“It’s over,” he told his cousin. “Let’s go.”
ONCE MEDICAL SUPPLIES had been tracked inside the storage facility, several Rangers began to treat those wounded in the skirmish while Mack Bolan and Major Cook took a stretcher and first-aid kit up the hill to where Akira Tokaido and Lim Seung-Whan had finally managed to staunch the flow of blood from Major Stevens’ thigh wounds.
“We’ll take over,” Bolan told the two cousins. “Go ahead and check on your family.”
As Lim and Tokaido headed back to the prison yard, Cook applied fresh cotton pads to Stevens’ thigh while Bolan readied the antiseptic.
“We’ve got the place secured?” Stevens asked.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Bolan told him. “Once we get you stabilized, we’ll round up as many vehicles as we can get our hands on and see if we can make it to the border.”
Stevens nodded, then winced as Bolan poured astringent on his wounds. “How’d we fare?” he asked.
“So far we’ve got four dead and six wounded,” Cook reported. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
Stevens stared past Bolan and Cook at the prison grounds. The captured North Koreans had been corralled against the side of one of the barracks and were being guarded by four Rangers, two of which were positioned behind the .50-caliber Browning machine gun Bolan had used at the onset of the firefight. The wounded were being treated just inside the other bungalow while another five commandos went about the grim task of gathering together the bodies of those beyond medical help.
“What’d you find in the cave?” Stevens asked Cook.
The major began to explain the layout of the storage facility, then suddenly stopped talking and glanced up into the leaden sky overhead. Bolan and Stevens looked up, as well, their attention, like Cook’s, drawn by a faint rumbling in the clouds.
“Thunder?” Cook murmured.
Bolan listened intently, then shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.”
The rumbling slowly grew louder. A few seconds later a helicopter materialized out of the clouds. It was a converted civilian Boeing MD-500, one of countless similar choppers acquired by the KPA during the 1980s and retrofitted with a 30 mm Hughes chain gun.
And it wasn’t alone.
As Bolan, Cook and Stevens watched, a second gunship emerged from the cloud cover, followed by a third and then yet another.
“Holy Christ,” Stevens moaned, eyes on the growing force in the sky.
Soon a total of fourteen MD-500s had swarmed above the encampment. Most were armed with submounted chain guns, but at least five of the gunships were additionally outfitted with rocket pods containing TOW missiles. Down in the prison yard, the Rangers stopped what they were doing and took up defensive positions. They held their fire, however, unsure how best to deal with the sudden turn of events.
“There’s no way we can take them all on,” Stevens said, staring at the aerial force. “They’ll cut us to ribbons!”
“If that’s what they had in mind, they would’ve come in firing,” Bolan said.
“Maybe they just want to see us sweat before they let us have it,” Cook countered. “Hell, they know they’ve got the upper hand.”
Bolan knew the officers had a point, and by the time he’d finished wrapping Stevens’ leg, one of the choppers was hovering less than forty yards above him and the others. Rising to his feet, Bolan stared past the bore of the aircraft’s chain gun, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever was at the controls. All he could see in the windshield, however, was a reflection of the dark clouds. Unnerved, he slowly eased his right hand toward his shoulder holster. Before he could close his hands around the butt of his Desert Eagle, however, the chain gun suddenly erupted, pummeling the ground at Bolan’s feet. He took the hint and moved his hand away from his gun.
Down in the prison yard, one of the Rangers took the shots as his cue to take the offensive. He fired his carbine, glancing a shot off the underside of the gunship closest to him.
“Hold your fire, damn it!” Cook shouted. “All of you!”
The encampment fell silent except for the steady drone of the hovering MD-500s. For several minutes the standoff continued, with the Rangers and the copter gunners each drawing bead on the other but refusing to trigger a shootout that the Americans knew they had no chance of winning.
Then, after announcing their approach with another thunderous rumbling, two more helicopters drifted into view. Both were Russian-made Mi-17-1V transport choppers, each more than four times the size of the MD-500s. Both made their way past the gunships and then slowly set down near the prison yard rock piles, raising clouds of dust with their rotowash.
“What now?” Bolan wondered out loud.
As he watched, the side doors of both choppers slid open. Nearly two dozen armed KPA commandos spilled out, taking up positions around the compound. They were clearly mindful of the Rangers but made no effort to disarm them, much less gun them down. If anything, their primary focus seemed to be on the camp internees and the cave installation. Half the troops made their way to the mountain entrance and filed their way beneath the raised chassis of the missile transporter still blocking the way.
“Okay,” Cook surmised, “they’re taking the place back. I get it. But where the hell does that leave us?”
“I think we’re about to find out,” Stevens said, pointing downhill.
A uniformed officer had followed his troops out of the second transport chopper and was calling out to the nearest group of Rangers. Apparently none of the Rangers spoke Korean, because one of them turned to Lim Seung-Whan and Akira Tokaido, who had joined Lim’s family as well as that of Ji Pho-Hwa just before the arrival of the first gunships. Lim stepped forward and began speaking at length with the officer.
“Let’s get down there,” Stevens suggested.
Bolan and Cook helped the major onto the stretcher, then carefully hauled him downhill. By the time they reached the prison yard, Lim had finished speaking with the officer and passed along the North Korean’s message to his cousin. Tokaido, in turn, broke away from the others and jogged past several of the newly arrived KPA troops. He caught up with Bolan and the others just as they’d reached the barracks where the surviving camp guards had been held prisoner. Now that the tables had turned, those men had quickly moved away from the barracks and picked up the nearest available weapons, intent on retaliating against the Americans who’d briefly overtaken the camp. The Rangers were still armed and ready to defend themselves. Before things could escalate all over again, however, the officer in charge of the reinforcements shouted for order and commanded the guards to hold their fire.
In the midst of this second standoff, Tokaido told Bolan and the two Ranger officers, “They want us to board the transport choppers.”
“Why, so they can put us on display in Pyongyang!” Stevens exclaimed. “I should’ve known!” Ignoring the pain in his leg, the major climbed off the stretcher and gestured angrily as he shouted across the yard at the KPA officer Lim had been speaking with. “Screw that, buddy!”
“No, wait!” Tokaido interjected. “You’ve got it all wrong!”
Stevens was having trouble staying on his feet and Bolan had to reach over to steady him. “What’s the lowdown then?” he asked Tokaido.
“They’re taking us across the DMZ,” Tokaido explained. “We’re going to be dropped off in Panmunjom.”
“Come off it!” Stevens scoffed. “Why the hell would they do that?”
“He wouldn’t give any explanation,” Tokaido said, “but my guess is somebody convinced them it’d be in their best interests to let us go.”
“Just like that?” Stevens said.
“C’mon,” Tokaido told the officer. “You know the negotiators were working nonstop the moment we brought them back to Bonifas. They must’ve reached a breakthrough. I say why look the gift horse in the mouth. We’re outta here.”
Bolan glanced past Tokaido at the two transport choppers. Lim Seung-Whan was already
leading his family into one of the aircraft, and a handful of Rangers were heading over to do the same.
“He’s right,” Bolan told Stevens. “If a deal’s been cut in our favor, I say we go with it. If it turns out they’re trying to pull something, well, we’ll deal with it as it comes.”
Stevens glanced at Major Cook questioningly.
“Works for me,” Cook responded. “Sure as hell beats sticking around here.”
Stevens mulled over the situation for a few moments, then threw his hands up in resignation. “All right, you win,” he said. “But you gotta understand. You guys haven’t been holed up in this place as long as I have. The idea of diplomacy working…well, it’d be a first, let me put it that way.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Cook countered. He pointed at the stretcher and told Stevens, “Now get your ass back in the taxi so we don’t miss our flight.”
Tokaido walked up front alongside Bolan as the Executioner helped Cook carry Stevens the rest of the way to the waiting helicopters. All four men fell silent for the moment, lost in their own thoughts about the way things had turned out. As for Bolan, he knew Stevens had good reason to be skeptical about the idea that they would soon be bound for the free side of the DMZ, but something deep in his gut told him that somehow, for once, the diplomatic channels had paid off. And he was just as sure that his colleagues back at Stony Man Farm had had a hand in the process. He looked forward to hearing all the details, but for the moment, his foremost concern was getting across the DMZ and planting his feet back on free soil. The mere thought of it was enough to raise his spirits, and once he’d helped Stevens up into the idling helicopter, Bolan decided to pass along the sentiment.
Turning to Akira Tokaido, he finally broke the men’s silence.
“If I remember rightly,” he said, offering his young friend a disarming grin, “you and your cousin were supposed to take in a ball game this weekend in Seoul. Looks like you just might make it after all.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-7458-0
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Ron Renauld for his contribution to this work.
BALLISTIC FORCE
Copyright © 2005 by Worldwide Library.
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