Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

  But inevitably they would think like Americans. A torpedo was big and heavy. It had to be transported by a truck and on a highway. They would never suspect that anyone would try to manhandle something so massive over the high granite spine that separated the North Korean coast from the inland valleys. Only a people who routinely used thousands of peasants, using only baskets and sticks, to level entire mountains would consider carrying cargo in such a manner.

  No sooner had the first group disappeared up the mountain than another team trotted out with the second torpedo in tow. It would take the teams three days and nights of backbreaking work to haul the heavy weapons up and over the 3500-meter-high pass and then down the other side. There, ox teams would take over the burden. After another full day by ox team, the weapons would arrive at a little used spur of the Ch'ongin-to-Musan rail line where a boxcar waited.

  The torpedoes would soon arrive back in Najin along with fifty other boxcars destined to be filled with American wheat, courtesy of the United Nations ReliefWeb. Chung chuckled at the juxtaposition. The same train that would deliver the weapons for use against America would then take wheat from the United States to feed the North Korean Army. None of the wheat would ever make it to the starving peasants, of course, but the Americans were so full of self-righteous benevolence to suspect that.

  Chung watched the next group closely. They were towing the real warheads. General Kim Dai-jang had been very explicit about lugging them up over the coastal mountains as well. Even so, Chung didn't like the idea of illiterate peasant soldiers caring for his prizes high up on the steep, slippery trail. There was just too much chance of something going wrong during the hazardous transit.

  He pulled on his mountain gear and plunged out into the downpour. He would accompany this wagonload of freight. It was far better to face a wild storm than the General's wrath.

  Admiral Tom Donnegan picked up the phone and dialed a well-remembered number. Jon Ward answered on the second ring. Donnegan didn't waste time with social niceties. There would be plenty of time to catch up with his godson after the mission was done.

  "Jon, pack your sea bag,” he said abruptly. “I've got a job for you."

  Donnegan spent the next twenty minutes telling the submarine squadron commander about the suspected North Korean nuclear threat and detailed the President's order to go in and take it out.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” Ward finally asked. “Unless you want me…”

  “Right. You will be the on-scene commander.”

  "Why me, Tom? There must be a dozen people already out there who are senior to me. Besides, it's really a SEAL op. Shouldn't one of them be in charge?"

  "After that Russian thing, the President specifically asked for you to do the job," Donnegan answered. Jon Ward had been the on-scene chief of an operation several years before when a Russian admiral attempted a coup and came frighteningly close to pulling it off. A SEAL insertion into foreign territory had been a key element in that mission as well. Donnegan didn’t give Ward a chance to protest. "Besides, you'll have a SEAL for your second-in-command. A guy I think you know already. I'm sending Bill Beaman over with you as well. You two will set up your command post in Yokosuka. I don't want to hear about either of you old war-horses getting within a thousand miles of North Korea. Is that understood?"

  Ward smiled. It would be great working with the big SEAL commander again. Bill Beaman headed up SEAL Team Three stationed out in Coronado, near San Diego. The two were old friends, frequent competitors, and had teamed up on a couple of particularly difficult missions over the last several years. It had been Beaman who led the SEAL team into Russia to deter Admiral Alexander Durov’s bold attempt to overthrow the Russian government. The two Naval commanders seemed to think a lot alike. Even the President had noticed what an excellent team they made.

  "Yes, sir. I understand. Have you talked to Bill yet?"

  "Not yet,” Donnegan growled. “He's about third down on my list right now. It'll be his boys going in and probably Topeka carrying the mail. She's already on station over there."

  Ward rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. This was an unbelievably tough mission militarily. The North Koreans may not have state of the art defenses, but they were extremely touchy about anyone trying to sneak in to their little socialist paradise. They had a well-deserved reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. The political realities were daunting as well. Nowadays, the South Koreans were even skittish about the U.S. or any other nations meddling in the region. They felt that they were finally making slow progress with the DPRK regime and did not want anyone derailing their efforts. They would be no help. And never mind what the rest of the world might say if they knew the U.S. was about to send a combatant team into and eventually shoot missiles at the sovereign territory of another nation, just on the suspicion of something bad going on there.

  "Admiral, it sounds doable," Ward answered, the doubt evident in his voice.

  "I hear a ‘but’ in your answer, Commander," Donnegan shot back. "You going to tell me what it is or make me have to guess?"

  "First, I don't like using the sub for the Tomahawk shooter. There’s too much chance of the DPRK pinpointing them. That'll make the SEAL extraction real hard to do. Can we get another shooter? Someone a lot farther out."

  "I'll see what I can do," Donnegan promised. "There should be an Aegis around there that can do it. Meanwhile, I'm working on getting a Global Hawk on station to give you continuous real time surveillance. It'll be flying out of Okinawa, but we have to ferry it from the factory in San Diego. It'll take thirty-six hours to get it there and ready to operate."

  The big unmanned surveillance aircraft was designed to loiter high over a target country, watching what was happening far below while it sent the information back to a command post in real time. Its synthetic aperture radar and infrared and electro-optical sensors, looking down from above 65,000 feet, could detect a particular moving truck and even read its license plate. And because it wasn't a satellite, the Global Hawk wasn't constrained by orbital physics. It could circle over a hotspot for over 24 hours, sending out imagery the entire time. The only problem was the big robot bird was usually based in Southern California. The Rolls-Royce turbo-fan engine pushed the UAV half way around the world to arrive at a new hot spot, but at 350 knots, the flight took thirty hours. That meant the Global Hawk needed a base closer to the action from which to deploy. The long runways at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa were perfect.

  “OK,” Ward said.

  “You have more concerns? Speak now.”

  “Only that I hope to God that we’re right, Tom. That they have the nukes and that we can prove it before we start lighting fires in North Korea.”

  Donnegan released a long, slow sigh on the other end of the telephone.

  “I’m with you, Jon. But if they have the sons of bitches, they’re damn sure gonna use ‘em for something far more strategic than fireworks on New Years. They’ve got plans. And I want to make sure we mess ‘em up before the bastards do something stupid.”

  “That we will do, Admiral,” Jon Ward said with conviction. “That we will do.”

  Manju Shehab leaned back in the seat at the stern of the big speedboat. The thick mangrove swamp that surrounded his camp, hiding it from prying eyes, was strangely silent for this time of night. It usually reverberated with the cries of the hunt as the drama of the jungle lifecycle played out around them. But tonight the nocturnal hunters and their prey were eerily quiet, almost as if they sensed the presence of far more dangerous predators.

  Shehab glanced around, barely able to make out his men moving about in the misty darkness. They struggled to load the boats with the weapons and ammunition they would soon need.

  The camp, built on a rare bit of high ground in the impenetrable mangrove forests that surrounded most of the west side of Palawan, made a perfect staging area for Shehab and his band of Abu Sayuff guerillas. In here, they were hidden and safe from all approaches. There was only
a single torturously narrow channel leading to the South China Sea. It was easy for them to dash out at night, raid an unsuspecting ship, and be back and hidden before the morning sun rose over the mountains.

  The call from his leader, Sabul u Nurizam, was unexpected. Shehab had been quietly buying supplies in Puerto Princessa, the rundown provincial capital around on the east side of the sparsely populated island. Nurizam was safely back from his trip to Rangoon and the meeting with the woman drug lord. He was now back at his mountaintop command post four hundred miles across the Sulu Sea on Basilan Island.

  Nurizam’s orders were blunt. Shehab was to rush back to the pirate camp at once. He was to lead a raid against some tramp steamer enroute from Phnom Penh to Kudat in Malaysia. The ship would arrive in port the day after tomorrow.

  That didn't give Shehab enough time to properly prepare. He tried to express his misgivings about the timing of the assault but Nurizam was adamant. This ship must be taken.

  So that was that. Shehab switched his tiny flashlight on again and carefully scrutinized the chart spread across his lap. The times and distances had not changed since the last time he studied them. The only possible intercept point was in the deep water of the Palawan Passage, halfway between Royal Charlotte Reef and Kudat. Those waters were being patrolled heavily lately in an attempt to stop pirates. Pirates like Shehab and his men. It would be very dangerous. And to make it even worse, the only possible time for the assault was during daylight.

  Shehab shrugged. Insha Allah. If God willed. He yelled at his men to cast off. It was time for them to head out to sea if they had any hope of catching the steamer.

  The jungle was still strangely quiet as they steered the boats into the constricted channel and toward the open sea.

  “Looks like I’m doomed to share a lousy room with your ass for the rest of my days,” Tom Kincaid said. There was no humor in his voice.

  “Sorry it is not the Marriott,” Benito Luna responded.

  The two drug agents were once again cooped up in a tiny room together, this time sharing a damp, musty cell in the old stone fortress in Zamboanga that the NBI called headquarters. Colonel Ortega had sounded like a tour guide when he told them how this pile of stones had been built by the Spanish to imprison Filipino patriots. How the Americans and Japanese had similarly used it. And now, he had bragged, it was being used by the Filipinos to hold Americans. Those were his final words before he slammed the door shut and walked away laughing.

  No one else had entered the cell for two days. The guards only laughed when Kincaid insisted that he be allowed to talk to a lawyer and with someone from the American Embassy.

  Meanwhile Benito Luna sat quietly. He finally told his boss that pleas and threats were futile. Nothing would happen until it suited Colonel Ortega. Until then, they might as well sit and save their strength.

  Kincaid finally realized that his partner was right. He flicked the bugs off the dirty sheet and slumped down onto his thin mattress. Eventually someone back at JDIA headquarters in San Diego would realize that they were missing and would start searching. How long it would take to find them in a jail cell in Zamboanga was anyone's guess.

  Kincaid was half asleep when the lock clicked. He looked up to see a tall, thin man, dressed in a white linen suit, pink shirt and bright blue tie, step into the cell. The visitor looked like something out of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad for proper tropical attire. He moved languidly toward Kincaid and held out a limp hand.

  "Hello, I'm Reginald Morris, from the State Department. I represent the U. S. Consulate here.” He flashed a rather insincere smile. “You seem to be in a bit of trouble."

  Kincaid jumped up and grabbed the offered hand. He pumped it gladly. Morris dropped the handshake quickly and then seemed to retreat to a spot near the door. That seemed odd.

  "Boy, are we glad to see you. I'm Tom Kincaid, Special Agent for the Joint Drug Interdiction Agency, and this is Benito Luna, my local agent. Let's get out of here. I need to get to a phone."

  Morris stepped back even farther. He looked as if he might bolt out the door if Kincaid made a step in his direction.

  "I'm afraid that it's not quite that easy,” the diplomat answered in a cracking, high-pitched voice that reminded Kincaid of a teenaged boy. “You've been charged with some very serious crimes."

  "Crimes? What crimes?" Kincaid shouted. "We have been conducting an investigation into heroin smuggling through the southern Philippines."

  "You should have first cleared such an investigation through my office, Mr. Kincaid," Morris answered. "Then we could have asked Colonel Ortega for permission to run an investigation in his jurisdiction. That is the way things are done here. Protocol is of the utmost importance."

  Benito Luna piped up.

  "That sounds like asking the fox's permission to guard the hen house."

  Morris shrugged.

  "You have to understand the diplomatic and political sensitivities of the issue. We are conducting very delicate negotiations here to bolster our position. We simply cannot have cowboys like you two come charging in and upsetting everything we have worked so hard for."

  "Look, Morris, we cleared this through our contacts in Manila,” Kincaid protested. “Surely they can clear this up and we can get out of here and back to work."

  "You are a very long way from Manila," Morris replied. "Manuel Ortega is the law here. He tells a very different story. He says that you were trying to instigate an armed uprising on Basilan Island. You will be tried for treason, when it suits the Colonel."

  Kincaid was at once aghast, angry, and frustrated. How could such a thing happen in this day and age? It was impossible, even in this backwater town.

  "Can't we plead diplomatic immunity or something? You have to get us out of here. Call the Ambassador."

  Morris did not respond. He simply turned and walked out the door. The jailer reached across and slammed it shut. The lock made a loud, ominous click as it fell into place. Morris looked back through the narrow viewing window.

  "I'm afraid you are on your own for now. In light of the situation, and because of the way you handled your so-called investigation, there is nothing the State Department can do for you at this time."

  Kincaid threw his tin water cup against the door. The water splashed upward but missed the effete diplomat. He turned and disappeared down the narrow hallway outside the cell.

  "Damn!" Kincaid spat in frustration.

  “I’m sorry I got you into this,” Luna said.

  “Save your apologies. Just help me figure some way out of this mess.”

  But as Tom Kincaid settled back onto his filthy, bedbug-ridden cot, he didn’t have a clue of where to start.

  11

  The two low, black boats zipped across the deep blue water, leaving broad white arrows of froth in their wakes. A hot tropical sun beat down unmercifully from high in a cloudless cobalt sky.

  Manju Shehab was worried. He didn't like this at all. The two boats were completely exposed. The protective mangrove swamps of Palawan were three hundred kilometers behind them. They were easy prey for anyone who might be out on these open waters. Pirates should be creatures of the night, not out here like this, exposed to the bright noontime sun.

  But there was no option. Nurizam ordered them out. The ship could not be allowed to slip through. Clearly, this was all wrapped up in the deal Nurizam had struck with that drug-pushing houri, Lee Dawn Shun. Part of her vendetta to undo her father. A quarrel that the Abu Sayuff was obviously now in the middle of.

  Shehab's pirate crew sat in their assigned places, uneasily scanning the horizon for signs of their prey and for any indication that they were being tracked. The regional navies, led by the Singaporeans, were heavily patrolling the entire stretch of constricted waters from the Spratleys to the west entrance of the Straits of Molucca. With the Americans’ help, they were making these raids very difficult even in the best of times. There was no way to tell when a warship would suddenly appear on the horizon. Or w
orse, a helicopter. They might outrun a gunboat, but one of those infernal choppers with their vicious rockets was an entirely different matter.

  Shehab patted the Stinger launcher that was lying on the deck at his feet. Any helo that came sniffing around would get a very rude surprise. And maybe quick enough to save their own lives.

  Erinque Tagaytai yelled and pointed toward the west. The tall, heavy-set pirate was the first to spy a gray smudge where the water met the sky. A ship was steaming toward them. No way to tell yet whether it was their prey, a warship, or some other vessel.

  Shehab yanked the throttles full open and aimed the boat's needlelike bow at the ship. Better to find out quickly if this was prey or hunter. Better than waiting for it to draw close and find out the hard way. The boat leaped ahead, skipping across the waves. Its crew tightened their grips and grimly held on. The ride shifted from merely rough to a kidney-bruising, leaping run across the wave tops.

  The second boat quickly roared to full throttle and raced to keep up.

  Tagaytai laughed and yelled something but his words were lost in the noise. The roaring wind pulled his cheeks back into an evil grin. The big man held his machine gun in the air and happily pumped it up and down. He obviously felt the blood lust of the hunt already.

  The two speedboats raced to intercept the ship. Slowly the profile of a small merchant ship appeared through the wind-driven spray. Nurizam had been right. The ship was clearly headed straight for Kudat.

  There was no chance of a stealthy approach in broad daylight. Shehab headed straight for the vessel. As soon as he could, he raised his binoculars to read the ship's name. Moon Flower was painted in fading black letters high up on the ship's rust-streaked sides. It was the right ship.