by Dalton Fury
That was a little sunshine up their skirts, but Kolt meant it.
“Get your kit laid out for in extremis, two-man rule for radio watch, no white lights, and get some rack,” Slapshot said, judging that Kolt was finished.
Kolt watched the assaulters move quietly toward the old hardwood dance floor to organize their kit. They would be delicately handling the thirty-inch-long SIMON devices, repackaging the 150-grain polymer-bonded explosive rifle grenades for flight and quick use from the air. Kolt knew the tactical shotguns would be loaded with the 12-gauge ferret rounds, shotshells containing powdered CS gas that upon impact spit out a nasty chemical payload.
Kolt noticed Slapshot and JoJo, off in the corner, breaking the seal on the SpyLite micro-UAV. Slapshot turned and Kolt caught his eye.
“We good with this, boss?” Slapshot asked. His hesitation wasn’t lost on Kolt; they both knew that the entire ten million troops from the Korean People’s Army would have to crash the DMZ to even think about launching the platform.
“We humped it here,” Kolt said. “Let’s at least prep the wings and test the remote video terminal.”
“Roger,” Slapshot said before getting back at it.
Kolt took a quick nostalgic walk around the building. It had been a lifetime ago that he commanded an infantry rifle company during a yearlong hardship tour at this same camp. The television room, the long wooden bar still showing initials carved from decades of troops, the dining room, all missing the South Korean calligraphy and melted brass decorations that truly defined the place, brought back a wave of memories nonetheless.
Kolt walked toward the back glass door, slid it open, and stepped onto the back patio, the highest point in the forty-acre camp. It had seen better days—weeds and trees were threatening to engulf the place. He sucked in a chest full of fresh air coming off the Imjin, shaking slightly as he looked down at the water, then quickly lifted his eyes over the thousand-foot-wide river. From his vantage point, there were few visible lights in the distance; even the people of Munson-ri had turned in hours ago. This area hadn’t changed much over the years and he knew the hardworking and active South Koreans would be up before sunrise, walking the ridgelines and tending the rice paddies.
“Shit!” Kolt whispered to himself. “Get it together, Kolt.”
Looking at the Imjin brought other bodies of water to mind. His near-death dive in the spent fuel pool at Yellow Creek and recent dunking in the Atlantic Ocean swam into view and he did his best to push them away.
Kolt shook his head. Never before in his long career had the stakes been higher. Not necessarily the potential loss of life for hundreds of thousands of innocent American citizens, but something much more personal.
We mess this op up and it’s curtains for the Unit.
Sure, they needed to grab Seamstress. He was definitely the link to North Korea’s miniature nuclear warhead plans. But did America need Delta? Couldn’t this entire mission be handled just fine by SEAL Team Six? Riding the pods of a Little Bird certainly was not unique to Delta, a skill-level-one task for even any white special ops outfit. Hell, could we even handle this mission alone? What about the SEALs’ course of action? Subsurface infil from the Yellow Sea up the Yesong River, dodging underwater mines most of the way? The Unit get that done?
Kolt bounced it around for a moment. What’s the big equalizer? What exactly is it that we have on Six? How can we even argue POTUS’s point in these massive across-the-military budget-cut times? Does America really need more than one killer force?
Then it hit Kolt. The female pilot program and Cindy “Hawk” Bird. Someone who should have died at Yellow Creek after a month of captivity and two gunshot wounds at close range was now in a major op. Hawk was the real G.I. Jane, an operator capable of infiltrating situations no men ever could.
“You need to go down for a few, boss,” Slapshot said, walking up behind Kolt.
Kolt didn’t respond. He remained locked on the haunting river water several hundred feet below the balcony, unable to break its straitjacket-like hold on him.
“Boss!” Slapshot said, circling in front of Kolt. “You good, man?”
“Yeah, I’m about to rack,” Kolt said, blinking and coming back to himself.
“Place look the same to you?” Slapshot asked.
“Just about,” Kolt said. “I thought we’d hear the North Korean propaganda being broadcasted from loudspeakers inside Propaganda Village. Always had us sleeping with one eye open.”
“No shit?” Slapshot said.
“Urban legend is that nobody actually lived at Kijong-dong,” Kolt said. “Supposedly the lights and loudspeakers were controlled by a single switch somewhere in Kaesong.”
“Sounds legit to me.”
“Sure never anticipated using the Camp Greaves Officers’ Club as a safe house for the first covert U.S. military mission into North Korea in over sixty years.”
“I’d prefer to be on the other side of the border though,” Slapshot said. “However, my money says this entire Smokey and the Bandit effort will be just another rehearsal for a mission that will never happen.”
“I hear ya, Slap,” Kolt said. “Fingers crossed, though, we don’t have to buzz the border tomorrow morning.”
“You having second thoughts?” Slapshot asked. “Not letting Gangster bother you, are you?”
Kolt looked at Slapshot and raised his eyebrows in the dark.
“He’s stressed, but I’m with Hawk on this one. This has the potential to go loud real quick on so many levels.”
“The boys aren’t too fired up about the less-than-lethal shit, Kolt.”
“I’m not fired up about it either,” Kolt said, “but that’s the shit hand we’ve been dealt.”
“Guys are thinking that Six is just doing this to stick another one in our face,” Slap said, “another notch as POTUS’s go-to guys.”
“You?” Kolt asked, locking eyes with Slapshot.
“Boss, these guys know we’ve been together a long time, done a shit ton of crazy ops together.” Slapshot’s eyes bounced around Kolt’s head as if he was afraid to maintain eye contact. “But I’m with them on this one. This whole op is jacked up. We’re asking Hawk to hang it out without as much as a Boy Scout to lend her a hand. Six’s course of action is fucked up on so many levels I don’t know where to begin. Seems to me they are putting a lot of stock in stopping that train where they want it, and that the rubber bullets will work.”
“That pretty much the way all the boys inside see it?”
“Not all, I’m sure,” Slapshot said, “it just doesn’t pass the common sense test.”
“Brother, I won’t leave Hawk hanging,” Kolt said. “You know I won’t.”
“I know.”
“That we can influence, at least pull Hawk out if shit goes bad,” Kolt said, “but this QRF business is sketchy.”
“Good to hear you say that, Kolt,” Slapshot said, his shoulders dropping slightly in relief. “We’re not much of a match for armed and fanatical North Korean troops in an armored train.”
“Neither is Red Squadron if it goes bad.”
TWENTY
Panmunjom, 38th parallel
“The meeting has been moved to across the MDL,” Hawk said, just loud enough for her Bluetooth earpiece to pick up the tone, “I am in North Korea now.”
“What?” Gangster said. “Why the move? That wasn’t the plan.”
Hawk had cringed at the thought of having to call Gangster with the change in plans, knowing he’d want more details than she had time to share. Now she could practically hear his heart pounding, in concert with his nervous footsteps as he was surely pacing the Inchon hangar, color-coded sync matrix in one hand as he wildly waved the other to get everyone’s attention.
“It’s field trip city out here,” Hawk said in a hushed tone. “Every kindergartener in South Korea piled out of buses with a handful of helium balloons.”
“Okay, stay calm and tell me, where exactly are you? Have you
positively identified Seamstress?”
“Yes, I think so. But they are all over me,” Hawk whispered as she tried to maintain a visual on the man she had pegged as Seamstress, walking up ahead. “Stand by.”
Hawk reached up with her right hand, letting her raspberry-painted fingernails flip her neck-length hair just enough to make sure the earpiece was naturally concealed as she trailed the Korean delegation members along a manicured street to an unknown building, now fifty or sixty yards away. Not only was that smart, as being fingered for suspicious behavior by any of the shifty-eyed North Korean soldiers, who had been eye-fucking her since they arrived, could blow her mission to tag Seamstress, but her response to Gangster’s irritating comment, from someone far removed from the X, would have been rated triple X for sure.
I am calm!
The eight males comprising the North Korean delegation, all dressed like off-the-rack penguins, perfect black-and-white everything, were confidently leading the way. The initial meeting spot inside the Military Armistice Commission building just wasn’t getting it for the other team. Not more than a minute after Hawk believed she had PIDed Seamstress from across the long rectangular table, the North Koreans delivered a small but firm protest, specifically charging that the atmosphere inside the building was too historically militaristic given its exact position straddling the military demarcation line, the decades-old term for the manmade line hugging the 38th parallel, more or less. The South Korean delegation, now mingling with the northerners for what seemed like a casual walk for everyone but Hawk, had barely registered a concern.
The South Korean party members were pretty much a mirror image of their northern neighbors, if not for the two short elderly women in the party, most likely proudly symbolizing the human rights thing, and two of the six male members risking century-old protocol with their progressive Spanish gray suits and charcoal ties.
Hawk certainly wasn’t as comfortable with the impromptu move, but of course, not her call. She knew the North Koreans were just flexing their muscles in front of her Swedish hosts, and as she followed from the rear of the pack she was surprised that the South Koreans seemed to be refreshingly comfortable around their enemies to the north. This looser atmosphere was one thing, not the most important thing. The impromptu relocation, a slight change to the tactical plan, prompted her to ring up Gangster at Inchon.
Hawk could hear the commotion going on back at Inchon, figuring Gangster and the staff were bracing for some bad news or anticipating changes to the sync matrix. Assuming she was not being observed directly, she spoke again, and winced a little from the new heels she was wearing. “Okay, I’m back.”
“Give me your distance and direction from your last known point,” Gangster demanded.
Crap! He wants my pace count? I knew we needed ISR to cover this meeting. “Not sure. Uh, moving northwest, gone about two hundred yards. I see a very tall tower with a huge North Korean flag flying.”
“Where are you stopping?” Gangster said in an all-business tone.
“Looks like a light-orangish-colored building surrounded by trees, large steps out front center mass.”
“You must be going to the Panmungak building or the Tongilgak conference hall,” Gangster said.
“We just passed a three-story building with concrete steps on my right,” Hawk said, hoping she wasn’t interrupting the busy conversation she was hearing happening back at the hangar.
“Okay, confirmed. That is the Panmungak,” Gangster said. “If you see the flagpole in Kijong-dong, then you must be headed to the Tongilgak.”
Hawk really wasn’t looking for an urban planning lesson from Gangster, she just wanted to let the command know about the change. She knew the first phone call they expected from her, according to the plan, was the OPSKED “Toyota,” the code that the tag was on Seamstress, but a change is a change. Now she was wondering why she risked the call in the first place.
Hawk also knew Gangster wasn’t sold on the female operator program. In fact, that was a definite understatement, as Gangster was well known around the building as a voice of contention from the very moment the pilot program had been briefed to the operators nearly two years ago. No, if Hawk was looking for any emotional support, Gangster was the last guy to expect it from. The former Delta man, now JSOC’s man on the scene, only wanted to hear one thing from Hawk, or Cindy Bird, or even Carrie Tomlinson. The specific name didn’t matter to him; the results did. Anything short of her accomplishing her mission to tag Seamstress would spread through the Unit Spine faster than an operator having an accidental discharge inside the house of horrors.
“What do you need from us?” Gangster asked.
“Gotta go,” Hawk said. She reached into the jacket pocket just below her right breast, found the phone, felt for the power button, and mashed it to kill the call.
Hawk’s stomach tightened. After the short cell call with Gangster, she wouldn’t mind hearing his cartilage snapping, and other loud popping noises. Gangster had a mission to do and she appreciated his attention to detail and ability to synchronize complex operations, but a little personality goes a long way. He could save the mind fuck for sure. But, any energy wasted on policing Gangster, second-guessing herself, or worse, feeling sorry for herself, threatened her cover and risked compromise. She was the one dying to become a Delta operator and she knew damn well that if she pulled this off, the naysayers, those old-school graybeards back at Bragg, would have a hard time denying her.
Don’t worry about Gangster, worry about the North Koreans.
The Six guys, patiently postured in the hills sixteen klicks west of her, hunkered down within striking distance of the electrified standard-gauge P’yŏngbu Line, certainly depended on her. As the operations main effort, they had already set the remote-detonation explosive charges on the two bridges, Objectives Beaver and Bear, and were likely a little tense hoping to hear the signal that Seamstress had been successfully tagged. No Toyota call and no need to blow the bridges. No tag and the Six guys can call it an op and head back to the Yesong River. Hawk knew she was the key to success here. Fail to get close enough to place the RRD tag on Seamstress and they were mission abort for sure.
She looked around to see if anyone was watching her. Had she been seen talking to herself? She knew her actions may have drawn her additional scrutiny from watchful eyes, potentially creating obstacles to tagging Seamstress at best, and getting herself arrested for espionage at worst. The change in meeting location had bought her some time to think; it hadn’t provided anything that might help her accomplish her mission. Which meant she had to think smart about every step, every move. She had to conceive, analyze, decipher, and decide her next move in warp speed, before she made a mistake she couldn’t talk her way out of.
Hawk had never been exactly sure how she was going to successfully tag Seamstress anyway. Nobody else had any solid solutions either. Not the SEALs, not Myron Curtis, and not Kolt Raynor. Sure, all of them were type-A guys, had assholes and of course strong opinions, but none of them knew much more than Hawk about how things would go down at Panmunjom.
Hawk picked up her step to close with the Swedes, each step closer to the building creating more and more friction to blister her heels through her skin-tone-colored pantyhose. Trying to ignore the discomfort, she focused on reacquiring a bead on Seamstress. He was not an easy spot, dressed identically to the other North Koreans with the same jet-black hair and black suit over a white, collared shirt. Not a needle in a haystack, but if not for the slimmer build, it would have been easy to miss him.
Flanked by North Korean soldiers stair-stacked every other step (likely the tallest the military could produce, since they towered over the shorter delegation), and a half-dozen North Korean reporters with red armbands and Hangul markings on their left arms, the congregation climbed the smooth gray marble stairs to the front entrance. Hawk noticed their sloppy-fitting dress uniform jackets, in some odd shade that fell somewhere between olive drab green and worm dirt on the
color chart, over pants of the same color, and black shoes. Polished dark leather gun belts were wrapped around their waists, appearing uncomfortably higher than their belly buttons, a holster on one side which, given the distinct hammer, Hawk figured to be holding a Czech model. Two leather magazine pouches on the off-hand side, set perfectly for rapid reloads should they run the pistol dry. Their heads were topped with bus driver–looking saucer hats with shiny black leather bills that made them appear to be ten feet tall. Postures perfect, at rigid attention, their eyes not shielded by dark sunglasses like their cousin guards to the south. No, the North Korean guards were not hiding the fact that they were there to make sure the South Koreans didn’t pull anything funny that might embarrass the proud Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The menacing eyes were intimidating to guests of the hermit kingdom, the more the better.
Climbing the stairs, Hawk kept an eye on Seamstress as she tried not to turn an ankle in her heels. Besides causing her to lose major cool points, a tumble on the concrete would most likely strew the contents of her purse all over the place, sending the RRDs and quantum dots rolling down the stairs back toward South Korea. At least she wasn’t carrying a handgun or a grenade, something that the North Korean troops would go ape shit about. The tall North Korean guards had been gawking at her since the Swedish delegation arrived, but in a different way than the SEALs had. What Hawk had smuggled across the MDL was not a deadly weapon, unless they were swallowed, maybe. However, given Hawk’s mission, they were more important than a crate full of mortar rounds or a payload-heavy Stealth bomber.
As Seamstress entered the dark wooden door, Hawk lost sight of her target. She maneuvered toward the same door, rudely stepping around one of the South Korean dwarf-looking females, and entered the building. The delegation had been met by a welcoming party of a half dozen or so North Korean officials, likely caretakers of the buildings and grounds. With the others, Hawk shook hands with the hosts and gave the customary bow, smiling at each of them, struggling to not allow her eyes to bounce around the large foyer to search for Seamstress.
