by Mike Ramon
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pyongyang, North Korea
June 15 -- 00:07 UTC/9:07 am local time
Gah Joon-ho had proudly taken the name Sandsnake barely a year before, when he had been raised to a position within the organization worthy of a codename. He had served the cause well, a true believer in a future of One Korea, in which the glorious nation would rise from the ashes of revolution to become not a superpower, but the superpower in the East. He had believed it all, and still believed.
He believed it even as he accepted that he was dying. The wound in his leg was bleeding much too fast for him to have any hope of staunching the flow. All he could do was hold a wadded up piece of shirt, which he had torn off a dead body, to the wound as he shouted orders to his men.
The attack had come as a total surprise, which he supposed was the point. It was just that he had been assured by Viper that both the government and military of North Korea would not move against the revolutionaries; a combination of threats and bribes had taken care of that. Or so they had thought.
Kung and Tan, his brothers in the cause, both lay dead just feet away from him. Tae Seo-yeon was firing from a protected position, popping out and firing her weapon before ducking back into safety. Bullets were pinging off of metal, chinking of cement, and the smell of gunpowder was sharp in Sandsnake’s nose.
He tried to stand, but his left leg--his wounded leg--hurt too much, and he sank back to the floor, trying to stay as low as possible to avoid gunfire. There was an explosion outside, and too late he covered his ears against the noise. A high-pitched ringing blotted out all noise momentarily, and when the sounds of battle (and of his own quick breathing) returned, they sounded muted, like the noise from a TV in another room.
Sandsnake looked down at his leg; fresh blood was oozing out of the bullet wound. His entire leg felt as if it was on fire. He grimaced in pain, but did not moan or groan, or make any sound betraying how much pain he was in. He had his pride, after all.
He looked around and found his pistol lying on the ground among shards of broken glass. Sandsnake crawled nearer the weapon. He made an attempt to avoid the glass, but cut his right palm on a piece of the broken glass anyway. He barely felt it, the hot pain radiating out from his left thigh commanding most of his attention. He picked up the gun and dragged himself to the window, which was the source of the broken glass.
Sandsnake lifted himself up so that he could peer over the windowsill. Below he could see men in fatigues scurrying around like rats. Rats in army fatigues--that’s what they were. A bullet ricocheted off the wall just to the right of his head, and he ducked down for cover. He could hear the soldiers, those rats, yelling back and forth to one another, coordinating their attack. They were traitors to their people, every last one of them. He hoped that when Violet Dawn completed its revolution each of the traitors was found out and punished.
There was an explosion down below, on the first floor of the building. The force of the explosion shook the whole building; the floor seemed to buckle underneath Sandsnake, and he thought for one terrible moment that the floor might fall away beneath him and send him tumbling down. When the noise subsided he could hear the shouts of the soldiers outside moving closer, until they sounded like they were directly below him. They had blown a hole in the building to use as an entry point. Now they were inside the building, and he knew that all was lost.
From where he was lying on the floor he could see the head of the stairs leading up from the first floor. He knew that the enemy would have to come up those very stairs to get to the second floor. He pushed himself back so that his back was propped up against the wall. His leg didn’t hurt so much anymore, and he was grateful. It just kind of felt numb.
He checked his pistol, making sure there were still plenty of rounds in the clip. There was gunfire downstairs, followed by screams of pain. Sandsnake had no idea which side was doing the screaming. He supposed that it made little difference. He waited. He was getting tired, had to fight to keep his eyes open. If he could just get a little sleep, he knew that he would feel better. No time for sleep now, though.
The voices became louder as they moved around downstairs. He thought they were moving closer to the staircase, but wasn’t certain. There was a single gunshot, then silence. Two more shots. The voices had moved to the foot of the stairway. Somebody yelled something up the staircase; Sandsnake couldn’t make out what was said. Probably a call to surrender.
Footsteps on the stairs. Heavy boots pounding up toward him. He raised the pistol so that the barrel was pointing toward the top of the stairway. Any moment now. He would take at least a couple of the rats with him to whatever world followed after this one.
Then all he could see was darkness.
When the North Korean soldiers reached the second floor the first thing they saw was a dead man slumped against a wall, a pistol gripped in one limp, lifeless hand.