by Dalton Fury
“Those are not mine,” Kang said. “This I am sure of.”
“They were in your coat pockets.”
Kang recalled the American woman back in the men’s room. She had put the two devices on the bathroom floor. Kang was certain he wasn’t handed the devices, but vaguely recalled the women sticking both her hands into his coat pockets after they stood up. Yes, he now realized, she must be responsible.
Kang slumped forward, his shoulders dropped toward the floor. Denying the obvious was futile, he knew as much.
“May I have a sidearm?” Kang asked. “Allow me an honorable death.”
Just then, the train slammed to a stop, knocking Kang off balance and tumbling him to the floor. Kang saw the heavier Pak stumble into one of the guards, both of them falling into the small side table. The screeching of the electric wheels was easily heard from inside the armored train.
One of the guards set the stool upright and helped Kang back to his seat.
“Blindfold the collaborator,” Pak said.
The blindfold, still knotted in behind his head, was roughly slipped back over Kang’s head and pushed down to cover his eyes.
Kang heard the forward door of the train car open. There was commotion for sure, several people moving quickly across the carpet.
“Saboteurs!”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Breaker Four-One led the four-ship formation northeast, hugging the railroad tracks at just over twenty-feet above ground level. The sky was clear and blue, ceiling and visibility unlimited, with the temperature comfortably in the low nineties. Kolt gave an approving nod as he felt the Little Bird slow, happy Chief Weeks had powered back to roughly fifty knots forward air speed. No need to rush headlong into an ambush before they had time to figure out the situation.
Kolt looked behind him, leaned out slightly to see around JoJo on the pod next to him, and spotted the other three black helos mirroring Weeks’s altitude and speed. Focusing beyond Breaker Four-Four, the trail bird, Kolt noticed the small ridgeline they had passed less than a minute ago was now blocking their view of Objective Bear and the disabled train.
“Good spot on next train,” Weeks transmitted, forcing Kolt to whip his helmeted head back to twelve o’clock. “Looks stopped.”
Kolt squinted, held his hand above his eyes to shade them from the sun’s bright light, and picked up the orange engine. The train was stopped, dead on the tracks, and Kolt noticed what looked like a few North Korean troops standing outside, mingling around. Several guards were posted up and down the track, spread out on both sides of the track every so often and roughly thirty feet from the train. Kolt studied them, surprised by their demeanor. The guards were facing away from the five train cars at a rigid position of attention as if they were pulling perimeter security at Hugh Hefner’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Party at the Playboy Mansion.
“We spooked them,” Weeks said.
Kolt watched the guards turn around and jog back to the train. Something was happening, no doubt, but their actions looked rehearsed, almost routine. Kolt wasn’t convinced they heard or saw the Little Birds approaching. In the distance, maybe a half mile beyond the train, Kolt saw what he was sure was the top of the Kaesong Station main building.
“Let’s sit down for a minute,” Gangster said. “We need to have some dialogue.”
“Roger,” Weeks said. “Trail formation, pit stop.”
Damn it, Gangster!
Kolt felt Weeks lift the bird’s nose, slowing his air speed to safely set her on the deck. Gangster’s command decision irritated the hell out of Kolt, but at the moment, what he was seeing didn’t give him much impetus to counter Gangster’s call.
“She’s moving,” Slapshot said from the opposite outer pod, “heading away from us.”
Kolt looked hard, immediately seeing Slapshot was right. “Stay airborne, Stew, stay airborne.”
“Roger,” Weeks said, as if he wasn’t bothered in the least about being jerked around by two nagging mothers.
Kolt thought it through, trying to analyze what he was seeing and develop a quick course of action on the fly. Whatever he came up with wouldn’t be easy, but he didn’t have a lot of time to debate it.
“Options?” Kolt asked over the net, willing to accept any half-decent course of action his men or, at this point, even Gangster might have.
Kolt paused for a few moments, waiting for a response. Nothing.
Finally, Gangster broke in.
“Seamstress is in there. Best to wait until it stops and then isolate.”
That’s it? That’s the input? You thought Seamstress was on the first train.
Kolt didn’t entirely disagree with Gangster, as he assumed Seamstress was on the second train, too. Still, Gangster’s wait-and-see course of action wasn’t going to get it done. Kolt firmly believed allowing the train to return to the station evened the odds. If the North Koreans had time to consolidate and develop a defense plan, given their armored protection and scores of armed troops on board, possibly more armed North Koreans back at Kaesong Station, the risk to the force escalated off the charts. Doctrinally, special operations forces don’t play even Steven. Moreover, even though Kolt agreed the target was the middle train, the one currently headed east back to Kaesong, he knew nobody could be sure where Seamstress was.
Kolt keyed his mike to transmit his orders over the assault net. “All elements, this is Noble Zero-One, Black Snake, Black Snake.”
Kolt didn’t bother waiting for a reply before he sent his next command. He knew they would understand he wanted to approach the target in its blind spot, sneak up from the rear as if they were approaching a hijacked aircraft on a dark tarmac single file and dressed in black.
“I need Four-Four to take flight lead and put down on the pulling engine. Four-One has the first green passenger car, Four-Two take the middle one, Four-Three the third. Everyone flows to middle car.”
“This is Breaker Four-One, roger all,” Stew Weeks said. “Four-Four take lead.”
Kolt continued. “Controlled approach along the north side. All elements put a SIMON round through a window and follow it with ferret rounds. Then put down on the roofs and get inside.”
Kolt picked up Breaker Four-Four maneuvering past his helo to take the lead as Weeks went nose down to increase forward air speed.
“Nods down,” Slapshot said. “Call out the Q dot crystals if you spot them.”
As the formation rapidly approached the rear of the slow-moving train, Kolt keyed on the three green passenger cars with yellow stripes and silver roofs. Each car had what looked like three gray roof hatches protruding skyward a foot or so, and he wondered if inserting through the roof was more viable than the personnel doors near the train couplers.
Twenty seconds later, three Little Birds pulled abreast of their respective target cars, just far enough away to prevent the Little Birds’ main rotor span from striking the side of the green armored cars. Kolt knew his operators on the port-side pods were peering through the pinholes in their night vision goggles’ plastic lens caps that protected them from the bright sunlight. With any luck, one of his men would spot the Q dot crystals inside a window.
Kolt looked down, figured they were moving ten, maybe fifteen miles an hour. He noticed they crossed a major two-lane highway that ran northwest, as the four birds hugged a single hard dirt road that ran along the north side of the train tracks.
“I see it!” Gangster said. “Positive ID of the Q dot.”
“Roger that,” Slapshot said, “eyes on. Middle car, second-to-last window.”
Kolt strained to locate the Q dot crystals himself, trying to get a view through the cockpit, but Weeks’s body in the right front seat blocked his view. Kolt leaned backward, hoping to have better luck looking through the cabin, but again, his vision was blocked, this time by Gangster, who was on both knees, practically leaning on the backs of Slapshot and Digger, like some kind of photo bomber.
Kolt saw Digger had removed his suppressor and wa
s now sliding the thirty-inch-long SIMON grenade’s tail fin assembly over the muzzle end of his HK416. Beyond Digger, Kolt now saw their proximity to the train. Even though they had the optimal angle on the windows for the standoff rifle grenade to work, he worried they might be closer than the minimum arming distance of the 150-grain munition.
“SIMONS!” Kolt said, “Fire the SIMONS!”
“Shit!” Slapshot said. “Compromise, compromise!”
Kolt tensed on the pod, bracing for what he had worried about. If Slapshot was calling compromise before any operators were able to put boots on the passenger car roofs, Kolt knew the assault was going sideways quick.
Just then, Kolt heard a massive and sustained amount of automatic fire. He knew it wasn’t friendly. Dozens of 7.62 x 39 mm full-metal-jacketed bullets, the distinct cartridge of the Chinese knockoff Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle, ripped through the sky.
“I’m hit!”
Shit! Slapshot.
“Shots fired!” Weeks transmitted. “Breaker Four-One taking fire.”
Kolt leaned forward on the pod, testing the tensile strength of his safety line, and noticed the bubble cockpit’s glass now heavily spidered in several places, telling him bullets had torn through the windows. He couldn’t tell if Weeks had been hit, but marveled at his nerve, knowing the seasoned 160th pilot would hold his position to allow his customers to continue the assault until his last breath, or until gravity took over.
Kolt heard more AK fire, easily discernable over the Little Bird’s Rolls-Royce turboshaft.
“Four-One is out!”
Kolt felt Weeks go vertical in an instant, lifting the bird above the train and slipping it to the south, obviously trying to clear the kill zone and looking for safety. Now able to see all three green passenger cars, Kolt recognized the problem. North Korean soldiers, still in their brown saucer caps with red bands wrapped around the brim, had popped up outside the roof hatches. They still had their rifles in their hands, oddly with silver bayonets fixed, still aiming at the formation of Little Birds that had jumped to the south side of the track and were climbing away.
Out of his peripheral vision, Kolt picked up his communicator, JoJo, sitting immediately behind Kolt in the starboard pod. JoJo’s rifle was horizontal, stock fully seated in his shoulder pocket, and placing well-aimed fire on the enemy troops. Kolt felt two of JoJo’s spent brass cartridges hit his left shoulder as he lifted his own rifle to engage. Before he could get a round off, the North Koreans dropped out of sight, some leaving the gray hatches up, some closing them behind them.
“Slapshot,” Kolt said, safing his weapon, “status?”
“Damn, I took one. Digger, too.”
Kolt turned around on the pod, leaned back to look through the cabin, trying to assess the damage. Digger was buckled over at the waist, his green nylon safety line taut but still holding him to the pod. Slapshot had both hands on the back of Digger’s tan assault vest, holding tight to his flash-bang pouch mounted just below the back of his neck.
Son of a bitch!
Kolt’s attention was drawn closer, now toward Gangster, who was lying on his back and not moving.
Kolt yelled. “Gangster!”
Realizing he couldn’t be heard, Kolt frantically reached for his push-to-talk. “Gangster, you good?”
No response.
Kolt strained to assess Gangster’s wounds but couldn’t see where he was hit or if his eyes were open. Slapshot had righted Digger and was able to lean his upper body back into the cabin. JoJo had unhooked and was now using hard points on the cabin floor to pull himself into the cabin near Gangster.
“Four-Four is Lame Duck!”
Damn!
The mission was going to shit in a hurry.
“This is Noble Zero-One, I need a status from all elements!”
“Breaker Four-Two is Lame Duck, losing pedals and collective slipping,” the pilot said. “Several wounded Eagles on board.”
“Breaker Four-Three is up.”
As Kolt processed the data points, trying to assess what he was dealing with, he looked back toward the five-car train, still moving east and picking up speed.
Kolt began to hyperventilate, his chest rising rapidly, beating against the ceramic plate that had saved his life not more than an hour ago at Panmunjom. At that moment, assessing the situation, he knew they were razor close to abort threshold, and in turn, mission failure.
With several wounded operators and two of the four MH-6M Little Birds no longer airworthy, Kolt knew he was out of options. He hesitated to key his mike, resisting the urge to send a command he hadn’t done in all his years in Delta. In fact, a command that he himself had ignored on more than one occasion, somehow coming out on top each time after the smoke cleared.
Kolt knew there had to be another way; there always was. He just needed time to solve the problem. Likely not even a minute. Seconds would likely do it.
Focus, Kolt, focus.
“Four-Four is Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”
That was it. Kolt knew a 160th pilot wouldn’t make a Mayday call unless shit was bad, unless he had run through every last troubleshooting option, flicked every emergency toggle, pushed every recovery button, and applied every piece of insider knowledge they had gained over the years to trick their helicopter into doing things the manufacturer placed warning stickers about. Kolt knew now he had no choice but to make the call.
“This is Noble Zero-One,” Kolt said, before pausing for a long second. “Abort, abort, abort!”
“Roger,” Chief Stew Weeks repeated. “Abort, abort, abort!”
Kolt stole one more look back at the train. It had traveled another hundred meters or so farther away, and closer to the station. He focused on the roof hatches, making sure none of his operators or the Little Birds were going to get stuck again by a North Korean sharpshooter.
Just as he was satisfied they were safe to return to base, heading back to the DMZ and on to the JOC at Inchon, Kolt picked up on the shiny top of two black vehicles moving in the opposite direction of the train. He followed them until they cleared the rear train engine, now able to observe both sedans and their shadows against the light brown dirt road and partially green hills in the background. For some reason they looked familiar.
Kolt studied the vehicles, vaguely hearing Stew Weeks transmit his four helos’ status back to the JOC. Kolt turned around, saw that his helo was now in trail, following the others southwest. Two of the Little Birds were definitely damaged, thick gray and black smoke billowing from the main rotor on one and the tail boom rotor on another. He wondered if they’d make it back across the border before they lost enough fuel or oil, locking the controls and forcing at best a controlled crash landing.
Kolt turned back to the two black sedans, still unable to place their familiarity.
Motherfucker!
In an instant, Kolt recognized the vehicles. Yes, he was certain they were the same two vehicles that he had seen on the SpyLite’s video downlink from the Notri. The same two vehicles the North Korean guards at the DMZ had dragged Seamstress to after Hawk was muscled outside the meeting building.
“Stew, target spotted due north. Two black sedans.”
“Uhhh,” Weeks transmitted, “we’re combat ineffective at this time. Two birds limping as it is.”
“Hear me out,” Kolt said. “Let Four-Three escort the two smoking birds back. We need to flex off and go for the vehicles.”
Kolt looked back at JoJo, still inside the cockpit tending to Gangster. JoJo obviously heard Kolt’s last transmission and was looking directly at his squadron commander.
Kolt gave JoJo a thumbs-up as he tried to yell over the engine noise, “Is he good?”
JoJo returned the thumbs-up and fumbled for his push-to-talk. “Strong pulse, just unconscious. Bullet struck his helmet.”
“What are we doing, boss?” Slapshot asked, not hiding the fact that he wasn’t entirely on board with Kolt’s hasty idea to go after the two vehicles.
“Slap, those are the same vehicles that were at the meeting,” Kolt said, “I’m positive.”
“Racer, think it through,” Slapshot said, “what are the odds Seamstress is in one?”
“Gut, Slap, that’s all,” Kolt said. “But it’s logical.”
“We saw the Q-dots, boss,” Slapshot said, “inside the middle passenger car.”
Kolt didn’t have a lot of time to debate it with Slapshot. He remembered what Hawk had said back at Inchon when she refused to let the medics lift her out of the Little Bird. Maybe she was right, maybe they would have pulled Seamstress’s jacket off, and if she was correct that her Q dot throw was only good enough to impact the shoulder blades of her target, then the possibility that the North Korean guards separated him from his jacket, thus removing the tag on Seamstress, wasn’t too far-fetched.
Kolt looked at JoJo again, trying to gauge his opinion on what he was asking them to do. JoJo held up his fist, showed Kolt his gloved knuckles, and reached toward him. Kolt bumped knuckles with JoJo, happy to accept his communicator’s vote of confidence.
“We’re min force, Slap,” Kolt said, hoping to get Slap’s nod, too.
“One helo with three wounded?”
“Two sedans, Slap,” Kolt said. “Odds in our favor.”
Slapshot didn’t respond. Kolt and Slapshot had been together a long time. So long that Kolt knew silence was consent from his squadron sergeant major. If not, Slapshot certainly would have resisted like a grizzly bear in a claw trap bed.
“How’s Digger?” Kolt asked.
“Stable.” Slapshot’s reply was terse, but understandable.
Stew Weeks interrupted, transmitting over helo common, “Your call, Racer.”
Kolt knew Captain Yost was monitoring everything transmitted over helo common. Yost had to know two of the aircraft had called out Lame Duck. He had to know several Eagles were wounded. So far, the SEAL Team Six commander had yet to jump in, which Kolt took as tacit support for what he wanted to do.
“Turn around,” Kolt said.
“Roger. Four-Three, you are escort and return to base,” Weeks said, “Four-One is out, inbound target.”