Female prisoners were routinely forced to dig their own graves before being brutally raped by guards, and even visiting officials. The women would then be beaten to death with hammers or clubs, their bodies rolled into the graves and covered over with earth in order to hide the crime.
In addition to rape and murder, prisoners faced regular beatings, starvation, and other absolutely unthinkable acts of torture. It turned Fordyce’s stomach, as he knew it did for the rest of his team members. Every assignment required restraint and self-control, but this one especially so. There was no question what would happen to four heavily armed Americans if captured by the North Koreans.
The propaganda embarrassment for the United States would be off the charts, and Fordyce knew all too well that he and his men would be subjected to torture worse than any POW had ever seen. The team had made an unspoken pact. If things went bad, they’d do all they could to make sure they weren’t taken alive. Fordyce’s job, though, was to see to it that things didn’t go bad.
If the United States were to have any hope of deciphering the planned attack, it needed to know as much about the PLA’s landing party as possible. What were they training for? Why were they doing it in North Korea and not China? Did anything about the training suggest what kind of an
attack was planned? Were they using equipment or techniques that would be applied in the wake of a biological, chemical, or nuclear attack? The list of questions was endless.
What wasn’t endless was the amount of time Fordyce and his team had to complete their assignment. They had been instructed to get in, get whatever intel they could, and get out. There was very little margin for error and every moment was going to count.
The narrow valley that was the team’s target was just under three hundred kilometers from the coast. As best any of the experts at the National Reconnaissance Office could tell, the North Koreans had shrouded parts of it with a series of overlapping nets suspended from tall poles. In order to hide what, though, was what the team had been sent in to discover.
Fordyce halted his men at the edge of the forest where the pine needles turned to scree. He wanted to give them a moment to grab a snack and rest before they went up and over the ridgeline.
He ate some cheese and sausage, the snack he liked to bring on operations, as he studied photos of the terrain. He was looking for the spot where he wanted them to cross over the top and then make their way down.
Part of the valley was being cultivated with crops of some sort, and a stream about twenty feet wide cut down the western side. The question no one had been able to answer back in the U.S. was how far they would have to descend into the valley in order to get a good enough view of what was under those nets. At some point they were going to lose the benefit of rocks and trees for cover and be left with nothing but high grass. And unlike trees and rocks, grass moved when you brushed past it.
Fordyce wasn’t averse to taking risks. He would do almost anything if it was necessary, but he didn’t want to place his men in any additional danger if he didn’t have to. They were already way far out on the risk curve as it was. If everything the CIA had been told about this location was true, then they were going to start bumping up against North Korean foot patrols soon enough. His biggest fear was that they might have dogs. If that turned out to be true, they would be looking at some serious trouble.
Until that trouble showed itself, though, Fordyce wasn’t going to
worry about it. He had enough on his mind. Checking his map once more, he gave his team the signal to ruck up. When they were all ready, he led them out of the trees and up toward the ridgeline.
They moved slowly through the rocks and loose shale. It was like climbing a mountain of guitar picks. Time after time, their footing gave way and sent a cascade of stones sliding down behind them.
Fordyce adjusted their path and tried to pick a course through the green-gray haze of his night vision goggles that would give them firmer footing, but still allow them to summit in an area with plenty of natural cover. It wouldn’t do them any good to arrive at the top, only to be caught out in the open and possibly spotted by the Chinese or North Koreans below.
As they climbed, Fordyce also kept an eye on their time. They needed to be over the ridgeline and down far enough on the other side before the sun came up. They had identified three potential locations via satellite for covered overwatch positions, but you never really knew how good a site was until you saw it for yourself. Concerned they were falling behind, Fordyce picked up the pace.
Just before the ridgeline, he stopped. Pointing at Les Johnson, whose face was covered in camouflage paint like the others, he signaled for him to crawl up and take a look.
Fifteen minutes later, Johnson came back. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” he whispered.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Fordyce. “Why?”
“That valley is pitch black.”
“They must be practicing light discipline.”
Johnson grinned. “Or we’re not in the right place.”
Fordyce flipped Johnson the finger. They were in the right place, but that was Johnson—always a smart-ass. His father had been an executive with an outdoor clothing company in Maine. Had he followed in his father’s footsteps, he’d be on his way to running that same company, but Johnson hadn’t been cut out for the button-down corporate world. He’d been a hellion as a teen, a real troublemaker. In hindsight, his father probably should have provided more “wall-to-wall” counseling. It wasn’t until Johnson got kicked out of his third private college and had a pretty
serious run-in with the Freeport PD that he realized he needed to get his act together.
The police chief had coached Johnson in Little League. That was back before Johnson’s parents had divorced and he had begun his spiral toward becoming a less than productive member of society. The chief painted an ugly picture of where Johnson was headed if he didn’t apply some serious course correction. He capped it off by introducing him to a Navy recruiter in Portland, who also happened to be a SEAL. Whether it was his similar upbringing or his no-bullshit style, the SEAL, and what he had done with his life, appealed to Johnson. Within forty-eight hours, he had signed up, shipped out, and the rest was history.
After Fordyce showed him the spot on the map where the first potential overwatch site was, he signaled for Johnson to take point. It was easy for your senses to become dulled and for you to miss something if you didn’t rotate out. It was time to put fresh eyes and ears up front. There was no telling what kind of intrusion or antipersonnel devices had been placed along the downward slope to prevent exactly what they were doing.
They moved much more slowly and deliberately now that they were on the valley side. They took great pains to make sure they didn’t create a single sound or send any loose rocks tumbling down the slope in front of them. They needed to be ghosts—and that’s exactly what they were.
When they arrived at the first overwatch site, they could tell right away that it wouldn’t work. It had looked good on satellite, but there was one side that was too exposed. It wasn’t even up for discussion. Fordyce showed Johnson where the next location was and they headed for it.
Site two was better, but not by much. If anyone popped up on the ridgeline behind them, the team risked being exposed. It wasn’t worth it. Fordyce checked his watch. If site three was a bust, they were going to have to scramble. Showing Johnson the final location on the map, they headed out. Fordyce had to remind himself not to rush and to choose his steps carefully.
The third site was a major improvement over the other two, but halfway downhill and a little to their left was something that looked ideal.
Getting Johnson’s attention, Fordyce pointed it out to him. It would
give them an even better vantage point for observing the valley and, surrounded with more trees, it would give them more cover. Johnson nodded and led them to it.
Although there was no such thing as a perfect hide, this was the closest to one Fordyce had ever seen. As was his style, once they were installed, he took first watch. It had been a rough climb and everyone was tired.
While the other team members pulled food from their bags and ate or tried to nod off, Jimi Fordyce looked down into the valley through his magnified Aimpoint Comp M4 sight. Nothing was moving and it was still pitch black.
Laying his weapon across his chest, he checked his camera equipment. The Pentagon wanted as many pictures as possible. He had extra memory cards, an additional antireflective telephoto lens, fully charged batteries, and pieces of earth-colored burlap he’d use to camouflage the camera further. There were very few objects that created reflections in nature. If any of their gear bounced even a quick flash of sunlight, it’d be game over.
Restowing his camera equipment, Fordyce was quietly zipping up the case when he thought he heard a noise just downhill. Instantly, his hands went to his weapon. Bringing it up, he seated the stock in his right shoulder and tried to identify the source.
He swept his rifle slowly back and forth. For a moment, he wondered if his ears had played a trick on him. Then he heard the sound again. Something was definitely out there, and it was headed uphill, in their direction. Very quietly, he alerted his teammates.
Each one of them slowly raised his weapon, got into firing position, and powered up his night vision device. But while the SEALs went to their rifles, Billy Tang pulled out his suppressed SIG. For close work, he preferred a pistol, and with the 147-grain Special K rounds he had loaded, his SIG Sauer would make a lot less noise.
The sound was getting closer. They could all hear it now. It would move, then stop, and then move and stop again. It was erratic, going off in one direction for a moment before coming back and heading closer to them. It wasn’t an animal. It sounded like a person, and whoever it was, he was looking for something.
Was he looking for them?
Time stood still as the person out in the darkness got closer and closer.
The team kept their heart rates and their breathing under control. Weapons were hot. Fingers were on triggers.
Inside their heads, they were all saying the same thing—
Don’t stop. Keep walking. Just pass us by.
When the figure finally came into view, that sentiment dramatically increased.
Fordyce signaled for his team not to fire. Johnson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The kid looked like he was maybe eight years old. What the hell was a kid doing in this valley, and in the middle of the night, no less? Tang quietly prayed that the boy would just walk past. Eric Tucker, the team’s corpsman, was ready to do whatever needed to be done.
This wasn’t a war zone like Iraq or Afghanistan. The rules about combatants versus noncombatants didn’t apply here. But even if they did, most SEALs, Tucker included, had already decided what they would do in a situation like this. The topic had been discussed ad nauseam throughout the teams.
In 2005, a four-man SEAL recon team, under the codename Operation Red Wings, had been inserted into Afghanistan’s Kunar Province to surveil and gather intelligence on a high-value Taliban target. During the surveillance, three goat herders—an old man, a teen, and a young boy—had discovered the SEAL team.
The SEALs apprehended them, but once they determined that the goat herders were civilians and not combatants, the rules of engagement dictated that they be released. The SEALs let them go and paid the ultimate price for it. The teen sprinted to his village and within two hours, the SEALs fell under a vicious ambush of mortars, AK-47s, PK machineguns, and RPGs. A quick reaction force of eight more SEALs plus eight Army Special Operations aviators was also shot down. In the end, only one of the original SEALs survived to tell the harrowing tale.
Eric Tucker had hoped never to find himself in that kind of situation. You could say whatever you wanted sitting in a team room half a world away, but killing a civilian, especially a child, would be a tough call to make. This op, though, was critical to the survival of the United States and its civilians, including its own children. The team’s ROE didn’t prevent them from shooting anyone, including a little boy, if it meant
preventing their op from being compromised. Adjusting his rifle, Tucker walled off his conscience, sighted in on the child’s head, and gently flicked off his safety.
Twigs seemed to snap as loud as firecrackers as the boy came closer. He was making a beeline for them.
What the hell was he doing?
Two feet from their hide, the boy stopped. He was so close that Fordyce could have reached out and touched him. The team didn’t even dare breathe.
The little boy had a cloth bag of some sort strung across his shoulder. Something on the ground had his attention and he bent over to examine it.
Bootprints
were the words every team member was thinking. But the little boy hadn’t been examining bootprints. Straightening up, he held a small loop of wire in his hands—a
snare. He was out checking his animal traps. But why now? Why so late at night?
It was a question they would have all happily gone without ever having to answer. As long as the kid just reset his trap and went back to wherever he had come from. They didn’t need to know who he was or why he was out here. But once Mr. Murphy brought two bodies into the same orbit, he usually made sure there was a collision. And a collision was exactly what happened.
Preparing to reset his snare, the little boy must have decided to move back a couple of feet. There was no way he could have known what a bad decision that was. He had no idea that Jimi Fordyce was there until he stepped on him.
Whether it was a snake or some other animal didn’t matter. What he had stepped on was alive, and his body instantly reacted.
No sooner had his thin sandal pressed down on Fordyce’s body than his mind screamed
danger
and his body leaped backward into the air.
His eyes quickly focused on what it was. It was human—at least the eyes appeared to be—but he wasn’t sure about the rest. He had been told the woods were full of demons and all sorts of monsters. He had no desire to stay and figure everything out. His flight mechanism had kicked in and he was already running.