North Korean Blowup (6 page)

“Too many variables for disaster in that one,” Hunter said. “Let’s take the six and a half. Say we want to get on shore about twenty-two hundred. We allow an hour for the run in with the IBS and the swim.

“We shove off from the port at fourteen thirty,” Tran said.

The commander looked at Tran with surprise.

“He’s my computer mind,” Hunter said. “Sounds about right. Seven and a half hours from twenty two hundred. Any problems with that, Commander?”

“Sounds good. I’ll send my Seahawk here to pick you up at thirteen thirty.”

“Then when we make certain Dr. Sung is who he says he is, we call Quinn on the SATCOM who will be on your destroyer.”

“We’ll stay on station out about thirty miles until we get your call for a pickup,” Vuylsteke said.  

 Hunter nodded. “Good. Then we can work out later how to handle the rest of the work. Now we don’t know the locations. If the bombs are close by, we might stay there and get the rest of the men in. If they are to hell and gone, we might come out with the twelve civilians.”

“Roger that, Lieutenant. We’ll work it out with Quinn well in advance. How long will it take for you to confirm the mission?”

“Depends if we can find the right house in the dark the first night,” Hunter said. “If not we’ll have to wait until the second night. What about commo? Do you have a SATCOM available?”

“Mr. Quinn said he will provide us with one for each ship.”

“Good, we’ll use channel eight for contact. That should be a clear channel.”

“Eight, right. We’ll have them preset.”

“Now, if all goes well and we get to Dr. Sung, how do we arrange to take twelve people out of the country without getting ourselves and them filled full of holes?” Hunter asked.

“If we take the two torpedoes out of the SH-60’s we can take on twelve civilians and you three if you need to come out,” Vuylsteke said. “Some children I’d figure. We’ll have to work out the place and the timing after we get a go on the mission.

“Fair enough,” Hunter said. “My thought is that the civilians should be out of country before we start the search and destroy.”

“Agreed,” Quinn said. “I can get official clearance on that, but you’re in the field, and they’ll go with your recommendation.”

Quinn stood up. “That should about do it for tonight. Vuylsteke and Wells we thank you for your help on this one.”

“Our pleasure, Mr. Quinn. Commander Wells will be in touch with your tomorrow about the next transport job with you.”

The two destroyer skippers left the room.

Quinn glanced over at Hunter. “You’ve got that look in your eye, sailor. What do you want?”

“Weapons. Let’s get our Glocks tonight so we can test fire them tomorrow morning.”

“Hunter it’s past midnight.”

“So boot somebody out of bed. Use that red card if you have to.”

“You’re no supposed to know about that.”

“So see what you can do. I slept so much on the plane I’m still groggy.”

He looked over at Tran who pretended to fall asleep on his arms while sitting at the table.

“Asshole party pooper,” Hunter brayed at Tran. Then they both laughed.

Quinn sighed. “Okay, let me get to a telephone. Should only involve maybe two armorers. I’ll be right back.”

It was almost 0130
before a grumpy master sergeant opened the Quartermaster building and led Quinn and the three SEALs down to a fenced off secure area and made Quinn sign before he unlocked the cage door. He was over thirty and unhappy about getting yanked out of bed by his Major. His shoes weren’t shined and he’d buttoned his shirt one hole high.

“Glocks, huh? Usually we don’t have many. Some chopper pilots wanted them for personal so we ordered in a dozen. Think I have four left.”

He produced the three weapons that had been just taken out of the box. No cosmoline, but they would take a good cleaning.

“Yeah, they clean up nice.” He frowned. “You guys don’t look like spooks. Major said this was a big shit hush hush operation.”

“It is and you never saw us or talked to us and certainly didn’t provide us with any weapons,” Quinn said. “Is that clear, Sergeant? If not consult with your major tomorrow.”

Quinn signed for the three weapons and three magazines for each and four hundred rounds of the 9mm Parabellum ammunition. Outside the building, Quinn thanked the sergeant again and the four climbed in the Air Force pickup Quinn had wrangled, and they drove back to their barracks.

Quinn dropped on one of the made up but unoccupied bunks.

Hunter snorted. “Quinn, don’t tell me that you’re bedding down with the troops tonight? You’re getting downright democratic.”
       “I can’t sleep on airplanes, remember, notshot? I’m so sleepy now I could pass out on a concrete floor.”

The next morning
hot chow came to them at 0700 in a mini field kitchen in the back of a pickup. Eggs to order, hot cakes, bacon, hash browns, milk, coffee, toast and fruit. By 0800 Hunter and his two fellow travelers were on the base rifle rang, test firing their Glocks and the MP-5 they had brought with them. The Glocks worked as well as they remembered but had a little more rise than they were used to.

Next they hit the tailor shop where they kept an assortment of North Korean clothing. It was almost the same as the south but with different labels and style. Each man was fitted with two outfits, one to wear that night and another sealed in waterproof plastic for their backpacks.

“I look like a fucking monkey,” Chang said.

“I never saw a slant eyed money,” Tran jibed. They both laughed.

“Just so we can pass if we get spotted, which we damn well better not. That’s your job, Tran.”

“No sweat. We’ll be in and covert as hell. I’ll see them before anybody sees us.”

Back at the barracks, Quinn gave them a special SATCOM.

“You’re in enemy territory, so this one is packed with the special pencils of C-5 inside. You have to key in a code to arm it. Then if anyone else tries to use it, or if it doesn’t get used for six hours, it automatically detonates and blows itself into twelve thousand pieces. Any questions?”

“Don’t plan on losing it or getting it captured,” Hunter said. “Anything more from your turncoat about the professor, his house or the surrounding area?”

“Not much. The three story house is in a small compound in a cul-de-sac but there are no government guards. It’s in a rich area as contrasted to the rest of North Korea. You have the address memorized including the highway to take from the north, K-12 I think it is. What else? Find the guy, check him out, and use your SATCOM to call for a pickup of the twelve and you three if that works. If the first bomb is hidden up north, we’ll need to do some more planning back here. Get us that dope as quickly as you can. Tonight before daylight would be about right.”

“No promises. It all depends on the situation and the terrain.”

The SEALs gathered around laughed. Quinn frowned.

“How the hell was that funny?”
        “Inside joke,” Chief Chapman said. “It’s what every military commander says when he doesn’t know what the hell to answer.”

The three were in their Korean clothes, with their weapons hidden. The shoes were weird, not sandals, but little better, cheap, half worn out low cut tennis shoes. All three had hats that covered half of their faces. Quinn checked them over.

“For God’s sakes, Hunter, if you’re spotted, try to slump down a little. These two guys at five-five and five-six are about the right size, you look like a giant up there. So slouch, slump, bend over, or walk on your knees if you have to.”

“Nobody is going to see us who isn’t supposed to,” Hunter said. “If they do, they’re dead.”

The three waited with their backpacks for the Air Force pickup that came for them. The airfield was under repair, replacing the long runway. Their Seahawk was on the tarmac ready for them. They waved at Quinn, stepped on board and the two sat on the floor of the bird while Hunter went to talk with the pilot. 

She was young, had wings and silver bars of a JG on her collar. She wore a flight suit and helmet and took it off to talk to Hunter.

“Welcome to spook airlines,” she said grinning.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” he said.

She sobered. “Hey, no disrespect. Word gets around. We’ll do every fucking thing we can to make sure it all goes five by five.”

“Amen to that, Lieutenant. I’m Hunter.”

She held out her hand. No nail polish. “I’m Leslie, Ann Leslie.”

You better find a seat back there. I’m scheduled to take off in two minutes or I’ll get my tail feathers burned.”

“Good to meet you, Leslie. I’m gone.”

The copilot slid into the right hand seat and they lifted off. The Seahawk scooted along barely over the treetops at 207 mph almost due west toward the Yellow Sea. The twenty miles clicked by in a little over seven minutes and the bird came down lightly on the landing pad on the stern of the destroyer which had slowed to ten knots for an easier touch down. Hunter and his team jumped out and the destroyer kicked into high gear to move up to its cruising speed of thirty two knots. The men were taken below to an empty room with four bunks. A chief led the way and said the Captain requested their presence in his cabin as soon as they were settled.

“I feel like I’m being called into the principal’s office and I don’t know where I fucked up,” Chang said.

Commander Vuylsteke just wanted to welcome them onboard.

“It’s about fourteen hundred. You’ll all three eat at the officer’s mess at fourteen thirty, and then you can inspect the rubber duck. I’ve assigned Coxswain Urick to handle the craft both into the beach and back out. He’s instructed to go in to a quarter of a mile unless there is any enemy that endanger the mission. You’ll have a rest time and then chow down again at twenty hundred and shove off from the stern at twenty one hundred. That should put you on shore at your desired time of twenty two hundred.”

“Sounds perfect, Commander,” Hunter said.

“Anything else?”

“We enjoyed our ride with Lieutenant Leslie.”

“Good. She’s the sharpest chopper pilot out of the three I have on board. Have a good trip.”

At fourteen hundred the two enlisted SEALs tried not to look wide eyed at the table cloths, the china and real silverware in the ward room as they were served their choice of entrees. Both had steak medium rare and Hunter went for the seafood plate of clams, prons, shrimp, lobster and mahi-mahi.

After the meal they rechecked their back packs and weapons, made sure everything was water tight and then dropped on their bunks. Tran went to sleep at once. Chang turned over three times before he dropped off. Hunter lay there wide awake for three hours.

He kept going over the plans, the problems that could crop up, and what would he do in each situation. He worked out logical solutions, but would they hold up in combat?

Hunter dozed off and figured it could have been no more than fifteen minutes later when somebody shook his shoulder.

“Sir, it’s nineteen forty five. You have chow in fifteen at the officer’s mess.”

Hunter looked up at a young sailor and swung his feet off the bunk. “Yeah, thanks.”

An hour later they stepped off the stern of the destroyer down a ladder to the bobbing IBS with Coxswain Urick in the stern. The three SEALs settled down in the Zodiac. It was fifteen feet long and six feet wide, weighed 265 pounds and could carry up to eight fully armed SEALs. It has a top speed with its outboard motor of eighteen knots and can travel sixty five nautical miles on a tank of gas.

“Ready when you are Urick,” Hunter said and the sailor pushed forward on the throttle and they jolted away from the huge looking destroyer.

An hour later the bright lights of Hwajil-Il came up on the right.

        “We should be about five miles north of that town,” Urick said.

“We should see some surf up here pretty soon. I figure we’re about half a mile off the coast.”

A moment later Tran looked up. “Cap, we’ve got a patrol boat coming up on us from the right, moving fast.”

“Shut down the engine and everyone lie down in the boat,” Hunter said. “Maybe we can get under their radar.”

The coxswain frowned. “I don’t hear anything.”

“You will,” Hunter said. “Down.”

They flattened out and two minutes later they could hear the whine of the big engine as a North Korean patrol craft sliced through the water toward them. A searchlight beam jolted into the darkness and cut a swath of danger as the boat slammed through the calm bay coming closer to where their IBS idled in the swells.

CHAPTER FIVE

The big searchlight on the patrol boat swept the sea for two hundred feet, swung back again, then took a new angle and lit up the swells back and forth. The boat came on slightly seaward from them. Then without slowing, the patrol craft swung ninety degrees shoreward with the searchlight on the far side away from the IBS. It charged towards the breakers for a quarter of a mile or more, then turned north and followed the shore with the bright light showing the small waves and vegetation on the beach in the sweep of the beam.

“Missed us,” Hunter said. “Urick, fire up that box and let’s get in another four hundred yards, then we’ll bail out.”

The sound of the patrol boat faded in the distance on its northward track. Hunter kept the IBS moving shoreward until he could see the small waves hitting the beach.

“Thanks for the ride, Urick; we’re going for a swim.” The three SEALs slid over the side into the water without a sound and automatically went down three feet and began swimming toward shore. They didn’t have their rebreathers on, so it was ten strokes and then take a breath operation.

Hunter came up the last time when he felt his hands hit the sand. He eased up for a sneak and a peek letting only his face come out of the water. Yes, the shore with sparse brush and trees just inland. No barbed wire, no fortifications, and he saw no sentries or guards. He spotted a SEAL on each side of him and waved his arm forward. They surged toward the beach with the next wave and soon rolled on the sand like a trio of wet logs. They remained totally still.