Hunt the Dragon

by Don Mann

  Seeing the boats in the distance, Dawkins shouted, “Help! We’re drowning!”

  Crocker immediately clamped a hand over his mouth. “Bad idea!”

  He’d rather freeze to death or drown in the bay than give himself up. No way he was putting himself, his family, and his country through that.

  His body was almost numb now, and as the numbness spread so did a primordial warmth, which he understood was one of the first symptoms of hypothermia. Nothing he could do except to try to stay afloat and not lose consciousness. He heard helicopter blades beating in the distance and saw searchlights exploring the water south of Ung-do. Maybe they had spotted wreckage, bodies, or survivors.

  “It’s a good thing we’re drifting north,” he said to Dawkins’s head, cradled under his right arm.

  Dawkins didn’t respond.

  Crocker was in Alaska on a winter warfare exercise, blowing hot air into his hands. Then he was back. The sky overhead was still furry black—no moon or stars. He saw his mother knitting by the fire, glasses perched on the end of her nose. His father stood by her side, holding a ball of yarn. He thought it was his first memory, and he was going back to the beginning of his life.

  Water washed over his chest and reached his mouth. He spit it out and coughed.

  It happened again, and he looked left. Realized he was on land. The island of Ung-do glowed in the distance. Dawkins lay on his side like a beached fish. Crocker extended an arm in his direction, but he was out of reach.

  “Dawkins. Hey, Dawkins!”

  He slid over and lifted him carefully. Saw that he was breathing.

  “Dawkins! You hear me?”

  Dawkins blinked and looked at him with surprise. “What happened? Where are we?”

  Dawkins’s lips were blue, and he trembled from head to toe. Crocker wanted to start a fire or wrap a blanket around him, but realized he had nothing on him but his smart suit, boots, and belt. No body armor, no NVGs. Even the SIG Sauer was missing from its holster.

  Hearing a scraping noise, he lay belly-down on the sand. About seventy meters down the shore to his right, someone was emerging from the water, pushing something flat and dark. The sight was so surreal, he wondered at first if he was imagining it, like his mother by the fire. But when he blinked and opened his eyes the dark figure was still there, so he continued to make himself small and narrowed his focus. The man seemed to match a familiar shape and size.

  Crocker squeezed Dawkins’s arm, held a finger to his lips to tell him to remain quiet, and scooted on his belly to the shrubs along the bank. From there he made his way closer. When he was sure it was Akil, he emerged and approached, optimism surging into his system like oxidized blood.

  “Akil! What the fuck took you so long?” he whispered.

  “Boss? You son of a bitch…”

  They embraced like it was the happiest moment of their lives—two exhausted men in shredded smart suits on a beach in enemy territory.

  Akil was pulling a plastic panel that looked like it had come from the SDV, with another man on it.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Sam. Smashed his leg and ankle. You locate the others?”

  “I’ve got Dawkins with me. That’s all.”

  “Oh.” Akil looked disappointed.

  “He’s suffering from hypothermia,” Crocker said, pointing at Dawkins’s silhouette on the sand. “I lost everything—comms, weapon, med kit, even my pistol.”

  “I found this.” Akil gestured toward a backpack lying beside Sam on the plastic panel. “Don’t know what’s in it. Pretty sure Naylor and Hutchins died on impact. Suarez, I didn’t see him.”

  Crocker was already digging through the backpack, which seemed to have belonged to Suarez. He concentrated on the toaster-sized metal Personal Recovery and Survival (PRS) kit at the bottom. Inside, sealed behind a watertight rubber gasket, he found a stainless-steel mini-multitool with pliers, a wire cutter, file, and awl; a 14mm AA-liquid-filled compass; a red LED squeeze light (red to protect night vision as well as not give away your position); a ferrocerium rod with tinder tabs in a resealable bag; forty water purification tabs in an amber vial; a 2x3-inch signal mirror; two thermal blankets; fifteen feet of Kevlar cord; safety pins; a can opener; duct tape; a roll of stainless-steel wire; a fresnel magnifying lens; a pack of antibiotic ointment; two water storage bags; and a small med kit.

  As he catalogued everything, he said, “We’ll keep an eye out for Suarez. Your comms work?”

  “What fucking comms? I lost everything except for my pistol.”

  “What’d we hit?”

  “The fuck if I know. Don’t think it was a mine, because I didn’t hear an explosion.”

  “Me neither.” Crocker unfolded the blankets. “Let’s get these around Sam and Dawkins. Then we’ve got to ditch the wreckage and find a place to hide.”

  “Sure, boss.”

  “We drifted northwest. Looks like the Koreans are searching south.”

  “I believe we’re on the southeastern tip of the Hamgyong Peninsula. Maybe half a mile from Ung-do,” added Akil.

  “You’re the navigator.” At the bottom of the pack Crocker located an Emerson GPS distress marker, which was the size of an iPhone and usually worn in a holder on the operator’s wrist.

  “Good. We’ve got a distress marker. The batteries seem weak, but it works. Probably should wait a night or two to use it. Find a place where the guys from the Carl Vinson can land. Once we got that sorted out, we’ll signal them and catch a ride out of here. Meanwhile, let’s keep looking for Suarez, Naylor, and Hutchins.”

  “You make it sound easy, boss. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  Dense shivers ran up Crocker’s legs and arms as he and Akil carried Sam on the heavy plastic-and-Styrofoam panel. Akil, who appeared to be in the best shape of the four, led the way, with Dawkins stumbling beside them, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, mumbling to himself. Crocker suspected that he and Dawkins were both suffering from stage two hypothermia.

  But he couldn’t worry about that now, or the numbness in his toes, or the pain throughout his body. They were moving inland to find a place to rest and build a fire pit, heal, and regroup. Even as he was drifting in and out of awareness, he managed to place one foot in front of the other down a slight incline, albeit slower than he would have liked.

  Something rustled to his right, and he saw a flash of silver and fluorescent orange. Thought he might be having a stroke, then realized it was Dawkins rolling in the Kevlar blanket until he hit the base of a tree and stopped. Crocker had lowered the makeshift stretcher to the ground and was bending over Dawkins and offering him a hand up before he realized what he was doing. Through the dim light he saw dirt and leaves matted on Dawkins’s hair and face. His eyes shone, but his voice was shredded with exhaustion.

  He said, “Leave me. I’ll die here. Thank you for what you did. It was…good.” This came out in one continuous stream, as though he was expending his last bit of energy.

  Crocker wasn’t about to accept it. “No. Not happening.”

  “No, no, it’s okay. I’ll die here…Just get a message to my wife.”

  “Get the fuck up!”

  Crocker pulled him to his feet, stood him up, leaned him against a tree, and peeled the wet leaves off his face.

  Dawkins shuddered and started to weep. He said, “I told you…I can’t do this.”

  “You have no idea what you’re capable of, Dawkins. No fucking idea. We’re going to get through this together.”

  “No…”

  “Hold on to my hand.”

  The warmth felt good. Crocker was sitting before a fire. Holly handed him a cup of tomato soup with big brown croutons floating in it. He leaned forward to sip it, and stumbled. He quickly caught himself before he let go of the makeshift stretcher.

  “Boss!”

  He thought he saw Cyndi lying on it, naked, a red hibiscus blossom behind her ear.

  “Boss, this okay?”<
br />
  He saw Akil looking back at him, his eyes bigger and darker than usual. They were standing in a little oval clearing in a dense stand of trees.

  “Boss, you all right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, this is good. Thanks.”

  He let go of Dawkins and lowered the stretcher to the ground, then stood there trying to think what to do next.

  “Lie next to Sam,” he said to Dawkins. “Wrap the blankets around yourselves. I’m gonna build a fire.”

  A massive shiver ran from Crocker’s feet all the way to his head, snapping his teeth together.

  “I’m gonna start collecting wood,” he said to Akil. “I want you to surveil the area. See if there’s anyone in the vicinity.”

  “I’m going to look for a hotel with a pool. Take a swim, then catch a movie.”

  “You’re funny.”

  “What’s the plan? Stay here tonight and look for an exfil site in the a.m.?”

  Crocker was finding it hard to think that far ahead. “Something like that…”

  Next thing he remembered, he was searching through the pack for the med kit and locating a thermometer, which he placed in Dawkins’s mouth. The little LED screen read 93.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

  “I feel sick,” Dawkins moaned, his skin pale and lips still blue.

  “Stay under the blankets. I’ll get you warmed up.”

  Definitely stage two hypothermia, he said to himself.

  Chapter Twenty

  Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell.

  —General William T. Sherman

  He was on his hands and knees, using the lid of the PRS kit to dig a hole about a foot away from a modest-sized tree, which would help to disperse the smoke. A gust of wind blew up his back and he shivered. Akil sat six feet away, gently rubbing blood into Dawkins’s arm. He saw Crocker staring at him and stopped.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You hear something, boss?”

  “No. Did you?”

  He couldn’t remember what he had determined about their present location, but he thought it must have been acceptable, because they were still there, and he was digging.

  He’d constructed so many Dakota fire pits that he could make one in his sleep, which was essentially what he was doing now. He saw Jenny at two and a half, standing in a wading pool in the backyard holding her arms out to him. He tossed a beach ball, which sailed between her outstretched arms and bounced off her nose.

  He started laughing.

  “What’s so funny, boss?” Akil asked.

  “I was remembering something.”

  He blinked and looked down, and was surprised as how much progress he’d made. The main hole was about fourteen inches deep and eight inches wide. He’d already completed a narrower outlet hole at a slight angle on the windward side that intersected with the bottom of the pit. This would provide the fire with oxygen and keep it burning. Now all he had to do was fill the pit with the kindling he’d gathered and light it.

  Which he did now, using the ferrocerium rod and rubbing his knife into it at a thirty-degree angle. The spark produced by the metal lit one of the open packets of treated cotton tinder. He tossed it into the pit and covered it with kindling, then set progressively larger sticks over the little flames.

  They grew larger. The hotter the fire got, the more oxygen it sucked into the tunnel.

  “You can laugh to yourself all you want, as long as you get shit done,” Akil remarked.

  “Thanks, douchebag.”

  Together they carried Sam closer and huddled around the fire. Akil cleaned the metal PRS kit holder in a nearby stream and filled it with fresh water. Crocker heated it over the fire, poured some into the lid, and passed it to Dawkins, who sipped some, then passed it to Sam.

  “You’re a fucking genius,” Akil said as he refilled the lid and passed it to Crocker.

  The water warmed Crocker’s insides. “No, I’m a frogman.”

  “Same thing, only different.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  Akil’s wide face creased into a grin. “It means you’re feeling better. Later we’ll go looking for some Korean babes to keep us warm.”

  “You’re crazier than me, and always have been.”

  “Crazy keeps me sane.”

  Now that Crocker’s mind was clearer, he realized that he’d forgotten to examine Sam. In the reflected light from the fire he cut away the right leg of Sam’s wet suit. His ankle was completely dislocated, and the fibula and tibia had both sustained compound open-wound fractures. The pain had to be excruciating, yet as far as he knew, Sam hadn’t swallowed any medicine, nor had he complained.

  Most of what Crocker found in the med kit were Israeli bandages, tourniquets, tape, QuikClot, and triangular bandages—more suited to dealing with combat wounds. At the bottom of Suarez’s pack he found a universal SAM splint and a vial of extra-strength Motrin.

  He fed Sam two pills, cleaned the wounds, and stabilized his ankle by placing the splint around the bottom of his bare foot, wrapping it around both sides of his ankle and securing the aluminum alloy bands with a bandage and tape.

  Crocker slept for thirty minutes and woke up remembering Suarez, Naylor, and Hutchins. He asked Akil, who was still awake, to watch the camp and keep the fire going while he went back to look for them.

  “Is that smart, boss? You want the pistol?”

  “You keep it. Guard the camp.”

  At the beach he looked out over the bay and saw that the Ung-do complex was no longer burning. Patrol boats and helicopters with searchlights traversed the seas south, west, and even east of the island. None of them bothered to look north.

  Eventually they’ll turn this way, he said to himself, trying to be realistic. Their current vulnerable state afforded no margin for error. Nor could they rely on hope.

  He searched up and down the beach along the east side of the peninsula, then along the little area that jutted south, then west, making sure to walk along the water’s edge so as not to leave footprints.

  No sign of Suarez, Naylor, or Hutchins. No wreckage from the SDV, either. He gazed south one last time, praying that they were still alive and hadn’t been captured.

  Then he searched the beach again and tried not to feel sad.

  He awoke stiff from his neck down and squinted into the sun shining through the leaves. The air carried the scent of burning wood. He saw Akil cleaning and drying his SIG Sauer by the fire pit. Sam lay beside him, sleeping. As Crocker stretched, he noticed that the skin around Sam’s ankle was purple and swollen.

  “How long did I sleep?” he whispered. “Where’s Dawkins?”

  “He went to the stream to wash himself.”

  “This isn’t a fucking camping trip. You shouldn’t have let him go alone.”

  “He insisted. I think he shit himself.”

  “Which way’d he go?”

  Akil pointed to his left—generally east.

  Crocker pushed through bushes still wearing the smart suit and Merrell boots. Past a patch of honeysuckle, he saw Dawkins naked except for a gray T-shirt, with the water midway up his thighs—pale, vulnerable, and lost in his own thoughts. He was the kind of guy Crocker had passed hundreds of times in the mall and never given a thought to. He was the quiet, smart, physically meek student he used to terrorize in school.

  Crocker had never asked him about the circumstances of his captivity, but wanted to. Now, as he stepped down the embankment toward the six-foot-wide stream, he saw something move up ahead on his right. The flash of a blue shirt, and then a boy of maybe seven holding a bamboo fishing pole. The kid turned right when he reached the stream and walked away from them, disappearing around a bend.

  Back in the clearing, Crocker knelt beside Akil and said, “There are people living nearby, which means of one of us has to recce this end of the peninsula. You know anything about it?”

  “From what I remember r
eading, it’s sparsely populated. Small family farms and swampland. The population centers are farther south.”

  “The other thing we’ve got to do is locate an exfil site big enough to land a helicopter,” Crocker said. “If we find one that’s far enough from civilization, we’ll signal tonight.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been thinking.”

  “If we don’t find one, we’ll keep moving and searching, which won’t be easy with Sam. But if we follow the stream and use the purification tablets, we should have plenty of water. We also need to start looking for food.”

  “Prime rib?”

  “Fish heads and rabbit balls. I’ll set some traps.”

  An hour later, while Crocker was boiling water, a Russian-made Mi-14 helicopter passed overhead, then banked left back over the bay and returned. They hid under the thickest foliage they could find and waited. After a half-dozen passes it moved on.

  After the sun went down, they feasted on two large trout Akil had speared in the stream, drank water, and rested by the fire. Shortly after midnight they broke camp, covered the fire pit, and hiked three-quarters of a mile northeast, picking their way through pine trees and swamp to a camping area that had been cleared near the beach with two rotting picnic tables. The overgrown narrow dirt road that fed it from the north looked like it hadn’t been used in months.

  While Akil, Sam, and Dawkins waited in the woods, Crocker stood in the clearing and activated the Emerson GPS distress marker for a full minute, then flashed it three times according to the prearranged emergency signal. He repeated the process three more times and waited. When an hour passed and no one came, he signaled again.

  Crocker repeated the same sequence for the next three hours, while Akil sat with Sam and Dawkins. Straining his ears for the sound of an approaching helicopter, he grew frustrated. The signal from the Emerson distress marker wouldn’t last forever, and they had no extra batteries.