One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (25 page)

“Charges go here, at this bridge we’ve named Objective Beaver,” the shaky SEAL said, bouncing the red dot over half the screen, “and at this bridge further east, Objective Bear.”

Myron Curtis broke in with his first comment. “We haven’t solved the North Korean airspace issue yet, so you’re still prepared to go in without Predator coverage, right?”

“That’s our understanding, yes,” Kleinsmith said.

“Once the train is trapped between the two blown bridges, how are you going to secure Seamstress?”

Hawk looked at Curtis, proud he shook off the starstruck act and finally asked a question. And a good question at that.

“Actions on target are boat team specific,” the SEAL said. “I’m not prepared to share that information.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Curtis replied apologetically.

Jesus, Curtis, you a SEAL junkie or what?

“That about does it.” Kleinsmith looked around the crowded living room, keying on Curtis’s reaction. “If no questions, we have a plane to catch.”

Hawk looked at Curtis, sitting on one of the kitchen bar stools, shaking his head as if he had no concerns.

“I appreciate the briefing, Master Chief Kleinsmith,” Curtis said. “You guys have really outdone yourselves. I’ll send a cable immediately to Langley, and to our station in South Korea, letting them know we are on schedule.”

“That’s good to hear, Myron,” Kleinsmith said, the projector’s light illuminating his long blond hair like a beat cop busting two locked-up teenagers in the backseat with a high-powered flashlight. “Give us a few minutes to grab our gear and we’ll be ready for a ride back to the airport.”

“I’ll drive you guys,” Curtis said. “Would love to hear more details about the bin Laden hit you guys were talking about earlier.”

Holy shit!

Hawk sat there dumbfounded by what she was seeing, wondering if someone was going to walk in and try to sell her a Navy SEAL workout video with a free T-shirt. Was this an actual mission brief for CIA approval or was this just a quick TDY trip for the SEALs to secure another month of tax-free income?

Hawk was still clueless about what the SEALs were actually going to do inside North Korea. Sure, she knew they were infiltrating subsurface, using the Yellow Sea and the Yesong River to circumvent North Korean defenses. She now knew about the animal cracker names, Beaver and Bear, and that the bridges would be blown to trap Seamstress’s train. Beyond that, she had no idea what the plan was. She wondered if it was designed that way; maybe she didn’t need to know the details? But what about her part in this operation? How the hell does a critical mission briefing like this, a mission that includes the first JSOC covert op into denied North Korea in the history of the command, start and end without anyone giving fuck all about Hawk’s role in this?

If Kolt was here, this shit wouldn’t be over, not yet!

“Gentlemen, I have a few concerns,” Hawk said, interrupting the CIA–SEAL Team Six love fest.

Curtis whipped his head toward Hawk, eyes narrowed and mouth open as if he was preparing to absorb the overpressure on a heavy wall breach. The three SEALs, now with an excuse to overtly grab an eyeful of the blonde in the room, focused their attention no higher than Hawk’s breasts.

“Sure, Candy, isn’t it?” Kleinsmith said. “What are you, intel?”

Hawk looked at Curtis before answering, surprised to see him pick up on the odd question. Kleinsmith’s question wasn’t entirely surprising. She remembered Curtis had been shocked to see a woman get off the plane back in Cairo, a full team member of Kolt Raynor’s AFO cell, but her hunch was he would keep quiet for the meantime.

“I’m sorry, Master Chief, I should have started with introductions. This is Carrie Tomlinson from Fort Bragg,” Curtis said.

“Bragg? Delta?” Kleinsmith said, noticeably surprised and looking at Curtis. “I thought she was with you guys.”

“Well, ye—” Curtis began.

“Now why would that make any of you guys nervous?” Hawk said. “ChemBio by trade, but intel works, too, if it’s important.”

“No offense, Carrie, ease up,” Kleinsmith said. “What are your questions?”

“Yeah, sorry, jet lag and no sunscreen don’t mix,” Hawk said. “Not trying to pry here, but how many North Koreans do you think you’ll have to go through to secure Seamstress?”

“Go through?” Kleinsmith asked, trying to hold back a smile and not appear too offended by the lady’s oddball question.

“Neutralize clearer?” Hawk said, not appreciating Mr. Stud’s facial expression.

“Perfect world,” Kleinsmith said, “zero.”

The SEAL leader’s response was not only surprising to Hawk, but more than a little irritating. Not five minutes earlier this same guy deliberately mentioned taking a barn by force.

Hawk couldn’t let it drop. “Isn’t that a little unrealistic?” she asked. “Nobody gets shot?”

“I didn’t say that,” Kleinsmith said, “but we are using nonlethal munitions. They will break skin and, no shit, hurt like a bitch, but the targets live.”

Damn! Okay, Cindy, major cool points lost?

“Got it. Makes sense.” Hawk tried to hide her embarrassment but already knew her response wasn’t fooling anyone.

Hawk tried not to notice, but she could sense the men in the room teaming up, testosterone-supplemented and stalking a keg party, ready to dog pile her in the coat room.

“Anything else?” Kleinsmith asked.

Screw it, I’m still not happy.

“Are the South Koreans read on?”

Hawk watched Kleinsmith turn to Curtis, laying his hands out in front of him as if he were shoveling her question to the CIA.

Curtis rubbed his Afro for a second. “No, POTUS decided against it.”

“Since when did the South Koreans become the ISI?” Hawk asked. “We’re not actually going after bin Laden here.”

Curtis raised his eyebrows at Hawk, visibly unimpressed with her know-it-all attitude. “That’s not something we can affect, Carrie.”

“Pictures to PID this guy?” Hawk had seen the one quartering photo from the rear in the SEALs PowerPoint. More current than the grainy black-and-white, decades-old asset photo of a much younger Kang Pang Su, but not much more helpful. Without something more current, unless Hawk was sneaking up from behind, she knew her ability to positively identify Seamstress would be iffy.

“The two pics you saw are it,” Curtis said. “Anything else?”

“Since I’m tagging Seamstress, I wanted to talk about the radar-responsive tags you guys carried over.”

Hawk watched one of the SEALs walk a few steps over behind the couch and pick up a small black pelican box. He opened it and pulled two small tan objects out, with what looked like the instructions.

“Yes, those things,” Hawk said, gathering some confidence and wondering if anyone else in the room realized that a major piece of the operation had yet to be discussed, particularly since no intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets were available. “I’m concerned they may not work on the armored train.”

“And that assessment is your opinion or—” Kleinsmith said before being cut off by one of his men.

“They’ve been tested, lady, they’re good through four feet of reinforced concrete and double-plated titanium,” the SEAL holding the tags up said with obvious sarcasm.

“Roger, but Kim Jong Un’s trains are equipped with additional security features that the tag hasn’t been tested against,” Hawk said as she walked over to the SEAL, nearly stepping on a sleepy Gustav in the middle of the floor. She took one of the RRDs from the SEAL’s hand and motioned for the red laser from Kleinsmith. “Without ISR coverage, these things will make or break us.”

“Can you back up a few slides, back to the overhead of the two bridges?” Hawk asked, happy at the surprise of Gustav now rubbing against her leg to draw her attention.

Hawk didn’t dare look at Curtis, knowing he would be getting a little annoyed at the Delta girl’s interference after he had just told the SEALs everything was grand.

“That’s it,” Hawk said, steadying the red dot on the U-shaped railroad track that connected the two bridges, Beaver and Bear. “All of KJU’s trains are protected by a stealth net that blocks or scrambles all wireless-frequency communication for about fifty feet on all sides of the train.”

Curtis jumped in. “Where are you getting that intel from?”

“I got that from my North Korean minder in Pyongyang, who had a little too much soju,” Hawk said. “Did Seamstress ever pass that info along?”

“We didn’t know about it, neither does the J-staff,” Kleinsmith said before Curtis could answer. “How positive are you?”

“I’m not at all positive, just worried that if my drinking buddy was correct, then this mission might already be set up to fail.” Hawk looked around the room to assess her allies and see if her comments pulled their attention away from her ass.

The SEALs all stirred, looked at each other, then over to Curtis. They might not have been too thrilled with a female interfering, but they damn well knew they didn’t want to tiptoe into North Korea knowing the mission could already be a bust.

“Now damn it, wait one second here,” Curtis said, “how exactly do you know about this, this blanket thing?”

“Stealth net, at least that’s how the guy described it,” Hawk said. “I was on a train in North Korea a few days ago and the minder told me that if I was on the Great Leader’s train that my cell phone wouldn’t work.”

“I thought you were in Istanbul and Moscow?” Curtis said with a twinge of disbelief.

“I was, Curtis, right before hitting Pyongyang,” Hawk said, trying not to sound defensive.

“You that girl that’s trying to be an operator in Delta?” the poster-boy SEAL with the RRD box said.

The room fell dead silent. Hawk froze. She wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to that but she knew enough to either change the subject or ignore the question.

“You believe the guy?” Kleinsmith asked, saving Hawk from her discomfort. “Sounds pretty farfetched to me.”

“Who knows?” Hawk said. “But he did mention that the 2004 explosion in the North Korean town of Ryŏngchon was believed to be an attempt to assassinate KJU’s father, former president Kim Jong Il, and that cell phones were outlawed because of it.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Kleinsmith said. “We probably need to relook this thing.”

“I’m not voting for an abort,” Hawk said, amazed they were finally listening. “I’m just suggesting we need a contingency method to mark Seamstress at the DMZ.”

“Any suggestions?” one of the other SEALs chimed in.

“You guys familiar with quantum dots technology?” Hawk said. “We have been experimenting with them for a while now.”

Hawk looked around to see all of them shaking their heads back and forth. She had their undivided attention now. She looked at Curtis, back on his bar stool and expressionless.

“Can’t say we have, Carrie,” Kleinsmith said, “mind giving us the one over the world on it, if it’s not too secret squirrel for us?”

Ass.

“Basically, they are nanocrystals that change their optical properties based on size. The dots are made of cadmium selenide and can be hidden in clear liquids,” Hawk said, trying not to sound too technical.

“So how do you detect them?” Kleinsmith asked. “Spacely’s Space Sprockets?”

“Your night vision goggles,” Hawk said, ignoring the childish reference to the animated sitcom
The Jetsons.

Kleinsmith looked at his two partners and then at Curtis. “I think we’re past the good idea cutoff time here. I’m not introducing something untested this late in the game.”

Before Hawk could return Kleinsmith’s latest backhand, Curtis stepped up.

“Sounds smart to me,” Curtis said. “Better to have a backup planned and ready if this stealth net deal turns out to be correct.”

“Can we get the quantum dots shipped here?” Curtis asked.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure,” Hawk said, “but Curtis, let me go through my channels versus your formal cable traffic channels; a lot quicker that way.”

South Korea

Under the cover of a near moonless night, an Air Force C17 Globemaster III landed and taxied to a quiet far end of a sleepy runway where it killed its four Pratt & Whitney megaton-thrust engines and waited. Seven minutes later, two tractor trailers from Korea Express, South Korea’s largest total-cargo-delivery company, turned onto the taxiway and approached the massive but silent plane. The lead orange-and-white truck, with
,
KOREX
stenciled in large black Hangul lettering, banged a controlled U-turn before backing up to the rear of the plane. As soon as the large hydraulic-operated tail ramp lowered to horizontal, two U.S. Air Force special ops loadmasters jumped the last few feet to the tarmac, moved to familiar positions, and began backing the truck up to the horizontal ramp, controlling the speed with small green and red ChemLights cupped inside the palms of their hands.

Kolt stepped off the C17. The clock was ticking. He stretched his back and looked around the tarmac. Four flat-black-packaged and fully fueled MH-6M Little Birds, their six rotor blades each pinned and side personnel pods stowed to narrow their width, were being wheeled nose-first out of the Globemaster and into the first trailer. Several operators stood watch on each side.