One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (39 page)

“Not exactly sure, Raynor,” Yost interrupted. “They think one or both might have gone low order, they couldn’t confirm it.”

“We are QRF, not a reserve assault force.”

“You’re both!” Gangster said.

“You’re smoking crack—I’ve got twelve shooters and my headquarters element.”

“Damn it, Rac—” Gangster said.

“Colonel Mahoney is right, though, we’ll send Tractor One and Two to pick up Red Squadron at the DMZ; we need you to go after the train and Seamstress,” Yost said.

“C’mon, sir, let’s think this through a bit before we just go guns a-blazing into North Korea,” Kolt said. “Have you guys put considerable thought into this?”

“Of course we have!” Gangster yelled.

Kolt saw Yost’s eyes lock on Gangster, the unspoken message loud and clear, forcing the former Delta officer to check his mouth a little. It worked for the moment, but Kolt was sure it wasn’t enough to plug his pie hole.

“What the hell do you think we have been doing here? What do you think the J-staff does?” Gangster said through clenched teeth. “We’re way past mission analysis, and this exact situation is covered completely in our synchronization matrix.”

“No problem with the J-staff, man, just saying you know how quick shit changes,” Kolt said, trying to let Gangster off gently, knowing Yost was already an ally. “Color-coded Excel spreadsheets aren’t always the answer.”

“It’s on the spreadsheet. Did you bother to read it?” Gangster said.

“What? It says somewhere to assault an armored train under way and protected by crack North Korean troops already spooked with four Little Birds and sixteen men?” Kolt said with no effort to hide the sarcasm. “What part of the surprise, speed, violence of action class in your operator training course did you miss?”

“Okay, chill out. Both of you,” Yost said, trying to muffle his voice enough so the men of Noble Squadron huddled nearby didn’t overhear. “Racer, tell us what you know. Why spooked?”

“Seamstress is tagged, with the Q dots, not the RRD,” Kolt said, running the key points through his mental database. “Shit went sideways at the meeting, but Hawk got it done.”

“How bad is she?” Yost asked with obvious concern.

Kolt looked away from Yost, making eye contact with Slapshot standing a few feet behind him. The Night Stalker pilot, dressed in a tan jumpsuit under his earth-tone survival vest, had edged closer to the discussion by now.

Kolt hesitated, searching for the right words, accurate words for sure, but not so dramatic as if to imply they might be combat ineffective.

“Hit twice. She’s alert and getting patched up. We had to slot a guy though,” Kolt said.

“You guys used lethal force?” Gangster asked Slapshot. “Killed a man? What the hell is wrong with you guys?”

“It was clutch. Linebacker depth, sir,” Slapshot said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Kolt lifted his hand as if to tell Slapshot he had this.

“My shots,” Kolt said, still looking at Yost. “Wasn’t looking to drop him, necessary though.”

“That wasn’t the plan, Raynor,” Gangster scolded.

“The North Korean had other plans,” Kolt said.

Kolt lifted the bottom of his assault vest with his left hand, reached near his belly button with the other, and yanked the Velcro flap open. He grabbed ahold of his hard armor ceramic plate, pulled toward his crotch, and slipped it from its hidden pouch.

Kolt held it up, showing Gangster and Yost the two spots where the North Korean’s bullets spalled the outer covering. “These kind of plans.”

“He saved a little girl’s life,” Weeks added, “had to be done.”

“We have radios for this kind of thing, Racer,” Yost said, signaling that he may not be entirely on the Kolt Raynor bandwagon.

Kolt dug the note out from his shoulder pocket, bringing the half-filled pouch of Red Man with it, and handed it to Yost. “Seamstress is compromised, taken away by thugs at gunpoint. Two shiny black four-door sedans, doubt we’d ever find them.”

“Shit!” Myron Curtis said, jumping in from behind Yost and practically pickpocketing the note from the SEAL’s hand. He had slipped up unseen by Kolt. “They won’t stop until they get him to the train at Kaesong Station. They won’t harm him, not yet anyway. That’s the Workers’ Party prerogative.”

“We need to move then,” Yost said.

Kolt had just finished two-fingering a golf-ball-size wad of leaf chew into the pocket between his cheek and gum, making his next response sound like he had a bag of marbles in his mouth.

“What the fuck, sir?” Kolt said. He wiped the tobacco residue from his fingers onto his Crye combat pants.

Curtis chimed in. “I agree. Seamstress is the mission. We have to get our hands on him or we condemn a lot of sailors and civilians to certain death.”

“Now wait just one damn second here,” Kolt said, trying to be the calming voice in the crowd. “Are we all comfortable with the intel that confirms that?”

“Roger,” Yost said.

“I am totally,” Curtis added, “as is Langley.”

Kolt looked at Weeks. He was motionless, poised with a professional demeanor, ice in his veins, almost recruiting poster–like, giving no response one way or another.

“Damn it!” Kolt said, “I’m not taking the handful of men I have on a suicide mission into North Korea. No gunship support, no armed predator, no eyes in the sky, that’s fucking suicide.” Kolt knew enough not to push it, adding a quick, “Sir.”

“I need you to reconsider, Kolt,” Yost said.

Reconsider? What the hell does that mean?

“I’ll do it, sir,” Gangster said, turning toward Yost. “I’ll take them back in.”

Kolt looked at Yost, shocked by Gangster’s balls. Surprisingly, Yost almost looked like he was actually considering it.

“Kolt?” Yost said, obviously giving him a chance to change his mind.

I’m being muscled here?

“Seamstress or not, even if we get lucky and grab the guy, we’ve probably started World War III anyway,” Kolt said before quickly tilting his head to push a dark stream of tobacco juice away from the crowd.

“You don’t have to go back out there, Kolt, but—”

Kolt turned quickly to CW3 Weeks. “You good with this, Stew?”

“No operational reason to say no,” Weeks said.

“Fuck, all right, it’s against my better judgment,” Kolt said, now clearly on the spot. “Let’s dirt-dive it real quick.”

“No time for that, Raynor,” Gangster said.

“You gotta get going, Kolt,” Yost added.

“What the fuck is the rush?” Kolt said. He took a knee and yanked his straight blade from the sheath on his assault vest. “Let’s at least give ourselves a fighting chance here. This ain’t going to be a cake walk.”

Kolt looked at Chief Weeks, nodded for him to kneel next to him, and began scraping a long fat line in the dirt. He scratched two arrows, one above the line, one below, then cut in small verticals to give the line an appearance of multiple train cars.

“All right, Stew,” Kolt said as he pointed to each mark with the sharp end of the knife, “front of train here, direction of travel, and north-seeking arrow.”

“Got it,” Weeks said as he settled his knees into dirt.

“Dealer already blew the bridges. Let’s assume they are nonpassable and that they won’t test them,” Kolt said, speaking with his hands as much as his blade. “Sync our approach with the train as it slows down.”

“Optimal for the engine is ten miles per hour, fifteen is pushing it,” Weeks said. He drew two ovals signifying Little Birds near the front left of the long line. “We’ll snake in from their six, and drop Four-Three and Four-Four on the sleeper you think Seamstress is in.”

“Shit, man, we don’t even know if they put him on the train at Kaesong Station or not,” Kolt said.

“Roger, which is why we need a simple plan, stick to our standard operating procedures,” Weeks said as he drew two more circles above the center part of the train.

Yost jumped in. “I agree. Keep it simple.” Yost quickly took a knee, leaving the others still bent over the makeshift terrain model. “You gotta get in the air, Kolt.”

Why is Yost pushing us? What’s with him? Is he worried about the fallout of failure here? Worried that if we don’t grab Seamstress that POTUS might add a mark against SEAL Team Six?

Kolt looked at Weeks, ignoring the SEAL commander. The flight lead was still staring at the terrain model, rehearsing his actions in his head, maybe hoping things would change and someone with more sense than what was being displayed would abort this crazy, high-risk death ride. Weeks looked up, locked eyes with Kolt.

“We good, Stew?”

“I’m not gonna lie, Racer,” Weeks said, “ain’t feeling it on this one.”

Weeks’s last comment shook Kolt. He hadn’t expected that, not from someone of Stew Weeks’s character. Someone with his experience. The guy flew with ice in his veins, always had. Hell, Kolt just had to think back about twenty minutes ago at the JSA.

Stew Weeks was human, like everyone else, which is exactly what was boiling over in his gut.

Am I fucking jacked? Why am I not questioning this mission more? Do I have a death wish?

Kolt slapped Weeks on the shoulder, stood up, and resheathed his knife. “We’ll go, but I need every operator available.”

“I’m going, let me grab my kit.” The SEAL LNO didn’t hesitate, and turned for the hangar.

“Channel seven is the assault frequency,” Kolt said. “Do a quick commex before you load.”

Kolt looked Yost dead in the eye. “I’ve got room for you and Colonel Mahoney, sir.”

“We both can’t go,” Yost said, “someone has to man the ship here.”

“Gangster?” Kolt said, now locked in a visual game of chicken with the former Delta operator. Kolt knew Gangster was no slouch, certainly not a coward. But, he often ran his mouth first, like a moment ago, and Kolt didn’t like it one damn bit.

“You in?” Kolt added.

Gangster hesitated, now seemingly trying to stir up the courage to match his earlier tough talk.

Kolt pressed it. “I’ve got room in my chalk. I could use your gun.”

“I don’t have a MAUL,” Gangster said.

“You won’t need it. Grab your shit!”

Gangster turned to Yost. “Sir, I’m going. I’ll command and control from the target.”

“Negative,” Kolt quickly said, not letting Yost reply. “You’re on the manifest as a shooter. Stay off my assault net, or stay here.”

Kolt expected Gangster to detonate, but didn’t care. Kolt needed assaulters, not micromanagement.

“Negative,” Gangster said, “I outrank you.”

“Rank don’t mean shit out here.”

“Who do you think you are, Raynor?” Gangster asked, inching closer to Kolt.

“I’m the fucking Noble Squadron commander, the ground force commander,” Kolt said as he bowed up to match Gangster’s move. “I’m the son of a bitch that is about to take my men across that damn border. You’re welcome as a shooter, or give me your space.”

“You have no authority to talk to—”

“Colonel Mahoney, grab your kit,” Yost said, cutting off Gangster and trying to downplay the friction. “Raynor’s got this. You work for him out there.”

Without waiting for a response, Kolt turned to tell Slapshot to update the boys and get loaded, but he had already bolted. Kolt spotted him heading for the huddled men, replacing his helmet as he walked.

Kolt and Weeks moved back to the waiting Little Birds. Noticing the refuelers finishing up the last gravity-fed z-bags, Kolt knew the hot refuel was complete. Kolt reached the edge of the pilotless Breaker Four-One’s main rotors, still rotating dangerously under the power of the Rolls-Royce engine, and paused at the obvious sight of blood on the floor of the cabin.

He turned back around, saw his men heading toward him and breaking for their respective chalks. He looked past them, hoping to see the SEAL LNO and Gangster exiting the hangar with their kit, but only seeing the two medics carrying Hawk on the stretcher through the door.

Just above the hangar, Kolt spotted something in the air, floating to the ground under a small white parachute. The SpyLite, having been autoset to recover to Inchon from Camp Greaves, drifted closer to the hangar’s roof. The Christmas-green inflatable landing pad, now obvious underneath the spy plane’s belly, cleared the edge of the roof by inches, seconds later impacting harmlessly with the spotted grass turf.

“That yours?” Weeks asked as he slipped his flight helmet back on his head.

“Depends who’s asking,” Kolt said.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Objectives Beaver and Bear

Burning it up at 155 knots for the last eight minutes, CW3 Stew Weeks flew a flat and true two-degree azimuth from Inchon to Objective Beaver and Bear. Kolt realized he was gorilla-gripping the edge of the pod, freaked by the water below him. Images of the training run on the
Queen Mary
and the blade strike that put them in the drink flashed in front of him.

Weeks hand-railed the baby blue waters of the Yellow Sea on the left while keeping South Korea to his right until he reached the marbled Ganghwa Peace Observatory that marked the northwesternmost point of South Korea. Maintaining a steady four hundred feet above ground level, the birds crossed the exact spot where the Imjin and Yesong Rivers joined, busting into restricted air space above the barbed-wire-heavy demilitarized zone and entering North Korea inside the same infil corridor that the SEALs used the night before.

Kolt released his death clutch on the outer pod and exhaled.

Processing what was happening in what felt like warp speed, Kolt forced himself to put the water issue behind him and think the more pressing problem through. They had standard operating procedures for these high-risk assaults, but usually they had better situational understanding. A compound was one thing, a moving train another.

Kolt keyed his mike. “Check nods, check nods.”

Feeling Chief Weeks bank the helo right a few degrees, Kolt leaned out slightly to maintain vision at twelve o’clock. As they crossed the light brown and dry rice paddies and the greener hills southwest of Kaesong, Kolt reached up with his nonfiring hand to find the quick release holding his night-vision goggles up on his helmet. He thumbed the button, dropped them in front of his eye pro, and felt to make sure the lens caps were still on. Kolt looked through pin holes in the center of the caps, picking up various tints of cloudy lime green images passing by, and adjusted the focus ring for long-range recognition. Satisfied his optics were good, he lifted them away from his eyes and locked them into position.