Hamilton joined them and grabbed their rebreathers from the cache and a minute later Grogan returned. “They’ve got a helicopter up,” Hamilton offered calmly as he divided up their dive gear while Grogan grabbed a second claymore mine.
Kristen was still helping with Choi’s gear but looked up and saw a helicopter moving over the tree tops several miles away, heading right toward them.
Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!
The feeling that they’d run out of time caused the urge to panic rise up in her. Clearly the SEALs realized they were in trouble. Alvarez joined them in the horseshoe and began pulling on his gear. Grogan had run off to set up the second claymore mine. On the road, illuminated by yet another flare, Kristen saw what had to be at least one hundred soldiers, moving on line, sweeping through the rocks right toward them.
“They’re coming,” she said anxiously.
“Just work,” Hoover advised her with tension in his own voice. He then spoke to Alvarez, “Al, you need to warm up the sub.”
“I’m on it, bro,” the Latino responded as he pulled on his rebreather.
For some vain reason she felt a little better when she heard the stress in their voices. She’d heard the same in Grogan’s tone as well, and realizing they were as scared as she was somehow made what was happening not quite as bad. The only one who seemed unaffected by the growing menace approaching them was Hamilton. She saw him working with annoying calm as if this were all some harmless training exercise.
As soon as they had most of the suit on Choi, Hoover sat him up so Kristen could finish dressing the Korean, and then he turned to Hamilton’s neck and applied a battle dressing to the wound. Hamilton had already donned his LAR-7.
Grogan returned and began handing her Choi’s dive gear. “Get him geared up and then yourself,” Grogan ordered as he shoved a fresh magazine in his rifle. “We’ve got maybe two minutes before we’d better be gone or we’re going to be in deep shit.”
“I thought we already were in deep shit,” she told him as she started putting the dive gear on Choi who appeared quite undisturbed by the situation. Off to their left, a light flashed. She turned and saw a patrol boat approaching with a searchlight reaching out into the darkness looking for them.
“Chief!” she said to him, suddenly feeling like the two minutes he’d promised had just dwindled to a few seconds.
“Trip!” Grogan snapped and nodded toward the patrol boat. “He’s yours!”
Hamilton responded without any visible sign he’d even heard Grogan. He finished putting on his dive gear and then calmly grabbed his machine gun and moved off into deep water. He reminded Kristen of some amphibious predator that had been waiting on the rocks for its next meal.
Grogan set his rifle down and helped Kristen get Choi into the gear. At the same time, Kristen explained to the doctor how to use the rebreather and that all he needed to do was remember to relax and just breathe normally.
Great advice!
The helicopter’s searchlight was illuminated, and the unwanted light seemed to be reaching out for them as the helicopter approached rapidly. Kristen did her best to ignore her own growing fear. She knew she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of panicking. Choi was looking at her and talking to her in the same sing-song tone he’d used earlier. But, she knew that if she panicked, so would he. So, despite the deteriorating situation, she swallowed her growing fear. “Just stay calm and breathe, we’ll do the rest,” she assured Choi. “What about the helicopter?” Kristen asked Grogan as the low flying helicopter swooped in toward them.
“Just get him geared up, then yourself,” Grogan responded and glanced at the steadily approaching North Korean patrol boat, grabbed his rifle, and turned toward the helicopter.
They got Choi dressed then Alvarez and Hoover took charge of the Korean, dragging the man into waist deep water. Kristen then started donning her dive gear as instructed, fumbling with buckles and snaps as she pulled on her LAR-7 and the rest of her equipment. At the same time, she did her best to ignore the helicopter and the patrol boat — not to mention the one hundred troops — all converging on the six of them.
“COVER!” Hoover shouted from a few feet behind her.
But her training hadn’t prepared her for such a command. Instead of diving down, she looked up as Grogan opened fire on the helicopter she now recognized as a Russian built Mi-8 Hip.
The helicopter was about forty feet above the rocks and moving parallel to the coastline coming at them from the east. Grogan was standing next to her, and the hot brass ejected from his weapon showered down upon her. Unlike the movies, she saw no sparks fly off the helicopter as his rounds impacted it. Instead, after several short bursts, the searchlight went out and the helicopter turned abruptly. Grogan ejected the empty magazine and then forced her head down.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he demanded.
His quick motion probably saved her life as the troops approaching them, upon seeing Grogan’s muzzle flashes, opened fire all at once. The result was a barrage of bullets flying in their general direction. Kristen heard what sounded like firecrackers going off all around her as what had to be thousands of bullets streaked over her head. Dozens of green tracer rounds raced by and into the night. She then felt the sting of rock fragments strike her face and exposed skin as near misses shattered the rocks around her.
Grogan was beside her and fed a second magazine into his weapon. He then stepped into the water, staying low, and again opened fire on the helicopter. Kristen, now hiding in the small horseshoe rock formation, saw Hoover, in waist-deep water, firing at the helicopter. Choi was there as well, his head barely above the waves. Alvarez was on the other side of the doctor and firing like mad.
Grogan jerked back slightly and Kristen saw his face grimace, but he kept firing. Then she realized she was just lying there, doing nothing but watching while the SEALs tried to hold off the small army descending upon them. Cursing herself, she resumed fumbling with the remainder of her gear as a wall of lead smacked into the rocks just inches above her head. Grogan ducked down next to her, and she saw blood on his face from a gash under his left eye, and more blood on his arm.
“You’re hit!” she shouted at him.
In response he rammed another magazine home.
She looked up and saw the helicopter, apparently having been hit, withdrawing. But the damage had been done. The company of soldiers approaching them now had a fairly accurate picture of exactly where Kristen and the SEALs were. As if to accent this point, they were bathed in a brilliant, blindingly bright light as the patrol boat illuminated her and Grogan with a searchlight.
Grogan shoved her down hard once more, and she was slammed into the rocks as he turned and brought his weapon up. Machine gun bullets reached out for the two of them from the direction of the boat, and Kristen heard the rocks around her being torn to shrapnel by the impact of bullets. Grogan emptied another magazine at the patrol boat.
“Eagle down!” Kristen heard through her bone phones at the same time she heard Hoover shout it. She didn’t know what this meant, but she looked into the surf and saw Alvarez was no longer firing and had gone limp in the water. Her initial thought was to go out to help the injured man, but Grogan kept her pinned beneath his bulk. Chunks of shrapnel from the rocks peppered her as bullets ripped into their position.
But just as it seemed she and Grogan could not possibly last another second, Hamilton rose up out of the water just twenty yards away. His machine gun was up in his shoulder, like a big rifle, and he was firing at the patrol boat as he appeared. The searchlight on the boat was instantly shot out. But a pair of flares continued to illuminate the macabre scene as Hamilton’s lengthy burst of well-aimed machine gun fire raked the patrol boat. Kristen saw a pair of Koreans go down and a third struck by a barrage of 7.62mm bullets. He was hit in such quick succession that his body was literally held up for several seconds as more bullets slammed into him.