Tran grinned. “The wall surrounds the whole compound. No intrusion alarms I could see. No wires on top. An easy up and over. Down about half way is a playground with no houses for fifty feet on each side. We can go over there and find number seventy two.”
“Let’s choggie,” Hunter said.
They went over the wall all three at once and melted into the shrubs fronting the barrier. They didn’t move for five minutes. Each watched a different direction but they saw no people, no vehicles moving, and no dogs prowling.
Hunter crawled over to Tran. “See if this first house has a number, then see which way to seventy two.”
Tran faded through the shrubs to the first house and went across the small back yard and along the far side. There were no fences between houses here, just pampered green lawns.
Moments later Hunter’s earpiece came on.
“First house is number seventy. One up the street is seventy one, so our target should be the third house. I’ll check it for sure. We using the back door?”
“If it’s the right house. Wait for us in the back yard.”
The SEALs oozed from shrub to shrub and moved out of the playground and through the two back yards. None of the houses had lights burning. They found Tran leaning against the third house.
“Yep, this is the one.”
“We knock first?” Chang asked.
Hunter shook his head. “Sung expects somebody. My guess he’s left the back and front doors unlocked. Tran, give it a try.”
The back door had a screen that Tran eased open without a sound, then he turned the door knob and to his surprise, the door eased open when he pushed it inward. The three SEALs slipped inside the Satan blackness of the room. Hunter took out his penlight and scanned the place. In Minnesota it would be a mud room, for changing wet, snowy clothes before going into the house proper. Here it served much the same purpose, but Hunter couldn’t figure out why.
He turned the knob on the western door handle that must lead into the house and again the panel swung inward on oiled hinges.
The room was dark, not a shred of light anywhere. Before Hunter could turn on his tiny flashlight a man’s voice sounded.
“Welcome, my friends,” the muted voice said. “I’ve waited here every night for the past ten. It’s good to know that you have come.”
The voice ended and the lights snapped on blinding the SEALs.
A soft laugh blossomed through the room as the SEALs tried to get their eyes adjusted.
“Oh yes, that was Dr. Sung’s voice, but he couldn’t be here tonight, so he asked me to sit in. I’m his wife Vivian.” Her voice was cultured, soft, almost a whisper. “We must be quiet, speak softly. Kim was called away to an important decision that had to be made about smalling down the bombs.”
Hunter’s eyes blinked and watered and he rubbed them again and then he could focus. An American blonde woman of about 45 sat in a recliner chair aimed at a large sized TV set. She smiled.
“Yes, Kim has been waiting for you. We both have. I know why you are here. None of the rest of the family knows.” Her voice was soft and low.
“Mrs. Sung, I’m Hunter and this is Tran and Chang.”
“You’re here as an advance party to make sure my husband is who Rho Rhee, the badminton player, said he was. How can I be sure who you men are?” She moved a shawl from her lap and showed the Colt .45 pistol she held aimed directly at Hunter.
“We know about both of you. Your maiden name was Jennifer Wilson, your daughters are Stephanie and Yuan, and there are twelve members of your extended family.”
“All right, all right. I believe you.” She put the automatic pistol on a small table beside the chair. “That old thing wasn’t even loaded.” For the first time she smiled. “Hunter. What a classic name for a SEAL looking for someone. Is it your real name Lieutenant?”
“It is but how….”
“My father was a Navy Captain, who never quite made admiral. I knew a mission like this would take at least a full lieutenant. Now, we must be quiet. We have servant people we’re not entirely sure of. Can you confirm about my husband and proceed with the mission?”
“Not until I talk to him in person and establish some facts.”
“Too bad. He won’t be home until tomorrow evening. Until then you’ll have to vanish into the house. There are two locked rooms on the third floor that we seldom use. You can go up there quietly, and I’ll see that you have all the food and drink that you need.”
“Will you be safe with us here?” Hunter asked.
“Young man, I haven’t felt safe for the past ten years. These animals can come and take this all away from us in micro second. And cut us up into cat food just for the fun of it. But for the next two days, yes, I will feel safer with you with me. You have weapons, I assume.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, that does it. When a handsome young lieutenant in the U.S. Navy SEALs calls me ma’am, I know damn well that I’m over forty.” She laughed softly. “Takes some getting used to.” She stood. Follow me and be whisper quiet.”
A few minutes later they were in the two rooms on the third floor. They were each about ten feet square and had an interconnecting door. Each had a bed and lamp. There were no windows. The beds were made up with fresh linens.
“One of you come with me and I’ll send you back with a box filled with food and soft drinks and anything else you might want. I won’t be up to see you again until about ten o’clock tomorrow night but don’t be alarmed.” She watched them a moment, then nodded.
“I’m sure one of our two house hold help is on the payroll of the secret police. So we always have to be careful. Anything we do out of the norm is at once reported. The trouble is, I’m not sure which one it is, Yon Lee or her husband Manpo.”
“Transporting all twelve of you out of here is going to be a big task,” Hunter said. “Would it be possible for you to arrange a family vacation at some seaside resort or hotel?”
“A friend of ours has a large summer house on the shore. It is possible we could ask them if we could go there.”
“That would make it much simpler for our helicopters to pick you up and have you in international waters in ten minutes. We’ll talk about that later.”
“I’ll send up food and drinks for you. All of your must be exhausted. Remember, be as quiet as mice up here.” She smiled, caught Chang’s hand and led him out of the room.
When Chang came back, Mrs. Sung was with him with pillows and more blankets.
“Mrs. Sung. I should communicate with my contact. I need an open window for a satellite antenna to point out. Is there one on the second floor I could use?”
“A radio that you can use all the way to Washington?”
“Yes, ma’am, only this message will only go to Seoul.”
She nodded and Hunter unpacked the miniature SATCOM and took it down the stairs to a room with a window. He showed her how it worked. Then spoke softly into the mike.
“Quinn time, this is the watcher.”
A response came at once.
“Watcher, Quinn time here.”
“On target, but player is out for twenty four. Will confirm at that time. Retrograde movement must be worked out for twelve.”
“Roger that, Watcher. Off shore sixties best bet.”
“More details later. Watcher out.”
Mrs. Sung nodded. “My goodness, all that talk and with your man Quinn in Seoul. Is this really going to happen? When Kim and I talked about it, the chances seemed so great that it might never come to pass.”
“It will, Mrs. Sung. I’m betting my life and the lives of my two men that it will happen and you’ll all be safe.”
Back upstairs Mrs. Sung told them a hushed good night and said that she would lock the doors but gave them a key they could use to open the doors in an emergency. Then they dove into the food box and made huge sandwiches of ham and cheese and lettuce and pickles and pepperoni. They found cans of Coke filled in P’yongyang and cans of peaches and a
pplesauce. They ate and then Hunter tried the key in the door lock. It worked. He opened the door and looked down the steps, then he locked it again and they all slept.
Hunter awoke twice during the night. It was too quiet. The house seemed like a tomb. Each time he unlocked the door and looked down the stair. He saw only two dim night lights and no sounds what so ever. He went back to sleep.
In the morning, Hunter opened the door slowly and heard noises from downstairs. They were normal getting up and breakfast sounds. He closed the door and locked it.
They found breakfast bars in the food box.
“Granola and Coke for breakfast,” Tran said. “The breakfast of champions.”
Chang scowled. “She said one of the workers here is a spy for the secret police. Why don’t we just put down both of them? We’ll be sure to nail the bad guy.”
“Can’t,” Hunter said. “We don’t know their report schedule. If they don’t respond when they are supposed to, there would be a dozen cops out here in an hour. No, we have to sit here and wait. When Sung gets back we’ll check him out, radio Quinn with the news and try to figure out how to get his family out of here.”
“That seaside vacation sounded good,” Tran said.
“If they can wrangle it. I’m sure they’ll have to get permission to take the whole family.”
“This guy must have more clout now that he’s made them the bombs,” Tran said.
“True, but they’ll still watch him like a flight risk,” Hunter said.
The three SEALs sat on the bed in one room and looked at each other. Tran said what they were all thinking.
“So, here we are. What the hell are we supposed to do for the next twelve to sixteen hours?”
“We make plans,” Hunter said. “Say Sung is the genuine item. He will get permission for a family reunion at the seaside house. How do we get from here to there?”
“Twelve of them,” Tran said. “That’s going to take at least three of these little bitsy cars they have or a bus. Maybe one of us can stow away in each car.”
“The cars won’t all come from here,” Chang said.
“If we know in advance, Sung can take us out the night before and stash us in some hiding spot along the road, then pick us up when they drive by,” Hunter suggested.
“Might work,” Tran said. “Will the household help go along on the reunion?”
They looked at each other.
“Let’s get a notebook from our packs and write some of this down,” Hunter said. We’re just starting to do the planning.”
CHAPTER SIX
K-16 ROK Air Base, Songham, Korea
Quinn had been busy. He and Lieutenant (j.g.) Bancroft had the rest of the SEALs fitted out with their two sets of North Korean civilian clothes. They had taken two more lectures by the professor on the culture and mores of the North Korean people. They had been on a training march and taken target practice on the base rifle range.
That first afternoon, Commanders Vuylsteke and Wells met with Quinn and Bancroft for some pre-op planning.
“Their off shore radar is going to pick us up as soon as we get anywhere near the twelve mile limit,” Vuylsteke said.
“It has to be timing,” Wells said. “We launch our bird well at sea and keep in radio contact. When they get their people on board, we turn toward shore and meet them at the twelve mile limit.”
“Can we get any air cover?” Quinn asked.
“No Navy air assets in the area,” Vuylsteke said. “Nearest carrier is down around Taiwan and China.”
“We have the Seventh Air Force here,” Wells said. “I know they have at least two fighter squadrons with the F-16 Falcons. One group is based at Osan Air Base. They could fly COP for us and meet any fighters the Koreans scramble. Would the North Korean fighters have time to get to us? They probably won’t catch the choppers on their way in. They would come out to see us at the twelve.”
“By then it should almost be over,” Vuylsteke said. “We land our two birds and haul ass out to sea.”
“Sounds good to me,” Quinn said.
Quinn made some notes in his perpetual notebook. “I’ll get in contact with the Air Force and get one of their men in on our planning.”
“How many people are we transporting?” Vuylsteke asked.
“Three SEALs and twelve civilians. That’s fifteen if the SEALs decide they need to come out. Can you do it in one trip?”
“We have to,” Vuylsteke said. “If we tried to go back in a second time they would be waiting for us with their fighter aircraft and a battalion on the ground. We strip out the torpedoes and everything that will move except the door guns from the SH-60s and we should be okay weight wise. These Koreans are small people, and there should be half of them children. We should be fine.”
“Before Hunter went in, we talked about getting the civilians out to the coast somehow. If he can do that it will cut down on your travel time and time in the danger zone.”
“A nice wide sandy beach would be ideal,” Wells said.
“We’ll have Hunter work on that. Dr. Sung won’t be back home until tonight sometime. I expect to hear from Hunter after that with an okay on the extraction. It will be up to him to set the time and place. Could be a day or two before they can do it. You’ll need a six hour notice to sail, or more than that?”
“We’re in port now, so we need six hours to get ready to sail.” Vuylsteke said. “Then at least eight hours to get up there and situated about twenty miles off shore.”
“Should be no problem.”
“You’ll have a doctor on board?”
“Three of them.”
“Might need to squeeze a sawbones in the chopper going in if Hunter reports any wounded. I hope they can get away clean, but the odds are that they’ll have to shoot their way out.”
“We can have a surgeon and a nurse along without an overload if they need it.”
“I’ll want to be on board your destroyer when you sail. I’ll have the SATCOM so we can keep in touch with Hunter during the last phase of the operation.”
“Okay, Mr. Quinn,” Vuylsteke said. “What else can we work out before we get the time and place from Hunter?”
“Nothing I can think of now. Just hang loose and keep your ships ready for that fourteen hour alert.”
Sunan, North Korea
The three SEALs locked in the third floor rooms of Dr. Sung’s house did what planning they could for the rest of the morning, but soon realized that most of what they were doing was blue sky and speculation. They didn’t know enough about the what and where yet.
By eleven thirty Tran suggested they have a push up contest. They had plenty of time so they did it one at a time and the two not doing it counted.
“This is a set up,” Chang said. “Tran you always come in second on the platoon contests. Now that Dengler isn’t here you think you’ve got a cinch.”
Chang went first and topped out at eighty six. He lay on the floor exhausted.
Tran went to the mat next and did a hundred and seven. He rolled over on his back puffing. “Best I can do, it’s an off day,” Tran said.
Hunter dropped down and they began to count. When he got to a hundred and eight, he quit. “Don’t want to show you up too much, Tran,” Hunter said. The other two both threw pillows at him.
There was still plenty of food in the box. They made sandwiches of cheese and canned tuna and had canned apricots for desert. After they ate, Hunter waved them to the beds.
“Sack time. We never know when we might need to stay up for two days running. We fill the tank right now.”
Downstairs in the big house life went on as usual. Vivian Sung had her two daughters working on their home schooling studies. She had scrounged to get text books suitable, and at last had petitioned the government to let her order school books from the States. They did and the books came through.
Stephanie was good at math and science, taking after her father. Yuan loved history and literature. Both spoke fluent Kore
an, and their English was as near perfect as their Mother could teach them.
Vivian caught herself looking at the clock too often. She couldn’t settle down to reading the way she usually did as the girls studied. She fussed and looked out the window and then sat down again. Stephanie noticed.
“Worried about Dad, Mom?”
“No, just unsettled. I wish somehow we could get back to America. I’ve never missed it so much as I do now.” She couldn’t chance telling them what might happen. She didn’t want to raise their hopes only to have them dashed at the last minute.
Yon Lee came in and said that lunch was ready. The woman was a good cook and took care of the house nicely. Still Vivian had chores for the girls to do daily. She didn’t want them to get used to having servants around. Perhaps soon there wouldn’t need any.
Vivian watched Yon Lee as she served. They had small cut sandwiches, a salad, and ice cream for desert. There was no hint that Yon Lee was a police spy, but Vivian knew one of them must be. The police knew everything they did, where they went, what they did, what guests they had in on occasion. There was only one other English speaking couple in the small town. They both were Korean and both taught English at a school. They enjoyed talking English with the Americans to understand better the vernacular use of words and how slang fit in. Every time the Lonpoo couple visited, the police knew about it.
Manpo was another matter. The two were married and had no children. A totally unusual situation in North Korea. He was their driver, handyman, gardener and all around helper. Usually he had little to do. Vivian knew he gambled, she didn’t know how much or where. He also drank but somehow managed to hide it from the police. He must be the spy. She would be natural with him the next day when he came back after driving her husband to the meeting. But she also would be more cautious what she said when he was near.
Vivian watched her daughters. Stephanie had slightly darker skin, like her father and impressive oval eyes on a startlingly beautiful teenage face. If they were in New York or Chicago she could be a teen model. Yuan on the other hand had soft blonde hair, delicate features and lighter skin. Her oval eyes were more a distraction than an exotic beauty mark. Vivian loved them both to pieces and now that there was a chance to get out of this prison, her hopes for them soared.
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