A Northern Thunder (34 page)

A
s Will woke from the short nap, the snow continued to pile up in small drifts. Even in the submarine, he never had the depth of quiet silence he had in these mountains. “God,” he said, rubbing both hands on his face.

Pulling out of the hole and quietly dusting off the snow that had accumulated on his shoulders and hood, he took the larger pack and slid it back into the hole, covering the entrance with a handful of pine needles. Looking around slowly in a circle, he adjusted the smaller of his two packs and his shoulder holster.

Amazing
, he thought, recalling the times during his three-dimensional training he had walked the circumference of this small lake. He knew this stream branched out from the lake at the center of its mass. If he circled around it to the right, he knew he would find another stream that fed into it from above. Slowly, as he gained his sense of footing and his body warmed, Will worked his way past the rocks of the streambed and around the edge of the lake.

This snow is not a bad thing
, Will decided. It would provide him an extra blanket of camouflage and cover any trace of his presence.

After some time, Will came upon another stream flowing down through several rows of pine trees. He bent down below the sagging branches of one tree, which leaned under the weight of the accumulating snow. The stream’s water was cold and crystal clear. Like the last one, the stream went upwards, prompting Will to climb rocks that seemed like a continuous boulder stairway. Ahead some distance, he came across a surging waterfall, its sound echoing in the stillness of the forest and snowstorm.
Utterly amazing
, he thought,
the natural unblemished beauty of these mountains.

Will slithered with his chest against the boulders as he climbed over the rocks above the waterfall. Snow continued to fall, his uniform turning into blotches of white, black, and green. It surprised him that a few hundred meters beyond the waterfall, he could see the shape of a small valley off to the right. He knew he was on the mark, but his distance estimates hadn’t put this valley so close. Will split away from the stream and worked his way through ancient pine trees, moving more slowly as he came out just above the valley. He saw a large outcrop of rocks several feet below him and slid down the hillside to below the rocky overhang. There, a small ledge extended out and away.

Perfect
, he thought, scanning the valley and sensing the snowstorm was slowing. Just then, Will heard the shifting rumble of a vehicle from the valley below and to his right. As he slowly turned his head in that direction, he saw two trucks with small convoy lights barely illuminating the road.
I’ll be damned
, he thought, observing the speed of the vehicles. This had to be a highly improved road, because the trucks were moving fast, despite little illumination from their convoy lights. The drivers were obviously very familiar with both their vehicles and the road. Until the sound of the trucks slid well past him, Will stayed still.

In the darkness, he pulled below the ledge, removed a pack, and retrieved from it a black computer no bigger than a library book. He pulled out two tripods, both no larger than small lamps, and using their pointed cleats, fixed them into the ground. On one tripod, he placed a small black metallic dish that looked like a kitchen colander. Finally, he pulled out a camera about the same size as a standard 35-mm.

He slid back out from underneath the overhang to the edge, placed the satellite dish back behind him to the left, and aimed it up at the sky. After attaching a cable from the satellite dish directly to the small computer terminal, and then from the computer terminal directly to the camera, he set the camera on the other tripod and slid it near the edge, aiming it down, roughly into the center of the valley. He bent the lid of the computer down very low, took off his shoulder holster and camouflage jacket, and slid underneath the jacket so he could see the computer screen without illuminating any of the area.

He reached out with his arm and slowly tilted the satellite dish, playing with the computer keys until a long red band on the screen showed a high intensity.
Got it
, he thought as the satellite dish and computer honed onto the U.S. satellite. The computer showed a test screen and verified that the camera was fully online and ready to transmit. Will then took some dried brush and carefully slid the camouflage around the dish to cover all but the face pointing up toward the sky. He also pulled some brush around the camera so only the lens protruded. He turned again to the computer, and received a message back confirming the link-up. The message was entirely in Russian Cyrillic. “Good,” he whispered.

Will slowly slid his parka back on and curled up in a ball underneath the overhang in the rock.
So, this is it
, he thought as he looked down at his watch, then up at the first light of Day 2. He lay there quietly for several hours until he smelled smoke coming from the valley below. With the silence of a deer working its way through the forest, Will pulled up from the ledge, moving slowly and deliberately until he could see down in the valley. There, with the daylight, his eyes focused on a curling, twisting column of smoke.

Will followed the smoke downward, then crawled nearer to the edge. He traced it to an opening on the roof of a small, crude hut on a patch of dirt surrounded by a snow-covered garden and two browned, rectangular, diked rice paddies. A dirt path connected the hut to the road, which Will could tell was well above the rice paddies.

Will heard the swing of a door and the bang as it closed. An old, bent-over man crossed from the hut to a pile of wood nearer to Will. He watched as the old man struggled to swing an oddly-shaped axe, then heard the
thump
as it struck the wood. Splits of the wood flew up with each stroke.
He survives simply
, Will thought.
No livestock—just the rice he raises.

Scanning the valley again, Will saw the road shift to his left and south, curving around an outcrop of rocks, their shape broken by an occasional grouping of small, young pine trees. The road turned also in another direction—to the north, more toward the coast and probably Wonsan. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but beyond the old man’s rice paddies and his path to the roadway, there was another well-improved road cut in a straight diagonal line. He followed it upward, across rice paddies on the other side, to a flat rectangular mound nestled against the valley wall. He studied this mound for some time and slowly moved the camera lens. Through the camera, he spotted a sizable cement pad.
That’s it
, Will thought.
That’s the helicopter landing zone
. He moved the camera to focus on the center, carefully pushing the tripod down to stabilize it.

His watch showed nearly ten in the morning.
Now, we wait
, he thought, slowly sliding back under the overhang, then pulling some of the brush up to cover much of his shape. If the farmer, even by chance, wandered up the steep hillside, he would have to be virtually on top of Will before any of his shape or equipment would be evident.

A
ll day, Will watched the twisting smoke float up from the hut below. Through early morning, it would climb a short distance above the hut, then blow west toward the other side of the valley. Now it climbed straight up into the sky. For hours, Will watched the old man, like an ant, scratch away at his dirt patch of a garden.

It was sometime after noon when Will first heard the low thumping sound of the Mi-8 HIP helicopter. From underneath the overhanging rock, he slowly crawled out to the edge.

He had still not seen the helicopter when he spotted three Soviet UAZ jeeps coming from the south. They sped along in a convoy, as if late for some function. Will felt his heart, pressed against the cold dirt, as his pulse quickened. Slowly, he slipped forward, closer to the edge. As each jeep hit the same bumps in the road, it hopped up like a caterpillar. The old man stopped and watched as the jeeps zoomed by.

Will leaned back slowly, certain the helicopter was above. He pulled up the lid of the computer and typed the Cyrillic code identification.

• • •

“He’s up,” said Scott, sitting in the small, vault-like computer room in the security center, well below the Pacific Command’s headquarters. Covering the wall were two flat panel screens, and just like Krowl’s set-up in the ESC, one showed a satellite view of the valley and the other the track of satellites over the Korean peninsula. Unlike Krowl, however, Scott did not have a third screen’s transmission of the second satellite.

“Okay, Mr. Scott, your boy’s on station,” said Jess Markeet, the only other person in the room. Tall and thin, his prematurely gray hair cut high and tight, Markeet, the resident CIA agent assigned as liaison to PACCOM, would have looked odd anywhere but in Hawaii.

“What’s he saying?” Scott asked.

“He’s giving the code to stand by.”

“Will we get the photo relayed here?”

“No sweat.” Markeet hit the keyboard and a small split-screen appeared on the larger satellite overview. “When he hits his photo, it’ll instantly relay up to the satellite and show up here, at Langley, and at the Pentagon.”

“Is Krowl up?” said Scott.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Can we VTC him?”

“Yeah.” Markeet hit a few more strokes on the keyboard and another split screen appeared in the corner of their main screen.

“Can Krowl hear us?”

“One minute,” said Markeet, typing some more. “Okay, go ahead.”

Scott leaned forward into a table microphone, which looked like a small black ashtray. “ESC, this is PAC. Can you copy?” he said.

With this comment, he saw Krowl turn around with the others and look at their screen.

“Scott, we have a relay that he’s ready.” Krowl seemed haggard. It was near dawn in Washington.

“Yes, Admiral. We’re close.”

“Good. It’s about time.”

Scott shook his head while Markeet, offscreen from the VTC camera, gave him a sarcastic smirk.

“Yes, Admiral, it’s bloody well time.” Scott sometimes preferred his homeland’s vernacular because of its superior ability to convey sarcasm.

• • •

Just as he lowered the lid on the computer, a rush of air and noise blew over Will.

“Goddamn.” Will froze as the Mi-8 helicopter, banking from his side of the valley, blew barely above the top of the short pine trees around him. He looked up, seeing the rivet lines in the underbelly of the helicopter. It flew so close he could see a forearm of the helicopter’s crewman sticking out the side door. If the helicopter’s path had taken it a few meters to either the left or right, Will would have been looking directly into the eyes of the crew chief.

Will remained frozen in place, knowing that even the obvious couldn’t be seen without movement.

As the helicopter began to flare in landing directly across the valley, he moved slowly, lifting his head, watching it pass. The jeeps had turned up the small path of a road, heading toward the helicopter landing zone.

Will slid to the camera, watching the old man below as he leaned on his hoe, staring toward the commotion on the other side of the valley.

The helicopter continued to flare, pitching sharply upwards, on line for the center of the landing pad. Will saw the three jeeps stop, and several men—some in uniform with Kalashnikovs, and some in olive green Maostyled jackets—hopped out of the jeeps.

His pulse quickened as he put the camera online.

One shot and I’m out of here
, he thought, hoping to slow his quickening heartbeat. The camera had a simple crosshair, much like a deer rifle. He had worked with it several times at Quantico.
Just pick the right Nampo and snap
, he thought as he focused the shot. The camera’s electronic lens whirred as he spotted the faces of the men, now standing in a small group.
Well, it’s been some time
, Will thought, the camera focusing sharply on all the faces one by one.

Peter Nampo—Peter
, he thought. He stopped on the face of a man he hadn’t seen for many years. It was a thin, flint-hardened face with jet-black hair. Peter Nampo hadn’t aged well.

Just as he began to squeeze the shutter, another similar face appeared—then another, then another. Will held off, taking in four virtually identical men.
Damn
, he thought, acknowledging the impressive accomplishment of assembling four nearly identical men in one place. The Nampos stood together next to their jeep, awaiting their guests, unaware of the camera focusing in on each of them.

Will stared at each man, moving the camera from face to face.
They’re perfect matches
, he thought, frustrated. The seconds ticked away.

A general with gold and red epaulette boards on his shoulders stepped down from the helicopter as the blades continued to swirl, but at a slower rate. Will watched the men, waiting for a reaction. There was none. No single man moved forward to greet the guest. Each of the four stayed with the others, making no individual movement. He thought of Krowl waiting impatiently, thousands of miles away in some operations center cursing Will for being unsure.