by L. J. Martin
It was dead silent in the room, with all eyes on the monitor tracking the team, when light flooded the room. and a tall guy in a rust-colored sport coat and khaki slacks strode in. Pax couldn’t help but notice his well-polished shoes that he wore with no socks—A. Testoni footwear, if Pax knew his shoes, about seven hundred a pair if his memory served. The guy wore a baby-blue silk shirt that, like the coat and pants, seemed perfectly tailored, and his hair was impeccable. Like the shoes, the doo must have set him back a couple of hundred.
He strode straight over, without closing the door behind him, to Pax, who was shading his eyes with a hand.
“Weatherwax, I presume?” he said, with extended hand while flashing perfect teeth.
“Yeah — close the fucking hatch. We’re trying to concentrate on the screens, and you’re blinding us.”
The guy stopped short, and he dropped the hand as Pax spun back to the screen.
Pax heard the hatch slam and footsteps approaching from the rear, and a voice rang out over his shoulder. “I’m Felix Von Reif, Directorate of Analysis from the company, and this is my op.”
Pax turned. “Heard you were in the sack with a bug.”
“Shook it. Bring me up to speed.”
“I thought this was a joint operation of DOD, NSA, and the company.”
“It is, but I’m team leader.”
“Maybe, but that red dot is my buddy, and he was told he was team leader.”
“Not by me, and not by Langley. Now, bring me up to speed.”
Pax turned to Connie, who’d buried her face in her monitor again. “Miss Nordstrom, isn’t Mr. Von Reif your department?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Please zero him in, if you’d be so kind.”
“Humph,” Von Reif made a grunt, obviously upset that Pax had shined him on.
But Pax was occupied. He picked up the SATphone, hit the speed dial, and waited. It was a full forty seconds before Mike picked up.
“What? A little busy here, trying to stay between the banks.”
“Radio Gun and Jinny, and see what’s coming down with them.”
“I’ll have to slow down to hear.”
“They’re on the road, not the water.”
“Ten-four. Will come back.”
In a half-dozen minutes, the SATphone buzzed, and Pax grabbed it up.
Mike sounded more than a little stressed. “Can’t raise them.”
“The vehicle they’re in has stopped at the bridge.”
“Let me know what you know when you know it,” Mike said, and rang off.
21
It was a hard-right turn onto the bridge. Jinny locked the brakes, slid into the turn, and leapt from the cab with both his M4 and Gun’s in hand.
The tangos were only two hundred yards behind, having gained on the larger truck over the five clicks they’d come.
Jinny leaned around the back of the deuce-and-a-half and emptied a thirty-round clip at the leading vehicle, and, as he’d hoped it would, it slid to a stop, only a hundred yards behind.
He fit a phosphorous into the grenade launcher and let it fly. But it was high, flying over the Jeep-like vehicle — which he could see was carrying four soldiers — and between it and the following vehicle. The driver slammed it into reverse as Jinny reloaded with another phosphorous and was able to use exactly the same elevation as the Jeep was backing into, where the first shot exploded.
He timed the Jeep’s retreat and fired again. “Ooora!” he yelled as he made a direct hit. Two of the occupants ran from the vehicle, on fire, and disappeared into the brush on the roadside. The vehicle trailing was a personnel carrier, much like the one they’d stolen, and soldiers were pouring out of the rear of it. All he had left was frag, unless he got to Gun, who was still unconscious in the front of the truck.
So, frag it was. He fired four as fast as he could — one into the brush on each side of their truck, one on target, and one behind.
Then he emptied another thirty-shot clip, spraying from roadside to roadside. He was out of C4 but not out of detonators. He set one for five minutes and dropped it in the fuel tank of his truck. Then, as the angry rip of gunfire filled the air around him, he hurried to the passenger side and dragged Gun out, down the bank to the river, and under the bridge.
They were out of sight for the moment.
For the moment.
When he reached the water, he dropped Gun, who went face first into two inches of river. Jinny grabbed for him to keep him from drowning, but, to his surprise, Gun suddenly lifted himself in a push-up position, coughing and spitting water. The bank beneath the bridge was slippery black mud. Jinny bent near Gun’s ear.
“Shut the fuck up. I’m hiding you and going after the Ski Doo. Whatever you do, don’t move. He dragged Gun up the bank, deep in the shadow of the bridge, and, as quickly as he could move, he smeared black mud all over him — face, hands, any place he could see that might show up. Then he scrambled to the edge of the bridge, where brush had built up when the water was higher, and dragged back a ten-foot-long evergreen, and covered Gun.
Before he headed out, he grabbed another small log, switched on his red mag light, jammed it between some branches on the log, and set it adrift.
Then he returned to Gun.
“If I ain’t back by Christmas, catch a ride out of here.”
“Go,” was all Gun could get out. Jinny grabbed the grenades out of Gun’s ruck and ran out from under the bridge, expecting to take lead any second. But he made fifty yards. Then he stopped, dropped his night vision, and scanned the bank behind. He turned back to searching for the Ski Doo. He’d slowed to a quick step.
He dropped flat when he was shocked by the rattle of more than one AK47; then he realized the sound was distant. This time, he didn’t need his night vision as he looked back to see the muzzle flashes of at least four automatic rifles, standing atop the bridge, firing downriver, away from his position. His ploy with the mag light was working.
As he moved quickly away, upstream, the tangos were trying to deep-six a log with a mag light.
He couldn’t help but smile as he chugged forward through the slippery mud and cat-tails.
Reardon said a “brown” tarp, but it was still dark as in a horny movie theater in the bowery, so he had to be careful. He dug out his GPS and entered a way point, not wanting to go too far past the half-mile distance Reardon had mentioned.
He didn’t have much time to search, as when he checked the time, it was no more than an hour to sunup.
And they figured it would take an hour to get downriver to the Yellow Sea.
He kept moving, occasionally turning back and enjoying the fact that the NK soldiers were still chewing up ammunition firing at the retreating red light.
The last time he glanced, he could see them moving off the bridge and then another vehicle pull up, and all of them loading into the back. On the far side, from which they came, the road paralleled the river for a good way, and the vehicle sped off and down-river.
It was another ten minutes before he found the tarped Ski Doo, which fired up with the first touch of the starter. He left the running lights and headlight off and sped as quickly as he dared back to the bridge.
Gun was conscious but not making much sense. He dragged the bigger man down to the Ski Doo and got him in position. But he was wavering, barely able to keep upright. Jin removed his pants belt and tucked Gun’s battle rattle in a saddlebag. He chose a canteen and five hand grenades to leave behind. Then he was able to belt both of Gun’s thighs to the frame. He might fall backward but would still be aboard.
As Jin restarted the machine and was about to charge out from under the bridge, he stopped short. A light, a brilliant spotlight, that could be coming only from a helicopter, was visible, seemingly following the river upstream.
Toward them.
Damn, damn, damn, he thought. Then he caught himself and realized how fortunate it that he hadn’t charged on downstream. Minutes passed as the bird neared, its powerful spotli
ght sweeping from bank to bank.
It roared overhead, blowing up ribbons of water from its rotor wash. Jinny let it get a couple of hundred yards beyond the bridge. Then the Ski Doo leapt from cover and created a wide wake as he pushed it to fifty MPH, as fast as he dared.
Now if only the soldiers who’d headed downriver had not set up to observe river traffic. With nothing but a few cattails along the banks, he and Gun would be sitting ducks.
Gun was leaning back, parallel with the water, his arms flopping, but there was little Jinny could do until he found some cover. Then he’d tie Gun’s wrists together over his chest.
22
Pax spoke aloud, even though everyone in the TOC could see it for themselves. “Gun and Jinny are on the river.”
A cheer went up in the room.
“Too late,” Von Reif said. “They’ll never make it to Juliet and the sea. We’ll have to abort. Reardon and the women will be lucky to make it.”
Pax slowly spun in his chair to face the dapper CIA executive. “I guess you company guys never heard of ‘No man left behind.’”
“And I guess you never heard of plausible deniability? None of the equipment utilized in this op has US markings. In fact, we carefully used Russian markings. You guys were advised of the risk, and you’ve all signed releases should the worst happen. There’s almost fifty million dollars invested in Juliet, her development, and only five of her classification afloat. We’re not losing her for a couple of mercenaries.”
Pax shrugged, looking nonchalant. Then he rose and took a couple of steps, until he was only inches from the equally tall Von Reif.
“Mr. Von Reif, you’ve got lots of very talented folks, and some very tough folks, working for you and the company. Right?”
“Damn right.”
“But none of them are tough enough, and there’s not enough of them, to keep me from shoving one of those seven-hundred-dollar shoes up your ass if any of our people get purposefully left behind. And that will be the most pleasurable thing I do to you. Got it?”
Von Reif blanched a little but then recovered. “I’ve got a job to do — ”
“And you’d be smart to keep yourself in a condition to do it. And I promise you, if Reardon, or any of our people, go down because of a dollar or a fucking billion dollars you refuse to risk or spend, you’ll taste that shoe, coming up from the wrong direction.”
“This is my op — ”
“Fine. Glad you think so. Stand back and watch it come down, and pray it works as planned, as I’m sure you were the head honcho doing the planning. Now I’m going back to work.”
“And I’m going to find the head of security on this tub.”
Pax ignored him and went back to his computer.
“Forty-five minutes to sunup,” Connie reported as Pax retook his seat. Then she said under her breath, “And too many friggin’ cooks in the kitchen.”
“Thanks,” he said and glanced at her as the hatch behind them slammed as Von Reif exited the room. Then he returned his eyes to the monitor and the red dot, Mike, moving downriver. Far behind, halfway back to the camp, merged yellow and blue dots were making good time. The merged orange and white dots on the Potong River, now in the middle of Pyongyang, the capital city, across the river from the Pueblo, were still and unmoving, as expected. And they should be until 1100, when they’d begin moving across river to place nearly twenty pounds of C4 under a joint NK and Iranian lunch party — and under the Pueblo.
Connie winked a baby blue at him, and they shared smiles.
“ETA of Chee and the ladies,” Pax asked, of anyone.
“A half-hour, plus or minus five,” Terrance Walters answered. Then he added, “Juliet is our boat.”
“But this is Von Reif’s mission,” Connie said.
“While we’re arguing the fine points, we’ll have everyone home.”
Ji Su, who’d been leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed, saying nothing, stood and stretched. “I’ll go get any and all of them, should it get too hairy for the pretty little boat.”
“Why did I never doubt that?” Pax said, still studying the monitors.
Butch and Bo were getting tired of bobbing, trying to keep from bumping their heads on the rough-cut planks of the pier above. They were trying to keep from sneezing while breathing the dust from the offloading grain. It wouldn’t do to give away their position.
Bo stretched his arms to limber up. Then, bored with waiting, he turned to Butch. “Old man, what the hell possessed you to get involved with this op — the money, I guess?”
Butch chuckled quietly and answered, “Got no kids to leave it to. Ain’t gonna be around to spend it…so it ain’t the money. My old man loved that tub, and I loved my old man. Besides, I may be old fashioned, but I damn sure love the red, white, and blue, and if you insult her, you’re on the fighting side of me.”
“Sinking the tub isn’t showing much love.”
“I’m embarrassed for the Navy, and my country, so sinking her now that she’s claimed by the North Koreans will give us all some satisfaction. How much do you know about the so-called Pueblo incident?”
“Just that she was a spy ship in North Korean waters and was captured.”
“Then you don’t know shit. We got some time, so here it is. Normally any Navy ship in the Pacific would be the responsibility of Commander, Seventh Fleet, but not the Pueblo. She fell under the command of Commander Naval Forces, Japan. They are, or were, basically a housekeeping command, taking care of bases and such. The only real ship they had under their command was the USS Pueblo. And since they didn’t know their butt from a hot rock, command was nominal. She was really run by a bunch of fucking know-it-all young brats who were spies and had control — whiz kids who couldn’t hit their asses with both hands. The Secretary of Defense is too often a civilian, and he has lots of these civilian whiz kids working for him. The command of the Pueblo was really in limbo. Even the captain of the ship wasn’t allowed into the spy areas of his own command. Unheard of.
“So, when she was confronted by a hostile military force, the captain had to communicate with the whiz kids at Sec Def for orders, and that meant stumbling up the chain of command, with every gutless prick along the way wondering how it would affect his career. A hostile enemy ship with ten times her armament was commanding Pueblo to heave to, and the captain was waiting for orders from Washington, D.C.
“My father and the rest of the crew were in chains long before any orders came back. It was criminal, and leaving our people in North Korean prisons for a year was criminal. And all the buck passing afterward was typical, and criminal. So, are you sorry you asked?”
“A clusterfuck that doesn’t surprise me,” Bo said, glancing at his watch. “Sun’s coming up soon, and we’ve still got a few hours. Why don’t you take a snooze?”
“I’ll sleep when the Pueblo sleeps in the mud on the bottom of the Potong...and my old man can rest easy.”
23
I glance at my GPS and see we’re only two clicks from the mouth of the Taedong River, which is just four clicks north of our rendezvous with Juliet and our rapid exit to the good drilling ship Black Gold, only another fifteen clicks south across the Yellow Sea.
And safety.
It’s a good thing, as the sky to the east is beginning to lighten.
Sook is doing well, we’re cruising at forty knots, and the ladies are still managing to hang on — they must be frozen solid. The river is now very wide, having converged with several streams as we progressed. So wide I can’t see the right bank in the starlight. I’m trying to stay in sight of the left. I presume I’ll recognize the sea by its gentle undulations and the salt spray, but who knows? I’ll keep checking the GPS.
There’s a low fog beginning to thicken, which is good news and bad. Juliet has the latest in navigation and radar, so she’ll find us easily, even in a thick fog.
I suddenly see running lights, a couple of hundred yards ahead, occluded by the fog but obviously bearing dow
n on us…and, for an instant, I wonder if it’s our welcoming stealth twin-hull; then I realize Juliet would not be running with lights.
It’s got to be a bogie. I crank it hard right and cut across Sook’s bow so he’s aware, but he’s already bearing right as well.
And it’s none too soon, as a powerful floodlight suddenly streams our way, and the approaching boat swings to the port and follows our change in course. The light is doing them little good in the fog as it’s panning back and forth. I slow and then come to a bobbing halt in the choppy water.
Sook idles up alongside; I sweep my throat with a finger, and he gets it, killing his engine.
One of the girls begins to cry to her mother; I snap at her to shut up, and her mother repeats the order in Korean. I can hear the thump of the diesel engine of what I presume is a patrol boat. I hope it’s loud enough that they can’t hear the girls’ cries.
I pull Sook’s boat alongside and whisper, “Let’s see if she passes. If she turns more to intercept us, I’m making a run at her with the M4s and giving her my ass and the grenades. Idle away. As soon as I charge, if I have to, you haul ass for the sea with mama.”
“It is suicide,” Sook says.
“So is trying to run....”
“Okay,” he says, restarts, and begins to move away. He’s not more than forty feet from me when the spotlight passes him, stops suddenly, and pans back, landing on him and mama-san.
I have no choice, and I hit the starter and the throttle at the same time. When I figure I’m only seventy-five yards from what I now see is a Zhuk-class seventy-foot or slightly larger patrol boat, built in Russia, with 12.7 millimeter machine guns or larger on bow and stern, I hit both triggers of the twin M4s, and I’m spitting flame and lead.