The Korean Gambit

by Charles DeMaris

  “Shut your eyes,” Casey said.

  When Jefferson and Casey opened their eyes a couple seconds later, the snipers were completely disoriented by the blinding flash of the grenade and they never knew what hit them when Casey and Jefferson glided down to the roof and took them out at close range.

  “Roof secure, placing charge on the AA,” Casey said.

  “Roger that,” came the reply from the other teams.

  The other teams began their methodical approach to the building, watching the HUD on their helmet visors and moving around the mines.

  “Team 1 in place.”

  “Team 2 in place.”

  “Team 3 in place.”

  “Team 4 in place.”

  “Team 5 in place,” Casey said. “Charge in place on the AA, detonating on my mark. 5,4,3,2,1.”

  On 1, Casey detonated the charge on the anti-aircraft battery and the teams at the doors detonated the breaching charges they had placed and everyone poured into the building, weapons at the ready.

  The sound of the charges alerted everyone in the house including Yuriy, who was startled out of a deep sleep. He was completely awake in an instant and on the phone seconds later.

  “Yes, I heard that,” Pavel said, “I’m headed to the server room as we speak.”

  “The timetable just moved up to now,” Yuriy said, “Is everything in place?”

  “The missile was in the silo yesterday and I have a back door into their system. I should be able to launch in five minutes tops.”

  “Get on it.”

  Tonghae, North Korea

  Mok Konu had just sat down at his desk with a cup of coffee when he looked over at his computer and saw something he wasn’t expecting to see until tomorrow. Silo 2 was online and about to launch. This was the test that was scheduled for tomorrow, but it appeared that someone had jumped the gun. He went out of his office to see who was responsible, but the men were as confused as he was. It took two people to launch a missile and none of the men in the room even had their hands near the keys. Nobody in the facility had done anything, but the missile was a moment away from launch.

  He went back to his office to call his superiors when the silo door opened and the missile took off and cleared the silo, climbing rapidly into the sky. He got on his computer, but there was nothing he could do. It was like the system had locked him out. The test was supposed to be another saber- rattling exercise by the leader, landing in the Sea of Japan. He looked at the computer and the guidance information it was giving him, did the necessary calculations, and let out a gasp.

  Yuriy knew they were under attack, but he also knew that Pavel would carry out their plan if it was the last thing he ever did. How did it come to this? It had to be the girl. Clearly she was more resourceful than he gave her credit for. From the sounds of the sporadic gunfire throughout the house, it was also clear that she hadn’t come alone. He knew that his men were dying in the house, but he also knew that the Prescott girl would want to take him alive, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. He was just reaching into his desk drawer to pull out a pistol when the door burst open and he saw a face that he could never forget, though it had been decades since he had seen it last.

  “Put the weapon down and keep your hands where I can see them,” Hank said.

  “Mr. Wilcox, we meet again.”

  “Can it, Yuriy, it’s over. We know everything and you’ve lost.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Pavel is taking care of everything as we speak. You’re too late.”

  “No, Yuriy, you’ve failed. We have the building surrounded. Nobody’s getting out, not even Pavel.”

  “But he doesn’t need to get out, only—”

  “Oh, just shut up already. We don’t have time for all this villain’s last speech crap,” Rachel said as she hit him in the temple with the butt of her pistol, knocking him out, “just tie him up and we’ll secure the rest of the house.”

  Casey and Jefferson met little resistance coming down from the roof, just two men in one of the rooms who had been sleeping, and were sleeping again as Jefferson hit both of them before they could even process what was going on.

  They encountered two alert guards in the stairwell heading to the main floor, and Casey dropped one with a burst to the chest, while Jefferson took the other one out.

  “Upstairs clear,” Casey said as they kept moving into the main floor.

  Rachel and Hank exited Yuriy’s study just as Boris was entering, pistol drawn and pointed their way. Rachel wasted no time in dropping him with a round to the forehead. Two more men came out of a room down the hall and only managed to get their weapons up before Hank dropped them both with one burst.

  “Clear,” Rachel said over comms.

  “Main floor clear,” Omar said.

  That left the basement, with Brock and Ahmed heading for the computer room.

  Ahmed was having a time keeping up with Brock as he moved through the lower floor, killing two guards who came out of a room, weapons drawn. When they got to the door to the server room, Brock noticed something different.

  “Didn’t Rachel say this was a fingerprint scanner?” Brock asked.

  “Yes, she was sure. She cut off a guy’s finger to get through it.”

  “Looks like it’s been upgraded to retinal. Give me a hand with one of the guys in that room back there.”

  Brock and Ahmed went down the hall and dragged one of the bodies behind them.

  “Good thing I left one of his eyes intact,” Brock said, “We need to prop him up and get his eyelid open.”

  Brock pulled the dead man upright in front of the scanner and Ahmed pulled his eyelids opened, tilting the head so the eye was in front of the scanner. A couple seconds later, the door opened and Ahmed stepped through, yelping in pain a second later as a round fired from inside the room hit him in the thigh. Brock pulled him behind a server and assessed the wound.

  “You’re one lucky bastard. No major arteries hit. Sit tight.”

  Brock moved from behind the server to where he thought the shot had come from and he saw a slight figure dart behind another server farther down the room. He charged in that direction and the other man stepped out and fired another shot his way. Brock was anticipating this and dropped to a crouch, the round whizzing just over his head. He pulled his own rifle up and fired a burst in the direction of the other man, dropping him where he stood.

  He went to the man he had just shot and noticed he wasn’t dead yet, but would be soon if the rapidly growing pool of blood was any indication. The man was grinning and trying to say something, but his words were too faint. He was repeating something, and when Brock followed his gaze, he realized what he was saying. “Too late.”

  He looked and saw a computer terminal at the far wall, and he didn’t have to look closer to realize what was going on. He ran back to Ahmed and bound up his wound with bandages he had in his tactical vest.

  “Come on buddy, you’re up,” he said as he lifted Ahmed and carried him to the terminal, “You need to do your thing.”

  Ahmed’s face was a mask of pain and he was mumbling in Arabic, clearly in shock.

  He sat Ahmed in the chair and put his hands near the keyboard.

  “Get it together, man. I know it hurts like hell. Trust me. I’ve been there. You have a job to do, and you’re the only one here who can do it. You understand me?”

  Ahmed looked at the screen and nodded his head, still grimacing from the pain and trying to shake off the cobwebs at the corners of his mind.

  “How are things going on down there?” Rachel’s voice came over his comms.

  “Ahmed’s about to save the day.”

  “Come again?”

  “The missile’s in the air. Ahmed’s on it.”

  Ahmed stared at the screen and willed himself to block out the burning pain in his leg. The missile had been in the air for five minutes and judging by what he was seeing on the screen, it would reach its target in roughly forty minutes. That
didn’t give him much time, even if he wasn’t wounded. He needed to hack the guidance system and re-route the missile while it was still on the way up, before it started plunging toward its target.

  A moment later, Casey, Jefferson, and Rachel walked into the room, but stopped as Brock waved them back.

  “Let the man do his job.”

  “Has he been shot?” Rachel asked, seeing the pool of blood under the chair Ahmed was sitting in.

  “Yes, but he’s gonna live. He’s a tough little dude.”

  They watched as Ahmed grunted and groaned through the pain, his fingers flying all over the keyboard. Fifteen minutes went by and he kept typing away, gritting his teeth and trying not to cry out. Eventually he did cry out in Arabic, a cry of agony and triumph that only he could understand. He leaned back in the chair and pointed at the screen, but when he tried to say something, his voice came out in a faint croak and he nearly fell out of the chair.

  Brock was there in an instant and everyone else gathered around as Brock laid him down, took off his shirt, and put it under his head.

  “Did you do it, buddy?”

  Ahmed tried to answer, but could only manage a nod of his head. Rachel brought some water and got a couple sips down him while Brock held his head up. Finally, he managed to speak up so they could hear him.

  “Re-routed…disarmed.”

  They stood there for a moment, letting the tension subside, until Ahmed raised his head and tried to speak. He had been looking around at his friends and he was the first to notice that not everyone was there.

  “Where’s Mohammed?”

  Rachel looked around and noticed that everyone was there except Mohammed and Abdullah. She tried to reach them on comms, but got no response.

  Rachel left the room and went up to the main floor, to an infirmary she knew was near the kitchen, and found what she was looking for. She picked up the stretcher, but before she went downstairs, she decided to have a look around. She walked through the main floor, passing bodies of those they had killed, and two tied up guards who had wisely surrendered. She went by the front door, blown across the hall by the breaching charge, but when she came to the back door, what she saw brought her to a halt. Mohammed and Abdullah were lying just three feet inside the doorway, eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

  33

  Ken moved the throttle forward and took off from the lake, climbing quickly and heading west.

  “That house down there is Nikita and Jelena’s house. They’re the ones who fished me out of the lake and took care of me,” Rachel said, “Maybe I should call them and tell them it’s safe to move back.”

  “Not at this hour,” Brock said.

  “What’s wrong old friend, cat got your tongue?” Hank asked Yuriy, who stared straight ahead from the seat he was restrained in. The other two guards they had brought out adopted a similar pose, staring ahead and saying nothing.

  As soon as they got to cruising altitude and leveled off, Hank opened a medical kit and approached Ahmed, who was stretched out on a makeshift cot.

  “Sorry brother, this isn’t going to feel so good.”

  A few minutes later the bullet was out, the wound stitched up, and a sweating Ahmed was sipping a bottle of water and waiting for the pain killer to kick in.

  “See, all better now, and you’ll have a scar to impress the ladies,” Hank said.

  “Thank you,” Ahmed croaked.

  “No, it’s you we should all be thanking. You did great back there.”

  “Have you…tapped…the server?”

  “I’m just getting in there now,” Miriam said, “This is a gold mine.”

  “Good,” Avi said, “Can you compile everything in a nice little package that will impress our friends at the CIA?”

  “Already working on it. I’ll have it done before we get to the States.”

  “Are you sure that’s safe?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes,” Miriam said, “there’s a list of all of Yuriy’s agents here and it matches the file you grabbed the last time. The CIA is clean.”

  CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  7:00 a.m.

  Larry McCormick sat down at his desk, sipping a cup of coffee and sorting through the morning’s intelligence briefings, separating them from what could be dealt with later and what needed his immediate attention. He was reading a particularly boring memo about some rival political groups in Nigeria that might turn into something when there was a knock at his door.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Uh…sir…you need to come out here,” his secretary said.

  He came out of his office in time to see two security guards escorting three men in.

  “Found these three dumped on our doorstep with this note,” one of the guards said.

  Larry looked at the sign that had been left hanging around Yuriy’s neck.

  The man behind it all. Everything you need is on the drive. Your nameless friends.

  Larry took the drive that was taped to the front of Yuriy’s shirt, gave instructions for the three men to be transferred to a holding cell, and went into his office. After looking at the information on the drive for ten minutes, he picked up his phone and dialed a familiar number.

  “Put me through to the President,” he said when the secretary answered.

  “Can I tell him who’s calling?”

  “DCI McCormick, and it’s important.”

  Earl and Clyde waited at the bait shop for the plane to come in and when it stopped at the pier, Kathy Reynolds was the first one waiting for the door to open. When the door did open, Casey was not the first one to exit, but Omar and Kalil pushing two gurneys containing the bodies of their friends. They wheeled them to the waiting hearse, tears streaming down their faces.

  Kathy felt a lump in her throat and when Casey and Jefferson exited the plane, she froze for a moment, happy that Casey had come back safe, and heartbroken for the two who hadn’t. She approached him hesitantly, unsure of herself, but he dropped his bag and held his arms out. She came into his arms and buried her face in his shoulder. He put his hand on the back of her head and just stood there, not quite knowing what to do.

  “So, you saved the world again?” she said.

  “I had a lot of help this time. Say hi to the real hero.”

  Miriam came out of the plane at that time, pushing Ahmed in a wheelchair. More hugs, more tears, and everyone loaded up in the vans for the ride back to the office.

  Two days later

  Earl’s house

  Clyde took an exquisite ribeye off the grill and with exaggerated ceremony, carried it to Ahmed and put the plate in front of him with a bow.

  “The finest cut, for the hero,” he said.

  “Thank you, but everyone’s a hero.”

  “Enough of that. You’re the man,” Clyde said, going back to the grill.

  Minutes later, he had everything off the grill and on a picnic table.

  “Okay, everybody, dig in.”

  When everyone had a plate and was settled around the tables in the back yard, Jenny stood up and tapped her glass with a spoon.

  “Just one order of business before we can dig in.”

  She held up her phone, put it on speaker, and put a microphone up to the speaker. The voice that came out of the portable speaker was instantly familiar.

  “I just want to thank you all for the service you have done for our country,” President Michael Brooks said, “The American people will never know what you have done…and what you have sacrificed. On behalf of a grateful nation…make that a grateful world…I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  Jenny disconnected the call and put her phone away.

  “Now dig in. You’ve earned it.”

  Ahmed, Omar, and Kalil sat together and talked quietly among themselves, sharing stories of their friends. Miriam had moved away and was picking at her food while talking on the phone and giggling. Casey and Kathy were sitting in a couple lawn chairs, facing each other while Casey f
inished his third hamburger.

  “How in the world do you eat like that and stay in that kind of shape?”

  “Fast metabolism and a lot of working out.”

  “That will catch up to you when you get older.”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

  “So, Mr. Reddick, where are we?”

  “In Earl’s back yard.”

  “No, silly. Where are we?”

  “Man…after the send off you gave me the other day…”

  “I meant it.”

  “You know what I do, the risks I take.”

  “I know why you take those risks. I’m good with that.”

  “You are?”

  “Your heart is too big for your own good. I like that…and you’re kinda cute.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “If you want it to be.”

  “Look, you big dummy. I like you and I’m not going anywhere.”

  “How about your job? You’re in New York and all.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Come again.”

  “The local affiliate has an opening at the sports desk. I’ve already accepted it.”

  “Isn’t that a step down?”

  “It keeps me near you.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” she said walking over and kissing him.

  “Hey you two, get a room,” Rachel said as she limped over and pulled up a chair, followed by Jefferson.

  “Can’t a guy have any privacy around here?”