Pushed back the mental urge to breathe.
Ears clogged with water, so I squished in my protective earpieces. Turned on California Girls.
At least my ruggedized phone worked fine underwater. Except as an actual phone, of course.
Better to remain calm and save oxygen.
Focus on math or something.
Let's see, fast river currents are up to 3.1 meters/second. This one felt slower, call it a 1.5, a little under half that. 150 seconds, so 150 meters plus half that again, 225. Plus or minus a wide margin of error.
Maybe half that, or double that, at the most.
For some reason, my damaged right knee ached.
Come on, I constantly iced it in the river, didn't I?
Should be numb by now, not hurting.
Surely I'd break out of this watery coffin soon.
Expelled a little air.
Stuck my mouth right above the valve. Triggered the pressure regulator.
Air bubbled out like an upside down drinking fountain; air floating up rather than water falling down.
Few seconds of high pressure was enough to give me a new gas mix with more oxygen.
Stale and rubbery.
Tire sank lower in the water.
Dumped another couple of wrenches.
Had somewhere between 12 and 20 minutes of air available from the tire.
Oxygen use depended on how calm I stayed.
How much air I lost.
Side of my pack brushed against the stone ceiling. A burst of lopsided friction spun everything in the water.
Lost track of which direction I floated.
Strained to hold on to the tire valve with one hand and the toolbox with my other.
At least I wasn't muddy.
Lost in the dark. Desperate to breathe. Balls freezing.
But not muddy.
More air from opening the valve. Tried dropping a hammer this time.
Smoother impact on the ceiling; more prepared for the contact.
Must be five or six-hundred meters now. Dim green light shone through the water. I regained blurry underwater sight.
Dropped three more wrenches. Three left; almost done with the set.
The buoyancy of the tire popped me up on top of the water again. I gasped mouthfuls of air.
Mouthfuls of diesel truck fumes. Almost worse than the compressed tire air.
A road carved out of the waterway extended the cavern to one side.
Halogen mining work lamps clamped randomly to wooden beams and crosspieces cast shadows from stalactites into the water.
A truck's headlights threatened from the tunnel road.
The river crashed into another cavern wall.
Sucked dirty air into my lungs. Hissed it out of the tire's valve.
Sank out of sight just before the light ran out again.
Using this underwater approach would've intimidated a platoon of SEALs.
Jiha base, here I come.
* * *
Kwon bounced up on the truck's passenger seat.
Shot out a hand to regain his balance.
Caught himself staring at the Jiha river running under stalactites beside the tunnel road, rather than paying attention to the truck's path.
Something dark floating on the surface of the river.
Probably his imagination, or perhaps some piece of trash sucked in.
Hopefully wasn't big enough to clog the steel netting at the entrance to the cavern, but defending that wasn't his problem anymore.
The truck's headlights picked up the entrance of the next tunnel.
The men in the back sat around the Goshawk device and the data drives.
No risk of the tunnel's roof chopping their heads off, but they reflexively ducked down a few inches anyway as the truck exited the wider river cavern.
This time, he'd gotten his orders properly updated. Didn't want to be responsible on paper for not using the special train with a secure escort.
The train they'd been waiting for.
His new orders were to ship the data on the next regular military cargo train heading north.
That'd get the critical information away from the border as fast as possible.
After their stop at the train station, Meon had special instructions he wanted to deliver in person.
Kwon would lead Pahk and his new team across the DMZ again, following in the footsteps of Team Goshawk.
Revenge for their deaths would be sweet. Meon promised that much, at least.
Kwon wondered about that, but this time his mission would be a complete success and his team would return alive.
Chapter Thirty-Two: Foreign Entanglements
Grew colder in the dark every second as the mountain swallowed the river.
Had to adjust my depth again and again.
Ran myself out of tools.
Needing oxygen, I drank more hits of rubbery air from the valve.
The underside of the tire scraped across the round pebbles on the river bottom.
Dumped the empty toolbox overboard.
Tire floated in the middle of the current again.
Last opening was at least 400 meters back. Better be another one before the tire completely deflated.
My shoulder scraped the ceiling. Not enough small weights left to make minor adjustments with.
As I floated, I removed my pack from my back.
Felt around inside my pack. Touched items in the dark with my fingers. Remembered what remained.
Had rations, weapons, extra loaded magazines, some line, half a dozen M86 PDMs.
Didn't want to lose the 21 grams of Composition A5 they each contained, but I could dump a few if I needed to.
Drew another breath from the tire.
Established a new equilibrium in the water.
Back slammed into a mess of thick steel wire. Impact forced precious air from my lungs.
Stay calm.
More air.
Triggered the tire valve again. Drank up almost the last of the remaining life.
Current pushed me up against a web of steel.
Dropped the tire for a second.
The current plastered it against the netting.
Felt around. Six-inch holes between the multi-threaded cables.
Grasped the cabling for leverage.
Swam down a few meters.
The net attached to a steel beam laid across the riverbed.
Swam up.
Anchor points in the rock above. Securely held.
Methodical placement.
Without dragging a tire with me against the current, and thus no extra air, I might swim 1.7 m/s for a while, barely exceeding the speed of the current hauling me in the other direction.
No way to return to the most recent opening.
I'd burn up all my oxygen well before that and couldn't even make headway swimming against the current if I tried to take the tire with me.
Could really use some actual scuba gear and flippers right now. Not to mention my wetsuit.
Soundtrack reached Kokomo.
Nice warm water in the Caribbean.
Dream on.
No more distractions.
Opened my multi-tool. Spread the wire cutter blades around a cable.
Squeezed.
Nothing.
Again, harder.
Tool slipped.
Felt along the cable. Nothing more than a scratch.
Too thick.
Time for a bigger persuader.
One more hit from the tire.
This time the air bubbled out weak, anemic; fighting the external pressure.
I removed a wedge-shaped M86 PDM from my pack. The mine fit into the gap between cables embedded in the ceiling.
Five more, one at a time, filled five holes in the netting near the beam at the bottom.
Couldn't take my pack with me, so at best I could control the explosions.
Removed the safety clip from the M86 PDM near the ceiling.
Onc
e armed, the mine had a 60 second delay until it fired out four triplines designed to catch pursuers.
Normally, plenty of time to create distance if you're running madly through the wilderness.
Swimming?
At a net 0.2 m/s against the current, I'd get 12 meters away before they deployed.
Coincidentally, the official effective range of the mine extended 12 meters.
That's in open air. Water doesn't compress like air does.
Instead, the shrapnel would stop within a few meters of meeting water resistance.
Unfortunately, that same lack of compression by water increased the lethality of the explosive shock-wave. 100 meters would certainly be safe.
If the other five mines didn't explode together and increase the safety distance even further.
No way I could make 100 meters, but what choice did I have?
Running out of air. Caught like a fish in a steel net.
Had to try.
Last breath from the tire. Tucked my multi-tool away in a cargo pocket.
Set my boots against the steel netting. Bent at the knees.
Reached up. Pulled the arming strap.
Felt the rotating metal linkage inside break the shorting bar.
That forced a steel ball against the battery and broke a glass ampule holding electrolyte which activated the reserve battery, powering up the mine.
Legs are stronger than arms. I pushed off from the steel cables.
Hands ahead of me in a prayer-shape to break the water.
Angled downward.
Right knee tweaked in pain. Not recovered enough.
Glided until the current began to catch me.
Kicked with my feet. Pulled with my arms scooping water out of the way.
Reached the bottom.
Dug in with my hands, counteracting the current, pulling myself forward.
Got my feet down. Pushed off again.
Mostly used my left leg. Slight upward angle this time.
Too slow.
Pulse pounded rapidly in my ears. Competed with a desperate need to breathe.
Stay calm to use the least oxygen. Exert as much effort as possible to get away in time.
Contradictory imperatives.
My folded hands touched the rocky ceiling. I flipped over. Used my natural buoyancy to keep me against the roof.
Scrambled with my hands and feet like an upside-down mountain climber.
Shoved off through the water with every hand or foothold I could find.
Found every stone ridge not worn down by the passing water.
Any advantage to get away faster.
Sixty seconds expired.
A piston in the M86 fired.
Seven triplines released.
Three would hit the ceiling uselessly.
Four more would shoot down and out, the current pulling them into the steel webbing once they deployed to the bottom of the river.
Pulled and kicked my way another few meters. Right knee twinged every time I thrust off the rocks.
After deploying the triplines, the mine is programmed with a 10 second delay. That's to make sure the lines have time to settle after deployment.
Wouldn't want them to trigger the mine before actual movement tripped one.
Ten more seconds. Ten more meters.
Any second now, the mine would explode.
No more oxygen in my lungs anyway.
The underwater cave lit up with a flash of light behind me. Drove out the darkness for a moment.
Scrambled another half-step.
The electric detonator triggered the detcord and liquid propellant. A 21 gram sphere of Composition A5 explosive blew.
Shot fragments in all directions. A sphere of death.
Water must've stopped and cooled the hot fragments before any hit the other mines.
No more detonated.
After the flash, the shock-wave passed through my body.
Too fast to push much water. Not powerful enough at this distance to crush lungs. Earpieces protected eardrums.
Gnarly wave-front arrived a moment later. Slapped me into the rock ceiling.
Rattled my noggin even more.
Good thing I was riding this wave new school.
I think Good Vibrations started playing. Only one earpiece produced sound in my ear.
My head was somehow muddy and sharply in pain at the same time.
Tried to relax and float. Scraped along where the river met the stone ceiling.
Floated down with the current.
Must use as little oxygen as possible.
Only sharp fragments of splintered stone remained where anchors held the top of the netting before. Frayed steel cabling bunched and floated in the water; cut at my gloves.
Could've been my large and small intestines. I shuddered in the cold water.
The blast wave must've shredded my pack and the other M86 PDMs.
I thanked Archimedes and his spiritual descendants that the distance and wave reflections off the stone were enough to prevent sympathetic detonation of the Comp A5 inside the other mines.
Murky river water glowed a few meters beyond the net-line.
I swam to the surface.
Place better be empty, 'cause my carbine was somewhere on the river bottom with the shredded PDMs and whatever remained of my dinner.
Flowing cold water suppressed any residual heat. The explosion's easiest outlet had been up and into the wider cavern above.
Water still dripped from a dark gray splash pattern on the ceiling and the closer cave walls.
At least I had my phone, multi-tool, and a combat knife.
Could maybe take one guy with that, if he didn't hear my panting and gasping from when I breached the surface and ambush me.
This cave opening didn't smell of diesel fumes. More like dirty socks and a smoky kimchi campfire.
Couldn't win, but was grateful for the air, anyway.
Rolled up on the rocky river edge.
Hid behind a shattered toilet and shredded camp shower to observe.
The cavern featured a welded steel vault covered in explosives.
Cozy.
Detcord trailed from the vault to what looked suspiciously like more explosives along a steel plate wall and door exiting the room.
Dangerous.
An old camp stove, piled high with ash and twisted-melted plastic. A dozen bare wooden cots.
No one home.
What if all the explosives wired up to the vault and the door had sympathetically detonated when the mine went off?
Or if I'd tried to blow my way in through the door?
Or even used a blowtorch to cut through the steel?
Despite the relative warmth of the air compared to the river, my testicles shriveled up a bit more at the thought.
Kwon and his driver must've gotten loose faster than I planned. This wasn't random; I'd been setup.
Only lived because I'd come in via the river instead of the cave system.
Where was the stolen data?
Somewhere else in Jiha Base? With Minister Meon?
Could I still find and destroy it?
Didn't see how, not with the enemy warned and on full alert.
I'd failed.
Something metal clanked against the other side of the steel plate door leading to the rest of the cave system.
Rung out across the cavern.
Rattled the door booby-trapped with enough explosives to vaporize anything human inside this cavern.
Like me, for instance.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Considerable Chance of Big Booms
Meon Lon-chun stared at the red phone squealing on his desk. The special line to the Supreme Leader's office.
Despite the steam radiator's struggles to keep up with the cold, Meon pulled at his green collar to loosen it.
Couldn't keep the Supreme Commander of the People's Army waiting.
He snatched up the phone. "Deputy Minister Meon here, Supreme Leader."
The woman's lilting voice didn't quite sneer at him, "Wait one moment for the Chairman."
A click as the office in Pyongyang made the final connection.
"Meon?"
The matter-of-fact way the man who held more than one nation's life in his hand spoke sent shivers through his back muscles.
"This is Meon, Marshal."
"I'm told your mission to the South failed to secure any material samples."
Failure might get him killed.
"That's true, sir, but we have the lab's data. It'll be on the way north on the next train."
"Don't argue with me. Excuses aren't becoming of a Deputy Minister. Our scientists will require additional time because of your failure.
"Even now, the Imperialists parade men they claim are your special forces in front of the news cameras. They've announced new sanctions on advanced electronics and luxury goods."
"You can trust me to make this right, sir."
"Why did I hear about the infiltration of your base from Colonel Jong-rin rather than you?"
Base security was supposed to keep quiet about that. Spies everywhere.
Meon couldn't afford to look like he was keeping secrets. "A minor incident, sir. A single enemy soldier is being dealt with. Nothing important enough to disturb you with."
"I'm disturbed by your lack of efficiency and candor. You will report to my office in Pyongyang no later than tomorrow night. We will discuss your failures in person."
Another click as the line disconnected.
What good was his political capital if society threw him out?
If he went to Pyongyang as ordered, would he ever return?
How could he forestall his fate?
He buried his face in his hands.
* * *
I'd need help to make it out of the North alive.
Put the pounding on the steel door out of my mind. Fired up my phone.
No signal, buried here in the mountain.
Wait, no cellular signal, but a local wireless network presented itself in Korean Hangul characters.
Opened the Aircrack app on my phone. Set it to capture WiFi data.
Muffled Korean voices replaced the pounding outside.
Obviously, my earlier explosion drew attention, despite its mostly underwater nature.
No time to panic.
Jogged over to the explosives wired to the door. Traced the strands of cabling from the sensors to an anti-tamper device connected to the detonators.
These guys were serious about making sure anyone breaking in wouldn't survive. Maybe infiltrating by myself wasn't the best choice after all.
Techno Ranger Page 28