One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (14 page)

Both of Kang’s boys served proudly in the army, but only one, Dae-Jung, survived on the scant four hundred grams of food a day. Chung-ho, the youngest, perished after developing beriberi, which led to nervous system compromise and, within thirty-six hours, total heart failure.

Kang would have gladly helped the Americans then, but their humanitarian aid, along with that from China, replaced the Soviet losses and Kang once again pushed down any thoughts of treason. It wasn’t that Kang liked Kim Jong Il’s potbellied boy, Kim Jung Un; far from it. He found the new leader’s nuclear aspirations to be very troubling, as they only served to further isolate the country when the good people needed so much humanitarian aid. But Kang knew his place.

And then Dae-Jung did the unthinkable. Rumors swirled about the country, telling of the extreme measures people were going to in order to stave off the continuing famine. Tears came to Kang’s eyes as he thought of his granddaughter, and the madness that drove his son to kill her for food.

Kang took another swig, finishing the pot, and set it back in the sunken sink. Ignoring his fatigue, he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his tan jacket, then dried his eyes. He shuffled down the narrow hallway to the lower room. It had been months since he’d felt the warmth of the floor, heated by channeling warm air and smoke through a system of under-the-floor flues from an exterior fireplace. But Kang hadn’t needed heat under the floor for the past few months as much as he needed the hiding space.

Kang slipped up to the edge of the window, careful not to knock over the gallon-size paint cans, kick the dried paintbrush pans, or get tangled up in the drop cloths. He was careful not to show himself through the window to anyone who might be looking his way.

He reached down to feel his right knee, softly squeezing the puffy tissue. The fluid had already swollen to softball size. Kang shifted his focus from left to right, then back to the left. He looked for any sign of the high-level party committee cadres dispatched to each provincial city and district in order to flush out questionably loyal party members, or one of the propaganda trucks that barked out North Korean successes through screechy roof-mounted speakers.

Kang knew government cadre were going house to house, searching for party membership cards or Great Leader portraits stashed away in cupboards, their owners’ loyalty having shifted to the faces of foreign men on U.S. greenbacks. Although they were driven by different motivations, Kang knew that, like him, they were party members in name, but not in deed.

With no time to waste, Kang stood upright and pressed on to the familiar lower end of the room, the
araemmok,
the room for honored guests and the seniors of the household. In North Korean winters, a night of heat could feel like winning the lottery, which is why the room his parents and grandparents slept in as far back as Kang could remember was closest to the outside fireplace.

Favoring his sore knee, Kang shuffled toward the upper end, the spot where he and his brothers and sisters, those with a lower social status, slept. The
ummok
was close to the front door and farthest from the heat source. Both rooms were floored with the same century-old large pieces of flat stone, tightly covered with several square-yard-size pieces of lacquered paper. The light golden-brown paper had aged nicely. Besides meeting his mother’s decorative eye, the paper shielded the rooms from gas and smoke, and was easy to come by at the market in Sonchon.

Kang had to hurry. He was expected back in Pyongyang for a fourth and final meeting to confirm the nuclear arms agenda with the joint Swedish/South Korean delegation. But the last train out of Sonchon Station for Pyongyang would push off in less than an hour, and with at least fifty minutes of hard pedaling, even without worrying about a tail, he would practically be boarding as it started down the track.

It would be the fourth meeting in the past three weeks, as they prepared for the very rare assembly of high-level delegates at Panmunjom, on the 38th parallel. Nothing they shared at the meeting would resemble the truth in any form or fashion. Nevertheless, he needed to get back for the meeting as much as to preserve his actions in Sonchon, which meant he had no time to actually do any cleaning in the yard, or fix the things still needing fixing, all an elaborate charade to ensure the local appetite for nosiness was sufficiently suppressed.

Kang delicately knelt down, sliding a dingy pillow under his knees as he kneeled on the stone floor and reached for the corner of the golden-brown lacquer paper. He peeled it up and away from the square slab, smooth cut roughly three feet by two feet, and reached for the metal fire poker leaning against the wall. Kang slipped the narrow end into the thin space separating the square stones and leaned his body into it, lifting the stone enough to angle it up and out of its century-old position. Kang laid the poker down and with both hands pulled at the edges of the stone to slide it out of the way before bending into the prone.

Kang reached into the heat space underneath the ondol flooring and secured the aged teletypewriter, pulling it up and out, careful not to dislodge the power cable secured to the back side with small pieces of chicken wire and burlap straps. Kang wiped his fingers across the small window screen of the HAL CWR-6850 electronic terminal to clear the dust, and fingered a few cobwebs off the keyboard.

Before the computer mass storage era, an age still unseen in North Korea, most radioteletype stations, known simply as RTTY, stored text on paper tape, using paper tape punchers and readers. With Kang’s engineering and science degree from Kim Il Sung University he was a quick study, easily following his CIA handler’s operating instructions. He knew all he had to do was type the message on the RTTY keyboard, authenticate it with the code word he had remembered for thirty years, and let it punch the code onto the tape. The tape could then be transmitted electrically across the waves at a steady, high rate.

If there ever was a paper tape message that he needed to get out of isolated North Korea, this was the one. Without the RTTY message, the only people on earth that could safely extract him from North Korea would have no idea of his plans to defect while at the meeting in Panmunjom. More importantly, the same people that needed his time-sensitive intelligence more than anyone, the Americans, were the only ones that could use the information to stop World War III.

Kang flicked the red plastic toggle switch up to power on the teletypewriter, the white switch up to send, and impatiently waited, tapping his fingers on his thighs while the normal twenty-second warmup sequence ticked off. He selected manual mode and then initiated the magnetic tape test, studied the screen, waiting patiently for the fuzzy bright green digits to change from
WAIT
to
OUTPUT
. Only then could he begin typing the message that would either save him or kill him.

NINE

Western outskirts of Lozova, Ukraine

Options raced through Kolt’s mental Rolodex and he quickly dismissed each one. With both of their Alfa operative guides now facedown in the dirt and surrounded by Russian Spetsnaz, the only course left was kinetic. The Russians had to go.

Kolt let the edge of the tarp fall back in place, closing the peephole he was using to keep tabs on the chaos unfolding outside. He scooted on his knees back to the center of the truck bed, closer to Digger and Slapshot. Now that he was no longer under the cloak of the heavy tarp, his night vision had come around enough to make out his mates’ faces, the headlights still penetrating the sliver of space at Slapshot’s perch.

“This is fucking nuts,” Slapshot said.

Kolt didn’t disagree with his squadron sergeant major, not at all. No doubt things were spiraling out of control quickly. But that was the easy answer; they needed options. Kolt sized it up in warp speed, rapidly searched for left and right limits, ran the contingency through context, and settled on an idea. A crazy idea.

“Digger, can you be the retarded cousin?”

“Don’t even go there, boss,” Digger said, shaking his head from side to side.

“Look, man, hear me out,” Kolt said. “You speak the lingo enough to play the part. Strip down to your underwear and remove your leg. Hop out there, full-on stupid, and draw their attention. Slapshot and I will circle around and take them from behind.”

“I thought landing on a moving 747 in India was crazy,” Digger said, “but this is fucking insane.”

“Which is why it might work,” Slapshot said, surprising Kolt that his new squadron sergeant major was immediately supportive. Slapshot’s blessing told Kolt one of two things: either he was desperate and had no better ideas, or he thought the unconventional idea might have some legs. Well, one anyway.

“What? Are we back in fucking selection?” Digger whispered, still resisting.

“C’mon, Digger, if you have a better idea you need to share it now,” Slapshot said.

“Hop out there?” Digger said, amped up at the suggestion. “On one leg?”

“Digger, look,” Kolt said, “even those assholes won’t shoot a naked one-legged wacko.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“They haven’t shot the other two yet,” Kolt said. “We only need a little time to get behind them. If the three of us break cover and start shooting, we’ll be grouped together and too vulnerable.”

“Son of a bitch,” Digger said as he pulled his T-shirt and sweatshirt over his head, half tossing them to Slapshot. Kolt watched him slide on his knees to the tailgate of the truck, his V-shaped triathlon-like upper body obvious even in the dark. Digger slipped over the gate like he was negotiating the high bar on the obstacle course, controlling his weight as he dropped to the dirt road. Kolt scooted toward him, as did Slapshot.

Digger handed his Glock, pistol grip first, up to Slapshot. He unbuckled his belt and dropped his cargo jeans, before balancing against the tailgate. Digger struggled to pull his boots through his baggy pant legs, one at a time, and left his drawers on the dirt road. Kolt looked at Digger, proud that he was willing to risk his ass, and realizing Digger wasn’t wearing any creature comforts. Digger bent over, unlocked his prosthetic lower leg, and handed it up to Slapshot.

“Don’t be too long,” Digger said as he held on to the tailgate and hopped to the truck’s back left corner.

“Give us one minute if you can,” Kolt said, “and make it loud so we can hear you.”

Without speaking to Slapshot, Kolt slid over the tailgate, careful not to tear off the bandage on his right forearm, and went to a knee. He lifted his shirt a few inches, checked to ensure his pistol light hadn’t activated, and drew his concealed M1911A1 from his appendix holster. His head now even with Digger’s white ass, he was struck with the idea that maybe they had better options. Feeling Slapshot drop behind him, Kolt shook off the worrywarts and turned around.

Kolt led as they backtracked down the road about ten meters, keeping the truck in between them and the laughing Russians, careful not to be white-lighted by the dueling headlights. They crouched as they left the side of the road and went down a grass embankment, both hands on their sidearms, Slapshot running a Gen 4 Glock 23 like Digger, Kolt running a .45 caliber single-action. Ready to slot the first hostile they bumped into, they turned to head back toward the dueling trucks.

Realizing they were below the road, they moved with tactical purpose, picking up a slow gait on the soft terrain. Keying off the truck lights and the top of the Russian truck, reminiscent of a crime scene, Kolt and Slapshot stepped over a dozen fallen and limbless trees. The strong aroma of burnt wood filled his nostrils, giving him the impression they were moving through a recently burned-out area. Now just past the Russian truck, they crawled out of the ditch on two knees and one hand. Making the road’s edge, they paused to look right into the darkness, searching for any other trucks or troops previously unseen.

“Clear right,” Slapshot whispered.

“Moving.”

Kolt took point as they ninja-upped in behind the Russian truck. Fat bald tires, cheap steel, Eastern European military all the way. Kolt motioned for Slapshot to take a peek in the bed, letting him know he would cover him. Slapshot holstered his pistol, pulled up on the tailgate, testing his body weight as he ascended, until he was looking in the back from a good pull-up position.

“Crates,” Slapshot whispered as he dropped back to a knee and pulled his pistol.

Kolt pied around the back right corner of the Russian truck to assess the situation. The edge of Dmitry’s truck’s headlights illuminated just outside Kolt’s position, leaving him concealed for the time being.

Kolt turned around. “We don’t want to go loud here, Slap. Let’s see if we can take these guys and squeeze them for intel.”

“I don’t know, boss,” Slapshot said. “Odds aren’t in our favor.”

“I know, but—”

Just then, AKMS fire erupted from in front of the truck. Kolt and Slapshot moved closer to the group, spotted one of the Russians firing single shots at Digger’s single foot. Kolt watched his mate hop around in his birthday suit while spouting off what sounded like every Russian cuss word he knew. The bullets kicked dust in the air as Digger covered his face with one hand, his groin with the other.

Digger was playing the part better than expected. The other Russians broke out in laughter, the one wearing Olga’s cap hopping around on one foot too, a bottle of liquor in his hand, mimicking Digger and making fun of his handicap.

Kolt and Slapshot eased closer to the front end of the truck, just far enough to see where Dmitry and Olga were, trying to size up the situation before they sprang.

Dmitry was facedown, motionless and quiet. His hands were tied behind his back. Kolt shifted to Olga. One of the Russians was sitting on her back, holding her down as she struggled to get up. Without her hat, Olga’s long brown hair had fallen in front of her face. Her pants had already been yanked down around her ankles, her underwear down to her knees. Kolt wasn’t going to let this go any further. Rape was a trigger line.