Hossey was laboriously working his way around the Pentagon via phone extensions. No one he had talked to on the night duty staff had any knowledge of a live mission run in this part of the world. It was almost as if there had not been any authorization for this action.
Hossey looked at his military phone book in frustration. He opened it one more time and started from the front, looking for any number that might connect him with someone who knew what was going on.
Team 3 was splitting again, and this time it appeared to be permanent. Dave Riley could tell that Mitchell was very unhappy about the situation. Chong was standing at the edge of the little grouping, saying good-bye to the rest of the team. Riley stood next to the captain.
"Take care, Mitch, and get these guys out."
Mitchell nodded. It was hard for him to speak. He felt completely helpless. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Nothing in his training had ever prepared him to order two of his men to go on a oneway mission. Not only that, but Dave Riley was his best friend. He didn't know what to say, but he tried anyway. "If there was any other way, Dave. I just can't come up with anything."
Riley put his arm over his friend's shoulder. "I know that. Hell, we both came up with the same plan. You just get those guys out and it'll all be worthwhile. You've got to hang in there and drive on."
Mitchell nodded. He didn't trust himself to say any more. The two men embraced briefly. Riley picked up his SVD and walked over to the rest of the team. Not much was said. There was nothing noble or heroic about the scene. Just a pervading sense of sadness tainted with desperation — the same atmosphere that has been present before battle since the beginning of time. Heroism and nobility seemed to come from others talking about events after they were over. Now, as they faced the spectre of death, none of the participants wanted to play their roles.
Reasons for being here, and for doing what they did, didn't seem to add up anymore.
Riley smiled and, as he walked out of the camp with Chong, softly called out over his shoulder, "See you all back in Korea."
Sokch'o was the northernmost sizable South Korean city on the east coast. As such, the air and sea routes around it were guarded vigilantly. The entire coastline from the nearby demilitarized zone, south one hundred kilometers, was entirely fenced in to prevent infiltrators from swimming in. The airspace was tightly managed out of Sokch'o airfield.
On the radar screens at Sokch'o, Flight 579 suddenly disappeared. The Korean operator had been watching the flight with growing concern. According to the flight plan he had called up on his computer, 579 was on a training flight from ChunChon to Sokch'o and back. The flight had crossed the shoreline only one minute previously. The controller had expected it to turn any second and head back west. Now it was gone. He keyed his mike. Speaking with great difficulty in English, he broadcast: "United States Army helicopter Five Seven Nine. United States Army helicopter Five Seven Nine. This is Sokch'o Control. You have gone below allowable altitude. Acknowledge. Return to altitude. Over."
He waited a minute, then transmitted again. Still no reply. After five minutes, with no sign of 579 reappearing or replying, the operator reported to his supervisor. Ten minutes later, still with no response, a downed aircraft report was broadcast and search aircraft were alerted.
On board 579 Colin Lassiter had the aircraft skimming the wave tops as the Korean shoreline disappeared behind them. Jean Long was slouched back in her seat, trying to rest. In the cargo compartment, Hooker and Trapp had finished unpacking the duffel bag they'd brought aboard. Now they worked in the cramped space between the four bulging fuel bladders, stowing the weapons Hooker had brought from Yongsan and preparing for other contingencies.
They tied a 120-foot nylon rope to each of two large O-rings bolted to the top center of the cargo compartment. After making sure that both ropes were securely attached, they coiled each one separately in a weighted canvas bag. This was done carefully, to ensure that each rope would deploy without snags if the bag was thrown out the door of the helicopter. The weighted bag would pull the rope to the end of its 120-foot length.
The two men then carefully unbolted the frame for the two forward internal tanks and replaced all the bolts with wraps of 550 cord, the same line used for suspension lines on parachutes. This would allow the two forward tanks to be quickly cut free and removed, when empty, to make space for the team.
With the coastline out of sight, Lassiter gently eased the helicopter around to a heading of 42 degrees — right up the middle of the Sea of Japan.
Colonel Moore didn't like coming in to work on a Saturday, but having been gone the whole past week participating in the exercise up at Fort Meade, his in box was overflowing. He wanted to get a jump on the paperwork before Monday.
Moore was halfway through his first cup of coffee, and a quarter of the way through the contents of his in box, when he came across the duty log from the previous night. It was in his box because it was Moore's responsibility to brief his boss, the G-3, on Monday morning on everything that had happened over the weekend.
Moore slammed his mug down on the desk as he turned the page and read the notation about the strange phone call from a Colonel Hossey in Korea.
"What the hell," he muttered as he punched in the home phone number for the major who had been on duty then. He waited and then heard the line picked up on the other end.
A sleepy voice answered. "Major Mills."
"Mills, this is Colonel Moore. What is this notation in your duty log about a phone call from a Colonel Hossey in Korea?"
There was a brief pause. "Oh, yeah, sir. Some nutcake called and said that he was the commander of DET-K and that he had some men
on the ground in China who needed to be exfiltrated. He said it was part of some mission he was running for us."
Moore's mind raced as he considered this. "Did he say what kind of mission?"
"No, sir. He did say that he had lost his commo with an SFOB we had set up at Fort Meade, so I figured this guy was one of those people you spent the week with up there at Meade, trying to test our security or something."
"What did you tell this guy?"
"I didn't tell him anything, sir. I hung up on him. He tried calling back a few times and I hung up on him every time. It was an unsecure line and I figured it was some sort of test."
"All right." Moore hung up the phone. Maybe it was just a further test by the Strams people. The thing that bugged him, though, was that Colonel Hossey was the DET-K commander. And the phone call had come just after they shut down the simulation. In the simulation the team had exfiltrated successfully. Moore rubbed his eyes. This whole thing was very strange. He looked at the clocks on the wall. It was 2:30 in the morning over in Korea. Probably couldn't get ahold of Hossey right now. He decided to make some calls first thing Monday morning, though, and check this out.