When the Killing Starts (The Blackwell Files Book 8)

by Steven F Freeman

  He didn’t have to travel for long.

  The tread marks swiveled in a great arc and swept into an opening torn into an enormous, snow-covered shrub.

  Alton’s heart pounded. Could enemy soldiers be lurking within, waiting to spring an ambush?

  His moment of panic subsided once the dark mouth of a tunnel swung into view. The tire tracks bunched together and headed down the narrow shaft.

  This was no time to take unnecessary chances. “Keep going past the bushes,” he told David over the radio. “We’ll circle back on foot. Leave Ru in your SUV for now. He can send word back to General Zheng if things go south for us.”

  “You mean go north,” quipped David.

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  After grinding to a halt a hundred yards past the tunnel, everyone but Silva and Ru dismounted the reinforced vehicles and set off to investigate.

  Only after advancing his team around the shrub in ever-tightening circles for a quarter-hour did Alton determine it to be clear of enemy soldiers. He also discovered the shrub to be artificial, a clever piece of engineering designed to camouflage the tunnel’s exit into South Korea.

  The team gathered inside the shrub’s spacious interior, just outside the tunnel’s entrance.

  “Well, we can’t go down there,” said Mallory, pointing into the gloomy abyss.

  “Yeah,” agreed Alton. “I don’t want to discover what kind of greeting committee would be waiting for us on the other end. But that leaves traveling overland our only option—if we enter the North at all.”

  “We can’t stop now,” said Mallory. “Not without knowing what the North Koreans wanted at Heat Wave.”

  “Agreed. But traveling overland leaves us susceptible to all the North’s normal surveillance techniques. And surely with an operation of this magnitude, they’ll be especially vigilant. It’s hard to imagine we won’t be spotted.”

  O’Neil snorted. “What’s the big deal about entering the North? I mean…who gives a shit if they know we’re there or not? They sent their soldiers over here. I say we follow them home. It’s not like they can complain at this point.”

  Alton leaned the weight off his bad leg before answering. “Once we cross the border, we’re in hostile territory. They can shoot us on sight. And more importantly, they can use our presence as an excuse to start a larger conflict with the South. For all we know, that could be the entire purpose of their operation—luring us into an incursion that will justify an attack.”

  “But they came here first.”

  “It’s their word against ours. If they present photos of us as prisoners in their homeland, and we have no proof except blurred photos from the woods near Olchin, what version of the story will the rest of the world believe?”

  “Every instinct tells me something big is brewing,” said Mallory.

  “I agree,” said Camron. “Even for the North, this whole business is unusual…to say the least. I’m nervous about what will happen if we don’t act while we have the opportunity.”

  Chegal gave an almost imperceptible nod in agreement.

  Alton cracked a half-smile. “Looks like we’re all in agreement. Boys and girls, let’s go on a field trip.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Dr. Tong had been gone for only an hour when Agent Kam approached Commander Yun. “There’s a problem.”

  Yun swiveled in his seat to face the younger man. “What kind of problem?”

  “Enemy troops entered the DMZ in Sector Delta, just east of the tunnel.”

  “Are you sure? We’ve had no reports of a trailing force.”

  “We have a visual from camera nineteen. There’s no mistake. Two vehicles are headed across the DMZ. Looks like a small strike team.”

  Yun rubbed his chin. “And yet we received reports no more than thirty minutes ago that the Southerners were still pursuing the Wave One team. They must have discovered our activity at Heat Wave and sent a new team to follow Wave Two.”

  “I suppose.” Kam rubbed his neck. “I can’t understand how they’d discover our handiwork so fast. Heat Wave’s site is remote. Nobody expected the attack to be discovered until tonight or maybe even tomorrow morning.”

  “It doesn’t matter what we expected. The point is that we’ve been detected and followed.” He stood up from his chair. “Call General Kyon. Ask him to authorize Echo Battalion to set up a defensive line inside our border to intercept the enemy patrol.”

  “Sir? An entire battalion to intercept a mere strike team? Isn’t that overkill?”

  “This strike team managed to pick up our trail within hours of our Heat Wave attack and find the tunnel. I won’t take any chances of their interfering with our mission, especially now that we’re so close to completion.”

  Kam bowed. “Yes, sir.” He turned to leave, then hesitated. “Sir, what is Echo Brigade to do with the intruders?”

  “I’m surprised at you, Kam,” said Yun. “Kill them, of course.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Alton dry-swallowed two acetaminophen tablets. At some point, he and the rest of the team would have to disembark from their vehicles. Who knew how much distance they might have to travel on foot? Better to prepare now and give the painkillers time to work.

  Mallory’s satellite phone rang, and she snatched it from the console. Good thing the phone depended on satellites for communication. Surely no cell towers existed in this wilderness.

  Mallory nodded a few times, read off a series of GPS coordinates from her phone, and hung up.

  “Is he still pissed for keeping him out of the loop?” asked Alton.

  “Not anymore. I think we just caught him by surprise.”

  “I’m glad ten minutes was enough time for him to cool down. Did he give an update on the surveillance satellite?”

  “Yeah. It’s almost ready. Vega said it’ll be another five minutes before it scans ahead of us. He’s also transmitting the map of known land mines. It’ll overlay on the topographic map.”

  “Good,” said Alton. “I’m going to pull the Santa Fe underneath that grove of trees over there on the right and wait. Before we go any further into the DMZ, I’d like to figure out the route that minimizes our travel distance and maximizes our safety. Getting the satellite feedback will help us do that.”

  The armored vehicle had scarcely ground to a halt when a ghostly infrared image flickered to life on the sat. phone.

  “We have a signal,” Mallory announced to Silva and Chegal, who occupied the back seat.

  Alton leaned over to study the thermal images on the display. “Is that…? Crap. It is. We need to have a little chat with the folks in David’s vehicle.”

  Moments later, everyone squeezed into David’s SUV.

  Alton lost no time sharing his discovery. “We’ve been made. There are over five hundred soldiers and a couple dozen vehicles spread out along the North Korean border, waiting to intercept us.”

  “So we go back, right?” said Camron, looking around for support.

  “That’s the real question, isn’t it?” said Alton as gusts of wind and ice crystals buffeted the vehicle.

  “You know how I feel,” said O’Neil. “We can’t let those fuckers get off scot free.”

  “An admirable sentiment,” said Camron, “but what’s your plan? We can’t just waltz over there. There’s no way we’d have a chance against that many enemy troops. Even I know that.”

  “This whole situation seems vaguely familiar,” said Alton, drumming his fingers on his leg. “The long, defensive line…thick woods all around…the lack of visibility between one squad and the next. Oh, yeah, now I remember.” He smiled. “I have an idea, one that just might get us through there in one piece.

  “During the Civil War’s Battle of Chickamauga,” he continued, “the Union army deployed a defensive line to repel Confederate assaults. The Union forces were doing fine until their general received a bogus report saying he had a gap in his line. He didn’t, but he moved part of his troops and created a real gap,
which the Confederates poured through. They—the Confederates—ended up defeating the Union army.”

  “Fascinating,” said Camron, “but what does it have to do with our situation? We’re not fighting the Civil War.”

  “If he could have seen the whole battlefield, the Union general would have realized there was no gap,” replied Alton. “We have the same situation here.”

  “How does that help us?” asked Chegal.

  “We cracked the encryption code of the North Korean army a few days ago, right? I’ve outlined their chain-of-command and messaging protocol over the last few days. Let’s send ‘orders’ to one of their company commanders to pull back to cover a gap at the end of their line. Once that happens, we use the sat. imagery to see where the hole opens up and then haul ass through it.”

  O’Neil grinned. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

  “It’s risky,” said Chegal, nodding thoughtfully, “but it could work. The Northerners don’t have much in the way of their own surveillance satellites. And they’re taught to follow orders without question. They’ll move if told to do so. But can we sneak through their line without being detected?”

  “We’ll need to make the gap big enough,” said Alton. “If redeploying one company doesn’t do the trick, we’ll shift another one.”

  “I like it,” said David. He accompanied a grim chuckle with a shake of his head. “Don’t tell Fahima about this. She made me promise to be careful.”

  “It is risky—and unauthorized. If they catch us, our families might never hear from us again. So anyone who isn’t comfortable with this can go back. I won’t hold it against you. I believe tracking down the strike force is the right thing to do, but I’m not going to force anyone to come with me.”

  Ru looked at the floorboards. “I am getting married in the spring. And with my bad shoulder, I might slow you down.” The young man didn’t continue. He didn’t need to.

  “It’s okay,” said Alton. “Maybe even better. You can get word of our activities to General Zheng.”

  The soldier’s distraught look faded, but a hint of worry remained. “I thought you wanted to keep our mission a secret.”

  Alton hiked a thumb in the direction of the northern border. “The North Koreans already know we’re here. You and Silva take one of the SUVs. Let the general know what’s going on.” In case we don’t make it back.

  “Blackwell…” began Silva in protest.

  Alton turned to the wounded agent. “I saw you wincing back at the Heat Wave site. This is going to turn into a ground campaign within a few miles, and you can barely walk. Even if you weren’t wounded, though, I need you to contact Vega. Tell him to keep the satellite trained on this area until we return. We could need its imagery at any time.”

  Silva nodded resolutely.

  “Does anyone else want to go back?” asked Alton.

  For a moment, no one spoke. Gusts of wind outside the vehicle set overhead trees to moaning.

  Camron broke the silence. “I get why Corporal Ru wants to leave, but we don’t really need him to contact General Zheng, do we? You said the Northerners can’t unscramble your signal. Can’t you just call him? And can’t Silva call Vega directly?”

  “You’re right,” said Alton. “The North Koreans can’t decrypt our transmissions. But even if there were cell towers nearby, which I doubt, we still couldn’t use our cellphones.”

  “Why?”

  “The North Koreans can use the towers or stingrays—cellphone surveillance devices—to triangulate on our position, the same way GPS works. If we use our cellphones, we’ll have enemy troops breathing down our necks in minutes.” He looked around the group. “From this point forward, we’ll have to stay off our cellphones. Our communications must be cut off to have any chance of survival.”

  CHAPTER 52

  “In fact, let’s take the batteries out of our cellphones,” said Alton. “That’ll eliminate the chance of any nearby cell towers picking up our location. The sat. phone should be okay to leave as is, as long as we don’t call out. We can still use it to pick up incoming signals.” While the team complied, Alton continued. “The next step is ordering a North Korean company to move to the end of the line. To do that, we need to figure out where they’re currently deployed. Let’s see the infrared sat. image again.”

  Mallory handed over the phone.

  Alton studied the image. Pinpoints indicated the location of individual soldiers, while larger, hotter dots identified two or three dozen troop transports and tanks. The North Koreans weren’t pulling any punches.

  He rubbed his chin. “They’re spread out pretty evenly. We could cross their line anywhere, assuming we can get them to redeploy. Let’s overlay this image with a topographic map.” Alton’s fingers flew over the phone’s screen, drawing up and aligning a diagram of the terrain in seconds. “There’s a creek to the right. We don’t want to cross there. And the middle looks a bit steep. The Hyundai might have a hard time making it over that rise in the snow.”

  “What about here?” said O’Neil, pointing to the screen. “Just left of center.”

  “Yeah, that looks good. A bit of a slope but not enough to slow us down. And some cover from trees but again, not too many. Sergeant Chegal, how many companies would you estimate make up the North Korean line?”

  He studied the dots on the sat.-phone screen. “I’d say five or six. If they follow their standard deployment protocol, Alpha Company will make up the first portion of the line on the left, Beta Company will be next, and so on.”

  “So if I ordered Charlie Company to redeploy, that should open up our crossing spot, right?”

  “I think so. It’s hard to say for sure.”

  “Let’s give it a shot. Can you compose the message? I’ll encrypt and send it once you’re done.” He looked into the cargo area. “Most of our supplies are already in this vehicle, so we’ll use it for the advance. Let’s transfer the rest of the supplies from the other one over here. O’Neil, why don’t you give Silva a hand to the other SUV? She and Ru will take that one back.”

  The sun had crested the horizon and now sent shafts of light piercing through the forest’s gloom.

  As most of the team crunched through the snow towards the other SUV’s cargo area, O’Neil slung Silva’s arm around his shoulder and helped her over to its passenger side.

  The former Special Forces soldier helped his teammate into the SUV’s shotgun seat. Silva said nothing but winced as she twisted to fasten the seatbelt buckle.

  He watched her in silence, then began to turn back.

  “O’Neil,” said Silva, arresting the man’s motion. “Um…take care.”

  He cracked a half-smile. “Yeah, I will.”

  “After all, your kids are counting on you to get back safe and sound.”

  The smile disappeared. “My kids…yeah.” He swallowed and jerked his head in the direction of the border. “I’m glad you’re not gonna be headed into that.”

  “I would if I could.”

  The smile returned once again, just barely. “I know.” He turned and trudged through the snow, hoisting a load of supplies back to the SUV that would soon press forward toward the enemy line.

  Alton’s eyes had started to glaze over when the blips on the sat. phone’s infrared image began to move. He straightened up in his seat. “Look at this. The soldiers…they’re moving. Looks like they bought our message.”

  “Or they’re on to us and want us to think they bought it,” said David. “We’re taking a big risk passing through those ranks. It’d be a perfect spot for them to launch an ambush. We’d be trapped in the middle.”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”

  David rolled his eyes.

  “Camron and Chegal,” said Alton, “I piggy-backed the quantum-decryption software onto this vehicle’s onboard comm system. You should be able to listen to the North’s over-the-air communications. Monitor them and let me know what you hear.”

  They n
odded and inserted the single-side earpieces Alton offered.

  “Mallory, why don’t you continue to act as navigator?” said Alton. “Keep me away from enemy troops and land mines.”

  “Will do. What about our engine noise?”

  “The North Koreans made a mistake there. They overdeployed their armored vehicles—they have at least two dozen along the line. All that engine noise should mask ours.”

  Now to proceed. Stealth would be key. Alton started up the engine and nosed the SUV out of the woods. After moving through a snow-covered clearing, the vehicle approached a moderate slope. For a moment, the tires spun, but they soon caught and jolted the Hyundai uphill.

  The vehicle trundled along the jagged landscape. Regular clumps of trees and the occasional boulder provided a decent measure of cover without impeding their way too much.

  “Alton,” said Mallory, eyeing the sat. phone. “The vacated space isn’t very big. I don’t think it’s going to be enough to get through without being spotted.” She handed the phone to O’Neil in the back seat. “See what you think.”

  He examined the image. “She’s right. It’d be a big risk to try to squeeze through that space.”

  Alton angled the Hyundai into a small group of evergreens—not enough to conceal the vehicle but hopefully enough to break up its profile.

  “Let’s send a message to Bravo Company,” he said. “Send them to the opposite end of the line.” Chegal composed a terse dispatch, which Alton encrypted and sent off.

  “We’ll sit tight until that second unit moves,” said Alton.

  Ten minutes into the wait, Camron sat up in his seat and pressed his earpiece tight. “This isn’t good.”

  “What?”

  “Someone in the North Korean chain of command ordered a company of reinforcements up to the spot just vacated.”

  “I thought you said they’re good about obeying orders.”

  “Ahh, but they’re not disobeying orders,” said Camron. “Someone must have realized they created a hole in the line. They knew that couldn’t countermand the previous order—that would be disrespectful. So they’re doing the next best thing: plugging up the gap.”