by Andy Harp
Will slithered with his chest against the boulders 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 was 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 35-mm.
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 very 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 honed onto 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 dried 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 link-up. 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. 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, with the 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 was well above the rice paddies.
Will heard the swing of a door and the bang as it closed. An old, bent-over 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 axe, then heard the thump as it struck the wood. Splits of the 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. That’s 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 the farmer, even by chance, 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
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, like an ant, scratch away at his dirt patch of a garden.
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 spotted 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, as his pulse quickened. 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, certain the helicopter was 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, and just like Krowl’s set-up 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 PACCOM, 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. Can you copy?” he said.
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 seemed haggard. It was near dawn in Washington.
“Yes, Admiral. We’re close.”
“Good. It’s about time.”
Scott shook his head
while Markeet, offscreen from the VTC camera, gave him a sarcastic smirk.
“Yes, Admiral, it’s bloody well time.” Scott sometimes preferred his homeland’s vernacular because of its superior ability to convey sarcasm.
• • •
Just 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, knowing that even the obvious couldn’t be seen without movement.
As the helicopter began to flare in landing directly across the valley, he moved slowly, 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, and some in olive green Maostyled jackets—hopped out of the jeeps.
His pulse quickened as he put the camera online.
One shot and I’m out of here, he thought, hoping to slow his quickening heartbeat. The camera had a simple crosshair, much like a deer rifle. He had worked with it several times at Quantico. Just pick the right Nampo and snap, he thought as he focused the shot. The camera’s electronic lens whirred as he spotted the faces of the men, now standing in a small group.Well, it’s been some time, Will thought, the camera focusing sharply on all the faces one by one.
Peter Nampo—Peter, he thought. He stopped on the face of a man he hadn’t seen for many years. It was a thin, flint-hardened face with jet-black hair. Peter Nampo hadn’t aged well.
Just as he began to squeeze the shutter, another similar face appeared—then another, then another. Will held off, taking in four virtually identical men. Damn, he thought, acknowledging the impressive accomplishment of assembling four nearly identical men in one place. The Nampos stood together next to their jeep, awaiting their guests, unaware of the camera focusing in on each of them.
Will stared at each man, moving the camera from face to face. They’re perfect matches, he thought, frustrated. The seconds ticked away.
A general with gold and red epaulette boards on his shoulders stepped down from the helicopter as the blades continued to swirl, but at a slower rate. Will watched the men, waiting for a reaction. There was none. No single man moved forward to greet the guest. Each of the four stayed with the others, making no individual movement. He thought of Krowl waiting impatiently, thousands of miles away in some operations center cursing Will for being unsure.
“Come on, goddammit!” he whispered. Peter Nampo’s standing there, a man so dangerous they brought me halfway around the world to get one stupid photo of him.
The slowing blades of the helicopter started to cast shadows over the men. The seconds seemed like an eternity. Will knew the entourage would greet their guest, take him back to wherever they had come from, and Peter Nampo would disappear, not to be seen for months. The opportunity was slipping away.
Then Will saw it. Nampo #2 moved. He did something Will hadn’t seen for years. Peter Nampo leaned to the side, briefly, adjusting his weight from one leg to the other. Nampo, he remembered, had an elevated shoe to compensate for his shorter leg. It was a characteristic the others could not share.
“Got him!” Will aimed the crosshair at the center of Peter Nampo’s forehead. The camera could focus down to the smallest detail. Will zoomed in on each of the others one more time, studying their bodies, their movements. One moved his left hand toward his face, but no other Nampo readjusted his weight.
Shifting the camera back to Peter Nampo, Will felt the beginnings of another snow flurry. The valley suddenly became dark and much colder. He could see the breath of the men as they spoke.
Will waited again, just to be certain. And again, Nampo shifted his weight off the shorter leg. Will could see the rotation of the slowing blades above Nampo’s head.
I’m certain, Will thought as he squeezed the camera’s trigger. But the camera neither clicked nor snapped and, for a brief moment, it seemed to do nothing at all. He held the trigger down again, holding the crosshairs on Nampo’s forehead. Goddammit, this must be—
A flash of brilliant light stopped him in mid-thought. Then he heard the boom. The flash, followed by the boom, momentarily blinded and deafened him. A bolt of lightning in the midst of a snowstorm? A northern thunderclap?
“What the hell?” he said.
He looked back through the camera and saw Peter Nampo no more. A small cloud of smoke appeared where Nampo once stood. A few of the men who’d been closest to Nampo were on the ground. The other men, in shock, wandered around aimlessly. A thin blue streak of vapor, like a pencil, extended up into the clouds before momentarily dissipating in the air.
Will used the camera to scan the situation. The general was on the ground, confused and dazed. The blades of the helicopter were still rotating, but off their center. Each blade was actually a few feet shorter than before. “I’ll be damned,” said Will.
The laser, in vaporizing Peter Nampo, had sliced through the metal blades as they rotated over his head. The laser had exploded a body made up mostly of water molecules. Then, as it superheated the water molecules in the clouds above, it caused an explosive clap of sound, a deep thunder in the cold.
Will slid back under the overhang, dazed by the strike of thunder. Krowl never wanted a photograph. He wanted me to assassinate Nampo. And that son of a bitch never intended to tell me a thing about it. Will Parker’s suspicions had all been correct. Now, I’m truly alone, he thought.
Krowl couldn’t risk the assassination pointing back to the United States, Will realized. There’s no way Krowl will allow me to escape, he thought. He’ll need to get rid of me.
Chapter 40
“Jesus, what happened?” Scott saw the camera focus in on a man who appeared to be Peter Nampo, then watched as the screen went blank.
“ESC cut off all feeds,” said Markeet.
“How about the VTC to Krowl?”
“We’re still hooked up.”
“Turn up the volume.”
Scott could hear Krowl’s voice.
“Everyone leave except the airman on USA82,” said Krowl, sounding frantic. Scott heard the slam of a door.
“Okay, now turn to Target One,” said Krowl.
“Yes, sir.” It was the squeaky voice of a very young man, maybe one just out of puberty—obviously a young technician caught in the storm.
“How long before the laser’s online again?” said Krowl.
“Two minutes, sir.”
“How much time left?”
“Sixty-two seconds.”
Scott imagined what was going on in the ESC. He saw Krowl standing over the technician and his computer, breathing down on him as the computer’s targeting lined up for the second shot.
“Turn off the VTC,” said Scott
“What’s up, Scotty?” Markeet looked up at Scott.
“Just turn it off. We don’t need to hear this.” Scott knew what was going on. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to witness it. He also knew there was nothing he could do about it.
• • •
There wasn’t much Will could do, either. He pushed back below the overhang as machine guns fired sporadically, shooting at shadows. Bullets whizzed toward the other side of the valley.
Will pulled out again, to the ledge, and looked down. Two soldiers were firing at the slumped, twisted, dead b
ody of the old farmer, lying in his garden. Others fired at the old man’s hut, riddling the walls with bullets. He was their only convenient target. Will slunk back, underneath the rock.
I’ll wait until dark and work my way back to the coast, he thought. The submarine will probably be gone by then. Will imagined the boat commander receiving a Krowl dispatch that Parker had been lost, and the boat, in immediate danger, had to pull away from the coastline.
The snowstorm worsened as the sky grew darker. The firing of the Kalashnikovs echoed off the walls of the valley.
Another blinding flash of light. The second boom lifted Will up and threw him against the rock to the side of the overhang. He looked up and saw nothing but sky.
“That bastard!” he yelled.
The second laser shot struck and destroyed the rock of the overhang. Will knew instantly: He was the second target. He saw the North Korean troops look toward the rubble of the overhang. A white, pencil-like vapor streak went directly up into the sky. The laser had heated the humid air as it passed through, leaving a direct marker at Will’s location. If the laser didn’t kill him, its trail would. The “pop” sound of bullets suddenly surrounded him like a swarm of bees.
Somehow, Krowl’s tracing me. He patted down his uniform, unsure where the tracer was. As bullets continued to crack all around him, Will pulled out of the rubble, ran up the side of the hill, and jumped behind a downed log. That laser has to be recharging.
Parker ripped off the Type-64. All his training with the weapon meant nothing: It would do little good against an army, and for all he knew, it was the weapon Krowl was tracking. He stripped off his camouflage coveralls, too, along with his boots and socks—all his clothes, in fact. Naked, he ran through the forest, thinking how bizarre a sight he was.
Another flash. The third flash struck behind the log where he’d left his pile of clothes. The laser struck a marker somewhere in the discarded uniform, or in the gun. The force knocked Will to the ground. He began to count. Two minutes had elapsed between blasts. That’s why Krowl had needed Will to identify Nampo: If he’d hit the wrong one, the others would escape before he could get another shot off.