"What is it?" Wilkinson's whisper was harsh in the near-darkness. The room's interior was dimly illuminated by the indirect light from the compound's streetlights spilling through the narrow windows high along the two long walls.
"Something on the roof," Coyote replied. His heart pounded in his chest. The night's quiet had seemed as much a torture as the beatings he'd endured earlier. Their captors had taken many of the men out in small groups, beaten them, threatened them with torture or death, demanded their signed confessions, then returned them to the Wonsan Waldorf. The sudden end to the routine was ominous. The uncertainty was as much an instrument of torture as North Korean boots and rifle butts.
Coyote heard a faint, scuffling sound. Something heavy was sliding down the roof now, making its way from the peak of the roof toward the south wall. He followed the movement in the near darkness, then rose, tiptoeing past sleeping or unconscious men toward the wall and its line of windows. Several other men, aware now that something was going on, rose and followed him.
The faint light from the sky was suddenly blotted out. Straining against the darkness outside, Coyote realized he was looking at the silhouette of a man's head, lowered over the edge of the roof and peering into the window upside down. A sudden, unreasonable hope flared in Coyote's chest. "Who's there?"
"What was the monster killed by Bellerophon?" a muffled voice replied.
Wilkinson, standing on top of an overturned bucket at Coyote's shoulder, stiffened. "Chimera," he said, leaning against the open window.
"Well, either you people are round-eyed North Koreans with a classical education, or you're just the guys I'm looking for," the upside-down shape whispered. "Chief Huerta, USN SEALS."
Coyote sensed the excitement spreading through the room, heard the hasty, whispered words as more and more of the men of Chimera's crew awoke.
"Is it a rescue?" Coleridge asked.
"Not yet," the SEAL replied. "We've got a team in place outside the camp. I'm just here to make sure you're you. How many guys are in there?"
In quick, terse exchanges, Wilkinson answered the SEAL's rapid-fire questions, giving him the numbers he needed: 170 prisoners, including 18 badly wounded men who would need stretchers and special care if they were to be moved.
"You mean all of you are being held in one place?" the SEAL asked.
"Yeah," Wilkinson replied. "I think they're still trying to decide what to do with us… and it's easier to guard all of us together."
"Well, that's good, anyway," Huerta said. "Makes it easier to get you all out."
"When?" Wilkinson asked. "When's the rescue?"
"Can't say yet, sir," the SEAL replied. Evidently, there was light enough at his back for him to recognize Wilkinson's uniform and rank bars. "First thing is to let people know you're okay." There was a pause. "You got a place in there to hide some weapons?"
Coyote thought about a corner tucked away among the rafters he'd noticed earlier, a spot someone could reach by getting on someone's shoulders. "Yeah!" he said. "There's a place!"
Huerta hesitated, as though thinking it over. "Okay. Somebody reach through the window."
The windows were too narrow for a man to squeeze through ― the reason, perhaps, why they weren't barred or screened over ― but Chief Bronkowicz helped Coyote up so he could stretch his arm over the sill. It was a long reach. The eaves of the roof extended well beyond the wall, but Coyote felt something cold and heavy placed in his open palm. He pulled it back inside. Light gleamed from the parkerized finish of a.22-caliber pistol, the barrel swallowed by the heavy cylinder of a long suppressor.
Two times more, Coyote reached into the night, retrieving a Marine Kabar combat knife and two fully loaded magazines for the pistol.
"Listen up now," the voice at the window said. "It's vital that those weapons not be seen by the gooks, get me? They see those, they'll know we're in the area."
"You can count on us, Chief," Wilkinson said.
"I'll try to slip back in here tomorrow night, same time, and let you know what the word is. No promises. If I don't show, just hunker down and sit it out. Those weapons are in case things get too tight and I can't make it."
"Wait a minute," Coyote said. "Won't you need these?"
"Not to worry, pal. I won't have time to stop and play with our NK friends, and those things'd just slow me up anyway. I don't care what the bastards do to you, you keep them hidden until you hear a rescue op going down, get me?"
"Right, Chief."
"When you hear the fun and games begin ― explosions, helicopters, American voices, anything like that ― that'll be the time. Use them to protect yourselves until the cavalry arrives." Huerta paused. When he spoke again, his voice carried the whip crack of command, even at a whisper. "Until then, keep 'em out of sight. You guys start playing cowboy and you'll get all of us killed, get me? Don't even load the damned thing until it's time to use it! I don't want an accidental shot giving the whole damn thing away!"
"Count on it, Chief," Wilkinson said.
Coyote felt the heavy authority of the pistol in his hand. The SEAL was taking a terrible chance by leaving the gun and knife with the prisoners, but it might be their one chance of survival if their captors started slaughtering them during a rescue attempt.
"Okay," Huerta said. "I trust you. Don't do nothing crazy. I'll try to make contact again tomorrow night, let you know what's happening."
Abruptly, the head pulled away. There was a whisper of noise from the ceiling as the SEAL climbed back toward the roof ridge, then silence.
For the first time since his capture, Coyote allowed himself the luxury of hope.
"Those poor bastards don't have a chance," Huerta said. "Not unless we go in fast and pull them out. I mean like tonight!"
It was two hours since he'd made contact with the prisoners inside the compound. Unwilling to approach the building's wall on the ground and in the open, he'd used his line and grapnel to get up on the roof, then secured himself by the waist so he wouldn't fall and crept spiderwise to the overhang so he could reach the window.
The prisoners' description of the North Korean questioning had convinced him that they were in serious danger. Their captors might be expecting an American attack, and it was unlikely that they would keep the prisoners together or in one place for very long. The likeliest move would be to transport them to P'yongyang. When that happened, rescue would be out of the question.
Sikes looked at the map Huerta had drawn, then compared it with the actual camp, spread out below them in the golden light of the dawn. The SEAL team had created a hide for itself, an OP sheltered behind a blind of brush and loose rock overlooking the base and well away from the nearest roads. The lieutenant pointed to something that looked like apartment buildings beyond a motor pool garage and a cluster of supply sheds. "Barracks?"
"Yes, sir. Two sentries there." Huerta pointed out notations on his map. On his way out, he'd scouted the compound. "Also here, and here. Roving patrols here…"
"Too big a job for fourteen men," Sikes said. His mouth quirked in a passable imitation of a smile. "Too big even for fourteen SEALS."
"No such thing, Lieutenant," Larry Gordon said, crouched behind the OP's blind nearby. He patted his M-60 machine gun affectionately. "We can take 'em!"
"What do you think?" Sikes asked. "A battalion inside the compound?"
"About that." Huerta thought about what he'd seen. Security inside the camp was not all that good. "Securing the prisoners won't be the problem," he said. "We can handle the bad guys inside the camp. But we're going to have to bring in helos to get us out, and holding out against NK reinforcements from outside is gonna be a bitch."