“Dr. Aoano died of what appeared to be a heart attack at a concert in Tokyo earlier today.”
“Damn! I thought she was the one in Wako,” said Tom.
“She was apparently at the conference in Tokyo.”
“Do they have anything?”
“Not much. A couple spoke of a man in his thirties, Asian, fluent Japanese, at the concert by himself. He somehow eluded her security.”
“Yeah?”
“Seems he took a seat out in the lobby a few minutes before the concert ended. That’s why they remembered him.”
“Are the Japanese gonna get a sketch of him?” said Tom.
“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, that’s the only lead. He’s gone.”
Chapter 37
The Taebaek Mountains of North Korea
The prevailing winds drove the snow toward shore with such force that Will could barely make out Kevin Moncrief’s face mask as he submerged beneath the water. He held his hand out just above his eyes, blocking the power of the wind and the cold, icy spray. Finally, after Moncrief’s dark outline disappeared, Will turned away from the wind and toward the mountains. As he turned, he glanced at his watch. It showed 0336.
Only an hour and a half to first daylight, he thought. As he twisted around, a large boulder separated him from the beach and the ocean. His small tent was now almost completely white from the sticking snow. Will pulled the flap down and zipped it up almost to the top, leaving only a few inches open.
In the dull light, the water tumbling over the rocks at the streambed bottom appeared nearly black. Will moved slowly at first, allowing his eyes to adjust. He climbed onto the side of the streambed and underneath the gray, chipped concrete arch of the bridge. He moved silently, each step carefully placed. With time, he gradually built up his speed, moving from rock to rock. Soon, Will was climbing through a green pine forest as he followed the streambed up into the mountains above the beach.
They’re well-named, Will thought as he scanned the span of jagged-tooth peaks extending both north and south. The Diamond Mountains of the Kumgang looked as sharp-edged as their brilliant namesake.
After an hour, he stopped at an outcrop of rocks, noting that the stream came from farther up into the mountains. Looking back, he saw the whitecaps of the waves as they broke on the rocks of the moon-shaped beach. It was from this vantage point that he could see the road as it followed the bay, off to the north and left. He could also make out the few lights of Wonsan in the distance.
As he looked to the south, the road turned, and there he saw the faint flicker of a dull yellow light. He stayed on the rocks for a while and gazed at it, until he realized that it seemed to blink on and off because of movement between him and the light. Only after staring for a few moments could Will make out the shape of the bunker and see the several North Korean guards surrounding it.
On a clear day, Will thought, Shane Stidham could have thrown a football from where we’d landed and struck the center of the guards. As he adjusted the pack on his back and the shoulder holster holding the type-64, Will looked at his watch to reconfirm his westward bearing. The watch told both time and direction. Feeling the increased wind of the snowstorm on his back, he flipped up the straps of the green and black backpack, tossing it over his right shoulder. He could feel all the pent-up energy of the past several weeks released. This was the beginning of a marathon for which he was ready.
It was shortly before the yellow gray hue of dawn’s light that Will crossed over the top of the mountain and found the small lake that fed the stream. Better not move much during daylight, he thought to himself. Will worked his way around the edge of the streambed and the lake to a large stand of pine trees clumped together. Sharp, jagged granite cliffs and peaks seemed to buffer all sound.
Below the cliffs, a forest of pine trees encircled the lake. He stopped, smelling the pine needles and whiffing the pine boughs as the snow continued to accumulate on the trees and boulders. He looked around at one particular boulder lodged next to the base of an ancient pine tree. Its trunk was the size of a pillar and could probably support a bridge. Between the rock and the tree was a small opening out of the snowstorm. There, Will shoved in his second backpack, the one from Hawaii, and pulled himself in behind it. The type-64 silencer stuck into his hip and he had to twist the weapon. If I ever have to use this, I’m in deep shit, he thought. He wiggled around so only his hooded head stuck out near the entrance to his sanctuary.
Will wasn’t tired, but forced himself to doze. Years of combat had trained him to fall into a short sleep and wake at a given hour, with his subconscious always alert to sounds. He would look at his watch, think two hours, imagine the time to get up, and wake near it.
* * * *
Several thousand miles away, the second shift at the Executive Support Center had just begun when the door swung open and Krowl entered.
“Give me a status,” Krowl huffed as he pulled up a chair at the end of the table.
An Air Force sergeant worked one computer terminal while another worked another one nearby.
A young Air Force captain with a deep dimple in the center of his chin stood at attention. “Sir, I’m Captain Beardon and I have the second watch, sir.”
“Yes, so what’s the status?”
“Sir, satellite USA37X has a fixed location on him presently in the Taebaek Mountains south of Wonsan.” The young captain pointed to a large screen on the right that showed a detailed map of the mountains. High in the mountain range was a small lake and just to the side of the lake, two blinking, bright-blue X’s crossed virtually on top of each other. A thin, diagonal blue line extended from each of the X’s, which were marked X-1 and X-2. “Yes, sir, he’s been stationary at that position now for six hours. It’ll be getting dark in North Korea in about an hour. My guess is he’s waiting for darkness to fall before he moves out again.”
“That would make sense,” Krowl said.
“Our other Air Force tech sergeant here is responsible for USA82X, the second bird, which is positioned in the GEO orbit.” The captain turned to another large panel that showed a map of the Korean peninsula and a dotted tracing of two satellites, which appeared to converge as they ran from north to south.
“What about the convergence of those paths, Captain?” Krowl asked.
“Sir, they’re on two drastically different orbits. The GEO orbit of 82 will stay fixed in its current position. We may lose the picture of this other bird, but we have another satellite that’ll pick up on the window at 0800 Zulu.”
“All right, the only thing is, I want to make sure we can use 82 directly from here.”
“Yes, sir,” said the captain. “We have complete capability from here to use 82 and do whatever you deem necessary.”
Chapter 38
Deep in the Mountains
As Will woke from the short nap, the snow continued to pile up in small drifts. Even in the submarine, he never heard the depth of quiet that he sensed in these mountains. “God,” he said, rubbing both hands on his face.
Pulling out of the hole and quietly dusting off the snow that had accumulated on his shoulders and hood, he took the larger pack and slid it back into the hole, covering the entrance with a handful of pine needles. Looking around slowly in a circle, he adjusted the smaller of his two packs and his shoulder holster.
Amazing, he thought, recalling the times during his three-dimensional training he had walked the circumference of this small lake. He knew this stream branched out from the lake at the center of its mass. If he circled around it to the right, he knew he would find another stream that fed into it from above. Slowly, as he gained his sense of footing and his body warmed, Will worked his way past the rocks of the streambed and around the edge of the lake.
This snow is not a bad thing, Will decided. It would provide him an extra blanket of camouflage and cover any trace of his presence.
After some time, Will came upon another stream flowing down through several rows of pine trees. He bent down below the sagging branches of one tree, which leaned under the weight of the accumulating snow. The stream’s water was cold and crystal clear. Will traced it uphill, climbing the rocks like a continuous boulder stairway. Ahead some distance, he came across a surging waterfall, its sound echoing in the stillness of the forest and snowstorm. Utterly amazing, he thought, the unblemished beauty of these mountains.
Will slithered against the boulders with his chest as he climbed over the rocks above the waterfall. Snow continued to fall, his uniform turning into blotches of white, black, and green. It surprised him that a few hundred meters beyond the waterfall, he could see the shape of a small valley off to the right. He knew he was on the mark, but his distance estimates hadn’t put this valley so close. Will split away from the stream and worked his way through ancient pine trees, moving more slowly as he came out just above the valley. He saw a large outcrop of rocks several feet below him and slid down the hillside to below the rocky overhang. There, a small ledge extended out and away.
Perfect, he thought, scanning the valley and sensing the snowstorm slowing. Just then, Will heard the shifting rumble of a vehicle from the valley below and to his right. As he slowly turned his head in that direction, he saw two trucks with small convoy lights barely illuminating the road. I’ll be damned, he thought, observing the speed of the vehicles. This had to be a highly improved road, because the trucks were moving fast, despite little illumination from their convoy lights. The drivers were obviously very familiar with both their vehicles and the road. Until the sound of the trucks slid well past him, Will stayed still.
In the darkness, he pulled below the ledge, removed a pack, and retrieved from it a black computer no bigger than a library book. He pulled out two tripods, both no larger than small lamps, and, using their pointed cleats, fixed them into the ground. On one tripod, he placed a small black metallic dish that looked like a kitchen colander. Finally, he pulled out a camera about the same size as a standard point-and-shoot digital.
He slid back out from underneath the overhang to the edge, placed the satellite dish back behind him to the left, and aimed it up at the sky. After attaching a cable from the satellite dish directly to the small computer terminal, and then from the computer terminal directly to the camera, he set the camera on the other tripod and slid it near the edge, aiming it down, roughly into the center of the valley. He bent the lid of the computer down low, took off his shoulder holster and camouflage jacket, and slid underneath the jacket so he could see the computer screen without illuminating any of the area.
He reached out with his arm and slowly tilted the satellite dish, playing with the computer keys until a long red band on the screen showed a high intensity. Got it, he thought as the satellite dish and computer homed in on the U.S. satellite. The computer showed a test screen and verified that the camera was fully online and ready to transmit. Will then took some dry brush and carefully slid the camouflage around the dish to cover all but the face pointing up toward the sky. He also pulled some brush around the camera so only the lens protruded. He turned again to the computer, and received a message back confirming the linkup. The message was entirely in Russian Cyrillic. “Good,” he whispered.
Will slowly slid his parka back on and curled up in a ball underneath the overhang in the rock. So, this is it, he thought as he looked down at his watch, then up at the first light of day 2. He lay there quietly for several hours until he smelled smoke coming from the valley below. Again, with the silence of a deer working its way through the forest, Will pulled up from the ledge, moving slowly and deliberately until he could see down in the valley. There, in the nascent daylight, his eyes focused on a curling, twisting column of smoke.
Will followed the smoke downward, then crawled nearer to the edge. He traced it to an opening on the roof of a small, crude hut on a patch of dirt surrounded by a snow-covered garden and two browned, rectangular, diked rice paddies. A dirt path connected the hut to the road, which Will could tell stood well above the rice paddies.
He heard the swing of a door and the bang as it closed. An old, bent-back man crossed from the hut to a pile of wood nearer to Will. He watched as the old man struggled to swing an oddly shaped ax, then heard the thump as it struck the wood. Splinters of wood flew up with each stroke. He survives simply, Will thought. No livestock—just the rice he raises.
Scanning the valley again, Will saw the road shift to his left and south, curving around an outcrop of rocks, their shape broken by an occasional grouping of small, young pine trees. The road turned also in another direction: To the north, more toward the coast and probably Wonsan. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but beyond the old man’s rice paddies and his path to the roadway, there was another well-improved road cut in a straight diagonal line. He followed it upward, across rice paddies on the other side, to a flat, rectangular mound nestled against the valley wall. He studied this mound for some time and slowly moved the camera lens. Through the camera, he spotted a sizable cement pad. That’s it, Will thought. The helicopter landing zone. He moved the camera to focus on the center, carefully pushing the tripod down to stabilize it.
His watch showed nearly ten in the morning. Now, we wait, he thought, slowly sliding back under the overhang, then pulling some of the brush up to cover much of his shape. If, by chance, the farmer wandered up the steep hillside, he would have to be virtually on top of Will before any of his shape or equipment would be evident.
Chapter 39
The Secret Valley
All day, Will watched the twisting smoke float up from the hut below. Through early morning, it would climb a short distance above the hut, then blow west toward the other side of the valley. Now it climbed straight up into the sky. For hours, Will watched the old man scratch away at his dirt patch of a garden like an ant.
It was sometime after noon when Will first heard the low thumping sound of the Mi-8 HIP helicopter. From underneath the overhanging rock, he slowly crawled out to the edge.
He had still not seen the helicopter when he saw three Soviet UAZ jeeps coming from the south. They sped along in a convoy, as if late for some function. Will felt his heart, pressed against the cold dirt, beat more quickly. Slowly, he slipped forward, closer to the edge. As each jeep hit the same bumps in the road, it hopped up like a caterpillar. The old man stopped and watched as the jeeps zoomed by.
Will leaned back slowly, expecting the helicopter to appear above. He pulled up the lid of the computer and typed the Cyrillic code identification.
* * * *
“He’s up,” said Scott, sitting in the small, vault-like computer room in the security center, well below the Pacific Command’s headquarters. Covering the wall were two flat-panel screens; exactly as in Krowl’s setup in the ESC, one showed a satellite view of the valley and the other the track of satellites over the Korean peninsula. Unlike Krowl, however, Scott did not have a third screen’s transmission of the second satellite.
“Okay, Mr. Scott, your boy’s on station,” said Jess Markeet, the only other person in the room. Tall and thin, his prematurely gray hair cut high and tight, Markeet, the resident CIA agent assigned as liaison to PAC-COM, would have looked odd anywhere but in Hawaii.
“What’s he saying?” Scott asked.
“He’s giving the code to stand by.”
“Will we get the photo relayed here?”
“No sweat.” Markeet hit the keyboard and a small split screen appeared on the larger satellite overview. “When he hits his photo, it’ll instantly relay up to the satellite and show up here, at Langley, and at the Pentagon.”
“Is Krowl up?” said Scott.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Can we VTC him?”
“Yeah.” Markeet hit a few more strokes on the keyboard and another split screen appeared in the corner of their main screen.
/> “Can Krowl hear us?”
“One minute,” said Markeet, typing some more. “Okay, go ahead.”
Scott leaned forward into a table microphone, which looked like a small black ashtray. “ESC, this is PAC. Do you copy?”
With this comment, he saw Krowl turn around with the others and look at their screen.
“Scott, we have a relay that he’s ready.” Krowl looked drawn and haggard. It would be near dawn in Washington.
“Yes, Admiral. We’re close.”
“Good. It’s about time.”
Scott shook his head while the smirking Markeet, off screen from the VTC camera, muted their audio feed to Washington. “Yes, Admiral, it’s bloody well time.”
* * * *
As he lowered the lid on the computer, a rush of air and noise blew over Will.
“Goddamn.” Will froze as the Mi-8 helicopter, banking from his side of the valley, blew barely above the top of the short pine trees around him. He looked up, seeing the rivet lines in the underbelly of the helicopter. It flew so close he could see a forearm of the helicopter’s crewman sticking out the side door. If the helicopter’s path had taken it a few meters to either the left or right, Will would have been looking directly into the eyes of the crew chief.
Will remained frozen in place, trusting he’d remain invisible as long as he stayed immobile.
As the helicopter began to flare in landing directly across the valley, he slowly moved, lifting his head, watching it pass. The jeeps had turned up the small path of a road, heading toward the helicopter landing zone.
Will slid to the camera, watching the old man below as he leaned on his hoe, staring toward the commotion on the other side of the valley.
The helicopter continued to flare, pitching sharply upwards, on line for the center of the landing pad. Will saw the three jeeps stop and several men—some in uniform with Kalashnikovs, others in olive green Mao-styled jackets—hopped out of the jeeps.
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