65 Below

by Sands, Basil

  Deep sleep fell on him within minutes. Random dream images passed through his mind. Lonnie appeared before him, pleading for forgiveness and then weeping as she looked at his tombstone. He saw the faces of his mates from the Royal Marines and other friends with whom he had served over the years. He heard the voice of Captain Mike Farris, a Recon Marine who went on to become a pastor. Mojo, you’ve got to let it go…let it go …let it go…

  Lonnie weeping. Marcus's mother in a hospital bed. His father lying face down in the snow.

  Suddenly Marcus lurched back to the conscious world with a jolt. The dream evaporated as his right hand instantly yanked the Springfield from its scabbard next to his head. The rifle slid quickly out of the padded tube as he rolled off the machine and assumed a defensive posture behind the cover of the seat pad. Twenty years of fighting and killing had honed his reflexes to the point that such maneuvers required no thought—they just happened, sometimes subconsciously.

  What had caused him to leap into action?

  He thought for a moment, listening in silence.

  There had been a sound of some kind—a sharp, metallic sound. He had only briefly caught it in that moment between sleep and consciousness, but it had been there.

  Metal, like a shovel or a pick.

  He listened more, but heard nothing.

  Hmmm. Must be a maintenance crew from base doing some work. Man, am I jumpy.

  Just as he was about to dismiss it, the sound came back. It was a short burst of clinking and scraping. It reverberated through the empty wilderness in the distance.

  Then he heard voices. Several men’s voices spoke briskly from far away. The snow muted their words beyond understanding. Marcus decided he would take a look to see who they were and what they were doing.

  He strapped on snowshoes over his bulbous white military surplus bunny boots and went to the sled, to his backpack. He took the Zeiss high-powered binoculars out of his pack and stuffed them into the chest pocket of his parka. He reached into his bag and grabbed a large, white linen hooded over-coat, which he pulled on around his parka.

  The sheet-like material covered him down to his thighs. The plain white covering rendered every part of him above the knees almost invisible against the background of virgin snow that lay over everything in sight.

  Marcus left the rest of his gear and set off in the direction of the voices, directly northwest of the trail. The metallic clinking and scraping had become rhythmic. It sounded as if someone were trying to dig through concrete with a pickaxe. Every so many beats, there was a solid, stone-like crack, then the metallic sound resumed, beating the same rhythm.

  Realizing that if they were military personnel they may not graciously accept the idea of a civilian coming up on the work they were doing, Marcus would verify who they were before walking into their area. It would also be good stalking practice. He hadn’t needed to sneak through snow for a long time, and this gave him a good opportunity to make sure he kept that skill up to par.

  If they were friendly looking, he would approach them. If they or their work seemed like something that ought not to be disturbed, he would simply fade back into the wilderness.

  Marcus stealthily moved forward until he was able to make out the voices more clearly. He stopped, crouched in the snow, and sat still. He relaxed his body to get his breathing under control. He concentrated intently on identifying what he heard. As he sat in the quiet of the forest, a nervous trepidation crept over him. Some of the voices occasionally spoke loudly, calling out an order to someone else.

  When he drew closer, Marcus’s ears picked up details of their voices, their tones, inflections, and sounds. They were not speaking English. It took several seconds before his mind adjusted and he recognized the language of the speakers—Korean. At first he did not recognize the dialect.

  Marcus had been stationed in South Korea off and on throughout his career, and in the early nineties had done a one-year exchange tour with the South Korean ROK Marines, one of the toughest organizations he had ever encountered. The ROK Marines performed almost weekly raids into North Korean territory; often snatch & grabs or psy-ops missions, during which they would attempt to kidnap an enemy soldier, or simply slit the throat of every third man in a barracks while they slept in their beds, then slink back across the border in the darkness.

  Initially, Marcus thought they were South Korean soldiers on a training exercise, but something sounded strange. The way they talked, and some of the words they used—their grammar did not follow the South Korean speech patterns he remembered. The words rose and fell to the wrong rhythm. Inflections rose when they should’ve fallen, too much accent on certain syllables and sounds. The voices spoke openly in the forest fifty yards ahead of him. Marcus suddenly recognized their accent. Alarms went off in his brain.

  They were North Korean.

  Marcus’s mind shifted to a tactical bearing. Whoever these men were, it was unlikely they belonged here. He lowered himself deeper into the snow and moved carefully forward to investigate.

  If these were North Korean soldiers, they were probably special operations. They would have guards posted, snipers.

  Thirty yards from the source of the voices, Marcus knelt low in the snow. He stayed motionless for several minutes. From an observation post somewhere nearby, a soldier was watching the forest. Before he could move any further, Marcus had to find that guard.

  Marcus scanned the area slowly with his binoculars from right to left and back again. As he made the second sweep, he found what he was looking for. A wisp of steam floated from within a small mound forty yards to his left and halfway between him and what sounded like the main party. He watched the mound and saw the steam rise again, highlighted against the dark gray and brown of the stark vegetation. It was the breath of a man.

  He stared intently through his binoculars at the ground beneath the misty fingers that slowly rose from the snow-covered forest floor and found what he was looking for—an angular black object, dull and metallic. The front sight of a rifle, a Kalashnikov, became barely visible amidst a shadowy tangle of dark twigs covered in dollops of snow.

  It was a good sniper hide. Marcus had been lucky that he came from the angle he did as he approached the site. He was only barely out of the soldier’s field of view.

  He crept stealthily past the sniper, even keener to any and every noise and movement in the wintry forest. The sounds of the arctic wilderness in winter have a different quality to them than in summer. Snow muffles some sounds, while the hard, frozen trees and rivers may echo others loudly. What sounds like someone walking in the distance, may turn out to be one’s own footsteps reverberating between the trees.

  Marcus rose silently and moved through the forest landscape with absolute skill and natural talent, as one both born in the forest and trained as a warrior.

  As he drew near the source of the voices, he could clearly hear their brisk conversation. He crouched low and skirted the area until he had moved behind a stand of willows. The cluster of thin, straight branches burst up and out from the snow atop a small rise that looked twenty yards down into the area of the voices.

  Through the tight clump of leafless sticks, Marcus could make out half a dozen men surrounding a hole in the ground, around which the snow had been cleared away. Piles of gear were laid out in an organized fashion. There was another man in the hole looking down and talking. All of the men were armed with folding stock AK-74 assault rifles, side arms visible.

  Marcus took up the binoculars and looked closer. The six men around the hole were leaning over, looking down into it and commenting to one another. A second man stood up inside the hole and gave directions to the group above. One of them ran to a pile of equipment and brought back a black metal crow bar.

  One of the men outside the hole put a radio up to his mouth and spoke. Marcus saw movement out the corner of his eye, about thirty yards away to the northwest of the hole. He turned his binoculars in the direction. Another man, a white smock over his
clothing, strode into main group, holding two rabbits up by their ears.

  One of the men down by the hole shouted. “Aigo! Chungshi Dongmun! Toki kachua! Toki do mashiso!”

  The men started clapping their hands and exclaiming how delicious the rabbits would be for their dinner. As he came down, the man with the radio put it back up to his mouth and spoke. There were now nine men that Marcus could see—the sniper he had passed, and probably two or three more out on guard posts.

  As he observed the men, there was a sudden burst of excitement in the hole. The one who had ordered the crowbar stood up and shouted to the others. All but two of them ran back to the hole. The other two discussed how to prepare a meal of the rabbits. Marcus understood enough of the conversation to form a strong idea of what they were talking about.

  “Bali! Hurry up! This is it! We’re almost in! Come here and help pull this metal cover off! Bali!”

  Ropes were lowered into the hole. Five men on top tugged with extreme exertion against whatever was down there. After a full minute of strained pulling, there was a metallic crack, like a broken bell being rung, and the five men moved backwards, pulling their load to the surface.

  Over the side of the hole rose what looked like a several-hundred-pound sheet of steel, about three-by-three feet square and more than an inch thick. After setting it down, the men looked into the hole. One of the men stood up with an expression of frustration wrinkling his face.

  “Aigo! More concrete and rebar! These Migook don’t want anyone getting into this bunker. We will keep digging until we get through the crack. We know it is less than half a meter thick.”

  “Captain Park,” said one of the soldiers. “Let me trade places with you for a while. I am ready for more digging.”

  “Come in, then,” replied the captain as he climbed out of the hole. “Corporal Yoon, after you get that food started, let someone else take over cooking the toki. Then go relieve Sergeant Sun. I don’t want him to freeze. He’s been out there for too long already.”

  “Yes, sir!” replied the man who had skinned the rabbits. He finished cutting the meat and put it into a pot suspended above a small fire by a tripod made of sticks. “Rabbit stew in an hour.”

  The captain clapped a hand on one man’s shoulder and said, “If we work hard today, we will be out of here by daybreak tomorrow, maybe sooner. Good work, men. Chaldaso!”

  Marcus backed away slowly from the group and made his way to the waiting snowmobile. He took a different route, being careful to avoid the sniper in his hide, and keeping an eye out for any others.

  By the time he got back to his equipment, it was nearly two-thirty. The sun had already started its descent. Its beams cast mesmerizing pink and orange flames that streaked across the sky.

  The arctic winter was well known for its long dark nights. Winter solstice, December 21st, was the longest and darkest of those nights, with the sun rising at about eleven only to leave the land in total darkness before three. It was currently the 18th, and the darkness would cover him within an hour.

  Marcus secured his load and headed back home. Krisler’s trap line would have to wait.

  Chapter 10

  Marcus Johnson’s Cabin

  Salt Jacket

  16:00 Hours

  Marcus left the animal carcasses outside so they would stay frozen until he got back. He started the old white Jeep CJ parked in front of the cabin to let it warm up. Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped to negative thirty. The jeep’s starter protested as it churned the engine to life. It idled high and Marcus turned up the heater to full blast to warm the interior of the classic vehicle. He ran inside the cabin to change his clothes.

  Ten minutes later, he ran back out of the cabin and jumped into the driver’s seat of the four-wheel drive. The air from the heater was only just starting to warm, and the steering wheel was painfully cold to the touch of his bare fingers. Marcus put his gloves back on to protect his flesh from becoming frostbitten. He pulled the headlight knob, and the yard exploded in bright white light as his high beams illuminated the snow that lay across the open expanse.

  Marcus pressed the clutch with his booted foot, slid the shifter to reverse, and backed the jeep in a wide arc in his front yard. Once it faced toward the road, he pushed the shifter into first gear and shot out onto Johnson Road. He glanced down at the fuel gauge as he pulled out. The needle pointed to the first white dash above empty.

  “Damn!” he exclaimed.

  Marcus rushed over to the Salt Jacket General Store and pulled up to the gas pump. He jumped from the driver’s seat and slid his bank debit card into the slot on the front of the pump, then stuffed the nozzle into the tank opening. He squeezed the lever all the way and filled his thirsty jeep as fast as the pump would pour the fuel.

  As he finished, Linus peeked out through the window by the cash register, then walked out of the store. “Hey, man, what are you doing here? I thought you were out in the woods.”

  “I was,” Marcus replied as he replaced the gas nozzle. He turned back, screwed the gas cap back into its place, and spoke to Linus as he jumped into the driver’s seat. “Something really important came up at the base. I’ll fill you in later, but gotta go for now.”

  Before his friend could say anything more, Marcus shot out of the parking lot and bolted up the highway toward Eielson Air Force Base.

  Marcus arrived at the entrance to the Air Force Base fifteen minutes later, having averaged about eighty miles per hour on the way. He pulled the jeep up to the gatehouse and flashed his red-fringed retired military ID card to the guard.

  “Sir, I’m sorry, but there is an alert exercise on and we are closed to all persons except for active duty personnel with a base sticker.”

  “What? Look, I need to see your base security commander to report an emergency.”

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot let you on until they lift the closure.” The guard looked up and pointed to the main guardhouse fifty feet away. “You can go in there and see if the desk sergeant can help you, but I cannot let you on.”

  Marcus turned his vehicle into the parking area next to the red brick building. Two windows were set high in the wall facing out from the base. Light was visible from those windows, but they were too high to see how many, if any, people were inside. Marcus went in.

  Just inside the door, a counter stretched the length of the drab room. Every solid surface was painted an eggshell white color. The only exceptions were a single brown wooden office chair and four brown wooden picture frames on the wall in back. The picture frames contained plain white sheets of paper with typed writing too small to read from in front. A bored-looking Air Force Security Police Staff Sergeant in camouflage BDU’s with his back to Marcus stood hunched over stuffing a large wad of Copenhagen tobacco into his lip.

  Marcus caught a strong whiff of Jack Daniels whiskey as the staff sergeant closed the round cap on the alcohol-marinated tobacco.

  “Good evening, sir,” the security policeman said with a slow southern drawl. The bulge of tobacco, combined with his drawl, made him sound like he had a speech impediment, or as it was called in a previous generation, he seemed slow. “ID card, please.”

  Marcus showed his card, and the staff sergeant glanced at it and said, “I’m sorry. The gate is closed to all but active duty personnel. You’ll have to hit the commissary another day.”

  “I’m not going grocery shopping. I need to talk to the OD for base security.”

  “What for?”

  “To report a security incident. Now get me the OD.”

  “Sir, the officer of the day is busy, and unless I can justify disturbing him, I am not going to. Tell me your incident. I may be able to help you right here.”

  Marcus was frustrated at being retired. His standing in the Corps as an E-8 Master Sergeant, Force Recon Marine had allowed him the luxury of direct access to people who could act swiftly. That luxury was gone the day he walked off the grounds of Camp Pendleton for the last time. Marcus was no
longer a link in the chain of command.

  “All right, Staff Sergeant.” Marcus made an effort to calm himself and explained, “I was running a friend’s trap line on the back of the base when I came across a group of what appear to be North Korean Special Forces attempting to dig into an underground bunker. There are about a dozen of them, maybe more. They are armed and have several snipers posted, guarding whatever it is they are doing. Based on what I heard them say to each other, they are nearly halfway done with their job and expect to be out of there by early tomorrow. I rushed back here as fast as I could and recommend that you get a security team out there ASAP.”

  The security police staff sergeant stood frozen with his eyes wide open in an expression of unconcealed disbelief. His mouth hung stupidly open. A dribble of tobacco juice overflowed the edge of his lips and ran in a brown line to his chin. He blinked rapidly as he processed the information, then wiped the brown tobacco drool with the back of his sleeve. “Uh huh. North Korean Special Forces on the back of the base, digging into an underground bunker.”

  “You heard me, Sergeant,” Marcus said. “Now, get someone on the horn who can do something about it.”

  “Right.” The staff sergeant picked up the receiver of the phone behind the counter and punched in a five-digit extension. He glanced sideways at Marcus, wiped the spittle from his chin again, and spoke into the line.“Sir, there’s a fella up here in the guardhouse who would like to speak to you.”

  A pause as he listened.

  “Yes, sir, I understand, but this is something about North Korean Special Forces infiltrating our base.” He nodded his head up and down. “Yes, sir, North Koreans.”

  The staff sergeant glanced over to Marcus and pointed to the phone receiver, mouthing the words “O.D.”. He smiled belittlingly at the retired Marine. His expression displayed a distrust of Marcus’s mental state. He returned his attention to the phone. “I don’t know. Maybe it is part of the exercise, but I don’t think so.”

  The staff sergeant nodded and said, “He doesn’t seem to be, but you never know. His breath doesn’t stink.” He paused again. “Okay, sir, I’ll ask.” He turned back to Marcus. “Uh, sir, the captain asked me to ask to you if you are drunk.”