Seawolf Mask of Command (62 page)

Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

The soft clicking had grown louder, and now sounded like the footfalls of an entire regiment of North Korean commandos. She tensed herself as she gripped the injector. They’d told her the injector was virtually painless and death would be instantaneous. A cyanide cocktail. She looked at the injector as the sound came closer.

They were right on top of her.

She was about to thumb the rubber safety top off the needle before plunging it into her flesh when, to her immense relief, she saw a crab climbing over the rocks in front of her.

“Oh, thank God,” she whispered and closed her eyes briefly, trying to calm herself while at the same time chastising herself for panicking.

Then a strong hand gripped her shoulder from behind.

She nearly screeched as she turned and saw Hoover.

“Come on, Ell-Tee,” he whispered. He sounded irritatingly calm.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought you guys had left me,” she explained.

He paused and turned to her, his weapon at the ready. “Then why didn’t you use the radio?”

She’d forgotten to turn her small radio on when they came out of the water. Kristen felt herself blush in embarrassment. “Sorry,” she replied. “I guess I’m a little nervous.”

“You’re gonna be fuckin’ dead if you don’t shut the fuck up, Lieutenant,” Grogan hissed somewhere close ahead.

Hoover didn’t reply. Instead, his eyes continued scanning the area with his night vision goggles. He then took her by the right wrist and led her forward. Kristen was thankful for the physical contact, feeling no longer as isolated and all alone. He led her hardly four meters and they came to a sandy road running parallel to the coastline.

She saw Grogan lying in the rocks, his rifle up and at the ready as he scanned the area through a night vision scope. Hoover positioned her in a slight depression created by the rocks behind Grogan and motioned for her not to move.

She nodded her head nervously.

Grogan was an arm’s reach away, and Hoover moved off to the right about five meters. She looked around but couldn’t see Hamilton. Kristen hunkered down, trying to disappear into the deep recess, but she kept her head up slightly so she could see what was happening and, most importantly, not lose sight of Hoover and Grogan. As she looked around, she decided that since the others were all watching the road, she should keep watch toward the rear in case some group of North Korean soldiers appeared behind them.

Great idea, and just what would you do then?

Kristen squirmed her way down into the crevice hoping to disappear. But as she did, her rifle slammed against a rock. The noise of the metal hitting the rocks sounded like a bass drum being struck. She turned her head and saw Grogan. He placed his finger to his lips.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Will you stop moving around for God’s sake?” he whispered harshly. “Hell, they’ll hear us for sure.”

He returned to where he’d been hiding, and Kristen did her best not to move. Except now her left leg was positioned awkwardly under her hips and pressing into a jagged edge of a rock. She tried to ignore it, but the pain was growing worse with each minute. She waited, seemingly for hours as the pain grew worse to the point she had to move.

Kristen carefully placed her hands on the rocks and tried to lift herself up as silently as possible to relieve the pain in her ankle. But as she did, her rifle banged against a rock again. She froze. She could almost feel Grogan about to boil over. The noise of the rifle on the rock sounded like a thunder clap in her ears. She lowered herself down slowly and managed a more comfortable position, feeling the cold wind now passing over her.

Kristen had briefly forgotten the cold, having been too nervous to feel the biting wind. It was January, and Korean winters were notoriously bad. She pulled her arms about her to conserve heat and nestled down a little more as the cold began to sink in. Her wetsuit was good for keeping her body warm in the water but provided only marginal protection in the open air. She then reminded herself that she at least had a pair of utilities to help break the wind, whereas the three SEALs were wearing just their camouflage drysuits.

She looked at her watch, her teeth beginning to chatter, and saw they’d been ashore for nearly an hour. According to intelligence reports, the doctor worked late in his office and took his evening stroll whenever he finished for the night. But, he never finished before 8:00 PM and seldom worked past midnight. She was already shivering, and the thought of waiting another few hours seemed impossible.

The sound of a vehicle engine took her mind off the biting cold. She pressed herself into her slight depression trying to become a part of the rock as headlights illuminated the sky over their heads. The vehicle engine grew louder and the lights brighter as it approached. She could have sworn she felt the ground rumbling beneath her, and her first thought was that the vehicle might be a tank.

What do we do if it’s a tank? Do we have any anti-tank weapons?

Kristen was almost completely hidden in shadow, but tried to force herself down a little further. The vehicle passed by without slowing down, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of a tank, it was a small pick-up truck with some soldiers in the back.

With the vehicle gone, her mind once more noticed the bone-numbing cold. She glanced toward where Grogan and Hoover were and could barely see them blending perfectly into the shadows. Unlike her though, they weren’t laying in depressions to help block the wind. The SEALs were up, laying in firing positions and exposed to the brutal effects of the wind. Seeing them enduring the worst of the cold and wind without so much as a murmur of complaint made her feel like a big wimp.

She could hear the distant sound of the breakers hitting the rocky shore and the sea spray washing over the rocks as the wind howled about them. Thick clouds had moved in concealing the moon, and there wasn’t a single star visible anywhere. Inland, she could see the soft glow of the Musudan-ri rocket facility. But, from her vantage point, she couldn’t see the base.

They continued to wait. The shivering was growing worse, and her teeth were chattering from the numbing cold. Plus, her legs were cramping underneath her from the awkward way she was sitting. She considered moving, but knew to do so would make noise, so she sat still.

“Tally-ho,”
she heard a soft whisper.

She was wearing—as they all were—a set of bone phones. She’d never seen them before the SEALs had handed her a set back on the
Seawolf,
but understood the technology. Basically, the small devices were pressed against her skin, just behind each earlobe. When activated, the sound vibration was conducted directly from the device, through bones in her skull and to her ear canal, allowing her to hear radio communication even in a severe firefight. A throat microphone was positioned over her voice box to pick up even the slightest audible sounds from her vocal chords when she depressed the pressure pad under her left arm.

“Three Gomers, walking in the open.”
She recognized Hamilton’s voice.
“Fifty meters to our nine o’clock. Two DPRK soldiers and one civilian. Soldiers are armed with assault rifles, over.”

She froze, listening intently as she again forgot about the cold. Her heart had resumed its hammering in her breast as Grogan shifted his position slightly. Kristen resisted the urge to look up. Instead, she listened, but heard nothing except the wind and waves. She wasn’t supposed to do anything. The SEALs would do all of the shooting…

Shooting?

Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

Kristen then heard the sound of men on the rocky road. She could hear the soft crunching of their boots on the gravel. She heard their casual voices more interested in good conversation than in being on the alert. They weren’t expecting trouble. It struck her as ludicrous that the three men were walking right into the ambush without any sense of danger. But then it occurred to her that if their roles had been reversed and she’d been the one walking along some stretch of beach in America, she certainly wouldn’t expect to be ambushed by foreign commandos.

The voices came closer. The sounds of their boots on the rocks seemed to be nearly right on top of them, but the seconds continued to tick by. She tried to remember what she was supposed to do when the ambush was initiated. But her mind went blank, and she wasn’t certain she couldn’t even remember her own name at the moment.

Then she heard Grogan whisper over the radio, “
Now.”

She heard no shots.

In fact, the lack of noise surprised her.

All she heard was the soft metallic sound of the HK-416 bolts going back and forth, then the sound of expended brass hitting the rocks. She clearly heard the two men collapse on the road and their weapons clattering loudly as they fell onto the roadbed.

“Move, move, move,”
Grogan ordered at the same time she heard someone shouting in Korean. Kristen hesitated, the sense of being in a dream momentarily freezing her in place. But then she moved, coming up onto her cramped legs. She’d been seated in the uncomfortable position too long and her legs felt unusually heavy. She reached the edge of the road and saw the scene of the ambush.

The two North Korean “handlers” had died instantly, never feeling the bullets passing through their skulls. They were crumpled on the road exactly as they fell. She was struck by how odd the two dead men looked. Both hadn’t fallen back, their arms flailing like in a movie. Instead, they’d simply collapsed to the ground as if they’d been marionettes with their strings cut. Dr. Dar-Hyun was on his knees and nearly in hysterics. Hoover, a pistol in hand, forced Choi down flat on his belly and began frisking him for weapons. Grogan was in the middle of the road, down on one knee, his weapon at the ready and facing east. To the left, she saw Hamilton. He was also on the road but facing in the opposite direction, his own rifle at the ready.

“Let’s go, Ell-Tee,” Hoover called to her as she scrambled over the rocks, having forgotten whatever Mandarin Chinese she knew.

Kristen reached the road and ran over to where Hoover was searching the Korean scientist. She knelt down and saw that Choi was panicking and jabbering in a language she didn’t understand. “Shh,” she offered, then spoke the only other thought coming to her mind. “Please be quiet,” she said in crystal clear English.

“Fuck, Ell-Tee, I coulda done that!” Hoover said as he readied a tranquilizer for the Korean. “How about some of that Mandarin shit.”

“Yeah, Mandarin….” she answered stupidly as she continued to try and quiet the man down.

“Doc, if he doesn’t shut the fuck up, drug his ass,” Grogan swore in a harsh whisper.

Kristen found her Mandarin and began begging Choi to be calm and listen in a language he could understand. “We’re here to get you out. We aren’t going to hurt you,” she hoped she said in Mandarin. “Please, Dr. Dar-Hyun, try to stay calm and please stop calling out,” Kristen added as the man rolled over on the rocks, gripping his chest tightly, terror still in his eyes. But, whatever she said must have been close enough, because he stopped crying out, even though he was still jabbering in Korean.

“Please, sir, be quiet before you alert other soldiers in the area.” she pleaded with him. “Just try to relax.” She helped him sit up. “Just breathe easily.”

He nodded to her and resumed jabbering, this time in Mandarin.

“Ask him what this is,” Hoover asked, referring to a small black box about the size of a deck of cards attached to his ankle with a thin black strap. There was a small blinking green light on the box. Hoover opened his waterproof rucksack and readied a syringe to knock the doctor out. Knocking Choi out was the last resort since, if he was unconscious while on the LAR-7, he could vomit in his mask and drown before anyone could help him.

Kristen thought of the proper phrasing and then asked the question. He immediately replied, gesturing wildly at his ankle and then at the area around him. She slowed him down, unable to understand most of what he was saying as he spoke too fast in his excitement. While she was interpreting, Hamilton and Grogan dragged the bodies off the road and hid them in some brush. Meanwhile, Hoover readied the syringe.

“He says it is some sort of tracking device,” she explained. “At least I think that’s what he’s telling me.”

Grogan and Hamilton closed in on them, facing outward. Grogan saw the old man was still gripping his chest tightly and sweating despite the cold. “Shit, Doc! The fucker looks to be checking out on us right here. Can you give him something?”

Choi had calmed down a bit and was no longer jabbering in fright, but he was still looking far too stressed at the moment to try and transport him in the SDV. “He’ll never make it like this,” Kristen offered, knowing firsthand how scared she’d been when she was dragged into the SDV a few hours earlier.

Hoover opened a medicine bottle and handed a pill to Kristen. “Explain to him that this is nitroglycerine for his heart.”

“Jack, we need to get off this road,” Hamilton whispered forcefully to Grogan.

“Hurry up, Doc, we gotta get the fuck out of here!” Grogan ordered.

Kristen explained what the medicine was, and Choi, after some discussion, took the pill and agreed to allow the injection. Hoover injected the medicine into him and almost immediately he seemed to relax.

“All right, let’s get him up and out of here, Doc,” Grogan ordered. “Trip and I’ll cover you.”

“What about this thing on his ankle?” Hoover asked. “Ell-Tee says it’s some sort of tracking device.”

“Cut the fucker off,” Grogan ordered.

Hoover drew his combat knife and without hesitation grabbed the nylon strap holding the monitoring device on Choi’s ankle. But Kristen grabbed his knife arm before he could cut it off. “Wait,” she whispered. “What if it sounds an alarm somewhere if it’s removed? You know, like those devices they make people wear when they’re under house arrest.”

Hoover paused and glanced at Grogan questioningly.

“We sure as hell can’t take a homing device with us,” Grogan replied. The SEAL leader paused, weighing the options. There didn’t seem to be too many. They clearly couldn’t take the tracking device with them. “Do it, Doc,” Grogan ordered.