Northern Thunder

by Anderson Harp

  His pulse rate redoubled as he put the camera online.

  One shot and I’m out of here, he thought, breathing deliberate breaths to slow his heartbeat. The camera had a simple crosshair, much like a deer-rifle scope. Similar magnification as well. He had worked with it countless times at Quantico. Just pick the right Nampo and snap, he thought as he focused the viewfinder. The camera’s electronic lens whirred as he spotted the faces of the men, now standing in a small group. Well, it’s been some time, Will thought, the camera focusing sharply on all the faces one by one.

  Peter Nampo. He stopped on the face of a man he hadn’t seen for many years. It was a thin, flint-hardened face with jet-black hair. Peter hadn’t aged well.

  Just as he began to squeeze the shutter trigger, another similar face appeared—then another, then another. Will held off, taking in the four virtually identical men. Damn, he thought, acknowledging the impressive accomplishment of finding—or creating—three Nampo doppelgängers. The quartet of Nampos stood together next to their jeep, awaiting their guest of honor.

  Will stared at each man, moving the camera from face to face. They’re perfect matches, he thought, frustrated. The seconds ticked away.

  A general with gold and red epaulette boards on his shoulders stepped down from the helicopter as the blades continued to swirl, but at a slower rate. Will watched the men, waiting for a reaction. There was none. No single man moved forward to greet the guest. Each of the four stayed with the others, making no individual movement. He thought of Krowl waiting impatiently, thousands of miles away, cursing Will for being unsure.

  “Come on, goddamnit,” he whispered. Peter Nampo’s standing there—a man so dangerous they brought me halfway around the world to get one stupid photo of him.

  The slowing blades of the helicopter started to cast shadows over the men. The seconds stretching into eternity. Will knew the entourage would greet their guest, take him back to wherever they had come from, and Peter Nampo would disappear, not to be seen for months. The opportunity was slipping away.

  Then Will saw it. The second Nampo moved and did something Will hadn’t seen for years: He subtly leaned to the side, briefly adjusting his weight from one leg to the other. Nampo, he remembered, had always worn an elevated shoe to compensate for his shorter leg. It was a characteristic that the others would surely not share.

  “Got him.” Will aimed the crosshair at the center of Peter Nampo’s forehead. The camera could focus down to the smallest detail. Will zoomed in on the other figures once more, studying their bodies, their movements. One moved his left hand toward his face, but no other Nampo readjusted his weight.

  Shifting the camera back to Peter Nampo, Will felt the beginnings of another snow flurry. The valley suddenly became dark and much colder. He could see the breath of the men as they spoke.

  Will waited again, just to be certain. And again, Nampo shifted his weight off the shorter leg. Will could see the rotation of the slowing blades above Nampo’s head.

  No doubt, Will thought as he squeezed the camera’s trigger. But the camera neither clicked nor snapped and, for a brief moment, it seemed to do nothing at all. He held the trigger down again, holding the crosshairs on Nampo’s forehead. Goddamnit, it must be—

  The flash of brilliant light stopped him in mid-thought. Then he heard the boom. The flash, followed by the boom momentarily blinded and deafened him. A bolt of lightning in the midst of a snowstorm? A bout of northern thunder?

  He looked back through the camera and saw Peter Nampo no more. A small cloud of smoke appeared where Nampo once stood. A few of the men who’d been closest to Nampo lay on the ground. The other men, clearly in shock, wandered around aimlessly. A thin blue streak of vapor, like a pencil, extended into the clouds momentarily before dissipating in the air.

  “What the hell…?” He decreased camera magnification to pan the tableau. The old general sat on the ground, looking dazed. The blades of the helicopter were still rotating, but off their center, each blade now a few feet shorter than before.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Will.

  Some sort of laser, he guessed, in vaporizing Peter Nampo, had also sliced through the metal blades as they rotated over his head. Presumably, the beam’s heat had exploded a body made up mostly of water molecules. At the same time, superheating the water molecules in the clouds above, it had caused an explosive clap of sound: thunder in a blizzard.

  Will slid back under the overhang, slightly dazed himself. Krowl never wanted a photograph. He wanted to assassinate Nampo. I was marking Nampo with the camera. Painting a digital target on his head. And that son of a bitch Krowl never told me a thing about it.

  Will’s next realization was more chilling: Now, I’m truly alone.

  Krowl couldn’t risk the assassination pointing back to the United States. There’s no way Krowl will allow me to escape, he thought. He’ll need to get rid of me.

  Chapter 40

  The Operation Center in Hawaii

  “Jesus, what happened?” Scott saw the camera focus in on a man who appeared to be Peter Nampo, then watched as the screen went blank.

  “ESC cut off all feeds,” said Markeet.

  “How about the VTC to Krowl?”

  “We’re still hooked up.”

  “Turn up the volume.”

  Scott could hear Krowl’s voice.

  “Everyone leave except the airman on USA-82,” said Krowl, sounding even more intense than usual.

  Scott heard the slam of a door.

  “Okay, now turn to target one,” said Krowl.

  “Yes, sir.” It was the squeaky voice of a very young man, maybe one just out of puberty—obviously a young technician caught in the storm.

  “How long before the laser’s online again?” said Krowl.

  “Two minutes, sir.”

  “How much time left?”

  “Sixty-two seconds.”

  Scott imagined what was going on in the ESC. He saw Krowl standing over the technician and his computer, breathing down on him as the computer’s targeting lined up for the second shot.

  “Turn off the VTC,” said Scott.

  “What’s up, Scotty?” Markeet looked up at Scott.

  “Just turn it off. We don’t need to hear this.” Scott understood now and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want to witness it. He also knew there was nothing he could do about it.

  * * * *

  There wasn’t much Will could do, either. He pushed back below the overhang as machine guns fired sporadically, shooting at shadows. Bullets whizzed toward the other side of the valley.

  Will peeked out and saw that two soldiers were firing at the already twisted and dead body of the old farmer, lying in his garden. Others fired at the old man’s hut, riddling the walls with bullets: Their only convenient target.

  Will slunk back farther, underneath the rock.

  I’ll wait until dark and work my way back to the coast, he thought. The submarine will probably be gone by then. Will imagined the boat commander receiving a dispatch that he had been lost, and the boat, in immediate danger, had to pull away from the coastline.

  The snowstorm worsened as the sky grew darker. The firing of the Kalashnikovs echoed off the walls of the valley.

  Another blinding flash of light. The second boom lifted Will up and threw him against the rock to the side of the overhang. He looked up and saw nothing but sky. The second laser shot had struck and destroyed the rock overhang. Will knew instantly: He was the second target. He saw the North Korean troops look toward the rubble of the overhang. A white, pencil-like vapor streak went directly up into the sky. The laser had heated the humid air as it passed through, leaving a direct marker at Will’s location. If the laser didn’t kill him, its trail would. The pop of bullets suddenly surrounded him like a swarm of bees.

  Somehow, Krowl’s tracing me. He patted down his
uniform, unsure where the tracer was. As bullets continued to crack all around him, Will pulled out of the rubble, ran up the side of the hill, and jumped behind a downed log. That laser has to be recharging.

  Parker ripped off the type-64. All his training with the weapon meant nothing: It would do little good against an army, and for all he knew, it was the weapon Krowl was tracking. He stripped off his camouflage coveralls, too, along with his boots and socks—all his clothes, in fact. Naked, he ran through the forest, thinking how bizarre a sight he would be.

  Another flash. The third flash struck behind the log where he’d left his pile of clothes. The laser struck a marker somewhere in the discarded uniform, or in the gun. The force knocked Will to the ground. He began to count. Two minutes had elapsed between blasts. That’s why Krowl had needed Will to identify Nampo: If he’d hit the wrong one, the others would escape before he could get another shot off.

  Will made it to the stream, moving fast, working through the rocks. The cold water fazed him little. The snowstorm’s intensity increased. On his body, he felt a pelt of ice, immediately melted by his body heat. He heard the rumble of the waterfall ahead. The cold penetrated his feet, which he could hardly feel. He knew time was slipping away.

  Past the waterfall, Will slid down, slipping under its icy flow, briefly out of sight.

  First things first, he thought. I can hide from the North Koreans. I can’t hide from that laser.

  It suddenly occurred to him. Will felt for the small scar on his abdomen, recalling the visit to the dentist’s office arranged by Krowl. Just below the skin, he felt a metal disc, the size of a quarter. It was like a bullet in his side. He knew what it did. I need something sharp, he thought.

  Will reached down into the bottom of the streambed. Feeling through the round, smooth stones, he found a single sharp one resembling a piece of flint. He tugged with his icy cold, blue fingers. Then he grabbed the flap of skin, feeling the small disc in his grasp. He pulled the skin tight between his fingers, and held it in the flow of icy water from the waterfall.

  Fifty-five seconds left before the next satellite shot. He gave himself a five-second leeway on his count. Between the cold water and his tight grip, the skin turned blue, numbing slightly.

  “One, two, three.” He cut into the flesh, blood dripping down his side. Will exhaled with the pain.

  A bright silver disc popped out, plunking down into the water below the pool of the waterfall. Without pause, he resumed running, moving quickly over the snow accumulating again on the rocks. Blood poured down his side from the open wound. Far worse, the numbing effects of the cold crept through his body, the first harbingers of hypothermia.

  Blood droplets stained the white snow as he worked his way down the stream. Will could hear the commotion of the men following his trail. An occasional rifle shot rang out. They were still shooting at shadows.

  Another brilliant flash of light. The boom of the fourth strike knocked him down again, this time into the cold stream. He looked back, several meters upstream, where a cloud of steam rose from where the waterfall once stood. It was now a crumble of rocks.

  I haven’t much time, he thought. Krowl was no longer his immediate problem. To the admiral, it would appear that Will had died in his last satellite strike.

  No, he had two far more deadly enemies now: the cold and the North Koreans. If he survived them, he could worry about Krowl another day.

  Will worked through the stream, hopping from rock to rock, ignoring the cold, moving at a marathoner’s speed. The men behind him were moving, but not closing. The snow and stream rocks slowed them. He was able to maintain a constant, rhythmic pace—until the lake.

  I can go around it, but I’ll only leave a longer trail, Will thought. No choice—he jumped headlong into the icy water. He couldn’t feel the wound at all now, the ice cold water erasing any conscious thought of pain. Knowing time was running out, Will stroked steadily across the center of the lake. He maintained one conscious thought: I will survive.

  * * * *

  Captain Sang led the lead patrol, hot on the trail down the streambed.

  “Captain, he’s hurt,” said one of his soldiers.

  The droplets of blood led down to the stream.

  “Do not kill him,” said Sang.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pass that word.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Captain, they’re bringing up the 112th battalion,” said the radio operator, following Sang closely.

  “We’re heading toward the shoreline,” said Sang. “It’s getting dark. Tell them to bring up the naval patrol to cut off any escape.”

  “Yes, sir. A patrol from Wonsan Harbor is heading south at this time.”

  Sang looked up at the cliffs above the streambed, but his target remained hidden.

  * * * *

  Will shivered uncontrollably as he dragged himself out of the frigid water. The trail would stop on the other side, causing the North Korean patrol to split up and to go around both sides of the lake. Darkness would slow them further. Still, he had to get some protection to survive.

  The cold water had flushed and numbed the wound, but it soon began to bleed again. He had to act fast.

  Will worked his way up the streambed on the other side, crossing behind the large, round boulders to the group of pine trees—the pine trees where he’d left his second backpack.

  He was shaking, his teeth chattering beyond control. Barely able to maintain consciousness, Will was now a blue tint from head to toe. He pulled aside the pine boughs, grabbing the backpack from the hole.

  From inside, Will pulled out two silver, plastic packs, ripping them open. Two large patches, similar to brown, oversized Band-Aids, were marked—one as nutrition, the other as glucose/maltodextrin. He pulled the tape off each, sticking them to the sides of his neck. Both subcutaneous feeds pushed high-energy fuel into his bloodstream, directly through his skin.

  Will also removed a small clear tube, no bigger than a tube of superglue. It was marked permabond. He broke off its white cap and clinched the two edges of the wound with his fingers. He winced as he squirted the clear, glue-like substance onto the edges of his wound. Will held the skin together for slightly over a minute as the wound sealed. He used a handful of snow to wash off the remaining streak of dried blood.

  A noise of men clattered through the woods to the north side of the lake. They were close and getting closer. It didn’t matter—his most immediate problem still remained the cold.

  Will ripped open another package marked Soldiers Systems Center Natick Labs—SEACU. SEACU was devoted to supplying the best military equipment in the world, and this was it. Will’s hands shook as he pulled on an olive brown, rubber-like jumpsuit—black soled shoes, gloves, and a hood, all built into a single garment. Will slipped the suit on, covering everything but his eyes, but the olive brown color stood out, even near the stand of pine trees.

  On the left forearm, the suit had a Velcroed flap of material. When Will pulled it back, a small LED panel was revealed. He aimed it at the snow-covered woods, pressing on the LED of the personal integrated area network. The suit, employing its microprocessor, scanned the snow-white and brown terrain. Like a chameleon, the suit instantly turned to a matching snow-white and brown color. He lifted up the backpack, pulling a small cable from a side, Velcro-closed pocket. As he plugged the cable into the suit, the backpack changed to an identical color: white and brown. Will turned nearly invisible and just in time.

  * * * *

  Sang’s patrol had rounded the lake and neared the stand of trees. “Captain, we have lost the trail,” Will heard one of them say.

  Sang looked around the lake, seeing the other half of the patrol approaching from the south side of the lake.

  “Where should we go, Captain?” said the soldier.

  “Follow this stream to the beach. He must
be heading toward the water.”

  * * * *

  Will, understanding the Korean perfectly, moved out of the tree stand and toward the stream, heading due east. As darkness fell, he stepped into the streambed. Again, he reached into his backpack, pulling out a pair of wraparound glasses, also from the SSC Natick Laboratory. The lightweight night-vision glasses gave him a daylight view of the stream. The clamor of the troops closed from behind as the snowstorm continued to build.

  At the point where Will had stopped two days before, he felt the full brunt of the snowstorm, the winds blowing in from the Sea of Japan. Below him, he saw the lights of an increased number of soldiers at the point to the south. He also saw the lights of men closing from the roadway to the north. In the dark water, lights bobbed up and down near where the ASDS was anchored. North Korean patrol boats were crisscrossing the bay.

  Will had scores of DPRK troops on all sides of him, with Sang’s patrol now less than fifty meters behind. The patrol had spread out and was now on both sides of the streambed, behind and up the rocky slopes. They would search and search until they found him.

  Will turned toward Sang’s net of men, back up the streambed, to the west. A few meters up the stream were three snow-covered boulders, still within sight of the rocky beach. The soldiers were close—close enough that, in the green glow of his night-vision glasses, he could see the stars on their hats and collars. He saw their Kalashnikovs. He could see their eyes.

  Wedging in between two of the boulders, Will used the suit’s LED microprocessor to match the color of the rocks. He pulled off his backpack, removing from it a small black remote control device shaped like a deck of cards.

  Will punched in a series of numbers, put the device back in the pack, placed the pack underneath his chest, and leaned over, using the suit to camouflage his presence. He bent down, trying to breathe slowly and relax, forcing his mind elsewhere.

  At that moment, Sang stepped onto the rock above Will.