“What time’s sunrise projected?” Christopher asked as they looked over the printouts.
“A little after 0730.”
“Bryce? How far’ll we get by then?”
“On power-saving speed, I’d say about…” Bryce pointed at a small cluster of buildings on one of the satellite photos, “…here. Should make it by around 0600 or so. Oughta give us time to scout a spot to hide the truck.”
Nick waved Anthony over.
“What up, boss?” Anthony asked, looking down at the satellite photos.
“Channel Victor 1-9,” Nick said.
“Yeah. Special Ops low-freq channel. Encryption’s supposed to be unbreakable.”
“We’re gonna need you to keep your ears on that one, as well as scanning for Chinese and North Korean traffic. Can you handle it?”
“Sure. I can program that one in hardline without sending up any flags.”
“Good man. You get anything on that channel, you come get me.”
“Roger that, boss.”
“Prep the rest of the guys. We go stealth in ten minutes.”
Anthony nodded and headed back to the Razor. Nick confirmed the route with Christopher and Bryce then loaded his men up. Bryce and Daniel were in the front two seats. Nick walked up to stand behind them.
“Nice and easy now. Soon as Mary gets our stealth up and running, bring the systems up one at a time.”
The Razor’s rear hatch clanged shut, and Mary called out from the back of the truck a few seconds later. “Stealth systems online and running.”
“Fire it up, gentlemen. We got a lot of road to cover.”
It took less than two minutes for all of the Razor’s systems to come up. Bryce zoomed the huge vehicle up the ramp and out into the night. As soon as they were safely underway, Nick settled into an empty chair and busied himself running through intel reports on North Korea.
What information he found was either out of date or unconfirmed. The last solid data they had was from the AWACS that went down more than two weeks before. Before that, they had a confirmed report back in March of a shipment of two hundred CDMs by rail from a factory in Beijing. Nick assumed that there were a lot more than two hundred CDMs in North Korea now, along with several thousand Chinese troops.
Nick wasn’t terribly worried about the CDMs. They were armed to the teeth, sure, but the Razor could outrun them in a pinch. Air cover, though, was another story. Every UAV or fighter Command sent into North Korea had been shot down without making it far inside, which meant that the Chinese had supplied their North Korean allies with some pretty impressive fighter support, anti-aircraft ordinance, or more likely both. The Razor was fast and tough—but versus a fighter wing equipped with thermobaric ordinance, Nick doubted they’d last thirty or forty seconds.
He looked up from his intel reports and noticed that four hours had passed—it was now just before midnight. Slowly, Nick stood, stretched his legs, and walked back to the stealth station. Mary was listening to her iPod again, but she pulled her headphones out as soon as she saw him approaching.
“What are you listening to there?” Nick asked, dropping himself in the seat next to her.
“Old-school stuff. You’d probably hate it.”
“Try me.”
“Ever hear of the Misfits?”
“Sure. A bit before my time, or yours for that matter. What are you, twenty?”
“Twenty-three.”
“I think they stopped recording before you were born, then. My brother was into them for a while in his teens. I remember him walking around the house with that creepy skull shirt on and rocking out with his headphones in.”
“Yeah, that’s them. My dad played in a punk band when he was a kid, so he got me into this kind of stuff.”
“Put it in the rotation on the MP3 player up front. You don’t have to hide back here with your headphones in. You’re part of the unit, kiddo.”
“Yeah, I know. But these Marines kinda creep me out. I know we’re all convicts here and everything, but it’s still weird being the only chick in the crew.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about Daniel and Bryce, anyway.”
“Yeah, but they’re all the way up there. That’s, like, walking.” Mary smiled.
Nick chuckled.
“Boss. Traffic,” Anthony called from the middle of the Razor.
“On my way,” Nick called back. As he walked toward the comm station, he shook Ryan lightly. The young airman woke quickly.
“What’s up, boss?”
“Traffic.”
“Right behind you.” Ryan hopped off his bunk and followed Nick to the comm station.
“All right. Who do you need? Me or Ryan?” Nick asked, leaning over to look at Anthony’s console.
“Uh, neither, boss. We got chatter on 1-9 Victor.”
“Put it on the speakers.”
Nick could barely make out the voice, as the transmission was full of static. Anthony made a few adjustments, and the signal cleared up a bit.
“—ond. Repeat, this is 1-3-8 Ranger, in need of assistance, transmitting on 1-9 Victor. Any friendlies, please respond.”
“Shit. I think I know that guy.” Ryan shook his head.
Christopher’s head spun around from his position at the weapons station.
“Did I just hear what I think I heard?” he asked.
“Yep. Gentlemen—it looks like we’ve found the missing 138th Rangers detachment,” Nick said.
“Can you get a location on that signal?” Ryan asked, squinting at Anthony’s screens.
“Workin’ on it,” Anthony replied, punching a few more keys.
“While you’re doing that, put me on with him,” Nick said.
Anthony handed over a headset with a mic, and Nick slipped it on.
“One-three-eight Ranger, this is 4-7 Echo. We copy. Identify, please.”
Almost thirty seconds of static passed before the voice came back on the line. “Four-seven Echo, this is 1-3-8 Ranger, Major John Evans. Ident seven-seven-Sierra-Lima-Indigo-four.”
Nick looked over at Mary, who was already up and punching the identification code into the computer. She turned to Nick and nodded—the code checked out.
“Ident confirmed, Major. This is Lieutenant Nick Morrow, Marine 4-7 Echo SRF. What’s your situation, sir?”
“Situation’s all sorts of not good, Lieutenant. Might go so far as to say fucked. There are four of us left, and we’ve been evading Chinese and North Korean patrols for days. We’re out of food, and we’ve got wounded. Can you give us a hand?”
“Hold this freq, Major. Be right back with you.” Nick pulled off the headset and crouched down next to Anthony. “You got a location?”
“Yeah, boss. Thirty miles southeast of our present route. Pretty damned close.”
“Then why does the transmission sound so shitty?” Ryan asked.
“Channel 1-9 Victor is secure, but it’s low-power. Plus, I’m getting a lot of interference. I think our Asian friends have some low-level blocking and jamming going on.”
“So what are our chances of raising Lieutenant Nathan back at the extraction point?” Nick asked.
“Less than none, boss. We’re barely getting a thirty-five-mile radius as it is.”
Christopher shook his head. “Dammit. No way we can get them to roll out in one of their Razors to pick up those guys.”
“Chris, I want you and Bryce to get back on the satellite maps. Re-route us so we can grab the Rangers, then find cover before dawn.”
“You sure that’s wise, Nick?”
Nick sighed. “Nope. But we’re not gonna leave soldiers out there to die. Get back to me as soon as you have something.”
Christopher nodded and headed to the front of the truck. Ryan tapped Nick on the shoulder.
“Mind if I talk to the Rangers? I know the Major. We’re friends from back in the world.”
Nick handed him the headset. “Let him know we’re trying to figure out a way to get to him,
but that we are coming.”
“Copy that, sir.” Ryan slipped on the headset. “Ranger 1-3-8, this is 4-7 Echo. Respond.”
“One-three-eight Ranger. Go ahead.”
“Johnny. This is Ryan Pak, brother.”
“Ryan! Holy fuck, what are you doing out here?”
“Bailing you out like you bailed me out back in Denver. Hold tight, buddy. We’re working a way to come get you right now.”
“That’s good news.”
Nick left Ryan to talk to the Rangers and walked up to the front of the truck, where Christopher and Bryce were looking over the satellite photos. On Bryce’s screens, Nick could see the green-and-black images of the North Korean landscape sliding by at thirty-five miles an hour.
“So how’s it look?” Nick asked.
“In a word, bad.” Christopher shook his head. “We pull off our route by more than ten miles. We’ve got nowhere to cover come daylight.”
“Shit. That’s what I hoped you wouldn’t say. Show me where we are now,” Nick said.
Christopher pointed to a spot on the map. Just ahead of the area Christopher indicated, Nick saw a small cluster of buildings.
“What have we got there?”
“Small town. Inhabited, according to the AWACS reports. We’re gonna pass within two miles of it.”
“We can make that town, or pretty close to it, without fucking up our schedule, right?” Nick said.
Bryce nodded.
“Should.”
“Right. How long until we hit it?”
“Six, seven minutes.”
“That’s where we’re headed. Get us within half a mile.”
“Roger that, boss,” Bryce said.
Nick started to walk back to the comm station, and Christopher was right behind him.
“What are you thinking, Nick?”
“Something very stupid, probably. Ryan—hand over the comms to Anthony and get your blacks on. You and I are going on a field trip.”
As the Razor neared the settlement, Nick took over the camera station and scanned the area. After a few minutes, he found what he was looking for—a small box truck. He pointed it out on the screen. “There. That’s what we’re taking. Get me to within a half-mile of that truck. Then Ryan and I are jumping out. We’ll grab the Rangers and catch up to you at the cover point.”
Christopher shook his head. “That’s…that’s not really a safe plan, Nick.”
“It’s not really a safe mission, bro. We’ll keep in radio contact as long as we can, but once daylight hits, shut down the Razor’s systems just like Gunny Mendel told you to.”
“Why are you two going?” Daniel asked. “Why not take Mike or Gabe?”
“If we get stopped, Ryan and I can pass for locals. I’d have a tough time explaining an Irishman or a Mexican. Doubly tough, being that I don’t speak Korean and all.”
“What do we do if we get traffic with no one to translate?” Anthony asked.
“Mary’s got a program that can get you the gist of what’s being said. It’ll have to do, but I don’t think you’ll get a ton. We’ll be back with you—hopefully—around daylight.”
“I still think this is a bad plan, boss.” Christopher shook his head.
“I tend to agree with you, but it’s the only one we’ve got. Ryan, you ready to go?”
Ryan nodded, slipping a portable radio set to 1-9 Victor into the pocket of his black BDU jacket.
“All right. Bryce, slow us to a stop. Here goes nothing.”
Chapter 26
Good Guys Don’t Wear White
Ryan and Nick stayed low as they ran, though there were few lights on in the small town ahead of them. As the Razor rolled away, back on course for its daytime cover location, Nick made it to the driver’s door of the box truck and found it unlocked. He and Ryan climbed into the truck and quietly closed the doors. Nick reached for the steering column cover and began to yank it off, but Ryan put a hand over his.
“Check it, boss. Looks like someone got to stealing this one before we did,” Ryan nodded at the ignition, and Nick saw that there was a screwdriver jammed in where the keys should have been.
Nick twisted the screwdriver experimentally, and the engine turned over.
“Huh. What do you know. Thanks, random thief-guy,” Nick said, backing the truck onto the road.
Ryan folded out his copy of the satellite photo on his lap. “All right. You know where we’re headed?”
“Generally. We’ll have to get a better fix as we get closer. You see anything around the area where four big-ass Rangers could be hiding out?”
“No. But if there’s one thing about Johnny, it’s that he’s not gonna do something you’d expect.”
“So how do you know this guy?”
“Before the war, we both lived in Denver. Same neighborhood. I ran a bar. He came in all the time. We were in a band together.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind of band?”
“Hardcore punk. Old-school.”
“Shit, Ryan, you’re what? Twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six.”
“You even remember punk?”
“A little. When I was, like, four. But I listened to a lot of the old stuff. Better than that Mecho Thrashcore bullshit by a long shot.”
“You talked much to Mary? Think you two would get along really well. She’s into the old-school punk, too. Misfits. Shit like that.”
“Right on, man.”
“So tell me more about this guy Johnny.”
“Uh, let’s see. Johnny was a Ranger before the war. Iraq, Afghanistan. Then he got out, became a cop. Five years on the Denver PD, then he went back in when I did. Good guy. Tough as shit. I’m not surprised he survived.”
“My dad was in Iraq. Back in 2005. Navy SEAL.”
“Yeah? What’d he do when he got back?”
“He didn’t come back.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry, boss.”
“Don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago.”
“That why you joined up?”
“I didn’t. I got convicted of murder and sent out here two months ago. Then my conviction got overturned, and I got sent back home. But there was no way I was going to leave my boys here on their own, so I went to the recruiter after I’d been home a couple of days.”
“That’s…that’s fucking hardcore, Nick. I joined up because I didn’t want to get my ass kicked by rednecks who couldn’t tell a North Korean from an American.”
“And they put you to work as a translator?”
“Yeah. Supposed to be a desk job. This is my first operational situation. Don’t mind telling you, I’m scared as shit.”
“They tell you how to shoot that Glock in Basic?”
“Yeah. But it was Air Force Basic, so, you know. Not well.”
“Easy enough. Point it at the thing you want to kill and pull the trigger. Hopefully, we won’t need to fire a shot. I want to do this as quietly as possible. If we can do this without seeing a soul other than your boy and his crew, I’ll be happy.”
“Speaking of my boy, I should probably check in with him, eh?”
“Do it.”
Ryan pulled out the radio and turned it on. “One-three-eight Ranger, this is 4-7 Echo. Do you copy?”
“We copy. That you, Ryan?”
“Yeah, Johnny. We’re inbound. Twenty, thirty minutes tops. What’s your status?”
“We’ll keep until then. Just make it as fast as you can—we’ve got NoKo patrols crawling around here like fucking roaches.”
“Roger that. Sit tight. I’ll raise you again when we’re closer, and you can talk us in.”
“Affirmative. Thanks, Ryan.”
“Stash the radio. We’ve got headlights behind us,” Nick hissed.
“Shit. What do we do?”
“Depends on if we gotta stop. If we do, depends on what language they start speaking. Be cool.”
Ryan, Nick could see, was not being cool. In fact, the young guy was sweating, and his eyes were da
rting around. He was about three seconds from freaking out. Nick popped the straps on his leg holster and turned toward Ryan.
“Chill out, bro. We’re on a public road. Headlights aren’t exactly out of the ordinary.”
“Right. Right. They’re splitting.”
“What?”
“The headlights are splitting. One’s going left, one’s going right.”
“Motorcycles.”
“Looks like.”
“North Korean Army uses ‘em. They’ll probably just pass us by.”
The motorcycles accelerated, pulling up next to the box truck’s open front windows. Nick stared straight ahead, and the motorcycles accelerated, cutting in front of the truck and slowing to a stop. Nick stepped on the brakes, stopping just short of the two North Korean Army officers who were dismounting. One of them yelled something at him.
“That Korean?” Nick whispered.
“Yeah. He wants us to get out of the truck.”
“All right. Let’s do that, then.”
Ryan nodded and reached for his door. Nick was out on the street first, Glock in hand. He fired five quick shots, dropping both of the North Korean officers.
“Let’s get them and their bikes into the back of the truck, fast.”
Ryan’s face was quickly turning ash-gray. He extended one trembling finger at one of the soldiers on the ground. “He’s still moving,” Ryan choked.
Nick raised his Glock and fired once, sending a .40 caliber slug into the moving soldier’s brainpan. “Solve your problem? Now, we gotta move them fast. You know how to ride a motorcycle?”
Ryan nodded, still staring at the two dead soldiers.
“Good. Get them in the truck. I’ll handle the bodies.”
Ryan stood still.
“Now, Sergeant!” Nick snapped, and Ryan jumped into motion, hopping onto one of the still-running motorcycles and tearing off around the truck. As Nick grabbed one of the dead soldiers by the leg, he heard the truck’s rear door slide up. Nick grabbed the other dead soldier’s leg with his right hand and started dragging them back around the truck. Before he’d made it halfway there, Ryan jogged past him and brought the other motorcycle around. Both motorcycles now in the truck, Ryan helped Nick pick up the two soldiers’ bodies.
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