“Aside from the informational benefit, we could get an upper hand too. If we know exactly what stage they reached, we will know how to counter them better. We could also outmaneuver the Totalitarian Uncertainty Principle we face where they constantly declare nuclear war but never do anything. We will be able to know what they can actually do, despite what they say.”
“And you said you guys plan to blow up that base too, right?”
“Potentially. If this works, we should be able to set them back a few years at least. But why NATPAC is helping them with their nuclear research is still something I don’t understand.”
“Well, he’s not helping them with their research, to be precise. He’s helping them protect that facility.”
“But do we know that the connection is anything more than a coincidence? All we know is that NATPAC saw our message and then started a chain of phone calls to North Korea. Maybe they just tipped off a friend?” Sara started feeling lost as she reasoned through the facts.
“But we can see that right now, as your mission is happening, SLOTHMAN is being very aggressive in trying to get into your systems. NATPAC also initiated that call to Beijing that led to Mr. Park’s analyst being abducted thirty minutes later. So I think the connection is strong. This feels like a personal struggle for NATPAC.”
“The question is what is in it for him.”
“That’s what I will hopefully find out,” Mark said coolly.
CHAPTER 42
Tom slowed down as he crossed Waypoint 3. He had just found the dirt path that led directly to the base. He kneeled on the side of the path. He stared up and down the path. It appeared clear.
“Yankee Main. I’m at Waypoint 3. Area looks clear. Moving on to target. Over.”
“Yankee Actual. Do you think those hills around you could contain sniper hole sites to watch that path or target? Over”
Tom knew that despite it being Anderson’s voice, that was Sara talking. A hole site was a spot where a sniper “holed up” and shot at his targets. Tom always kept in the back of his mind a reminder to check for sniper holes.
“Those hills look too low to provide a good field of vision. I’m moving deeper into the woods but this area should be clear. Over.”
He got up and walked carefully back into the woods but started heading in the direction of the target. He could feel he was getting close.
He wondered what was happening in South Korea at the moment. Anderson had said that they seemed to have located Jiyeon and were sending in a team to rescue her. He guessed that White Tiger would get sent in. He remembered talking to some Delta operators back when he was a SEAL. They were comparing notes on training exercises they had done with foreign special operations units. Tom remembered mentioning that his DEVGRU unit had trained with the New Zealand Special Air Service, with whom he had been impressed. He thought one of the Delta operators had said that White Tiger was a strong unit. But Tom knew that they did not have as much experience as western units when it came to hostage rescue missions. He would have wanted his DEVGRU team to be going on the rescue mission instead. He had done hostage rescue on several of his deployments. He would have liked to lead his DEVGRU team into the building that Jiyeon was being held in. But Tom quickly got his mind back to where it belonged. In SEAL training they had learned to lock down their minds and focus only on the mission in front of them. If one’s mind wandered while on a mission it could be fatal to the entire team. Tom focused back on his task. He knew that he could do nothing from where he was. He had to focus on getting into that base and let White Tiger focus on getting Jiyeon.
“Yankee Main. Are you able to get my ETA to target? Over.”
“Yankee Actual. Wait one. Over.”
He picked up his pace slightly. The trees in this area stood in thicker patches. His visibility was worse than it had been going through the ridge. There were also more rocks on the ground. They were not large, but Tom had to shift from side to side to avoid stepping on them and injuring himself.
Then Anderson came back on the radio. “ETA 20 minutes. You are almost there. Over”
After passing into a more open area of the woods, Tom looked around for any signs of a patrol. He saw nothing. It had been surprisingly quiet since he shot that last patrol. He would have thought that as he got closer to the base, the number of patrols would have been higher. Either way, he suspected that there would be at least a few soldiers at the entrance.
CHAPTER 43
A sea breeze ran through an empty dark street in Incheon. As it was the middle of the night, few cars drove by. Most people were inside. A still silence permeated through the air.
On one side of the street, shadows moved cautiously. A team of 40 men walked slowly and silently. Dressed in all black, they carried small rifles in their arms. Masks hid their faces and helmets shielded their heads. They had tubes sticking out of their eyes, giving them light in the dark. They bent slightly at the hips and almost walked in step. From a distance they looked like one large spider crawling up the street. They were one block away from a house to which they had been asked to pay a visit.
They stopped as they came to a street corner. They planned to enter a house on the next street. The roads around them continued to sit in silence. Someone walking or driving by might not have noticed the presence of the shadows. After two simple hand signals the team split into two long lines of twenty and crossed the street side by side. They measured their steps, and despite their bent knees and waists, their heads did not bob up and down. They walked like cats.
Half a block away from their target, the column of shadows closest to the road bent lower and began to walk faster. As the two groups approached their target house, the first group of twenty assembled in a straight line on one side of the main door. The second, faster moving group swung around and lined up on the other side of the front door. There were now two lines of men flaring out of either side of the door. Each shadow checked his rifle and equipment. When done, each man put his hand quietly on the shoulder of the man in front, to signal readiness. When each front man’s shoulder had been tapped, a hand signal went up. The front man of the left column reached for the doorknob and gently tried turning it. More force would have been used to turn a volume knob in a car. But the gentle touch was all that was needed. The point man felt that the door was locked. He threw up another hand signal. The second man on the left side team stepped out of his column. He pulled out what looked like a three-foot long metal cylinder with handles sticking out. He paused for a moment facing the door. He signaled his colleagues to ready themselves. He took one more moment for himself.
Suddenly he hit the end of the battering ram right into the doorknob. The entire door shook and opened half an inch. He swung his battering ram one more time right above the doorknob. The door flew open. The battering ram operator took one large step back. Instantly, the shadows on either side of the door sprung through the threshold, alternating one by one.
Inside, the first few men from the right side had moved to the far right corner, effectively making a 90 degree turn upon passing through the door. In the room ahead of them they saw two men sitting on the floor who started to stand up. The point man and second man put one bullet through each of them. They moved briskly into the room and turned at the far corner.
The left side team made the 90 degree turn in the other direction and moved to the far corner of the room in front of them. It was empty. There was no furniture in the house.