"Hello? Ron, you there?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Sandra." Wilson slowly lowered the phone. It couldn't be, but he knew it was. He switched over to his STU III.
"Colonel Moore."
"Sir, this is Doctor Wilson. Go secure, please."
Moore still had his key turned. "I'm secure. What's up?"
"I suggest you try to get ahold of Colonel Hossey as soon as you can."
Moore frowned. "Why? What's going on?"
"I'm not exactly sure, sir. I need to do some checking on this end. But there's something strange going on reference Dragon Sim-13. I'll get back to you as soon as I know more, but I think you need to talk to Hossey. That might really have been him on the phone."
Moore rolled his eyes. What the hell were they trying to pull up there at Meade? "All right. I'll try and get through. Let me know what's going on as soon as you can."
Moore slammed down the phone. He looked under his clear blotter at the organizational chart for US-SOCOM units, and decided to try the DET-K headquarters first on the off chance that someone might be there. He punched in the overseas access, then the DET-K commander's number.
A busy signal. The frown lines on his face deepened. He sat there and began punching in the number every thirty seconds.
Jean Long looked at the fuel gauges. The Blackhawk's thirsty turbines had sucked dry the third internal fuel bladder ten minutes ago. They were presently working off the fourth, and last, 285-gallon bladder. When that one was empty, they'd be left with the 362 gallons in the aircraft's regular fuel tank. What all that meant was that they had less than 430 kilometers of fuel left. They were presently located 50 meters above the Sea of Japan, 120 kilometers due south of Vladivostok. They had just enough fuel to make it safely back to Korea. They did not have enough fuel to make it the almost 300 kilometers to the exfiltration pickup zone and back. It was decision time.
Jean glanced at the digital clock on the instrument panel. She checked the Doppler. They were in the right vicinity. She looked at Colin Lassiter, who was presently at the controls. "It's time to go up."
"Roger that, ma'am." Colin pulled in collective, and 579, six thousand pounds lighter with the three empty bladders, shot up into the dark night sky. In another minute they'd know if the plan Trapp had come up with was going to work. As Lassiter brought them level at fifteen hundred feet, Jean reset the FM radio to a setting of 40 .50. She turned the radio to its lowest power setting.
Jean placed her left foot over the floor mike button. She hesitated for a second, glancing over her left shoulder at Trapp and Hooker huddled among the fuel bladders in the back. Hooker grinned wildly and gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Trapp keyed the intercom on the headset he was wearing. "Time to do it. We're already in enough trouble. Doing this will only add another twenty years in Leavenworth to the five hundred they're going to sentence us to."
Jean laughed. "Hell, we're already way past the point of no return. Here goes." She clicked down the transmit button with her foot. "Attention any listening station. This is U.S. Army helicopter 375. I have an electrical fire on board and am declaring an inflight emergency. Any station picking up this broadcast please acknowledge. I say again. This is U.S. Army helicopter 375… " She released the mike key.
The message went out, bouncing over the wave tops and dying out in a twenty-five-kilometer radius from the helicopter.
Hossey had been searching deeper into his phone book, looking for someone who would believe him. All he had gotten so far were a few promises from people that they would check on things Monday morning. In reality, it didn't even matter at this point. The course of action was already committed.
He hung up after his latest futile attempt and leaned back in his chair. Almost immediately the phone rang.
"Hossey here."
"This is Colonel Moore from US-SOCOM. Go secure."
Hossey turned his key. Maybe finally he would get some action. "I'm secure."
"What the hell is going on, Colonel?"
Hossey wasn't sure where to begin, but he tried.
Riley shivered. It was more than the cold. In twenty minutes the killing would begin. He and Chong were positioned almost eighteen hundred meters away from the Chinese picket line. They weren't in the best position, but it would do. They were about two hundred meters higher than the picket line trace, crouched among jumbled rocks and stunted pines along the first crest of the ridge that marked the northern side of the draw. More than three thousand meters to the southeast of their position, the other members of Team 3 would be waiting along the streambed.
Riley looked through the scope on the SVD. The rifle and scope were rated effective out to only twelve hundred-meters, but Riley felt confident that at this range he could hit some of the soldiers along the picket line. He counted fifteen of them silhouetted against the fires. There was no wind to correct for. The two-hundred-meter drop required some adjustment, but Riley had done enough long-range firing to be able to account for that.
Thirty meters to Riley's left, Chong was hidden, with the SAW propped between two rocks. He would hold his fire until the Chinese started moving forward and got within a thousand meters. Both men could use their night-vision goggles to aim their weapons. It was awkward, but would allow them to fire more accurately, particularly once the fires were put out and the Chinese started advancing.
Riley glanced at his watch again. Another fifteen minutes. He put down the rifle and tried to relax.
"Army helicopter 375, this is the USS Rathburne. We have you on radar at approximately ten miles, on a heading of two one zero degrees. We are prepared to render assistance. Over."
"Roger, USS Rathburne. We are turning on a heading of three zero degrees and heading your location. We have the fire under control. Do you have a helipad? Over."
"Roger, army helicopter 375. We have a landing pad. It will be cleared for your arrival. We are turning our landing lights on now and will track you in on radar. Over."
Lieutenant Peppers was the officer of the watch aboard the Rathburne when the distress call came in. What an army helicopter was doing in the middle of the Sea of Japan, he had no idea. With a female on board, yet. They hadn't even had the helicopter on radar until it suddenly rose onto the screen ten miles off their starboard bow. The Rathburne was an hour and ten minutes into its route south to rejoin the rest of the battle group off the coast of Korea. They hadn't been warned of any helicopters in the area.
Peppers, a 1984 Naval Academy graduate, had acted promptly. He'd grabbed the microphone for the ship's FM radio and offered the use of the helipad. Once that was acknowledged, he sent a crewman to wake up the captain. He ordered the helipad prepared for an emergency landing. On the radar screen, he watched the glowing dot rapidly drawing near. It took the captain of the ship, Commander Lemester, two minutes to make it to the bridge. By then the helicopter was only thirty seconds out.
Peppers quickly briefed Lemester as they watched the searchlight of the army helicopter appear in the night sky. On the fantail helipad an emergency crew waited with fire extinguishers. The helicopter slowly settled down and landed. The crewmen ran forward.
Not only was there no sign of fire but, as the first crewman reached the opening doors to the cargo compartment, he was greeted by the muzzle of an AK-47 automatic rifle, wielded by an extremely short man. On the opposite side, another man carrying an AK-47 disembarked. The petty officer in charge of the emergency crew didn't know what to make of the situation. The two groups stared at each other as the whine of the helicopter died down and the blades slowed to a halt.