Dark Winter

by Anthony J. Tata

  During the flight, they had passed around a digital tablet that had PDF files with target folders for the airfield and the Manaslu facility. They’d studied the interior passageways and found what they believed was the biometric chamber. Their mission was to capture the woman, Kal, the North Korean Key, and walk her through the chamber. The dossier on her included information that she was an assassin with one vulnerability.

  Her father had saved her life during a house fire, having come home from work to find the entire home ablaze. He ran through the flames, plucked her from the closet in which she had been hiding, and carried her to safety. The next day the Korean Central News Agency ran a story that American special forces had infiltrated her home and killed her mother because she was an engineer with the North Korean nuclear agency. Her brother had died, also, hardening her soul, making her ripe for government wet work. The next year after the fire, she graduated from high school and joined the North Korean special forces, or “NickSof,” as some called the elite troops.

  The village of Rimyongsu had lionized her father and the larger city of Samjiyon a few miles away had honored him with a medal from the Great Leader, Kim Jong Il. Her father, though, had been humble and deferred to his daughter, placing her in the spotlight. It was customary for humble servants such as her father to save face, be humble, and deflect attention. That deflection had tipped off a North Korean special operations recruiter when he learned of her athletic skills. Young Kal was particularly adept at killing game for her family to eat. Often she would sit with her bow and arrow on the North Korean side of the Tumen River and pluck deer, fox, and the occasional wild boar. She provided well for her family as had her brother.

  Her father was her responsibility today, and he was in an elderly care home in Samjiyon. Hobart had the mission to link up with the father. Van Dreeves and Owens would go into the Manaslu facility with Kal.

  Owens and Van Dreeves landed in a rice field a mile from the Manaslu facility on the south side of Samjiyon. They removed their parachutes and oxygen gear, put their weapons into operation, and huddled tight.

  “That airplane had to be Kal returning,” Owens said.

  “Roger. There might be another HVT on that thing, as well. Big as it is,” Van Dreeves said. High Value Target was a euphemism for some type of principal that deserved capturing.

  “Too far to get a tail number and doubt it would do us any good. Just have to assume she has a plus one,” Owens said.

  Hobart had landed near the ski slope on the opposite side of the city. His voice came through their respective ear pieces. “Target is at my ten o’clock. Moving now.” Two sentences was a long conversation for him.

  Owens knew the operator was in good shape. “Roger. Confirm when target secure.”

  “Wilco. Eyes on your bogey moving from airfield,” Hobart said. It made sense that being on the ski slope he would have a view of the airfield and the solitary road five miles away.

  “Roger, out,” Owens said. To Van Dreeves, he said, “Let’s go. Follow me.”

  Owens followed a patch of low ground through the woods. The terrain was steep and jagged, where glacial till had cut V-shaped wedges into the ground. Staying in the depression behind the first row of buildings in the city, Owens was able to lead them to an alley about a quarter mile from the Manaslu facility.

  Leaving the protection of the forest, he picked his way through a dark alley. A stray dog loped along the right-hand side. On either side of the alley were the backs of businesses shuttered for the evening. He imagined they were basic goods types of stores. Hardware. Groceries. Nothing fancy.

  The alley came to a T, and they were staring at the razor wire of the outer perimeter of the Manaslu grounds. The actual building was another 400 meters away across an open field. Their analysis had indicated that this spot would be the best location to breach, but Owens had another idea.

  “The main road is a hundred meters through this wood line,” he said to Van Dreeves.

  “Roger. Want to ambush the car?”

  “Seems like the best way in.”

  “I’ve got one tire shredder we can throw in the road.”

  Owens pressed his microphone and said, “Chase car with the vehicle leaving the airport?”

  “Negative,” Hobart said.

  Turning to Van Dreeves, he said, “Let’s move.”

  They hurried along the fence line through a small wooded area that was steep on their right-hand side. The terrain kept forcing them toward the fence and Owens kept pushing them sidehill to avoid any contact that would alert the motion detectors. They reached the end of the ridge and the road and he saw that their location was perfect for an ambush.

  “Great spot,” Van Dreeves said. He wedged his M4 carbine into the V of a low tree branch, placed the butt on the ground, and removed his rucksack. He pulled a collapsible portable tire shredder kit from his ruck and opened it. The size of a small microwave oven, the shredders would either cause the vehicle to stop or, less preferably, puncture the tires and render them inoperable. The teeth on the specialized gear were so long that they disabled Run Flat tires, as well.

  “I’ve got you. Toss it in the road,” Owens said.

  The headlights from the approaching vehicle were a speck in the distance, maybe a mile away. Depending on the vehicle speed, they could have a full minute. Van Dreeves spread the matting on the side of the road, ensuring the long, razor sharp teeth were exposed upward.

  Returning to his firing position, he said, “Should slow him down. What next, boss?”

  Owens wanted to say that he wasn’t Van Dreeves’ boss, but he understood the need for clarity and mission focus at that precise moment as the car approached from two hundred yards.

  “Remember, we have to capture her alive. That’s part of the plan. Disable the car and we’ll politely join them in the vehicle and drive through undetected.

  “I’d be happy with a one and done thing here, but I think this is major, Patch,” Van Dreeves said.

  Just then, Hobart called. “Package secured,” which meant that he had kidnapped Kal’s father from the nursing home where she kept him. The dossier indicated the man may be wheelchair bound, but Hobart did not seem to have run into complications just yet.

  “Roger. Twenty seconds from execution. Stand by. Be ready to video chat,” Owens said.

  Hobart did not reply.

  Owens low crawled across the street to the far side, found a low spot behind some rocks and prepared for Van Dreeves to deploy the twenty-five-foot Defender Stinger Spike System. This device was employed by police departments across the United States to protect routes or stop criminals. It consisted of accordion style collapsible hinged metal bars with dozens of hollow spikes that penetrated deeply into the tire, leaving the nail inside. The hollow core allowed for the fast escape of air and rapid flattening of the tire.

  “Vehicle fifty meters,” Van Dreeves said. He low crawled into position.

  “Execute,” Owens said.

  Van Dreeves slung the Defender across the narrow road. Owens snatched the chain on the first toss and pulled it snug. The matting scraped and rattled, but otherwise was black and obscure. The same color of the black asphalt road that led to the Manaslu compound.

  The car approached, slowed, and braked as its front tires crossed the Defender and immediately deflated. Backing up did little good except prevent the rear tires from being deflated also. The driver attempted a Y-turn, sensing that he was in some sort of ambush. Van Dreeves put two silenced rounds into the rear tires and Owens did the same on the passenger side of the vehicle. The car was still drivable, but with less speed. More troublesome for the driver was the ambush location—a narrow defile where any attempted turn would take multiple back and forth maneuvers.

  Owens and Van Dreeves had worked out that whichever way the vehicle turned to conduct the Y-turn, the man on the opposite side would approach and breach the rear doors while the operator in front would take on the security and the driver. Assuming th
e windows were bulletproof, each man had a crowbar for prying open the doors.

  Van Dreeves tossed a smoke grenade under the car and it boiled thick gray smoke around the car, obscuring the windows. Owens approached the passenger side and used a jimmy to open the door as he slid his pistol in and began firing. A Glock 17 tried to work its way out the door, but Owens’ shots found some kind of target. He pulled the door open, keeping it between him and the driver, who he assumed was also armed. Good assumption. Pistol shots rang out from the driver side and were effectively blocked by the armored car’s own protective windows and doors.

  Owens slid around and double tapped the driver in the forehead.

  Van Dreeves cautiously approached the rear, wary that security might be in the trunk. He used the crowbar on the trunk lid, saw the security guard lifting his pistol, and shot the man in the forehead. Owens covered him and watched the interior of the vehicle, seeing a privacy shield between the front and back seats. He felt time slipping away from him. He knew the biometric key might have instructions to kill herself. Or worse, there might be a guard designated to kill her. She was of no use to the North Korean government now. The arsenal was armed and not penetrable by hackers, according to the reports, albeit they were changing by the hour.

  Owens received a text on his wearable technology chest mount. He flipped open the small device the size of a smart phone. It was from Mahegan.

  North Korea scheduled to fire three more nukes at Japan and Philippines in two hours. Timeline is accelerated.

  Owens typed Roger.

  With a clock now ticking, he had no time to spare. In sync, he and Van Dreeves jimmied the rear doors, which pushed out at them. Probably part of the tactical plan the people in the rear had discussed in the less than fifteen seconds since the car had run over the Defender tire flattener.

  Two throwing stars clinked off Owens’ body armor and one whizzed past his head.

  Kal.

  According to her dossier, she was an expert at all things sharp and lethal. She bolted from the car on the rear passenger side and dashed into the woods. She was quick and agile, leaping over tree trunks and rocks with ease. Owens was reminded that this was her home turf. She would know every trail.

  Van Dreeves stayed focused on the car. “Have another bogey in the car,” he whispered into the microphone as Owens was in hot pursuit.

  “Might need your help. This is more important. She’s the reason we’re here.”

  “You’re giving the orders. I’ve got a dude just sitting here. Can make out his face through the smoke.”

  Kal stopped running and turned, spun a throwing star at Owens’ face. He reacted quickly as it laced across his cheek like a buzz saw, drawing blood. He saw the fence behind her and knew that she was blocked. A seventy degree incline was to his right, her left. The perimeter fence hooked into the rocky crevice and rose a considerable distance into the sky above the rock formation. He imagined that she could scale the rock face with some effort, but knew that he would catch her with her backside to him.

  He removed a Cap-Chur tranquilizer pistol from his holster as he aimed his M4 at her face from fifteen feet away. “We need to get you into your command post so you can stop this nuclear attack that has been automated. We understand that you are an unwitting accomplice.”

  “Don’t pity me, Mister Owens,” Kal said. Seeing the shock register on his face that she knew his name, she followed up with, “That’s right. In the thirty seconds that you needed to stop us and kill innocent guards and drivers, I was able to review your top secret dossier hidden in the Pentagon. You’re with Jake Mahegan and some of the other not-so-clandestine military operatives from the United States.”

  Patch stepped back. A bullet smacked into the rock to his right. She had led him into ambush. In his periphery, he noticed the slightest movement. Something primal kicked in. An instinct. Years of combat honed into one moment. Survival of the fittest. He’d seen too much to not have learned and lived.

  “You know I have to live, right?” Kal said, obviously disappointed that shot had missed. But others were coming faster.

  He was surprised the guards had been able to react so quickly. The bullets seemed to be drifting closer to Kal than to him.

  “I need you to live,” Owens said. “They need you to die.” He chinned toward the guard tower two hundred meters away. “No hopes and dreams for a future?”

  “None.” She smiled.

  “What about your father?” Owens held up a tablet with a live streaming image of Hobart pulling a garrote around her father’s neck.

  “No!”

  The reaction was better than Owens expected. Her face pulled back into a tight knot. The rifle fire pinged closer and closer. She was oblivious to everything but her father’s bulging eyes that showed on the tablet.

  “You come with me, he lives,” Owens said.

  She spun and dove toward him, beneath the hail of bullets blasting the rock wall to his right. Prepared, he dodged her lunge and used a swift blow of his rifle’s buttstock to knock her unconscious. The rifle fire started chasing him as he dragged her low along the trail back toward the road. Bark splintered above his head and he could see the faint outline of the car about fifty meters ahead. The thick trees shielded their movement and the shooter lost visual on them, but that didn’t stop him from guessing. Some of his guesses were too good, too close. Others raked high into the leaves, spitting branches and bark into Owens’ face as he carried the unconscious Kal as if he were doing the sidestroke in a pool.

  Van Dreeves said, “I’ve got you. Car was empty. Was like a hologram in the back. Looked like that Internet guy we’ve been talking about. Gorham. But it was just a projection from the backseat.”

  “I’ve got Kal. She’s alive but unconscious,” Owens said.

  “What do I do with this guy,” Hobart said.

  In the excitement of the moment, Owens had forgotten that Hobart was strangling Kal’s father. “Stick with him. Keep him alive. See if you can’t get to the airport and see whose airplane that was. We’re going to need a way out.”

  “Roger. I’ll see what I can do,” Hobart said.

  It was clear to Owens that Hobart wasn’t optimistic about relocating four miles up the road toward the airport. And the likelihood was that the plane had already departed, though he hadn’t heard anything take off or land.

  Van Dreeves came around and helped Owens put Kal in the back seat of the car. Owens snapped a seat belt around her and then sat next to her and snapped one around his chest. With no element of surprise anymore, it was just a brute force attack. The timing of their drop and the airplane landing had led to this course of action. Now they had to adapt and overcome.

  “I’ve cut through the security system and disengaged the override. It’s still locked, but we should be able to get through with the weight of this car.” Van Dreeves buzzed his window partially down and extended his M4 carbine through the gap. “Here we go,” he growled.

  The rear tires were smoking as he kept the brake and the accelerator to the floor, then released the brake and slammed into the gate. Thanks to cheap North Korean steel it buckled, but not without a fight. The car spun ninety degrees and Van Dreeves overcorrected twice, fishtailing until he leveled the car into a steady top end of one hundred miles per hour.

  Their study of the facility had shown fives guards, one at each fence corner and one rover. Owens predicted they would collapse on the central facility. There wasn’t much to guard other than Manaslu’s technology, and the former North Korean leader didn’t care much about that.

  “Left access is looking good,” Van Dreeves said. “What’s the countdown?”

  Owens looked at his tablet. “Twenty-seven minutes to nuclear launch. We’ve got to get her awake, in the chamber, pass the biometrics, and then confirm with Jake.”

  “Comms with Jake good?”

  “Roger. I’m here. Staying out of your way. Keep up the progress. We’re tracking. Sean is standing by to shut
down the nukes once Kal confirms,” Mahegan said.

  Owens thought he heard the whine of jet engines in the background and imagined that the team was relocating to go after the Russian Key. “Roger, out,” he said. It was good to hear his friend’s voice. The mission was tough and tight on time. Reassurance was always a good thing.

  The car began taking fire, which Owens returned with suppressive shots at muzzle flashes. He had night vision gear, but they were doing one hundred miles per hour and about to slam through a garage door.

  “Hang on,” Van Dreeves said.

  The car barreled through the loading dock elevating door and screeched to a halt. The seat belts did their job. All three passengers stayed in the car despite the enormous forces propelling them forward. As the engine smoked and ticked, Van Dreeves and Owens exited, weapons up. One military police guard appeared on the dock and raised his rifle. Owens double tapped him in the chest. No body armor. They weren’t expecting an attack. One down, four to go. Maybe more. Collapsing.

  He lifted Kal over his shoulders like a sack of rice and began running with Van Dreeves in lead. Another guard popped out of the far left corner of the warehouse. It was the size of a small gymnasium. Van Dreeves fired three rounds. At least one caught the man and spun him to the ground. Two more shots sparked off the floor and skidded into his body. Van Dreeves was shooting low and using the ricochet effect. Up on the loading dock, Owens laid down Kal and placed C4 explosives on the door handle to the interior of the facility. They covered Kal, ducked, and waited for the explosion.

  Pouring through the buckled door, Owens had Kal over his back again. Van Dreeves was in the lead again.

  The hallway was dark and smoky from the blast.

  “Left,” Owens said. Then after a few seconds, “Right. Okay up ahead.”

  Van Dreeves turned the corner and fired five shots, took some backfire in return. He spun to the ground and slid, shooting as he flew under the high shots. Owens came around the corner with Kal in tow. Saw two dead guards.

  Four down, one to go. Maybe. Maybe more. Maybe less. Collapsing to the middle. Defending the biometric chamber.