the tents. One soldier stood and tried to run away. He didn’t have a weapon. The sniper rifle round slanted into his back and knocked him down sprawling in the dust..

  Half way through the tents they slowed. Smoke still came from some of the tents, bedding, Hunter figured.

  “Keep going,” Hunter ordered and the line swept through the rest of the rubble and out the far side.

  “Anyone hit?” Hunter asked.

  “Where the hell is Sanborn?” Chang asked. “He was right beside me.” Chang ran back the way he had come.

  “Cap, you better get over here,” Chang said. “About the middle of the tents.”

  “Bancroft, you clear over there?”

  “All clear for now. Might be somebody in the mouth of a tunnel here. We need to clear that first.”

  “Do it.” Hunter ran over where Chang was motioning to him.

  “It’s Sanborn, Cap. He bought one right in the forehead.”

  Hunter knelt beside the dead SEAL and shook his head, blinking back tears. He wiped them away. He picked up Sanborn and carried him out of the ruined camp to the far side and laid him in a grassy spot.

  “We just lost Sanborn,” Hunter said on the radio, a catch in his voice. “He went down hard from that last AK-47 from the damned kitchen.” He waited a minute. “Okay, let’s go through the rubble here again and make damn sure there are no more Koreans playing possum on us.”

  Over by the mine, Bancroft and his men moved up slowly, checking every hiding spot as they went forward. They had eliminated four guards and he wondered if there were more. The fence around the old mine had been blown apart in places. The gate stood open. The four men they had killed had been at a post near the front of the wire. Now the three SEALs surged through the gate and dropped behind cover but took no fire.

  They surged ahead again toward the black hole that had to be a mine tunnel. They were twenty yards from the tunnel when an AK-47 blasted six rounds at them. They missed. Bancroft’s men hit the dirt but the rounds were already past and no more came.

  “Put a twenty into the mine tunnel,” Bancroft said. Lawrence triggered a round into the tunnel as far as he could see inside. After the sound of the blast faded they heard a scream from inside.

  Bancroft waved his two men forward and they ran to the sides of the tunnel and looked in. No rounds greeted them.

  “Two more twenties as far in as you can get them,” Bancroft said. Lawrence fired twice and they waited. There was no reaction.

  “We have to clear it,” Bancroft said. “We surge in fast and glue ourselves against the walls. Then we see what happens. Let’s go, now.”

  They ran inside the tunnel which was ten feet high and more than that wide and hugged the sides. All three stopped and waited. In the dim light they could still see each other. Bancroft waved them forward. They walked into the blackness for twenty feet.

  Mohammad grunted and stopped. He used his pen flashlight and called.

  “LT, we’ve got one dead Korean here. The twenty must have cut him up.”

  They checked the body, then used their flashlights and moved deeper into the cave. It was slanting downhill rather quickly now. After another twenty yards, Bancroft called a halt.

  “Doubt that there’s anyone else in here,” he said. “Let’s go back outside and call Hunter.”

  Outside, Bancroft made the radio call. “Cap, we went inside the tunnel for about thirty yards. Eliminated one Korean but found no more. The tunnel slopes down at a rather sharp angle. We didn’t find any shafts and no equipment.”

  “Roger that, Bancroft. Hold there, we’ll be moving that direction soon. Sanborn caught one in the head. He’s KIA. We’ll bring him with us. Hold there.”

  Hunter worked through the rubble again with his men. They found more bodies but no live soldiers.

  “Tanner, you and Ho check out the vehicles. See if any of them are operational. If so check the best one against what we have. Might be a spot to get some gas for whatever vehicle we use. Tanner, hike back to the six by we left and bring it up here. We could be here for a while. Next we get on the mine. Let’s go over there.”

  On the way, Hunter made another radio call.

  “Rattigan, you can come down now with the commander. We’re almost ready for her.”

  “Copy that, cap. We’re on our way. You said Sanborn bought it?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Damn.”

  At the mine, Hunter looked around. All of the old mining machinery and gear had been removed and the area fenced in securely. A guard shack inside was intact and held two bunks, a small stove and a supply of food.

  Bancroft showed him the tunnel. “Slopes down and was about ready to turn when we came back. No shafts anywhere. How the hell did they get down very deep?”

  “No shafts, no lift mechanism, so they use slanted tunnels. I’ve herd them called hairpin tunnels. They wind back and forth with sharp turns and slanting down all the time. Then mules or oxen drag the ore carts up the slant to the top where the ore is loaded into trucks.”

  Beth came up and looked at the tunnel. She heard part of what Hunter said.

  “No shafts? Just this slanted tunnel. How deep can that go?”

  “We don’t know, but we’ll find out.” They watched as Tanner drove their army six by into the area and stopped.

  Hunter pointed to Jefferson. “Get eight of those three cell flashlights from the drag bags and bring them up here. We’ll set up a recon. Tran, I want you out front in the tunnel but only about twenty yards. Seven of us will follow you. It could be a long hike. Beth, you’ll come as the last one in line. If you hear any shooting, you drop to the ground at once.”

  Beth took a deep breath and nodded.

  Jefferson ran up with his arms loaded with flashlights. Hunter picked his crew. “Alpha Squad, except the Senior Chief. You come too, Tran. Get your lights and let’s see what we can find in this damn tunnel.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The first few yards into the ten by twelve foot tunnel were easy, then the light faded and flashlights came on. Ahead of them by fifteen yards, Tran kept up a running commentary.

  “Yes, the place is clean, no gear strewn about. Looks like Korean housekeeping efficiency. Okay, here we come to the first curve. Not too sharp so the horses can get the wagon around it. Turns back in a hundred and eighty so it’s going back the way it came, only about twenty to thirty feet lower. Yes, we’re still going downhill. My estimate the slant down was about thirty yards long, then we make the one eighty and go down another thirty yards, and make another one eighty, so in reality we’ll be directly underneath the first slant.”

  “What the hell you talking about?” Chang asked.

  “Yeah, I see how it works,” Hunter said. “Almost like a circular driveway in a building, except this is a series of one eighties. Works for me. You to the second bend yet?”

  “Nope, not yet,” Tran said. “We could find some drifts or tunnels off this access. My guess is that they would make exploratory tunnels every so often hunting the black stuff.”
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br />   They kept walking down the slant. Hunter noticed it first. “Getting warmer in here,” he said. “It was cool outside at this altitude, but in here the whole place seems warmer.”

  “Happens in mines. Some of the really deep gold mines out west had to stop work at the lowest levels because near boiling water gushed into the tunnels. They had no way to pump out boiling water, so they had to abandon those veins of gold.”

  “Somebody will figure out how to get that water out and get the gold,” Walden said.

  Five minutes later they heard from Tran again. “Here it is a tunnel bending off to the right. It’s not as big as this one, and there seems to be some tools along the side. We’ll have to check it out. I’ll wait for you here.”

  They arrived at the side drift and Hunter and Lawrence went into it on an exploration. It continued for about twenty yards, and then made a turn to the right and ended after another thirty yards. They found a few old rusty tools and a several pockets of dripping water. Hunter noted that it was warmer here than before.

  “Dry hole,” Hunter said into his radio. “Looked like they found no sign of any coal down this one. Send Tran out on the downward slope again.”

  Back with the main group, Hunter moved them after Tran.

  A half hour later, Beth spoke up. “I’ve been counting the turns we make. So far we’ve rounded ten of those sharp bends. That should mean about three hundred feet underground if Tran’s thirty feet per slope is right.”

  “Not a pound worth of coal yet,” Hunter said. “I wonder how far down they had to go to find it?”

  “My guess is a thousand feet,” Mohammad said. “If it’s that deep that should be enough to smother a moderate sized nuke.”

  “Moderate size,” Beth said. “You’re talking about twenty megaton range?”

  “What we used for our starter bombs,” Mo said.

  They kept walking.

  They found six more drifts, now some on both sides of the tunnel. In one they saw a room carved out of the rock dirt.

  “Looks like a small deposit of coal,” Hunter said. They found chunks of coal along the sides of the drift.

  At twenty turns of the slanted tunnel they took a break.

  “Should be about six hundred feet,” Beth said.

  “Kill the lights until we move,” Hunter said.

  The flashlights snapped off one by one and soon it was so dark they couldn’t believe it.

  “A friend of mine used to say it was as dark as at the bottom of a coal mine at midnight,” Tanner said. “Now I know what he meant.”

  “We’ll take ten here, then move on,” Hunter said. “I trust none of you are claustrophobic. If you were you never would have made it this far.”

  “I’ll feel better when we’re back topside,” Tran said. “But don’t let on. I’ve got myself fooled so far.” Most of them laughed.

  Six levels later Tran gave a call on the radio. “Lieutenant, I think I’ll wait for you here. We have a small problem.”

  When the main party arrived, they shone their lights on a sturdy iron gate that covered the entire width and height of the tunnel.

  “We’re making progress,” Hunter said. “Sanborn, get out your C-five and… Oh, damn. Mo, you have the juice?”

  “Got it, skipper. We use just enough to blow the gate open. Gonna be a blast in this tunnel you won’t forget.”

  “Go. Earplugs everyone if you have them. Take your ear speaker out and plug those ears. Hands over them as well. Gonna sound like a dozen flash bangs when that goes off. Make it in one shot, Mo.”

  “Wilco, Cap.”

  The rest of the team moved up the slope one curve to the last side tunnel and all crowded inside. Then they stood with their backs to the main slant tunnel and covered their ears.

  When the blast came it was a cracking roar that billowed up the tunnel like a cyclone, whipping angry hot air ahead of it. As the echoes of the blast retreated, the SEALs took hands off ears. Only three of them could hear anything. They used hand signals and hiked back down to the gate. Mo was up from his retreat position and checked the latch on the locked iron gate. It fell off in his hand as he pushed the gate open.

  Hunter and Beth were the first ones through. This tunnel did not have a turn. It opened ahead for thirty, then forty yards before they came to a large vault that had been mined out, and then another one. Here every twenty feet another drift had been dug into the side evidently for more coal veins.

  A short distance farther on they saw another gate, like the first one, only this one was open. Beyond that was the end of the tunnel.

  Now they could hear a small engine powering a generator. There was one lone bulb burning fiercely at the side in a mined out vault twenty feet high. On the rough rock floor sat a pallet board, and on it, tied down securely with metal bands, was the nuclear bomb.

  Beth started to go into the side vault, but Hunter held her back.

  “Why the generator? Why the light bulb? There must be more to it. He picked up a fist sized rock and tossed it into the vault. The moment it passed the front of the open space, a crackling jolt of electrical power slashed across the opening. It dimmed the light and the generator powered up faster.

  By that time the rest of the group had crowded in behind them.

  “Sensors,” Chang said. “There have to be sensors on both sides of the open space. We trash the sensors and the electric gate won’t zap anyone.”

  “How?” Walden asked.

  Chang lifted the MP-5 he carried and looked at Hunter.

  “Yes, but cover up the ears,” Hunter said.

  Chang walked up close to the electrified gate and looked at the near side. He nodded, lifted the submachine gun and angled it so the ricochets would slant away from the SEALs.

  He fired a burst of three rounds. The sound was like a dozen sticks of dynamite going off. He lowered his aim and put in three more rounds, then three more lower down.

  Hunter said something, but realized if he couldn’t hear himself, nobody else could. He picked up another rock and tossed it into the vault where the bomb lay. Nothing happened. He walked up and pushed the butt of his MP-5 through the opening. Nothing happened. The electric zapper gate was dead. They all nodded. Beth took a step toward the bomb, but Tran held her back. He grinned at her, then stepped through the opening into the room. A big sigh of relief went through the group. Then Beth moved in and looked over the bomb.

  Slowly their hearing came back. Hunter tried it again.

  “Find the generator and stop it,” he said pointing at the two closest SEALs.

  Beth opened her kit of tools and went to work. She turned to Hunter. “If you let the generator run, maybe we can bring that light bulb over here. Sure help me a lot.”

  “Cancel the death of the generator,” Hunter said to his mike. “See if you can bring that light bulb over where it will help Beth.”

  Walden found the electrical cord behind the generator. It was a three wire twelve gauge line designed for heavier work. He undid the bulb socket from its ceiling hook and pulled the wire as he went over toward Beth. It was plenty long. Beth lifted up and moved him.

  “Hold it right there, that’s perfect.”

  By then she had used the power screwdriver and had a foot square access plate removed. She stared at the guts of the detonator assembly.

  “Nothing like I’ve ever seen before,” Beth said. “We should have Dr. Sung here to show us how he did this. It’s going to take some time.”

  Hunter used his shoulder mike. “Bancroft, can you read me?”

  “Not a chance,” Chang said. “Too much interference between us and him.”

  “You’re right.” He turned to Beth. “Who do you need here to help you?”

  “Two men to take turns holding the light.” She went back to work studying the bomb.

  Hunter was surprised how big it was. Not exactly Fat Boy, one of the first U.S. made nukes, but it must be seven feet long and three feet in diameter. Not a suitcase type nuke. />
  Hunter looked at his men. “Tanner finish checking out those trucks topside. Walden and Chang stay on the light. The rest of you get back on top and see what’s happening. Salvage any weapons and ammo you can from the tents, get the right truck ready to roll. You better set out some security. Maybe one man on the hill that looks down the road in here. Go.”

  Beth kept working. She wiped a bead of perspiration from her forehead and brushed short brown hair out of her eyes.

  “Yes,” Beth said softly. “I’ve got you, you little bastard.”

  “Find the key?” Hunter asked.

  “One of them. I only need three or four more. Take some time.”

  Hunter wandered around the end of the mine. Evidently the vein of coal had run out. What was coal? A mineral he knew that. Then he remembered. It was carbonized vegetable matter. The trees must have grown here eons ago to produce coal. Why was it coal and not petroleum? He no idea.

  When he went back to watch Beth she looked up and grinned. “Damn, I think I’m getting there. Disassemble a minor part or two, and cut about six electrical feed lines, and the fucking thing should be as neutered as a male ballet dancer.”

  “How long?”

  “Fifteen maybe twenty minutes.”

  “No rush, just do it right. We don’t want this whole damn mountain to blast a mile into the sky.”

  “Amen to that brother.” She watched him a moment, then went back to work. The men holding the lights changed places again, and she moved the SEAL a little, then nodded.

  On top of the mountain, Bancroft had the men in a perimeter defense and Harley Jefferson on a lookout spot where he could see down the highway toward the little town. They had claimed fifteen AK-47’s and forty full magazines of the heavy rounds and stashed it all in the new six by truck that Tanner and Ho had decided upon. They transferred the drag bags and all their gear into the new truck, topped off the gas tank by siphoning the other rigs, and had three five gallon cans of gas as reserve. Ho had told them it was about a hundred and seventy five miles across the top of North Korea from that point. And they should have enough fuel to reach their next bomb.

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Bancroft’s ear piece sounded.