by Dalton Fury
“Defect?” Slapshot asked. “When?”
“Right now,” Kolt said. “Hawk is going to escort him across the MDL.”
“We need ten minutes minimum to build the helos and perform safety-of-flight checks,” one of the Night Stalker pilots said.
“Just pin the blades and crank ’em,” Kolt said, “forget the safety checks.”
“We should have SpyLite downlink in another five mikes or so,” Slapshot said.
Kolt looked at Slapshot, happy he’d launched the UAV when he told him to and that he didn’t dick around and waste time simply because he was against it.
“What about the less-than-lethal stuff?” Digger asked as he held up his MAUL-rigged rifle.
“We are already kitted out with it,” Kolt said, “take it just in case.”
“What about Gangster?” Slapshot asked.
“I’ll call him myself,” Kolt said, “let’s get the Little Birds built.”
As the key leaders and pilots filed out the front door carrying Kolt’s orders to run the tails off the trailers, he dug the cell phone back out of his pocket. He knew they would be rolling the Little Birds off the back of the trailers one at a time, an exact reversal of how they were loaded at Osan Air Base. They would use the yak bar and ground-handling wheels to position them at the correct build-up before taking commands from the pilot to remove the wheels and raise each blade one at time using the blade pole. Reconfiguring them for flight required pinning the six main rotor blades in place and dropping the pods on both sides. Kolt wanted to help but they didn’t expect him to. In fact, he knew they expected him to notify Gangster and the J-staff about the development.
Kolt would get to Gangster, but he knew he needed to check some things first. He moved to the bar, to where JoJo was busy punching buttons on the remote video terminal, the portable and rugged laptop-looking box that would allow control of the SpyLite as it searched for Hawk.
“Any video images yet?” Kolt asked as he looked over JoJo’s back at the screen, hoping for some real-time intelligence.
“Just got it,” JoJo said, “fuzzy in flight but once I stabilize it in orbit it should clear up.”
Kolt opened his GTG of the JSA area. Graphed alphanumerically, it covered roughly a one-thousand-meter box that grabbed all the buildings along the MDL, including the two larger buildings in North Korea, which appeared to have an orange tint on the aerial.
He put his left forearm in front of JoJo. “Keep her on the South Korean side. Focus on these two buildings, in grid Charlie four and this one in Echo six.”
“Got it.”
“Pray this one doesn’t blink on us,” Kolt said.
“Or take a dive,” JoJo said.
“Roger, grab me when you’re over the buildings.”
Kolt turned and walked away from JoJo, toward the front windows of the Notri. He pulled out the cell again and scrolled to Gangster’s number, hitting the Call button as he paced the dance floor.
Three painfully long rings.
C’mon, answer the damn phone.
“What you got, Raynor?”
Kolt recognized the voice. “Hey, Curtis, Colonel Mahoney available?”
“Nope, tied up with Captain Yost and on a SAT call with the commanding general, I believe.”
“Roger. Didn’t know Yost was moving forward.” Kolt wasn’t necessarily surprised to hear the SEAL Team Six commander had joined the team at Inchon. He knew Webber, given the situation of the one killer force decision sitting in POTUS’s inbox, would be commanding the operation from down range, too.
“Just got here, getting briefed up now,” Curtis said.
“You guys aware of the change with Carrie?” Kolt asked.
“About changing buildings?” Curtis asked. “Yeah, she called us a while ago.”
“Old news,” Kolt said. “She is with Seamstress now.”
“Excellent. She tag him yet?”
“The train is a bust. He is defecting now,” Kolt said as he looked out a window at the commotion. Two of the four birds were already slowly spinning their blades, and port-side passenger pods were in the down position, ready for customers.
“What?” Curtis asked, obviously confused by Kolt’s comment. “When?”
“Now, as in right fucking now.”
“Whose fucking idea was that?” Curtis asked. “The SEALs are set, in a perfect position to execute this thing.”
“Seamstress’s call, Carrie just doing her best to get it done.”
“Shit, Raynor, I gotta tell Captain Yost and notify the embassy in Seoul.”
“Look, if shit goes bad, we’ll be ready to launch in about five minutes.”
“What about the SEALs?” Curtis asked. “You leaving them hanging?”
“We have enough z-bags on the trucks to refuel once,” Kolt said.
“Fuck, this is not good,” Curtis said.
“Just pass the update to Gangster and Yost, will ya?” Kolt watched one of his operators reach high, grab the edge of one of the six rotor blades, and throw it forward, manually free-spinning the blades to a third Little Bird.
“I will,” Curtis said. “Hey, wait. An intel update from Pine Gap was pushed to us a few minutes ago.”
“Send it,” Kolt said.
“Several of our analysts believe Seamstress knows more than just where the militarized nuke warheads are located.”
“Like what?”
“Like that the Iranian scientists completed their work over a month ago and that the missile test scheduled for a few days from now is just a diversion for something much worse.”
“How much fucking worse?”
“Like the warheads are already loaded on their ICBMs and they are prepared to strike the Pacific Fleet and Washington state.”
“What?” Kolt said, totally surprised by the news. “How good is the intel? Solid source?”
“Rock solid,” Curtis said. “Seamstress just became a no-fail recovery.”
Just then Kolt heard JoJo yelling from the bar.
“Boss, we got something. You better take a look.”
“Stand by, Curtis,” Kolt said as he speed-walked back to the bar.
Standing next to JoJo and looking at the screen, Kolt forced himself to blink several times. His mouth grew dry and he gaped. He forced it closed and swallowed heavily.
“Holy shit!” Kolt said. “What the hell is that?”
TWENTY-TWO
Joint Security Area, MDL
“Hawk?” JoJo asked.
Kolt stood right next to him, but he hesitated, not wanting to commit to confirming that the person they were zeroed in on, being dragged down the marble steps by three North Korean soldiers and onto the asphalt road, was in fact Cindy Bird. No, because Kolt knew saying that meant saying the mission was compromised. Saying that meant they had met the abort threshold and were at mission failure. No Seamstress, no intel dump about miniaturized nuclear warheads, and nothing to corroborate Myron Curtis’s latest message traffic about a secret missile launch on U.S. PAC Fleet bases. Kolt didn’t want to admit he was seeing Hawk, the Delta member Colonel Webber said was his responsibility. Hell no, he didn’t. For starters, because doing so pretty much ensured POTUS would shutter Delta. But worse, it pretty much ensured they were on the cusp of World War III.
“Zoom in closer,” Kolt said, stretching his neck toward the screen.
JoJo tapped the right arrow key several times, essentially closing the distance to the target area without switching the drone off autopilot and pushing its orbit closer.
Kolt focused on the body kicking and flailing in the middle of the street, a crowd of North Korean soldiers, a dozen or so gathering around, threatening to block the SpyLite’s vision. As much as he wanted to believe he was imagining things, maybe hoping to wake up from an Ambien-induced nightmare, he couldn’t argue with the definite contrast between the gray pantsuit and the hazel uniforms. And if not that, the daytime camera on the belly of the SpyLite was picking up the blond hair in liv
ing color.
“Fucking A right it’s her,” Kolt said, afraid to take his eyes from the video feed. “Get Slapshot in here; tell the boys to crank the birds.”
JoJo slipped from his bar seat and bolted for the front door, leaving Kolt alone.
Kolt leaned forward, tapping the right arrow twice, zooming in close enough to definitely determine sex. Hawk, now partially hidden in the lower right-hand corner behind the auto-adjusting lat-long coordinates and the camera’s center mass coordinates, was as noncompliant as a drug-crazed ex-con during a beat cop’s wife-beating response, pulling and kicking, trying to escape.
“Take it easy, Hawk,” Kolt whispered to himself as he felt Slapshot’s presence. “Don’t make it a big production.”
Just then, Hawk raised her right knee at an odd Heisman-like angle as if she were in the middle of the P90X Cardio X and kung fu kicked out to her side, connecting with the ribcage of one of her accosters. He buckled over, and his bus driver cap fell to the street. Hawk brought her foot back in tight, raised her knee again straight up before slamming her nude-tone heels down on another soldier’s left instep. Both released their grip, leaving only one soldier still holding her by the left arm.
Well, shit! Kolt flinched and tightened his abs as if he could feel the impact. Seeing Hawk fight back in heels didn’t surprise Kolt. If she asked, Kolt would recommend passive resistance, maybe settle down and garner some pity, but who was he to judge?
The third soldier reached up with his right hand, grabbing a handful of blond hair from behind her head, and yanked it backward. Hawk didn’t hesitate as she rotated her body counterclockwise to bump chests before delivering a textbook short stroke throat punch, forcing the soldier to release her hair and arm as he dropped to the street like a sack of rocks.
Kolt smiled for a few seconds, figuring the soldiers had expended all the female courtesies they would give today, expecting them to gang tackle her any second.
Then, Kolt realized there must be a sergeant in charge out there, because someone issued a command. He couldn’t be positive, but the North Korean soldiers moved into a single rank, placing themselves shoulder to shoulder in a straight line, positioned between Hawk and the building they had exited behind them. It looked almost as if they were finished with Hawk, maybe satisfied with having removed her from the building, but now preparing to protect something.
Hawk backpedaled several steps, still clutching her purse but leaning to the right, half-barefoot, having left one heel behind. She put about thirty feet between herself and the problem, and put her right hand to her ear as if she was checking for blood.
Kolt looked back at the troops in line, half the group now offscreen. He tapped the back arrow key twice, zooming out to capture Hawk, the full line of soldiers, and the stairs of the building. The guards’ legs were now spread shoulder-width apart, and Kolt watched them draw their sidearms in unison. They raised the pistols to the ready position, muzzles up near their right shoulders, as if someone was giving commands to an execution squad.
Shit!
Kolt’s cell buzzed, startling him into taking his eyes off the downlink feed. He yanked it out just as Slapshot arrived.
Hawk?!
Kolt tapped the Answer button. “Hawk, get out of there!”
“Where are you guys?” Hawk said, her words coming in a rush.
“We’re about to launch,” Kolt said, looking back at the screen and now seeing she was making a phone call. “Get back to the MDL, to the South Korean guards.”
“They have Seamstress, Kolt,” Hawk said. “I tagged him but they might find the RRDs. They think I was confronting him about the regime’s human rights record!”
“Fuck it!” Kolt said. “Get moving, we’re coming.”
Just as Kolt turned to walk away from the video image and head toward the Little Birds he heard Slapshot say something.
“Boss, is that Seamstress?”
Kolt turned back, stepped closer to the bar, and tapped the right arrow to zoom closer. Four or five other North Korean soldiers, one with a different style cap than the others, were dragging a shorter penguin down the same marble steps.
“Who the fuck knows?” Kolt said.
“Who else could it be?” Slapshot countered.
Hawk obviously could hear the two operators talking and jumped in. “Yes, that’s him. We are so busted!”
“Stand by, Hawk,” Kolt said, not necessarily because he had a solution, but more to give him time to think.
Kolt and Slapshot watched as the soldiers reached the bottom step and then gained the asphalt. They began dragging the man away from the line of troops, down the street and deeper into North Korea.
Think, Kolt, think!
Kolt ran the situation through his head quickly, searching for an answer he wasn’t sure he would find. He knew Seamstress was now a dead man walking, soon to face a firing squad if he was lucky, or maybe the dogs if not. With no RRD tag, the chances of the SEALs finding him on the train were shot, if he was even put back on the train. Maybe they would just put a few rounds in the traitor’s head and leave him on the side of the road.
“What about the Q dots?” Slapshot asked Kolt.
“The quantum dots,” Kolt said, speaking to Hawk, “did you use them?”
“I didn’t have time,” Hawk said.
Just then, the front hood of a dark-colored vehicle entered the screen at the top. Kolt zoomed out several layers, revealing two four-doors parked up the road, maybe a football field or so away from Hawk and the execution party. By now, the soldiers manhandling Seamstress were halfway there.
“Exfil vehicles for sure, boss,” Slapshot said.
Kolt didn’t have any more time to think it through, not another second to run the options through some risk-assessment matrix, no fucking time to waste on building a PowerPoint CONOP to present to Gangster. He needed to do something, anything. Anything but continue to stand there offering no solutions to the problem.
“Hawk, where are the dots?”
“In my pockets still,” Hawk said as she backpedaled a few more steps away from the line of upset North Korean troops.
“Use them now!” Kolt said, seeing Slapshot cut his eyes from the screen to him.
“What?” Hawk asked. “It’s too late, Kolt, they have Seamstress. He’s gone.”
“No, Hawk, hear me out,” Kolt said, taking inventory of his inflection, careful not to amp Hawk up even more.
“Use your gun, Hawk,” Kolt said. “You can make that throw.”
Kolt felt Slapshot cock his head, confused by the last comment. “Gun, dude?”
“She’s got a rocket arm,” Kolt said, “got her nickname from shagging bombs as a kid.”
“Are you serious?” Hawk said as she threw her left arm in the air, obviously shocked at what she had just heard through her Bluetooth. “Stop oppressing your people!” Hawk shouted, doing her best to keep up her cover as a crazed delegate.
Kolt knew Hawk had three strikes at it. All she had to do was reach into her pockets and pull out the quantum dots, the three plastic eggs disguised as bottles of cologne, a gift from the Swedish delegation for their North Korean hosts.
“You have three tries, Hawk,” Kolt said, “no different than gunning down a runner on third from the warning track in deep center.”
“I can’t make that throw, Kolt,” Hawk said, her voice quivering, practically refusing to even try.
“I know you can,” Kolt countered. “You did it dozens of times as a kid with your dad. Gun it once more.”
“Christ, Kolt, they’ll fucking shoot her if she pulls that shit,” Slapshot said.
“Aw shit, you’re right,” Kolt said, resigned. “Forget that, Hawk, you probably don’t have it anymore anyway.”
“Damn you, Kolt Raynor,” Hawk said.
Before Kolt could reply, letting her know he really didn’t mean the cheap shot questioning her skills, a pack of suits burst from the front door of the orange building and hurried down the s
teps. At least a dozen, all in civilian dress, mostly black over black. The crowd moved around the intimidating firing party and toward Hawk.
Hawk reached into her jacket pockets.
“No she isn’t,” Slapshot said, pushing his face a little closer to the screen.
Kolt didn’t respond, just watched the show almost in a paralyzed state, afraid to believe that Hawk might just attempt the throw.
“Hawk!” Kolt said into his cell. “Don’t push it.”
Hawk clutched one Q-dot in her left hand and two in her strong hand before stepping away from the rest of the gathering delegation. She figured that by tossing two on the first go she was bound to hit Seamstress.
Kolt heard Hawk speak in a normal, relaxed tone as if she had calmed down.
“Bottom of the seventh, tied score, winning run on third,” Hawk said as she took two steps toward the thugs dragging Seamstress, now thirty feet or so from the safety of the vehicles.
Kolt updated Slapshot, both locked on the remote video screen. “She is going for it.”
Hawk raised her hands chest level, cupped them as if the ball was hidden in the glove hand. She led with her left foot, the one still in the nude-tone heel, and crow-hopped with her bare right foot. In one smooth motion, she rotated at the waist, raised her throwing arm, and rifled the Q dots on a perfect horizontal.
Kolt and Slapshot watched them fly but couldn’t tell where they hit.
Hawk turned quickly toward the crowd. Kolt could hear them screaming but couldn’t understand what they were saying. Two men in dark suits ran toward Hawk just as the line of North Korean troops pointed their pistols at Hawk. The men stopped, apparently afraid to get too close to their wacked-out and obnoxious Swedish colleague.
“Shit!” Kolt said as he heard a gunshot through his cell. “Shots fired!”
“Leave it alone, Hawk!” Kolt yelled into his cell.
But Hawk was either not listening or ignoring Kolt now. She reached down with her left hand and ripped the remaining heel off, dropping it as if she was about to hit a hot shower.
“Free North Korea!” Hawk screamed at Seamstress, doing her best to explain her insane behavior.