Devil's Fork (29 page)

“
Yankee Main. Are you able
to get my ETA to target? Over.”

“
Yankee Actual. Wait one.
Over.”

He picked up his pace slightly. The trees in
this area stood in thicker patches. His visibility was worse than
it had been going through the ridge. There were also more rocks on
the ground. They were not large, but Tom had to shift from side to
side to avoid stepping on them and injuring himself.

Then Anderson came back on
the radio.
“ETA 20 minutes. You are almost
there. Over”

After passing into a more open area of the
woods, Tom looked around for any signs of a patrol. He saw nothing.
It had been surprisingly quiet since he shot that last patrol. He
would have thought that as he got closer to the base, the number of
patrols would have been higher. Either way, he suspected that there
would be at least a few soldiers at the entrance.

CHAPTER 43

EARLY THURSDAY

Incheon, South Korea

A sea breeze ran through an empty dark
street in Incheon. As it was the middle of the night, few cars
drove by. Most people were inside. A still silence permeated
through the air.

On one side of the street, shadows moved
cautiously. A team of 40 men walked slowly and silently. Dressed in
all black, they carried small rifles in their arms. Masks hid their
faces and helmets shielded their heads. They had tubes sticking out
of their eyes, giving them light in the dark. They bent slightly at
the hips and almost walked in step. From a distance they looked
like one large spider crawling up the street. They were one block
away from a house to which they had been asked to pay a visit.

They stopped as they came to a street
corner. They planned to enter a house on the next street. The roads
around them continued to sit in silence. Someone walking or driving
by might not have noticed the presence of the shadows. After two
simple hand signals the team split into two long lines of twenty
and crossed the street side by side. They measured their steps, and
despite their bent knees and waists, their heads did not bob up and
down. They walked like cats.

Half a block away from their target, the
column of shadows closest to the road bent lower and began to walk
faster. As the two groups approached their target house, the first
group of twenty assembled in a straight line on one side of the
main door. The second, faster moving group swung around and lined
up on the other side of the front door. There were now two lines of
men flaring out of either side of the door. Each shadow checked his
rifle and equipment. When done, each man put his hand quietly on
the shoulder of the man in front, to signal readiness. When each
front man’s shoulder had been tapped, a hand signal went up. The
front man of the left column reached for the doorknob and gently
tried turning it. More force would have been used to turn a volume
knob in a car. But the gentle touch was all that was needed. The
point man felt that the door was locked. He threw up another hand
signal. The second man on the left side team stepped out of his
column. He pulled out what looked like a three-foot long metal
cylinder with handles sticking out. He paused for a moment facing
the door. He signaled his colleagues to ready themselves. He took
one more moment for himself.

Suddenly he hit the end of the battering ram
right into the doorknob. The entire door shook and opened half an
inch. He swung his battering ram one more time right above the
doorknob. The door flew open. The battering ram operator took one
large step back. Instantly, the shadows on either side of the door
sprung through the threshold, alternating one by one.

Inside, the first few men from the right
side had moved to the far right corner, effectively making a 90
degree turn upon passing through the door. In the room ahead of
them they saw two men sitting on the floor who started to stand up.
The point man and second man put one bullet through each of them.
They moved briskly into the room and turned at the far corner.

The left side team made the 90 degree turn
in the other direction and moved to the far corner of the room in
front of them. It was empty. There was no furniture in the
house.

The men behind the first two teams went to
the stairs that were straight ahead of the door. The point man took
a quick look up and aimed his rifle at a 45 degree angle in front
of him. He started slowly placing foot ahead of foot on the steps.
The men behind him followed.

The room to the right had filled up with
black uniformed men at this point. They started walking towards the
back of the house. There was a door at the back of the room. They
approached the sides of it, rifles raised. After they were all
positioned, they leapt one by one through the door into the room on
the other side. As they moved into the back room, they each walked
to the corners at the right and left side, checking the rest of the
room once their corners were clear. After they had cleared the
empty room, they realized where they were. It was a kitchen. As
they looked into the adjacent room on the other side of the house,
they saw the other team of shadows flooding it. It was empty as
well. Now the entire first floor was clear. The men turned back and
walked towards the stairs at the front of the house. The other team
was ascending them now.

The team on the stairs had reached the first
landing by now. As the point man turned on it to continue up he saw
something move at the top. He did not have time to react – whatever
it was had disappeared. The point man took a step up and then some
kind of round object started bouncing down the stairs. The rugged
shell and the clank it made on each step revealed its identity
immediately. A grenade was approaching them. The point man turned
around and pointed a finger back. The men behind him started
backing down the stairs. The point man backed around the landing
and tried to take a couple steps down the stairs. The grenade
exploded as it neared the landing. The team on the stairs felt the
shock. A fiery explosion shot through the stairwell, going up to
where the grenade came from and downwards too. The team on the
stairs, bent down and covering their heads, managed to withstand
the blast as it shot above them. As they came around, they heard
shouting at the top of the stairs. Someone up there seemed to be
willing to put up a fight. The person at the top was warning his
comrades. The point man looked back and saw that the men behind him
were ready. He made a step onto the landing. As he turned on the
landing he saw a man’s face at the top of the stairs. The man’s
face was a little too relaxed given the situation, the point man
thought. Then the man at the top pulled out a gun – a small pistol.
He took a few shots down the stairs. His firing was slightly wild
and aimless. The man at the top then disappeared. The point man and
his team were lying prone on the steps. A bullet flying past one’s
head had the stopping power of one that hit its target.

Soon the man at the top reappeared. He stuck
his pistol out again and began firing repeatedly. This time the
point man and his colleague behind him returned fire. Several shots
flew at the man at the top, but he hid himself too quickly.

A grenade started plopping down from the top
of the steps again. The game continued. The shadows on the stairs
realized that their night was going to be longer than they had
hoped.

CHAPTER 44

EARLY THURSDAY

Incheon, South Korea

Jiyeon had heard the commotion start with
what sounded like a book being dropped on the first floor. Actually
it sounded like two books falling. She had thought nothing of it at
first. But she soon heard one of her captors running on her
floor.

What is going on?

Now she heard voices on her floor yelling.
She could not make out what the voices were saying. She suddenly
had an urge to break free of her handcuffs. She wanted the freedom
to move her arms and legs more than anything. She wanted to be in
control of her limbs. A terror took hold in her chest as she
realized she could not move and was at someone else’s mercy. Jiyeon
started to wiggle around. She tried to pull her arms and legs apart
from each other. She knew it would be fruitless, but doing so was
the only thing that temporarily relieved the sensation she was
experiencing. But at the same time it made her realize how confined
she was. She felt even worse terror cut into her chest.

When she grew tired, she stopped and tried
to look out of the window. She now heard an explosion. She could
almost feel a hand grab and squeeze her abdomen. Then she heard
gunshots. The small pops of the gunshots snapped her into reality.
She felt the claw on her abdomen tighten.

She mouthed Tom’s name. She wondered if it
was he who was downstairs trying to save her. He would know exactly
what to do, she thought. When he was in the military, this was
exactly what his job was. Maybe he had wrapped up his mission
quickly and had come in for her. She wanted to get out of this room
so that she could call Mr. Park and tell him all about Mr. Kim. She
wanted to get back to that dinner with Tom and tell him more about
herself.

She suddenly heard a second explosion. She
knew now that fifteen minutes from now she would either be dead or
alive and free. That was no different than each moment during the
rest of her life, she realized. But it seemed so tangible and
palpable now, for some reason. It seemed like the chance of death
was more real than ever.

She stared at the door in the opposite
corner. Something was going to come through it in the next few
moments and it was going to decide her fate. Through the wall she
heard more yelling and the snaps of some more gunfire. She noticed
that the doorknob started turning. She sat up straight. Her feet
were sticking out in front of her and her hands were on her lap.
The door opened. The young girl who had been wearing an old lady’s
outfit entered the room, without looking at Jiyeon. Now she was
wearing a dark outfit. Her hair was out and flowing down her
back.

Jiyeon watched as the girl closed the door
in a rush and bent down to make sure it was locked.

Jiyeon knew now that Tom was not there. Tom
was not coming. Maybe he had been captured as well, she thought.
She wondered if there was some interrogator closing the door to his
cell now as well.

If two close souls die at the same time,
would they get to be with each other right after?

Now the girl fixed her attention on Jiyeon.
She looked directly at her as she walked towards her. Jiyeon
wondered if in another life, they might have been friends. What was
the ultimate purpose of all this, she thought. What was the
point?

The girl stopped right in front of Jiyeon.
More gunshots rang outside the walls of the room. The girl pulled
out a pistol and aimed it straight at Jiyeon’s face. Jiyeon stared
into her eyes.

CHAPTER 45

WEDNESDAY

Langley, Virginia

“
He’s almost there. Let’s
all get ready,” Anderson told the Command Room.

Tom had passed Waypoint 3 almost fifteen
minutes ago and was now getting close to the target. Everyone in
the Command Room rapidly looked between the large screen and
smaller screens at the desks. The analysts took frequent sips of
coffee.

As Sara stared at the screen she imagined
that Tom could already be running on top of the target facility,
given that much of it was underground. Despite the images still
being trees flying past, everyone was waiting for the moment when
an open space would appear.

Sara looked around at the
other analysts. Matt was on the phone, talking to someone on
the
George Washington.
He had been updating them for most of the night. The
George Washington
in turn
had been updating the
Virginia
, which was patiently
standing by and waiting for Tom to return. It was still sitting
submerged three miles off the coast. It had only broken radio
silence once, when it informed the
George
Washington
that Tom had left for shore.
Lucky for them, it did not seem that the North Koreans had
noticed.

Another analyst was analyzing the latest
satellite imagery, which had come in within the last hour. He was
carefully noting changes in KPA positions. With a tremor in his
voice, he had told the room that there was a large contingent of
KPA in front of the entrance to the base.

One analyst to Sara’s left had been sending
regular updates to the Director. In the last hour the frequency of
these calls had increased. All of the analysts moved in some way.
Some were tapping their knees up and down rapidly. Some shifted
ceaselessly in their chairs.

Sara looked at the very back. Mark and J.D.
still maintained their focus solely on the computer screens in
front of them. How lucky of them, she thought, to be able to
maintain a Zen-like state. She had the feeling that if she was not
focused on Tom – where he was running, what he was doing, or
whether he was safe – some misfortune would occur. She felt that
Tom never really thought about his own safety enough, so she needed
to provide some of that anxiety. Someone had to. The other analysts
seemed to be helping her as well.

Mr. Park walked into the room quickly,
breaking everyone’s focus.

“
White Tiger started its
raid of the house,” he said.

“
What are they saying?”
Anderson asked.

“
They are encountering
resistance on the second floor. They are still
clearing.”

“
Is your analyst OK? Did
they get to her?” Sara asked. Sara wondered why his analysts were
not joining them for the upcoming infiltration. Mr. Park’s team had
worked for a long time on finding this place, she thought. It made
logical sense to her that they should be watching too.