Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (2 page)

BOOK: Battlefield 4: Countdown to War
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2

LZ, North Korea

The Sea Hawk’s engine note changed to a heavy drumming pulse as the rotors flared and brought it to a hover. Kovic slid the door open and the icy gale blasted away the warm human fug that had built up on board. He scanned the barren moonscape below. None of what he could see remotely resembled the satellite images. Cutler’s information had been thin. All he’d said was that
Highbeam’
s vehicle would be parked up north of a cluster of concrete blocks imaginatively referred to in the brief as a ‘deserted village’. ‘Just swoop and scoop,’ he’d added, smirking at his great new catchphrase.

Kovic spotted a dark-coloured station wagon pulled off the road. Better be him and not some young lovers seeking a commodity even rarer here than food – privacy.

He switched to the troop net, went over the drill again.

‘We surround the vehicle, one at each corner, no closer than ten feet, weapons down but ready. We don’t want him thinking we’ve come to kill him. Once I’ve confirmed ID, he gets out the car, we frisk him. If he has luggage I have to check it. We’re on the ground ten minutes. No more.’

‘You the boss,’ said Kean.

Olsen cut in. ‘My information was two minutes.’

‘We leave when I say; when I’m good and ready.’

There wasn’t time to go over just why Olsen felt like he did about taking orders from the CIA. Kovic knew all too well. He and Garrison went right back. He knew about their unfinished business. Right now he just needed Olsen to get the job done. They weren’t going on vacation together – just in, out, and home. No friending on Facebook.

‘You want to get out of here sooner,’ he told him, ‘get on and tell your men who goes at which corner.’

Olsen sighed then assigned each man a corner. Kovic didn’t care which of them went where; he just wanted a clear chain of command.

‘Okay, Tex, put us down.’

As they descended, Kovic flipped down his NV goggles, blurring the snowflakes into clumps like bright white cotton balls. Fucking useless piece of kit. The frozen hillside looked barren and empty; he preferred working in crowded places with a multitude of distractions. Out here there was nowhere to hide.

The snow was coming down thick and fast now, transforming the locality into an unlikely Christmas card scene in March, not to mention a white carpet of light which would show them up like figurines on a wedding cake. But they weren’t doing stealth tonight. The Sea Hawk’s clatter saw to that.

There were no new cars in North Korea, just as there were no new washing machines or TVs. If you saw a beat up old Nissan like the one they were looking at cruising your neighbourhood in America you would call your kids inside, here it was quite likely to be the personal transport of the nation’s top nuclear programmer.

The wipers made a single sweep and through the screen Kovic could just make out a lone figure at the wheel. In his experience defectors could often be a pain in the ass. Some had an over-inflated sense of their own value and tried to strike last-minute deals, or showed up with loved ones they’d decided they couldn’t be parted from – girlfriends, boyfriends, mothers and other assorted hangers-on hoping for a place on the American magic carpet out of whichever hellhole they’d had the misfortune to be born in. One guy Kovic had lifted in Beirut tried to bring his dog. Some, fearing reprisals, had a last-minute change of heart. Those were the emotionally tough ones. There were gulags filled with the extended families of these people – everyone they had ever loved or given birth to, mere hostages in waiting.

Tex set the Sea Hawk down on the road.

‘We have now landed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Set your watches back fifty years.’

‘Keep her running, Tex.’ Kovic jumped down and ducked under the rotors.

‘I’m going to walk up this left side of the road until I’m parallel with the driver’s window. Olsen – move your men into position when I start talking.’

The snow was gathering thickly on the ground. Kovic approached the car, stopped twenty feet away and trained his torch on the figure at the wheel: high forehead, hollow cheeks, long upper lip, slight break in left eyebrow – check. He was wearing a suit that was much too big for him, the cutting edge of DPRK couture no doubt. He had an unnatural grin on his face. And he was shaking so much the lapels of his coat were vibrating. Kovic quietly cleared his throat and switched his brain to Korean, running a quick mental check that he’d got the guy’s real name right.

‘Shun-kin, I bring greetings on behalf of the government of the United States.’

The man at the wheel continued to grin but didn’t move, didn’t even look round. Deacon, Kean, Faulkner and Price took up their positions, one at each corner, with Olsen at the back, bookending Kovic. He wanted
Highbeam
to see the men; give him a sense of security and reassurance that this was for real.

Kovic kept his NVs flipped up so he looked a bit more human and stepped closer to the driver’s window. The interior smelled of ashtrays and sweat. There was a large fake leather suitcase on the back seat, much like the one his grandparents had brought with them to America back in the thirties.

‘Are you ready to take these brave steps to freedom?’

No words, just a series of rapid nods.


It’s okay, you can speak to me: I’ll understand.’

Kovic’s flair for languages was another thing that spooked Cutler who preferred to do all his talking through interpreters.

Still the inane grin and the shaking. And still
Highbeam
didn’t move. Kovic took another step towards him. In Pakistan he’d had to
strap one guy to a stretcher and carry him after he passed out from fear.

‘Shun-kin. Please step out of the car. We are taking you to America. You understand? We are taking you now.’

What was it that rooted him to the spot where he sat? Last-minute doubts, fear of the unknown? The realisation he could never return home?

Perhaps the sound of a Yank speaking his native language was too disconcerting. This time Kovic tried English, and a little more urgency.

‘Hey, Shun-kin, time to go, okay?’

The Korean opened the door and stepped tentatively out into the night. Despite the cold he was gleaming with sweat. The inane goofy grin didn’t make him look too bright either. Close up he looked so young – too young. Either the guy was a child prodigy or—

As Kovic reached forward to shake his hand, the Korean jumped to the left and started to run. Kean, who was nearest, blocked his path.

‘Get away from me!’ he screamed in clear English. He pushed at Kean, his narrow frame making no impact on the solid, stocky Marine. ‘You must get away from me! They’ve—’

Kean almost had him in a bear hug.

Then Kovic suddenly understood. He screamed at Kean.

‘Run, man, run! Drop him! Go! Go!’

The first detonation, an igniter, came from somewhere on the guy’s chest. Kovic caught sight of it just as he turned to run. The second explosion turned night into day and lifted him off his feet as the force propelled him halfway back to the Sea Hawk. He slammed down on to the road and rolled in the snow.

Shun-kin was gone, vaporised in the blast. The car was on fire, setting off a third explosion as the gas tank caught. Kean lay fifteen feet from where he had been standing; one arm gone, his face a mask of blood. Deacon, dragging one leg, got to him first. Kean reached up to him, then flopped back. He was gone. Deacon’s face was frozen in shock.

Tex was at the controls, yelling into the net.

‘Kovic, talk to me!’

The blast had temporarily knocked out Kovic’s hearing, but his mind was in hyperdrive. Shun-kin had tried to run; he hadn’t detonated the device himself. It couldn’t have been on a timer as there was no knowing their exact time of arrival. So someone else with sight of them had triggered it. He whirled round and shouted to Tex to lift off , get out of range. On the ground the helo was a sitting duck and they needed eyes in the air.

‘Go round; tell us what you can see.’

Snow and gravel whipped around him as the Sea Hawk ascended.

‘Hey, back here, now!’

Olsen was yelling and waving, as if Tex would see him in the dark. Kovic moved past him and caught sight of Deacon curled up in a semi-foetal position, holding his chest as if the contents would spill out if he let go. Kovic rushed to him, ripping a tourniquet from the side pocket of his fatigues. His whole torso was a mass of blood.

‘Steady now. Don’t breathe so hard.’

‘Fuckin’ suicide—’

Kovic knew Shun-kin wasn’t a suicide bomber. He had tried to warn them, even though he knew he was done for. He had probably saved Kovic’s life.

‘Hey, look!’ Faulkner was pointing. The ‘deserted village’ was alive with men moving toward them.

‘Fucking ace,’ Olsen spat.

Kovic grabbed Deacon and hauled him behind what was left of the station wagon, then went back and got his M4. His goggles were gone, swept off by the blast, and his eyes were full of dust. The temptation was to squirt a lot of bullets around and hope some made their target. Better to resist that, try to think, he told himself. He peeled Deacon’s NVs off his helmet and put them on. There were maybe a dozen North Koreans, just black silhouettes against the whiteness, armed with their standard issue Russian RPKs. At least those would be hard work in the dark and snow and he guessed they wouldn’t have NVs or lasers. On the other hand the RPK’s drum magazines would have seventy-five rounds, good for spray and pray. There were no more than thirty rounds in Deacon’s
M4; he was going to need every one of those. Seeing movement ahead and to the left, he jumped up and loosed off half a dozen shots. Three Koreans sprawled in the snow with head wounds, pools of blood merging into a huge spilled snow cone. If they were going to get out of this at all, there was going to be a lot more blood.

Kovic saw a sniper run towards them, then vanish into the shadows. He aimed into the spot, fired and heard a scream.

‘Where’s Faulkner?’

He was staggering towards them in a daze, clutching his shoulder, his weapon dangling uselessly from his smashed hand. Kovic ran and pushed him to the ground while Price covered them. He pulled a bandage from his kit and tore Faulkner’s sleeve away with his teeth before wrapping the arm as best he could. There was morphine in the kit too, but something else now grabbed his attention.

Olsen was shouting on the net to Tex.

‘The fuck you doing? Cover, for fuck’s sake.’

‘We gotta be outta here.’

‘Negative.’ Kovic didn’t need this right now. ‘We got to neutralise all this first. He comes near, he’s a sitting duck.’

Olsen wasn’t listening. Kovic gripped his shoulder and spun him around. ‘They take one shot at him we are lost, got it? No one comes for us.’

Olsen shook off his grip, his face contorted by rage.

‘You took us straight into an ambush, you fucking moron. You were set up. Your intel was shit. It was fucked up from the off . I’m getting my guys outta here. This mission is officially fucked. I’m taking my guys out and
you
– can go fuck yourself.’

Kovic lunged at Olsen but he dodged and slammed his knee into his balls. Then Olsen landed a boot in his stomach, sending him sprawling in the snow.

And then they heard the deep thrum of the chopper. Barely visible, a grey blur behind the snow like a half tuned television image, the Sea Hawk moved above them. Tex was bringing it back.

‘Sayonara, assholes.’ Tex yelled over the radio. It was as if the whole covert thing had gone to his head. His side window was slid back and he was waving his grenade launcher where he thought the
NK were positioned. He blasted it as he made his second descent.

But as Olsen gestured to Price to help Faulkner towards the LZ the Sea Hawk lurched sideways, as if grasped by a giant unseen hand that had reached out of the cloud. The engine revs shot up to scream level as the nose tipped up as if struggling for altitude. The whole machine started to slide sideways, the tail rotor combing the ground right where the Koreans had taken up position. One of the main blades snapped free and catapulted end over end away into the night. Then the helicopter started a slow motion barrel roll and finally slammed on to the ground. Kovic threw himself over Faulkner and Price and Olsen stumbled behind the remains of the station wagon as the helo exploded in a fireball, spraying the area with clumps of disintegrating machinery before erupting into a mushroom of fiery smoke.

There was nothing to say. They were thirty miles into North Korean territory, their ride home gone, their advantage of surprise non-existent, with a column of flame and smoke rising into the night to alert anyone else in a ten-mile radius who still didn’t already know they were there. Alone, Kovic could maybe have gone to ground, evaded any patrols and tried to make the border. But with two dead and three wounded—

Olsen looked at him full of contempt. ‘Another one for the CIA Hall of Shame.’

Kovic was past anger. ‘You’re the one told him to turn back.’

Olsen jutted his jaw towards Kovic as if to say, ‘Oh yeah? Bring it on,’ and his mouth opened. For a moment Kovic thought Olsen was forming his next insult, but then he twitched, his eyes swivelled upward, his rifle dropped from his hands and he slumped forward, face down in the snow. Price rushed towards him.

‘He’s hit!’

‘Sniper! Cover!’

It had come from high ground to their left, almost invisible behind the snow. Blood gulped from a gash in Olsen’s thigh; if the femoral artery was severed he didn’t have a chance. Price tore at a first aid pack. Kovic ripped the already shredded remains of Olsen’s fatigues, made a makeshift tourniquet and bound the thigh tight.

‘Here.’

Price gave him the morphine. Then they mounded snow over the wound to constrict the blood vessels until they were ready to move him.

Muzzle flashes and wild revving announced a large open jeep-like truck coming at them down the hill, with a second close behind.

‘The fuck’s that?’

‘Border force. Kaengsaeng-69, that’s Korean for piece-of-shit-mobile.’

BOOK: Battlefield 4: Countdown to War
12.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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