by L. J. Martin
So, it’s charge forward.
I speed up a little to pass them as quickly as possible, but to my surprise, they slow to a halt. As I near, the driver’s window is going down.
Two couples, the men in officers’ uniforms. The driver is opening the door as I gun it around him, giving him a slight acknowledgement of a wave as I do. But I’m looking uphill, away from him, so he might miss the Caucasian face.
He yells something after me, but, of course, I ignore him and push the little Honda up to what seems its forty-five MPH top speed.
The road curves to the right, crosses a culvert over a ravine, and then curves back to the left. I glance back and see that the driver is making what will have to be about a four-point turn, as the road is narrow. But he’s maneuvering to come after us.
There’s no chance to outrun him, so as the road makes another turn and he’s out of sight for a moment, I ditch the bike to the side, let Jin fall with the bike, and yell at him, “Trouble. Stay down if you can’t fight.”
He’s gamely trying to unsling his M4 as the Toyota rounds the curve behind us, less than forty yards and slams on its brakes. Just as he reaches a sliding stop, I put a three-shot burst through the driver’s-side windshield.
He’s already jerked left and applied the gas, but I’m sure he’s a dead man, as the Toyota drops a wheel off the edge and stops. The opposite rear passenger-side wheel is off the ground as the car teeters.
The rear door behind the driver opens, but I’m at a disadvantage and can’t see as the other uniformed soldier tries to unload.
Luckily the slope is so steep he tumbles; he’s firing his sidearm, but wildly. My second burst stitches him from belly to throat, and he does a backward somersault. He fires one more round but into the ground. Then it’s still. I note by the braid and brass that I’ve killed a colonel...that’ll likely piss someone off.
I move quickly to the passenger side and see both women with hands up, as if I’m a highway robber, and both are wailing.
Opening the driver’s door, I have to put my weight on it to get the little car back level.
To my surprise, Jin has managed to shoulder his weapon and is close behind me. He snaps something in Korean, and both the ladies scramble out of the car, cross the street, and go down on their haunches. He yells something else, and both of them turn to face the slope and cover their eyes.
“You think you can get her back on the road?” he asks.
The driver — a major, I think — is dead, with a hole in his forehead. His head is hanging back over the seat, his cover gone, the back of his head mush. He’s a fat fuck, as only military types are in NK.
“Can you put your weight on this so I can kick porky out of the driver’s seat?” I ask. Jin re-slings his weapon and puts all his weight on the front passenger door.
I slip into the passenger seat, reach across, open the driver’s-side door, get a foot up, and kick porky out. He hits the ground below and rolls away, but the car comes back to level.
“Keep your weight on it,” I yell to Jin. I slip into the driver’s seat and turn the engine over. It must have stalled, as it takes a few turns but fires up. I get her in reverse and back up enough, dragging Jin along, so that we’re back on the road.
Jin climbs in the passenger seat and lays his head back on the seat. “Fucking dizzy.” Then he looks up. “What about the women?”
“It’s at least three, maybe four clicks back to anywhere that might have a phone, and I doubt if any of these farmhouses have even that.”
I climb out of the Toyota, jog over to the Honda, tear the wiring off the sparkplug, jam it in my pocket, and jog back.
“They’re on foot now.”
Jin shrugs. “I hate the thought of killing some dumb broad, but I’ll put one between their eyes.”
I shake my head. “No way. We’ll be long gone before they can sic a posse on us.”
“Then let’s exfiltrate.”
“Big word for ‘haul ass,’” I say, and do.
We drive only a click until we’re in a fairly thick cover of trees above the road, and I figure it’s time to head uphill and see if we can find a clearing the size of a football field.
An easy LZ for a bird. But it’s at least four hours to dark, and she won’t come in — can’t come in — in the light.
Pax stands from his laptop and turns to Su Li, who is leaning against the bulkhead, watching the monitors. “I’m going in with you.”
“Not many Koreans have black, curly hair and lily-white faces.”
Pax rubs his chin and gives her a smile. “This four days’ growth of beard will help. Besides, I don’t plan to be face to face with them.”
“You don’t get airsick, I suppose? This trip may call for some aerobatics.”
“Never have.”
“Then you’ve never flown with me.”
Pax laughs and gives her a look, up and down, that isn’t exactly in the military manual. His voice lowers. “Maybe not flying, but I bet I can keep up with you any other way you’d like to try.”
“If we live through it, I might just challenge you.”
“Then let’s make damn sure we live through it.”
“I’ve gotta preflight the bird. Wouldn’t hurt to have a couple of boxes of M4 magazines to spare, since you’re another barrel.”
“How’s your bird armed?”
“Belly-mounted M134 GAU-17 Vulcan Gatling, hidden in what looks like an air scoop, custom-built 2.75 inch 3-pod rocket launcher, one on each side, also disguised in scoops, so six total. She’s no Cobra or Apache, but then, again, she looks harmless, and surprise can be as good as another two-dozen rockets. And nothing but a MIG can outrun me.”
Pax turns to Connie Nordstrom, whom he’s judged as the most competent of the whiz kids. “Connie, I appreciate how you’ve handled things. I’m leaving you in command here as our number three. Can you handle?”
“You bet, so long as Von Reif stays out of my hair.”
“I’ll make sure Scroder handles that for you.” Then he turns back to Su Li. “We lift off at sundown thirty, so it’s near dead dark?”
“She’s mounted with TIR, thermal imaging radar, so if we can get over them, even if they’re hiding deep in the weeds, and I’ve got a sixty-foot radius, I’ll get in and them out.”
Then Pax picks up the ship’s intercom and dials the gym, where he is sure Guido Garino and four of his SEALs are working out. As he suspected, Garino answers. “Garino.”
“Commander, I’m going in-country at dark thirty. Just in case, is your team ready to follow up, if need be?”
“My orders were to get involved only if the women need extricating…and they’re safe. Sorry, but those are my rules of engagement. We’re heading out with the next supply boat.”
“Too bad there’s not a team of Recon Marines around.”
“Why? You need some latrines squared away?”
“No time for it, Commander. We’ll do the heavy work. You squids go back to whipping your pencil dicks, and kissing the cake-eater’s butts.”
Pax cradles the receiver before Garino can reply and then turns to Ji Su. “Looks like it’s just you and I.”
“Shit happens. I gotta recheck the bird,” and she spins on a heel and heads for the landing pad.
“I’ll be locked and loaded, and, hopefully, Reardon and Jin will be standing by.”
“Make sure. I’m not up for a sightseeing trip,” she says and slams the hatch.
33
There is no trail leading away from the road, and, even if there were, driving off road will leave easily followed tracks for anyone pursuing. So, it’s ditch the Toyota and head into the woods on foot.
Below the road, now no more than one hundred yards from the ruts, is the river. And there’s a steep thirty-foot-high bank down to the water’s edge.
I help Jin out of the little car and up a twenty-foot bank into the first of the copse of trees…a mix of deciduous and evergreens, and get him settled agains
t a tree trunk. As we’ve utilized the Toyota for only a little over a click I almost wish we’d stayed with the Honda, as we could have found a way into the forest with the bike…but looking back is not productive.
Returning to the car, I find a spot where I can dump off the road toward the river and purposefully spin the wheels and whip it back and forth, leaving ruts deep in the steep, soft earth I want those dogging us to follow away from the woods.
When I’m only forty feet from the bank to the water, I have the door open and slow to about ten MPH; I hit the gas pedal and then dive and roll. Gathering myself up, I get to my feet, run to the high side of the bank, and see that the Toyota has made the river, which I’d hoped.
For a moment, I’m wondering if the brackish water is too shallow to swallow the car. Then I realize the old, but still tight, Toyota is afloat. She turns her nose downstream, and it’s a hundred or more yards before she takes on water and noses down to the bottom — then another twenty-five before she deep-sixes.
My hope is that our pursuers — and there will be plenty of those — will think we dumped it off the road and drowned with the Toyota. But I fear that’s a hard sell.
Hustling back up the slope, I cross the road, happy there’re no vehicles in sight. Then, as I climb toward the trees and Jin, I hear the fearsome Wop! Wop! Wop! of a chopper, and it’s growing in volume. I don’t bother to search the horizon but bust my butt to get under cover.
I scramble under the same pine boughs hiding Jin and find a spot to survey my six. Sure enough, as I settle in, a military chopper roars past, only a couple of hundred feet above the road. She’s bristling with machine guns and rockets, and looking for a target.
Us, I’m sure.
She passes, without slowing or turning our way, but still it’s not good news. It likely means the explosion and continuing fires — the distant horizon is now occluded by black smoke — are considered sabotage, or the women I foolishly and softheartedly let live have somehow already communicated the carjacking and killings.
Jin is a long way from recovered, still dizzy and unsure, and likely will be for weeks until his suspected concussion is healed. If we live that long. But I get him on his feet and sling both the M4s and head uphill to where I pray we’ll find a football-field-size clearance — more than large enough to land a bird.
We passed some signs along the road — Korean characters, which, of course, I couldn’t read. My suspicion is that the signs say something like, “You cut trees and we’ll cut off your nuts,” but have no way of knowing. Where the signs began, the cutting of the trees ended, and I suspect where we are is some kind of park or protected area. I hope so. Too bad they didn’t have a sign with a circle with a tree in it and a slash through it, like a “No Smoking” sign. Then even this jarhead would understand.
It really doesn’t matter a hoot, as my Ka-bar won’t go far in cutting down a tree, and I’m sure as hell not going to chop up enough firewood to start enough of a flame to warm our hands…as a curl of smoke would give away our location.
Jin’s hurting but doesn’t complain as I lead him, stumbling, uphill, deeper into the forest. We aren’t moving fast, but at least we’re moving, until I hear a nearby shot and pull Jin to the ground with me.
But there’re no follow-up shots, and it sounded like a very small caliber. I’d presumed it was a shot at two ragged-looking guys in Korean uniforms but carrying American arms and battle rattle, one of whom is way too pale to be Korean, but now I’m reconsidering.
I get Jin again situated deep in the boughs of an evergreen; then I begin my recon. I’m wondering if what I heard was a poacher. Having done a little poaching myself when young and needing to fill our freezer, I know the basics. And the basics are only one shot, never a second that would serve to pinpoint your location. And consequently, I’m having a hell of a time trying to figure out where the shot originated from.
But I move stealthily up through the trees, in a hunting mode — five steps, and then stop and look, for at least a count of one hundred. Check each visual lane through the trees; if there’s nothing, move on. I do this five times before I find my game. And this game is a young man, skinning a small animal — a rabbit or possum or something. He’s facing me, no more than forty yards away. His small rifle is leaning up against a boulder, and he’s concentrating on his work.
I’m considering slipping away unseen when he glances up and panics. He goes for the rifle but gives me his back. Carrying rifle and critter half-skinned and dragging its pelt, he makes like he’s in the hundred-yard dash and hotfoots it quickly into the trees.
I can’t help but smile. I presume he thought me a ranger or soldier. He, too, is an interloper in this forest. But as far as I’m concerned, young men like him are the hope of this country. Willing to risk his freedom and imprisonment — or, worse his life — for the betterment of his family, is the basis of all revolutions against the world’s despots. And I wish him, and those like him, the very best.
Following my own tracks back to Jin, I fish him out of the pine, and we continue uphill, negotiating a rather steep embankment. At the top, I stop to take a blow and realize I can see a portion of the road a little over a click below.
The good news is that we should be nearing the clearing. The bad news is that a half-track and a deuce are parked on the road, and at least two-dozen soldiers are dumping out and following the Toyota tracks down to the riverside.
Now I’m wishing I was a better escapee and had used one of the abundant pine boughs to brush away our tracks as we climbed up and away from the road. Damn, damn, damn. But there’s no time like the present and better late than never, to risk a couple of clichés.
So we duck off the steep slope — if we can see them, they can see us — and this time, I take on double duty. Jin is using my shoulder, and I’m trying to obliterate our footsteps with a bough…until I realize I’m doing neither well.
“Fuck it,” I say to Jin. “Let’s just haul ass. If we can stay invisible for another three hours, we should tie up with the bird, and in four we’ll be sucking a Corona on the mother ship.”
Holding his head with a hand, Jin managed, “I’m wishing I had a quart of that Soju to tide me over.”
“Hang on, pard. God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we’re x-ville soon.”
“Your lips to God’s ears,” Jin mumbled, pushed away from me, and started upchucking what little he had in his gut.
34
Pieter De Vries has butterflies in his stomach. He has no idea what is about to take place — only that, if he believes Duri, he has to move. Move in the dark of night, when few North Koreans are on the streets and those who are will likely be stopped, questioned, and searched.
Even so, he feels there are a few things he must take with him, so he packs a small backpack with some toiletries, a couple of cans of sardines, a rain slicker and a sweater, and a pair of the most waterproof trousers he owns. He’s planning to go out in his jogging clothes, as he’ll at least have an excuse to be on the riverfront walkway — in his case, the jogging pathway — at that time of night. It is a shallow excuse, but at least an excuse.
Sumi is at the kitchen table reading, while he quietly packs in the bedroom, out of her sight.
He is stuffing in his warmest pair of wool socks and is surprised to look up to see her studying what he’s doing.
“You are leaving?” she asks.
“No, no,” he stutters, “just storing a few things in this backpack.
She walks over and reaches for it, but he clings to it, pressing it against his chest.
“Why are you hiding what you’re doing?” she challenges. Then her voice softens. “I know that you and Duri have been talking about much more than cooking. I knew it was something strange when he showed up at our door, and when you two whispered as I made tea — ”
“We didn’t — ”
“And I know you better than you may think.”
He shrugs. “And I know you and care very mu
ch about you. I know you’ve watched my every move and searched my things every time I’ve been away.”
She smiles. “Then you should know I was instructed by my employers at MPS to report anything suspicious to them.”
“And that’s why we live together?” Pieter asks.
“Yes, that’s why we live together…at first…but not now. We live together now because I have fallen in love with you.”
Pieter is silent for a long moment, studying her, wondering if she is being truthful. He had long ago admitted to himself that he cared far too much for her and cautioned himself against it…time and time again. But he did care for her…even if suspicions tempered his fervor. Still, he didn’t reply.
“You know,” she said, “I have no family left?”
“I know that’s what you’ve told me.”
Pieter could swear there’s a tear forming in her dark eyes. “You are now my family. Nothing holds me here…nothing.”
His voice softened. “I care very much about you, Sumi. I’m happy to leave my job and this…this terrible country. But leaving you may be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Even harder than burying my first wife.”
“Then take me with you,” she said, and looked so very, very hopeful. No one, he thought, can fake that yearning look.
He took only a second to decide. “Then pack your backpack, as I have.”
“You are not aware, but I have a small handgun…part of my job. They will not search me, as I have identification. I think I should take it.”
“Take it,” Pieter said, “if and only if you’re willing to use it.” But the butterflies in his stomach kicked it up a notch. “Let’s get some sleep, if possible. We have an appointment at midnight, and I doubt if we’ll get any sleep for a while.”
She walked over, softly put her arms around his neck, and pulled him close.
Bo was chilled to the bone from staying submerged up to his neck in the river. The wetsuit he was wearing was the best, but even it, after a prolonged time, let the cold go bone deep. He wondered how long he could stand it before he became hypothermic.