Seawolf Mask of Command

by Cliff Happy

  Oh, shit!

  Her legs were shaking with a combination of bone numbing cold and fear. She doubted she could stand, let alone take a step. But then, a calm realization struck her. They were in North Korea and if anyone of them made a mistake, they would all die. There were no ridiculous illusions in her mind of some heroic escape if discovered. They were outnumbered literally millions to one. She wouldn’t be captured and traded for a North Korean spy. She would be killed here on this very beach. The future she’d dreamed of with a home, a husband, a family, and a career would be over before ever being realized. Her grandparents would receive a visit from a casualty assistance officer informing them of her death.

  And the world would never know what happened to her.

  It was odd, but the cold, rational acceptance of the fate now before her allowed some semblance of calm to settle over her once again. She moved forward, the terror fading to a manageable level as she accepted the very real probability that none of them would survive.

  Kristen joined them as they stripped off their dive gear and silently stashed the gear in the rocks. No words were said and none were necessary. All knew the score. All knew the desperation of their orders. All knew the cost of failure.

  Kristen added her gear to theirs while the men pulled on their small helmets, night vision goggles, and readied their assault rifles. Each weapon had an integral silencer built into the barrel. Kristen doubted she would use the rifle, but assumed it was better to have it than not. Hamilton’s machine gun stayed slung across his back as he stepped up on the rocks and took a knee, his rifle up and his eyes scanning the area. Grogan and Hoover joined him. Alvarez would stay at the shoreline where he could secure their gear and guard the SDV which was just off shore in shallow water, barely hidden under the waves. Once Grogan was satisfied the area was clear, he made a quick hand-and-arm signal, and they moved out.

  The shoreline was made up of jagged rocks, some nearly the size of a large car, others much smaller. The various shapes and sizes made movement difficult as their boots struggled to find traction. Kristen, her boots too large, found the going even more arduous as she moved over the uneven terrain. Fortunately, she was in excellent physical shape. Even so, she had a hard time keeping up with the SEALs who leapt from rock to rock silently, finding solid footing and maintaining their wedge-shaped formation as they swept forward with apparent ease.

  Grogan stayed in the lead, constantly checking his compass to keep them on course. To his left, Hamilton moved in the darkness with all the noise of a wraith. To the right, making an occasional sound, Hoover advanced, scanning the area to their right. They moved without a word for maybe ten minutes before Grogan suddenly stopped and lowered himself to a knee, but kept his weapon up.

  They’d told her if she was ever uncertain what to do, she should mimic them. So, fearful they’d been spotted, Kristen knelt down. She moved in behind a large boulder she hoped might stop a bullet and glanced around the corner of the rock, expecting to see North Koreans approaching. Her right hand brushed against the pistol, and she chastised herself for even thinking about it. She waited silently for what felt like several minutes. Finally, not hearing any instructions from Grogan or the others, she glanced up and was immediately struck with panic.

  The team was gone.

  She looked around, almost spinning like a top, seeing nothing but the dark rocks making up the beach.

  She was alone.

  All alone in the middle of North Korea!

  Her heart was once again threatening to leap out of her chest, and paralyzing fear gripped her. She thought of the locator beacon on her gear and whether or not she should activate it. The probability that the others didn’t realize she was gone added to her alarm. They could be moving further away every second.

  She had to move.

  She had to move fast.

  But which way?

  Kristen looked around, trying to squelch her fear so she could think clearly. She thought about the suicide injector and wondered if she could ever use such a thing. Not that the idea of being captured by the North Koreans at all eased her growing level of alarm. The North Koreans would torture her mercilessly. She briefly wondered if she might be able to resist telling everything she knew, but then dismissed the idea as preposterous.

  You’ll squeal like a pig the moment they hold the first needle of truth serum in front of you!

  Kristen looked around for any sign of where the three SEALs had gone, but everything looked the same. The rocks. The dark night. Wherever she looked, everything was exactly the same. She glanced back in the direction she believed they’d come from and thought it might be best to retrace her steps and wait by the gear. Then she remembered Chief Grogan telling her not to go wandering off, and if she got lost to stay put. But that had made a lot more sense when she was sitting in the Seawolf and it had all been an academic exercise. Now that she was in the middle of this insanity, she just wanted to find Hoover and never leave his side.

  A sound to her left caused her to nearly jump out of her skin. She peered into the darkness, seeing nothing. Then she heard the sound again. It sounded like something dragging softly on the rocks, scratching them. But she wasn’t sure how close it was.

  Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

  She considered her pistol. But realized she would likely shoot herself, or at the very least alert the entire North Korean army to her presence should she try to use it. She heard the sound again. It was close! She bit her lip to squelch a burning desire to shout for help. However many there were, they were close and getting closer.

  She squeezed herself back into a crevice to hide. She then heard the soft clicking again.

  They were right on top of her!

  Once more, the thought of her pistol came to mind, and then her thoughts went to her suicide injector.

  You can’t be captured! You can’t let them take you alive! You know too much!

  Kristen reached for the pocket where she had the injector. She hadn’t thought herself capable of using it. But as cold, merciless fear gripped her, she knew she preferred death to revealing the vast quantity of knowledge she had on the Seawolf and the US Navy in general.

  Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

  The soft clicking had grown louder, and now sounded like the footfalls of an entire regiment of North Korean commandos. She tensed herself as she gripped the injector. They’d told her the injector was virtually painless and death would be instantaneous. A cyanide cocktail. She looked at the injector as the sound came closer.

  They were right on top of her.

  She was about to thumb the rubber safety top off the needle before plunging it into her flesh when, to her immense relief, she saw a crab climbing over the rocks in front of her.

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered and closed her eyes briefly, trying to calm herself while at the same time chastising herself for panicking.

  Then a strong hand gripped her shoulder from behind.

  She nearly screeched as she turned and saw Hoover.

  “Come on, Ell-Tee,” he whispered. He sounded irritatingly calm.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought you guys had left me,” she explained.

  He paused and turned to her, his weapon at the ready. “Then why didn’t you use the radio?”

  She’d forgotten to turn her small radio on when they came out of the water. Kristen felt herself blush in embarrassment. “Sorry,” she replied. “I guess I’m a little nervous.”

  “You’re gonna be fuckin’ dead if you don’t shut the fuck up, Lieutenant,” Grogan hissed somewhere close ahead.

  Hoover didn’t reply. Instead, his eyes continued scanning the area with his night vision goggles. He then took her by the right wrist and led her forward. Kristen was thankful for the physical contact, feeling no longer as isolated and all alone. He led her hardly four meters and they came to a sandy road running parallel to the coastline.

  She saw Grogan lying in the rocks, his rifle up and at the re
ady as he scanned the area through a night vision scope. Hoover positioned her in a slight depression created by the rocks behind Grogan and motioned for her not to move.

  She nodded her head nervously.

  Grogan was an arm’s reach away, and Hoover moved off to the right about five meters. She looked around but couldn’t see Hamilton. Kristen hunkered down, trying to disappear into the deep recess, but she kept her head up slightly so she could see what was happening and, most importantly, not lose sight of Hoover and Grogan. As she looked around, she decided that since the others were all watching the road, she should keep watch toward the rear in case some group of North Korean soldiers appeared behind them.

  Great idea, and just what would you do then?

  Kristen squirmed her way down into the crevice hoping to disappear. But as she did, her rifle slammed against a rock. The noise of the metal hitting the rocks sounded like a bass drum being struck. She turned her head and saw Grogan. He placed his finger to his lips.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Will you stop moving around for God’s sake?” he whispered harshly. “Hell, they’ll hear us for sure.”

  He returned to where he’d been hiding, and Kristen did her best not to move. Except now her left leg was positioned awkwardly under her hips and pressing into a jagged edge of a rock. She tried to ignore it, but the pain was growing worse with each minute. She waited, seemingly for hours as the pain grew worse to the point she had to move.

  Kristen carefully placed her hands on the rocks and tried to lift herself up as silently as possible to relieve the pain in her ankle. But as she did, her rifle banged against a rock again. She froze. She could almost feel Grogan about to boil over. The noise of the rifle on the rock sounded like a thunder clap in her ears. She lowered herself down slowly and managed a more comfortable position, feeling the cold wind now passing over her.

  Kristen had briefly forgotten the cold, having been too nervous to feel the biting wind. It was January, and Korean winters were notoriously bad. She pulled her arms about her to conserve heat and nestled down a little more as the cold began to sink in. Her wetsuit was good for keeping her body warm in the water but provided only marginal protection in the open air. She then reminded herself that she at least had a pair of utilities to help break the wind, whereas the three SEALs were wearing just their camouflage drysuits.

  She looked at her watch, her teeth beginning to chatter, and saw they’d been ashore for nearly an hour. According to intelligence reports, the doctor worked late in his office and took his evening stroll whenever he finished for the night. But, he never finished before 8:00 PM and seldom worked past midnight. She was already shivering, and the thought of waiting another few hours seemed impossible.

  The sound of a vehicle engine took her mind off the biting cold. She pressed herself into her slight depression trying to become a part of the rock as headlights illuminated the sky over their heads. The vehicle engine grew louder and the lights brighter as it approached. She could have sworn she felt the ground rumbling beneath her, and her first thought was that the vehicle might be a tank.

  What do we do if it’s a tank? Do we have any anti-tank weapons?

  Kristen was almost completely hidden in shadow, but tried to force herself down a little further. The vehicle passed by without slowing down, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of a tank, it was a small pick-up truck with some soldiers in the back.

  With the vehicle gone, her mind once more noticed the bone-numbing cold. She glanced toward where Grogan and Hoover were and could barely see them blending perfectly into the shadows. Unlike her though, they weren’t laying in depressions to help block the wind. The SEALs were up, laying in firing positions and exposed to the brutal effects of the wind. Seeing them enduring the worst of the cold and wind without so much as a murmur of complaint made her feel like a big wimp.

  She could hear the distant sound of the breakers hitting the rocky shore and the sea spray washing over the rocks as the wind howled about them. Thick clouds had moved in concealing the moon, and there wasn’t a single star visible anywhere. Inland, she could see the soft glow of the Musudan-ri rocket facility. But, from her vantage point, she couldn’t see the base.

  They continued to wait. The shivering was growing worse, and her teeth were chattering from the numbing cold. Plus, her legs were cramping underneath her from the awkward way she was sitting. She considered moving, but knew to do so would make noise, so she sat still.

  “Tally-ho,” she heard a soft whisper.

  She was wearing—as they all were—a set of bone phones. She’d never seen them before the SEALs had handed her a set back on the Seawolf, but understood the technology. Basically, the small devices were pressed against her skin, just behind each earlobe. When activated, the sound vibration was conducted directly from the device, through bones in her skull and to her ear canal, allowing her to hear radio communication even in a severe firefight. A throat microphone was positioned over her voice box to pick up even the slightest audible sounds from her vocal chords when she depressed the pressure pad under her left arm.

  “Three Gomers, walking in the open.” She recognized Hamilton’s voice. “Fifty meters to our nine o’clock. Two DPRK soldiers and one civilian. Soldiers are armed with assault rifles, over.”

  She froze, listening intently as she again forgot about the cold. Her heart had resumed its hammering in her breast as Grogan shifted his position slightly. Kristen resisted the urge to look up. Instead, she listened, but heard nothing except the wind and waves. She wasn’t supposed to do anything. The SEALs would do all of the shooting…

  Shooting?

  Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

  Kristen then heard the sound of men on the rocky road. She could hear the soft crunching of their boots on the gravel. She heard their casual voices more interested in good conversation than in being on the alert. They weren’t expecting trouble. It struck her as ludicrous that the three men were walking right into the ambush without any sense of danger. But then it occurred to her that if their roles had been reversed and she’d been the one walking along some stretch of beach in America, she certainly wouldn’t expect to be ambushed by foreign commandos.

  The voices came closer. The sounds of their boots on the rocks seemed to be nearly right on top of them, but the seconds continued to tick by. She tried to remember what she was supposed to do when the ambush was initiated. But her mind went blank, and she wasn’t certain she couldn’t even remember her own name at the moment.

  Then she heard Grogan whisper over the radio, “Now.”

  She heard no shots.

  In fact, the lack of noise surprised her.

  All she heard was the soft metallic sound of the HK-416 bolts going back and forth, then the sound of expended brass hitting the rocks. She clearly heard the two men collapse on the road and their weapons clattering loudly as they fell onto the roadbed.

  “Move, move, move,” Grogan ordered at the same time she heard someone shouting in Korean. Kristen hesitated, the sense of being in a dream momentarily freezing her in place. But then she moved, coming up onto her cramped legs. She’d been seated in the uncomfortable position too long and her legs felt unusually heavy. She reached the edge of the road and saw the scene of the ambush.

  The two North Korean “handlers” had died instantly, never feeling the bullets passing through their skulls. They were crumpled on the road exactly as they fell. She was struck by how odd the two dead men looked. Both hadn’t fallen back, their arms flailing like in a movie. Instead, they’d simply collapsed to the ground as if they’d been marionettes with their strings cut. Dr. Dar-Hyun was on his knees and nearly in hysterics. Hoover, a pistol in hand, forced Choi down flat on his belly and began frisking him for weapons. Grogan was in the middle of the road, down on one knee, his weapon at the ready and facing east. To the left, she saw Hamilton. He was also on the road but facing in the opposite direction, his own rifle at the ready.

  “L
et’s go, Ell-Tee,” Hoover called to her as she scrambled over the rocks, having forgotten whatever Mandarin Chinese she knew.

  Kristen reached the road and ran over to where Hoover was searching the Korean scientist. She knelt down and saw that Choi was panicking and jabbering in a language she didn’t understand. “Shh,” she offered, then spoke the only other thought coming to her mind. “Please be quiet,” she said in crystal clear English.

  “Fuck, Ell-Tee, I coulda done that!” Hoover said as he readied a tranquilizer for the Korean. “How about some of that Mandarin shit.”

  “Yeah, Mandarin….” she answered stupidly as she continued to try and quiet the man down.

  “Doc, if he doesn’t shut the fuck up, drug his ass,” Grogan swore in a harsh whisper.

  Kristen found her Mandarin and began begging Choi to be calm and listen in a language he could understand. “We’re here to get you out. We aren’t going to hurt you,” she hoped she said in Mandarin. “Please, Dr. Dar-Hyun, try to stay calm and please stop calling out,” Kristen added as the man rolled over on the rocks, gripping his chest tightly, terror still in his eyes. But, whatever she said must have been close enough, because he stopped crying out, even though he was still jabbering in Korean.

  “Please, sir, be quiet before you alert other soldiers in the area.” she pleaded with him. “Just try to relax.” She helped him sit up. “Just breathe easily.”

  He nodded to her and resumed jabbering, this time in Mandarin.

  “Ask him what this is,” Hoover asked, referring to a small black box about the size of a deck of cards attached to his ankle with a thin black strap. There was a small blinking green light on the box. Hoover opened his waterproof rucksack and readied a syringe to knock the doctor out. Knocking Choi out was the last resort since, if he was unconscious while on the LAR-7, he could vomit in his mask and drown before anyone could help him.

  Kristen thought of the proper phrasing and then asked the question. He immediately replied, gesturing wildly at his ankle and then at the area around him. She slowed him down, unable to understand most of what he was saying as he spoke too fast in his excitement. While she was interpreting, Hamilton and Grogan dragged the bodies off the road and hid them in some brush. Meanwhile, Hoover readied the syringe.