Reload

  The dump truck’s gas gauge read below empty now. He braked and the needle rose a mark. Good. Must be just enough fuel remaining in the tank to slosh around and bump the needle up. Not completely dry, but close to it.

  He turned toward the depot, bouncing across railroad tracks. Only then did he remember to raise the plow. He gripped the lever, but hesitated, not remembering which way to manipulate it. Making a guess, he punched it forward. The truck pitched to a halt as the plow dug deeper, like setting an anchor in sand.

  The rear of the truck still spanned the tracks. He pulled the plow up, but too far. Now he had to stretch his neck to see over it. He shifted into first and released the clutch, bouncing through the slit trench in the snow he’d just created.

  Hopefully the depot manager he’d bribed earlier that night was no longer on duty.

  He stopped in front of the gate, a white board across the road, but the guard waved him on, moving the barrier without even checking papers. Ko leaned behind the frosted window, obscuring his face. He parked in front of a cluster of pipes and tubes and motors—a gas pump. From the top of each tank a pipe ran down its side like a vine, gathered at points into larger trunks, separating again like strings of a spiderweb tangled in the struggles of a wasp to free itself. Some lines ran close to the railroad, others disappeared underground, and several smaller branches terminated at the green pump.

  Ko stepped down from the truck and peered into the attendant’s plywood shed. No one.

  Across the railroad tracks on the opposite side of the road was Najin Bay, which opened directly to the East Sea. So close he could hear waves lapping onto rocks. His father’s small boat could never venture out into the open sea, though Ko had always dreamed of working upon deep water. Maybe these men he carried now would let him do that. But to what country would they take him—America? China? South Korea, maybe?

  Satisfied the attendant wasn’t around, he pulled the black pump hose and started to fill the truck’s tank. A couple of minutes into pumping, a breeze carried the scent of cigarette smoke to him, even over diesel fumes.

  Who the hell would be smoking here?

  The shed’s door slammed. He turned off the pump and stepped around the vehicle. Maybe the attendant had just gone off to the bathroom. Better get his forms filled out now, before topping off the tank. His wrinkled brown papers were in one hand and the shack’s doorknob the other when he heard something thud to the ground from the dump bed.

  * * * *

  Red scowled at Gae. They’d just bounced hard over railroad tracks. The driver seemed only to know how to stomp the gas or brake, ignorant of the existence of any transition between the two. He’d been steering like a drunken Sergio Perez, the Mexican Formula 1 driver. The vehicle had wandered all over the road, clearing a wavering path through the snow. Gae pushed up the tarp a crack at the front, just behind the driver’s window, and spoke to him.

  Hope he’s telling him to slow the hell down.

  Red peered out his corner opposite Gae. Lanyard and Richards covered the rear. Their position was well protected, kneeling behind chest-high steel sides, eighth of an inch thick. They’d be shielded from small-arms fire. Even Sergio would be afforded some limited protection by the plow. He’d raised it high, as if in anticipation of a firefight.

  The truck rolled toward a few dozen tanks thrust upward in three rows, like a belt of Striker 40 grenades. All safeties clicked off as they slid to a stop at the entry gate, merely a white-painted board with red stripes spanning the road. A cigarette glowed orange in the guard’s mouth as he casually waved them on. After another minute they parked between a sagging plywood shack and what must be a fuel pump. The bottoms of several tanks were stained brown where they’d bled diesel. No containment wall surrounded the tank farm.

  Sergio stepped out of the cab and yelled. Gae, still peering beneath the bed’s cover, reached behind his back and made an OK sign. “He look por gas officer,” he whispered into his comm.

  Metal clattered below, almost directly under Red’s feet, then the slosh of fluid and whir of a pump starting. Red had shifted to the other knee and was quietly brushing sand from his leg when the driver’s emaciated sister moaned. He shot a glance at Cooley, whom he’d tasked to cover the old man. The doctor holstered his weapon and knelt next to her. She opened her eyes and glanced around, as if waking from a bad dream.

  Sergio turned off the pump and stepped around the truck out of Red’s view. He eyed Gae. “Going to gas officer house,” he commed.

  His house? Must mean that decrepit shack.

  The old man, quick as a bufflehead duck diving beneath the surface after the blast of a shotgun, sprang over the tailgate.

  Red dove for him, but missed his boot by inches. Footfalls crunched upon gravel. He rolled and knelt next to Gae, peering through the tarp crack.

  The man hopped toward the guard shack like a rabbit chased by hounds. He stopped, apparently seeing Sergio next to the door. He yanked wadding from his mouth and yelled, raising bound arms toward the fuel depot operator who was studying something on a desk.

  “Takedown?” from Lanyard.

  Red drew a bead on the depot operator, only partially visible now through a small front window, who still seemed oblivious to the old man’s commotion. He was about to order takedown when Sergio dropped some papers, stepped toward the old man and gripped his arm, obscuring a safe shot.

  Sergio shoved him toward the truck. The old man hollered, but the driver clamped a palm over his mouth and lifted him from the ground, carrying him. If Sergio got him to the tailgate, they could pull him back in, out of the depot operator’s sight. The road guard was a couple hundred meters away and out of earshot—this might be recoverable.

  Lanyard and Richards reached over the steel side as the driver stomped closer. “Shit,” swore Richards.

  The scuffle of gravel came from beneath the truck bed, moving toward the cab. “Driver dropped him. They’re both under the truck,” said Richards, swinging a leg over the bed to jump down.

  Gae’s weapon rested on the side rail, aimed toward the guard shack. He shifted and the bolt slapped twice. Two hot, spent 9mm brass shells smacked Red’s cheek, Gae’s silenced shots sounding only a muffled pop pop.

  “Enough this shit,” muttered Gae.

  Red pinned him to the steel rail. “I didn’t give the order.”

  “Initiative. I just save your ass. Officer on pone.”

  Red nodded to Richards. He and Lanyard dropped outside. “Old man’s shot, through the skull. Guy in the shack’s dead too, one in the chest. Gae’s right. Phone’s lying on the desk, off the base.”

  “Put the bodies back here with us. Clean up the shack. Maybe they’ll think the operator stepped out for a crap.” It might only delay him from being reported missing for a few minutes, but any break would be in their favor. He lifted the tarp a crack. The old man’s corpse sprawled in the path, crimson fluid steaming as it melted through snow. “Shovel any bloody crap into the back with us.” He pushed Gae toward the tailgate. “Tell the driver to get this damn thing filled and back on the road.”

  Four minutes later they drove out, past the gate guard who lifted a desultory hand to wave. As large as the dump bed was, it was getting crowded with five of his team, the two girls, and two corpses stacked next to the tailgate. They’d have to bury them under the sand to get them out of the way.

  A cough, then a wheeze. A puff of vapor floated next to Richards’ thigh. He rolled the old man’s limp body aside.

  Cooley bent an ear over the depot operator’s mouth, fingers probing the skin of his neck. “This one’s still alive.”

  Red knelt next to him. “For how long?”

  Cooley rolled the man to his shoulder. “Bullet didn’t go all the way through.” He unzipped a satchel. “Depending on what’s hit, he could live.”

  Red glanced around the truck bed. His eyes
burned hot. They met Gae’s gaze. If the mission was going to have a snowball’s chance in hell, there couldn’t be another loose end. He had to block off the unmarked trail this old man was leading them down. The team needed certainty, and this variable had to be eliminated.

  Cooley gripped the guard’s shirt to tear it off. Red pushed him aside and plunged his KA-BAR into the guard’s throat, eyes still locked with Gae. The South Korean’s breath stunk of fish. The guard’s chest sank, and a flap of throat skin wheezed next to the blade like a reed whistle.

  “What the...” said Cooley.

  Red pulled off his watch cap and itched his scalp. “Everyone, back to your post!” He sheathed the blade and took up his position in the corner opposite Gae. The South Korean slipped next to him.

  Great. Last thing I need now is grief from this rampaging psycho. Red had done what was needed, not what he wanted. Always double tap, moron. Or maybe they didn’t teach that in the 707th. Why was he constantly having to clean up someone else’s crap?

  Gae’s lips puffed smugly. He whispered, “You do good. You got it here.” He patted his own chest, then crawled back to his corner.

  Red gritted his teeth. Four dead North Koreans. Two military. Two civilian. Instead of treading lightly, they were wallowing like a tractor bogged down in a potato field, tires spinning, treads throwing muddy chunks, leaving deep trenches.

  But they had to keep moving. Momentum, though slight, was the only law on his side. The next person to die—the next one would be a real target.

  Clouds had thinned and now a few stars shone dimly. The smooth road ahead was already well plowed down to a hard surface. Good, because Sergio seemed to need all of it, wandering over its entire width. Wind from the sea must have blown the snow off before tires could pack it to ice. Dunes and a narrow slice of marsh separated it from Najin Bay. The scene reminded him of driving the highway south to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the summer he’d turned fifteen and met a cute brunette. He hadn’t thought of that girl for decades. They’d made out on the beach till her parents came looking. Strange how memories could be buried so deep under sand, drawn out by a similar landscape a world away.

  He shook his head, forcing his mind back to destroying a printing press and data center, then getting his team back out to sea. But he struggled to keep it there. Why hadn’t Grace been able to get in touch with Lori?

  Chapter 31 – Echoes

  Red’s ears popped as the dump truck strained up an ice-slick cutback, the way the VW van had done when his older brother drove them into the Poconos for a ski weekend. He peered through a slit between the screen-woven tarp and the truck’s bed. Unlike everything else in dim light or the green glow of his monocular, the road was smooth. No potholes or ruts. Houses and apartments, all block or concrete with dark tile roofs, glowed only faint yellow with warmth. Their walls cracked and sagged in modest disrepair.

  The truck rounded a curve and the road pitched down. The approach to Chŏngjin, he recalled, having memorized the briefing maps during the cramped submarine ride. Anything to keep his mind from the suffocating space he’d been jammed into.

  The street was empty this time of night. Or maybe cars were really as scarce here as they’d been briefed. Occasionally the truck passed a figure hunched over handlebars, slowly peddling. Most bikes had a large plastic box, an egg crate, strapped over the rear wheel.

  The engine raced, Sergio keeping to low gear on the descent. Rounding another curve, lights glowed dimly in a valley three klicks ahead. Had this been South Korea or China, they would have seen the blaze from a city the size of Chŏngjin ten minutes earlier, even over the trees. But much of North Korea’s electric grid dropped off at night. The way downhill followed steep-sided slopes that opened to the city’s low plain. A streambed ran along one side, flanked by piled-rock levees. As they continued, the levees turned to concrete walls, though only a thin watercourse stood frozen among their meanderings. The truck crossed over on a riveted steel bridge that could’ve been yanked from Philadelphia’s dead industrial sector.

  They turned onto a four-lane road next to which drifted a harbor at least five times the size of Songpyong’s. Over a hundred rusty hulks were lashed together near the mouth like a log-jammed river. Opposite the bottleneck in the city square prominently stood twin golden statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Bouquets of red flowers marched in rows at their feet—platoons passing in review before the dead leaders.

  The engine sputtered and backfired as Sergio shifted, passing the spires of Kimchaek Steel Works. A massive rail yard with loaded coal cars stretched before six brown brick chimneys, four small, two large, the landmark signaling they were almost through the city and about to turn north.

  Red had moved Gae back into the cab to direct Sergio once they’d cleared the last checkpoint. But Gae kept his comm on all the time, even when yakking with the driver. With the man’s poor English, Red had trouble knowing who he was addressing.

  “Driver no want go north.”

  “Deal with it. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Prison camp up there. He want talk to sister.”

  Red yanked one speaker from an ear, followed the wire behind his neck, and pulled out the other. He stretched his jaw and a pop sounded in an eardrum. Pulling the trench coat collar down past the sister’s hollow cheeks, his gut spasmed at the putrid scent of tooth decay. He held the comm to her. She blinked, as if waking, then mumbled something. Her hand pressed the speaker close, listening. More talk, then after a minute she pushed it away.

  Red inspected the gadget and blew it off before he fitted it back in place. The conversation must have gone well, because they turned north. This road paralleled another stream up a slow rise, but it was full of holes. The truck bounced as they ground slowly up the icy path.

  “She real punny. Told bu-ro-ter do what say or she cut off balj.”

  “Balj?” Red glanced at Richards.

  He mouthed balls and gripped his crotch.

  Must be an older sister.

  After three klicks Red moved to the tailgate with Richards. His knee sank into soft sand where they’d buried the two bodies. At the base of a cutback, the truck slowed.

  “Clear,” from Gae.

  Red peeked out. No vehicles were behind, either. The road was rough and icy, so bikes shouldn’t be a problem.

  Red swung to the ground. Pain shot through his knee, still sore after a long jump and hard landing on the last op a few weeks ago. The truck crawled forward, wheels spinning as it accelerated. Richards dropped out next.

  Red ran toward a steep hill dotted with shrubs like overgrown tumbleweeds with pale, peeling bark. He knelt behind a clump and hinged down his monocular. Nothing warm in either direction, except for the dump truck jostling ahead. He swept the scope up the hill, where all glowed drab green except a spot of yellow behind one of the shrubs. Too obscured by foliage to recognize what species of varmint it might be. He closed his eyes and listened, turning the gain on the enhanced auditory all the way up for a few seconds. Snow crunched beneath his knee as he settled and wind flapped peeling bark. A bell clanged, sounding of a buoy lifted on passing waves, ringing from the city below.

  He stood and pointed to Richards, then to the top of the hill. Moving behind more brush, he started the ascent, feet punching through ice-crusted powder to his knees. The hill was steep and at every other step his soles slid a bit, legs trying to cut through snow as a plow furrows earth.

  Richards followed, forging his own trail to keep from slipping himself. His buffalo-stanced frame weighed at least thirty pounds more than Red. With the added burden of LEGS strapped to his back, plus fifty rounds of ammo, his legs pumped, knees high to clear the crusted blanket.

  “Like elk hunting back home,” Richards said. Comms were set at lowest level for now, so no worries anything past fifty feet picked up the chatter. He spoke in a whisper lower than his breathing.r />
  “You do this for fun?” Red had done his share of deer hunting, but didn’t possess the call of the chase as much as many of the operators in the Det. He was a predator to be certain. But not the hard-core chase-down-an-elk-and-kill-it-with-a-ballpoint-pen kind like Richards.

  “I like trackin’ ’em and scoring with a bow. Best way to do it, like the Native Americans. Followed a blood trail fifteen miles once after a bad shot. Six hundred pounds gutted and fully dressed. Buddy with a snowmobile had to pull her out.” He stopped for a second and glanced over at him. Plumes of vapor shot from his mouth in rhythm. “Have any idea how long it takes to eat six hundred pounds of meat?”

  Red grabbed a branch, pulling himself up. He contemplated moving down the ridge and coming up at a more shallow angle. A faint memory surfaced of his first summer at the Air Force Academy, when he and other doolies had snuck out one night to climb a hill of loose shale and stretch their squadron number with bedsheets across the Flatiron. Each step had given way, as if hiking in skis.

  Now, near the crest, his quads were numb. The knee pain had become agonizing. Probably a torn meniscus. Have to get it checked out when he got back.

  One last pull on an overhanging bush, then he low-crawled to the base of a sharp Buick-sized rock and peered over. Snow melting from body heat wept into the cuff of his glove, and he shivered. Richards lay down on his belly next to him, panting hard, producing clouds of frozen breath that floated over the rock.

  Red pointed at it, then to the powder beneath his head. “Breathe into the snow till you quit wheezing,” he whispered. “Cuts down on the vapor.”

  He lifted his head and flipped down the monocular. The ridge they now lay upon stretched for a half klick, descending gradually until cut off by another iced river. The stream meandered back down the pass toward Chŏngjin. A white-meadowed valley stretched two hundred meters below them. Rangefinder showed a little over two klicks across. A low breeze came from the mountains, pushing down into his face. Cold, but it seemed to have pushed back the fog and moved the sleet out to the ocean. A waning half-moon rose behind him from the sea, providing excellent visibility, but lousy cover.