The Korean Intercept (10 page)

The march continued. They worked their way up and around the mountain. Gray fingers of dawn slanted through the forest. The climb became more difficult. There was no further conversation between Kate and Bob Paxton. Scott remained unconscious, a dead weight balanced between them, his feet dragging. It was a torturous trek, prodded by the guns of the bandits who were emboldened and celebratory after having wiped out an army patrol.

Lost in a nightmare, thought Kate. There was no trail that she could see. And yet they were being shoved along one rocky slope after another. The here and now was inescapable, and yet in ways was incomprehensible. Did anyone know where she was? She was adapting, she was improvising, as Trev had taught her. Paxton was right about that much, at least. This was never covered in astronaut training. Where were they being taken? What would happen next? The weight of Commander Scott, being dragged between her and Paxton uphill, was beginning to take its toll. She fought a numbness that wanted to weaken her, sapping her strength with every struggling step, causing her to falter.

She wanted this madness to end. She wanted to return to the "real world," where once upon a time… once upon a time…

Once upon a time, a child named Kathryn sat with her mom and dad in front of a television set in their suburban home when she was only five—one of the clearest memories of her childhood—watching a man in a spacesuit walking on the moon. This had led her to a lifelong dual fascination with flying and outer space. As soon as she was old enough, she enrolled in a flying class for seven dollars an hour, and each Saturday for six months she had flown in the front seat of an old gray and maroon single-engine, dual-control Aeronca Champion. Working nights and weekends to pay for her college had not curtailed her flight time. By her senior year, she had become known as Kate, and had enlisted in an ROTC program that paid some of the expenses toward a doctorate in engineering, in exchange for four years of military service after graduation. She had applied for, and, after rigorous screening and testing, been accepted into the space program. Following her honorable discharge, the initial whirlwind of training—rides in T-38 jets and weightless training rides in the KC-135 "vomit comet"—settled down to classroom lectures on engineering and computer science: charts, manuals and diagrams about every inch of a space shuttle. After a year of classroom training had come the yearlong apprenticeship to veteran astronauts, who had taught her those engineering tasks that would be her responsibility on a shuttle flight. For months her schedule was a blur of fifteen-hour days, of grueling, round-the-clock sessions in shuttle simulators, interspersed with visits to contractors' factories to see equipment, technical briefings and the endless task of studying stacks of manuals that outlined every minute of a flight.

The workaholic grind took its toll. During her time at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, eleven astronauts dropped out, every one of them citing the pressure on their family life. Her own marriage had not gone unaffected, but the troubles with Trev had been there from almost the start. They had been separated for over a year now, but she did not blame the space program for that. Her work had only sped up what seemed to be the inevitable.

Three days earlier, when she and the crew had flown from Houston to the Cape in a NASA jet and she'd seen
Liberty
for the first time, she had known that it was all worth it. Not just the tradeoff from her troubled marriage but all those years of dreams and struggles leading up to her first view of the shuttle, mounted to its 154-foot rust-colored external fuel tank and twin 149-foot white-colored solid-rocket boosters. Of course, all of that had occurred in the normal, "real world"… not upon a desolate, wooded mountainside, on the other side of the world, herded along by rifle-carrying bandits.

I will survive, she assured herself. But inside, she felt as bleak as their surroundings. Could Houston possibly have any clue as to where we are? She didn't think so. Plodding along, she realized that allowing her mind to drift into the past had served to distract her from her aches and exhaustion. But she was pushing the limits of her endurance.

The huffing, puffing and lagging Bob Paxton wasn't doing any better. Even the bandits had grown quiet and surly as the arduous trek continued uphill.

Her nostrils twitched, her senses perked, at a first awareness of the scent of cooking food. Something unidentifiable, but definitely edible… a hallucination born of fatigue? She smelled it again, carried on an errant, nippy morning breeze… definitely the aroma of something cooking! Granite ledges rose above them to either side of a narrowing cut in the land.

Then they rounded a bend and left the heavy timber, and there before them was what she could only think of as a fortress.

 

The site occupied acres of a mountainside clearing, which looked out above the sheer wall of a cliff that dropped straight down for five hundred feet to the valley floor. The clearing was hemmed in tight on three sides against a severely sloped flange of a valley in such a way that this "hideout" could not be seen from the air. The camp gave every indication of having been long established: an organized scatter of clapboard barracks, equipment of every sort stacked everywhere, with random cooking fires and clusters of men clad similarly to Han and his crew.

Trudging along, Kate found herself to be fully awake. Next to her, Paxton muttered his surprise at the sight suddenly revealed to them. They picked up their pace by unspoken mutual consent, the dead weight of Scott being carried between them. On their way into the camp, they passed sentries who shouted familiar greetings to Han, and made obvious sexual insults directed at Kate. For the first time since this ordeal had begun, she was glad that she didn't speak their language.

They passed scores of bandits, some cleaning their dismantled weapons, others lounging or seeing to various tasks. At least fifty men were visible at any given time, but no women. A surly, mismatched crew, each man was heavily armed; she saw pistols, rifles and automatic weapons of every description. Bunkers were along the edge of the cliff. She observed four-barreled anti-aircraft artillery. She saw a pair of military half-ton trucks parked at a big hole that had been burrowed into the face of the cliff. Behind the trucks was what looked like a well-stocked arms and munitions depot.

The center of activity was the mouth of a cave in the rim-rock formation. Their group was led into the cave, entering a natural corridor of stone, large enough to drive a car through. Like the terrorist caves that the American military had gone after in Afghanistan, this cave complex was cut deep into the mountain to avoid flyover thermal detection. The air in the tunnel was fresh, which bespoke hydroelectric power that ran a ventilation system and kept the lights on.

Several yards in, they came to a well-lighted, spacious cavern with a naturally vaulted ceiling, and an impressive if primitive array of appointments, such as animal skin rugs and rough-hewn, bulky wooden furniture, all of it well-lighted by oil lamps affixed to the cavern walls.

The sole occupant of this cavern was a man who lounged indolently on what could only be described as a throne—a tall-backed chair on a raised dais—set against a wall opposite the entrance. The man took a long pull on an aluminum can of beer and tossed the empty can over his shoulder. He wiped the back of a soiled sleeve across his bearded mouth and observed Han Ling and his men as they herded the three Americans in. Like Han, the man on the throne was not Korean, and he was older than any of the other men, in his mid-thirties. He had the more finely-boned physique of the Chinese, but because of his muscular build, he presented the impression of being a large man. Kate wondered what his background could be. There was about him the animal aura of the meanest dog in this pack, and yet she sensed a classical sensibility not far below the surface. This was a man of sharp wits and schooled intelligence, as well as of animal cunning and brute force. There was an old knife scar; five inches in length and a quarter inch in width, bisecting one side of his face. A headband held back long hair that glistened with grease.

When the Americans could advance no farther without tripping onto the dais, Han shouted what was obviously an order for them to halt. Without losing his indolent posture, slumped with one leg tossed out straight, both hands on the arms of his throne, the man issued a quiet directive. Han moved with dispatch to return with a metal folding chair that he set down for Scott. Kate and Paxton managed to get Scott into a sitting position on the chair.

Kate straightened, feeling renewed energy flowing back into her psyche and her body now that she had been unburdened. She and Paxton both stretched their overworked muscles, but they had been trained to endure rugged physical challenge. She stood at Scott's side with her arm on the flight commander's shoulder, so as to steady him from falling. Scott groaned fitfully, exhibiting no indication of regaining consciousness. She lifted her chin, making eye contact with the man on the throne.

"I don't know if you speak English, but I want to thank you for this small courtesy." She nodded to the seated, unconscious Scott. She realized belatedly that her hands were clenched into fists. She unclenched them and continued in what she hoped came across as a cordial, reasonable tone. "We are American citizens, and we—"

"I know exactly who you are, dear lady." He spoke with an Oxford accent that sounded weirdly out of place. "Would you like to know, perhaps, who I am?"

She tried not to appear taken aback at the culture and sophistication in his voice.

"Of course."

"I am Chai Bin. I command here."

"I had assumed that much." She meant to reflect his coolness. It was an impossible task, of course. Panic was a mad beast gnawing at her sanity.

He arose from the throne. Paxton, standing directly before the dais, his face bloodied and nose puffy and inflamed, flinched before the abrupt movement as if he'd been physically slapped. Chai sniggered. He shifted his attention to the woman. He easily saw through her façade of outer courage. And yet he found himself entranced, if that was the word, for she seemed at once a female combatant while exhibiting the maternal instinct, resting her hand on the shoulder of the unconscious man. Chai found himself strangely infatuated. It had been so long since his days at Oxford that he had almost forgotten the confidence and forthrightness of Western women, behavior unknown, unthought of, by the women of his culture. He had often wondered what he would have become if he had stayed in the West. A successful, married, driven capitalist, perhaps? His family in Beijing had purchased for him the best education the world could provide, thanks to considerable bribery and bureaucratic sleight of hand between Beijing, Hong Kong and the West. But after his return to China came enlistment in the military, the career expected of a young man of his class. He'd shown scant capacity for military discipline, yet it was wholly in his nature to command.

He pounded his chest with the palm of his hand. "I am a renegade from the Chinese army. The North Koreans have had a reward on my head for years. The Chinese and North Koreans both call me brilliant… and insane, yes. But they have never come close to apprehending me. My men do as they wish along both sides of the border." He saw no reason to brag of his primary source of revenue. He personally oversaw the raising of poppy plants, the production of opium in the fields and the product's transportation and ultimate sale. This revenue subsidized food farms in the region, and the food farms sustained his men. Chai said abruptly, "Identify yourselves."

"I am Kate Daniels, co-pilot of the space shuttle
Liberty
." The woman steadied the unconscious man, propping him in an upright, sitting position in the chair. "This is our commanding officer, Flight Commander Scott." She eyed Paxton, who stepped back a pace under Chai's glare. "And this frightened fool is Specialist Robert Paxton."

Chai chose to address the woman directly, something he would hardly have done had an able-bodied man been present. But their commander was unconscious, and Paxton reminded him of a frightened toad. "And now that I know who you are," he said, "I wish to know precisely where your aircraft is. And you will tell me."

She stood with her feet firmly planted, evidencing a backbone that could have been made of iron. "I don't think I want to tell you, unless you promise to help us."

He sensed that she was gaining inner strength with every passing second. There was something about this foreign Western woman, who had so literally dropped into his world from the sky, that simultaneously provoked, infuriated and aroused him. Chai concealed his aggravation beneath a mien of indolence. "If I do not find your space shuttle, miss, the Chinese army or the North Korean army will. Would that be any better for the United States?"

"That's hardly my decision to make." She indicated the unconscious man beside her. "Commander Scott needs medical attention. We need your assistance. Sir, in the name of the American government, will you help us?"

Chai regarded her, his arms folded, the posture he favored before meting out punishment. Everyone present was holding their breath, waiting for him to lash out at this impudent female who dared display insolence toward Chai Bin. And yet the woman herself seemed oblivious to this. Infuriating, yes. He replied in a sensible tone. "If you were lucky enough to survive the shuttle's crash landing in these mountains, then there will be equipment aboard that also survived. Let us consider a trade, dear lady. Tell me what I want to know, and I will accommodate your every request during what time you are my guests here."

Kate snorted.

Chai continued. "Your commander will be properly cared for, as we have a staff of excellent medics here. And I will arrange for prompt communication with your government."

This took her aback. She blinked in surprise. "You would do this?"

"Why should I not? The equipment aboard that shuttle is of immeasurable worth to all concerned. I intend to give America the first bid, and if that bid is unsatisfactory, I will approach the North Koreans and the Chinese. I daresay they would outbid each other to pay dearly for the technology I would be offering them."