by Dalton Fury
“Hawk, acknowledge,” Kolt demanded. “Abort the fucking op!”
By now, Kolt was certain the Swedish delegation was in full shock. Their American colleague’s actions had not only broken up an important meeting, but threatened to get them all killed. And at the moment, Hawk no longer seemed to give two shits.
Hawk ran several steps closer to Seamstress, likely trying to improve her odds. Now barefooted, her movements looked pure and effortless. Hawk grabbed the remaining Q dot from her left hand, pulled her purse off her shoulder and dropped it to the street, then cupped her hands together again, going into another full windup. She turned her left shoulder toward home plate, crow-hopped, and uncorked a two-seam fastball directly at Seamstress. Just as she got the throw off, several North Korean soldiers grabbed her and forced her to the street. Now on her belly, her hands held behind her back, Hawk sent a final OPSKED over Bluetooth.
“I send Toyota.”
Camp Greaves, South Korea
“We launching, boss?” Slapshot asked.
“Aww, shit,” Kolt said as he watched Cindy Bird lifted to her feet, surrounded by North Korean guards and what he figured were both the South Korean and Swedish delegations. “I don’t know, man, the train or Hawk?”
“Looks like Hawk might be going to jail, but hopefully on this side of the border,” Slapshot said.
Kolt realized Hawk was being marched south, toward the original meeting building and the MDL.
“Get JoJo to pass Toyota to Inchon. Let the SEALs know he is tagged, but with the Q dots and not the RRDs. Their sensor won’t help.”
Kolt rubbed his short-haired beard nervously several times. He ran his fingers through his hair, flipping it out of his eyes, even though the first time did it. He turned away from the SpyLite’s remote video terminal to see Slapshot leaving the building, out to get JoJo to pull up green SAT and update Gangster, and in turn, Kleinsmith and his men, that Hawk had done her part.
It had been a long time since he turned down an opportunity to launch with his men. But he knew he had a larger responsibility now, as a squadron commander, to respect the chain of command. Slapshot might not like it, but he sensed his longtime partner understood. If Gangster wanted Kolt and the QRF to launch, he’d order them to. And in the absence of orders, even though Hawk’s performance was dicey, the situation was still under control. Launching helos across the DMZ in broad daylight required more than Hawk losing her cool. As long as she stayed true to her cover, Kolt figured she’d come out of it okay.
Kolt consciously felt for his cell phone, wondering if he should have just called instead of having JoJo pass the news over satellite. He turned back to the screen, and not seeing the crowd, reached for the arrow to zoom out.
Holy fuck!
Kolt leaped toward the bar and grabbed the video terminal with both hands. Careful not to inadvertently hit any buttons that might send the SpyLite barnstorming into North Korea, he turned toward his kit in the corner near the front door. Carrying the laptop over his left forearm like a newborn baby, he scooped up his assault vest, K-pot, and HK with his right hand and bolted for the front door.
TWENTY-THREE
Military Demarcation Line
Hawk looked back toward the mess she’d just broken free of. The North Korean guards were pushing the business-suited delegation members out of the way, helping each other to their feet, one guard even throwing Hawk’s pinstripe to the ground, another still supine, holding his left elbow.
Several pointed her way, their hands bobbing accusingly as if fingering a fan who might have interfered with a fly ball that was clearly playable by a hustling third baseman. She turned back, eyes on the path, consciously concerned about small unseen pebbles in the street gouging the bottom of her bare feet as she bolted for the safety of South Korean territory.
Not worried about having had her pantsuit jacket torn from her torso, she was just happy to have the elbow room to go full forty-yard sprint mode. She held on to her cell with her left hand as she held the Bluetooth to her ear with her right.
Her CrossFit legs pulled four more long but delicate strides before she turned again. Now their pistols were raised, probably slowing them a little, and they were screaming at her in undecipherable Korean, but no question: they were coming for her.
And fast.
No way, motherfuckers.
Hawk turned and eyed the center light blue buildings, the ones that straddled north and south territory evenly, and scanned for cover. Gunshots rang out. She instinctively ducked, fully expecting at least one of the North Korean guards’ rounds to ventilate her torn mauve joy blouse. Nothing.
They all missed? The body is an acceptable bullet trap. They couldn’t all have missed.
Hawk heard the shots, no doubt, but didn’t hear the crack she knew always followed in a millisecond as the supersonic rounds screamed past a target’s head. She knew the old pistols likely held shit ammo, with less stopping power than modern munitions, but she was still close enough to eat one. Hawk tried to increase her stride—even another inch could make a difference—but her shoeless feet weren’t agreeing with the hard asphalt.
“Kolt! Kolt!” she screamed, hopeful the Bluetooth connection was somehow still active. “Answer me, damn it!”
Hawk stopped as she reached the first piece of ballistically suitable cover, a place that would provide enough mass to absorb the small-arms bullets.
Now standing in the sand bed, just around the corner of the center blue MAC building that straddled the MDL, Hawk bent over. She opened her mouth wide to grab air, panting desperately as her aortic valves pumped at time and a half, her sensory and motor neurons jousting like medieval knights preventing her from another step.
Hawk looked up and peered around the building corner, hoping the air-conditioning unit would help conceal her from her pursuers.
Still closing.
She turned her head toward South Korea, still thirty feet or so behind her, the exact line marked by a short concrete slab running from building to building, paralleling the MDL. Surprised, no, shocked to not see any shiny black helmets with thick white stripes, the helmets of South Korean guards that she might signal for help. Worse, no sign of U.S. Army troops behind her, armed soldiers that might help her to safety. The anticipated safety of South Korea didn’t look so certain as she saw only the empty space of the five marble steps and three double glass doors of the massive Freedom House.
Shit!
Hawk knew she couldn’t stop, no way, but she also knew that if she simply busted across the MDL without warning, she’d be stitched from cleavage to groin. She had already created an international incident, and even though word doesn’t travel that fast, American JSA sharpshooters aim small and hit small.
But, debate too long now and she risked being grabbed again. And if the grudge-holding North Koreans got her in their clutches again, it would be curtains for sure. She had already proven too squirrely to hold on to and figured the North Koreans would simply line up their iron sights and execute her on the spot. Her act of love-crazed groupie had no doubt been viewed an act of espionage against the people of the DPRK. There was no stopping now, not on Gangster’s sync matrix and not on hers.
She quickly looked around, left then right, then whipped her head to her six again, hoping like hell to finally catch a glimpse of a few rifle-bearing South Korean or U.S. Army soldiers holding the line. She knew they had to have heard the earlier gunshots.
Where the hell is everyone? Where the hell is Kolt?
Hawk pied the corner, staying low behind the air conditioner, stealing one last look into North Korea before she knew she’d turn for the dark gravel bed that marked southern soil. If her pursuers planned to stop short of crossing the line, they sure weren’t telegraphing their intentions. Without a weapon, she’d throw her hands into the sky surrender style and take her chances in South Korea.
Get moving, Hawk!
She heard the crack of two more rounds, but this time from behind he
r. She winced in pain, grabbed her right shoulder, and dropped prone to the sand next to the spray of blood drops that had beaten her there. She turned her head, her blond bangs barely obscuring the reflection from broken glass that had been blasted from the windowsill, now drawing her attention like a proctor is drawn to a performing class clown in the middle of a final exam. She looked up, toward the window, and directly into the business end of two smoking Czech CZ-82s double-gripped by two menacing and very serious-looking North Korean soldiers.
Party over!
* * *
Kolt Raynor quickly looked up from the remote video terminal, his thighs holding it tight by the edges as they sped toward the objective area at 152 knots, practically skidding across the treetops and happy mounds. He barely spotted the oddball rooftop of the Freedom House, the tallest building on the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area, and knew they were less than a minute out.
He gave one more glance at the screen, saw the video image of Hawk in a crowd between two of the three blue one-story buildings, and tapped in the four-number code to auto the SpyLite to its programmed recovery location.
He spun on his ass, reached behind him from the Little Bird’s port-side external pod, and set the SpyLite laptop into the belly of Breaker Four-One. He pushed it as deep as he could, betting it wouldn’t catch wind from under the auxiliary fuel tank, and called it good. He reached up to grab his Oakley goggles resting on his helmet, just above the plastic NVG mount, yanked on the elastic band, and dropped them in front of his eyes.
“Uhhhhh … say again last?” CW3 Stew Weeks, the Night Stalker air mission commander requested from the bubble cockpit only a few feet from Kolt. Weeks’s tone revealed he wasn’t all that fired up about Kolt’s last directive, certainly because he had no idea what the flight conditions were at the JSA or how hot the landing zone might be. Without understanding a multitude of factors, like airspeed, temperature, and density altitude, the customer was asking for a high-fidelity maneuver with a dozen potential problems.
“I say again,” Kolt said, pausing a moment after he keyed his hand mike, “put us on the X, directly east of the center blue building.”
Kolt looked at the GRG on his left forearm showing a color satellite photo of Hawk’s original meeting spot. He pulled a red pencil crayon from his vest, steadied his left forearm against the headwind, and drew an X exactly where he’d last seen Hawk on her back, with several North Korean soldiers only a few feet away. He slid the quarterback armband over his gloved left hand, leaned forward on the pod, and shoved it into the doorless cockpit, far enough to touch Weeks’s left shoulder, just above the subdued American flag.
Weeks tilted his head down, his eyes hidden behind the smoke-colored face shield. Kolt figured he saw the GRG and probably the red X, by the shake of his head.
“Doubt I can clear the roof lines,” Weeks transmitted over Helo common.
Kolt grabbed his push-to-talk. “Just get us close, Stew. Put two on the north side, buzz them as if on a VI,” he said, referencing a vertical interdiction. “Keep one in overwatch.”
“Um, roger,” Weeks said, pausing for a few seconds, letting Kolt know he wasn’t entirely buying the hasty plan.
Kolt figured not only was Weeks hesitant about the X location, but asking him, the air mission commander, to put his other chalks, Breaker Four-Two, Four-Three, and Four-Four, into North Korea as if they were executing a vertical vehicle interdiction was off-the-charts suicidal. A moving vehicle was easy, they had standard procedures for those type of interdictions. What Kolt was asking for was anything but standard.
A few seconds later, Kolt and anyone else monitoring Helo Common heard the call.
“This is Breaker Four-One, I’m leading to the X. Four-Two bank wide right off me, then swing around from the east and buzz the blue buildings on the north side, break.”
Kolt heard Weeks unkey his mike, hearing an audible click, then rekey to talk. “Four-Three follow Two, Four-Four aerial support. Standard offset VI formation for the customer.”
As Kolt heard each pilot acknowledge the play he let out some air, and turned his MBITR radio back to his assault net.
“All elements, this is Noble Zero-One,” Kolt said, knowing now was not the time for comms problems. “Eagle down between the blue buildings. I’ve got the SA so I’ve got the X, everyone else is buzzing the north side but staying airborne.”
Kolt knew the order he’d just given his operators, arguably just as crazy of a command as he had issued in Ukraine about the Spetsnaz uniforms, at least one that meant anything, had to raise some eyebrows underneath the Ops-Core helmets and Oakleys on the other three birds. Kolt got it. He was a squadron commander now. His focus should be big-picture stuff, working external assets and friendly units, and coordinating contingencies. His days as Mike One-One, those glory years running as a troop commander, were long gone. Every member of Noble Squadron knew Kolt Raynor was the last guy that should be at the center of the X. Even Kolt knew it, which is why Kolt added the SA part to his last transmission, letting his men know that with the SpyLite feed, his helo had the only situational awareness of Hawk’s exact location.
From the other side of the Breaker Four-One, Slapshot broke in. “We going in dirty, boss?”
TWENTY-FOUR
Hawk’s fight-or-flight senses immediately drove her back to a knee, but the shock held her like a straitjacket, preventing her from running. She ran the options.
Run for it or give it up? Maybe I can hold true to my cover?
Hawk knew she wasn’t hard compromised. She was absolutely sure her name tag, written in Hangul, said Carrie Tomlinson, Swedish delegation, not Cindy Bird, wannabe operator from the U.S. Army Delta Force. Sure, she had just been busted in the men’s room, escorted out of the meeting. Had she left things alone then, she might have been directed back to the MDL without any more concern. The North Korean delegation, hell the South Korean delegation, would surely register a formal complaint about the actions of a female member of the Swedish delegation. Yes, a slap on the wrist, but manageable. But muscling the three North Korean guards before throwing things at their fellow thugs dragging a traitor to some vehicles only fed the shitstorm, definitely meeting the guards’ threshold to draw their weapons and drop the hammers.
Hawk looked at her shoulder, her blouse now crimson red, blood oozing between her fingers as she held direct pressure. It wasn’t a through and through, this she was certain of. She tried to slip her cell into her pants pocket several times before remembering her wardrobe disadvantage. She quickly slipped it into her skin-hugging black bra, down to the nipple, hoping her firm 34Cs would keep it secure.
Stand up slowly, Hawk, don’t push it.
That was it, she had thought enough, and decided in an instant caution was the better part of valor. She did her job, Seamstress was tagged. She had seen the third Q dot find its mark, impacting directly between the shoulder blades of the back of Seamstress’s ruffled black suit coat. She had saved another game from the warning track, gunning down that runner on third barreling toward home plate in the bottom of the ninth.
No, now was not the time to let perfect be the enemy of good enough. She’d end it now, raise her hands in surrender, and prepare to stay in the circle.
Hawk looked back toward the Freedom House. A flash of movement drew her.
About time!
Several South Korean soldiers had slipped into firing positions at the top of the marble stairs. Their black domes were barely peeking over the concrete benches and flowerpots, every bit the “Kilroy was here” impression. She didn’t spot any long guns, but their drawn pistols were encouraging enough. Waving at others unseen by Hawk was all the better.
Hawk heard a faint buzzing sound, as if a swarm of killer bees had just joined the party. Though she was initially unable to place it, the sound registered as a remote-controlled drone. She looked up, but the overhanging corrugated rooflines of the two buildings blocked much of her vision of the sky.
&
nbsp; She swiveled her head back toward North Korea, running her eyes up the marble stairs of North Korea’s version of the ROK Freedom House. At the top of the stairs, uniformed North Korean troops were busting out of Panmon Hall’s two wooden front double doors, two at a time.
What about the RRDs?
In an instant, Hawk realized surrendering wouldn’t work. They’d find the RRDs on Seamstress. They’d put two and two together. Practicing her peacetime detention techniques briefed well, until her unimpressed interrogators shoved the RRDs in front of her face. Playing her cover until she was blue in the face or not, she was guilty of espionage, pure and simple. And, once that was decided, she’d lose her head before POTUS pulled enough diplomatic rabbit tricks to secure her release.
Back at Fort Bragg, shitting herself in the Black Ice box had lasted only seventy-two hours. Nadal the Romanian’s henchmen had their way with her for a month inside a forgotten bedbug-infested hooker’s motel. No, isolation wasn’t all the rage these days, and in an instant, she decided she wasn’t going there again.
Okay, Cindy Bird, potential Delta operator, you’re trained how to think, not what to think.
Hawk released her wounded deltoid and dug her bloody thirty-five-dollar fingernails into the sand. She raked out a handful, and pivoted on her knee.
Don’t miss!
Hugging the building, Hawk threw the sand through the broken window, the bulk of it flying center mass between the light blue curtains. Enough of the sand grains found the eyes of the two North Korean soldiers and they flinched, one squeezing off another round that blew past Hawk’s Bluetooth, missing her locks by a gnat’s ass before ricocheting off the steel grating covering the concrete gutter on the opposite side of the open area.
Hawk broke for the concrete pad of the MDL. Immediately, broken glass sliced into her left heel, then into the ball of her right foot.
Just three, maybe two more steps from the gravel side, bullets stitched the sand around her feet. But one found its mark, striking her in the left calf, her forward momentum carrying her across the line and sending her barreling face-first, like Pete Rose in his peak years, into the gravel.