A little too late for that. "A tough one, for sure, but that's a bit morbid, even for you."
"Oh, it'll be tough, but that's not what I mean. Not exactly what I mean, I mean. Oh…"
"What do you mean?"
"I know you aren't the greatest at politics, but I have a degree in it. Even you should realize that after what you did at the lab, some people have it in for you. Maybe even your CO. The powers-that-be will want to sweep that mess under the rug without major embarrassment for the Army or the South Koreans. I'm sure if you stick it out, they'll let you off without charges. The last thing they want is more publicity from a high-profile court-martial."
I thought about her theory for a moment. "I can see that, but what does it have to do with crossing the DMZ?"
"If you don't make it back, they don't have to worry about a lab investigation. Ties up a big potential leak. You've already shown them you won't play ball and suppress inconvenient information, the way you went into the lab anyway."
Her voice softened, "Need to watch your back on this one."
That's a cheerful thought. "May be too late for that. Did you arrange for that covert sub?"
"Put in the request earlier. That's why I'm still awake. Should hear back from D.C. soon. Just waking up over there. They'll need to call the Pentagon, or at least the Navy. See if they have a team of SEALs they can shake loose. If we get them, you can just sit back in the office on light duty and let those guys go hunt the data from the sea, assuming we get a line on it."
"May be a little closer to getting a line on it than that. Took a little trip. Traced the tunnel back under the DMZ. I'm actually calling you from the North. Surprise!"
"You're what?"
I tried to sound meek. Not sure I succeeded. "In need of a little favor?"
"Wait, is Schnier with you?"
"Pretty sure he'd tell the Major, not come along. Bishop says I need to trust in other people more, though, which is why I called you."
"You can't keep doing this crazy… What do you need?"
"That sub, ideally full of operators for backup, would be a great start."
"Start?"
I smiled. "May have a plan. Will you put my eSurfboard on a plane? Got the prototype in my room at the BOQ. Contact Lee, he'll let you in."
"You either have a plan, or you don't. You can't may have a plan." Now she sounded wary, "A plane to where?"
"Uh, they fly crop-dusters out by the Ganghwa Peace Observatory. Right across the river from North Korea. Treaty permits unarmed agriculture planes to fly over the DMZ. The Army uses them to take long-range photos of river and train movements from a side angle to fill out sat pics."
"Okay?"
Dubious is better than wary.
"Get Lee to hang the eSurfboard from a GPS-guided parachute. They can fly quite a ways sideways if you drop 'em high enough. Include the spare controller, just in case. I'll send the coordinates for a spot across the border upstream in the river. If you can have it in the air starting the day after tomorrow, that'll work fine. Text you later the exact drop time. Might be on short notice."
"Sam, dropping a secret prototype into North Korea isn't exactly kosher. Sure that's not too much of a risk? What if the wrong people are waiting for it?"
"Just have to trust me. Ideally, I'll be waiting before they let it out of the plane." Took a deep breath. "Michelle, I need this and the sub. Even if my plan goes perfectly, they'll be my only ticket out of North Korea."
"Trust is a two-way street, but I'll get it done. Be careful."
"You know me!"
"That's why I said to be careful."
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Helper Ambushes
The stars and the city lights were a distraction. One Michelle couldn't afford.
She lay back on her balcony's wooden chaise lounge and closed her eyes. Should she go back inside her apartment, rather than talk to D.C. out here?
Theoretically, one of the sleeping neighbors might overhear a detail they shouldn't, but after her conversation with Sam, she didn't particularly want to follow the rules.
He never did.
She checked her phone for the time. Late enough in D.C., so she dialed.
The duty officer at the agency picked up. Didn't bother to verify her identity.
Who else would call from her encrypted mobile phone? "Please hold for the Assistant Director for Korea."
Edward Metcalf's powerful voice echoed across the satellite links, "You requested a covert mission sub and a dozen SEALs? Don't ask for much, do you?"
"My local contacts in the special operations community felt the request would be better received coming from our agency."
"They already knew all the SEALs in the region are tasked and there's no way they'll get their missions changed based on the speculative bullshit you're feeding me. Did you not already know that, or are you running your own game here? What's reality?"
How to put this politely? "Sir, we have some solid data points. The lab info is across the DMZ. We have two contacts on the other side, one American soldier I'm personally confident is reliable, the other a high-level DPRK official. I believe the risk is worth it to back our soldier up, even if we ultimately don't end up using the SEALs."
"Request denied. We don't expend political capital with the Navy just in case some Ranger gets caught short across the line. As far as I know, everything is now proceeding as planned, so what aren't you telling me?"
Michelle sucked in her breath.
Sam trusted her. He wasn't perfect, but if she ever needed him, he'd fight an Army to help her.
Wasn't he in Korea, changing his whole career path, under threat of court martial, because she'd asked him to come?
Taken advantage of him?
She held no illusions of herself. She knew how to work people to get ahead, but Sam wasn't like that. He was oblivious.
Naive.
Immune to social reality.
"Still there? What's wrong, can't think of a new lie that fits fast enough?"
Air escaped her in a rush. Her chest dropped and rattled her necklace.
She grabbed the yin-yang shells to silence it.
Sat up.
Strained for how to respond.
Nothing else she could do for Sam.
Metcalf obviously didn't want the CIA to provide any support.
To spend any political capital.
She should just go along. Keep her positive career prospects, even if it'd take her another decade to make Station Chief.
"Sir, there's nothing I haven't told you, except I'm willing to put my career on the line for this. Sending these SEALs is the most important thing they'll do all year."
Willing to put her career on the line?
Where did that come from?
"Your career is always on the line; so is mine."
He paused.
"Fine, I'll send your request to the Navy to borrow the USS Michigan. Just sitting in port doing nothing anyway. But it'll take too much to get the SEALs re-tasked. You'll have to scrounge up somebody else to staff your little stand-by relief mission. If you can't find a qualified spec ops team through your own contacts, we'll cancel the whole deal."
No SEALs? At least she had a sub. "Thank you, sir. I won't disappoint you."
"You already have, but I'll give you a little more rope before you hang."
What had she done? "It's all going to work out, sir."
Click.
She hoped, anyway.
If not, she might need to join Sam on that agency plane ride out of Seoul, assuming they both lived to reach the airport.
* * *
Stay off the paths. Stay off the peaks. Stay away from terrain choke-points.
Anywhere the scrub brush or hills tried to lead me, I needed to take the more difficult direction instead.
Not the time to get blowed up, as Bishop liked to say.
If the DPRK had more observation points, if they'd mined any land, if they guarded anywhere, it'd be in the places
people naturally walked: along creeks, following animal paths, all the easy ways to traverse the hills.
Using their tunnel, I'd already bypassed the known mined and fenced areas closer to the border.
Much better to infiltrate alone and not draw any attention.
I shifted my ruck up a few inches. Tightened the belt strap. Move more of the weight from my aching shoulder to my waist.
One foot in front of the other. I'd get to their main base quickly enough.
Two klicks on flat ground, even with a full ruck, should only take me 20 minutes.
I flowed like water through bushes without disturbing their outlines in the dark.
Slithered over hill peaks to not silhouette myself in the sparse moonlight.
Stopped every five minutes to reorient myself, making sure I continued in the right general direction.
Paused every minute.
Turned. Listened. Watched.
Strained senses for any sign of the enemy.
Willed my breath quiet to increase my hearing range.
Slipped in the mud more than once.
Bugs buzzed. The occasional field mouse scurried into a bush.
A hunting bat fluttered past my helmet; one of the sharks of the rodent world.
I tried to ignore the possibility of land mines. In the dark, even with night vision, would only discover one the hard way.
Surely they'd mine the trails people most likely followed?
The ones wide and flat enough to accept a tank or another vehicle.
After an hour ruck marching over uneven terrain, a string of lights emerged from the darkness.
The main base perimeter, complete with circles of razor wire topping chain-link fence punctuated by guard tower observation posts.
The spotlights in the guard towers were dark.
Shut off.
Needed to stay that way.
A hundred-meter outer security area circled the fence line.
The potholed highway from the Kaeson Industrial Area ended at the northern main gate.
A southern gate fed into a system of dirt and gravel roads covering this section of the DMZ.
Smaller sally ports, suitable only for foot traffic, pierced the east and west fences.
I hunched down just outside the cleared security area.
Once I left the relative safety of the brush, all it would take was one especially alert or especially bored guard to flip on his spotlight in one of the nearby towers and run it across the open space.
Then the machine guns would take over.
Oh, I could take out the spotlights with a bullet as fast as they could switch them on and point them at me, but one against the few thousand men and tanks they could mobilize sounded like a losing proposition.
Wasn't even carrying that many rounds for my carbine.
No, my plan involved my multi-tool. Just needed a little leverage to make it work.
Made out movement in the closest tower.
At least they didn't have night vision to guide them.
Strictly low tech, more used to guarding against fleeing conscripts. Probably spent most of their time watching inward, toward the base.
More entertaining than 100 meters of mud.
Time to move out.
I pushed one hand forward, checked the surface.
Damp dirt.
Moved forward on my left elbow and my right knee. With my belly taking some of the pressure, only sunk an inch into the mud.
Right elbow and left knee. Check the ground ahead.
Elbows and knees alternating. Repeat.
Didn't need a whole platoon of Rangers out here, bumbling around.
All it took was one soldier making a single mistake to get caught.
Doing fine by myself.
Crawled fifty meters.
Hand touched wood. Sphincter tightened involuntarily.
Froze. Focused.
Analyzed the situation.
A wipe-out here would be my last ride.
Land mine.
Something in the PMD series, old Soviet blast-type anti-personnel mines made from a wooden box with a hinged lid.
Push down the lid and a striker hits a detonator. Wooden box to avoid metal detectors.
Rain must've washed the thin layer of dirt off the lid.
Let's avoid that whole getting blowed up part.
The story of Bishop's cheek was a company legend, passed on whenever someone new joined up.
Major Williams, the RRC CO, was once 2LT Williams in the Big Army. First deployed as Bishop's brand-new platoon leader in Afghanistan.
On his first day in country, their platoon stumbled on a poppy field in a hidden valley amongst the rocky hills.
Bishop watched Williams wander over to a cleared dirt track bordering a poppy field.
Williams thought it was a road for harvesting the poppies.
In Bishop's experience, that'd be a minefield to keep anyone from stealing their cash crop, not where you'd want to walk.
So Bishop took off yelling.
Sprinted the couple of hundred meters of bushes and rocks between them.
Towards the end, he jumped over a razor wire fence to stop Williams.
Well, tried to jump. Actually tripped over a rock on the take-off and rammed his head into a concertina spiral of wicked metal barbs.
Earned his cheek scar.
Williams couldn't understand what Bishop was yelling about, but when he saw him tangled up, turned around and went back to help.
Turning back saved his life from the minefield.
To this day, Bishop swears a lieutenant will get him killed someday.
Land mines remind me of that story, except there was no sergeant here to stop me from getting blowed up. I'd have to do that on my own.
At least I wasn't risking anyone else's life.
Well, besides all that future collateral damage if I died here and didn't recover the data.
A Soviet PMD has to be pushed all the way down to trigger. I lifted my hand instead.
Where there is one mine, there is usually a whole mine field. A mine field I lay in the middle of.
Time to move even slower and hope no one in a tower paid attention.
I eased my knife out.
For once, the mud worked for me, creating less resistance to the blade as I pushed it into the ground diagonally ahead of me with each crawl.
Unless it rained or snowed pretty heavily in the next few hours, when the sun came up, my path across the cleared security area would be obvious in the mud.
That's assuming I made it away from here before the sun came up.
Only had three more hours.
Should be plenty of time.
Managed about a meter every twenty seconds.
Fifteen minutes of sheer terror, imagining another mine in front of me.
Actually only detoured around three.
Three was way too many. Rather dodge shark fins in the waves.
Laying next to the fence, I discovered a feature I hadn't seen from 100 meters away. A thick wire weaved in and out at waist height.
Electrified. Great.
Well, didn't really want to go over the fence, anyway. My recovering knee already felt the recent overuse.
Used the wire cutter on my multi-tool to grip one link at a time. Rubber coated handles.
Each link snapped as I put the full leverage of my arms on it.
Each time, I paused to listen for one of the tower guards alerting on the click.
Snip after snip, I carved up from the ground tall enough to slide under. Cut wide enough for my shoulders to clear the side.
Folded the chain up on itself.
Secured it with a zip tie.
Pushed my ruck through ahead of me.
Slid under on my back, looking at the stars.
Clipped the zip tie so the fence appeared undisturbed. Returned to its previous shape.
Crept along the inside of the fence line until I found a building close enough t
o hide me in its shadow.
Without much electricity to waste, the interior of the base slept in darkness.
I darted from building to building.
Followed churned up mud until I located the motor pool parking lot by the simple expedient of looking for the largest collection of trucks and cars.
Among the beat up troop trucks and tiny blue Pyonghwa Chinese knock-offs, I mean re-branded passenger cars, there was only one black Mercedes limo, parked by itself.
High-ranking military officers drove the passenger cars.
The North limited the Mercedes limos to very high officials in the DPRK government.
They considered enlisted lucky if they rode in the back of a truck rather than walking everywhere.
I'd seen my share of vehicle security mechanisms when I was younger, but chauffeurs for North Korean officials don't need to lock their cars. Having the power of instant life or death over anyone who might dare to trespass is a sufficient deterrent against petty vandalism.
Opening the back door of the limo, I took off my pack and set it on the car's floor.
Removed a wireless motion sensor from my pack and stuck the unobtrusive monitor to the grill on the front of the hood. From that perspective, it covered the aisle anyone would use to approach.
Crawled into the back, which spread mud across the red leather upholstery.
Fed myself cinnamon zapplesauce and a peanut butter dessert bar from an FSR.
Downed two pain pills with a chocolate protein drink.
Set my alarm to vibrate just before dawn.
Hated to sleep on the job, but my shoulder hurt. Plenty of time for another nap before recovering the data.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Hot Wheels
Unlike just after she'd borne her son, Jin-sun's Mother had properly arranged this kitchen to fill their home with the nourishing energy of Feng Shui.
She dropped the cucumbers from the morning farmer's market on the kitchen table.
Her table's surface was made from a good Korean hardwood. The stove represented fire; the sink water.
The tile floor filled the kitchen with earth to offset the hanging copper pots.
She'd make her son his favorite Oi Sobagi Kimchi with the cucumbers later.
She pitched her voice to carry, "Jin-sun? We have little time!"
Techno Ranger Page 25