No time for doubts. Duty, instead.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Judgement Day
Not much cover, but almost complete concealment.
I rested on my back in a gully.
Stared up at a bush. The bush punished any movement with scrapes and stabs.
In my defense, I didn't discover the thorns until I was halfway camouflaged.
Just like I didn't expect Meon to get free and back in communication with his men to warn them.
Slogging through the mud and a minefield, freezing my cojones off in the Jiha river, wasn't worth these results.
I'd cleared the canyon's exit before the enemy could cut me off, but they were still out there.
Seeking me.
My backside froze to the ground.
Could try to wait until dark, but the North Korean Army, especially their border guards, had extensive experience hunting people.
No, needed to move my pile of aches off this arctic wasteland. Get back up on the board.
Hopefully, literally.
Checked my exact location on a satellite view of the area.
I'd never complain about military electronics ruggedization again, even if my phone did cost four times as much.
Jiha base would've alerted the tangos between here and the DMZ. They'd form a cordon far enough away to prevent me from slipping past before they walked the hills and canyons to flush me out.
A rock tumbled down a hillside in the distance, clanging off the stony ground.
Half-klick away.
Even if I wanted to climb back up that mountain the river just flushed me out of, going back the way I came wasn't an option.
Excited shouts in Korean echoed off the stone walls to the south.
Break time over.
Focused on the soldiers hunting me, I jumped when my phone vibrated. The screen showed Yang Hyo-jin's name and number.
"Harper", I whispered.
"Sam, I've been working on my detector. These readings don't make sense. Keep getting false positives. Could use a fresh perspective on the problem, if you'd come by the lab."
"Love to, but I'm in the middle of something here. Can it wait a few days?"
"Never mind, Lieutenant Harper. I'll figure it out on my own."
Click.
Women! I'll never figure 'em out.
Just have to explain later, assuming she'd let me.
Back in range of the cell towers across the border, my phone had service again. Time for my ace in the hole.
I texted Michelle coordinates for a spot in the Ryesong river.
Now I just had to get there, while a couple border guard battalions looked for me.
From here, could only make it farther north or west, away from the bases for the soldiers hunting me.
North took me farther into the country, so west it was.
On the map, the fastest path west would be to go back and follow the Riha river, but according to intelligence reports the conscript labor troops farmed rice along the river, using the water to flood the paddies.
Too much risk of discovery if I exited the easy way.
No, west through the canyons was my only hope. At least I had a satellite map on my phone to guide my 10k hike through rough terrain. That'd keep me out of blind canyons and dead-ends.
My phone screen died while I was staring at it, figuring out the best route west. Military electronics ruggedization sucks.
Should be enough battery remaining.
Hit my phone a couple of times.
No better.
Pocketed it. Maybe it'd work once it dried out more.
The guards would expect me to take the shortest routes. If I traveled the hard way, maybe I could evade them and salvage my life from this solo mission that traitorous bureaucrat Rhee forced on me.
A crack between cliffs to the west was the first path I remembered from the screen.
I rolled out from the bush without attracting additional notice, but scraped the side of my face across the rough branches.
Ran toward the crack.
Stayed low to avoid discovery.
Couldn't get Rhee's betrayal and losing the data out of my mind to save my life.
He'd used my team's report to help the North Koreans infiltrate the lab.
Who was I kidding?
The border guards might as well capture me, or even shoot me. I'd failed again.
Gone it alone.
Now my weapons and supplies were at the bottom of an underground river, the data gone. My only clue to its location the orders database I'd stolen, saved on my useless phone.
After coming to Korea, everything I'd done turned into a SNAFU.
I'd tried to rely on others for this mission without any success to show for it.
What's the point?
My bum knee failed me. Didn't retract fast enough to lift my foot high enough.
A root jutting six inches out of the dirt tripped me. I rolled on my shoulder across the stony ground.
Ouch.
Popped back up. Shook my head. Ran on.
Hazards of rapid cross-country travel.
Who could I trust, anyway?
Not my knee.
Maybe Hyo-jin, although I probably just alienated her by blowing her off on the phone.
That, I could explain, if she didn't kill me for crossing the border without telling her.
Bishop always looked out for me, even when I put him in awkward positions with the CO.
Michelle, if my eSurfboard showed up at the right time and place. We'd see about that, but she'd been my friend since high school, after all.
Lee was tough for me to read, but he'd never let me down before.
Not Schnier. Definitely not Schnier.
Not any farther than I could toss him, and that dude was too big to throw back to his ranch, anyway.
This path turned into a game trail, four inches wide. The trail curved around bushes and into the canyon.
Launched myself from a boulder. Dodged a pile of brush.
Not exactly keeping my head down.
Maybe just wasn't the right guy for this mission?
Needed a real team.
Guys to carry backup communications, weapons, ammo, explosives; cover each other's backs.
Wasn't me.
Should've turned this over to Schnier's platoon and just stayed home.
Naw, not Schnier.
SOCKOR? They could order some snake eaters across the DMZ. Plenty of SEALs lying around. Heck, had the whole 8th Army at their disposal.
A bullet whined off the boulder behind me. I ducked instinctively. The rifle crack echoed off the cliff walls to either side.
Spotted me again.
No time for distractions. Sprint.
Run around boulders, under thorny limbs, through openings.
Anything to escape the soldiers hunting me.
Must not catch me. Had a duty to fulfill. A responsibility.
Maybe I couldn't do that without relying on others to help me, but I also couldn't do it laying in a torture chamber, waiting for the State Department to pay them off for my return.
Lungs burned with every forced exhalation. Left side demanded I stop; feed my muscles oxygen.
A man's natural step length is about 40% of their height. Up to 135% when sprinting.
The pursuing North Koreans stood at least a foot shorter than me. Probably gained 4 inches on them with each step.
No pain.
They'd be hungry, lazy, unmotivated to do anything except the minimal required to avoid negative notice as a conscript.
Could turnover my stride faster than they would.
Maybe with more conscripts available, they'd be able to rest and set up ahead of me, but in a local footrace, I'd win.
Dodged around a canyon corner.
Chose the left fork from two different paths.
No more direct line of sight behind me. They'd radio ahead, but for now they had to have lost me.
Rather than continuing o
n, I slowed to a walk.
Panted back to an oxygen surplus.
Energy debt redeemed, I set about restoring my honor by free climbing the side of the cliff.
The border guards and conscripts would expect me at the ends of the forked paths, but my enemies would be out of position.
After I reached the top, I'd cut across the ridges and hilltops to the west, trading speed for risk of detection.
That risk would enable the bad guys to stay close, but a steady speed would keep me ahead of them until I reached the Ryesong river, guarded by DPRK patrol boats.
They might be out of position if the DPRK People's Army didn't talk directly to the People's Navy.
Not much of a plan, but I didn't know any others.
* * *
What should he do about those doggone lieutenants, Harper and Schnier?
Bishop leaned back in his chair. Propped his feet on his desk. Flipped a mk2 training grenade toward the ceiling.
Tossed it. Caught it.
Over and over.
They're like teenage girls, always staying out late and worrying their parents.
Could at least keep him in the loop. At this rate, they were gonna re-light the Korean war, with his wife and their girls in Seoul caught in the middle.
SFC Lee from Harper's MI platoon snagged the grenade out of the air, interrupting Bishop's train of thought.
"Top? A minute?"
Bishop thumped his boots on the floor. Sat up.
"Sure, whatcha got?"
Lee normally held himself ramrod straight, but now he drooped above Bishop's desk like his shoulders held a half-ton pound barbell set.
"I know I'm supposed to be in charge of my platoon, but this is way over my paygrade. Should I take it to the major or to my superiors at the KCIA? Maybe the CIA would run with it?"
"Slow down, Lee. What're you talking about?"
"Oh, I forgot, you don't know. Been negotiating with a contact in the DPRK Defense Ministry. We suspected who he was, pretty high up in the ministry, by what he could give us. Delivered promising stuff. Well, he just sent me a new message. Not only confirmed his real name, but … well … you should listen to it yourself."
Lee clunked the grenade onto the top of Bishop's glass desk. Pulled an Army-issue encrypted flash memory card out of his pocket. "Here's a copy."
Lee set the tiny memory chip down next to Bishop's laptop.
Bishop plugged it into his laptop's reader. Copied it over. Played the audio recording.
"I am Deputy Defense Minister Meon Lon-chun. You may verify my identity using audio from my speeches at the most recent peace conference. I tell you this so you will take the following seriously.
"I require one-hundred million U.S. dollars: Fifty million in gold, thirty million in diamonds, fifteen million on deposit, five million in cash.
"If you agree, I will supply the delivery arrangements for the ransom and details related to my transportation out of Korea, to the island of my choice."
A pause in the recording.
"Yes, ransom. I will ransom back to you the city of Seoul and it's 10 million people. That's only ten U.S. dollars per person, or point one-six percent of the city's annual GDP.
"Quite a bargain for you.
"The city is now my hostage. A nuclear warhead is poised to destroy the city on my command, and my command alone.
"My team of special forces is armed with a dead-man's switch. They will only communicate with me. Any attempt to stop them, to disarm the device, will cause the immediate destruction of the city.
"Any attempt at mass evacuation will cause them to trigger the device.
"Don't test me. I will lose a platoon and you will lose a city, its inhabitants, your lives, and the lives of your men.
"You have twenty-four hours from this message for your intelligence services to accept my demands, at which time I will provide further instructions.
"Comply, and you can keep your city, the bomb, and I'll even throw in a special forces platoon once I'm safely away with my new wealth."
The recording ended.
Bishop's day just wasn't getting any better. "That's a real hum-dinger. How much gold is that?"
"Did the math; over 500 pounds. After our discussion about the lab data, I think he may be serious.
"Must've smuggled a trashcan nuke across the border. The voice matches Meon. Intelligence places him currently just across the DMZ.
"What do I do?"
"Any chance we can just fix this guy before he talks to his operators?"
"Assuming we get a good location on him with a drone or satellite; we'd have to attack their base across the DMZ. That's likely to start a war and get Seoul destroyed by all the artillery they have trained on it anyway, even if his men don't nuke us."
"Dang-blasted commie son-of a …"
Bishop stopped. "Better send a copy to your bosses at the KCIA. Another to Langley. I'll run it up the SOCKOR flagpole.
"Everybody's gonna want a piece of this one. Just don't tell any of the other boots; last thing we need is panicked folks fleeing the city and trampling each other.
"Except Schnier. Call Schnier. Get him back here. Whatever he's doing out on that sub, this is more important. Once I brief the major, he's gonna want some hard tactical options."
Lee let out a long breath. "Thanks, Top."
Bishop stood and pocketed the flash drive. He rapped on the CO's door frame while Lee beat a hasty retreat for the exit.
Dag-nabbit, Major Williams would surely want to know where Harper and Schnier were.
Lieutenants! Not his day to watch 'em.
Chapter Thirty-Six: With or Without You
Michelle wasn't impressed with the intrepidness of the USS Michigan's captain.
Late last night she'd flown with Schnier and the rest of his platoon in a 2nd Aviation Regiment Black Hawk to Busan Naval Base.
There they'd boarded the Michigan.
Now, she relaxed in a swinging hammock strung between a pair of twelve-foot navy Dry Deck Shelters (DDS).
The DDS were shaped like giant gray loafs of bread and carried like camel lumps on the back of the Michigan. They enabled special forces divers and submersibles to access the sub while underwater.
The regular motion of the submarine in the waves rocked her hammock with no additional effort on her part.
On her first submarine trip, she loved their underwater departure from port, but when they approached the border between North and South Korea in the Yellow Sea, the sub's captain insisted it was safer if they rode above the crashing waves.
With black storm clouds gathering farther offshore, she expected the captain to order them off the deck soon, once the lightning approached within a few miles.
The sub drew about twelve meters while on the surface, but the sea this close to land ran only 40 meters deep.
Too much risk of running aground to cruise the Michigan under the surface here.
They'd just have to ride it out.
More in danger from the increased wind, a crop-duster flew from Ganghwa Peace Observatory.
Cruised well above them. Edged along the official border before turning back to begin another trip.
The plane pretended to perform photo reconnaissance, but actually waited for her orders.
Hopefully, she'd hear from Sam before the plane's pilot retreated from the approaching storm.
The sub made slow, but consistent headway against the rising whitecaps. Its course circled the Yellow Sea near the border.
A pale Navy cook grinned at her. He supplied her a mocktail Mojito on the open platform.
"The flavor will help you resist sea-sickness on these waves, Ma'am."
The cook's number one responsibility was to keep morale up on the sub, which included pleasing rare female visitors, but did not include serving actual alcohol.
Schnier folded his arms.
Leaned up against one of the DDS walls.
Pretended he didn't need to constantly shift his we
ight from foot to foot to stay balanced on the deck.
At least he properly filled out his Ranger uniform.
The rest of his men rode down below, where it was safer. Maybe she wasn't giving him enough credit; perhaps he'd arranged this time alone for them?
She took a sip. "Should try one of these. No Irish Car Bomb, but the sweet minty citrus creates a nice combo with the salty breeze."
"No, Ma'am. Last thing I need is for one of my men to catch me up here sipping mocktails. Never live it down.
"Besides, seems a mite coldhearted to relax on deck while Harper's out there on some kind of suicide mission, even if that reckless idiot deserves to get caught."
"What's wrong, nervous? Can't handle just hanging out here with me?
"After all, this is technically our date."
Schnier chuckled. "Nervous? Hardly. Learned a great technique from my Aggie public speaking course for not gettin' jumpy when talking to hot women.
"Just picture 'em naked." He winked.
Men!
Her neck flushed.
At least he saw her as hot. She could use that.
Michelle took a deliberate breath. She was in control here, not this cowboy.
Her secure phone dinged with a new message.
A text from Sam with coordinates for the air-drop he'd requested. Saved by the bell.
She showed the message to Schnier.
"Sam's on his way for extraction. Maybe even already destroyed the data."
"Seen Recon Rangers pull off ballsier stunts than that, but I bet if he had the data, he'd say it in his text. No news is bad news."
Good point. "Either way, your men need to be ready and I need to send these coordinates to the crop duster to program them into the GPS-guided chute."
She tapped a message beginning into her phone.
"Don't know what Harper sees in that thing. Just an electric surf-board. Rather have a horse under me."
"I'm sure you would. Don't miscalculate. We beat you at WARCOM on a pair of those."
Schnier cocked his head. Scratched his jaw. "Rangers aren't the kind of fellas who live on the water. Long history of Rangers in Texas. Teach the new boys all about it.
"Didn't always live to settle down with a nice family, though. Not like Bishop."
"Sam grew up in the ocean."
She hit send on the message. "Don't underestimate what he can accomplish."
"Our second deployment, my platoon hit an HVT's compound in the middle of the night. Grabbed the target, then skedaddled for the hills because the neighborhood lit up like a hornet's nest with tangos.
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