The water was only a meter and a half deep here, and they water-crawled about half the distance before stripping off their swim fins and dashing to the shore. The beach surface was loose rock, and it was hard to move silently. The good news was that there were plenty of larger stones and boulders for cover. They quickly removed their swim gear and cached it in a rocky hollow and camouflaged it. They’d need it in a few days, but they couldn’t carry scuba gear all over North Korea.
They were all in North Korean People’s Army uniforms, matching their real ranks, except for Rhee, who wore a major’s insignia on a commissar’s uniform. If challenged, they were a patrol searching for defectors from their unit, which given the situation in the North, seemed likely. Three carried standard-issue North Korean Type 88 rifles, while Master Sergeant Oh had a KS-23 combat shotgun. They all carried a North Korean Type 66 pistol, a copy of a Russian 9mm Makarov weapon. Rhee and Guk wore theirs openly, the others had them concealed but accessible. Ma carried a SATCOM radio, and at Rhee’s instruction, sent the signal reporting that they had arrived safely.
The team also carried an electronic listening station broken down into several subcomponents. After their mission was finished, they would assemble and leave the device behind. It could eavesdrop on short-range communications that usually could not be picked up by sensors in the South. Planners had selected several potential spots along their path where it could be placed. While it would almost certainly be found eventually, it would not be found quickly, and not until long after the team had left.
The beach, really a small cove, had a stream in the center leading inland. Hurrying the other three a little, Rhee led them along it. They’d landed right after evening twilight and had a lot of ground to cover during the short summer night. After making sure everyone’s night vision gear was functioning, the colonel checked his watch and started east with Lieutenant Guk leading the way. They were a few minutes behind schedule, and Rhee told him to set a fast pace.
Although Rhee was confident of his choices, the four had not had a chance to train together as a team. Normally they would have practiced the entire mission in the South, or at least the critical parts of it. Instead, Rhee had kept the plan simple, using the basic skills that anyone in the Ghost Brigade was expected to have mastered — like crossing an enemy landscape at night without being detected. As they walked, Rhee listened carefully, checking their noise discipline.
The land rose smoothly and quickly became rolling wooded farmland, dotted with orchards and clumps of pine forest. Given the perennial food shortage in North Korea, every hectare of arable land was tilled, but many of these fields were idle this season, either by design or circumstance. Rhee could see hills rising in front of them. That would slow them down, but the hills would also help screen their movements, and give them a good place to observe their target.
Their goal was Chongju, fifteen kilometers to the east, a relatively short distance, but of course, they would not be following a straight path. Chongju was headquarters for the 425th Mechanized Corps, roughly equivalent to a South Korean division. His orders were to observe the corps for any unusual activity. He was to be especially alert for any signs of general mobilization, and to get a definite count of the units present. The division had several cantonments scattered around the Chongju City proper. His team would have to check each one, then be back at the beach in slightly less than seventy-two hours.
They followed the stream inland for a few kilometers. Farmland lay on either side, although there were lighted houses to the south. The stream led toward the north side of a farming village, and after checking his bearings, Guk led the team east.
They quickly reached a two-lane road and followed it to the northwest, bypassing a larger town, Choyang-ni, to the south. There was absolutely no traffic on the road, and Rhee felt like he was back in the water, moving through empty darkness. The sound of the summer insects kept it from being completely silent, but Rhee had to work at remembering this wasn’t just a midnight stroll through a peaceful rural countryside.
They crossed a major highway, a two-lane paved road, and the land began to rise. Their goal for the night was a 230-meter high hill that lay to the east of Chongju and overlooked the first garrison they were supposed to observe. About nine kilometers from the beach, it was as far as they could get in the short night and still have time to set up a decent secure hiding place.
They were just over a kilometer from the shore, moving cross-country, when Guk, still in the front, suddenly gave the signal to stop and went to one knee. Rhee dropped as well, and froze in place until Guk whispered in the headset radio: “Movement. Four forward.”
Rhee was fourth in line, and he moved as quietly and quickly as he could until he was next to Guk. The lieutenant didn’t have to explain why he’d stopped. A group of people was crossing a field ahead of them, moving right to left. Rhee could see several adults and a gaggle of children. Based on their size, they ranged from their teens to toddlers. They were still some distance away, but they appeared to be carrying bundles and suitcases. He saw no weapons.
“Civilians going cross-country?” Guk asked.
“Heading west or northwest. They’ll reach the shore soon,” Rhee predicted. “I’ll wager one of them has a boat, or knows where one is.”
The commandos could hear the group now, speaking softly but still talking far too much if they were trying to avoid detection. They were about thirty meters away, and unless they changed their direction, would pass well ahead of Rhee’s team. What bits of conversation he heard confirmed his theory that they were heading for a boat, and the lament that one had to be alive to harvest any crops.
Rhee checked his watch. This was not helping their timetable. He patted Guk’s shoulder and whispered, “Good work. Keep up the pace, but there may be more.” The lieutenant started out again, and Rhee let the others pass before taking his place at the rear again.
There were more, enough so that Rhee wished they’d brought a small UAV to give them an aerial view. Not only would it have allowed them to go around the singles, pairs, and families moving through the darkness, but the colonel wanted to see just how many there were. Was there a pattern? Were there so many because they were close to the coast? If the civilians were all moving away from a central point, that would be a place he wanted to investigate.
As it was, when Guk spotted someone, all they could do was stop, make sure the civilians were not heading straight for the team, and then wait for them to pass. While Rhee and the others saw signs that the civilians — now refugees, Rhee corrected himself — were being watchful, none showed any sign of detecting their presence.
Guk was steering them past one group by leaving the road and paralleling the tree line, when he stopped and called for the colonel again. It was the same words, “Four forward,” but Rhee could tell something was wrong.
They hadn’t shown up on Ma’s night vision goggles because the bodies were cold, but Guk had spotted them by their shapes against the smooth ground. Rhee saw a jumble of bodies, large and small, and ordered “Ma, on lookout” on the headset radio.
While Corporal Ma kept watch, the other three first checked the bodies for any sign of booby traps, then gently untangled them.
It looked like a family group, two older adults, three more in their twenties, and a teen boy. All were civilians, and had been shot. Two piles of clothes and small belongings lay on the cloths that had bundled them together.
“No valuables,” Oh reported.
“This was done by soldiers,” Guk concluded.