“I thought about that. But the ADS is only a stopping weapon. Once I run up to the door with the ADS off, they will attack. Over.” Tom just decided to throw it out bluntly.
Anderson decided to chuck out most of the radiospeak for the moment as well. “Tom, I’m turning the microphone on in the room. Sara has an idea. Over.” Soon Tom heard Sara’s voice come through. It sounded as if it were coming in from a distance.
“Tom, Eric told me that when the ADS was being tested, the subjects who stood in the beam for longer than a few seconds experienced burns. Could you just hit them with the beam and hold it for, say ten seconds, which would be far beyond what most people’s bodies could stand. After that, they will be burned and probably won’t be able to fight back.”
Tom thought for a moment, but then Anderson’s voice came on. A conversation had started in the Command Room, which Tom could hear.
“But someone with burns can still pick up a gun and pull a trigger. If Tom shoots them with the beam even for ten seconds, and then starts running for the door, one of them could still take his rifle and start firing.”
Then Sara calmly replied, as if still figuring out a riddle. The main microphone in their room picked it all up.
“But if he runs quickly and sets his charges on the door, he can blow the door without them doing anything. That blast will probably render most of that unit unfit to fight.”
Tom continued listening quietly to the discussion in the Command Room. He pulled the ADS off his back and opened the protective waterproof coating. He unfolded it and powered it up.
The discussion in the room continued, another analyst chimed in.
“Did he bring any grenades? Can he throw one at them?”
Tom took the M4 and slung it around his shoulder, so that it hung on his back.
Now Anderson was talking. “He doesn’t have any grenades. He has to get past them with his M4, the ADS, or the explosive charges somehow.”
Tom got up on his knee and grabbed the ADS. He held it in his left hand and with his right hand he pulled out his pistol from the holster on his thigh. He watched as the two men by the path now walked back towards the unit. The Command Room saw him get on his knee. It evidently got Anderson’s attention.
“Uh Tom — Yankee Actual? Do you read us? Do you have another idea or are you just trying to get a better view? Over.”
Tom stood up so that he was standing, but in a very low position. He replied, knowing that the whole Command Room could hear him.
“I know what to do. Standby, I’ll be through that door shortly.”
CHAPTER 47
Captain Kim and his men stopped. They had been walking for some time through the ridge. Kim looked around. He did not know what he was looking for. He observed the trees around him. He searched the ground for any strange patterns of leaves or twigs. He looked for broken branches. He had come this far, he knew, mainly on hunches and weak clues. What he had seen might have signified something or it could have meant nothing. Besides he thought, the men at the beach still had not seen any bubbles coming out of the water. He saw that his men were looking at him.
“Didn’t that Lieutenant say that another patrol was supposed to be passing through here?” Kim asked them.
“Yes, tongmu Captain,” they replied in unison.
“Have any of you seen anyone else?”
“No, tongmu Captain.”
Kim looked behind them. He searched left and right. He observed that the ridge was wide, but was also narrow enough so that one of his men would have seen a flashlight or movement somewhere. He felt the same strange feeling he had felt as a boy unable to sleep at night. It resembled a beacon constantly flashing a signal somewhere in his gut.
“Let’s move slowly. Keep your eyes and ears open,” he ordered his men.
“Yes, tongmu.”
The team started walking forward again. Kim wondered what the American spy they thought they were chasing looked like. He had never seen one growing up. He saw many illustrations that made him feel nauseous. But he never actually laid eyes upon one until he was a student in Beijing. He saw several American students at the university as well. He had gathered that they were there to study Chinese too. Looking at them made his stomach churn. He never dared to speak to them. He was not just afraid that he would have been in trouble with the State officers who were watching him. He was afraid the Americans might try to do something to him. He did not know what he had thought they would do, but he did not want to experiment. Besides, if being around them made him queasy, he would probably have felt his blood boil while speaking to them. But he observed them from a distance. He found it strange that they behaved — normally. He kept waiting for them to do something bad — he was not sure what he sought, but he at least expected them to live up to their reputation. He was told that they had tied up and killed women and children during the Fatherland Liberation War. But these students’ behavior was not different from the Chinese students. He noticed that the American boys were a bit more forward with girls at the university. But that was it. He wondered what was wrong. Was he not seeing the right Americans? Or were his leaders —. He did not let himself go down that line of thought.
As they walked he heard a hawk scream overhead somewhere in the treetops. He wondered if the American spy they were searching for was not unlike a rabbit that a hawk might chase. The rabbit was not trying to irritate the hawk. It was doing what it was destined to do — to find food, eat, and find a mate. The rabbit had no issues to resolve with the hawk. But the hawk was looking to kill it. He wondered why. Was this spy like that rabbit, just trying to do what he was supposed to do after being dropped in a foreign land? He did not blame America for wanting to know more about his country. He had heard when he was a student in China that little was known about his country. He realized his mind was drifting and tried to focus back on the mission.
He looked around. He thought it was extremely dark. He could barely make out anything around him. A bit of moon curved in the sky above them, but it did not help too much. He tried to spot some kind of tracks on the ground. He had heard American Indians could track American cowboys somehow by looking at disturbances on the ground. He would have loved to learn how to do that now, he thought. They started to walk down a small hill. Ahead of him on the left was a large rock. They kept walking. He heard another hawk scream. He looked up and wondered why so many hawks were shouting so loudly in this part of the forest. He could see something against the black sky. A few dark birds were flying in circles. Strange, he thought. He had never seen something like that before. Then one of his men to his left turned on a flashlight. The man to Kim’s right then said something that sent a shockwave up his spine.
“Tongmu Captain, those are vultures above us.”
“So — that means what exactly?”