Rogue Warrior: Dictator's Ransom Part 26

"Yeah."

A few more sc.r.a.pes on my body weren't going to make much of a difference. I'd also lost my sandals in the culvert. Even though the soles of my feet have been built up with scar tissue over the years, there's still something annoying about a sharp pebble in the crease under your little toe-especially as you leap onto the back of a jeep.

Not that I can blame the pebble for my lack of balance when we ambushed the two men as they came around the curve in the UAZ ten minutes later. That was entirely Trace's fault-she slipped as she leaped onto the tailgate of the truck and fell against me. I was already in midair, so I couldn't manage much of a midcourse correction. I la.s.soed my target, wrapping my arms around the driver and pulling him with me as I flew to the ground.

See what happens when you don't wear your seat belt?

The Korean was small and light, but not weak, and even though he'd been taken completely off guard, he fought like a wildcat. I must have had at least 150 pounds on him, and maybe a whole foot of height and reach, but his sheer ferocity matched mine as we rolled in the darkness. Then he made the mistake of biting me on the forearm. That fired up my adrenaline reserve, and I flipped him over my back, stomping his face like an enraged bull and snapping his neck in the process. I can't stand vampires. If I'd had a silver bullet or a wooden stake, I would have put it through his heart.

I grabbed his firearm, then ran back to find Trace and the jeep. The sudden departure of the driver had caused the UAZ to overturn, dumping both Trace and the Korean soldier onto the ground. The jeep rolled down the embankment, landing in the rocks that were part of a drainage ditch used during heavy weather. Trace curled herself into a ball and burst free, b.u.mping and sc.r.a.ping her arms but otherwise not hurting herself. The soldier wasn't so fortunate-he was pinned under the vehicle, which had tipped onto its side. The truck reminded me of a click beetle, its tailpipe sticking out from the cha.s.sis like a broken leg.

The UAZ isn't particularly heavy. I reached inside and turned off the engine, then Trace and I pushed it right side up. It was still in the ditch, but it had the good sense to point its nose toward the road. The soldier who'd been pinned underneath had already departed for the Great Workers' Paradise in the Sky. I pulled his body off the road and gave Trace his pistol, an ancient revolver.

"Let's grab their s.h.i.+rts and caps," said Trace.

"Good idea."

We weren't going to fool anyone up close, but from the tower we'd look like soldiers. I had to rip my s.h.i.+rt all the way to the collar to get it on. Then I slouched in the front seat of the jeep as Trace restarted it and drove us up on the road.

By now, it was way too late to make my meeting. So I changed my game plan. We'd drive past the guard tower and find an exit to the complex. Then we would drive as close to the coast as possible. Then . . .

Then we'd figure out another plan.

I got as low in the seat as I could as we drove past the watchtower.

"Intersection coming up on the left," said Trace. "Two guards."

"I can see them."

I positioned the rifle in my lap, ready to fire if necessary. We pa.s.sed by quickly; the guards didn't react.

"This d.a.m.n road goes on forever," complained Trace. "You sure we can get out this way?"

"If you want to run across a minefield, be my guest."

A dangerous thing to say to Trace Dahlgren, admittedly. But she stayed on the roadway, pa.s.sing another guard tower as the road curved. By coincidence, we were at the northeast corner of the complex, where the meeting was to have taken place. The ruins of three old buildings sat on the other side of the fence. The area was in shadows; it would have been a good place to meet.

Or be ambushed in. Headlights switched on in front of us. Trace slammed on the brakes. Before I could raise my pistol, our jeep was swarmed by a pack of soldiers who'd been hiding by the side of the road. I felt the cold steel of several rifles against my neck.

"FUBAR," muttered Trace under her breath. "I knew we should have gone through the minefield."

29 As I understand it, hours are a "paleface" concept, so I'm not sure how they did this. I've asked Trace for an explanation several times and got the Apache death stare in response. If you have any questions, I suggest you take them up with her.

11.

[ I ].

YOU'RE LATE. WHAT kept you?"

The voice, speaking English, was about the last I would have expected.

It wasn't Doc-it's never surprising to see him turn up when I'm in trouble. Nor was it Kim's goon General Sun. The voice spoke English with a decided American accent.

Jimmy Zim?

The Christians in Action have never been that good.

Sean? Shotgun? Mongoose?

"Junior!" yelled Trace. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"I was supposed to meet d.i.c.k about an hour ago. I've been waiting."

"We were having too much fun to leave," I told him. "Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here."

The NSA had intercepted communications from the port that indicated we were in custody and where we were going to be held. Junior, monitoring things on Sado-ga-s.h.i.+ma, had tried to get ahold of Doc to ask for advice. But Doc was still on the submarine, and incommunicado. So he decided to take things into his own hands. With help from Jimmy Zim-a lot of help-he'd set up a rescue mission. The soldiers who'd swarmed over us were South Korean "hires"30-men used to working with the CIA and longtime acquaintances of Jimmy Zim. Zim had also helped Junior make the money transfers that got him hard cash to rent a pair of he li copters, which had dropped them off nearby. He'd also hooked Junior up with a South Korean intelligence agent who had connections inside the camp. He'd used those connections to contact me and set up the meeting.

The agent had also provided a safe house. We set out for it, boarding a pair of Korean military vehicles Junior had procured along the way.

"That Jimmy Zim is quite a guy," said Junior as we drove toward the safe house.

"Oh, yeah, a real peach," I said, knowing that few Christians in Action had ever done anything out of the kindness of their hearts. Jimmy Zim obviously needed me for something else.

We couldn't have driven more than thirty miles as the crow flies, but the rugged, winding roads through the mountains were so difficult to travel that it took us over two hours to get there. The farm house belonged to a prominent government official who had fallen out of favor with the regime nearly five years before and hadn't been heard from again. The Korean agent helping us was his son.31 I only learned the back story later on; he remained quiet and aloof the whole time he was with us, either brooding or simply being professional.

The North Korean spy network is notorious around the world for its long arms. While many of its operations make no sense to us in the West, they've been able to infiltrate South Korean inst.i.tutions with relative ease, and have made decent forays into j.a.pan and almost certainly China, though the Chinese don't like to talk much about that. Their South Korean brothers, on the other hand, have a much lower profile. But they have done an equally good job infiltrating the North. They have been helped by numerous recruits like our host, men embittered by the dictator's actions or eager for an end to the insanity that defines life in the Workers' Paradise. As a general rule, greed is the biggest motivator in the spy business, but North Korea is probably the exception that proves the rule. Not that don are ever likely to be refused, even if they are counterfeit.

Yes, counterfeit. And even better quality than the twenties and fifties Kim's father flooded us with back in the nineties.

The Korean agent had his own men watching the place. He was waiting when we arrived. He wore a cap pulled down over his face and dark gla.s.ses, even though it was still fairly dark. He let us in, told us we had the run of the downstairs, then disappeared.

"Jimmy Zim wanted you to call him," Junior told me, handing me a sat phone. "He's going to arrange for the boat to pick us up."

Ah, the sound of the other shoe hitting the floor.

While incredibly hospitable, the North Korean agent appeared to be a teetotaler, and the strongest thing I could find to drink was green tea. After two steaming cups my antioxidant level was restored sufficiently enough to survive a conversation with an employee of the federal government, and so I took the sat phone from Junior and went to find a place where I could talk privately. The only place without anyone sleeping in it was a covered patio area at the back of the house. I settled down on the wooden bench and dialed in my new best friend.

Jimmy Zim picked up about midway through the first ring.

"This is Marcinko. What's going on?"

"Ah, d.i.c.k. I was beginning to get worried. Matthew is very enthusiastic, but he is still wet behind the ears."

I've never understood exactly what that expression means, but I let it pa.s.s.

"Are you okay?" continued Zim. "Were you tortured?"

"It was no worse than sitting down with my accountant and talking about taxes. Can you get us out of here?"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to stay put for a while. We're watching the Russian s.h.i.+p and don't want to tip off the North Koreans."

Jimmy Zim told me that the s.h.i.+p that I had been following was still sitting outside the port, surrounded by small North Korean vessels. The plan was to wait for the exchange, then follow the s.h.i.+p out to sea, where it would be boarded and the weapon confiscated.

"Which is where you come in," he added.

"I've had enough boardings this week."

"Actually, the Pentagon suggested you get closer to the port so you could observe the exchange. They're looking for legal cover."

"Legal cover?"

"The lawyers want something to hang their hat on when the s.h.i.+p is boarded."

"How about we hang the lawyers instead?"

Jimmy Zim snorted. It was the most useful thing he'd said since the conversation began-a snort that spoke volumes.

You think I'm kidding about the lawyers, don't you? You think it's another of Demo d.i.c.k's convenient fictional devices, designed to add conflict to an already crowded plot. I hate to disabuse you, gra.s.shopper, but lawyers play a far greater role in military decisions than anyone wants to admit. Every major action is reviewed by a legal staff to make sure it meets muster, not just with the law, but with international standards.

Is it a good idea? Imagine Eisenhower running D-day before Judge Judy for approval.

The CIA is even worse. Reportedly a whole floor at Langley is staffed by nothing but lawyers.

"I thought you had the area under surveillance," I said to Zim.

"We do. In fact, we saw Polorski go ash.o.r.e."

"With Yong s.h.i.+n Jong?"

"I can't say. But I'd bet on it."

"Get Yong s.h.i.+n Jong and I'll cut the same deal Polorski did," I told him. "Simple."

"Was.h.i.+ngton says we can do nothing officially involving Yong s.h.i.+n Jong."

"I'm sure the SEALs will be willing to act unofficially."

Jimmy Zim sighed. It was an if-it-were-only-up-to-me sigh, long and full of spit at the end.

"Where did Polorski go?" I asked. "I couldn't say."

"Couldn't or won't?"

"I do have a Global Hawk following a truck west."

Global Hawks are robot spy planes. Just about everyone knows that we use satellites to spy on foreign countries these days. But there are a lot of misconceptions about that. First of all, it's not possible to keep satellites locked in to position above every part of the world. A geostationary orbit-for us laymen, that's an orbit over a fixed position on Earth32-is only practical near the equator. Most of the places we want to look at, North Korea for example, are nowhere near the equator. So the satellites we send up to watch them are always moving. To avoid them, all you have to do is hide when they're overhead.

Satellite paths are extremely predictable; even the satellites that we have that can change their orbits still have to obey the basic laws of physics, and therefore can be tracked through the sky, generally with nothing more sophisticated than a good telescope and a scientific calculator. Probably you could do it with a good slide rule, too, though I haven't seen one of those outside of a museum since my days at Officer Candidate School-aka Organized Chicken s.h.i.+t.

Even if you don't know when a satellite is overhead-and believe me, even the French can figure it out-the most you're going to be exposed for is ten minutes or so, depending on the satellite and your position beneath its...o...b..t. That makes a satellite great for finding something that doesn't move, but pretty lousy at following a truck.

That's why spy planes are still so popular. One of the most famous aircraft in the U.S. inventory is the U-2-the plane came first, then the band-whose basic design dates back to the Cold War. We also have the SR-71 Blackbird, which is capable of flying three times the speed of sound, good enough to outrun most missiles fired at it. The air farce retired the Blackbird several years ago, only to have to pull it out of retirement in the early 1990s because of an intelligence gap. Last I heard, there are still two Blackbirds operational; they're somewhat expensive to fly and are only used for special missions. Still, they're probably the s.e.xiest black birds on the planet.

The real work horse of aerial reconnaissance these days are robot airplanes-UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles that can fly halfway across the globe and back without a pilot in the c.o.c.kpit. In fact, there is no c.o.c.kpit; the planes are flown from a hangar at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. They have a lot of advantages over satellites, since they're much more maneuverable and can stay where you need them for as long as you want. And unlike the U-2 and SR-71, if their pilots get tired, they can call the next s.h.i.+ft in without having to return to base. The main reconnaissance UAV available is an aircraft called the Global Hawk, which can spend a couple of days "on station" and which flies somewhere around sixty-five thousand feet.

Now one of the main ideas of using robot planes is that people won't get killed if they get shot down or in an accident. (Accidents are actually a lot more common; a number of pilots and mission specialists were killed during the SR-71's heyday just landing the d.a.m.n thing.) But that doesn't make the aircraft expendable. The air farce really likes its toys, and so has a long list of when and where they can be used. They don't want them too close to missile sites. Even though the Global Hawk is much smaller and stealthier than most airplanes, it can still be seen on radar under the right conditions. Like all s.h.i.+ny toys, it's real easy to break, especially when someone's flinging high explosives and shards of tungsten at you.

I'm just guessing, but it was clear from his pauses and sighs that Jimmy Zim knew the air farce was going to order its toy home as soon as it got near Pyongyang, where the air defenses are designed to shoot down U-2s-higher fliers than the Global Hawk. Zim wanted to make sure someone was still watching Polorski, even though he couldn't directly tell me to do that.

To this day, I don't know exactly how much Zim knew of my real mission; maybe he knew it all, maybe he knew nothing. He told me the Global Hawk had just pa.s.sed the city of Changghung-ni, heading west along a road that cut through the mountains. We were roughly fifty miles away by air, much farther by car.

"Possibly, they are heading toward Pyongyang," said the CIA officer. "There was a transmission intercepted by the NSA that indicated a Russian and his party should have free pa.s.sage."

"I need a helicopter," I told him.

"You're not going to go, are you?" Jimmy Zim's mock alarm wouldn't have fooled a deaf man.

"I need a helicopter."

"I don't have one to give you." His voice had become serious again.

"Otherwise there's no way I can catch up."

"They've been stopping roughly every hour. Whoever is with him has a weak bladder."

"So for the record, you're telling me not to go," I said.

"For the record."

That was the end of our conversation. I grabbed Junior and asked if he could find me a map of North Korea. He went one better-he pulled out a small, handheld computer, attached the satellite phone to it, and went online to Google Earth. The view of North Korea was a few years old, but North Korea is not exactly setting records for new development.

I fiddled with Junior's map. The small screen and tiny b.u.t.tons made it difficult to focus.

"Hey, Junior, what does this look like to you?" I asked finally, handing him the computer.

"Um, a trombone?"