Thunder in the Morning Calm

by Don Brown

  Cold water swirled around his ears and forehead. He sucked the last ounce of air into his lungs. Water now covered his face and nose.

  Like a submarine diving, the plane slid under the surface and disappeared from view.

  Gunner closed his eyes. It was time …

  Jung-Hoon tried standing in the Zodiac so he could see better, but lost his balance and slipped to his knees. He flashed his high beam in the direction that he had last seen the plane. Nothing. “Jackrabbit!” He had lost sight of Jackrabbit. He could not hear or see any splash of kicking in the water.

  “The plane is gone! Get back to the boat!”

  He swept the flashlight back and forth. Nothing but rolling swells. “Jackrabbit! Get back to the boat!”

  Inside the plane, total darkness had snuffed the slight semblance of light that had still existed before the wreck had gone under. Gunner felt around for something to grab. Cold, dark panic gripped his body. He found the passenger’s seat beside the captain’s chair. The door leading out of the plane he knew was behind that seat. But he had to be fast.

  The pressure was mounting like a crushing vice on his skull as the plane continued its way to the bottom. It seemed as if the plane was twirling as it sank deeper through black water. Floating between the two cockpit seats, Gunner pulled himself toward the doorway. He blew out a bit of air and reached into the dark watery abyss. Something wooden.

  One of the wooden crates floating inside the plane was in the way.

  Panic gripped him. He pushed the crate aside and swam toward the door. If he could just get out through it.

  His hands walked along the inside of the fuselage.

  Where was the door? Where was the opening?

  Then he felt it.

  The latch.

  The door had closed shut!

  The Zodiac had drifted fifty to sixty feet from where the plane had sunk, and from this point, even the high-beam flashlight was useless.

  Jung-Hoon realized that if the boat kept drifting away, Jackrabbit too would be lost at sea, and there would be no chance of finding Gunner.

  He lifted the outboard and carefully positioned it on the mounting board on the back of the rubber inflatable. He pushed down hard on the vice clamps to secure the outboard. He screwed the rubber hose from the gas tank into the side of the engine. He squeezed several times on the pressure bulb on the gas tank hose and pulled out the choke. Then he pulled hard on the rope to start the outboard.

  Nothing.

  He pulled again.

  RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR …

  The outboard ignited! He pushed the choke in. Jung-Hoon exhaled in relief, then sat down and put his hand on the throttle and twisted. The boat moved forward, and he steered in the direction that he had last seen Jackrabbit swimming.

  The latch … Gunner tried twisting one way, then the other. Somehow he could not get a good grip on the latch. It seemed slippery in the cold water.

  He blew out a little more air and tried again.

  He released more air.

  Suddenly he felt dizzy. Very dizzy.

  His chest reflexes commanded him to inhale.

  Why not? He had done all he could do.

  He twisted the latch once more.

  The door popped open!

  He pushed his head against the door, holding tight on each side of the door to give himself more leverage, and it gave way. He kicked with his legs and pulled hard with his arms. Suddenly, he floated free of the plane.

  He was out of the plane, but which way was up?

  He blew out the last bit of air in his lungs and kicked with what little strength was left in his legs. With his arms, he pulled against the water, hoping that the direction he was trying to swim was up.

  Jung-Hoon headed to where he thought he had last seen the nose section of the plane bobbing in the water. The blanketing darkness and the large swells made it hard to judge where the plane had been. At this slow speed, barely a sputter, and with the swells as they were, he could not have moved more than a hundred feet from where he started.

  This seemed like the right spot where the Bonanza had sunk. He turned the throttle down to idle and slid the gearshift lever to neutral.

  He remembered that they had put one pair of night-vision binoculars on their checklist. He aimed the flashlight on the gear in the boat. There. Beside the ammo case. Crouching low, he moved halfway up the boat and grabbed the binoculars.

  The night-vision binoculars made the huge swells look menacing. The seascape glowed a ghastly green through the scopes.

  No sign of either American. He looked all around in a full circle. Still nothing.

  He cut the engine to save gas.

  Swooooooooooooosh … Swoooooooooooooosh …

  He held his breath trying to listen, but heard only the sound of the wind and the roar of the sea.

  “Help!”

  A voice!

  “Over here!”

  “Where are you?” The howling wind made it impossible to track the direction.

  “Here!”

  Jung-Hoon swept the flashlight beam to the left and to the right. Nothing but waves.

  “Jung-Hoon.” He swept the light around to the other side of the boat. “Here!”

  There! About fifty yards away! Hands splashing the surface of the water!

  “Hang on! I’m coming!” He turned and pulled the starter rope. The outboard ignited. With one hand on the tiller-throttle and the other pointing the light in the direction of the flailing hands, he steered toward the swimmer.

  The Zodiac crested and troughed straight across a couple of large waves. It then peaked up on a third wave that seemed as big as Mount Hallasan. When he came down on the back side of the wave, a black-painted face gasping for air was right in front of the boat.

  Jung-Hoon quickly steered to the right to avoid ramming the face with the bow. He cut the engine back to idle, shifted to neutral, and reached down over the left side of the boat.

  “I got him right here.” It was Jackrabbit. “I’m all right. See if you can pull him back in.”

  Jackrabbit was treading water with one arm and holding the commander face up with the other. The commander’s neck was secured in the crook of Jackrabbit’s elbow.

  Jung-Hoon reached over the side of the boat and grabbed the commander’s limp arm. “I have him!”

  “Keep his head up,” Jackrabbit said. “Hang on and I’ll help you get him in.”

  Jackrabbit disappeared below the water. A second later, Jung-Hoon felt a pull on the boat from the back. He looked over his shoulder. Jackrabbit was hoisting himself into the boat on the other side.

  “Okay, let’s pull,” Jackrabbit said, “but try not to flip this thing. On my count. One … two … three!”

  The two men tried to pull Gunner up on the tube on the left side of the boat, but the Zodiac nearly flipped from all the weight, and four or five MRE packages fell overboard.

  Jackrabbit held Gunner against the side of the boat and said, “Jung-Hoon, go sit on the other side to balance this thing out. I’ll pull him up.”

  “Okay,” Jung-Hoon said and crawled over to the right side.

  Just then, the boat got caught broadside to a large swell. Down in the trough they went. Then they were lifted up and up as the swell moved under them. Sliding down the back side of the swell, Jackrabbit hoisted Commander McCormick into the boat.

  “Okay, give me some light.”

  Jung-Hoon grabbed the flashlight as Jackrabbit dragged the commander to the middle of the boat.

  “He’s not breathing,” Jackrabbit said. He turned Gunner over, face down, and pushed down in the middle of his back.

  A gush of water came out of the commander’s mouth.

  Jackrabbit pushed down again.

  Nothing.

  Jackrabbit quickly turned the commander over on his back. He pushed the commander’s head back and with a finger quickly swiped his mouth out to clear his airway. Then he started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Th
e commander’s chest rose and dropped. Jackrabbit repeated it. Again it rose and dropped. Then Jackrabbit crossed his palms and pushed down three times hard at the center of the commander’s chest. Then he blew air into his lungs again. Once again, the lifeless chest rose and dropped.

  “Come on, man! Breathe!” Jackrabbit screamed into the dark.

  NKN Frigate Najin

  the Sea of Japan

  Word spread quickly all over the ship about the strange disappearing blip spotted ten miles to their east. And now the Najin’s new mission was of vital national importance!

  The blip could have been anything. A ship. A missile. Some sort of aircraft. Whatever it was, the crew was certain that it was hostile to the Democratic People’s Republic and to Dear Leader.

  From his position at the bow of this ship, on the forward lookout post, Petty Officer Cheong Tae-hee saw himself as the eyes and ears not only of the ship but also of the DPRK and of Dear Leader. The watch he was now standing, in the very front of this warship, could be pivotal in the burgeoning war with the Americans and to the future of the republic.

  He flipped on the powerful searchlight and swept the beam across the waters in front of the Najin. He swept to the left, then to the right. Nothing.

  But they were out there.

  Somewhere.

  He knew it in the deepest recesses of his soul. The Americans were out there. They would not only attack from the west but they would attack from the east too. They possessed the resources to attack from both directions, and when they did, the Navy of Dear Leader would be more than capable of defending the country.

  He always took pride in his performance as the ship’s forward watch. But tonight he took a special pride in his duties. For tonight, he was certain, he would rendezvous with history!

  Kim Yong-nam Military Prison Camp

  A sliver of light slid in through the crack under the door of the windowless isolation cell. Outside, the guards’ clicking boots beat a rhythmic pattern on the floor.

  Pak was curled up on the concrete floor in the far-left corner of the cell. Her arms were wrapped around her shivering body. Ironically, the death of the old prisoner she had tried to save had delayed her own death. The colonel, ignoring Kang’s protests about delaying Pak’s execution, had stayed her sentence — for now — to deal with the disposal of the dead body. But then the colonel, as if to show his own cruel streak to Kang, had shoved a lit cigarette against her neck just before the guards cut the ropes tying her to the tree. The burn was to teach her a lesson for stealing property of the state, he had said.

  Pak gingerly touched her neck. The burn had turned into a large blister. She could barely move her head because doing so exacerbated the pain. With each heartbeat, a hot, throbbing pain pulsed in her neck.

  Why had they spared her? But the more she wondered the more convinced she became that the Lord himself had spared her, at least for a few hours, perhaps less. But for what? She could only wait through the pain. The cold. The hot. The shivering.

  Into the dark, against the echoing clicks of the jackboots outside, she whispered, “Lord, why me? Why am I here? Why did you spare me, if only for a little while? Do you still have a purpose for my life?”

  The door opened. She squinted against the bright light glaring from the hallway and could see only a dark silhouette.

  “Get up, traitor!”

  She recognized the voice as that of the enthusiastic new guard, Kang, the one who had promised to kill her when he cut her down from the tree. Perhaps he had come to fulfill his promise.

  “We are taking you to another location.” This time a woman’s voice. It sounded like the colonel’s assistant, but Pak couldn’t be sure. The woman’s voice did not display the same level of hatred that the man’s voice revealed.

  Pak had learned that when officials of the government speak, it is best to comply and offer no resistance. She stood up and walked to the doorway. Kang and the colonel’s assistant were standing there.

  “Hands out,” Kang ordered.

  She obeyed, and steel handcuffs were clamped tightly around her wrists.

  “What I told you earlier still stands,” he said in a low voice.

  She did not respond. If he wanted to shoot her here, what difference did it make?

  “Let’s go.”

  Kang and the woman each took her by an arm, turned her to the right, and led her down the long hallway of the camp’s main building. They walked past the colonel’s office on the right, the office where all this had started, where she had stolen the penicillin to help the old prisoner who was so sick. And the old man had died anyway. Was it worth it?

  She reminded herself of the verse in Deuteronomy that she sometimes read in her small apartment when she was alone.

  “Do what is right,” it said.

  And trying to help the old man in his misery, even though he died, had been the right thing to do. Even if she had to pay the price with a permanent scar on her neck … or with her life.

  They reached the exit at the end of the long hall. Kang released his grip on her upper arm and pushed open the door to the outside. Darkness had fallen over the snow-mounded camp. The blast of freezing wind that whipped against her blister accentuated the painful throbbing.

  Kang walked down the three steps to the circular gravel driveway in front of the building and opened the back door of the jeep parked a few feet away. The motor was running and the headlights were on.

  “Get in,” Kang ordered.

  Pak complied, stumbling clumsily into the backseat. The colonel’s assistant got in the back with her. Then Kang slammed the door, walked around the back of the vehicle, and got into the driver’s seat. The jeep rolled forward. A moment later, they drove through the front gate and past the two armed guards, who closed the gate after they left the camp.

  Kang turned the jeep left onto the single-lane asphalt road in front of the camp, and they sped off into the night.

  Pak leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  “The Lord is my shepherd … I shall not want …”

  Zodiac boat

  the Sea of Japan

  Cough … cough … cough … cough … cough … Lying flat on his back, Gunner opened his eyes to a bright glare and heard a familiar voice.

  “You all right, Commander?”

  Cough … cough … “Jackrabbit?” … Cough …

  “Take it easy, sir,” the voice said. “This is what happens when you take too long of a dip in too cold of a pond this time of year. Happened to me one time when I went duck huntin’ in January down at Lake Mattamuskeet in eastern North Carolina. I made the mistake of standin’ up in the canoe with my .20-gauge, and the next thing ya know …”

  Cough … Gunner was half coughing and half laughing at Jackrabbit’s story. The ole warrior knew exactly what to say and when to say it.

  “Whoever pulled me out of the drink, thank you.”

  “Jung-Hoon did it, Commander,” Jackrabbit said. “You can thank him.”

  “He is a liar, Commander,” Jung-Hoon said. “He jumped in the water like an idiot after I warned him that you both would drown.”

  A laugh. Another cough. “Get that flashlight out of my face. You’re blinding me.”

  “Yes, sorry.”

  The light disappeared. After a while, after his eyes adjusted, Gunner looked up and saw a host of stars shining brilliantly across the late November sky. He remembered as a boy how his mother would come into his room at bedtime and throw open the curtains, and they would gaze at the stars in the southeastern Virginia skies. “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,” she would say.

  “Oh, no. We got more problems,” Jackrabbit said.

  “What now?” Gunner said.

  “Look out there.”

  Gunner pushed himself up into a sitting position and saw what Jackrabbit was pointing toward on the horizon. A beam of light out in the distance was sweeping back and forth, back and forth.

  “Looks like somebody’s look
in’ for somebody,” Jackrabbit said, “and my guess is that whoever they are, they aren’t the good guys.”

  “North Korean Navy,” Jung-Hoon said. “They probably spotted us on radar when we climbed to one thousand before our descent.”

  “Now what?” Gunner asked.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Jackrabbit said, “we sure aren’t gonna shine Jung-Hoon’s flashlight in that direction.”

  “Maybe we should crank the engine and get out of here,” Gunner said.

  “Where we gonna go?” Jackrabbit asked. “GPS says that’s the direction that we’ve got to go.” He pointed at the light. “We go back that way” — he pointed in the opposite direction — “and we’re headed to Japan. If we go any direction other than toward the light, we run out of gas, and we got no place to go. So what do we do?”

  “We sit and wait, hope they don’t come this way,” Jung-Hoon said.

  They waited, watching the light sweep back and forth in the distance.

  Gunner said, “I hate to tell you, but that light’s getting bigger and brighter. They’re coming this way.”

  Swooosh … swoosh …

  The wind had picked up. The swells had turned into waves that were carrying the boat up and down. The wind whistled and wheezed. Gunner looked over and saw Jackrabbit peering through binoculars at the sweeping searchlight.

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Commander,” Jackrabbit said. “That’s a ship headed in this direction.”

  “So are we going to sit here and let them find us?” Gunner asked.

  “You’re the Navy guy, Commander,” Jackrabbit said. “Me and Jung-Hoon here, we’re ole retired Army hacks. But we don’t have enough gas to go in any direction but one, and we can’t paddle very far. Look. It’s a big ocean, and this boat is black, and we’re all painted up in black. Even with that searchlight, it’s almost like looking for a needle in a haystack. I say we got no choice but to wait it out till they leave.”

  A faint roar came into earshot, just over the sound of the wind and waves. A mechanical roar.