Hunt the Dragon (17 page)

The aide translated, and the general muttered something and threw his hands up in disgust.

“When? How many weeks? Most honored general want date.”

“It's hard to say. So much depends on things outside my—”

The aide screamed, “He want specific date written down on paper!”

Dawkins didn't want to show fear, but he couldn't help himself. He started to tremble.

“When?
When?
WHEN???”

The shouting felt like lashes. Dawkins raised his head to see the general standing over him, bent at the waist, hands on his hips, handing him a pen. A jagged vein on his temple pulsed. The sparse hair on his head bristled. Everything about him spoke anger, cruelty, and pain.

“Most honored general insist you write date!”

Dawkins looked at the pen and the yellow sheet of paper in front of him.

“He want you to write the date and sign.”

“I…I can't.”

“You can't?” the interpreter asked. “Now the general want to know if you crazy?”

“No…no.”

“If you crazy, you no good. He get rid of you.”

For a second he imagined the general holding a flamethrower and flashed to the flesh burning off the woman in the amphitheater. The smell filled his nostrils, and he started to feel sick.

“You crazy. He think you either crazy or liar!”

Dawkins opened his mouth but was so upset he had trouble speaking. “No, no… not crazy. Tell him—Please tell him I'm doing my best.”

T
he SEALs
had entered Yonghung Bay in the Sea of Japan and had drawn within two miles of Ung-do. While Crocker remained alert to every hiss, groan, and creak of the SDV, Suarez and Akil were amusing themselves by trading “yo mama” jokes over team comms.

Akil: “Yo mama so fat she's got two watches, one for each time zone she's in.”

Suarez: “Yo mama so ugly they filmed
Gorillas in the Mist
in her shower.”

“Yo mama so ugly that when One Direction saw her they went the other way.”

“She's so mean her name in a text is autocorrected to ‘bitch.' ”

Crocker tuned them out. He was attempting to visualize the mission in his head, but with so little information to work with, he was having a bitch of a time filling in the details. Obviously it was imperative that they quickly set the charges, recover the hostage, return to the SDV, and beat a rapid path back to the sub.

What he couldn't imagine were the steps in between—the number of DPRK soldiers they'd encounter, how well they'd be armed and trained, how quickly the army and air force would respond, the complexity of the security system around the installation, how quickly and freely he and his men would be able to move from one side of the island to the other, how far into the mission they could venture before they were detected. Nor did he have any information on where the hostage was being held.

What he did know was that he and his men were going in zero footprint. That meant no dog tags or personal information that could identify them as American soldiers. It also meant that they could expect no backup, or QRF to rescue them should something go wrong. They were four operators completely on their own. Any life-threatening injury to any of the men could jeopardize the entire mission. Whatever happened, he wouldn't leave anyone behind.

Akil had regressed from trading jokes with Suarez to taking the piss out of Sam.

Akil: “What team are you on again?”

Sam: “Five.”

Akil: “I hear you guys kicked ass in Iraq. Have you gotten into the shit since then?”

Sam: “All the time, dude.”

Akil: “I mean outside of jerking each other off in the shower.”

Crocker growled, “Akil, stop fucking around and pay attention.”

“Ten-four, boss. My dick is shriveled up and my entire body is numb. What else do you want to know?”

“You and Suarez triple-check the opsec, detonators, det cord, CL-20?”

“We checked them twenty times. All's good except for my dick. If it's not working, I'll be really ticked off.”

“You won't need it where we're going.”

“You never know, boss. Maybe I run into some ninja North Korean fox.”

“And maybe she kicks your ass.”

Naylor broke in. “Deadwood, Tiger One. Currently three-twenty-two meters west northwest of Keno. We're going to start moving south and keeping an eye on sonar. Possible underwater ordnance in the area. Over.”

“Underwater ordnance” meant mines. “Copy, Tiger. Over and out.”

He couldn't wait to get out of the sardine can and start moving. Even though the SDV made very little noise, the bubbles produced from the tanks left a trail on the surface. Nothing they could do about that except hope no one was watching.

Dawkins had spent hours bent at the knees in a pigeonlike position with his wrists pulled above his head and tied to the wall behind him. He was alone in the cold room except for a sinister-looking guard at the door. His knees, back, and arms were in agony. Still, every time he tried to close his eyes and rest, the guard crossed over to him and punched him hard in the stomach.

Hurting, exhausted, and trying not to give in to negative thoughts, he attempted to recall every detail of his life with Nan, starting with their meeting near the front desk of the University of California at Berkeley library, where he had been studying for a physics test and she was waiting to meet a friend. She was wearing a black skirt and a yellow blouse. Minus her glasses and with her dark hair pulled back, she reminded him of the title character Rodelinda in Handel's opera.

He ignored the pain of his arms being pulled from their sockets and played the melody in his head. That weekend, Nan and her friend Deirdre had accompanied a group of his friends on a trip down Route 1 to Big Sur. They rode in a powder-blue Impala with Ohio plates and spent the afternoon at a cove and beach off an unmarked road. She wore a black-and-white polka-dot two-piece bathing suit. He wore cutoffs. Her eyes turned amber in the sunlight. They sat on a blanket on the sand talking for hours about school and life while the others climbed a path that took them to another cove.

He was a bookish, awkward, shy grad student who at night fell asleep to arias. Nan was gentle and intelligent. She seemed interested in him in ways no one else had been before. He opened up to her about his passion for music, physics, and mathematics, and how he thought they represented a key to understanding existence. Dawkins had become so completely absorbed in their conversation that he forgot to put on sunblock. That evening, running a fever and feeling uncomfortable, he sat on the sofa in the rented cabin in Pfeiffer State Park while the others went out for dinner and drinks. Nan stayed and looked after him.

She seemed to have chosen him. Why, he wasn't sure. But he accepted her kindness with gratitude, and her interest in him gave him confidence. They'd been together ever since.

Crocker held on to the back of the seat in front of him as the SDV ground to a stop. Pilot Naylor cut the engine so that all he could hear was the sound of the regulator, his own breath, and the sloshing of the water.

Anticipation grew. “Tiger One, Deadwood here. How far are we from the shoreline? Over.”

“Deadwood, you're looking at a little more than eight meters, or twenty-four feet. We're resting at a depth of three-point-two meters, roughly ten feet. Over.”

“Okay, guys,” Crocker said. “Put on our Draegers and prepare to deploy. Akil and I will recce first.”

“Roger.”

“Quiet, fast, and small.”

“Copy.”

Akil led the way, swimming underwater with Crocker directly behind him. Nearing shore, they came up slowly, holding their heads just above the water. Through his mask Crocker saw the dark island looming before him like a sleeping elephant. A handful of stars peeked through the overcast sky. Aside from the low whistle of an occasional gust of wind, the area was completely quiet. No lights appeared in the distance, only the faint glow of the fishing port of Munchon through the mist to his left. The stories he'd heard about the millions of starving North Korean peasants and the gulags filled with political prisoners stirred in his head.

He said into his mike, “Romeo, I'll stand watch. You go and help the guys bring out the gear.”

“Copy.”

Akil turned and dove in one smooth motion as Crocker moved forward until he was standing in three feet of water.

North fucking Korea…

Crouching, he removed the AK from the waterproof bag slung over his shoulder, inserted a mag, chambered a round, and scanned left and right. He was looking along the shore for signs of a guard post, an electric fence, video cameras, or patrol boats. But he saw nothing except little waves slapping the rocky shoreline and the dark silhouettes of clouds.

“Gents, you read me? All clear above. Over.”

“Copy, Deadwood, over.”

Sam came out first, carrying Crocker's seventy-pound pack and his combat vest and belt in a separate watertight bag. Crocker pointed to the sand beside him. Sam dropped them. His eye never left his AK's SR-25 scope. He held up his hand and waved Sam back.

The young man hardly made a sound as Crocker took cover behind a clump of shrubs, peeled off the dive suit to the smart suit underneath, and went into the pack for his NVGs. From the watertight he removed his Merrell boots and combat vest. Quickly he taped inside the various pockets extra mags, smoke and frag grenades, Israeli bandages, a backup radio, flares, flashlights, and tape. On his combat belt hung a holster containing his SIG Sauer P226, M4 knife, a coil of nylon rope, more flares, and a pair of gloves.

The temp seemed mild—low fifties. The air carried the pungent smell of sage and rotting shellfish. The wind rattled through the shrubs and kicked up wisps of sand.

The operators assembled around him and quickly readied themselves. According to his Suunto it was 0148. His goal was to return to the SDV by 0230, which he communicated now to Naylor, who had come up to guard their Draegers.

“The CO and I will take twenty-minute shifts,” Naylor explained. “If we see or hear anything, we'll alert you.”

“Good.” Crocker put a hand on Akil's shoulder. “Okay, Romeo, show us the way.” As primary navigator/point man, Akil had studied the maps, drawings, and charts provided by Choi and Min with greater urgency and focus than anyone on the team. In terms of the facility itself, the drawings that Min had said were approximately a year old were all they had to go on.

Akil looked back at Crocker and said, “Remember that in the intel briefing we were warned about the presence of poisonous snakes. So keep an eye out for snakes.”

“Fuck the snakes. Look for sensors, wires, cameras, booby traps.”

“Roger.”

The pain was so intense that Dawkins wanted to die. He'd already been sick and soiled his pants. His body disgusted him. Now he heard the door to the refrigerator-like room open and the honored general's voice like a dog growling. It pulled Dawkins out of the movie of his wedding that had been unreeling in his head.

Someone was untying the ropes around his wrists. His head became woozy from the shooting pain up his back and the burning sensation of blood returning to his arms. He tried but couldn't straighten his legs, so the guard led him in a monkey crouch to a metal chair. There was someone sitting across from him, but he couldn't focus his eyes. Then the guard slipped his glasses onto his head and he saw the general holding an olive- green file folder.

The general slapped it on the table, pointed, and growled something.

“He wants you to look!” his aide said.

It hurt to move his fingers but he slowly opened the folder and started to shuffle through the two dozen pictures of Karen and Nan getting out of Nan's Toyota RAV4, shopping at the local supermarket, getting into the car again, and driving to an apartment near Tysons Corner, Virginia. The pictures seemed to be recent. Karen appeared taller. Nan looked thinner and older. He wondered why they were living in an apartment and not in their home.

The general pounded the metal table with his fist and spit at his head, causing Dawkins to look up. Hunger and fear gnawed at the lining of his stomach.

The general held up two fat fingers and thrust them under Dawkins's nose.

“Two days,” the aide shouted. “You have two days to finish project.”

Dawkins was panicking before he even knew what that meant. “Two days? I don't understand…Two days to do what?”

“Two days to complete project!” the aide growled.

It all rushed back on him—the reason he was here, the gyro compass and guidance system, the engineering tasks and adjustments that were still required.

His mouth and hands trembling, he said, “It will probably take longer than that, but I'll—”

“Two days! We know where your wife and daughter are. After two days they will both be dead!”

Snakes were the least of Crocker's worries as they humped over sandy land and skirted to the right around a clump of trees—Suarez, Akil, Sam, and Crocker in staggered formation, fingers on trigger guards, barrels pointed to the ground, scanning up, down, left, right. An owl hooted, the wind hissed. Otherwise the island remained eerily quiet.

Through the NVGs everything appeared in shades of green. Crocker didn't see any evidence of civilization until they reached a narrow bend of asphalt road, which was cool to the touch. They crossed quickly and entered a thicket of tall trees rustling and clattering in the wind. Pines and oaks. The wildness of the island heightened his sense of anticipation.

They were about a hundred meters into the grove when Akil stopped, crouched, and pointed ahead and to his right. It took Crocker several seconds to make out the ventilation stack rising about twenty feet from a short concrete structure.

“That the stack on the map?” he whispered.

Akil nodded vigorously.

“Getting close.”

The stack wasn't nearly as big or elaborate as the one in the diagram provided in the packet Choi had smuggled out. It looked barely wide enough to accommodate a man Crocker's size and was topped by a little aluminum hat. Nor was the entrance to the complex as visible from where they were now as it had seemed on the hand-drawn map.

Akil pointed forward and slightly left as Suarez scanned the trees in front of them. As stupid as Akil acted sometimes, he was dead serious and accurate when it came to directions and maps.

Crocker pushed his right hand forward, which was the signal to proceed in single file. They hadn't moved more than fifty meters when Akil held up his right fist and they all stopped immediately and went into a crouch.

“Deadwood,” he whispered. “Visual on vehicles to the left.”

“See them. Copy.”

“Pax?”

“No pax sighted.”

Crocker peered through the trees and saw a circular dirt area that contained what looked to be a tractor, mounds of sand and gravel, a stack of steel construction rods, and two cement mixers. His gut told him something was wrong.

What are they building?

“Proceed slowly and stick with your swim buddy.”