Another analyst was analyzing the latest satellite imagery, which had come in within the last hour. He was carefully noting changes in KPA positions. With a tremor in his voice, he had told the room that there was a large contingent of KPA in front of the entrance to the base.
One analyst to Sara’s left had been sending regular updates to the Director. In the last hour the frequency of these calls had increased. All of the analysts moved in some way. Some were tapping their knees up and down rapidly. Some shifted ceaselessly in their chairs.
Sara looked at the very back. Mark and J.D. still maintained their focus solely on the computer screens in front of them. How lucky of them, she thought, to be able to maintain a Zen-like state. She had the feeling that if she was not focused on Tom — where he was running, what he was doing, or whether he was safe — some misfortune would occur. She felt that Tom never really thought about his own safety enough, so she needed to provide some of that anxiety. Someone had to. The other analysts seemed to be helping her as well.
Mr. Park walked into the room quickly, breaking everyone’s focus.
“White Tiger started its raid of the house,” he said.
“What are they saying?” Anderson asked.
“They are encountering resistance on the second floor. They are still clearing.”
“Is your analyst OK? Did they get to her?” Sara asked. Sara wondered why his analysts were not joining them for the upcoming infiltration. Mr. Park’s team had worked for a long time on finding this place, she thought. It made logical sense to her that they should be watching too.
“I am not sure yet. We will have to wait for them to finish,” Mr. Park replied. “As Tom is almost at the base, I will stay here for now. My analysts will monitor that raid.” He moved close to Anderson in the middle of the room and stared into the screen.
“Whatever that place is, Tom’s going to see signs and documents. Do you think you’ll be able to translate if he holds his helmet camera close enough?” Anderson asked Mr. Park. “It will be nice to find out right away what exactly he’s looking at. Do you think the screen is clear enough?”
“Yes, I should be able to do that.”
“John,” Sara said as she looked at her monitor. Anderson looked over. She paused to make sure what she was about to say was correct. “Tom is a few feet from the edge of the woods. He’ll be able to see the entrance in a few seconds.”
CHAPTER 46
Tom saw an opening past the trees ten feet in front of him. He slowed down to a slow walk. He had been jogging for some time, hopping and weaving around the many small obstacles on the ground. He now set one foot after another carefully. He started to hear the distinct sound of voices in the distance. As he walked to within five feet of the tree line, he saw a white light seep through the trees.
He lay down on his stomach, flipped up his night vision goggles, and lying prone, crawled the rest of the way towards the edge. He gave a moment for his now-naked eyes to adjust as he stopped crawling. His left shoulder hugged a tree trunk.
The first wide open space Tom had seen all night stretched out in front of him. It was a square field about 100 feet long. Grass made up the first twenty feet or so, and the rest looked like a dirt plot. Right in the middle of the dirt, a small structure stuck out. It looked like an industrial garage or the conning tower of a submarine. It was a square-like concrete structure that stuck straight up out of the ground in the middle of nowhere. Tom saw a door in the center of a concrete wall. It was shut and had a large metallic handle hanging across it. To Tom’s right, the forest made a square border around the open plot. To the left, the dirt path Tom had met at Waypoint 3 quietly ran past and onward. A bright white light sat on the structure.
A crowd of KPA soldiers stood by the building. Each soldier seemed to be facing a different direction. They were talking, smoking, laughing, and looking around. Some soldiers were walking back and forth by the path on the left. The group was large. Tom guessed there were several dozen soldiers. They each had a loaded rifle either in hand or slung over a shoulder.
Tom started whispering into his radio.
“Yankee Main. Do you have a clear visual? Over.”
“Affirmative. We see it. We count about 40 soldiers. Does that sound right? Over.”
“That’s about how many I see too. Over.”
“Standby. We are trying to think of solutions. Over.”
Tom knew he needed a solution. The problem he faced was clear. A large crowd of soldiers stood between him and the entrance. If he shot a few of the soldiers, the rest would turn around and quickly start laying a sustained stream of fire right at him. Tom spotted one man with a radio. As soon as any shooting started, he would also likely call other patrols for help. He thought that if he shot the light by the door, and flipped on his night vision, he could have a distinct advantage. But that was also unlikely to work. A couple of shots could quickly start a small battle right here, even if it was dark, he thought.
Tom’s mind shifted to the idea of setting up a distraction. Maybe he could set one of his charges a small distance away in the other direction, past this field. The small explosion could start a fire and the soldiers around this structure would get distracted, and some would likely leave their spot to go investigate. Tom would be left facing a smaller, more manageable force. As Tom thought about it though, he knew this had little chance of working. In reality, these soldiers would call in reinforcements and send a patrol to investigate the fire. They would then call in other units to comb through the entire area.
Another option Tom thought through was waiting. As a former DEVGRU SEAL and now SAD operator, he had high endurance. He could lie in the hidden spot he had at the edge of the woods and wait until tomorrow evening. By then the North Koreans would likely think that they had missed the threat and might lower the number of soldiers outside of the entrance to a number he could deal with. He quickly discarded that idea though. When the sun rose he would be much easier to spot. In addition, if even one of the 40 men in front of him decided to even relieve himself in the woods near Tom, he could get compromised. And then they could send out patrols to look around the immediate woods at any moment. He realized waiting it out was not a good option either.
He considered the possibility of trapping the unit. He could run around to the other side of the structure, through the woods. On that side, there were almost no soldiers. He could run up to the back of the structure, place one of his explosive charges there, run back to the woods and fire a shot. The entire crowd would likely run around to the other side of the door to see what happened. He could then set of the charge, killing or wounding most of the soldiers. Tom did not like this idea as he thought about it either. He risked too much by running through the other side of the open field. If one of the men walking around by the path saw him as he was running to set the charge, it would be the last thing he ever did.
Tom let the idea cauldron boil in his head as he observed the unit. The two soldiers who had been walking along the path now turned and walked towards the main crowd. They talked for several minutes with a few of the other soldiers. Then they walked back to the path they had originally stood by.
Anderson’s voice came back soon on the radio.
“Yankee Actual. What do you think about using your ADS on those people? Over.”
Tom had been avoiding exactly that thought. He wanted to think of a way to get past the unit using a method proven to have worked in the field. He had tested out the ADS at the base back in South Korea. But he did not seriously plan to use it. Maybe, he had thought, he would pull it out if something went wrong and he was fighting a KPA platoon. Even then he would only use it if he ran out of ammunition. But to use it here made little sense to Tom. Once he turned off the ADS and started approaching the group, they would grab their weapons and start shooting at him.