North Korean Blowup

by Chet Cunningham

  “Tanner,” he called. “Shovels?”

  Tanner popped up from the bench along the side. “Oh, yeah, the ones we found back at the mine. Here somewhere.”

  Five minutes later Ho and Tanner were working on the near side of the cut. They dug into the edge of the abrupt drop, sloping it back, shoveling away the dirt and rocks and throwing them into the cut in the road ahead.

  Ten minutes later two more SEALs manned the shovels as Ho supervised. It took another twenty minutes for them to slope back the cut for six feet, making it a gradual two foot decline to the uneven bottom. In the twelve feet span they filled in two holes and leveled off another section, then attacked the far edge of the washout.

  A half hour and three different shovel shifts and they had the far side of the roadway slanted up for six feet. Ho and Tanner looked at it and nodded. Tanner took the wheel, ordered everyone out of the back of the six by, and started the engine. He put it in second gear and edged forward down the slope then gunned the engine as the truck jolted across the uneven bottom. At the far side he paused, then fed more gas to the engine and in low gear jolted up the incline and back on the roadway. The SEALs cheered.

  They all got back in the truck and it rolled forward. Ho still had the wheel. Hunter looked back at the gouge out of the road. “More than one way to skin a cat,” he said.

  Ho looked at Hunter in disbelief. “You skin cat?”

  Hunter and Beth laughed.

  “No not really Ho,” Beth explained. “It’s just a saying. It means more than one way to get hard job done. Like you and the guys did back there.”

  “Good. Ho like cats.”

  They rolled along again as the road climbed into some real mountains.

  “Tall mountains soon,” Ho said.

  “These look big enough to me,” Hunter said. That’s when he realized something. “Hey, we haven’t seen a single car or truck since we left that last town. Does this road really go somewhere?”

  “Go there,” Ho said. “Not much people here.”

  “You can say that again,” Beth said. She looked at Ho. “Another of our sayings. It means I agree with what you said.”

  Ho grinned. “American people talk English funny.”

  They kept driving. By the time Beth figured out that they had come ten kilometers on the odometer, the mountains were rearing up ahead of them in what looked like impossible heights. They still hadn’t met any cars. They went around a small curve and at the side of the road just ahead sat an old weather beaten and paint splotched pickup. It sagged on the left rear flat tire.

  “Go around slow,” Hunter said. He had the MP-5 ready just below the window so no one outside could see it. They big truck crept by the pickup and Hunter saw a man lift up from the front seat where he was either hiding or sleeping. He rubbed his eyes, and waved at them. Then he jumped out of the rig and swung both arms frantically.

  “Stop and back up,” Hunter said. “He might know about the condition of the road ahead. Everyone stay in the truck,” Hunter said to his shoulder mike. The big truck stopped and Hunter stepped out and waved for Ho to come as well. They walked back to the Korean man. He was in his fifties, Hunter figured and had on worn clothes. A frazzled hat covered his head and he had a scraggly beard. Hunter guessed he was no more than five feet four inches tall, and thin as a cornstalk in October.

  He called to Ho, who answered. Ho translated.

  “Says he needs help. Tire flat and he doesn’t have a jack. He has a spare.”

  “Tanner and Jefferson off the truck, now. We have a problem.”

  Ho looked at the flat tire. Beside it lay an inflated tire and wheel.

  “Flat tire,” Hunter told the two SEALs, “and we have no jack. Let’s get some limbs or trees or something to lever that rig up so you guys can change the tire.”

  “Great, but where’s the lug wrench?” Tanner asked.

  Ho asked the old Korean man about a wrench. He bent and tried to twist off the lug nuts with his fingers. The Korean man nodded and said something and reached into the cab and pulled out a four way lug nut wrench.

  “Need some help,” Jefferson said.

  The Korean man stared hard at Jefferson. He frowned and looked at Ho and said something.

  “Hold out hand he touch,” Ho told Jefferson. “Never see black man.”

  Jefferson reached out his hand and the Korean man stepped up and rubbed his black wrist, checked his fingers and grinned. The black didn’t come off. He jabbered something and laughed and looked down at the rest of Jefferson.

  Ho laughed as well. “He asked if you all black?”

  Jefferson grinned and lifted his Korean shirt to show his bare stomach. The Korean man howled with laughter and nodded.

  “Di jobe,” he said. It was Japanese for something like all right.

  The SEALs fanned out along the roadway into the woods looking for study poles they could use to lift the rig.

  “Hell, we can just lift it up and hold it long enough to get the new tire on,” Jefferson said. He worked on the lug nuts. Found them rusted on and he had to stand on the four way wrench to break each one free. When he had them all loosened, he took off all but two.

  “Get over here you sad sack SEALs,” Jefferson bellowed. “We can lift this little critter up and hold it. Six or eight of us and I’ll jerk the wheel off and slap the new one on in about twenty seconds.”

  The SEALs gathered around, found hand holds and waited for Jefferson. He took off the last two lug nuts.

  “Lift,” he bellowed. The SEALs picked up the rear of the little truck easily and Jefferson pulled off the flat tire and rim. Ho had the spare tire positioned to the side and rolled it over where Jefferson matched the lug bolts with the holes in the new wheel and slapped it in place. He spun on two lug nuts, then the others and tightened two of them.

  “Down,” he said and the SEALs let the pickup down on the new rubber. He tightened the last two nuts and then handed the lug wrench to the Korean man.

  The small Korean bowed deeply, chattered something and looked up at Jefferson and grinned. Jefferson held out his hand. The Korean man bowed again, reached out and stroked the bare black arm and laughed.

  “Ask him about the road ahead,” Hunter told Ho.

  They talked a few minutes, then the little man got in his truck, ground the engine over three or four times until it started. He waved and turned around the six by and drove up the road.

  Ho nodded. “Little man say almost no cars on road. Much rain comes soon. Road bad to next town Nangnim. He thank for help. Say wife not believe black man in Korea.”

  “Saddle up,” Hunter said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Mo looked at Hunter. “Show?”

  Beth explained it to him as they crawled into the cab. A minute later Ho ground over the engine. It caught the first time and they continued up the road as it wound up stiffer grades as it came into the foothills just below the tall peaks.

  Hunter looked out the window.

  “The old man said it was going to rain. Clouds have been building over the mountains. Wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t raining up there right now.”

  “Will that affect us down here?”

  “I remember that water runs downhill. We did see that washout we just crossed. We’ll watch it.”

  A mile up the road, through some switchbacks and steep grades, the rain started.

  “Not exactly a summer shower,” Beth said.

  Lighting cracked higher in the mountains and the thunder rolled. The rain hit them hard with large splashing drops, then the wind whipped it into a frenzy and Ho pulled to the side of the road and stopped.

  “No see,” he said.

  “You guys dry back there?” Hunter asked his shoulder mike.

  “Dry is a relative term, you cab people,” Senior Chief Chapman said. “We’re relatively dry, yes, but there are a few leaks. This going to be a long one?”

  “Looks like it. But most thunderstorms move quickly. We�
�ll see about this one. Hey, I’m no weatherman.”

  Ho turned off the engine. “Save gas,” he said.

  Five minutes later the rain let up a little. Ho nodded and turned the key. The engine caught and sputtered and died. The second try the engine roared at full pitch and the rig rolled ahead. They could see the road, but the rain still came down.

  “If there’s a spot you could get off the road, maybe we should park it for a while and wait out the storm,” Hunter said. More lightning peppered the skyline as the thunderstorm took on a deeper growl as it dumped rain on the peaks.

  “Ho watch for spot.”

  A half mile later they found one. The upgrade had leveled off for a few hundred yards and a large gully opened up to the right. There was a turn out there probably made when they constructed the road through here. Ho pulled off the road a dozen feet and slid under a pair of tall pine trees.

  “Let’s hope lighting doesn’t hit one of those pine trees,” Beth said. “I saw it hit a barn in Nebraska one day. We were all huddled in the granary out on the farm watching it rain. The lighting bolt hit the weather vane on the barn and a ball of fire tore down the outside of the barn, jolted through a door and burned a huge hole in a feed bin.

  The smell of sulphur was all over the place. We were lucky the barn didn’t burn down.”

  “Thanks for those reassuring remarks,” Hunter said. Beth punched him in the shoulder.

  They listened to the rain. Hunter frowned.

  “Cap, you hear that,” Tran asked from the back.

  “Just now, something.” Hunter rolled the window down a few inches and listened.

  “It’s up the canyon,” Tran said.

  “Right. I can’t see anything.” Then he could. “Ho, start the engine, get us back on the road away from this gully” Hunter roared. “There’s a wall of water twenty feet high thundering down that canyon out there.”

  Ho turned the key to start the engine. It ground once, twice, caught for a moment, then died.

  “Get us moving, Ho,” Hunter bellowed. “That twenty foot high wall of water with trees, stumps, and branches in it is less than fifty yards away and charging directly at us like an out of control hurricane.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The engine ground over again, caught and the big truck surged forward. Hunter saw the twenty foot high wall of water slamming toward them like a runaway freight train maybe forty feet away. An uprooted tree with a ten foot wide root mass that acted as a sail in the water slashed forward. The water tore out small trees, rolled boulders down the slope and raced toward the highway and the six by.

  The big truck jolted onto the roadway and surged ahead. The first debris in the gushing water hit the road just behind them and water splashed onto the truck as it gunned up the hill and barely out of the wash of the flood. Twenty yards past the gully and away from the danger, Ho stopped the truck and they looked behind.

  The mountain of water gushed across the road and flowed up the roadway and more drained down the road. Most of it cascaded across the narrow highway to the small valley floor and then rushed downhill.

  “What in hell was that?” a voice in Hunter’s ear asked.

  “Must have been a cloudburst high up there in the mountains during that electrical storm we saw,” Hunter said. “Six or seven inches of water can fall in ten minutes and it has no where to go except downstream. We almost took an unauthorized swim.”

  Hunter motioned forward and Ho drove up the roadway.

  “Maybe more?” Ho asked.

  “A good chance for washouts, so let’s take it slow and easy.”

  The rain had stopped and the winds aloft blew away the clouds.

  A mile up the road a small valley opened to the left, and they saw where water had gushed across the road. The width of this side valley had spread out the tremendous quantity of runoff and it had not had the tearing apart effect the narrow gully had produced. Water still flowed over the roadway but it was less than a foot deep and the big truck swam across it with no problem.

  The next few miles produced five more floods, but only one had resulted in any damage to the road. The rush of water had gouged out a foot of the roadway, but the six by worked down into that spot and up the other side with no problem.

  Two hours later, after climbing up one hill after another, they topped the pass and eased down the other side. An hour after that they came into a large valley and they could see smoke and buildings at the far end.

  “That Nangnim,” Ho said.

  Hunter clicked on his population estimation soft ware in his brain computer. “Looks like maybe five thousand. At least it will have a food store. First job, Ho, is to buy out some store of most of their food. You and Tran get everything that we can eat. Hard telling when we’ll find another town.”

  “Not many roads mountains.” Ho said.

  Hunter frowned. “Maybe you should talk to some of the locals and ask them about a route toward the coast.”

  “Ho look for map, ask questions.”

  “First the food and then chow time.” Hunter was surprised when he checked his watch. It was after eighteen hundred.

  For a change they started to see cars and trucks on the road, and houses along the sides of the two lane highway. Then more houses and a store or two. Ho found a food store he liked and drove in and parked. He and Tran went in wearing their North Korean army uniforms. Ho had two hundred dollars worth of won.

  A half hour later the two came out with two helpers and three carts filled with boxes and paper sacks staked with food. They hoisted it all into the back of the truck, gave the boys who helped a tip and then powered down the road and into a field where the men dove into the food.

  Ho did some explaining. “Much Korean food. Kimchi, vegetables lots of red pepper and garlic. Also cooked noodles.” He provided plastic cups and plastic spoons to eat them with.

  “Cooked rice also barbecued beef we call pulgoki. Grilled fish and namochl steamed vegetables. Lots of rice bread, many fruits. Korean food hot and spicy, red peppers, other spices. All eat.”

  The long loaves of rice bread were un-sliced, so they broke off chunks to eat. The barbecued beef was the most popular and it soon vanished. There was plenty of kimchi. Most of the men thought it was too spicy hot for them.

  It was growing dark by the time they had finished eating. There was a lot left for the next day and rice for breakfast. They were only a quarter of a mile away from the town, so Ho walked back in to find out about a good map and some suggestions how to drive from here to the coast.

  Beth sat in the cab and finished her beef. “Now that was good. But the kimchi was hot. Mexican green salsa I can take, but this kimchi was blowtorch.”

  “From what I’ve heard in the news, North Korea is starving,” Hunter said. “This banquet doesn’t look like the folks up here are starving. Some reports put the total at almost two million deaths last year alone.”

  “Big cities are worst,” Beth said. “People out here are mostly farmers. They grow almost everything they need to eat. They dry lots of things for winter. Hey, I came from a farm. I know how much of your food you can grow if you work at it.”

  “Glad they had some for sale,” Hunter said. He looked at his watch. “We better overnight here.” He turned to his shoulder mike.

  “Men, we’ll sack out her for the night. We really don’t know which way to go until Ho gets back. At least you can sleep on a full stomach. Save what we can for breakfast.”

  Hunter left the cab and went to the back of the truck. Inside he found that the body bag they had put Clayton Sanborn in hadn’t changed any. Gases would build up soon unless they could find some dry ice somewhere. He guessed there wouldn’t be any in a town up here of this size. He’d ask Ho when he got back. He left the body bag where it was and went back to the cab.

  They had stopped in a copse of a few pine trees and some brush.

  He opened the truck cab door.

  “Beth, you want to sleep in the cab tonight
? Close the doors and curl up your feet and you can stretch out.”

  She nodded. “I’ll try it. If that doesn’t work, I’ll find a friendly tree.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Good. This is like an extended camping trip without sleeping bags.”

  He closed the door and went to watch for Ho. The big Korean came back with a sack full of just baked sweet rolls and warm bread.

  He passed the sack around after taking two of the rolls to Beth.

  “Find a map?”

  Ho shook his head. “Not big town. Talk man. He said no road go across Korea to coast. Many mountains. Best go down this valley all way to coast.”

  “No cross country roads at all?”

  “He say new road might be done from Changjing-up to Pujon.

  Then easier get coast.”

  “How far to that first town Chang something?”

  “Fifty mile.”

  “This trip to the coast is going to take longer than we expected. I better check in with Quinn on the SATCOM.” He used his shoulder mike. “Walden, power up the SATCOM. Let’s do some talking.”

  They found a spot where Walden could access the satellite with the six inch fold out dish antenna, and Hunter raised Quinn on his first call.

  “Yes, vagabond. How is it going?”

  “Number one target squashed and buried. Been so much fun here I forgot to tell you. We’re on a rough road trying to find the coast. No Interstates here to travel. Beth is holding up beautifully. Got herself in a firefight with some north jokers and did good. Lots of mountains here and damn few roads. Have to move south before we can get across some peaks and then go back north.”

  “Sounds like you’re busy. Need anything we can get to you?”

  “A pair of SH-60’s would be appreciated.”

  “I have to back order on that one. We’ve got assets off the north coast when you’re ready.”

  “Looks like at least two more days, maybe three. Depends on the damn roads.”