But that was not the way John Caruso managed things. An old-school Marine, a mustang who had come up through the ranks against all expectations or reason, Caruso held an almost fanatical devotion to the idea that a Marine officer led best by being visible… and accessible.
And that also made his men accessible to him.
"You! Sergeant!" His D.I.'s bellow carried across the tarmac despite the roar of helicopter rotors close by. "What's your name?"
"Peters, sir!" the Marine snapped back.
"Who's your platoon leader?"
"Lieutenant Rolland, sir."
"Cut the 'sir' crap, Sarge. How'd you and your squad like to go on a little trip?"
The sergeant had a guarded expression as though he didn't quite know what to make of this apparition with its black colonel's eagle pinned to its camo fatigues. "Where does the Colonel want-"
Caruso pointed across Wonsan Harbor, toward the buildings gleaming in the morning sun. "Sarge, ten minutes ago one of my helos went down on the beach. One of two very important helos, with a special tactical team. I need your squad to fill in and Charlie Mike."
Charlie Mike. Continue Mission. It was as much a part of the Marine Corps' creed as Semper fidelis. "Aye aye, Colonel."
"Get your people, then find Lieutenant Adams and report to him, over by those Hueys. I'll let your lieutenant know where you're going."
He returned the sergeant's salute, then strode across the tarmac, looking for Rolland.
Sergeant Peters was stunned when he learned what the special tactical team's mission was, but that didn't slow him as he hustled his squad up through the side door of a UH-1 Huey. Another Slick was grounded nearby, its rotors turning.
The fourteen men counted off as they strapped in, and he signaled the pilot when they were ready. With a roar, the Slick lifted from the Kolmo airfield in a whirlwind of noise and dust.
The Huey's side doors were open, and Peters could look across Wonsan Harbor as they dipped to almost wave-top height. There was plenty of shipping, merchant ships, fishing boats, sampans, even oil tankers crowding the water close to shore. North Korea had become increasingly isolated in the world community during the past few years, but Peters could see the flags of numerous countries who still did business with the Stalinist state: Cuba, China, Japan, and a vertically striped red and white ensign which he thought was that of Peru.
The Huey slipped sideways suddenly, and Peters caught a glimpse of orange tracers lashing past the open door. Someone was shooting at them.
"Looks like these bozos don't know when to quit," the Huey's pilot yelled back over his shoulder. "We're pickin' up some fire from patrol boats!"
That fire did not last long. The Hueys were accompanied by a pair of sleek Marine SuperCobras, swooping in with miniguns blazing, puffs of smoke trailing from their chin turrets like lines of white periods in the sky. There was a flash… then another, as a pair of TOW missiles streaked toward the surface. Peters felt the concussion of twin explosions but could not see far enough forward to identify the target.
"Stand by!" the pilot yelled. "We're clear and going' in!"
Peters tried to get a look forward over the pilot's shoulder, but the cabin partition and the Huey's crew chief blocked his view. He could see fine a moment later, however, when the Huey swung to starboard, giving him a perfect view of the Wonsan waterfront… and Chimera.
The North Koreans' prize lay port side to alongside a long, wooden pier, bow on to the city. This part of the waterfront seemed given over to the military. There were numerous harbor tugs and torpedo boats lying at other piers close by; a blazing fire and a pillar of oily smoke marked the spot where a patrol craft had just gone down, sunk by the barrage from the SuperCobras. The scene was dominated, however, by the American ship and by the sleek gray killer shape tied up at the pier off the Chimera's starboard side: a Soviet guided-missile cruiser. Peters did not speak Russian, but he knew enough of the Cyrillic alphabet to let him pick out the ship's name: Tallinn.
"I'm sure glad they're not shootin' at us, Sarge!" a young Marine sitting at his side yelled. Peters had to agree. From where he sat, those batteries of antiaircraft missiles looked sufficient to take on a whole Marine air wing with no trouble at all.
And what were the Russians thinking just now? The tactical team's orders specified that property of governments other than the PDRK was not to be damaged or threatened in any way. He imagined that Moscow had been warned before the assault on Wonsan… but without even trying he could think of a dozen scenarios which might lead to a direct confrontation between the Russians and the Americans.
Why the hell hadn't the Russkies pulled out as soon as the crisis started?
Then he was too busy for questions. The Huey dipped, swooping low across the water as it raced toward the piers, the pilot deliberately placing Chimera between the helicopters and the Tallinn.
The helicopter slowed, then hovered. Peters stood up, grabbing a handhold on one bulkhead as the Huey drifted crabwise toward the pier.
"Let's go, Marines!" Peters yelled, jumping off the Huey's skid and dropping to the rough wood of the pier. The pilot had come in above the shoreside end of the pier just off Chimera's bow. Peters could see the gray mass of the spy ship's hull looming out of the water close by. The second Huey was hovering just above Chimera's helipad as Marines scrambled out and scattered down the gangways and ladders to secure the ship. Over the bay, the SuperCobras circled like sharks, menacing and hungry.
Gunfire rattled from Chimera's decks, but Peters didn't look back. The pier was deserted except for a trio of North Korean sentries, sprawled beside Chimera's gangway, dead. One of the gunships had made a strafing pass before the Hueys went in.
Toward the city, the pier joined a concrete wharf backed by a street and the regimented drab buildings of the military district's waterfront. A North Korean flag hung in front of one building, and a six-story-tall portrait of the country's president hung from another. The streets were deserted, however. Any enemy forces in the area had fled at the approach of the helicopter gunships. There were plenty of potential ambush sites, though: a low concrete wall, stacks of wooden shipping crates, fifty-five-gallon drums arrayed in rusty steel walls. Peters pointed them out to the squad and dispersed his men. The Koreans might have abandoned the area, but it was likely that they would be back. When they did, they would find Peters holding the near end of the pier, blocking the way to Chimera's gangway.
"Johnson! Sanchez!" he shouted. "With me!" The three men trotted toward the concrete wall, part of a retaining buttress for the seawall along the sea edge of the wharf. It would make a good site for Johnson's M-249 SAW, positioned to give a clear field of fire down the waterfront street toward the Soviet cruiser, some fifty yards away.
"Stoy!" a sharp voice called. "Nyeh sheveleetyes!"
Peters skidded to a halt, his M-16 raised to his shoulder. He didn't understand the words, but the sound of spoken Russian was unmistakable.
They stepped from among the stacks of supply crates on the far side of the street, a dozen men in the blue-trimmed white of Soviet naval uniforms. Every one carried an AKM assault rifle, and every weapon was trained on the Marines.
"Sergeant Peters, United States Marines!" he called out in a clear voice that, miraculously, did not break.
The Russian weapons did not waver.