Coyote gave a mental shrug and went back to studying the landscape below. The SEALs were awfully particular when it came to security discipline, and Coyote was not going to be allowed to settle any of his inward doubts through conversation.
Another flash lit up the northern sky. Coyote could make out the flicker of antiaircraft tracers now, could faintly hear the thunder of jets, the sharper, harsher cracks of bombs. Someone was getting an earful up there tonight.
Coyote moved, wincing with the flash of pain in his leg as he reached for a pair of binoculars lying nearby. He could see little more through the binoculars than he could with his own eyes. The camp was still brilliantly lit, and he could plainly see soldiers moving around inside in small groups.
There was no sign of the other SEALs who had vanished into the darkness with their weapons and packs hours before. The excitement in the camp had died down somewhat, though ten men remained on guard in front of the POW compound, and the roving perimeter patrols had been beefed up.
How could the SEALs hope to infiltrate the place with the base on alert?
He was also worried about Chimera's crew. Would their captors punish them for his escape? Would the general who'd arrived last evening order them all to be moved at once? He shifted his attention to the Hip helicopter, still resting on the small airstrip on the west side of the camp. Those big transports couldn't carry more than twenty-five or thirty people at a time, but suppose the Koreans decided to herd just Chimera's officers aboard and fly them off? That could happen at any time, and until the SEALs got into position, there was nothing to stop the gomers from doing whatever they wanted.
Sikes had not seemed worried at all. The enemy, he believed, was unlikely to do anything so long as they were kept confused and off-balance. Coyote's first assessment of these men came back to him. Dangerous. All he could do was try to stay out of their way.
The sounds of explosions in the north seemed to be stirring the enemy camp once again. Lines of men trotted out of the three-story barracks at the north end of the camp. The men standing guard outside the Wonsan Waldorf stood and shuffled about uncertainly, their eyes on the sky.
To the north, the thunder continued, increasing in intensity. Searchlights probed the clouds as tracer rounds floated through the darkness.
"They're going to think this is Libya '86," Sikes had said during the planning earlier. "That'll be our edge. They don't know they've got an invasion on their hands."
That made sense. The crash and thunder of the attack would alert North Korean troops on the ground, of course ― there was no way to avoid that ― but they would assume that it was only an air raid, and that would give the SEALs the surprise they needed.
With the suddenness of a thrown switch, the Nyongch'on camp was plunged into darkness. Someone down there had decided to black out the base to avoid becoming a target for the American planes.
Coyote smiled. Maybe the SEALs knew what they were doing after all.
Lieutenant Sikes held his breath, wondering for at least the hundredth time this night if the SEALs hadn't finally bitten off more than they could chew. They'd been in position for over thirty minutes, sheltered in a defile below the outside perimeter fence. Huerta had led them to the spot where he'd let himself in earlier that evening.
But it appeared that Huerta's handiwork had been discovered.
There were six of them, North Korean special-purpose troops who had come along the outside of the fence out of nowhere, apparently inspecting it carefully for signs that someone had broken out… or in.
Sikes had hoped the enemy would assume that the American pilot had escaped on his own by wiggling under the fence a hundred yards down the line, but it appeared that this time they were taking nothing for granted. The soldiers, carrying large flashlights, had spotted the place where the chain links had been clipped away from a fence pole, then hastily wired back into place. Now the men seemed to be talking it over in harsh, animated whispers.
Gently, Sikes reached up and pulled his M927 night-sight goggles down and in place. Wearing the things for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time caused a temporary eye strain called "scope burn." He looked left and right, meeting the otherworldly, twin-tubed stares of the other men in the team. The lieutenant raised one hand, silently flicking his fingers: You and you, circle around.
On the slope above them, two of the KorCom soldiers turned their flashlights on the defile, probing its recesses with the beams. Sikes looked away. Unlike early-generation starlight goggles, his M927s didn't shut down when exposed to bright light, but he could still wreck his night vision by looking into the glare.
The fact that those soldiers had already dazzled themselves with their own lights was a factor in the SEAL team's favor. Perhaps for that reason, the beams did not linger on any of the men hiding in the defile, but passed on, sweeping uselessly across the rugged slope behind them. The SEALs lay still, waiting. The Koreans were moving now. One ― possibly the leader ― pointed down the defile, almost directly in Sikes's direction. "Aphuro t'tok paro kase yo!"
Sikes did not understand Korean, but the man's gesture and tone were unmistakable. He was sending men down to search for anything out of the ordinary. Four soldiers started forward cautiously, testing the footing with each step.
The lieutenant moved his hand again. Get ready. With no waste motion at all, he lowered his M-760 and quietly slipped his Mark 22 pistol from its holster. The other SEALs did the same. From this angle, the missed rounds from a submachine gun burst might strike the fence or one of the compound buildings and raise the alarm.
Even with suppressors, it was too great a risk. His grip tightened on the pistol as he snicked off the safety. They were about to be discovered and they weren't even inside the damned perimeter yet.
Silently, the SEALs waited as the Koreans drew closer.
CHAPTER 23
Huerta watched the approach of the North Koreans. They were less than twenty feet away now. One stumbled as loose stones gave way beneath his boots.
Any time now…
Even through the M927 goggles, the attackers rising out of the shadows near the fence were nearly invisible. The two Koreans still examining the fence never knew what hit them. Black arms encircled from behind, black hands clamped down on mouths just opening to yell, black knives sliced through skin, muscle, and vein in simultaneous thrusts as the soldiers were dragged back and down.
A slight noise ― the scrape of boot heel on rock, perhaps ― alerted one of the Koreans halfway down the defile. "Muos imnikka?"
Three feet to his left, Lieutenant Sikes raised his Mark 22 hush puppy to eye level and fired, the heavy suppressor cutting the sound to a sharp clack.
Huerta fired in almost the same instant… and again, and again. The other SEALs were shooting as well, the sound a chorus of hard, muffled slaps. Bullet holes appeared as if by magic in each of the KorCom soldiers, marring faces, bloodying jackets, tearing throats. One man pitched forward and rolled down the defile, his AK-47 scraping rock with a metallic rasp louder than the volley of suppressed shots. Then the night was silent once more.
The SEALs waited, listening to the stillness. If anyone had heard…
One of the SEALs by the fence raised his hand in a cautious all-clear. Swiftly the other black-suited commandos hurried up the defile to the fence. Then, one by one, they lay on their backs and slid under the gap in the fence and into the compound.
The lieutenant signaled again, not risking words. Each man knew his assigned target in any case, and speech was unnecessary. The raiders divided into two-man teams: Copley and Krueger for the communications shed and microwave tower, Bonner and Smith to the airstrip where a pair of sentries were guarding the grounded Mi-8 helicopter, Halliday and Austin to the headquarters building, Robbins and Pasaretti to the motor pool, and Sikes and Gordon to the barracks and the nearby trenches which served as bomb shelters. The last three men, Vespasio, Han, and Huerta, would head for the POW compound.