by Jack Slater
The two combatants traded attacks for what felt like hours, but might only have been seconds. Kim struck, then Trapp fought back. Though the CIA man had power on his side, Kim fought with an intensity the likes of which Trapp had never seen. He seemed to be driven by a mad fury that blocked out pain and exhaustion and the ability to know when he was beaten.
Trapp knew he had to end this, fast, or the decision would be out of his hands.
Kim chopped out with his elbow, striking Trapp on the nose. It crunched, and broke. It wasn’t for the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last.
But it was a shock nonetheless.
Trapp staggered backward, clutching his face with one hand. He wiped the blood, and resumed a fighting stance.
“Give up, American,” Kim crowed. “You can’t win.”
The North Korean bobbed forward, bouncing from toe to toe on a wave of energy that Trapp certainly did not share. He thought he had won. Trapp stumbled backward, allowing the man to make ground on him.
Too much ground.
At least, for Kim.
The wiry predator burst forward, believing his prey was exhausted. He was wrong. Trapp exploded forward, his shoulder packed, leading with his fist in a blow powerful enough to stun an ox.
The diminutive Kim went down like a sack of potatoes, out cold.
“Says who?” Trapp grunted. He collapsed onto the ground, exhausted, knowing that if the fight had gone on another second, he would have lost.
Between his raised heartrate, the blood rushing in his ears, the sound of Kim’s panting and the adrenaline foaming like beer in his veins, Trapp had no idea what was happening outside. The cavalry had arrived, but that did not mean they were winning.
An explosion ripped through the camp. It was so bright that for half a second, Trapp wondered if he had failed, and the nukes had started falling. The floodlights were knocked off-line, and even the computers around him stopped whirring—those that were not already shattered.
The sound of gunfire outside faded away.
Only to be replaced by another, even more worrying sound. A thudding, crunching noise that was close.
Too close.
Trapp swallowed, dragging his broken body backward. Someone was outside, and they were coming in — invitation or not. He attempted to grab his pistol, but the holster was empty. Somehow, it had been dislodged in the fight.
“Fuck.”
Trapp glanced around. With the floodlights dead, it was almost impossible to see inside the office. But his eyes passed across the familiar shape. It was only a few feet away.
In the darkness, Trapp’s fingers groped for the fallen pistol. Stretching, stretching, he found it. The model was unfamiliar—it must’ve been Kim’s, dropped as he struck Trapp—but he did not care. He rolled over, his finger on the trigger, and raised the weapon with trembling fingers, too exhausted to even take cover.
The door shattered from the outside, splintered wood giving way in the face of an irresistible force. Barely a second later, with shards of timber still falling, and clouds of dust dancing in the rush of light from outside, the barrel of a weapon poked through.
Trapp made ready to fire.
This was it.
He knew that he could not last long. But he intended to go out in a blaze of glory.
And then he froze.
He recognized that weapon. It wasn’t an AK-47, nor even the Type 58 knockoff. It was American.
Its owner leapt on to the desk that Trapp had left pushed against the door, face hidden by the scope of a pair of NVGs. When he spoke, the voice was familiar, like a stack of pancakes on a Sunday morning. Trapp let his aching head fall against the ground, and the pistol to his belly.
“Hey, Hangman.” Nero grinned. “Heard you could use a little help.”
53
Trapp staggered out of the North Korean office building, fell to his knees and splattered the concrete with a thin stream of vomit. It had been almost 24 hours since he’d last eaten, so the explosion had little substance. That didn’t stop it from burning his throat as it rose.
“Nice to see you, too.” Nero grinned, his teeth flashing in the darkness.
The Navy SEAL lieutenant held his weapon casually, as if entirely unconcerned by the battle raging all around. As Trapp glanced up, he could see it was just for show. The man’s eyes never stopped moving, roving around the camp, taking in every possible threat.
Trapp knew that if one presented itself, the rifle would be up and at the man’s shoulder before he could blink, the target eliminated before the soldier could consciously process the risk to his life. That’s just the way the SEALs were made.
“Sorry,” Trapp muttered, wiping his mouth clean. “Long day.”
“I bet,” Nero replied, slightly raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the fifty cal machine gun fire spewing from the tail ramp of one of the MV-22 Ospreys that was hovering overhead, laying down suppressive fire.
He jerked his thumb at the still unconscious body of Kim, whose feet were dragging against the ground, ankles and wrists cuffed together, being frog marched by a pair of pissed-off looking Marines. “What do you want us to do with him?”
Trapp’s exhausted, befuddled mind took longer than he wanted to respond. Right now, all he wanted to do was throw in the towel, to return to Ikeda’s side, and not leave until he’d sprung her from this hellhole.
But a higher power called: duty cutting through the tiredness. The satellite-killer control unit was now under the protection of the US Marines, and a technician from the America was even now working feverishly to disable the munitions in the skies overhead. That threat had been eliminated.
But a far larger one remained. The genetically targeted Marburg virus could not be allowed to be deployed. Once it began spreading in China, it would not stop. Hundreds of millions would die.
And then the missiles would start flying, as surely as night follows day.
Trapp wiped his face clean as rifle fire crackled all around him, the Marines making it patently clear that they did not intend to give up their beachhead. “Keep him alive, we need answers. Did anyone brief you on the virus?”
Nero nodded, indicating his protective hazmat suit, and the mask hang loose around his neck. “Why do you think I’m wearing this piece of shit?”
The CIA operative sympathized. The protective suits were thick, heavy, and hot as hell. “Good.” He glanced up at one of the navy helicopters circling overhead, occasionally laying down a burst of machine gun fire. “I need to borrow one of those, and a few of your men.”
“Where you going?”
Trapp replied grimly, “I don’t know yet.”
“We got incoming!”
Trapp could not make out the source of the yelled warning, but he didn’t need to. The cry was one that would chill the blood of anyone who’d ever spent time in the infantry. Like death, taxes and gonorrhea, the threat of airpower haunted every soldier’s waking dreams.
“Fuck,” he growled, glancing toward Lieutenant Quinn. “Nero—you bring any Stingers?”
The lieutenant crouched behind the limited cover provided by the nearest concrete wall. “On it,” he muttered before murmuring instructions into his throat mic.
Trapp pressed his back against the same wall and beat the ground with frustration. He didn’t have time for this. He needed to get moving. Every second he lingered was another those canisters got closer to China.
And then a second sense of creeping dread began to gnaw at his stomach. Five aircraft were circling overhead, low to the ground: three Ospreys, two helicopters. To the incoming North Korean fast movers, whose dull roar he could already hear rolling over the mountains, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
But the aviators’ deaths were not what worried him. They knew what they had signed up for when they joined this mission. Their lives were forfeit the moment they crossed the border, just as his was. But he also knew that an op like this was the adrenaline rush of a lifeti
me. None of them would have willingly missed out.
No, Trapp’s worry stemmed from the fact that if they lost those aircraft, his only way of making up ground on the canisters would go with them. So right now, the fate of the region—perhaps the entire world—rested in the hands of a couple of Navy SEALs equipped with Stinger missiles.
Nero pressed two fingers against his headset, listening intently. Then he yelled into his mic, “Boys—get down!”
Trapp followed the man’s lead as he threw himself to the ground. His conscious mind wondered what the hell was going on, but he knew better than to question orders in a moment like that. A second’s hesitation could cost him his life.
The roar overhead grew until it was like standing on the rim of the volcano. Trapp looked desperately up into the night sky, but saw nothing.
Almost nothing.
Four pinpricks of light exploded into the darkness, winking into existence side-by-side.
Missiles.
Trapp waited for the North Korean ordnance to rocket down to the ground, blowing him and every last one of the Marines into smithereens, and taking their rides out in the process.
But that’s not what happened.
The missiles moved laterally, not vertically. They streaked through the darkness, burning a line onto Trapp’s retinas like a long-exposure photograph.
And then it struck him. They were air-to-air missiles, not air-to-ground.
He pressed his palms against his ears, ready for the night sky to explode overhead, and rain down burning shards of American aircraft, detached rotors spinning through the sky and sending death where they landed.
But that’s not what happened either.
Because when the missiles found their targets, four detonations blossomed in the dark skies overhead, briefly creating a second sun, and bathing the military encampment with light. Briefly, the ground fire stopped chattering as combatants on either side stared to the skies with awe.
The jet engine roar did not fade away. If anything, it only grew in intensity.
And when Trapp could almost not bear the sound any longer, a pair of F-35 fighter jets rocketed overhead, waggling their wings over the camp, moving almost too fast to be seen.
One of the SEALs, Homer, yelled it, but Trapp could not disagree. “Yee-haw!”
54
The blades of the MH-60 Knighthawk helicopter that had carried Lieutenant Quinn and his men into battle cut through the humid air over the Korean Peninsula. Inside was Jason Trapp, along with half a dozen of Nero’s SEALs. The lieutenant himself had remained at the initial insertion site, entrusted by Trapp with two equally critical tasks: first, to secure Eliza Ikeda’s safety; and second, to get the location of the Marburg canisters out of Kim by any means necessary.
Nero’s men, their faces darkened by camouflage paint, barrels already warmed up by the assault on Unit 61’s camp, wore expressions of grim determination. They knew how critical their task was. They knew, too, that their chances of success were low. A pair of F-35 Lightning fighter jets out of Osan Air Base were providing top cover overhead, protecting them from any further gun runs by the North Korean Air Force, but that was it.
Otherwise, they were on their own.
Trapp was dressed in an eclectic combination of North Korean battle fatigues, a US Marine helmet and radio system still stained with its former owner’s blood, and the man’s M4 carbine. The helmet was sitting on his lap, and over his ears he wore a headset that allowed him to communicate with the helicopter’s crew.
“How we doing for fuel?” he inquired.
The copilot replied without turning around to face him. “A couple of hundred kilometers. We’re riding heavy, and flying this low ain’t doing shit for our fuel economy. The air’s too thick.”
Trapp detected a hint of strain in the man’s voice. It didn’t surprise him. What they were doing was crazy in anyone’s book. If the lone Knighthawk suffered any form of mechanical failure, or encountered incoming ground fire, then they would be a hundred miles up shit creek without a paddle, with a million angry North Korean soldiers chasing after them like fire ants defending their nest.
Worse still, they had no idea where exactly they were heading. Trapp had given the pilots only the vaguest of directions—the North Korea/China border. They were less than thirty minutes’ flight time out, and were still none the wiser as to the precise location of the canisters—or even whether all six were still at the same location.
“Understood. We gotta do what we gotta do, Lieutenant. If we have to ditch the bird, we will.”
The prospect of escaping the country on foot wasn’t exactly a promising one. Especially as North Korea’s nearest neighbour was China, a country with whom, if this mission failed, they would most likely be at war.
Trapp’s headset crackled. He recognized the sound of an external radio transmission, rather than the helicopter’s crew intercom. “Spartan One-Niner, this is Osan Tower. How copy?”
“Lima Charles, Osan Tower,” the pilot replied in a tone of absolute insouciance, meaning ‘loud and clear.’ His voice seemed entirely unaffected by the stress of the low-level night flight behind enemy lines.
“Spartan One-Niner, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we just picked up a hell of a lot of activity on the Chinese side of the border. Six J-20 jets are in the air, on a vector that has them crossing the border in under ninety seconds.”
“Copy that, Osan Tower,” the pilot replied, tone still unruffled. “Keep us in the loop.”
“Will do, Spartan One-Niner. Good luck out there. Osan, out.”
Trapp had listened to the exchange with growing unease which now blossomed into full-fledged anxiety. If those Chinese jets crossed the border, then this mission was about to get a whole lot more interesting. Hell, the J-20 Falcon Hawk jets were similar to American stealth fighters. They could sit well beyond visual range and fire off their loadout of air-to-air missiles, without their target even needing to be in sight.
And unfortunately for Trapp, the MH-60 Knighthawk made for one hell of an inviting target. The F-35s overhead would put up a fight, but they were heavily outnumbered, and by equivalent aircraft. There would be the only one outcome to this fight.
“What’s the plan, boss?” the pilot asked.
Trapp thumbed his mic, glancing around at the SEALs, wondering what they were thinking. None betrayed a hint of emotion on their faces, but that didn’t mean they weren’t piss-scared. Did they regret joining him on a suicide run? It was impossible to say. And it didn’t matter anyway. So he gave the only response he could. “We keep going. We don’t have a choice.”
“You got a location yet?”
Trapp grimaced. “Still working on it.”
55
President Nash had returned to the White House situation room. The real-time visual display on the wall was now trained on the Korean Peninsula. Red icons representing several Chinese fighter jets had just crossed a dotted line that indicated the Chinese border with South Korea.
And they were headed directly for a trio of blue icons—three American aircraft. Two fighter jets and a helicopter.
This was it.
The moment of truth. If the Chinese opened fire, then it was all over. And worst of all, Nash knew that there was nothing he could do about it. He had played his cards. Done everything possible to avoid the outbreak of war. But would it be enough? It was impossible to say.
Nash’s stomach fizzed with acid, making him glad he hadn’t finished the rest of the cup of coffee that now sat sadly on the table in front of him, its porcelain walls dark with use. He gestured to the man who had accompanied him back from Dulles. “Mike—any update?”
Mike Mitchell looked up from a laptop that was balanced precariously on a stack of open folders. His face was grim. “Nothing yet, sir. The Marines have secured the camp, and we have air superiority in the immediate area, so there’s limited prospect of a North Korean counterattack. But the prisoner is not being cooperative.”
&n
bsp; Nash lashed the table with his open palm. “Dammit,” he growled. “So those boys are flying to their deaths for nothing?”
Mitchell said nothing for a second, a look of sorrow flashing in his dark eyes. Nash remembered that he knew Trapp well. For him this wasn’t just business, it was also deeply personal. “That’s what they signed up for, sir. They knew the risks. And if there’s a chance we can discover the location of those canisters, we’ll need boots on the ground to take them down.”
Nash ground his teeth together. He cast his mind back six months, to when he had met Jason Trapp for the first time, in a basement not all that far from this very room. He looked into the man’s ghostly eyes then, thanked him for saving his life, and had seen nothing but cold determination staring back. He knew that Trapp would have it no other way.
But the President also knew that it was in his power to save him. He could order that helicopter to change course, to head for safety.
A US Air Force technician spoke up, her voice cracking. “Mr. President, I’ve, uh, I’ve got Ambassador Lam on an encrypted line.”
“Put him on, dammit,” Nash growled.
He stared at the small black Cisco speaker on the center of the situation room’s polished mahogany conference table, as though by doing so he might reveal some detail that would help him clean up this whole mess. It was at least better than staring at the map of North Korea, at the red and blue icons drawing inexorably closer together, presaging a crisis from which there would be no turning back.
The speaker crackled. “Mr. President—can you hear me?”
The audio quality was poor. Nash could instantly tell that the ambassador was speaking from inside the Chinese military transport plane—the roar of the jet engines in the background was unmistakable. “Crystal-clear, Ambassador,” he said, attempting to keep the tension out of his voice. “We have a situation here—”
The Chinese ambassador’s tone was urgent. He cut Nash off. “Sir, we verified the source of your information. We have the location of the biological weapon.”