Controller

by Stephen W Bennett

  “I can arrange that, but don’t get caught with a gun in your possession there. The authorities there wouldn’t be happy with you or the US.”

  “Madder than if it helps me get hold of that gadget before they do?”

  “Point made.”

  “When do I go?”

  “Late this afternoon, by taking a ten-hour flight at perhaps Mach 1.25. The aircraft, a B-1 Lancer bomber is on its way from Texas, carrying the extra flight crew to take you to Korea after servicing the aircraft here. If I send another agent along the B-1 has room for both of you. They won’t need the two systems operators, and there won’t be any ordinance, saving that weight for longer range. There’ll still be in-flight refueling.”

  “What do I need to have before I go?”

  “You’ll get your Sat phone, an unregistered 9 MM Glock like you carry now, and instructions on flight procedures for the long trip. Fill a small ditty bag for a change of clothes and toiletries while there. Someone here at Andrews can help gather what you need in that regard.”

  In an afterthought, he asked half a question, “When you call home, Dan?”

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “Don’t mention this trip. Just say you’ll be busy training for a few days.”

  “OK.”

  “I’ve flown in one of these bombers in years past. I suggest you use a suppository or an enema an hour before departure and eat and drink light all day. There used to be a ‘honeypot,’ and I think they have a small chemical toilet now, but it’s best if you don’t need to go and try to sleep to adjust for the time difference. Seoul is thirteen hours ahead of Eastern Time, the other side of the dateline as you fly west. You’ll be landing at Osan Air Base, a bit over thirty miles from Seoul. Then you’ll take a short chopper flight to the Embassy.

  “After that, you’ll be on the clock for a couple of days looking for the guy. As the only Immune, you’ll have the primary task. We need to find that bastard. We want the transmitter and helmet more than we need him alive. He’s probably some poor peasant the North found with psych ability, and he may know zilch about his equipment. Regardless, I won’t trade either of you for him alive or what he knows. Got that?”

  “I always intended to come home each day as a cop. I still do as a BII agent.”

  Chapter 7: Mission to Seoul

  Two hours into the flight, at Mach 1.25, Grayson slipped into a deep sleep despite his belief he couldn’t possibly keep his eyes closed. Mike Gorka was the Compeller that volunteered to go to Seoul with him. He was divorced and had no children, which made him more open to travel. Mike was from Northern Michigan, and thirteen months ago he said he’d been a foreman at a hardwood sawmill.

  When Grayson asked him if he’d be able to sleep with the wind and engine sound and unusual cockpit noises, he laughed. “I used to nap in a sawmill. If band saws and planers couldn’t keep me awake, this sure as Hell won’t.” He made himself as comfortable as he could, and in fifteen minutes he was snoring loudly. That was one more noise for Grayson to ignore.

  The flight crew admitted they had been instructed to not ask their passengers about why they were going to Seoul, what they would do there, or ask them personal questions. The subsequent lack of conversation and boredom won. Grayson even slept through the refueling.

  The flight crew had politely left their two passengers out of the audio circuit to their helmets until near the end of the flight. The Copilot woke them. “Gentlemen, we’ve started our descent to Osan Air Base. As cockpit pressure increases, you should clear your ears every minute to avoid discomfort.”

  He had to repeat his cautionary message for Gorka, who was hard to rouse until Grayson reached over to shake his shoulder. “Mike, we’ll be landing shortly.”

  The pilot appeared to be speaking to someone on another channel because they couldn’t hear him via their helmets, but he had a message for them a couple of minutes later. “We’ve been asked to taxi directly inside a hanger after landing, and we won’t unbutton before they close the hangar doors to avoid observation. It’s just after 1700 local time by the way.

  “I was told four people would meet you, and a helicopter’s waiting. I suggest you hit the latrine as soon as you shed your jumpsuits after climbing down. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Thanks.” Grayson hadn’t felt the need before he said that, but soon it was all that was on his mind. His urgency to pee only increased as they waited for the big hangar doors to close. That precaution was evidently part of keeping their arrival out of sight of stray observers. Perhaps a B-1 bomber landing at the home of the Pacific Air Forces’ 51st Fighter Wing wasn’t a common occurrence.

  Both Grayson and Gorka beat the pilot and copilot to the nearest bathroom, dropping their small bags in front of the three men and one woman waiting to escort them to a helicopter they’d seen with rotors already turning as they arrived. They both muttered quick apology’s as they bypassed introductions when they hurried to address nature’s needs. The more experienced and better-prepared pilots paused briefly to explain things to the confused greeters but followed the BII agents in short order.

  The flight crew went to the urinals, but their passengers occupied two of the stalls. The amusement of the pilot was apparent when he asked if he should bring either of them their bags for a change of underwear. Thankfully that wasn’t required, but they were told to leave their jumpsuits behind, abandoning the presumptive military association they had when wearing them. The two refreshed civilians, in casual clothes, walked out together to greet their “handlers.”

  One of them, a man who looked as if he could be Korean, stepped forward as they approached. Surprisingly, his accent sounded as American as anyone from the US, if they lived in Alabama and spoke a strongly southern version of English. “Gentlemen yall can call me Malfoy, which isn’t my real name, and I did not dye my white hair black.

  “We’ll each use pseudonyms. I don’t need to know your names, but we’ll decide on team names for you before we start for Seoul. If this goes well, we’ll part ways in a day or two without you knowing who we are, and we won’t know you.

  “We were told so little about who you are and what you will do here that the Station Officer assigned an improvised Political Action Group, or PAG, to work with you. I emphasize improvised. A real PAG unit handles covert activities tied to political influence and psychological operations. What happened at the stadium seems most closely related to something psychological. We don’t know how it was done, but we assume the two of you were sent here with some idea of how it happened, and we’re going to help you try to find the man that caused it before the locals do.

  “All four of us speak fluent Korean. Two of us will accompany each of you while you’re here, assuming you need to work independently of one another.”

  Grayson, who had done a stint of undercover work when he worked with the Narcotics Unit, offered a handshake and used his street name for buying drugs for resale, “Call me Banker. We intend to stay together because we have complementary skills. We won’t need to separate.”

  Malfoy gripped his hand, “Banker it is.” He looked at Gorka and smiled. “And you’ll be called what?”

  “Chipper,” was the first tough sounding nickname that came to Gorka’s mind, from his sawmill days. They shook hands.

  “OK, that simplifies things for us. Only two of us will stay with you.” He nodded to the woman, the only other one of this makeshift team that looked as if they were Korean. “Alice, you’re with me.”

  He smiled at the two Caucasian males. “Gentlemen, thanks for volunteering. Yall’s white asses are hereby excused from whatever the Hell it is we’ll be doing.”

  Both smiled, one laughed and said, “Good luck Bamma,” as they turned to walk away. The other waved at “Alice” and said over his shoulder, “Don’t let him turn you into one of the Dixie Chicks.”

  “Not to worry. I may turn Malfoy into a Beach Boy.” She sounded as if she might be from California, speaking without a detectable
Korean accent.

  Malfoy said, “Banker, Chipper, meet Alice in Wonderland. The two of us can blend in when we deal with locals. Our chopper’s waiting to take us to the Embassy first, where we’ll pick up a car. Grab your bags and let’s get moving.” Offering quick handshakes to Alice, the four of them walked to a side door, towards the sound of the idling helicopter.

  Once buckled in and the door closed, Malfoy signaled to the pilot, the rotor speed increased, and they promptly lifted, turning north towards Seoul. Malfoy pointed to four headphones with boom mikes, which were already plugged in and lay next to each of their seats. The cabin was closed, but a normal conversation would need the headsets to avoid speaking loud.

  Malfoy keyed his headset on and brought them up to date, telling them what had happened during the hours they were in transit. “It’s been no secret that the SK National Intelligence Service and police are searching an area roughly six miles south of the center of Seoul, for a man they claim incited the stadium riot. That story sounds like complete bullshit since one person couldn’t incite that many people to that level of rage. But perhaps you two know how he could do that. We’ll help you do what we can to find the man, but there are hundreds of police looking for him, and his slightly grainy picture is plastered on TV every few minutes, although he surely won’t be wearing that frizzy wig now.

  “The area they’re searching has a lot of buildings and businesses, and no curfew was declared, so people are out on the streets as normal. Perhaps that’s hoping to induce him to come out to try to get farther away and be recognized by someone that wants the big reward. We’ll be able to drive you there from the embassy, but unless you have some idea of where he is, this seems like a long shot, finding one man hiding in that warren before the police do. In any case, how can we help you?”

  Gorka, the senior agent, took the lead here as was previously agreed. “We only need to be nearby. He used a type of short-range transmitter to trigger a form of psychotic episode in the people inside and around the stadium. We have the means to locate him if he uses that transmitter again. We also might be able to find him if we happen to get within a hundred feet of him, even if he’s not actively using the transmitter. It’s a residual radiation effect, and a long shot at best. If he’s flushed out of hiding, we believe he’ll try to use that transmitter again to help him escape Seoul. We don’t believe the SK government can home in on where he is, at least not the way we can if he’s transmitting.”

  Malfoy glanced at Alice. They both assumed they hadn't heard the whole story of the mystery events at the stadium, which had triggered this unusual high priority mission. However, the two handlers would do what they wanted them to do. They’d get them inside the district and then support them.

  “We’ll be at the embassy soon. It’s only a thirty-mile flight from Osan Air Base. I’ll ask our pilot to take us over the Bongcheon area on the way. The neighborhood is about three miles south of the Han River, and the man you want could have walked a few miles from where he left the damaged car when it quit running. On our flight down to Osan, the pilot says Air Traffic Control reminded him not to fly lower than a thousand feet over a populated area when I asked for a lower pass. The full search area isn’t obvious from the air, but you’ll see the flashing lights on the patrol cars at intersections, and get an idea of the size of the district you want to search. There are thousands of structures, apartment buildings, and businesses, all within a reasonable walking distance of where they found that car.”

  Grayson was looking ahead through the windscreen to catch his first glimpse of Seoul. It was about an hour before sunset, with the sun to his left. A dark, slender smudge was rising ahead, but overall the visibility was good. He assumed by the time they drove from the embassy to the search area it would be after sunset. Darkness wouldn’t matter to him from the standpoint of finding his way around. That was the job of the two handlers.

  The night could even make walking around as a group of four less suspicious. Two Caucasian men working with two Koreans would generate less curiosity by the official searchers if it were dark, making their western faces less noticeable. Mike could also compel any police that showed curiosity in them to look the other way.

  A few minutes later, the pilot looked over his shoulder at his passengers but spoke on a common circuit to their headsets. “There are several fires just ahead, close to the area you asked us to overfly. Air Traffic Control at Incheon airport says those are from two helicopter crashes. They don’t know if there was a midair collision or not, but I can see three different fires, and they must be blocks apart. I don’t think that’s from a single midair. In any case, I was instructed to deviate around the area by three miles to the east or climb to three thousand five hundred to fly over. There are police and army helicopters inbound at low altitude.” He faced front again and pointed.

  Grayson saw the previous slender black smudge from a few minutes ago, but now there were two fresh blossoms of black smoke billowing upward. They were still five or six miles away, so no ground traffic was visible near the sources of smoke. However, on a major highway passing by the area, he could see the flashing lights of police vehicles and a half dozen fire trucks, lights also flashing, moving in from both directions, to where there must be highway exits to reach the crash sites.

  Grayson shared a skeptical look with Gorka. That was too coincidental. There was a key switch on their headset cords, so Grayson assumed he could speak to the pilot. “Excuse me. Can you ask the Tower if there is crowd activity or rioting on the ground where the fires are?”

  The pilot looked back, and said, “I’m talking on the Inchon Radar Approach control frequency, not with the tower controllers. The radar controllers can’t see outside. Besides, the tower controllers are even farther way that we are. I’m climbing to pass over the fires, so you’ll be able to see for yourself shortly.”

  Grayson countered that in a hurry. “No! Don’t get closer than two miles yet.”

  The pilot looked at Malfoy, who he considered in charge of this flight to the US Embassy.

  “Do what he says.” The handler told him. “He and his companion will run this mission, not me. The lady and I are only here to help them.”

  “Roger that.” He slowed their forward airspeed to ease closer to the two-mile limit specified, but he continued their climb to three thousand five hundred feet. Several helicopters were visible, approaching the three smoke columns from two directions. Grayson estimated the three aircraft were below a thousand feet.

  The lead pair, flying in close formation, appeared to be colored olive drab and looked military. The choppers were likely South Korean Army aircraft. They made a turn towards one of the fresh columns of smoke when suddenly they simultaneously tilted their noses down, and their tails booms started spinning out of control. Neither aircraft could recover from their low altitude fatal pirouettes, and they crashed into adjacent buildings, producing explosions of fire and black smoke, with shattered rotor blades flying away.

  “Goddamn!” Their pilot shouted. “Those were Korean army Apache helicopters. Nobody’s going to climb out of either one of them. They went in hard.”

  Gorka pulled one earpiece away from Grayson’s head and leaned close to his ear, speaking low to avoid being overheard. “Did you sense anything?”

  Grayson turned his head to place his lips closer to Gorka’s ear to answer. “I sensed a weak command.” He replied. “And it’s in the direction of the fires, so our guy came out of hiding and wants to get away. Or he may want to go out in a blaze of glory, bringing down the choppers. He might not be welcome back home if he’s a North Korean agent.”

  Alice, watching them from the other side of the noisy cabin, had nudged Malfoy and they both looked at their secretive wards. She removed her headset and pulled Malfoys off as well. The pilot didn’t need to hear their conversation on the intercom circuit. “The Banker here says the man they came to find may be out of hiding, and he detected a signal in the direction of the fires. It's
possible their target caused all the crashes.”

  Grayson looked surprised. “I spoke low.”

  “I read lips,” she answered, smiling.

  Malfoy asked, surprised “You picked up his transmitter? How?”

  “I don’t see a receiver.” Alice glanced at his pants pockets, suspecting he was carrying a small electronic device. She saw a lump in his left pocket and grinned. “Are you happy to see me, or is that a banana in your pocket?” It was an old joke, but she wondered how he’d picked up a signal of any kind, and knew its direction.

  Grayson frowned in confusion a moment, then laughed. “It’s my satellite phone, and it isn’t turned on.” He pulled out his Iridium phone, then returned it to his pocket as he expanded on her quip.

  “You were thinking of the wrong head. My smart brain’s up here.” He tapped his temple with a smirk.

  It was “Chipper’s” sharp and disapproving look at his partner that led the two CIA operatives to realize that the second joke must have held some element of truth, which he thought the Banker shouldn’t have revealed.

  Do these men have electronic implants? That thought seemed too wildly speculative to Malfoy. Nevertheless, he felt the need to emphasize how serious he was about helping them complete their mission. “Banker, even if he’s in violation of air traffic instructions, our pilot will fly over any area where you direct us to go. If you can narrow down where the target is, we’ll have a forced landing somewhere close, because of some mechanical issue that Chisolm will think of after the fact.” Now they knew the pilot's name. Or was that another nickname for the mission?

  Grayson shook his head. “Malfoy, I don’t doubt what you say you would tell the pilot to do, or the pilot's willingness to do that, but suicide isn’t going to accomplish our mission.”

  He pointed out the window at the newest two fires. “The bad guy has obviously activated his transmitter, so we’d simply add another pile of wreckage over there if we get too close. Chipper and I need to walk in on foot to get close enough to track him to wherever he is, even if he’s hiding or wearing a new disguise. Anyone with us risks losing control of their actions, just like those chopper pilots did, and the tens of thousands of people at that stadium. You don’t know what you’re up against, but we do.”