by L. J. Martin
Pieter leans against a metal table and crosses his arms, trying not to look at the dog hindquarter resting on a bamboo chopping board. Sumi, who’s followed him in, refuses to look either, but reaches up and caresses Pieter’s cheek; then she excuses herself with, “I will be in the cafeteria, having a cup of tea.”
“I don’t blame you…wish I could go,” Pieter lies. But both he and Duri seem to enjoy her walking away.
No one is within earshot, so Duri speaks as he bones the hindquarter, and with his hands and expressions, one watching from across the room would presume he is merely teaching the fine art of turning a dog bone into a plebian dish.
“A group of private mercenaries will be both here and north of here sometime in the next three days. They will, among other things, be interested in a luncheon to be held on the deck of the Pueblo—”
“What? Why?” Pieter asks.
“Who knows? But that’s the operation. It seems there’s a chance a group of foreigners will be boarding the Pueblo for a luncheon. Your job is to watch the ship from your apartment—you are to send Sumi to the university to report you’re ill. An hour or so before noon, each day for the next three, you’ll need to be alone in your apartment…and when you see two or three limousines arrive, make a SATphone call to the preloaded number with the simple message, ‘Lunch is served.’”
“That’s it—‘Lunch is served’?”
“That is it. Now, to the Gochujang.”
“Wait. How do I get rid of her for three consecutive days?”
“An errand, or whatever. You just do so. Or don’t, so long as you make the call when and if you see limos arrive for a luncheon.”
Pieter shrugs but is uncomfortable, and he shakes his head worriedly as Duri places a large clay pot on the table, in which the Gochujang will be allowed to ferment after its preparation.
Maybe he can push her out the high-rise window?
But he likes her, even if she is a spy. Likes her far more than he’s willing to admit, even to himself.
9
“Gentlemen,” Garino instructs us at 2100 hours on a moonless night, “you’ll be dropped from a Turkish-marked C-160, especially fitted with a rear ramp for ease of operation. We’ve performed this intrusion twice now and see no reason it won’t work again.”
“And their radar?” I ask, obviously concerned.
“Notorious power failures in NK, and one is timed to coincide with our intrusion. We figure we’ll have a thirty-minute window, as two of their facilities have had their backup generators compromised. It’s enough time—just enough, but enough.”
I can’t help but ask. “No one has said anything about rules of engagement.”
He chuckles. “You are envied by all of us, for there are no rules of engagement. You don’t have to be fired on to engage; you can rape and pillage, I guess.”
“Probably not much time for raping and pillaging, but since our military won’t be blamed, I guess I get it.”
“That said,” Garino follows, “I’d suggest you keep things as quiet as possible. If you rape, don’t get a screamer.”
"Very funny,” I say.
“We got a ready room at the bottom of the tower if you’d like to catch an hour before we mount up.”
“We?” I ask.
“I’m going along for the ride and to make sure you get launched in good order.”
“I wouldn’t mind closing my eyes. Pax can sleep through a hurricane, but all I’ve ever been able to do is rest when a mission is on a short clock.”
Both Jinny and Gun give him a shake of the head, so I’m going alone.
He points at a blue door in the bottom of a forty-foot square and one-hundred-forty-foot-high tower. I eye the C-160 as I head for the door. She’s a fifty-year-old aircraft, and I’m a little surprised we don’t have a newer ride, but then the Turks may not, and she’s got Turkish markings...and the Turks are one of the few countries to fly commercially into NK.
As I suspected, I don’t sleep but spend the time going over rudimentary Korean in my head until Garino opens the door and switches on the light.
“Time to rock and roll,” he says, and, in moments, we’re rolling down the runway with the scream of the C-160’s turbo props precluding any talking.
I would have thought we’d set a course due north, as I know our intrusion is so located. However, as I glance at my watch, which contains a compass, we’re headed west-north-west across the yellow sea. It won’t take long to cross waters claimed by China if we keep on this course.
But as I suspected, after fifteen minutes and reaching what I imagine is cruising altitude, he banks to true north. I’m seated in a hard metal military seat but have a porthole, and, in the distance, I see the lights of another aircraft. We’re running without any lights, and I’m wondering if the closing plane is an NK MIG set out to intercept us...or even a Chinese J-10.
Then I realize it’s a passenger airliner, and I can see that our pilot is lining up directly aft of the airliner and closing the distance between.
In less than three or four minutes, I can see the wing lights of the airliner just ahead and above our position, and I begin to get it. We’re tracking an airliner, probably originating in Beijing, China, and headed for NK’s capital, Pyongyang.
We stick to this position for several minutes until the airliner begins his descent, and then Gun rises and waves Jinny and me up. “Five minutes to altitude. Hook up.”
And he doesn’t mean hook up to a line that will pull our chutes, but rather to our individual paragliders.
“Hang on,” Gun says, and we grab onto handholds on the fuselage, and I see why, as the plane dives steeply and banks hard to the left, north, toward our objective. The aircraft levels off, and immediately Bo hits a toggle switch; the eight-foot-wide rear ramp drops away...and it’s hand signals only, due to the roar of a 300-knot-plus turboprop aircraft trying to slow to nearly stall speed so we can launch.
My paraglider, I’m happy to say, is being tended by Commander Garino, and, although my heart’s in my throat, I feel I couldn’t be in better hands.
Gun is lined up in first position. I’m next, and Jinny is behind me, each of us with a SEAL to make sure our paraglider follows us immediately.
Gun’s hand is in the air, and he’s signaling with three fingers, then two, then one, and then, almost casually, he walks the ramp and disappears into space with the SEAL attending his paraglider close behind, but tethered to the plane with a nylon strap, shoving the paraglider package off behind.
I’m six feet behind and, taking a page from Gun’s book, try to casually step into space. I’m slapped by cold wind and racked from boots to helmet by the jerk of lines. Gun has a tiny light about the size of a firefly, and, as soon as I have my directional lines in hand, I look for it and see him, already more than a hundred feet below, and use my lines to align myself toward him. I’m a little surprised by the prompt reaction of the paraglider to my tugs and “oversteer” two or three times before. Then I remember the servo motor and prop on my back, and I engage it with a toggle switch in my left sleeve that I pull down until it’s tucked in that hand.
I glance to the west and see the C-160 in a dive until he’s only feet over the low hills. The only reason I can see him at all is the faint glow of green lights disappearing as the ramp closes. Then he starts a steep climb.
The push of the prop gives me the impression I could fly to China should I wish, but it’s good for only thirty minutes or so, which should be more than enough time to get us to our LZ.
Our handhelds are plugged into our helmets, and, as soon as I’m settled into my gentle descent, Gun’s voice asks in a quiet and relaxed manner, “All good?”
Both Jinny and I answer at the same time: “Good to go.”
We keep the chatter at a minimum, as one never knows who might be scanning channels, but Jinny adds, “I guess the pallet’s behind me, but I’m having trouble locating. Strobe?”
Gun comes back, “Short as you
can. Gentle circle to the left until you’re in control of the load.”
“Roger,” Jinny says, and I keep my eyes on Gun. I don’t want to lose sight of him, but even more so, I don’t want to run over him and tangle us both up until we resemble a rock. It’s still more than a thousand feet to terra firma.
“I got it,” Jinny says. “And she’s responding.”
“Course 345, gentlemen. Try and get to my elevation, no more than 100 feet separating us. LZ is elevation 450 feet, and we’ve got about a quarter mile by a half to land safely, and remember: from this angle, it’s about a ten-degree downslope, so compensate. The good news: no wind to speak of.”
It’s quiet for four or five minutes, other than the wind whipping from my own forward motion, as I continue to carefully gauge the distance between myself and the firefly that’s Gun to my left, and glance right and see Jinny no more than sixty or seventy feet to my starboard.
Then Gun’s voice again: “A hundred feet...eighty...sixty...fifty...ease it down, and wrap ’em up.”
I think I’m only five feet—using my night vision, it’s hard to judge—but am surprised when it’s longer, maybe fifteen. My legs are hoisted, and then I hit, trying to keep my feet but pitch forward. I catch myself on rough weed-covered ground and am dragged for a couple of dozen feet before my paraglider folds and I get control.
I’m spitting a mouth full of North Korea and hear Gun again, only he’s not talking to us.
“Sunshine?” he says.
“No rain,” comes back, and I guess we’ve made contact with someone on the ground. It’s a code I should have been advised of.
We’re carrying our sidearms, but the M4s and other equipment are nestled on the pallet, wherever it landed. It’s time I take the reins and do my thing, so I call Gun. “Pallet located?”
He comes back, but in a whisper. “Yeah, but not just by me. A local, uniformed. But be careful…it could be our contact, Sook.”
Good thing we have suppressors on the sidearms and no rules of engagement.
10
Pax Weatherwax has ridden through a short portion of a very dark night with a very competent Ji Su—she’s asked to be called “Su”—at the cyclic. The bird is an X3 helicopter painted in the yellow-and-gold colors and design of a North Korean government contracting company. Identified by Korean characters, which he can’t read.
They’ve flown over the brightly lit City of Incheon and across the Yellow Sea to a drilling ship, the Black Gold. The Black Gold is currently drilling in South Korean waters only thirteen clicks south of the North Korean mainland—dark in comparison with the South, as power is in great shortage—and one hundred twenty miles due south of Re-education Camp One. She’s moored twenty-one clicks west of South Korea, just within her territorial waters, claimed at twenty-two clicks.
Needless to say, the location of the ship has been long challenged by North Korea, and repeated threats and close encounters with NK watercraft and aircraft are an almost-daily occurrence.
Pax doesn’t know what to expect but, even so, is surprised to be hovering over the sixty-foot-square, brilliantly lit, landing pad of a seven-hundred-fifty-foot drillship with a beam of one-hundred-twenty-five feet, capable of drilling to forty thousand feet She’s held in position by sophisticated bow thrusters responding to equally complicated GPS positioning units. Dead center on the deck rises an eighty-foot derrick crawling with roustabouts, roughnecks, and drilling hotshots just as if she were sitting in West Texas rather than on a ship in the Yellow Sea.
The landing pad rests atop a five-story structure Pax presumes is office-and-living accommodations for the crew, which can total as many as two hundred, with ninety-five percent being men. She’s a small town.
Pax is surprised to be met, as he deplanes the chopper, by Mike Reardon’s former commander, who’s now a Vice President of Houston Offshore, the company which owns Black Gold. Thomas Scroder is dressed in coveralls and hard hat with a Houston Offshore logo embroidered on its pocket and stenciled on the rigid hat. He extends a hand as Pax walks out from under the rotor wash.
“Commander,” Pax greets him.
“‘Tom’ will do,” Scroder says with a smile. Then he turns serious. “Your people are set up in the lounge just off the helm and control cabin.”
“Let’s go. Our people should be on the ground in an hour.”
“There’s a coffee pot in the lounge—”
“You’re reading my mind, Commander…er, Tom.”
It’s a short one story down the ladder to the helm, where he is introduced to the ship’s captain, Fredrick Brinkerhoff, and first mate, Marty Skogen, and another executive from Houston Offshore, David Downie. Then he is quickly shown into the adjoining lounge, now a TOC, a tactical operation center, that now looks a little like a NASA control room reduced to a ten-by-twenty-foot gray metal room full of tables, chairs, and vending machines. Normally the tables are covered with boxes of donuts, pastries, and coffee cups, but now computers and monitors, all dwarfed by three fifty-four-inch monitors mounted side by side, almost fill the wall opposite the entryway.
One of the monitors is dedicated to a low-level NASA satellite, now tasked to the mission and passing its target every hour and twenty-five minutes. Another is dedicated to a map of the Re-education Camp One Area with real-time location, by different colored icons, of Mike Reardon, Gun, Jinny, and their North Korean contact Sook, via GPS locating devices each carry. The third is an overall map of North Korea with real-time evaluation of their military movements shown by a variety of icons, with particular attention given to MIGs and attack helicopters.
Three young people are manning—and womaning—the computers, and they stop, turn, and then stand when Pax and Tom enter.
Tom does the honors, turning first to a balding, pudgy kid who looks as if he might still be in high school, except for his balding pate. “Pax, this is Archie Turnston, from NSA,” and they shake as Tom goes to a basketball-player-tall, equally young man. “And Terrence Walters, Department of Defense.” Then he turns to a very attractive girl with blond hair down to the center of her back. “And Constance Nordstrom, CIA Directorate of Analysis. Her boss, whom you’ve met, Felix Von Reif, is down with some bug and is below in his bunk.”
“‘Connie,’ if you would,” she says and shakes with a surprisingly firm hand.
“Let’s go to work,” Pax says and can’t help but glance down at a very attractive derrière as Connie goes back to her chair. Then he turns back to Scroder. “I presume this Mac is mine?”
“All yours, and room for your MacBook next to it.”
“Reardon is in the air?” Pax asks.
“He is,” the kid, named “Terrence,” replies.
“Terry, right?” Pax asks.
“I prefer ‘Terrence,’” the kid says as his fingers fly over his keyboard. “Check monitor two—you can see the speed he’s moving at in real time. All three colored dots are merged together, as it’s Reardon, Gun Ho, and Jin Son. Red for Reardon, blue is Gun, and yellow Jin. The other two dots are Bojing Hoy-Lee and Butch McNally, both onboard here and loading Ji Su’s chopper with their underwater unit. They’ll depart at 0300, about the same time Reardon and crew should be boarding their surface craft—”
“Ski Doos,” Pax corrects. “It’s okay to speak English.”
“Ski Doos. By the way, it’s orange for Bojing and white for McNally.”
“Got it. Is the drone in the air?”
“The UAV was airborne an hour ago and is cruising two clicks south of the border on a conventional border-patrol course that NK is used to seeing.”
“Okay. Now I guess all we can do is wait and watch.”
“And the show begins,” Connie says. “They are in the air, and it seems all paragliders have deployed properly.”
We all have eyes glued to the big monitor showing each individual as they leave the plane, separated for the first time into red, blue, and yellow, and descend until each of them has come to a stop.
Each of the three geeks in the room is wearing a headset. Each is connected in real time to their home office.
Pax is provided with a headset ,and each of the young engineers has a switch so he or she can conference Pax in if their bosses wish. It looks to Pax like there might be far too many cooks in this kitchen.
“So it begins,” Pax says, adjusting his headset and wishing he were with Mike. The simplicity of a battlefield, of downrange, is preferable to the politics of a control room.
11
I close to where I can see Gun with my night vision, and, under the circumstances, I have my Glock in hand, screwing on my suppressor as I move. I used this firearm on the range and found it difficult to control on full auto, so I leave it on semi. Besides, we don’t need the sound of even a suppressed automatic weapon.
As it happens, I’m the first to reach the pallet and the uniformed NK soldier who’s busily trying to see what’s wrapped tightly in shrink-wrap.
Moving as quietly as possible, I’m ten feet behind the guy. I know it’s not Sook, our contact, as this guy won’t go 120 pounds soaking wet. He’s diligently trying to pull away the thick shrink-wrap and paying little attention. I get to within ten feet, slipping my Ka-bar from its thigh sheath, thinking I’ll quietly cut his throat…when a voice, speaking Korean, rings out from behind me, and he jumps two feet in the air, turning at the same time.
I’m praying the voice is Gun and glance over my shoulder as he approaches at a brisk trot.
The nosy NK almost faints dead away when he sees me with gun in one hand, knife in the other, glaring at him.
Gun continues to yell as he trots up, and the snoop answers in a weak voice, hands wide, away from his own slung weapon. Gun, by far the best Korean linguist, wears an NK colonel’s uniform, and both Jinny and I are dressed as lieutenants, so the snoop is obviously way outranked.
The guy is staring intermittently at our weapons, as they are likely something he’s never seen. And, luckily, as dark as it is, he can’t see how light-skinned I am.