“Yes, I believe so.”
“Has satellite imagery picked up any activity here?”
“No. The only evidence was the tracks we spotted a few days ago, the ones heading south. If they came through here, it’s been a while.”
“Good. That’ll give us time to deploy.”
“Exactly,” said Nang. “Even if the Olchin plant were attacked this very moment, the enemy troops would need at least a day to make their way undetected up to here. This gives us a window of opportunity.”
“Agreed,” said Alton. He turned to the rest of the team. “Let’s gear up. Unpack the shovels, winter camo, weapons, body armor, rations, and mikes and earpieces. We’ll recon the site, then set up a perimeter along that northern tree line, there to the right of the meadow.”
The team members prepared their gear in silence. After five minutes of packing and two more to check their communications equipment, they each shouldered a white rucksack stuffed with equipment and set off across the meadow. Heavy snowfall blanketed the scene in an eerie quiet, broken only by the crunching of their boots through the snowpack. As the wind picked up, tendrils of ice crystals whipped across the terrain’s uneven surface, lending the scene a surreal quality, an impressionist painting come to life.
As they crossed the meadow, the team spread out into the standard, tactical V formation. Alton led the group, his slower pace giving everyone time to keep a close eye on their surroundings. Good thing Camron had been all too happy to remain behind at the Olympic security building. Truth be told, the deskbound analyst would have found himself out of his element in this ominous landscape.
Crunching through the snow, David glanced over both shoulders to eyeball jagged peaks soaring up on either side of the pass. He turned back and addressed Nang. “I can see why you said this would be a good spot for an incursion. There’s plenty of cover and conceal—”
A cacophony of machine-gun fire erupted from the dark woods on the right. Muzzle flashes flared, and deadly plumes of snow blossomed as a fusillade of incoming rounds pounded the frozen turf around the teammates.
“Drop!” screamed Alton. “Take cover!”
The meadow’s uneven landscape provided little opportunity to do so. A few scraggly trees grew to the right, and the uneven terrain created a berm of perhaps ten or twelve inches. For the moment, it would have to do.
“Crawl to the trees,” shouted Alton, hoping his voice could be heard above the roar of gunfire.
Only twenty or so yards. If they could make it, they’d be reasonably protected from the attackers.
The torrent of rounds continued as the team wiggled their way through the snow. Alton’s bad leg protested against the effort. His face dragged through the permafrost, tingling with cold. Better that than a round through the head.
He unclenched his jaw as the team slipped their way behind the pine trees. Five stunted evergreens had never looked so good.
His relief was short-lived.
A new cacophony of gunfire arose from the forest on their left flank. Their pine trees afforded no protection from this new threat—not without exposing themselves to the attackers on the right.
Trapped in a crossfire…with no way out.
CHAPTER 27
Alton tried to pull himself upright but stopped short as his bad leg sent a lightning bolt of pain sparking down his limb.
“Get behind the slope of the first two trees!” he commanded through gritted teeth. “It’s the only spot that gives us defilade from both sides.” Facedown in the snow, he kicked off with his good leg, struggling to obey his own order.
Mallory reached the minimally sheltered spot. She unshouldered her K2, the South Korean soldier’s standard-issue rifle, and took aim at the attackers on the left flank.
“Return fire!” she yelled while snapping off a half-dozen rounds.
The shots drew her attackers’ ire. Like a swarm of angry hornets, a cluster of incoming rounds chewed up her pine tree, sending bark chips and snow powder flying in all directions.
She ducked behind the ground’s slight rise. “Use the grenade launchers!”
Keeping her head down, Mallory pulled a stubby round from her rucksack. She slammed it into her rifle’s under-the-barrel grenade tube and sent the ordinance arcing to the left.
Seconds later, an explosion rocked the attackers’ tree line—a perfect shot. A bloody arm in a white camouflage coat flew gracefully into the clearing.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” said David, grabbing a trio of grenades and sending the first one rocketing away as fast as he could load it.
As another fusillade of incoming rounds tore into the team from both sides, David’s round exploded, ripping a gaping hole in the attackers’ line.
Shots poured in from the soldiers on the right flank, but Alton and his teammates grasped the soundness of Mallory’s tactic and—for the moment—ignored the right-side hostiles. Better to take out the attackers on the left flank first, then use the better cover this approach provided to focus on the rest of their enemies.
Fighting through his leg pain, Alton took aim with his K2 at an attacker who, in the fury of combat, had emerged from behind the protective cover of his tree line. After sighting the enemy and releasing his breath, Alton squeezed off a three-round burst.
The soldier collapsed into an awkward pile, a marionette whose strings had been cut.
O’Neil fired a grenade into the attackers on the left flank. His ordinance ripped a crater of mud in their midst, and a pair of flashing muzzles blinked out.
A wounded soldier climbed from the mud hole and staggered into the clearing, only to be taken out by simultaneous rifle shots from O’Neil and Silva.
The tide had begun to turn—at least on the left flank. Alton and his teammates continued to pour rounds into the enemy position. The puh of three more rifle-mounted grenades broke through the chatter of gunshots.
Seconds later, the rest of the attackers’ line disintegrated into blazing debris. A partially severed Japanese black pine leaned over at an impossible angle, then splintered and fell to the ground in a fiery crash.
Flames roiled up the few trees still standing and enveloped fallen ones lying scattered in dirty snow.
A single set of gunshots from behind a collapsed, fiery evergreen betrayed the location of the blasts’ lone survivor.
Mallory and Alton opened up on the position, but the man’s shots continued.
A round buzzed over Alton’s head. Too close.
“Crap,” he said, ducking back behind the ground’s slope. “We need to take this guy out.”
From Alton’s left, shots from multiple rifles rang out. Chegal and Ru, who had slid downslope with their commander at the outset of fighting, had low-crawled to the edge of the left-flank tree line and now had a perfect line of sight to the enemy soldier. They needed mere seconds to silence him.
Ru gave a thumbs-up to Alton and nearly had his digit shot off. A burst of gunfire from the right flank kicked up snow all around the man.
“Time to take out the other side,” said Alton. He turned to face his teammates and shouted above the din of gunfire. “Swing back behind the pine trees. Stay behind the berm on your approach. Don’t give them a clean shot at you.”
A roar reminiscent of an Apollo launch erupted from the direction of the remaining attackers. A missile rocketed past the group, missing an evergreen by inches and exploding a hundred yards behind them with a mighty blast.
“Shit!” said David. “Who needs a clean shot when you have rocket-propelled grenades?”
O’Neil turned to Alton with wide eyes. “We can’t stay here. If they hit this position with an RPG, there won’t be enough of us left to bury.”
The man was right. Time to move—or die.
CHAPTER 28
“Everyone, fire grenades!” shouted Alton. “Keep them pinned down until we have a chance to move behind better cover.” Not that the cover anywhere in the meadow represented much of an improvement.
Alton scanned the terrain. The remaining attackers hid just inside a wood line that angled off to the right of his position. At its closest point, the field of dense evergreens lay a tantalizing thirty yards away. But those thirty yards contained virtually no cover or concealment. The NSA team would present a live shooting gallery to their enemies if they made a break across that distance.
The salvo of grenades from Alton’s team erupted amongst the Northern soldiers. After the blast’s last echo died away, a wounded man continued to cry out. A trio of bloodied soldiers staggered away from a blast mark, crouching behind an enormous, decayed stump.
“Quick—make for those trees!” said Alton, gesturing to the wood line’s closet point. “Hurry before they regroup.”
O’Neil and Silva bolted across the space and belly-flopped behind a pair of thick firs. David followed on their heels. Heavy snow drifts helped conceal their position from the enemy.
Mallory hesitated, wide eyes locked on her husband.
“Go ahead,” panted Alton. “I’ll be along.”
Mallory shouted across to O’Neil and Silva. “Lay down suppressing fire.”
The teammates complied, launching staccato bursts into the attacker’s pine trees.
Mallory sprinted across the opening. Distant shots rang out, and a half-dozen rounds chewed up the meadow’s frozen surface at Mallory’s feet. Alton’s heart leapt to his throat. Only when his wife slid to safety next to Silva did it return to its proper spot.
The NSA team’s covering fire continued. Taking a deep breath, Alton hobbled across the clearing as fast as his bad leg would allow. He swiveled his K2 to the left and let loose a wild barrage of shots, adding to the fusillade launched by his teammates.
Another RPG blast sounded from the distant woods.
The rocket struck a pine tree midway between the battling parties, sending the trunk splintering into fiery oblivion.
Alton stumbled into the cavity with the rest of his team. To his relief, he spotted his South Korean teammates, who had used the distraction of the exploding pine to rejoin the rest of the team.
Alton grinned at Nang. “Glad you could make the party.”
“I hate to interrupt the reunion,” said Mallory, “but look over there.” She gestured toward the enemy’s position. “They’re spreading out…trying to surround us, I’d guess.”
Alton studied the camouflaged troops dodging from tree to tree, then turned to face the rest of the team. “Mallory is right. They’re encircling us. But their right flank is spread pretty thin. And it’ll get thinner as they try to stretch it around. That might work to our advantage.”
“How’s that?” asked O’Neil, peering over a snowdrift to study the enemy’s movements.
“We should split up, send half our forces over to the end of their right flank.”
“Split our forces?” asked Corporal Ru, aghast. “On purpose? We just got back together. We have too much firepower for them to rush us as long as we stay that way.”
“I don’t think rushing us is what they have in mind,” said Alton. “They don’t need to. They’ll keep blasting us with their RPGs until they get lucky.”
“But splitting up…?”
Alton pursed his lips, the best smile he could muster under the circumstances. “It worked for Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville. It’ll work for us.”
“What?” asked Ru, cocking his head.
“Trust me. If we can mass half our force on their right flank, we’ll be able to pick them off one-at-a-time.”
“What about the left flank?”
“It ends at the meadow,” replied Alton. “We have no approach.” He turned to Nang. “Captain, I propose you keep those guys on the left flank occupied while I bring my team around to the right.”
“Agreed.”
Alton surveyed his teammates. “Mallory and I will take point. David, you’re in the center. Silva and O’Neil, you all bring up the rear. Stay on my ass, and don’t reveal yourself for more than three seconds. We don’t want to give them a clean shot at us.”
The NSA team members nodded.
“Okay, let’s roll.”
“We’ll provide covering fire on your mark,” said Nang.
Alton studied the forest’s depths and turned to face his team. “We’ll make for that clump of decayed trees. From there, we’ll circle around until we’re even with the enemy’s right flank.” He turned to Nang and nodded.
“Fire!” said the captain.
His men sprayed the enemy line with three-round bursts, pounding the Northerners’ solid evergreens with dozens of rounds.
As a dusting of snow descended from distant branches, Alton and Mallory scrambled for their first stopping point.
Mallory reached the spot first. Seconds later, Alton fell onto a tree’s rough surface, bolts of pain lancing through his leg in tandem with his frenetic heartbeat.
“Get ready,” he said between breaths. “As soon as Nang and his men fire again, we’ll head for that big tree over to the right.”
The covering fire resumed, and the Blackwells scrambled through a thick snowdrift to the next fir. At the same moment, David bolted towards their previous hiding spot.
Everyone reached their spots safely. The enemy soldiers had been too preoccupied with Nang’s attack to return fire.
On the next series of covering shots, O’Neil and Silva began their advance along the same path. This time, however, the Northerners opened up along their entire line. A rainfall of bullets showered into Alton’s position, sending him and Mallory ducking for cover.
Advancing from one spot to the next, the NSA agents moved in a great arc towards the enemy line’s right flank. Their advance possessed an almost fluid quality, a kind of lethal ballet. In the space of a quarter hour, they had drawn within a few dozen yards of the enemy line’s right end. Every minute or two, the shriek of an RPG launch and concussion from its blast rumbled through the forest, causing a dusting of snow powder to descend from overhanging branches.
On each of the last three movements, the enemy rifle fire had grown more intense.
“Looks like they’ve figured out our plan,” said Alton. “They know they have to stop us or they’re in trouble.”
“Alton!” hissed David from about twenty yards away. “Shouldn’t we fire back?”
Alton shook his head. “It’ll just pinpoint our position for the enemy. An RPG at this range can’t miss. Nang and his guys are already laying on the covering fire pretty thick. We’ll wait until everyone is in position.”
“Roger.”
Nang’s men launched a fresh round of fire. Ignoring the burning sensation in his leg, Alton lurched toward a root hole left behind by a fallen tree.
As he puffed towards the hole, an RPG screamed through the forest. A terrific explosion rocked the landscape, launching a tremor through the ground and sending crackling flames up a tree Alton had used for cover three minutes ago.
O’Neil’s voice crackled over the mike. “Medic! Silva’s been hit.”
“Shit!” said Alton. He turned to face Mallory and David. “We can’t help her until we drive back the North Koreans. The end of their right flank is there, about fifty yards away. Prepare to fire on my mark. M two-oh-threes first, then A-fours. Once we take the first guy out, walk your fire down the line as far as you can.”
They loaded stubby rounds into their under-the-barrel grenade launchers and slammed fresh magazines into their K2 rifles.
“Fire!” commanded Alton.
A trio of shells streaked through the forest. After a moment of silence, the rounds exploded at the end of the line, igniting pines and sending the body of the closest unfriendly pinwheeling into the air. The man landed in a twisted pile against the base of a tree.
Ignited pines sent clouds of smoke billowing into the air. The valley’s incessant winds carried the smoke from the explosions and fires back to the NSA team, producing an obscure haze. The woods’ sweet pine smell mingled with the acrid odor of gunpo
wder and incinerated bodies, a nauseating combination.
No time to worry about that now. Alton reloaded his grenade launcher, noting he had only two rounds left.
Mallory raced for a snow-covered evergreen ten yards away. She ducked behind it just as a pair of automatic bursts chattered from the hostile’s line. The bullets thudded harmlessly into her tree’s solid trunk.
Alton nodded to himself. From her vantage point, his wife would have a direct line of sight to the next set of unfriendlies, who remained concealed from Alton’s position.
“Fire again!” he commanded.
Mallory squeezed off three-round bursts, while Alton and David launched another round of grenades.
An enemy soldier fell face-first into the snow, where a crimson stain soon appeared. Another grasped his thigh and hobbled away. A grenade detonated in front of the wounded man, catapulting him backwards onto the unforgiving trunk of a mighty pine. He fell to the ground in an unmoving heap.
“Keep up the pressure,” Alton shouted. “Don’t give them time to regroup.”
Alton fired his last grenade into the enemy line. It produced a fireball in the intended spot, but there was no way to tell if it had taken out any more hostiles.
The puh of another grenade launch sounded from Alton’s right. Mallory’s round landed behind a distant snowdrift and detonated on impact. Smears of blood splattered over the slope like a gruesome snow cone, and a chorus of cries erupted from the spot.
The enemy’s gunfire became more sporadic and, within seconds, more distant.
“Sounds like they’re on the run,” said Alton. “Let’s circle a bit more to the right to make sure. We don’t want them doubling back on us.”
David joined the Blackwells, and the trio raced another twenty yards around the enemy line. Sure enough, the camouflaged soldiers—some dragging wounded comrades—high-stepped through a patch of deep snow, back towards the DMZ, which lay less than ten kilometers to the northeast. At least a dozen corpses had been left behind.
Alton spoke into his mike. “Captain Nang, it looks like the right flank is retreating. What are you seeing?”
When the Killing Starts (The Blackwell Files Book 8) Page 8