Ballistic Force

by Don Pendleton

  Laborers milled around the front of the borer, clearing a six-foot gap on either side of the apparatus and scooping loose rock into the mucker-loaders. Oh, who’d reached the juncture by way of a small, battery-powered cart, signaled the men aside long enough to squeeze past them into the shorter tunnel, which had been created by the conventional means Oh was more familiar with. He paused long enough to congratulate both work crews, then rode the last few hundred yards to the spot where the northward tunneling had first begun.

  Once he stepped off the cart, the general found himself inside the massive, four-story cavity of the most recent building to grace the would-be urban sprawl of Kijongdong. Oh knew there were work teams outside the structure finishing off the building’s mall-like exterior, but their progress didn’t concern him. As long as they gave South Korea and its allies the impression that they were building nothing more than another phony edifice, they were doing their job. It was the work going on inside the new structure that held the general’s interest. And he was encouraged by what he saw.

  The central area of the structure’s reinforced concrete foundation had been lined with the same fire-resistant compound used on missile launch pads to the north in Musudan and Paekun-ri, and a similar lining had been placed around two large bunkers crowding the far corner. Once the tunnel from Changchon to Kijongdong was fully cleared away, tanker trucks would haul rocket fuel to the site and transfer it to holding tanks inside the bunkers. The missiles, of course, would follow.

  Rising up from the periphery of the launch pad was the girdered framework of a launch tower. Several scaffoldings hung suspended from the sides of the tower, allowing welders to strengthen seams and joints. Oh stared up at the welders as he circled around the structure, taking care to avoid the steady shower of sparks raining from the scaffolds. Parked beside the tower’s hydraulic-powered elevator was a small mobile home that served as the offices for the construction project’s supervisors.

  Oh’s nephew had apparently seen the general coming and appeared in the doorway. Decorum forbade him from greeting Oh with anything more than a formal salute, but judging from the beaming smile on his face, it was clear that Park Yo-Wi was thrilled to see his uncle. Beyond familial affection, Park’s feelings for Oh were tinged as well with gratitude, as it was the general who’d greased the necessary skids to secure his nephew with the base construction contract. Prior to that, Park had distinguished himself by helping with the design of other missile sites in Ichon and Chunghwa as well as several of the isolated country retreats Kim Jong-il increasingly preferred over Pyongyang as a base of operations.

  “So, how do you like it?” Park asked.

  Oh glanced around, nodding with approval. “Very impressive. You’ve done a good job.”

  “Thank you, Uncle,” Park said. “I just got off the phone with the outdoor crew. They’re ready to start installing the roof. Come, I’ll give you a look.”

  The two men stepped into the tower elevator and began to ascend toward the uppermost platform. The walls of the elevator cab were made of chain-link fencing, allowing Oh a bird’s-eye view of the clandestine missile site.

  “It’s hard to believe that when I was last here there was nothing but an empty pit,” the general said. “I was worried that we might have set our sights too high.”

  “We’ve been working double shifts to stay on schedule,” said Park. “As you can see, it’s been paying off.”

  Oh nodded. “Major Jin tells me you expect to be operational here by the end of the month. Is that true?”

  “If need be, yes,” Park said. “We won’t have all the bells and whistles in place by then, but the fuel lines will be installed and the launch pad will be fully functional.”

  “Excellent,” Oh said. Offering up a brief smile, he added, “This will shut up everyone who shouted ‘nepotism’ when you were given the contract.”

  “I’ve done my best not to let you down,” Park said.

  “And it would appear that you’ve succeeded,” Oh responded.

  When the elevator reached the top platform, the younger man subtly moved in front of his uncle, keeping him hemmed inside the cab.

  “Before we step out,” Park said, speaking low so that the workers on the platform couldn’t overhear, “I’d like a word in private.”

  Oh frowned, puzzled by the sudden look of concern on his nephew’s face.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “It concerns Major Jin,” Park said, choosing his words carefully. “I know you have been friends with him for some time, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Do you consider him loyal beyond reproach?” Park asked.

  “How can you ask such a question!” Oh snapped, temper flaring. He caught himself and lowered his voice. “Of course he’s beyond reproach. Why would you think otherwise?”

  “I don’t know,” Park confessed. “It’s just a feeling.”

  “There has to be more to it than that.”

  Park was hesitant to elaborate, but when Oh pressed further, he confided, “It was just something I overheard from the workers. About goods being diverted to the black market. The major’s name was mentioned.”

  This was news to Oh, but he wasn’t totally surprised and he did his best not to appeared alarmed. After all, as he proceeded to tell his nephew, “There is a difference between being entrepreneurial and being a traitor. You should know that.”

  “Yes, I understand, but—”

  “Let me finish,” Oh interjected. “You are young still, Yo-Wi. There will be ample opportunities ahead for you to assure a good life for you and your family. But men like Major Jin—men like me—we have been forced to weather hard times and we can see that our time is passing, so if an opportunity arises where we can better our situation and ensure our future…Well, I think you understand what I’m saying.”

  Park nodded contritely. “Of course,” he said. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

  “An honest mistake,” Oh said. He smiled faintly. “Now, let’s put this behind us. Show me the rest of your work.”

  Park nodded and stepped aside, motioning for his uncle to step onto the platform. As he did so, Oh did his best to dismiss his nephew’s concerns about Major Jin. But a seed had been planted, and by the time Park had escorted him to the end of the platform, the general had already made up his mind to place the major under scrutiny. Yes, he had been quick to defend Jin, but, friend or not, there was too much at stake to let the man’s extracurricular activities go unnoticed. Oh knew of too many colleagues who’d succumbed to graft and had eventually placed greed ahead of loyalty. If it turned out the major was headed in that direction, Oh hoped he might be able to intervene and spare his friend from the grim fate of execution that had befallen the others.

  Oh was snapped from his reverie when his nephew called his attention to the roofline of the building, where sky cranes had just begun to replace a network of tarpaulin riggings with roof panels. For the first time since coming to inspect the clandestine missile infrastructure back at the Changchon Rehabilitation Center, Oh saw something that struck him as fundamentally wrong.

  “I thought the roof was going to be retractable,” he told his nephew.

  “It was, in the original plans, but we decided against it,” Park responded. “Our concern was that if we rolled the roof away, there might be time for a satellite to spot a missile before we could launch it.”

  “I understand,” Oh said. “But we can’t just launch the missile through the roof, can we? Wouldn’t it throw off the trajectory?”

  Park shook his head and pointed at one of the metallic-looking partitions being secured into place. “The sections are made to appear is if they’re made of steel,” he explained, “but they’re really just plastic and barely an inch thick. The missile will go through them as if they were tissue.”

  “But the rest of the structure will remain intact, correct?” Oh asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Park said. “We’ll have
men ready to clear away any debris that drops to the subfloor, then we follow up with more launches.”

  Oh smiled thinly. “I doubt that we’ll be able to get away with more than one additional launch before our friends to the south wise up and turn their guns on us.”

  “Perhaps,” Park said, “but that would still give us two launches before we lost our element of surprise. It’s better than nothing.”

  “Far better,” Oh conceded. “And, of course, if no one forces our hand, we’ll have time to build more launch pads inside some of the other buildings.”

  “I’m already drafting the plans,” Park said.

  The younger man excused himself for a moment to supervise the placement of the first roof panel. Oh lingered on the platform and glanced southward toward the DMZ. Although the walls enclosing the launch site were thick and void of windows, he imagined being able to see the South Korean troops lined across the raised wall separating the two nations. He knew all about the ridicule South Korea heaped on Kijongdong and how they so contemptuously called the phantom city Propaganda Village. What he wouldn’t give to be able to see the look on their faces when an ICBM came roaring up out of one of the buildings.

  “We’ll see who’s laughing then,” Oh murmured.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Chino Valley, Arizona

  Mack Bolan stared coldly at the pool of blood surrounding the body of Shinn’s decapitated pet terrier. The dog had been slain just inside the front doorway of the trailer home, and the animal’s killer had left a trail of bloody bootprints leading toward the rear bedroom and then back again.

  “We found the head in some kind of sand garden about fifty yards downhill from here,” reported Arizona Highway Patrolman Gregory Davis.

  “There were at least five different sets of prints on the trail leading there,” he went on. “Near as we can figure, they must have grabbed the guy’s wife here, then hauled her down to the garden where he was raking the sand. My guess is they let him get a good look at the dog’s head, then told him his wife would be next if he didn’t play along with them.”

  “Sounds like their style,” Bolan murmured.

  “Look, I know you’ve got a ‘national security’ lid on this,” Davis said, “but we’re not talking about some nickel-dime street gang here, are we?”

  Bolan shook his head. “These guys use gang-bangers for pawns. I can’t give you anything more than that.”

  “Gotcha,” Davis said. “Well, whoever the hell they are, I hope I’m on hand when we bring them in.” He looked at the slain dog and shook his head with disgust. “You see something like this, it leaves you wondering who the animals really are.”

  Bolan tore his gaze from the terrier’s limp carcass and stepped back outside. The sun was out now, its rays glancing off the three highway patrol cruisers parked haphazardly on the yard surrounding the trailer home. The AHP had been notified shortly after John Kissinger and Harmon Wallace had determined Shinn’s address, but they’d shown up too late to intercept the REDI crew that had seized Shinn and his wife. Bolan had arrived less than ten minutes ago. The Nevada Metro chopper that had brought him here along with Jayne Bahn and FBI Agent Ed Scanlon was back up in the air, conducting an aerial search of the surrounding valley. Other AHP officers, meanwhile, were checking with Shinn’s neighbors to find out if anyone had seen anything that might help shed light on where Shinn and his wife had been taken.

  Jayne Bahn was talking with a patrolman near one of the squad cars. When she saw Bolan she ventured over and told him, “Well, we’ve got one small break.”

  “At this point I’ll take it,” Bolan said.

  “They found the car belonging to that guy whose body was stuffed in the well back in Goffs,” Bahn reported.

  “But REDI’d already pulled a switch,” Bolan guessed.

  She nodded. “They dropped it off at a truck stop up on the interstate near Williams,” she confirmed. “Helped themselves to a panel truck that matches the description of a truck one of the neighbors saw pulling away from here about twenty minutes before the cops showed up.

  “He’s just calling in the APB,” she concluded, indicating the man she’d been speaking with. “Even if they swapped plates, hopefully they’re still out on the road and we’ll be able to spot them.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Bolan said. “We need to cover the airports, too.”

  “Great minds think alike,” Bahn said. “AHP’s gonna post undercover agents near the entrance to every airfield within a hundred-mile radius. Scanlon says the FBI will take Phoenix and then widen the net if need be. You ask me, that’s gonna be our best bet. REDI might’ve gotten their hands on these folks, but they aren’t going to win any Kewpie dolls from Kim Jong-il until they deliver them back to the mother country.”

  “Good point,” Bolan said. “And the one good thing about them being pulled down here to Arizona is that it probably threw off their getaway plans. If they’re scrambling, it ups the chances they’ll make a wrong move.”

  “That’d be sweet,” Bahn said. “I was never big on hide-and-seek.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Phoenix, Arizona

  Bolan was wrong.

  As it turned out, having to come to Arizona to apprehend Shinn Kam-Song proved a stroke of good fortune for the REDI operatives.

  Two years earlier, as part of a heroin deal made with the Chinese, North Korea had secured the clandestine ownership of the Far East Trading Company, an import wholesaler specializing in the cheap Made-in-China trinkets that were regularly packaged into giveaways sponsored by a number of America’s leading fast-food chains. FETC was headquartered near the harbor docks in the southern California city of San Pedro, and when the REDI teams headed up by Hong and Bryn had been dispatched to the States, they’d smuggled their way ashore by concealing themselves inside the same Far East cargo bin carrying forty thousand Scooby-Doo compasses as well as a ten-million-dollar heroin shipment earmarked for distribution by the Asian Killboys street gang. And San Pedro was only one of Far East Trading Company’s American distribution outlets. The company had additional facilities in three other Western states, including Arizona, and even before they’d shown up in Chino Valley, Bryn and Hong had both been in touch with contacts at FETC’s distribution center in Phoenix, greasing the skids for their getaway once they’d gathered up Shinn and his wife.

  Now, less than forty minutes after the abduction, Bryn was at the wheel of the panel truck they’d stolen in Williams, making his way through the Prescott National Forest. He’d avoided the I-17, relying instead on less-traveled backroads where, hopefully, they would be more able to avoid detection by their pursuers. Hong was riding shotgun, and by using the truck’s citizen band radio to monitor police broadcasts, the REDI operative had already intercepted dispatches from the AHP officers who’d stormed Shinn’s trailer home, and now, as both he and Bryn eavesdropped on the latest transmissions, they knew that an all-points-bulletin had been put out on their getaway vehicle.

  “This makes things difficult,” Hong told Bryn, glancing up from the road map he’d unfolded across his lap. “At some point we’re going to have to come out of the mountains and get back on the highway, and then we’ll have a twenty-mile stretch where we’ll be a clear target.”

  Bryn nodded gravely, already weighing their options. “We just passed a sign saying there’s a rest stop ahead. We’ll have to make another switch.”

  Hong nodded, then both men fell silent, keeping their eyes on the road and the rearview mirror for police vehicles.

  In the back of the panel truck, the two other surviving REDI operatives stood guard over their captives. Shinn Mi-Kas was now wearing a summer dress that her abductors had grabbed from her bedroom. She sat on the floor of the truck between her husband and Li-Roo Kohb, and, like the men, her hands had been bound together behind her back with the same duct tape used to bind their ankles. None of the prisoners were gagged, but Li-Roo’s face was still bruised from the pistol-whipping
he’d received when he’d tried to talk to Shinn after his friend had been dragged into the truck in Chino Valley. Since then, all three had been silent except for the few times when Mi-Kas, overwhelmed by the ordeal, had begun to weep.

  Soon the two-lane road led out of the mountains and, two miles in the distance, Hong and Bryn could see the highway they would have to take to reach Phoenix. They were also coming up on the rest stop, and as Bryn took the exit, Hong quickly scanned the parking lot.

  “We’re in luck,” he murmured.

  Indeed, there were only two vehicles parked in the lot, a Subaru coupe and a fourteen-foot long Winnebago. The driver of the Subaru had just gotten out of his car, and when he opened the door to the back seat, a large Labrador retriever bounded out, making a beeline toward a grassy sward located on the far side of the restroom facilities. Bryn drove slowly past the parked vehicles, then stopped the truck and shifted into reverse so that he could back up next to the passenger’s side of the Winnebago. There was no one inside the mobile home, but Hong could see an elderly couple standing in front of a bulletin board mounted just outside the restrooms.

  “Let’s wait for them outside,” he suggested.

  Hong nodded, then turned and motioned to one of the men in the rear of the truck. “Let me show you how to work the radio,” he said.

  As the man moved forward and wrangled his way around his colleague, Li-Roo Kohb took advantage of the distraction and leaned to one side, whispering over Mi-Kas’s shoulder to Shinn Kam-Song.