“Excellent work, Colonel. Well under the time needed.”
“We….” The Colonel exploded, chunks of his body flying in all directions out of his shredded uniform. Everything stopped, frozen in place by the Colonel’s death. Sung could hear nothing but the blood rushing in his ears as his mind struggled to come to grips with what had just happened a foot from him.
Hunter and his team gave no pause. The political officers died next. Both were blown apart by the kinetic energy of the fifty caliber rounds striking their bodies. Sung dove for the ladder at the edge of the dock. The rough concrete ripped open his pants leg at the knee as he slid to a stop at the rail. He vaulted over the side of the ladder to the roughhewn catwalk below. The creosote boards cut at his palms, their oily shellac burned into the gash on his knee. A shower of sparks and concrete chips ripped through the air where his head and shoulders had been a second before.
Armor piercing SLAP rounds punched into the side of the sub tender’s wheelhouse. The rounds turned to superheated jets of metal plasma as they passed through the steel plate of the wheel house’s exterior. The inside of the wheel house became an incinerator. 40mm grenades began to slam into the exposed side of the ship. Red hot shrapnel rained down on the sailors manning the fuel lines. Brilliant white sparks shot off the ship’s antennas and radar as round after round of fifty caliber, armor-piercing bullets destroyed the ship’s ability to communicate.
The explosion on the sub tender was felt by all on board the Leader. There was no need to say the obvious or ask any questions.
The Captain slid back from the table. “Sound General Quarters and have the men on the deck cut the hawsers. The Americans have found us again.”
Hunter kept low. This was turning into a real hornet’s nest. Time to liven things up. “All Alpha elements, engage targets.”
Sung watched with relief as the Hinds turned from their patrol of the bay and headed towards the SA-6 site and the Nodong launchers. Sounds of intense fighting around the two sites floated across the bay. They would make short work of anyone on the ground stupid enough to be caught out of cover. Sung’s relief turned to horror when streams of heavy rocket fire leapt from the outboard pylons of the Hinds and slammed into the two weapon sites. A flat clap of thunder followed by a huge geyser of white fire erupted from under the camouflage netting. The two Nodong rockets, their bodies leaking caustic liquid fuels, leapt in flaming spirals two hundred feet into the sky and then tumbled down on the other side of the harbor into the rail yard. A huge fireball followed seconds after.
Sung, his eyes half blinded by the glowing ascent, blinked back tears and looked at the gray cloud where the SA-6 battery used to be. The screams and moans of the injured and dying filtered across the bay through the staccato pop of small arms fire. For the first time in his life, Sung knew he was out of his element. If he stayed here, he was going to die. He looked down at the Leader. It was sliding from its mooring, back into the safety of the harbor. Four sailors lay dead on its hull, the fire axes they had used to cut the hawsers still clutched in their hands. The sub tender’s upper deck was fully engulfed in flames. Toxic black smoke billowed from her deck into the morning sky. Her crew on deck were trying desperately to fight the blaze before it hit the fuel tanks.
What had gone wrong? How could the Americans have known? Sung looked around, desperate to find a way out of the killing ground.
Sean ran in a crouch through the maze of barrels and scrap that littered the streets of Chanjon. Harris kept an eye on their left. Gayle was in the middle, with the Russians bringing up the rear in a tight semi-circle. Things were going better than planned. He had expected the Koreans to pick up on the Hinds right away. Something had gone right for a change. Sean slowed. They were almost at the dock. He could see the transport truck with the warheads.
The front windshield was shattered. The driver lay slumped over the wheel, the wreckage of his head spattered across the back of the cab. There was a choking sound behind him. Sean turned around. Gayle was pale, her hand over her mouth.
“If you’re going to be sick, get it over with. I don’t need you puking when we’re in the shit.”
Gayle’s eyes flashed and color came back to her face. “I’ll be fine Addison. Just get me to those nukes.”
Sean shook his head. “I’ve got a better idea. You wait here.” He tapped Harris on the arm. “Come on, let’s grab us a truck.”
The clock was running. Hunter’s group was keeping the Koreans well-contained. Sounds of heavy fire came from all around. What the SEALs missed, the Hinds with a few well-directed commands from the ground elements, eliminated. The bay was gaining color, magic hour was bleeding into regular daylight.
Sean, Harris right behind him, ran low and fast to the parked transport. His gun tracked back and forth for a target. It was a long hundred meters. Both men slid to a stop and crouched by the front bumper. Sean looked over the whole of the dock, what he could see at least. Fighting was fierce outside the barrier of black smoke, but the acoustics of the dock made a confusing hash out of the sounds of battle. He had no idea where the fighting was thickest or even how close it was to the team.
Sean keyed his throat mike. “Hunter, we’re at the transport. There’s too much ground-fire and we’ve got no way to fix its location. We’re going to try and move the transport out of here and get to some cover, where the team can work on the devices.”
“Better make it fast,” Hunter growled back in Sean’s ear. “These boys are going to call in backup any minute now and I want to be long gone when the rest of the North Korean army shows up.”
Sean gripped his M-4 and snuck a look round the front tire of the truck. “Roger that.” Then to Bill, “You see anything?”
“Too much smoke.”
“Cover me.” Sean slid round the front tire, pulled himself up the driver’s side of the cab and ripped open the door. It took two grisly tugs to free the driver’s near-headless body from its grip of the steering wheel. With each pull, Sean was conscious of a burning between his shoulder blades. The expectant reach for a bullet that never came. The body tumbled out past Sean and landed with a wet thud on the cracked asphalt beside the truck. Sean wiped the bigger chunks of human debris off the seat with his right arm and hopped into the driver’s seat.
The engine caught, first time. Thank Christ. “Come on Bill. Quit screwing around. Harris thumped up the passenger side. He yanked open the passenger door and used it for a shield as Sean pushed the truck into second gear towards the uncertain safety of the dock warehouses. Black toxic smoke drifted across their path, obscuring the dock for seconds at a time. Sean peered through the smoke and tried to keep his bearing.
“I expected it to be harder than this Bill.” The window beside him blew in. Sean felt the hot sting of a bullet bore through his left bicep.
Harris grabbed the wheel with one hand and steadied his friend with the other. “You and your bloody mouth.”
Sean, white with shock, still gripped the wheel with both hands. He clenched his teeth, fighting the pain. “We’ll wrap me up when I get us to the others.” He gave a hard shiver. “No worries. I felt the bastard pass clean through.”
Bullets began to slap against the driver’s side of the truck, a hard rain of sideways death on the back of the cab.
Harris yelled into his throat mike. “We’ve grabbed the flat deck with the nukes on it. We’re taking fire. Give us some cover will you Hunter! It’s coming from the southeast side of the dock.”
“Roger, help inbound.”
The smoke split a moment later into curling black vortexes, torn apart by the thundering rotor wash of Donovan’s Hind. The sound of ripping steel filled the air as the helicopter’s 23mm cannons savaged the Korean troops at the far side of the pier. The armor-piercing incendiary rounds, an angry cloud of fiery white hornets, streaked into the small enclave of soldiers who disappeared in a maelstrom of dust and fire. The rain of bullets on the cab ceased. Sean risked it and pushed the truck up another gear. Seconds later, they moved into the shelter of the warehouses.