“I don’t care if the Americans see through our plan, General,” said Pak. “In days, a week at the most, they will be impotent to stop us.”
A disbelieving mutter coursed through the seated officers.
“Sir, just how do you intend to stop the world’s only remaining superpower from attacking us?” asked a short, bull-necked special forces general.
“I intend to give them no choice in the matter. They will acquiesce to our demands, or I will strike such a crippling blow to their already weakened capitalist economy that they will never recover,” said Pak.
“And how do you intend to do this, sir?” asked General Lee, with a look of disbelief on his face.
“For now that will remain my secret. Trust me; you will all be briefed in due course. Until then, I expect you all to remain vigilant.” With that, Pak stood. The other men in the room rose to their feet and remained at attention until Pak and his chief of staff had left the room.
The second the door closed, the room exploded in conversation. To a man, they thought Long Sword was nothing more than a military coup. Not a single one of them had been aware until today of Pak’s desire to reunify Korea under his leadership.
General Lee crossed the room and looked his naval counterpart in the eye. “Well, Admiral, between you and I, what do you think of Long Sword now?”
“It is either the work of a genius or a madman. Like it or not, we are all part of it now,” replied the admiral.
“I wonder what Pak meant by crippling the Americans. Can such a thing be done without any repercussions coming back on us tenfold?”
The admiral solemnly shook his head. “I have no idea what he is up to. Whatever he is planning had better be foolproof; blackmailing a country into surrender only works in cheap spy novels.”
17
Sam pulled their Land Rover off the gravel road and parked it behind a slight hill. Making sure that they had everything with them, Cardinal and Sam climbed out of the Rover, locked it, and then made their way to the top of the rise. They had stopped a kilometer shy of where they had last seen the guarded parking lot, deciding that a short walk was preferable to blundering into a trigger-happy Mongolian army patrol in the dark. It was just after one in the morning. Sam knew that it would take them about thirty minutes to get to the abandoned cars. Anyone on guard duty would be cold and bored by that point. It was the time in the evening that Cardinal called the ‘Witching Hour’ when a person’s body was nearing its lowest ebb.
After receiving the go-ahead from O’Reilly to take a quick look and to do nothing else, Sam and Cardinal had busied themselves getting ready for their nighttime excursion.
Both were dressed in loose-fitting khaki clothing with small packs on their backs. They had their pistols with them, but kept them out of sight for now. O’Reilly had made it crystal-clear to them that whatever happened, firing on the Mongolian soldiers guarding the cars was to be avoided unless one of their lives was in imminent danger. If they could sneak in and out of the parking lot without being seen, all the better for them.
Cardinal was always amazed how cold a desert could get at night, from one extreme to another in a matter of hours. Clouds filled the night sky, making navigating across the boulder-strewn desert quite challenging. Even with night-vision gear, Sam twice tripped over rocks, causing her to curse a steady stream of foul language in English and Chinese under her breath.
After following a meandering, dried-up riverbed through the desert, Sam and Cardinal came to the hill they had stopped at yesterday overlooking the vehicle parking lot. Quickly recording their route into her handheld GPS, Sam bent down and made her way up the rocky hill. When she spotted Cardinal, she got down on all fours and then crawled over beside him. In the dark, Sam could make out the shapes of the vehicles against the backdrop of the desert. There wasn’t a single light on. If there was anybody down there, she couldn’t see them.
With a voice barely louder than a whisper, Sam said, “See anything?”
Cardinal lowered his night-vision binoculars and then handed them to Sam. “I can’t see a single person down there,” whispered Cardinal. “I expected them to be out and about patrolling the perimeter with dogs. I’m beginning to wonder if they abandon it at night thinking that no one would bother poking around the desert at this hour.”
Slowly, Sam examined the sprawling lot and saw that there were almost a third more abandoned vehicles down there than there had been the day before. Most were old, beaten-up-looking trucks and cars that should have been consigned to the junkyard years ago, but what caught her eye were a pair of school buses parked near the grad students’ Rover. A chill ran up her back when she thought about who had been in the buses and what had happened to them.
Sam said, “What do you want to do?”
“I say we back off the hill, follow it around to the north and then approach the parking lot out of the wind,” said Cardinal. “If anyone is down there, they won’t be looking into the cold wind.”
Sam nodded, handed back the NVGs to Cardinal, and then slowly crawled back off the rock-strewn rise. At the bottom of the hill, Cardinal dug out his pistol, made it ready, and then jammed it home in a holster in the small of his back. Next, he rummaged through his pack and dug out a gas mask, which he pulled on over his head. He hated wearing it. It was hot, uncomfortable, and the field of vision through the eyepieces was less than ideal. Grabbing the chemical agent monitor, which Donaldson had shipped to them, Cardinal was happy that it was similar to one he had trained on in the army. It was lightweight and designed to detect anything from blister, all the way up to blood and nerve agents. Cardinal turned it on and moved it around in the air for a few seconds. He checked the screen and saw that it was negative. There were no agents present. If there had been, the screen on the detector would have lit up, identifying the agent. Turning his head, he saw Sam standing there with her gas mask on. She looked like an invader from outer space coming to take him away.
“Let’s get this over with,” said Sam, sounding muffled through her mouthpiece. “I hate these things and the sooner we can get back to our ride, the happier I will be.”
Cardinal was about to tell her that she sounded like a sexy Darth Vader when she spoke, but decided that it would be wiser and safer to let it go for now. He led the way around the hill. Using what cover they could, they crept along until they were on the edge of the abandoned car park. He brought up his NVGs and took a long look around. As before, there wasn’t a soul present.
Cardinal said, “Coast is clear. If for any reason we get split up, head back to the car and wait there for fifteen minutes. If I am not back by then, I’m not coming back.”
“Save it, mister. I’m not going anywhere without you,” replied Sam as she pulled back on the slide of her pistol, loading a 9mm round into the chamber. “Now lead on. You check out the students’ Rover, while I check out those buses. Something about them doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Okay, but not a second past ten minutes.”
Sam nodded.
After taking one last look around, Cardinal darted over beside a rusting, two-ton truck and then peered over at the buses and the Rover. The coast was still clear. Waving Sam over, he looked down at the chemical agent detector and saw that it still read clear. With Sam close behind, Cardinal ran over to the first bus and then hesitated for a moment, listening. His breath seemed loud and ragged in his ears. Wearing a mask made breathing hard, doubly so when exerting yourself. Moving the monitor around in the air, Cardinal was relieved to see that it still read negative. He paused a moment to get his breathing under control before looking down at Sam. He could see her calmly looking back up at him through her eyepieces. Sam reached up and placed her hand on Cardinal’s, and then with a slight nod, they parted.