Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

  Donnegan had been his usual gruff, no nonsense self. No appetizer. Just right into the main course.

  There was very good reason to believe the North Koreans had grabbed some nuclear weapons and were hiding them in the mountains just outside Najin. If they stole the things, they meant to use them or sell them to somebody who would. Beaman’s SEALs were the best available method to confirm and destroy the weapons before either of those possibilities was realized. Beaman was to put together a small team and get them to Japan ASAP. From there, he would send them in to locate and target the nukes for a Tomahawk strike.

  There was one catch. Beaman was to stay behind in Japan to oversee the operation from there. To nervously pace the deck while his boys went off into harm's way. Those were orders, but it still hurt. Hell, he wasn't that old, despite the ache in the small of his back that refused to go away, even as he paced the length of the plane’s passenger compartment trying to work it out, even as he eased back down and buckled up for their landing. He still had a lot of good missions in him. And besides, these guys were his responsibility. He should be there, just as he always had been in the past every time the bullets flew.

  "Everybody, get strapped in. We're ten minutes out from Yokota." The loudspeaker broke through Beaman's self-commiseration.

  He clambered back into the uncomfortable Air Force issue passenger seat and strapped the safety harness down. The tiny window to his right looked out onto a wall of gray. The flaps, spoilers, and landing gears all ground into place just as the big jet fell through the bottom of the cloud cover. The broad plain surrounding Tokyo spread out below. Tiny rice paddies vied with huge smoke-belching factories for space.

  The big gray plane smacked down on the runway and ground to a halt. After a few minutes of taxing, they stopped beside a nondescript hanger hidden well back from the main flight line.

  "We're ready to roll, Skipper."

  The words broke into Beaman's reverie. The smooth-faced kid making the report sounded much too young for what he was about to march into. Brian Walker was a fresh new lieutenant, junior grade. This would be the tall, lanky Texan’s first assignment since he had reported aboard Seal Team Three fresh out of the training pipeline. His pronounced drawl earned him his nickname within an hour of reporting in.

  "Sure thing, Cowboy. Have Chief Johnston muster the boys and offload their stuff. I'll meet you inside."

  Beaman grabbed his bag and strode out of the passenger compartment, down onto the cargo deck of the cavernous C-17, then out the hatch and down the steps to the tarmac.

  He didn’t look back.

  "Cowboy" Walker watched his skipper disappear out of the side hatch as Johnston and the rest of the team methodically and efficiently began moving the mountain of gear out of the plane and into a waiting truck. There was nothing for him to do but toss his own bag in the truck and wait.

  Walker still couldn't quite believe what was happening to him. This was a long way from his family’s ranch in the scrub country outside Amarillo. A long time since the final confrontation with his father, who could not understand why his only son was throwing away the hard-earned diploma from Texas A&M, leaving behind the ranch he was supposed to someday run, to go off and wallow in the mud with a bunch of other misguided patriot-wannabes. The pain and elation of BUD-S, Basic Underwater Demolition-SEALs, was still a fresh memory. And now here he was, about to lead a team of battle-hardened veterans on an operational mission. Men who had seen real action, most recently in Colombia and Russia. Despite the training, he still had no idea if he was ready or if he could hold up his end of the operation or how he would react when it got hot.

  Walker couldn’t avoid the fear and doubt that tugged at him from every direction. He shook his head and tried not to think about it as the team threw the last bit of gear onto the truck and jostled each other good-naturedly.

  Walker pursed his lips and climbed into the truck’s passenger seat. This was what he wanted. What he had trained for. Now, he would finally prove himself. To his team. To Beaman. To his father. To himself.

  Bill Beaman stepped into the cool air conditioning of the hanger maintenance office. The first face he saw once his eyes adjusted was that of Jon Ward.

  "Well, if it ain't the other half of the 'over the hill' gang," the submariner grunted as the two old friends embraced and pounded each other on the back. "About time you got your butt over here. I need someone to make the coffee in the command center."

  "In your dreams, bubble-head," the SEAL grunted back good-naturedly. "Go find another old, broken down sailor to make your coffee. I mean to try my damnedest to get on the black sewer pipe that you laid on for this mission."

  Ward grabbed up Beaman's bag without even asking and headed toward the front entrance with it.

  "Come on. You don’t have a ride do you? I've got a car outside. Topeka is scheduled to tie up in an hour. We have a meeting for all the players at 1700. With traffic, we should just have enough time to show you the coffee mess."

  Beaman shrugged and followed along in Ward's wake. He knew the submariner well. Even with the air of friendly jousting, Beaman could feel his old friend's mood.

  Jon Ward was worried about something. For whatever it was to show through, it had to be damned serious.

  That meant trouble. Big trouble.

  Marc Lucerno had never driven a submarine through traffic like this before. The strain and tension of threading his way past all these ships without hitting one of them was wearing him out. Sweat rolled down his neck and soaked the collar and back of his dark-blue poopie suit. He had just slowed to “ahead one-third” and snaked around so many ships that they were barely making any real headway anymore.

  There seemed to be a thousand ships out here and most of them appeared intent on running him and Topeka over. Tokyo Wan, the broad bay that separates Tokyo and Yokosuka from the Pacific, is one of the busiest stretches of water in the world. Despite the country’s economic downturn in the late 1990s, a vast amount of cargo still passed through these waters every day. Add in the thousands of fishing boats, the ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and the Japan Maritime Defense Force ships and Tokyo Wan resembled one big, chaotic whirlpool.

  Lucerno stood in the bridge cockpit on the Topeka, willing a huge outbound freighter to turn. The ship was only a thousand yards off his bow and bearing down quickly. If the freighter didn’t veer, Lucerno would have to maneuver across the bow of a gigantic inbound tanker that was already threatening to run over his submarine from behind.

  The problem with submarines on the surface was that, like an iceberg, eighty percent of their massive bulk was hidden beneath the water. Other mariners looked down from their perch high on the bridges of their ships and saw only a tiny vessel that should easily be able to drive out of the way. So they plowed on. What they couldn’t see was a major warship, the size of a World War II cruiser, beneath the surface.

  Two days before, the Topeka had been idly cruising back and forth just off the North Korean coast, conducting a routine surveillance mission, sucking up meaningless electrons. They were facing the prospect of another month of doing little more than staring at the high, pine-tree-covered mountains, wondering what was happening in the world's most reclusive country.

  Lucerno, along with most of the rest of Topeka’s crew, was suffering from severe boredom. Then everything had changed in an instant.

  The skipper, Commander Don Chapman, had suddenly dashed out of radio and slapped the PMP, the parallel motion protractor, onto the quartermaster's chart. Everyone watched wide-eyed, wondering what the hell was going on.

  “Officer of the Deck,” he shouted. “Make your depth five hundred feet. Ahead flank! Come to course one-four-five." There was no explanation for the urgent shift in plans.

  They ran deep and fast for two days. Down across the Sea of Japan, through the Tsushima Straits, around Kyushu, and north to Tokyo Wan. Lucerno still didn't know why, but he did know that the skipper wanted to be alongside the pier in Yokosuka by 1
500. He suspected the enormous hurry had nothing to do with happy hour at the O-Club.

  Lucerno concentrated on the immediate situation. The outbound freighter wasn't changing course. The son of a bitch must believe in the "law of max gross tonnage." He was bigger so everyone else better damn well stay out of his way.

  Nothing for Lucerno to do but to change course and lose more time. Better tell both freighters what he was going to do.

  The officer reached down and yanked on the brass handle that jutted out just below the compass repeater. He held the handle back and the sub's air whistle sounded one prolonged blast, telling the captains of all the ships in the area that Topeka was changing course to starboard. The whistle was mounted high up on the forward edge of the sub's sail, just in front of the access trunk that connected the bridge to the control room twenty-five feet below. It was designed to be loud, brazen enough to be heard at least three miles away.

  Commander Chapman poked his head out of the upper bridge access hatch just as Lucerno released the handle. The skipper was shaking his head, had his eyes squinted shut, and he was furiously rubbing his ears.

  "Damn it to hell, Mister Lucerno! You trying to deafen me? Make it so I can't hear what I'm saying when I chew your ass?"

  "N-no, sir," Lucerno stammered. "Just coming right so we don't get run over."

  Chapman clambered up the last few steps to the bridge and looked out at the broad expanse of open, brown water and the swarm of ships out there, still rubbing his ears.

  "Well, we're going to be late if you don't step it up. Come to ‘ahead full.’"

  "But, Skipper, the contacts…" Lucerno started to protest.

  Chapman cut him off with a wave of his hand. It was more of a chop, really. The debate was over before it began.

  "You heard me. ‘Ahead full.’"

  Topeka leaped forward in answer to the new ordered bell. Two stubborn captains could play at the game of “mine is bigger than yours.”

  Don Chapman was sure as hell not going to be late for the most important briefing of his naval career.

  Ellen Ward scrambled up the steep muddy path, trying desperately to keep up with Roger Sindhlan. He was already about to disappear into the curtain of luxuriant green foliage ahead of them. The cloying heat and humidity were already sapping her strength as the group clawed their way up the jungle-covered mountain, and the unsure footing made the climb all the more difficult. A regular jogger, she was in good shape, but this climb was taking all she could muster.

  Her students spread out in a thin line down the trail behind her. Most were lagging behind, revealing the effects of years of college life with little more exercise than rushing to their 8 AM classes.

  Ellen could only hope that they might catch some cooling winds when they got higher on the shoulder of the mountain. For right now, though, it was like using a stair-climber in a steam bath.

  Ellen looked down at herself. She saw her dirt-encrusted shirt and the smears of red clay mud that covered both legs. She knew her makeup was long since sweated away and the hair she had piled up beneath her baseball cap had slipped loose and was matted to her face and neck.

  No, this hike was more like mud wrestling in a steam bath.

  Roger had been very excited the previous night during their dinner with Sui Kia Shun. The botanist was certain that he had discovered a new orchid specie. He insisted that Ellen and her students climb with him up the mountain to see it for themselves. He was very mysterious about the new flower, telling Ellen only that she had to see it in its natural habitat to fully appreciate it.

  She smiled as she wiped the perspiration from her eyes with her dirty handkerchief, smearing more red mud across her cheek and forehead. Roger was proving to be a godsend for this study trip. He always seemed to have something exciting and entertaining for her students to see or do. He was giving them field experiences that most doctoral candidates didn't have the opportunity to enjoy.

  And Sui Kia Shun proved to be more than a gracious host. The short Chinese merchant insisted that they stay in his enormous mountaintop mansion and use it as their base camp while they explored northern Thailand. He even generously provided his personal helicopter and pilot to shuttle them around the area. Ellen had lived with a military man long enough to have some idea about the hardware and its fuel consumption rate. She had a good guess about how truly charitable that gesture had been.

  Their first day there, Roger and Sui Kia Shun took them on a tour of Sui's large collection of species orchids, collected over many years from the surrounding mountainous jungles. Ellen was amazed at the extent of the collection and the devotion Sui had for his pet plants. But when she suggested that he publish his findings for the orchid world, the man shyly demurred, saying they weren't worthy of such august attention. To Ellen, it seemed almost as if he wanted to stay in the background, hidden back in the shadows of this remote, beautiful place.

  "Just around the next bend!" Roger shouted from the edge of the undergrowth. "Hurry! I want you to see this before the rest catch up."

  Ellen picked up her pace a bit and finally reached the point where Sindhlan waited for her. He was standing beside the rude, narrow trail; pointing at a tiny plant that seemed to be clinging tenaciously to a fallen tree. A spike rose from the center of its deep-green mottled leaves. The spike held a delicate white flower a few inches above the jungle floor. Ellen could just make out a slight splash of pink and yellow inside its throat.

  "Beautiful! I've never seen anything like it," she gasped. She dropped to her knees to get a closer look.

  "You are the second person ever to see it," Roger said softly, kneeling next to her. She could feel his presence close beside her. "I'm naming it Paphopedelium denarii Ellenanum. Such a beautiful flower deserves to be named for a beautiful woman."

  Colonel Kuang il Chung stood beside his staff car and watched with enthralled attention as the coolies lifted the last of the heavy devices into the boxcar. The long, difficult climb over the high mountain pass was finally over. The phony torpedoes were already shipped off to Najin where they would be loaded onto a freighter headed south to Malaysia for Sabul u Nurizam as soon as the cash payment for them was received.

  Once these crates were safely strapped down and the security detail was stationed in the car, the train would be on its way. Then Chung could go down to the little inn and bathe away the journey's filth and exhaustion. After a night's sleep in a real bed, he would rush to catch up with the train before it arrived at Chonch'bn. It wouldn't do for General Kim Dai-jang to meet the shipment and not be greeted by his trusted assistant.

  Brutal storms and lashing winds high up on the mountain had turned the two-day journey into four miserable days of slipping and sliding along a treacherous, narrow path. Along one particularly dangerous precipice, four of the coolies had slipped over the edge. They dangled down over the vertical rock, tethered only by the ropes that were fastened to the crates, screaming for help while their fellow laborers grimly held on.

  The whole bunch was sliding over the edge, about to pull their load with them, when Chung sprang forward to slash the ropes. The four pack animals fell screaming for five hundred meters before they finally bounced off the crags below. They lay smashed and silent, little more than barely visible bundles of rags at the edge of the boulder-strewn river.

  Chung kicked and shouted at the remainder of the coolies, pushing them to continue. He fumed silently. Why had General Kim Dai-jang insisted that he use animals like these? They were the dregs of humanity, unable to follow even simple directions. He would have been much better served by using real mules instead of these human substitutes. At least the ones who survived paid more attention to their footing the rest of the way.

  "The shipment is loaded," the officer of the guard said, saluting smartly as he reported. "The crates are secured and my men are in place."

  Chung returned the salute.

  "Very well. Guard them carefully. If there is even a scuff on those crates, you and all yo
ur family will join your ancestors." He turned on his heel and stalked off toward his vehicle.

  The officer slammed the boxcar door shut. Then, as soon as he was sure his commander was gone, he spat into the mud and cursed Chung’s name.

  Chung’s staff car roared down the narrow, unpaved road. A quarter hour later, the train began moving and disappeared around a curve.

  At the same time, sixty thousand feet above them and thirty miles out to sea, the Global Hawk satellite began its first swing past the North Korean coast. Its synthetic aperture radar and high-resolution optical sensors down linked the scene below to the Yokosuka command center. The car and the train along with thousands of other equally innocuous images were digitized, packeted into a single electronic burst, and then sent whirling away to a waiting receiving antenna.

  In an instant, the images were decoded and available for review by human eyes.

  13

  Commander Paul Wilson stood on the bridge wing of the Higgins and watched as Joe Petranko efficiently fished the SH-60 crew out of the water, just as he and his men had done in dozens of drills. Miraculously, except for some bumps and bruises, the helicopter’s crewmembers were none the worse for wear after spending several hours bobbing around in a pair of little yellow survival rafts.

  Wilson wished he could say the same for the crew of the freighter Moon Flower. By the time Higgins arrived at the scene of the attack, the sea had already started the inevitable process of reclaiming and recycling available protein. Black-tipped reef sharks, attracted by blood in the water, started the process by viciously shredding the large pieces of human flesh. Progressively smaller scavenger fish rushed in to devour smaller bits until the last of the detritus sank to the bottom. Even these microscopic particles found their way back into the food chain, nourishing the coral reef that was continuously forming a hundred feet below the ocean’s surface.