Korea Strait

by David Poyer

  He gave the bodies a last glance, and followed the beams of their lights.

  A few feet aft the diver slapped what Dan recognized as a fairly unsophisticated-looking periscope stand, then pulled him to a little fold-down wooden table. Either a captain’s station or a navigator’s chart table. Dan blinked at it: cheap plywood, complete with knot holes. Everything in the space was crude, hastily finished and covered, where it was shielded at all, with flimsy metal banged together with machine screws. He bent closer as a paper caught his eye. Someone had unfolded it carefully, so as not to tear the sodden, oil-stained fibers.

  It was a chart. Shivering as the cold crept deeper, he stripped off a glove and traced a coastline by the beam of a flash. Curving away, small islands…a larger island offshore. The Hangul characters conveyed nothing, but he gradually made out the Korea Strait, if the long island was Tsushima.

  He dug in with the spot of light till the lens touched the cheap shoddy paper. Was that a pencil trace? A dead-reckoning line, an advanced course? He let the chart sag where it lay. Fished in what looked like a wire wine-rack and came out with another. This was in English. Approaches to Pusan, it read. Next came a small book that hefted astonishingly massive. When he opened the lead covers each soaking page was filled with tiny handwritten characters.

  An exclamation from the far end of the compartment brought him back. He squinted at his watch. Twelve minutes gone, out of fifteen. He had to get out. It’d take a few minutes to get back to the bow, no, the stern—anyway, back to the ascent line.

  A louder gabble from the divers. He glanced their way, then back toward the black toothless maw of the chamber. A hatch at the top, another at the bottom. The inner hatch opened upward, the lower, downward. Obviously to lock out divers while still submerged.

  Since it left no room for torpedo stowage, this must be the infiltration version of the sub. But what were they doing here? Trying to tap submerged cables? The U.S. Navy had pioneered it, but that didn’t mean nobody else could try.

  And they were almost to the DMZ. Why charts for Pusan, the southernmost port on the Eastern Sea? And why was the crew wearing clothes that must have been purchased in South Korea?

  Maybe the logbook held an answer. He unzipped the top of his suit and tucked it inside, against his chest, figuring he’d turn it over to Dr. Kim when they surfaced.

  The unmistakable clack of a pistol slide slamming forward snapped his attention up. He wriggled toward the others. As he reached them his pudgy friend held up a hand. His mouth hung open. They were as far aft in the compartment as they could get. His ear was pressed to the steel bulkhead beside a heavy watertight door.

  “What is it?” Dan murmured.

  The diver made walking legs with his fingers. Jerked his head at the bulkhead. At the closed door.

  He sucked an astonished breath. Someone still alive? A flooded forward compartment this big would take them to the bottom. But if they’d sealed off the boat in time, they could still have a bubble in there. It was just barely possible.

  Only… weren’t they supposed to commit suicide?

  One of the divers lifted a pistol. It gleamed darkly with grease. They’d come armed. Apparently not as paranoid a precaution as one might think. But now what?

  He looked at his watch again and felt fear crawl over his skin like ticks. He was into decompression time. But he wasn’t sure he had enough air in his tank to get through it.

  His pudgy friend slammed a wrench on the bulkhead. “Kechokye itneonjadeol. Tohanghameon sal su yitda!”

  The only answer was silence. His guy, who apparently had rank, pointed to the dogging wheel. Two divers seized it, one on either side. They braced themselves and threw it over.

  “Shit,” Dan muttered. He scrambled to where the corpses lay and fumbled the AK out from under a thin arm. Oily water pissed out of the action, draining from the barrel as he pointed it down and jerked the bolt back. A cartridge flipped out and pinged away. He let go and the bolt slammed closed. But he couldn’t remember which way the safety lever worked, and it was too dark to see any markings.

  “Yeolligoit seom ni da!” Pudgy shouted. He aimed at the door. The others were straining at the wheel, faces going dark. The dogs crept back from their locking lugs, screeching, as if under terrific strain.

  He realized with horror that the reason might be a pressure differential. “Goddamn it, you’re going to bend us,” he shouted. “Or flood us, if that’s water on the other side.”

  They didn’t even turn their heads.

  The door slammed open with a bang like a bank vault being dynamited. His ears popped violently.

  An object flew in through the opening, trailing smoke. Before his stunned mind had time even to register what it was, Pudgy scooped the grenade up and threw it back in. It exploded almost as it left his hand. The blast was deafening in the steel-walled tunnel. Fragments clanged into equipment cabinets. Explosive fumes filled the air, then thinned, pushed by the steadily inrushing compressed air toward where the air bubbled out through the open lock.

  Leaning into the hatchway, Pudgy emptied the pistol through it, firing as rapidly as he could, then dove in after the bullets.

  A rapid, roaring clatter from the far side of the bulkhead. He had a bad feeling his stocky friend was history. The others cursed frantically. One pulled a dive knife from a thigh sheath. The other spun and jerked the AK out of Dan’s hands.

  A wiry, black-haired, lithe little figure in black shorts flew through the door headfirst, as if bounced off a trampoline on the far side. It hit the deck and rolled, agile as a gymnast, and came up holding a commando-type knife that it instantly backhanded across one diver’s face. The South Korean staggered back, shouting and pawing at his eyes. The enemy crew member whipped the blade back to guard and faced Dan, not four feet distant. Dan’s instinctive hesitation at what he saw was almost fatal. Held at arm’s length and lunged with incredible quickness, the blade drove in straight as an arrow and slammed into his chest.

  The North Korean gaped as the point slid off, gouging black rubber with a tearing sound. Deflected by the soft lead cover of the log-book tucked against Dan’s chest under the wet suit top.

  Dark eyes dropped to the AK’s muzzle just as the other diver pulled the trigger.

  The rifle blasted twice, then stopped, either jammed or out of ammunition. Both bullets struck the North Korean in the chest. The knife went flying. The small face contracted in pain and shock. An arm clutched small nude breasts, welling now with dark blood. She gasped, struggled to speak; then crumpled.

  The diver worked the bolt frantically, watching the open hatch. He aimed the rifle at it and pulled the trigger again, but got only a dry click. No light on the other side. But when Dan aimed a flashlight, something fluid gleamed back.

  The water licked at the lip of the hatch like a black cat tasting a treat. Then edged forward, elongated, and began pouring in. They must have cracked a valve, yielded their one unflooded compartment to the sea, when they realized someone was aboard who shouldn’t be, on the far side, in the control compartment.

  He couldn’t fault them for guts. Or was it something darker, not heroism, but the unconscious reactions of automatons? He started to shake. The wounded diver moaned, holding his gory face in one piece with the pressure of both hands. His buddy threw the rifle aside and grabbed him by the shoulders, asking something in a concerned tone.

  That was when the last North Korean slid through.

  She was larger than the others, more muscular than wiry. Short hair, matted with oil and sweat. Pistol in one hand, knife in the other. Smooth thick arms. Panting, with a craving for death lighting black eyes. She squinted past the flashlights. They must have dazzled her after the utter dark. Maybe that was why she didn’t see Dan, standing to the side of the access. Why she focused on the South Korean bending over his wounded buddy.

  Barking something hoarsely, she brought the pistol around.

  Dan tripped the buckle on his weight belt. The he
avy nylon strap studded with cast lead slid off his hips, and he continued and altered the motion and whipped it around into the side of her head. Lead impacted bone like a sledgehammer hitting a hollow log. She went down at once. The gun hit the deck with a clattering splash. The others were on her in a moment, kneeing, shouting, kicking, punching, until he screamed at them over and over to stop.

  HE hung on the line, checking his watch only when he couldn’t help it. Decomp time passed so slowly. Shudders writhed through him. His suit leaked cold water through the knife-rip. He yearned up at the surface. Only fifteen feet away now, a silvery rolling through which now and then bled a hot golden vein of sun. He’d spent an hour hanging on the line. Two safety divers hovered near. They’d brought down the extra air he needed.

  They’d found eleven more bodies in the after compartment, all shot in the head at close range.

  He twisted to look behind him. The last alive, the woman he’d knocked out. Her hands were wired behind her. The South Koreans gripped her by the arms. They’d bundled her into the suit Dan’s buddy, the dead diver, didn’t need anymore, and wired her ankles and wrists together. She’d regained consciousness dangling on the ascent line. Struggled, glaring at them through the helmet port, before accepting captivity. Now she sagged in the water, slowly turning in the tidal current.

  What had the Sang-o been doing? Why were they carrying charts for the Strait? Why had they surfaced? According to Dr. Kim, they’d been almost to the DMZ and safety when it had broached.

  Lots of questions. Maybe she’d have some answers. Which was part, at least, of why he’d stopped them from killing her.

  He checked his watch one last time. Gave it a few more seconds, just to be sure. Then valved air into his vest.

  Shivering, he lofted toward the shivering light. Contemplating the fact that had startled him so much, there in the sunken pressure hull, that it had almost cost him his life. That he’d only belatedly recognized, so strange it seemed to a Western eye.

  Every one of the submarine’s crew had been a woman.

  3

  Seoul

  YOU open wide now,” his feeder giggled. He grinned uncomfortably and obeyed. The morsel approached on chopsticks, hovered, teasing him, then was plopped in with another musical laugh. Stir-fried pork, he guessed. But he’d decided early in the endless progression of spicy dishes, noodle dishes, kimchi, not to ask. Across the table, the others were laughing at him.

  He wasn’t used to being fed, much less by a woman in a flowered kimono. But their host had been insistent. And since he’d turned down the soju the rice whiskey, he figured it’d be best to go along.

  The rest of the TAG team, under Henrickson, had gone on to Pusan. Now five men and one woman sat in stocking feet around the low red-lacquered table high in the 63 Building, the loftiest skyscraper in Seoul. Commodore Jung sat beside Commander Hwang, backs to a charcoal-glowing fireplace. Dick Shappell, the heavyset blond captain named Harry Leakham—commander, Destroyer Squadron 15—and Captain Carol Owens, the U.S. naval attaché to the Republic of Korea, rounded out the guests. They were all in civvy slacks and open-necked shirts, except for Owens, who was graceful and diminutive in a pantsuit and blouse.

  Beside each diner reclined a woman in a bright silk handbok. The women’s faces were powdered ghost white, lips tinted cherry red, hair glossy black as a lacquered generator winding. The one feeding him was named Mi Ra. She was pretty but when she leaned close he caught her scent, less inviting than alien, like an unfamiliar spice you wouldn’t like if you tasted it. Being fed by hand was embarrassing. But a notch up, he told himself, from fighting it out hand to hand with a desperate female commando.

  “You must have soju with us, Dan,” Jung said again. Dan had refused twice before as politely as he could. Across from him Shappell squinted, silently urging him to accept.

  “Again, Commodore, as I said, I’m going to pass on that. I just can’t handle it the way you can. With thanks.”

  Jung rolled his eyes, pouting. “You won’t drink with us. Really, a little will not hurt you.”

  “I’ll stay with this wonderful green tea, Commodore. It has nothing to do with you, or this truly fine… meal experience… you’re so generously treating us to.” Though he figured it would no doubt be the Korean government actually picking up the tab.

  Jung took off his PhotoGrays. His girl snatched them from his hands and polished them with a napkin, cooing as she did so. He ignored her, scratching his neck. “You have not told us how old you are, Dan.”

  “I’m thirty-nine, Commodore.”

  “And married? Certainly yes; I see a ring. Any children? Any boys?”

  “Yes sir, I’m married. My wife works in Washington. I have a daughter. She goes to school in northern Virginia. And you, sir?”

  Jung said smiling that he was forty-five, and very fortunate; he had two daughters and two sons. He didn’t mention a wife. He turned to Leakham and put him through the same quiz. Shappell and Owens he ignored, either because he already knew them, or for some other reason, Dan couldn’t guess. Layers beneath layers…He felt out of place, as uncomfortable probably as Owens’s server, who stared at her, as if she’d never seen a female guest at this table before. Maybe she hadn’t.

  “You open now,” his mother robin giggled, breath licking-warm in the porches of his ear. Deftly chopsticking a morsel from the brazier bubbling on the table, cupping her hand beneath, she fed him the delicious barbecued beef. He wished she’d stop, felt like grabbing the chopsticks, but kept his smile pasted on. Shappell had briefed him on the protocol. Don’t offer to pay; Jung had invited them and trying to do so would insult his hospitality. Don’t tip. Bow back whenever anyone bows to you. Don’t talk business while the food’s on the table. And never wipe your nose—it was an insult, though they might let it pass if an ignorant Westerner did it.

  He tried to relax, to enjoy what the Korean officer no doubt intended as a treat and an honor. He’d been very lucky yesterday. Not just in having nothing more than a bruise to show from what should’ve been a knife in his heart, but managing not to get bent too.

  As soon as he’d stepped onto the salvage ship’s fantail they’d stripped him, bundled him into fleece-lined clothes, and handed him a mug of scalding hot chai. Their captive had disappeared. She’d be subjected, Dr. Kim said with a face like cast concrete, to interrogation by ROK military counterintelligence. Oh yes, he told Dan, it was well known that some of the Reconnaissance Bureau infiltration teams were made up entirely of women. Dan’s shivering had gradually eased as he’d been checked over by the ship’s medic, then debriefed by the DIA major. Not too long after, the destroyer had closed up, to run Dan, Shappell, and Carmichael back into port.

  “So what’s your take on how we’re going to set up this Phase Three play?” Leakham was asking Jung.

  The commodore made a face. “Let’s talk about that later. For now let’s enjoy to the full this delicious food. This lovely company.” He cuddled the kitten next to him, who giggled and popped another morsel into his mouth. Dan wondered how far this geisha routine was supposed to go. Jung’s cheeks were turning darker, flushing from the hot booze, of which he’d had several cups, tossed back and then handed to his girl for refilling. Dan couldn’t watch, and the fumes turned his stomach. He’d had to quit years back.

  When his legs cramped, he excused himself and found the restroom. Washed his hands, looking in the mirror. He looked haggard. Needed a haircut too. All night he’d kept seeing that knife coming at him. The woman’s slim torso punctured with bullets, the terrible wounds in her back where they’d tumbled out.

  Finally he’d gotten up and tried to call his daughter, figuring the time would be right for her to be getting up. He’d just missed her, her roommate said; she’d already left for class.

  Shappell came in and used the traditional-style urinal, porcelain skis on either side of a hole in the floor. “How you holding up?” he said over his shoulder.

  “Okay.”
r />   “Love that octopus stew?”

  “Don’t tell me what it is, all right? All that garlic and red pepper. I’m eating it, aren’t I?”

  Shappell laughed.

  Dan lowered his voice. “Say, Dick… should we be discussing classified stuff here? I mean, this isn’t exactly a secure location, and these geishas or whatever they are…”

  “You don’t think they check those girls out six ways from Sunday? These people are a lot more security-conscious than we are.” Shappell laughed again, zipped, and held the door for him.

  Back at the table the servers were whipping away the little tulip-shaped bowls, leaving slices of orange and lemon and dishes of multicolored molded rice balls. Mi Ra fed him one. Almondy, sweet, not bad at all. The next tasted like licorice, the third, like cinnamon. He decided to stop while he was ahead. There was another drink too, which smelled like sweet rice. He turned it down as politely as he could, though it was getting annoying having it pushed on him. Especially since he actually wanted a drink. After what he’d been though, didn’t he deserve one?…He barricaded that off-ramp in his mind, knowing what lay at its end. Nothing good.

  Jung laughed and said something to the girls. They rose swiftly, dipped to the guests, beaming and giggling, and vanished. The commodore stretched and burped. He smiled around. “That is good manners, in our country,” he said.

  “How about this?” Leakham said. He tilted on his cushion and let go a loud fart. Shappell winced, Owens rolled her eyes, but Jung roared and slapped the table. Pointed at Leakham, who was grinning like a ten-year-old, and roared again. Beside him Commander Hwang waited, hands cupped on his knees, smiling, but with a narrowed, cool, all-examining gaze.

  They moved into a discussion of the barrier strategy. Dan was still uneasy talking about it in a restaurant, but hey, if Shappell was okay with it… Anyway, what they were discussing was more in the nature of tactical philosophy. What was really classified was the specifics: ranges, frequencies, detection probabilities. The unglamorous facts.