Now that you’ve read that, burn this book, because I may never admit it again.
But Mr. Murphy long ago proved that even if you lock all the doors, he’ll slip through the window. One of the groups assigned to get aboard on the starboard side had trouble getting the ladder to hook on to the railing so they could climb up. It wasn’t much trouble—it just took them four or five tries, while the others were able to hook up in one or two. Not a big deal—except it gave Mr. Murphy a chance to tickle the ship’s first mate’s tobacco habit. The mate came out on deck and whether he heard the clank of a grappling hook nearby or just looked over the side to see if it was safe to pee, we’ll never know. One of the SEALs below saw him look over the side, almost directly overhead. The Russian stood there stunned for only a moment, but it was long enough for the SEAL to cure the man’s curiosity with a few rounds from his MP5N. A friend who’d been coming out to join him for a smoke saw him fall. He threw himself back inside and slammed home the lock on the door, then alerted the ship as the SEALs began their attack.
Knowing the locations of the men on deck made the shooters’ job easier than it might have been, and within three minutes the two platoons of SEALs had successfully eliminated opposition on deck, killing all of the watch hands. That left the people inside the ship. And that’s where things started to get interesting.
Generals often complain about how hard it is to fight in an urban environment—close quarters and all that. Imagine that same fight in a ship. Instead of roads, you have corridors and ladders. And it’s at night. The ship is rolling ten degrees every few seconds, and stinks of fish that died twenty-five years before.
Not that the SEALs were complaining. Or even cursing. They were too busy working.
A trio of SEALs pushing up the starboard side of the superstructure came under fire, barely managing to duck fire from the bridge as the Russians began to rally. Meanwhile, another team approached from the other side. As the point man reached the railing at the deck outside the wheel house, a Russian emerged from the top of the superstructure and began firing down at him. The SEAL threw himself against the bulkhead only a few feet away from the bridge. He couldn’t have been ten feet from the man who was firing at his companions on the other side. But he might as well have been ten miles away—the guy on the top of the ship had him pinned and unable to move.
Here’s another difference between SEALs now and SEALs back in the day—the new guys have much better air support.
Doc, Sean, Shotgun, and Mongoose had been observing the situation as they descended. Mongoose was closest to the bridge, and began tugging on his guidelines to speed his descent even before Doc tasked him with the job of helping the SEAL. Knowing Mongoose, his preference would undoubtedly have been to land directly on the SOB, but the antenna mast made that impossible. And not even Mongoose is crazy enough to try shooting his machine gun during a descent.22 Instead, he took one of the flash-bang grenades he’d prepared, slipped off the tape with his thumb, then tossed it down. He claims he got a bull’s-eye; whether that’s true or not, the grenade’s strum and thrum was more than enough to give the Russian an immediate dry-cleaning emergency. The SEAL saw the flash, realized what must be happening, and jumped out of cover, taking down the man who had been firing at the team on the starboard side of the ship.
Mongoose, meanwhile, dipped his parachute’s left “wing,” trying to turn back quickly enough to land on the main deck near the bow. The sharp maneuver caused him to stall so close to the water that there was no space or time to recover. He plopped unceremoniously into the sea, lucky that he hadn’t slammed face-first into the side of the ship a few meters away. He cursed, shed his chute, then swam over to one of the SEALs’ inflatable boats.
Shotgun had been tasked to take the high ground at the stern of the ship, and was aiming to land on the catwalk of the rear crossbar. But the catwalk was narrow; Shotgun is not. Even though he slowed the chute down considerably as he approached, there was simply not enough space to land properly. So he pretended he was a jet fighter—note that I’m talking about the aircraft, not the aviator—using the walkway’s wire railing as an arrestor cable, bashing into it as if he were an F/A-18 stopping on a carrier.
That had to hurt. And if it didn’t, tumbling over onto the steel-plated catwalk and bouncing a few times as the parachute tried pushing back with the wind almost certainly did. But Shotgun would never admit that it did, not even to himself. His response was to start laughing—a little chuckle at first, which grew to a pretty loud guffaw after he’d straightened himself out on the beam, unhooked his chute, and grabbed his gun. Three of the Russians made the mistake of running toward one of the lifeboats, probably hoping to escape; Shotgun promptly demonstrated that it was a supremely poor move.
Doc had a routine landing near the bow, rolling gently onto the deck to preserve his knee, all as planned. He hooked up with the SEAL lieutenant in charge of the op, and watched as the SEALs continued their demonstration of how to successfully take over a ship. Sean landed a few feet away and joined one of the search parties. Taller than anyone else on the team, he found himself at point—there was no sense staying back, he explained, since he was likely to get the ricochets anyway.
The Russian captain and a few crewmen tried to take a stand on the bridge, locking the doors and yelling incomprehensible curse words at the invaders, punctuating their oaths with automatic weapons fire.
“Looks like it’s time to negotiate a surrender,” said the SEAL lieutenant. He called in his chief negotiator, a young petty officer with an advanced degree in the LAW.
That’s L-A-W, as in Light Antitank Weapon, officially known as an M72. It looks like a bazooka and can be fired by one man. As the initials suggest, the weapon is actually intended for tanks, but it can blow other things up as well.
Negotiations were quick and thorough. The weapon was aimed at the middle plate of glass on the bridge. The weapon was fired. The projectile penetrated the glass. The projectile detonated. The bridge was incinerated, as were its occupants.
Negotiations successful. Deal closed.
With the ship’s captain eliminated, the remaining crew quickly surrendered. The SEALs began searching the ship. Mongoose went aft with the team tagged to look into the fish well; Shotgun stayed on top providing cover and stuffing Twinkies in his mouth.
The fish well looked exactly as it would if the trawler was still being used for fishing. Not only did it reek of dead-fish stink; it was rusted, bloody, and smeared with crushed fish gizzards. But the bulkhead on the end of the well below the bridge superstructure had been subtly altered, not only reinforced but enlarged and equipped with state-of-the-art locks.
Even the best lock won’t stand up to C4, the ultimate lock pick. The SEALs were accommodating fellows; upon learning that Mongoose was a member of the fraternity, they bestowed upon him the honor of pushing the button that blew the locks. The charges blew out with so much enthusiasm that the entire panel flew downward into the well, revealing a large garagelike structure big enough to hold a rocket launcher and its missile. And, as a special added bonus, there was a spare next to it, resting on a set of wooden cradles and a pair of small trucks, which looked to have been fashioned from Gators, the ATV-like vehicles often used for ferrying supplies around military bases.
The basic ingredients of solid fuel are ammonium perchlorate (an oxidizer) and hydroxyl terminated polybutadene (the actual fuel), which is often spiked with PETN and other explosives to make it more potent. The ingredients are inert until brought together. Hydroxyl terminated polybutadene is comparatively safe and easy to handle unless you do something to make it burn. Once ignited, it gets extremely hot and very bright—so bright that I’m told it can be seen clearly from five miles away, which was where the Greenville picked up the team and our guys just as the timers the SEALs had set ignited.
Made a hell of a snapshot.
The SEALs hauled twelve sailors back to the sub with them, using the ship’s lifeboats. None of the
sailors were Yong Shin Jong, which disappointed Doc a great deal.
But I wasn’t surprised at all.
[ II ]
I LEFT MYSELF DANGLING from my chute along with Trace as we tried following a small boat moving at a high rate of speed away from the trawler. For the first few seconds, I thought we might be able to drop in on them—from our angle and height, it looked as if we would be able to do just that. But that was an optical illusion, and after a minute passed it was obvious that we were falling behind. Trace and I each trimmed our chutes, trying to accelerate, but it was a losing battle, and by the time we hit the water we’d fallen behind by what I’d guess was a mile and a half. I spotted a low, dark silhouette on a dead run ahead, maybe three miles away. I made a mental note of it as I tucked my feet together and did my best side roll to ease the landing impact.
The water was not warm. My chute came in right over me, forming a soggy little tent as I surfaced. It felt as if I’d been swallowed by a jellyfish for a few seconds as I struggled to get my bearings in the darkness. I finally untangled myself from the nylon, got out from under the chute, and took a healthy breath of sea air.
“Dick!”
I growled in Trace’s direction. She’d inflated her little raft and gotten herself squared away.
“Which direction?” she asked as I pulled myself onto the gunwale.
I pointed in the direction of the silhouette.
The tiny survival raft had not been designed as a transport vehicle, and was not particularly large. We shoved our knapsacks—waterproof, of course—and the rest of our gear on them. Then Trace and I lined up shoulder to shoulder on one side, kicking in the direction we wanted to go, guided by our GPS units. But it was very slow going, and more than an hour passed before we saw the shadow of a ship on the water ahead.
It turned out not to be a ship—it was the motorboat we’d been following. But at first the darkness and shadows and our own expectations played tricks on our eyes, and we had a hard time deciphering what we were seeing. It wasn’t until we were less than fifty yards away that we finally realized it was the boat. From where we were we had no way of knowing whether it was occupied or not.
Trace took the bow; I took the stern.
The boat was a small pleasure craft, thirty or so feet long, much of that devoted to a cabin. She was powered by a pair of good-sized Mercury engines. None of her lights were lit.
Just because the boat seemed deserted didn’t mean that it was. And if I was going to ass-u-me anything, I’d better ass-u-me there’d be trouble aboard.
A metal swimming ladder hung down off the starboard side. I put my left hand on it, pausing to listen. In my right hand I had my RW Strider knife.
I slipped upward, taking a peek.
Nothing.
Up and over.
Still nada. Knife away. Gun out. Ready for bear.
Something moved near the bow.
Trace.
But as I dropped to my knee, I saw a shadow near the opening to the cabin. I pointed my weapon there, waiting.
The shadow didn’t move.
“Dick!” hissed Trace.
I hissed back, then rose and walked toward the shadow slowly. It grew into a head, and then the head grew into a body.
A dead body. Behind it were two more.
“There’s a dozen bullet holes in the boat,” said Trace.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling out a flashlight to check the rest of the small cabin. When I was absolutely certain there was no else there, I shone the light on the first body.
It was Yong Shin Jong.
“Damn,” I said, cursing as I snapped off the light and went topside.
“Since when are you so sentimental about dead scum-bags?” asked Trace.
I ignored her question, inspecting the controls. The boat had an ignition key circuit; the key was missing.
“See if you can hotwire that,” I told her. “I’ll check the engine.”
“Quicker to just find the key,” said Trace, going back down the ladder to the cabin.
A line over the side near the stern held a small anchor. I pulled it up slowly, half expecting I might find another body attached. But it was just an old can filled with cement that had hardened into concrete.
“What the hell is this?” yelled Trace from the cabin. “Jesus.”
“Since when are you so sentimental about dead scum-bags?” I said mockingly.
“Since they’re all Yong Shin Jong.”
I let go of the rope and went down the ladder to the cabin. Trace had turned over the bodies and played her flashlight on their faces. Sure enough, she was right—three Yong Shin Jongs, each one deader than the other, lay on the deck of the small cabin.
20 One of our technical advisors says that I was actually looking at the backup controls, and that the helicopter did indeed have high-tech gear that would have worked with a whisper and a curse, had I properly plugged in the helmet I was wearing. All I can say is: where were you when I needed you?
21 At some point in the future, this sort of mission may be carried out by a high-tech carbon fiber inflatable like the Stiletto, whose M-shaped hull not only can take her over fifty knots but also is gentle on the back. For now though, the rubber met the waves.
22 Shotgun, on the other hand, surely would have tried that.
8
[ I ]
THREE FOR THE price of one?
“They have to be body doubles,” insisted Trace. “Doesn’t Kim do that?”
Kim was certainly notorious for using body doubles, but did his son do the same? And were all three doubles, or only two?
It was dark, they were dead—any one of them could be the dictator’s bastard. Or none. One looked a little chubby, another too skinny, the third too tall. The more I stared, the more I questioned. They were definitely dressed like the man I had seen—and who knew if I had seen the real McCoy or one of these men?
I certainly didn’t. I went back up to the wheel, ducked under the instrument panel, and with the help of my knife got the motors running. I set a course due west, toward North Korea—and, I hoped, the ship that I had seen earlier.
“Where have you been, pond scum?” asked Doc when I checked in, flattering me with his overwhelming affection.
“Trace and I went for a quick swim.”
We traded sitreps. The SEALs had reestablished their link to the submarine, and I was able to give Doc our position and heading. According to the GPS, we were 120 miles off the Korean coast, well outside of North Korea’s coastal waters—but tell that to the crew of the Pueblo.
For those of you who were still twinkles in your daddies’ beer in 1968, the Pueblo was a navy “research” ship that went fishing for electronic signals off North Korea, only to be captured by the North Koreans. The crew was tortured by their gracious hosts, even more so after said hosts realized their guests were giving them the finger in the propaganda photos they’d taken. The ship’s captain was eventually given the choice of apologizing for being in Korean territorial waters—which of course he wasn’t—or watching his crew get shot one at a time. He opted to save his men, and thus wrote the first apology in the history of the world that peed on his captors. (The commander used the word “paean” in a sentence along the lines of “we paean the great leader of Korea.” The Koreans looked up the word “paean” in the dictionary and figured they were being honored.)
The cabin cruiser’s engines had been tweaked, and if the instruments were to be believed, were able to propel the boat to forty-two knots at the red line. The engine work was hardly the only modification made to the craft. Large auxiliary fuel tanks had been installed, and there was a GPS system on par with my mobile unit, and a radio sophisticated enough to pick up everything from standard military communications to old I Love Lucy reruns still circulating in the ionosphere. A computer hard-wired to the cabin desk was connected to the Internet via a satellite link. The browser’s memory had been wiped clean.
“I know there are ways to lo
ok for deleted files,” said Trace. “What if I give Junior a call and see if he can talk me through them?”
It was worth a shot, so I handed over the sat phone. In the meantime, I held a straight course and contemplated the $64 million question: Was Yong Shin Jong one of the dead men below, or had he escaped to whatever ship it was I was following?
I know what you’re thinking: Dickie, you’ve gone about as far as you can with this one; pack up your tent and go home. There’s not going to be any $64 million payoff at the end of this rainbow; there’s not even going to be a rainbow. Even assuming that Yong Shin Jong is alive, and is aboard that ship, how are you going to get him?
Truth be told, I might have asked myself the same questions, if I hadn’t seen a smudge on the horizon ahead to port.
Not just a smudge—a moving, ship-shaped smudge. I changed course to follow.
THE SHIP LOOKED like a coastal freighter, a bit smaller than the trawler that had held the missiles. It was making about sixteen or seventeen knots, moving diagonally to the North Korean coast, traveling south as well as westward.
I called Matthew back at Sado-ga-shima. Jimmy Zim had just left for Tokyo, but that was just as well. I told Junior to try and get some information on the ship we were following from our navy friends. He came back about fifteen minutes later with the news that it was registered in Myanmar, the country you and I used to call Burma.
RW14 - Dictator's Ransom Page 19
