by Leigh Barker
“This is where we get off, I’m guessing,” Ethan said, and saw the momentary glance to confirm it.
“Well, it’s been great just talkin’ with you, Sergeant,” he said, and put out his hand.
The sergeant looked at his hand, then back at the street, as if he expected the North Korean army to suddenly storm downtown Seoul.
Ethan chuckled and climbed out of the vehicle, followed by the team, with Chuck bringing up the rear. Chuck stopped with his hand on the driver’s seat.
“Hey, Sergeant.” He waited for the man’s head to move an inch. “That man there? He’s been fighting your wars for you while you were sucking on your mother’s tit.” He got out of the car and stepped up to the open driver’s window. “And you just disrespected him.” He opened the car door. “So now I’m going to drag you out of there and clean this street with your face.”
The SUV skidded its wheels and roared away into the traffic.
“Hey, that was rude, him being our host,” Ethan said.
“Not as rude as it was in my head, but we have a guest.” Chuck nodded towards Andie.
“I’m a sailor,” she said. Then gave him a slow nod of appreciation. “But I was hoping he’d get out and duke it out with you.”
“Duke it out?” Smokey said into Loco’s ear. “We expecting to see John Wayne any time soon?”
“Now you’ve scared off the nice sergeant,” Ethan said. “Any idea where we’re supposed to be going? I’m guessing the local law’s not going to cheer us on when they see the M16s.”
Chuck pointed down the alley. “Let’s ask the airman.”
They turned to see a young airman waving at them.
“Maybe he just likes Andie,” Winter said. “No accounting for taste.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“He looks a bit agitated,” Smokey said. “You think that thing he’s doing is flyboy hand signals? Don’t rate them much myself.”
Ethan looked to heaven for a moment, then walked past them towards the airman, who’d lowered his arms and was now looking around in case they’d been seen.
Locals walking past had stopped to watch the mad airman confirming their suspicions of Westerners.
“This way,” the airman said, pointing at a blue door at the rear of what looked like a shopping block.
“That door?” Ethan said.
The airman nodded, looked around again and pushed it open.
“The only door in the alley?” Ethan said, then gave up and went inside.
The airman closed the door and smoothed his crew-cut hair.
“You know,” Ethan said, and bent down to be eye to eye with him, “If you don’t want to attract attention, you might want to think about losing the uniform.”
“What? Go nekked?” He shook his head. “I’m a Methodist.”
Ethan and Chuck exchanged a grin.
“I’m guessing you’re from Virginia,” Chuck said, and raised an eyebrow.
“Hell yes. How’d you know that?”
“Trained observer,” Chuck said.
“You in charge here?” Ethan said.
“No, sir.”
“You see anybody saluting me and doing all my work?” Ethan said. “Then I can’t be an officer, can I?”
“No, sir. Sergeant. Master Sergeant. Top—”
Ethan put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Stop there, son, before you run out of words.”
The airman rolled his hand either to fan his face or to indicate he wanted them to follow him. Then scampered off through the storeroom that was full of boxes of something that smelled like roadkill.
“Loco,” Ethan said, without turning, “bring your gear. You might need it before the day’s out.”
Loco picked up his backpack and rifle case and mouthed how’d he know that? at Smokey.
“Because God blessed me with ears,” Ethan said, walking away through the stink.
They followed the little airman up two more flights of stairs and along a narrow corridor that was too long for the building they’d entered. Six men were working on the doors and scraping the dirty paint off the walls with the skill of a toddler. They might as well have been draped in the US flag. Their clean blue overalls had the front buttons open for easy access to the guns clearly visible as gun-shaped bulges under their arms.
The quality of the security didn’t exactly fill them with confidence, and as one they opened their jackets to free up the Glocks they wore in belt holsters.
Two more of the clowns were leaning on the wall at the sides of a closed door, watching them with dead eyes.
Ethan gave Chuck a quick look to discourage him from prodding these two bears, opened the door without asking and went inside.
The man standing by the window was as different from the over-muscled help in the hallway as it was possible to get. Tall, greying and watching with lively, intelligent eyes in which, for somebody who knew how to look, could be seen the war and loss they’d witnessed. Here was a man who’d done it for real, not just worked out in a gym and strutted in his uniform.
Ethan put out his hand, even though the man was probably an officer and a senior one at that. He wore an immaculate suit with unmistakable Hong Kong tailoring, with its attention to detail and fine work. If it was the right tailor.
“Ethan Gill,” Ethan said, and shook the man’s hand.
“I rather guessed that,” the man said.
A Brit. It threw Ethan for a moment; then he waved casually at the rest of the team spreading out around the room that took up a whole floor. “These are…well, the team.” He glanced back at the men. “Guys, meet British MI6.”
The man chuckled. “Call me Randolph, it’s less menacing. Oh, not Randy. That means something entirely different in British English.”
“What’s MI6 involvement in this?” Ethan said.
“Whatever this is,” Randolph said. He waved Ethan towards a straight-backed chair and sat on its twin across a dark wood coffee table. “I…we were in the neighborhood.”
Ethan looked pointedly at the door. “And the goons?”
Randolph chuckled again. Either because he thought it was genuinely funny or to feed Ethan conflicting signals and keep him unbalanced.
If unbalancing Ethan was the objective, it fell a mile short. Nothing short of a smack on the jaw would achieve that.
“South Korean secret service, and North for that matter, are thicker than flies on pig shit around here. They know I’m here, but with an airman…airboy outside jumping about and a team of minders inside, they’re going to assume I’m here for, shall we say, personal reasons.”
“This is a brothel?” Chuck said, looking around quickly. Maybe hoping to see some of the girls. No chance.
“And that works?” Ethan said, his tone skeptical.
“Oh no, but it gives them a reason not to look. And we look the other way when it’s their turn.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, not at all. How else would either service get anything done?”
“That’s the nuttiest thing I’ve heard of since Bush said mission accomplished.”
“Perhaps, but it’s how it works.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the razor-sharp crease of his pants to indicate that topic was closed. “Now, I don’t know why you want to get into the north.” He raised a hand. “And I don’t want to. But your SecNav and I go back a long way. And he asked.”
“He does that,” Ethan said. “So what do you have for me?”
Randolph got up without any sign of stiffness, which for a really old guy in his sixties was impressive. He snapped open a brown attaché case on the plastic table, pulled out a buff folder and handed it to Ethan.
“This is everything we know about the person of interest in your aerospace investigation.” He waited a moment for Ethan to open the folder. “The agent here is Joon-ho Lee Yi. He’s just what it says on the tin, an agent who gets stuff for people who can’t get it themselves.”
“We call that
eBay,” Ethan said, flicking through the half dozen pages from the folder. “I’m interested in his customer.”
“That’ll be NADA,” Randolph said. “There’s no mention of the National Aerospace Development Administration, but in the democratic people’s republic there’s only one boss.”
Ethan studied a page from the folder. “Number Nine Factory.” He looked up. “Not very inspiring name, is it?”
“Nothing inspiring in the whole DPRK,” Randolph said. “Number Nine Factory is a manufacturing plant about forty miles north of Pyongyang. They build the rockets that frequently explode on take-off.”
“Yeah,” Ethan said, “but the explosions are getting less and the rockets more.”
“And now they have something of yours.” It wasn’t a question.
Ethan looked up. “They do and we’d like it back.” He put the pages back into the folder. “Can you get us to Number Nine?”
“Not me personally.” Randolph took the folder back. “But I know a man who can.”
“It’s a big country,” Loco said, flicking through a magazine, looking for pictures. “We could just sneak over the border.”
Randolph smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“He’s a good shot,” Ethan said, by way of explanation.
“I’m jolly pleased to hear that.”
“What?” Loco said. “You don’t think I could injun over a few rice paddies without being seen?”
“The border is two hundred and fifty klicks long,” Winter said.
“Gets better. Easy to pick a quiet spot.”
“And four klicks wide.”
“Just a little jog, even in full kit.”
“And every inch is knee-deep in mines,” Winter said, very slowly.
“Maybe give that a miss, then,” Loco said, leaning back in his white plastic seat and returning to his magazine.
“DPRK is the most militarized country in the world,” Randolph said, and every man, woman or child would turn you in on sight, or they’d be shot.”
“Then we’ll have to be careful,” Ethan said.
“Your only chance is to HALO in and make your way to the factory on foot at night.”
“HALO?” Andie said, letting her laptop have a rest.
“High altitude low opening,” Chuck said, and saw it sail over her head. “Jump out of an airplane at thirty-five thousand feet and scream for about fifteen seconds while you’re freefalling at over two hundred miles an hour. Then open your chute when you’re about five feet from the ground.”
Andie’s mouth was open as wide as her eyes.
“He’s exaggerating,” Ethan said. “Chute opens at eight hundred feet. So plenty of time if it doesn’t deploy.”
“Time for what?” Andie said, blinking slowly.
“To kiss your ass goodbye,” the team chorused.
“And you can set up a HALO?” Ethan said.
“I can.” Randolph smiled. “Or should I say, you can. You being the United States, or at least its army.”
Ethan shook his head. “I’m under orders not to play in anybody else’s backyard on this one.”
“Don’t worry, I had the same lecture. What’s your British accent like?”
“Like a cheap cable show,” Ethan said.
“I’d say mine isn’t the best, old bean, but it pulls the birds in the pub.”
They all turned and stared at Chuck.
“What in god’s name was that?” Winter said, just ahead of the others.
“No, wait,” Randolph said. “That wasn’t too bad. Drop the old bean and pub nonsense and speed it up a bit and you might just pull it off.”
“Pull what off?” Ethan said.
“I’ve arranged for you to be dropped off up north by a transport out of K-16.”
“Seoul Airport?” Ethan said, and frowned. “That’s the least secure airfield in the country. It’s an R and R place for military and even visitors.”
“Yes, that’s right, and that’s why nobody really watches it. Who is going to use what is virtually a public hub for a clandestine flight? Only an idiot, that’s who.”
The room was silent.
Randolph showed them the smile again. “And that idiot will be me. Because that’s exactly what I’ve arranged for you.”
“But why do you want Chuck to make an ass of himself?” Ethan said.
“It’s as you said, you can’t get the army involved in this.” He put the folder back in his attaché case. “But helping a SAS unit into the north is completely different.”
“And I get to play the SAS general,” Chuck said, warming to the idea. “Like Donald Sutherland in The Dirty Dozen.”
“A major,” Randolph said, with a shrug. “Because that’s usually the rank of the OC. That’s Brit speak for officer commanding.” He started for the door. “And it’s the only officer’s uniform available.”
“What about the rest of us?” Loco said.
“Welcome to the SAS, private,” Randolph said.
The others chuckled.
“Or should I say privates?” He opened the door. “As I said, I have only one officer’s uniform.”
“Stand to, lads,” Chuck said, in a British accent that might work. As long as there was nobody around who’d ever heard one.
Randolph pointed to the door the bodyguards had been pretending to fix. Inside they found the uniforms. One major, four lowest of the low.
“What about me?” Andie said, watching them pick up the uniforms and hold them against each other to find the best fit.
“You ever do a HALO jump?” Ethan said, smelling one of the tropical-camouflaged uniforms and flinching away.
“You know I’ve never done one, or I wouldn’t have asked what it was,” she said.
“You are the most important member of this unit,” Ethan said, putting down the uniform and trying to work out how the SAS combat smock worked.
“HALO is a hell of a rush and a good way to get through the pearly gates. I can’t take that risk with you.”
He watched Smokey put the smock over his head and pull it down like a stiff sweater.
“I’ve come all this way,” Andie said. “And now you’re going to drop me off in some hotel?”
“Not quite,” Randolph said, stepping in and closing the door behind him. “You’re coming with me. I have a rather sophisticated communications setup in my little domain.” The smile. “Tools of the trade, as it were.”
She looked from him to Ethan, confused but catching on. “You want me to connect remotely.”
“That’s the plan. Can you do it?” Ethan said.
“If you open a port and have a router.”
“I can provide everything you need,” Randolph said.
“Tools of the trade?” Ethan said.
“Precisely.” He looked at his watch and they got the message. “A couple of sat phones and a dial-up sat router should do the trick.”
“It will,” Andie said, her shoulders straightening a little. “If you don’t all hit the ground at two hundred miles an hour.”
That was a joke. In her head it was.
Everybody stopped moving and looked at her.
She looked terrified by the sudden attention.
“Least we won’t have to worry about getting buried,” Winter said. “Impact’ll do that for us.”
“Make sure I don’t land on top of you,” Chuck said. “Last thing I want is to spend eternity with you up my ass.”
A stiff-backed army captain met them as they climbed out of Randolph’s Range Rover in front of the administration building at K-19 Air Base just south of the city. He took Randolph’s document and studied it carefully, then compared the attached photograph with the man. Eventually he was convinced the grey Englishman wasn’t a North Korean spy trying to get use of the camp’s leisure facilities.
“I was told to expect you, sir,” he said, as stiff as his backbone. “And your…” He looked the team over with obvious distaste, noting their ill-fitting worn smocks and cam
ouflage. “Your limey…Brit colleagues.”
“And were you told you didn’t have to salute a senior officer, Captain?” Chuck said.
Ethan hoped he wasn’t going to get into the Donald Sutherland persona.
The captain looked at Chuck but couldn’t see any insignia with shoot me, I’m an officer engraved on it. He saluted him anyway, just in case. And Chuck gave him a crisp British army salute. He’d watched too many black and white movies.
“We have everything laid on for you,” he said, dismissing Chuck and addressing Randolph. “Will it be a night jump?”
“That’s the idea, old fruit,” Chuck said. “Is there somewhere the chaps can have a shower and a spot of tiffin before the off.”
Randolph closed his eyes.
The captain frowned and looked at Randolph for help.
“The men have had a long flight and could do with somewhere to rest before they jump. And some proper food, if you can manage that.”
“We’ve got about twenty-five thousand people on this base, so I think we can find room for six more.” He looked them over again. “Somewhere out of the way.” He glanced at Chuck. “For security.”
“Right, for security,” Chuck said, and handed his pack to Ethan. “Come along, my good man, try to keep up.” He strode after the captain.
“He does know he’s only a major for today, right?” Winter said.
“Oh, I’ll be sure to remind him,” Ethan said.
They didn’t get any tiffin, they got steaks and fries.
The Korean waitress bowed once and watched them eating their steaks. “You care for coffee?”
They all nodded.
“That’s most kind of you,” Randolph said, “but the major and I will have tea.” He smiled at her. “It being teatime back in old Blighty.”
She had no idea what that meant, but tea she did understand and returned to the kitchen.
“Oh drat,” Randolph said. “I meant to ask for cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off for our major here. To sell the story, as it were.”
Chuck looked up sharply, a chunk of rib-eye halfway to his mouth. “What?” He put the fork down. “Cucumber what?”
“It’s what the English aristocracy eat. Built us an empire,” Randolph said, without a hint of a smile.