One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (40 page)

“Target spotted, dead ahead,” Chief Weeks said over helo common. “Uhh, half mile.”

“I see smoke,” Gangster said, “bridges must have blown.”

Damn it! I knew I couldn’t trust him.

“Confirm one,” Weeks said, “not two.”

“Definitely Bear has blown, can’t be sure about Beaver,” Gangster said.

Kolt had told Gangster back at Inchon, in no uncertain words, that he was strap-hanging as a shooter and not as a decision maker. Kolt snapped his head around to look into the cabin, picking up half of Gangster’s body as the former Delta officer was on two knees and likely looking over the aux fuel tank and peering through the cockpit bubble, giving him the same perspective as Chief Weeks.

Kolt looked back to the front and extended his vision deeper. He picked up on the train, and could tell it had stopped.

“Breaker Four-One Charlie Mike?” Weeks transmitted as he maintained altitude, speed, and azimuth toward the train and Objective Bear.

Kolt immediately picked up on Stew’s tone. It was a question for sure, not a statement.

“Roger that,” Gangster said. “Seamstress is on that train.”

What?

Kolt forced himself to remain calm. This couldn’t be another Syria, but damn it, hadn’t Gangster paid attention in the briefings? Gangster had to know the North Korean order of battle, had to know that Kim Jung Un’s train always traveled the railways bookended by twin trains. Regardless of destination or railway, the leader’s armored train was always protected by time, distance, and armed soldiers in both directions. The route from Pyongyang to Kaesong was no different, something Kleinsmith had confirmed earlier that morning as the three trains passed their hide site. It wasn’t just a standard and prudent protection measure, but a shell game to force any would-be saboteurs to guess which of the three trains the North Korean leader might be on.

“Do a go-around, Stew,” Kolt transmitted.

“Say again,” Weeks responded.

“I say again, abort the approach, burn holes for a minute,” Kolt said. “That’s not the train we want.”

“Roger,” Weeks said. “All elements, pulling out ninety degrees, follow my lead.”

“Racer!” Gangster said, obviously heated by the call. “You can’t be sure that’s not the target train.”

“I’m sure. That’s the advance. The VIP train is second,” Kolt said.

“We can’t tell unless we get closer,” Gangster said. “We need to push forward to better observe with the nods.”

From the starboard pod at three hundred feet above ground level, Kolt Raynor’s head was on swivel. Along with the rest of his element, he strained to keep eyes on the still-smoking Objective Bear as pilot Stew Weeks and Breaker Four-One took lead in a circular orbit.

Ain’t that some shit? Weren’t you against the Q dots last night? Something about the good idea fairy.

Kolt ignored Gangster’s last transmission, knowing he didn’t need an open-comms catfight right now. The four-ship Little Bird formation remained roughly a kilometer south of the SEALs’ southern target, burning holes in the sky. From what Kolt could tell, the charge had detonated efficiently enough to get the job done.

“Looks like the train engineer couldn’t get her stopped in time,” Chief Weeks said from under his flight helmet.

Kolt agreed but didn’t reply. He was seeing the same thing. Kleinsmith and his frogmen weren’t postured to take advantage of their handiwork anymore, but they had done their job. The North Korean train’s rust-colored engine had left the train tracks soon after reaching the lead edge of the bridge, and now teetered off the north side. Still hitched to the first passenger car, but hanging almost vertical above the gully below, it looked like a house of cards that could go at any moment.

Kolt counted three green passenger cars sporting horizontal yellow racing stripes, and a mirror-image engine serving as the caboose. The four cars provided enough counterbalance to prevent the entire five-car train from collapsing into the valley.

The SEALs’ plan had been to trap the VIP train between the two blown bridges, but as often happens, Murphy had a vote. When the Red Guards compromised Kleinsmith’s Red Squadron, they had no choice but to detonate early and bug out. It wasn’t ideal, but it isolated Seamstress’s train on a three-mile stretch of track back to Kaesong Station.

Kolt knew he wasn’t going to waste time trying to explain all that to Lieutenant Colonel Rick Mahoney.

Something vibrated in Kolt’s right cargo pocket.

My cell?

Kolt keyed his mike as he reached to dig the phone out, careful not to drop it. “All elements, stand by. Cell call from the JOC.”

“Raynor!” Kolt yelled into the phone, trying to overcome the engine noise as he slipped it under his right Peltor ear pad and pressed it close to his ear.

“Seamstress confirms the North Korean attack on the Pacific Fleet, Kolt. It’s not a bluff!”

“Hawk?” Kolt yelled, unable to fully understand what she said. “Speak up!”

“Seamstress knows where the missile sites with the mini nuke warheads are, knows all about Marzban Tehrani. You have to bring him out alive.”

“Working on it!” Kolt said, wondering why Yost hadn’t seen to it that she had been shot full of morphine by now and drifted off to the candy slides in happy land. “Is that it? Kinda busy.”

“We’re struggling to translate the note, not done yet though,” Hawk said.

“Shots fired!” CW3 Weeks announced over helo common.

“Roger,” Slapshot said, “confirm muzzle blasts from here, too. Far for AKs though.”

Kolt dropped the call with Hawk and shoved the cell back into his cargo pocket.

“Breaker Four-One, take us east toward Kaesong, hug the tracks,” Kolt said.

“What the hell are you talking about, Raynor?” Gangster said.

Kolt bit his tongue and again ignored Gangster. “Stew, we’re looking for the next train. The one at Bear is the advance, not our target.”

“Roger,” Weeks said, “Breaker Four-One is out at nine o’clock. Staggered trail right.”

North Korean VIP train

Kang Pang Su braced for the next blow, spitting blood from the left crook of his mouth that ran down the length of his wrinkled face. Every few seconds, enough warm blood pooled in one vertical crease to funnel a heavy drip of blood onto the collar of his white city shirt.

His right eye was already swollen shut, his eyelid grossly formed into a bubbled mess, forcing him to view the world through his bloodshot and black left eye.

“Who is the woman?” one of the uniformed guards demanded.

“I do not know,” Kang said. Actually, it wasn’t a lie. Kang had never met Cindy Bird before, but he wasn’t ready to admit his collaboration against the people just yet.

“American CIA!” the guard shouted.

“No,” Kang said, “I do not know. She was crazy!”

It had only been about a minute since several North Korean soldiers had thrown him to the carpeted floor before one lodged his boot on the side of Kang’s face. They wasted no time in stripping Kang Pang Su of his dignity. Immediately after being loaded on the passenger car train at Kaesong Station, they yanked his black suit jacket off him, one arm at a time, and hung it on a tall coatrack near one of the ballistic windows before removing his shoes without bothering with the laces. Kang had tensed as they tugged violently at both pants legs, forcing the belt around his hips, and leaving his gray boxers a few inches lower than normal.

Kang heard the train bell and engine power up, and in a few seconds the engine began to slowly pull forward, heading west back to Pyongyang. He saw a soldier step behind him, felt a white blind slapped over his eyes and uncomfortably tied, pulling pieces of jet-black hair from their roots.

Kang felt someone’s breath on his left ear, figured it was the soldier that tied the knot, and worried he might bite his earlobe next.

The guard whispered barely loud enough to drown out the sound of the propaganda footage looped on the interior wall television. “Traitor!”

Kang felt him test the ties securing his wrists behind his back.

Kang didn’t reply, knowing there was not much he could do at the moment. Further resistance would likely only result in more backhands to the face, or toes of a boot to the ribs. He was going to die, of that he was sure. Deep in his heart he knew he deserved to. He had betrayed his country. All the anger and loss that had fueled his simmering rebellion had been washed away in a tidal wave of guilt and remorse.

“You are an embarrassment to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

Kang couldn’t see the man speaking in front of him, but easily recognized the voice. It wasn’t the guard, but someone of authority. Someone who Kang knew would be just as eager to kill Kang as he was to kill himself.

“Remove his blindfold.”

Kang felt the blind pulled from his head, and winced at the hair that went with it. He blinked hard several times, trying to focus his left eye on the man in front of him.

“This, from the deputy secretary of science and education?” Pak Yong Chol said. “Just like your own son, you have dishonored your family.”

Kang thought back to Kim Il Sung Square, where only a few weeks ago he and Pak had stood motionless, shoulder to shoulder, as they watched another traitor to the Motherland ravaged by starving dogs, torn apart limb from limb.

“I am innocent,” Kang said. Despite his shame, he would not bow to this pig. “There has been a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding, you say?” Pak said, pulling both sides of his dress coat around his fat belly and fastening the lower button.

“Yes.”

“Then you can explain these foreign items,” Pak said as he held up two small white plastic devices.

Kang looked hard at the two odd objects in Pak’s hands.

“Those are not mine,” Kang said. “This I am sure of.”

“They were in your coat pockets.”

Kang recalled the American woman back in the men’s room. She had put the two devices on the bathroom floor. Kang was certain he wasn’t handed the devices, but vaguely recalled the women sticking both her hands into his coat pockets after they stood up. Yes, he now realized, she must be responsible.

Kang slumped forward, his shoulders dropped toward the floor. Denying the obvious was futile, he knew as much.

“May I have a sidearm?” Kang asked. “Allow me an honorable death.”

Just then, the train slammed to a stop, knocking Kang off balance and tumbling him to the floor. Kang saw the heavier Pak stumble into one of the guards, both of them falling into the small side table. The screeching of the electric wheels was easily heard from inside the armored train.

One of the guards set the stool upright and helped Kang back to his seat.

“Blindfold the collaborator,” Pak said.

The blindfold, still knotted in behind his head, was roughly slipped back over Kang’s head and pushed down to cover his eyes.

Kang heard the forward door of the train car open. There was commotion for sure, several people moving quickly across the carpet.

“Saboteurs!”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Breaker Four-One led the four-ship formation northeast, hugging the railroad tracks at just over twenty-feet above ground level. The sky was clear and blue, ceiling and visibility unlimited, with the temperature comfortably in the low nineties. Kolt gave an approving nod as he felt the Little Bird slow, happy Chief Weeks had powered back to roughly fifty knots forward air speed. No need to rush headlong into an ambush before they had time to figure out the situation.

Kolt looked behind him, leaned out slightly to see around JoJo on the pod next to him, and spotted the other three black helos mirroring Weeks’s altitude and speed. Focusing beyond Breaker Four-Four, the trail bird, Kolt noticed the small ridgeline they had passed less than a minute ago was now blocking their view of Objective Bear and the disabled train.

“Good spot on next train,” Weeks transmitted, forcing Kolt to whip his helmeted head back to twelve o’clock. “Looks stopped.”

Kolt squinted, held his hand above his eyes to shade them from the sun’s bright light, and picked up the orange engine. The train was stopped, dead on the tracks, and Kolt noticed what looked like a few North Korean troops standing outside, mingling around. Several guards were posted up and down the track, spread out on both sides of the track every so often and roughly thirty feet from the train. Kolt studied them, surprised by their demeanor. The guards were facing away from the five train cars at a rigid position of attention as if they were pulling perimeter security at Hugh Hefner’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Party at the Playboy Mansion.

“We spooked them,” Weeks said.

Kolt watched the guards turn around and jog back to the train. Something was happening, no doubt, but their actions looked rehearsed, almost routine. Kolt wasn’t convinced they heard or saw the Little Birds approaching. In the distance, maybe a half mile beyond the train, Kolt saw what he was sure was the top of the Kaesong Station main building.

“Let’s sit down for a minute,” Gangster said. “We need to have some dialogue.”

“Roger,” Weeks said. “Trail formation, pit stop.”

Damn it, Gangster!

Kolt felt Weeks lift the bird’s nose, slowing his air speed to safely set her on the deck. Gangster’s command decision irritated the hell out of Kolt, but at the moment, what he was seeing didn’t give him much impetus to counter Gangster’s call.

“She’s moving,” Slapshot said from the opposite outer pod, “heading away from us.”

Kolt looked hard, immediately seeing Slapshot was right. “Stay airborne, Stew, stay airborne.”

“Roger,” Weeks said, as if he wasn’t bothered in the least about being jerked around by two nagging mothers.

Kolt thought it through, trying to analyze what he was seeing and develop a quick course of action on the fly. Whatever he came up with wouldn’t be easy, but he didn’t have a lot of time to debate it.

“Options?” Kolt asked over the net, willing to accept any half-decent course of action his men or, at this point, even Gangster might have.

Kolt paused for a few moments, waiting for a response. Nothing.