I had to keep the call to my psychiatrist a little shorter than usual because we were heading north again and I wanted to black out communications as soon as possible. I gave her a rundown on our activities so far.
“War can be a very stressful thing,” said Dr. Games. I could picture her, an elderly unicorn mare with a brain for a cutie mark, sitting in her office and primly talking to me. “Are you thinking about people who may have died as a result of you actions?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.” After a moment, I said, “Thanks, now I’m thinking about it.”
We talked about something else for a while. While I didn’t really think I had that many mental hang-ups, it was nice to talk on occasion. I had been seeing and talking to Dr. Games for a few years.
I promised to call again when it was time for another appointment. Hopefully we wouldn’t be in the heat of battle. After I ended the call, I went to bed. I had been on duty for almost four shifts in a row, all of it action packed.
I was just about to fall asleep when I thought again about the people who had probably been killed by things I’d done. Screw you, Dr. Games.
The message about the airplane we shot down had been processed by the CIA, and they ordered us to shift our operations back to that area. I was not very pleased by this, but money was money.
Oklahoma City met up with us and was able to hang around for a while. Unfortunately, they had a specific combat area to stay within, but they escorted us as far as they could. The Navy did give us further help, though. An old P-3 Orion patrol airplane showed up and flew a lazy pattern around us.
There was nothing particularly wrong with the large propeller plane. It carried weapons, could transmit communications for us, and remain on station for quite a while. It was just that, well, fighter jets would have been nicer.
On our way, we tuned in to the news radio. The ground campaign seemed to be going well for us. There was fierce resistance around Pyongyang, but South Korean and US troops had pushed across the Demilitarized Zone and were making headway.
North Korea had quite a bit of air defense equipment, but bombing runs were still going through most of the time. Their air force had been mostly unseen. North Korea had only a few dozen fighters that were worth anything, and they were keeping them away from the front lines where they were more likely to be destroyed.
The Japanese navy had been active on the east coast. After that bomb went off in one of their harbors, they had reason to be in the fight. Other NATO forces were beginning to show up. An Australian ship or two was already in the area. In a few days, US forces from the mainland would arrive, and it would be the beginning of the end for North Korea. Everyone was still worried about another nuclear explosion, but there was nothing to do but be vigilant and push hard.
Jones and the CIA worked with Andy to schedule a satellite during a good time to check out some suspicious activity in China. Somehow, it was tied up in all this. Being able to plan our operations thoroughly for a change was nice. There was some kind of concrete structure built in our interest area of China, and some kind of work going on underground. Trucks would occasionally come and go. It was hard to tell from the overhead satellite shots, but someone at the CIA was convinced that a few people in North Korean military uniforms had visited the place, and that was enough to warrant a closer look.
“A closer look” meant that we needed to get boots on the ground. Or rather, hooves. In my short time in the special operations field, I had learned that amphibious operations were always a pain in the ass. Still, landing in China was probably safer than North Korea. The CIA might or might not deny my existence if I was caught, but if it came to that I’d rather be in a country we weren’t at war with.
Before it had to return to base, our escort P-3 Orion went up north to check for submarines. It was a lot of area to try to check thoroughly, but I appreciated the effort. After that, we were on our own again.
I held the ship further from the North Korean coast than I had been. We were going on what should be a simple recon mission, and I didn’t want to make it more difficult than it had to be.
There weren’t any signals coming from that patch of coastline. We held far enough out that we couldn’t be seen, but not so far as to stray into shipping lanes.
We’d timed it just right to get there at dusk. The satellite was up and operating, showing us great details about the area.
One problem arose immediately. The beach was flat and exposed. There wasn’t a lot of traffic there, but we couldn’t pull up a boat and hide it. It seemed that the only option was to swim or fly in. That created another problem, though, because we couldn’t bring the ship in close enough to make it an easy trip.
“Well, we have two lifeboats,” suggested Shep.
I saw what he meant. “Right, but you’ll have to come in to fly us back.”
With no better options, we agreed to take one of the boats on a one-way trip. The CIA had smuggled us some waterproof plastic explosive that would work well to sink it.
The CIA wanted Jones to go. I could understand that, since she worked directly for them. It was a little outside her expertise, though.
Talking with everyone else, I realized that I had the most experience with infiltrating unfriendly beaches. Which is to say, not much for a Marine but still quite a lot for a civilian.
We decided to pack light. There was no way we could fight with how we would be outnumbered. Communications might be monitored, so we would have to be careful and radio silent. We had no idea how long we’d have to stay there.
We divided gear into two waterproof bags. Into them, we put a satellite radio, two pairs of binoculars, a spare AK-47 we had aboard, and food for three days.
Hopefully, we could use the radio freely, but it would be treated as a last resort just in case. The rifle was another just in case, because there was no way we would be able to fight any significant force even if the two of us had the latest hardware. All the food was prepackaged and required no heat.
It was dark by the time Jones and I climbed into the boat. There was cheap scuba diving equipment with us, since we were planning to get rid of that, too. Before the winches lowered the boat into the water, Nika gave me a kiss.
I was in my human disguise. Not only would it be easier to hide myself, but my pony face was too well known. We’d done operations close to China before.
Jones and I motored towards shore, neither of us saying much. We’d agreed to scuttle the boat a half mile offshore and swim the rest of the way. At the beach, we would ditch the scuba gear. Hopefully it would be weighted enough so it wouldn’t wash up and be found.
The small lump of explosive was something special that the spooks had cooked up. It had a small electronic timer, and it would stick to things when a special glue that had been included was used. It was all very James Bond.
We got our gear on and tied the waterproof bags to us. I squirted the glue on the explosives and rolled into the water to stick it to the bottom of the boat. The timer was set for a minute once activated. I pressed the button and we swam away.
The explosion was loud to us, but it was underwater and probably wouldn’t have been very audible from the beach. I eased my head above water for a moment to make sure the boat was sinking.
Upon reaching the shore, we did a careful survey to make sure that it was as deserted as we expected. After sinking our scuba and diving equipment, we came ashore and headed for the target.
The beach dissolved into low grassy hills. They didn’t look heavily traveled, although there were roads in the area.
We set up on the rim of a hill was probably half a mile from the site. We each had a pair of twenty-power binoculars mounted on a small tripod. When dealing with optics that large, it’s best to have somewhere to mount them or the minor tremors from your hands will completely throw the view off.
We also had a radio scanner, although neither of us spoke Chinese. It was on, tuned to low volume. The rest of the gear was placed behind the crest of the hill to keep it out of sight. The binoculars were the most visible of our equipment. To make them stick out less we wrapped them in a few pieces of camouflage ghillie cloth. We’d talked about cammo face paint, but decided against it. We weren’t close enough to be in danger of being spotted, and it would be uncomfortable to wear for several days in a row.
After that, we began waiting and watching. At night, lying in the damp grass, it was a little chilly. When the sun came up, it would probably be hot. The job had barely started and I could already tell that it was going to suck.
During the afternoon, Jones woke me up. We were taking turns. I edged up a little to put my eyes to the binoculars. She scooted backwards off the crest of the hill and dug into the gear for something to eat. She pulled out an MRE of maple sausage, made a face, but decided to eat it anyway.
There was nothing much interesting going on at the complex. There was a large low concrete building that looked like a bunker. There were a few guards outside, but nothing particularly interesting. A few vehicles had driven through the area, but no one had come close to our position.
Despite the mind numbing task of watching nothing, I decided that it wasn’t too bad. We could actually see anyone else in the area, and they weren’t actively looking for us. In a way, it was almost better than being on the ship. Then Jones bumped my shoulder and offered me an MRE to eat, reminding me that we had no hot water or other facilities.
Pony digestion really didn’t agree with MRE’s even if they were vegetarian. When posing as human, I liked to try a variety of different foods. MRE’s still sucked.
By that night, we’d seen only a little movement at the site. The highlight of the day had been when a large steel door on the side of the bunker had opened once to let a truck in, and then opened again a few minutes later to let it out.
Seeing the doorway gave me a rough approximation of the construction of the place. The walls might be up to two feet thick. It didn’t look very big, either, so I figured it must be mostly underground.
We didn’t need any night vision equipment, luckily. A half moon was out and there were no clouds. Adding to that, there were a few security lights at the bunker that lit it up.
We’d now been off the boat for close to twenty four hours. We’d gotten no indications that they had run into trouble, and that was good. I thought about Nika for a while. The four hour watches had disrupted our time together, but that was still more time than I was getting now.
I took over from Jones in the early morning and she fell asleep. Shortly after the sun came up, a truck different from the ones we’d seen before rolled up. A man departed from the passenger seat. He wore a North Korean army uniform.
“Jones,” I said. She was awake instantly. I gestured towards the bunker and she peered into her binoculars.
“That’s interesting,” she commented after a moment. We watched the man go inside the bunker. A few minutes later, the large door opened and he came out, accompanied by a forklift that was carrying a large wooden crate. A few Chinese military personnel gathered around. The North Korean got a box from the truck and went back to the crate. There appeared be a wire connected to the box, with something on the end of it.
“Is that a Geiger counter?” I asked, praying that it wasn’t. The man swept the sensor over the crate, checking it from a couple of angles. Satisfied, he ordered the crate loaded into the truck.
Jones had the radio out, training the directional antenna skyward. Hopefully it would prevent anyone from intercepting our signal. She got through to a CIA field communications center and spent a minute connecting from there to someone more important in Washington. “We have observed a North Korean military officer in China. He appears to be taking delivery of nuclear material from the Chinese.”
Whoever was on the other end of the radio was surprised and displeased, to put it mildly. We were ordered to find out more.
After she ended the conference, I said, “How are we supposed to learn more? We probably got lucky seeing this truck here now. It’s about to leave, and there’s no way we can get close.”
She said nothing. I went on. “Give me the radio. I’m going to call in a missile strike.”
“You can’t do that to a neutral country.”
“We’ve just seen with our own eyes that the Chinese are in on this. They might be declared neutral, but supplying the North Koreans throws that out the window. Besides, they gave us those Tomahawks for a reason.” She looked like she didn’t agree, but didn’t try to stop me from picking up the radio.
I selected the right frequency and said the code word. A moment later, Andy answered the radio.
“I don’t have time to explain,” I said. “We need three Tomahawks on that bunker as soon as possible.” We didn’t have satellite help any more, but I knew that Andy had copies of the pictures that had been taken and could easily match them to GPS coordinates.
“Wha…three?” said Andy.
“Right. We need to make sure it’s destroyed. Then, send the helicopter in to pick us up. Try to time it so it gets here at the same time the missiles do to maximize the distraction.”
“I’ll get it done,” he said. Jones and I began stuffing our gear in the bags we’d brought it in. It wasn’t very valuable, but if it was left behind it might tell the Chinese a little about who had been there.
I calculated how long it might take the helicopter to get there. If the ship was ten miles away, it would probably be at least five minutes or so between liftoff from the ship and touchdown on the hill. Not to mention the time it would take to find Shep and get the helicopter started. Even rushing safety procedures, I doubted that Jones and I would be picked up in less than fifteen minutes. By then, the North Korean truck would be long gone with its radioactive cargo.
The Huey soon appeared in the distance. Shep stayed low, keeping the hills between himself and the bunker. The truck had left, and all the Chinese seemed to have gotten back to whatever they were doing before.
East of us, three low flying missiles appeared and skimmed over the hills. They slammed one after another into the bunker. Once again, it had been a short range shot, and the unburned fuel exploded upward in a massive fireball. Three thousand pounds of explosive with extra jet fuel created quite a spectacular show.
Shep topped the hill and we climbed in with our gear. Nika was aboard, manning one of the machine guns that had been mounted for the occasion. I checked my watch and was surprised to see that only thirteen minutes had elapsed. I would have to give everyone a bonus.
I put a flight helmet on and plugged the internal microphone into the intercom. “We’ve got a problem. The North Korean truck escaped. There’s no way to tell what it was carrying, but we can’t let it get away.” I may have spoken a little more loudly than necessary, as the explosions had muffled my own hearing a little.
“Tell me where to go,” said Shep, lifting off from the hill. I guided him using what I could remember from the map. I clipped into the safety harness and grabbed the mounted gun on the other side of the helicopter, standing back to back with Nika. Jones strapped herself to a seat and worked on getting the gear secured.
In the confusion of the explosions, I knew that we were less likely to be noticed and attacked, but we had to hurry. Shortly, the truck came into view. The driver had the pedal to the metal, as expected from someone who had just missed being blown up by minutes.
Shep brought the helo around and I lined up the machine gun on the front of the truck. The 7.62 rounds ripped up the engine compartment and cab, and the truck swerved sideways and came to rest stuck in a shallow ditch.
“Put us down!” I said. When the helicopter got close to the ground, I went to jump out but slipped on the spent casings on the floor and fell. I hit the ground, but jumped straight back up, the adrenalin keeping me from feeling pain.
I ran over to the truck. The driver and the man I’d seen inspect the crate were dead. The bloodshed didn’t look pleasant. I went around to the back of the truck, which was covered by metal poles that supported a canvas tarp. The crate didn’t look like it had suffered any when the truck stopped suddenly.
I ran back to the helicopter and grabbed the load sling. What I had in mind was crazy, and maybe even stupid, but I wanted to take the crate with us. Somebody would probably be interested to see what was inside.
Shep carefully hovered the helicopter over the truck while I pulled the tarp back. The scraps of canvas ripped and blew away in the downdraft from the rotor. Above me, I heard one of the guns begin to fire.
I got the straps wrapped through the pallet the crate rested on and gave the signal to take the helicopter up. Nika was firing at something that I didn’t have time to look at.
Shep eased the helicopter up until the load straps went tight. I wished he’d hurry, but I knew this was something that couldn’t be rushed. There was no way for me to climb into the helicopter, nor any way to shorten the straps so I could reach. I was going to have to hang onto the crate.
As we lifted off, I took a look around. A couple of brass casings fell on me from Nika’s gun. I saw a few soldiers moving far away, but the gunfire kept their heads down. As far as I could see, there was no return fire.
As the helicopter swung out over the sea, I discovered that my wrist was sprained, probably from when I’d fallen out of the helicopter. Having only one good hand to grip the straps was difficult, but I managed not to fall off, even with the wind from the helo’s speed.
As we reached the ship, Shep set the crate gently down on the aft deck. Jeff was waiting and helped me take the straps off. Shep went to land the helicopter in its hangar.
Jeff had a crowbar, and set to work opening the crate. By the time the helicopter’s engines had spooled down and the hangar cover was closing, he’d gotten the lid off. In a few minutes, everyone who wasn’t driving the ship came to see what was inside the crate.
It was a bomb.
Nuclear tipped Tomahawks were one thing. A clandestine third-world weapon was another. I wanted it off my ship. It may have been valuable military intelligence down the drain, but as soon as some pictures were taken of the exterior, we picked up the crate with the aft crane and scuttled it.
I changed back to pony form. A sprained fetlock was a little easier to deal with than a wrist.
Our after action report and the photographs were sent promptly to the CIA. I wondered whether they would try and keep things a secret from the public and to patch things up with China, or if it was going public. Both plans had their advantages and disadvantages.
In the meantime, we headed south. We were by no means running short on supplies, but it would be nice to refill our stocks of food and fuel.
A few hours later, I was back on station. I had just spent a day and a half in the bush, but watch standing waited on no one. I adjusted the radar a little and looked for irregularities. It took me a while to notice a faint surface contact off to the west. We had seen such things before, and if I was a betting stallion, I would put money on it being a stealthy Chinese ship coming after us.