When the Killing Starts (The Blackwell Files Book 8)

by Steven F Freeman

  The rumble of diesel engines heralded the approach of the troops from Hyon-ni. Rounding a bend in the road, the convoy rolled into view. General Kyon knew how to conduct a military operation. He had reinforced the original border force—which had just returned to base hours before their new summons—with another two companies of light infantry.

  The lead vehicle approached Yu and ground to a halt.

  “Commander Yu?” came a voice from the passenger seat.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Colonel Ryang. I understand you have spies on the run.”

  “Yes. The ones we lured through the border force escaped and went on a rampage inside this facility.”

  “A fuel depot?”

  The man didn’t know the true purpose behind Papa’s House. No reason to enlighten him. “Yes. Valuable supplies were stored there, too. The intruders destroyed some of them. It’s imperative we find them.”

  “Understood,” said Ryang. “What’s your plan?”

  “General Kyon had turned the eastern satellite to track the intruders. We think they’re riding in the same vehicle they used to enter—an SUV. We’ll use the sat. imagery to track them down.”

  “Roger. Send me the image frequency, and I’ll forward it to my troops.”

  Yu nodded. “How many men do you have?”

  “Three hundred and ninety—with another seventy on the way.”

  “Excellent.” He glanced at the tablet-sized satellite monitor in his hand. A white blip glowed on the screen, showing the enemy’s location to be mere kilometers south of Papa’s House. “We should have the intruders back in custody by nightfall.”

  CHAPTER 74

  By the time Alton made it back to his team’s SUV, tentacles of fire coursed through his damaged leg. His other, beaten leg’s throbbing couldn’t compete with this level of pain.

  He opened the door and leaned against the driver’s seat, gasping for breath. O’Neil lay sprawled across the cargo area and on top of a folded-down rear seat.

  “How is he?” Alton managed to ask, thumbing in the direction of his wounded agent.

  “Going downhill,” said Chegal. He looked Alton in the eyes. “I don’t think he’ll make it home.”

  “Let’s give him…and us…every possible chance,” said Alton, climbing with considerable effort into the driver’s seat. He fired up the engine. “Time to roll. Are there any other roads besides the one we came in on?”

  “No,” said Mallory. “I checked out the map last night. If we don’t take that road, we’ll have to four-wheel over this kind of terrain all the way back to the border.”

  “We don’t have that much time.” He pulled the Santa Fe in a half-circle and trundled it over the forest’s frozen, uneven ground back to the highway.

  As he prepared to turn onto the road, a flash of light illuminated the northern sky. Seconds later, an enormous mushroom cloud rose into the clear atmosphere. Smaller clouds began their ascent into the sky.

  “Holy shit!” said Camron. “What was that?”

  Alton grinned as he accelerated onto the crumbling highway. “A fuel depot was the perfect spot for the North Koreans to hide a high-tech operation. Unfortunately for them, it also provided the perfect means for taking out that operation—thousands of gallons of fuel, just waiting to be ignited.”

  “That’s right,” said Chegal. “Your wife had C4 in her backpack, didn’t she?”

  “Yep. They won’t be using Papa’s House for any more solar research.”

  “But what if they stored copies of the files somewhere else?”

  “It’s possible, but I doubt it,” replied Alton, guiding his SUV around an epic pothole. “Their backup processes were definitely old school—servers in the IT center were backed up using redundant servers in the same room. It works great until the whole room goes up in smoke.” He paused. “And we just took out the entire site.”

  “So they don’t have the files anymore?”

  “We can’t be a hundred percent certain,” said Alton. “Maybe Tong sent someone offsite with laptop copies, just to be safe. Maybe he went offsite himself, once all hell started breaking loose. But if they do have the files and want to build a production facility, they’ll have to start from scratch.”

  “Speaking of that,” said Mallory, “I don’t think that explosion is going to make us many friends here.”

  Alton issued a snort. “That’s for sure.”

  “Can you use the sat. phone to call Agent Vega or the NIS?” asked Chegal.

  “No,” said Mallory. “It took a hit during the IT center raid. It’s fried.”

  “What about cellphones?”

  “They’ll give away our location,” said Alton, musing, “but at this point, the Northerners surely know where we are. Better to call for reinforcements at this point.”

  Mallory reinserted the battery back in her phone. She stared at it for a long minute. “No signal.”

  “Same here,” reported Camron. “I can’t connect.”

  “I guess this location is too remote to have cell towers,” said Alton. “We’ll just have to haul ass for the border. Maybe we can call NIS once we get closer to South Korea.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Chegal, if we get ahold of General Zheng, what are the odds he’ll send transports and troops to meet us?”

  “With the Olympics and the Olchin scare going on,” said Chegal, “I don’t know. I can tell you that anyone he sends won’t enter the DMZ.”

  Alton swerved around another pothole, sending the SUV bumping along the road’s shoulder and eliciting a groan from O’Neil. “Even if they can’t enter the DMZ, it’d be nice to have them at the border—especially if the North Korean force doesn’t share the same scruples about entering your territory again.”

  “After the events of the past week,” said Camron, “crossing the border might spark a new, full-fledged war. Do you really think they would?”

  “They’ve already sent troops into South Korea to acquire Heat Wave’s files,” said Alton. “I don’t think they’d hesitate to chase us across the border to reacquire them, not when the stakes are as high as Tong described.”

  Camron’s voice rippled with tension. “So we’re not safe even when we’re back in South Korea.”

  “That’s right.” He turned to his wife. “Why don’t you bring up those land-mine and topographical maps of the DMZ on your cellphone? We’re going to need them.”

  CHAPTER 75

  Sweat poured down Alton’s brow. Hours of motoring down an ill-maintained highway and then dirt trails had led to mental and physical fatigue. But he couldn’t afford to let his attention wane, not when the life of everyone in the car depended on him.

  “Turn to the right,” instructed Mallory.

  Alton did so, winding through a pair of boulders onto a snowy, windswept slope. The rough terrain set off a new round of groaning from O’Neil.

  The sun slipped behind a ridge of barren mountains. Nightfall would soon arrive.

  Mallory cleared her throat. “Take it slow. We’re back into the DMZ. I’ll need to guide you around the landmines.”

  “Try your cellphones again,” said Alton. “See if you have a signal.”

  Mallory switched hers on. “Nothing,”

  “Same here,” said David.

  Without the sat. image, Alton felt blind…exposed. Enemy troops could appear at any moment. Did they have their own satellites trained on him? If he could make it across the border fast enough, it wouldn’t matter. And were the North Korean troops they had slipped through yesterday still deployed along the border? Or, their mission over, had they been recalled?

  Alton spent so much time looking for troops in his rear-view mirror, he nearly collided with a boulder that seemed to appear from nowhere.

  He swallowed. “Chegal and David, keep an eye on our rear. I need to focus on what’s in front of us.”

  The last vestiges of twilight faded, but Alton kept the SUV’s lights switched off. No reason to make the
North Koreans’ job too easy. But that meant slowing to a crawl.

  Creeping through a minefield, chased by ruthless North Korean troops, transporting a dying team member: the tension threatened to overpower Alton. He struggled to maintain a calm demeanor. If he lost it, could he expect any more from his team?

  A red light on his console winked on: low fuel. No time to worry about that now. Either they would run out or they wouldn’t.

  He refocused on the immediate terrain, using a hairpin slope formed by exposed granite to navigate down a steep grade.

  O’Neil no longer groaned. Alton shut his mind to the implications of his teammate’s silence.

  Could this predicament get any worse?

  “We have company,” announced Chegal. “North Korean armored transports are headed this way.”

  Apparently, it could. “How many soldiers?”

  “About a hundr—no wait. That’s just the advance troops. There’s another, main force coming up from behind.” He issued an exclamation in Korean. “Looks like the whole damn army. Let’s get out of here!”

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” said Alton. “We take a wrong move over a land mine and this expedition will end real fast.”

  “The South Korean border is only two klicks ahead,” said Mallory. “Head straight ahead for two hundred yards, then be ready to take a hard right.”

  Alton buckled down to that task. Their only hope for life lay in the landmine map displayed on his wife’s phone.

  Tense seconds ticked by.

  “To the right—now!” said Mallory.

  The SUV’s right front corner dipped into a gulley, sending the vehicle rattling as the rest of it bounced through the depression.

  No one spoke. Despite O’Neil’s desperate condition, Alton couldn’t take it slow. He had to outpace the enemy transports to maintain any hope of survival. Besides, O’Neil might have already slipped beyond help.

  “Now left forty-five degrees,” said Mallory. “Five hundred yards and we’ll cross the border.”

  “Not that it’ll necessarily matter to them,” said Chegal, whose gaze hadn’t wavered from their pursuers.

  The headlights of the North Koreans’ armored transports flashed across Alton’s dashboard, an eerie motion at odds with his direction of travel.

  A round whistled overhead and exploded downslope, sending a cloud of dirt clods and pebbles clattering onto the Santa Fe’s roof.

  “You’d think they don’t want us to leave,” said David.

  “Yeah, imagine that,” retorted Alton.

  Another round shrieked by. Overshooting again, it impacted to the left of the escapees. This one must have detonated a landmine, for the initial explosion was followed by an even fiercer one that sent a great plume of soil arcing into the air.

  “Right thirty degrees, then straight for the border!” said Mallory, gripping her phone so hard Alton feared it would break.

  A new missile detonated directly behind the SUV. The shockwave sent the vehicle into a fishtail as it shuddered through the SUV’s frame.

  “A hundred yards to the border,” said Mallory. “Punch it!”

  Alton accelerated. Irregular speed would make his vehicle harder to target.

  As he closed the last few yards, a wide array of spotlights on the South Korean side blinked on, casting a swath of crisp illumination into the DMZ and sending blinding light into the faces of their pursuers. Shadows of troops and military vehicles appeared near the floodlights. From the length of their battle line, this force looked to number in the hundreds as well.

  But were they friend or foe? After all, he hadn’t had a chance to call for help.

  Having no doubt about the intensions of the force to his rear, Alton continued his mad dash for the border.

  “We’re across,” said Mallory. “We’re in South Korea.”

  But had they left the proverbial frying pan only to enter the fire?

  An announcement in Korean blared over a high-powered PA system.

  Alton slammed his vehicle to a standstill amid a cluster of fir trees and cracked the ride’s windows open to listen.

  In the distance, the rumble of the North Koreans’ armored transports faded as the vehicles ground to a halt.

  The PA announcement continued.

  “What are they saying?” asked Alton.

  Concentrating, Chegal fixed his wide eyes out the window as he processed the announcement’s content. After a moment, his shoulders relaxed. “It’s our boys. They’re telling the North Koreans to stand down. And…” He listened a moment longer. “They have ten minutes to exit the DMZ or our forces will begin artillery shelling.” More listening. “And jet fighters are on the way.”

  The North Korean forces remained perfectly still, neither advancing nor retreating.

  “Why don’t they leave?” asked David, aghast. “Do the Northerners want a war? Is that was this is all about?”

  “Let’s wait,” said Alton. “The North Koreans follow a strict chain of command. No thinking allowed on a subordinate’s part. They probably have to clear it with their top commander.”

  Alton’s team fell silent, as did the South Korean troops deployed along the border.

  Eventually, a new announcement echoed across the landscape.

  “They’re telling the Northerners they now have only five minutes,” said Chegal. “And they’re telling our troops to make ready to fire artillery.”

  CHAPTER 76

  Commander Yu loosened his shirt collar. Colonel Ryang’s personal command vehicle—North Korea’s version of a jeep—hadn’t felt warm when he entered, but now it seemed positively tropical.

  “Ask the General for permission to pursue,” pleaded Yu. “The Southern forces don’t outnumber us too badly.”

  “Wait,” said Ryang. “You want me to initiate a full-scale battle…while I’m violating the terms of the armistice by occupying the DMZ…with an opponent who is not violating the armistice terms because they’re in their own country? Am I understanding you correctly?”

  “Think of the glory if we recover the technical files from those spies.” Yu hadn’t shared the specifics of the missing information.

  “I’m thinking of the slow death that’ll be handed down to anyone who requests such a reckless plan. Invading from this spot would give the Americans an excuse to launch a full-scale invasion. And with so many of our troops in the DMZ, the Southerners will have all the photographic evidence they’ll need to prove we violated the armistice terms, not them.”

  “But—”

  “It’s over,” the colonel snapped. “Why can’t you accept that? Besides, I’m not equipped to repel a combined air and ground assault. General Kyon has given me permission to pull back. And I’m going to do that before my men are wiped out.”

  “We can’t…” A surge of emotion caught the words in his throat. How could years of planning have been thrown off by a ragtag band of Americans and South Koreans assembled only last week? It didn’t seem possible. The equipment…the training…all perfect. How had this happened?

  Ryang’s scrambled phone rang. He raised it to his ear. “The general says I’m to take you to his office when we arrive back in Hyon-ni. He wants to…discuss the outcome of this project with you and Dr. Tong.”

  The vague wording didn’t fool Yu. He knew what type of punishment to expect for this disastrous outcome. If he lived, he would likely never experience life outside a prison.

  He shifted in his seat, ostensibly to adjust his seatbelt. He used the motion to move the cyanide capsule from the fob on his keychain to the band of his undergarments. The president’s wrath might be sufficient to order Yu’s death. If so, the commander could at least deny his esteemed leader that final pleasure.

  CHAPTER 77

  “Look,” said Camron. “They’re turning around!”

  “You’re right,” said Mallory.

  The trickle of movement in the DMZ turned into a flood as the Northern vehicles U-turned and beat a hasty retreat
across the barren landscape. In minutes, nothing remained but dozens of tire tracks in the snow.

  Alton closed his eyes and issued a silent prayer of thanks. “We need to see the Southern commander about getting O’Neil some help,” he said. “Whatever medical facility this battalion has is better than ours.”

  Mallory turned in her seat to peer at the patient’s still body. She turned back to her husband with sorrowful eyes. “Alton…”

  “Let’s just try. It won’t hurt anything.” The thought of losing yet another person under his command sent a shudder across his chest. But at least he would know he had given his subordinate every chance at life.

  Chegal sprang from the SUV and ran through the copse of evergreens in the direction of the nearest floodlight. Soon after, a camouflaged ambulance with a red cross stenciled on its side slid to a halt within yards of Alton’s door.

  Two medics emerged. Grabbing heavy boxes of supplies, they opened the SUV’s rear door and began to examine O’Neil.

  The first one, a female, cut through the thick material of O’Neil’s coat and shirt and felt for a pulse. She cocked her head as if uncertain. The second medic, a male of smaller stature than his counterpart, brought around a gurney. The two lifted O’Neil’s still form onto the stretcher and guided it back to their vehicle. As the male swung shut the rear double doors, Alton caught a glimpse of the female preparing a saline IV drip on a short aluminum pole.

  “Think we’ll ever see him again?” he asked no one in particular.

  Nobody answered.

  “There’s something you might want to see,” said Chegal at last. “Drive over to that closest floodlight.”

  Alton complied. He fired up the SUV and sent it lumbering through the grove of evergreens. Emerging from the copse, he continued towards the floodlight.

  Then it hit him. The South’s military might was a sham, a smattering of small units spread impossibly thin across a great distance. Every man and vehicle had been positioned within the glow of floodlights to lend the impression of a huge army, when in fact the Southerners had been outnumbered ten-to-one.