Another bright flash of jagged silver lightning lit up the dark night sky, followed instantaneously by a deep boom of thunder in the distance, startling Dornberg. This could not end soon enough, he thought. Reaching deep inside his jacket, he retrieved three small handheld infrared strobe lights. Looking down, Dornberg saw that his hands were shaking and his stomach felt like he was going to lose the battle and be sick any second. Fighting the guilt and growing doubt nagging at his conscience, he took one last long look around to make sure it was safe, before activating the markers. With an underhand pitch, learned from playing cricket in his youth, Dornberg threw the markers out onto the open grassy field directly in front of the farm. The markers were invisible to the naked eye; only someone wearing night-vision gear could even hope to detect them blinking on and off. The approaching storm clouds thundered ominously. Dornberg carefully removed the silencer from his pistol and put them both away in his jacket. Taking out a cigarette, Dornberg lit it. He had done his part; now, it was up to the others. Taking a seat on the deck, he waited for the approaching helicopters to arrive.
Inside the lead helicopter, Colonel Chang Ji-Hun saw the warning light come on, bathing the cabin in a deep red hue. Calmly, he removed his headset and stood inside the spacious interior of the MI-8 Hip. With his thick mop of salt and pepper hair and a black eye patch over his left eye, Chang looked more like a seventeenth century pirate than a highly skilled mercenary. Raising his hand, Chang indicated to his men that they were two minutes out from their objective. Silently, his team all gave him quick thumbs’ up in unison and started to unbuckle themselves from their mesh canvas seats along the walls of the chopper. Chang, a former North Korean Special Operative, who saw the folly of working for despots when he could be deciding his own fate, looked into the faces of his men. Most were in their early to late thirties. All were veterans of many years with the North Korean, East European, or African Special Forces. Many of his men had taken part in clandestine raids to conduct sabotage or gather intelligence throughout the world. Their cool and confident demeanor showed on their expressionless faces.
Chang was wearing full battledress with a chest rig that held ten AK magazines along with numerous fragmentation grenades. He made his way to the back of the helicopter so he would be the first man off once they hit the ground. Chang had never failed in a mission, and he knew that this was the most lucrative mission he had ever planned in his entire life. He had studied the objective for weeks and was confident that he knew everything there was to know about it. He did not expect much in the way of resistance, but he never knew until he arrived at the objective. Chang knew that no plan, no matter how carefully thought out, ever survived contact with the enemy. He, like his men, had to be able to adapt and overcome their opponent quickly if they were to pull off this lightning-fast raid.
Major Sohn’s hands were starting to get sweaty inside his skin-tight leather gloves. Looking into the night, he was becoming concerned. Although equipped with a state-of-the-art GPS system, the only way he knew that their contact was waiting and that it was safe to land was via the IR strobes. He was positive that he should have seen the IR markers by now. Sohn, fearing that something had gone wrong on the objective, was about to break radio silence, when suddenly he caught a glimpse of something flashing out of the corner of his eye.
With a relieved smile on his face, he saw that the IR indicators were flashing on and off as bright as a bonfire in the night, indicating that it was safe to approach the farm. Letting out a deep sigh, Sohn banked the helicopter over towards the beacons. Now that they were mere seconds away from landing, he broke radio silence for the first time since leaving base. Sohn sent the code word Eagle three times over the radio to ensure that his message was heard. Knowing that no reply was coming back, Sohn once more switched the radio off and started to slow the helicopter down so he could land smoothly in the field directly in front of the farmhouse. As they had practiced numerous times on an isolated farm in Mozambique, Sohn’s Hip helicopter would land first, rapidly disembark his men, keep rolling forward on the narrow field and quickly take off to be followed by the next chopper waiting in line. If things went well, all of Chang’s team would be on the ground and in action in less than sixty seconds.
A noise caught Dornberg’s ear: a rhythmic beating, somewhere out in the dark, growing closer by the second. His pulse raced as he saw the helicopters start to emerge out of the rain like monstrous bats sent from hell itself. Though the glass windshield was blackened out, Dornberg could see the lead pilot bathed in a red light as he brought his helicopter in to land. The rotor-wash from the powerful blades stirred up dirt and pebbles on the field, showering Dornberg with small, annoying pieces of debris. He barely heard the yelling coming from behind him over the noise of the helicopter. Turning around, he saw two guards armed with assault rifles emerge from the front door of the house, waving towards the approaching swarm of helicopters. Without even bothering to aim, Dornberg brought his pistol out of his jacket and emptied an entire magazine into the two men, sending their lifeless bodies tumbling down the front steps onto the dirt. All pretense of duplicity was gone now. Dornberg tossed the empty pistol onto the ground and picked up an assault rifle belonging to one of the dead guards. Checking that it was loaded, Dornberg stood staring into the rain, as the lead helicopter was now barely thirty meters from him, closing in fast.
Inside the Hip’s cabin, a green light flashed on. Instantly, Colonel Chang pulled up on the latch holding closed the large bulbous rear doors of the Hip. No sooner had the helicopter touched down, than Chang kicked open the doors, jumped out and led his men out of the back of the chopper and into the cool rain coming down on the open field. Quickly fanning out, Chang’s men took up fire positions and waited just the briefest of times until their helicopter lifted off into the night, its rotors momentarily blinding them with a storm kicked up by the powerful downdraft from the departing Hip. Knowing that another Hip was mere seconds behind them, Chang stood and, with a wave of his hand, he and his men rose like wraiths coming out of the ground and rushed towards the brightly lit farmhouse. A large man ran towards Chang. He tensed. Seeing the two dead bodies lying on the dirt behind the man, Chang suspected that he was their contact and not an enemy target. He was about to call to the man when a shot rang out from a window in the farmhouse. The large man seemed to stagger forward. A moment later, blood burst forth from his mouth; he fell to his knees and tumbled sideways onto the wet ground. Chang ran past the body; the man did not matter to him, but his mission tonight meant everything. He had no time for the dead and dying; that would come later. He’d barely made it ten meters when all hell broke out. Fire erupted from the front windows of the farmhouse. Men screamed and fell. Chang’s well-trained mercenaries reacted instantly and promptly returned fire. Breaking down into two-man fire-teams, they continued to push forward; one man fired while the other dashed forward a few meters and started to fire at their enemy. The noise was overwhelming. The sound of Chang’s men returning fire combined with the rotor blades from the incoming Hips made it impossible for Chang to communicate with his men. Unlike American Special Forces, not all of Chang’s men had night-vision gear, and only the squad leaders had personal radios. None of this bothered him. It was his decision to keep things simple. All the men on the mission tonight were highly trained and handpicked by Chang. He was confident that they could deal with any opposition that they might find here tonight.