“South.” Pak answered.
Lim frowned. “South, sir? To South Africa?”
“No. Straight south. Over the ocean.”
“But, with all due respect, sir, there’s nothing to the south.”
Pak turned his coal black eyes on the pilot, cutting him off. “You fly the plane, captain. Let me worry about everything else. We take off in ten minutes.”
Lim saluted stiffly and retreated into the belly of his plane. Pak stepped back and ran his eyes along the silhouette of the Soviet-made IL-18. It was an old plane, built in the late fifties. Four large propeller engines mounted on its wings reminded one of an old-style airliner. The Russians had dumped the obsolete plane on their so-called North Korean allies in exchange for desperately needed hard currency. The plane was the way Pak and his fellow commandos had traveled to Angola, and it was their only way out and back to North Korea. Taking the plane meant that the other Special Forces men would be stranded. Pak was sure the people in Kaesong hadn’t thought of that either, or if they had, they felt this mission was worth more than these men.
Kim snapped to attention before him. “All loaded, sir!”
Pak nodded. “Let us board.”
“But why try to kill you two? What would that accomplish?” Devlin’s eyes were riveted on the shattered wall of the next unit. The thousands of steel ball bearings projected by the mine had torn large gashes in the surface.
Riley held the remains of the igniting wire in his hands. “Desperation. Whoever it is tried to stop us from getting here by trying to kill our pilot. That failed. Then they tried to keep us from communicating our discovery by damaging the satellite radio. That failed when we used the equipment already down here.
“Now he — or she — has no choice but to somehow get rid of everyone here. They tried to start with Sammy and me. It was just luck that I saw the trip wire running from the top of the door.” He looked at Swenson. “You would be last, since that person needs you to fly out of here. Unless, of course, you’re the person. Or if whoever it is can pilot the plane.”
“But,” Devlin protested, “the base would still be here. And Atlanta has tapes.”
Riley looked at Conner. “Has SNN played those tapes on the air yet?”
She shook her head. “No. They’re waiting until we have the complete story.”
“If there’s a leak at SNN, it’s also possible that the tapes have been compromised.” Riley gave a twisted smile. “Not only can’t we trust anyone or any organization back in the real world, but we can’t trust each other here.”
“What do we do now?” Sammy asked.
“We stick together in groups of two or more,” Riley suggested. “If one half of a pair ends up dead, then we have to assume the live half is the culprit.”
Conner stood. “All right. I agree. From here on out no one goes anywhere alone. We will also have at least two people awake at any one time.”
“I also suggest we go to the arms room and see if any weapons are missing,” Riley said. “Whoever took that mine might have taken some other goodies that we don’t want to be walking into.”
Conner headed for the door. “Everyone goes.”
The old man was jogging slowly along the deserted beach, leaving a trail of footprints just above the surf line. His head was slightly bowed, the sparse white hair reflecting the setting sun. His head cocked slightly as the sound of helicopter blades crept over the sand, but his feet kept their steady rhythm.
A shadow flashed over him and a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter flitted by, less than thirty feet above the ground. The man’s feet finally came to a halt as the helicopter flared, kicking up sand. The old man covered his eyes as the wheels touched and two men in unmarked khaki hopped off.
They ran over to him. There was no badge flashed or words spoken. They were all players and knew the rules. The old man allowed them to escort him onto the aircraft. It lifted and immediately sped off at maximum speed to the west, toward nearby Otis Air Force Base.
The incoming tide washed over the footsteps, and within twenty minutes all traces of the lone jogger were gone.
Chapter 18
The tension was palpable. Riley looked up from the crates where he’d been counting ammunition. “We’ve been through everything, and we have one Ml6, four magazines, and eighty rounds of ammunition missing. That’s besides one Claymore, but we know where that went.”
Conner was biting the inside of her mouth as she tried to figure out the next move. “Should we search for the rifle?”
Devlin waved his hands about. “It could be anywhere. And if we found it, we still wouldn’t know who stole it. Any one of us could have come in here and taken it.”
Riley agreed. “A search would be a waste of time. There is one thing I think we have to do, though.”
“What?” Conner asked.
“We need to make sure these bombs can’t be used. We need to destroy the PAL codes.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Devlin asked.
“I blow up the safe that holds them.”
“No.” They all turned to look at Sammy. “Destroying the codes doesn’t do anything. If our saboteur was sent by whoever built this base, then that person could already have the PAL codes.”
Conner rubbed her forehead. “You’ve got a point there.”
“Then we neutralize the bombs by another means,” Riley said. He pointed at the two crates. “I told you that these bombs have a six-digit
PAL code that allows limited try followed by lockout. I’ll enter two wrong codes and cause both bombs to go into lockout. That will mean they can’t be exploded.”
“Bullshit!” Everyone looked at Devlin in surprise. “How do we know you don’t already have the codes like Sammy said. You could arm the bombs with the correct six digits instead of entering the wrong ones.”
“Why would I do that?” Riley asked.
“I don’t know!” Devlin turned to Conner. “Listen to me. What’s to stop Riley from arming the bomb with a time delay? Then he kills us or just holds us at gunpoint and leaves, taking Swenson with him. If one of those bombs goes off, all evidence of this base will be gone.”
Riley was shaking his head. “That’s stupid. You can hold a gun on me while I do it.”
‘That still won’t do us any good if you arm the bomb,” Devlin argued. “We wouldn’t know how to stop it. We’d all have to leave and the base would still blow. You’d have achieved your mission of destroying the real evidence of this base.
“You’re also the only one among us with the military training necessary to do the acts of sabotage we’ve already had. You’re the one who would know how to rig that mine — and that would make it more than just luck that you avoided it.”
Vickers spoke for the first time. “You know, it’s quite a coincidence that Riley is the only one of us who was involved in all three incidents.”
“What do you mean?” Conner asked.
“He’s the one who found Swenson. He says he just happened to wake up and find him out in the snow. He’s the one who figures out how to replace the destroyed transmitter so quickly, almost as if he’d known what had happened. He’s the one who just happens to see the trip wire for the mine and saves himself and Sammy. It would have been real easy for him to have avoided all those disasters if he was the one who planned them.”
“But why would I do that?” Riley didn’t seem overly concerned by the accusations.
Vickers pointed at the bomb. ‘To make us trust you enough to arm the bombs.”
Riley shook his head. “If I had the PAL codes, I could have armed them at any time. I wouldn’t need your trust.”