The wind howled.
Lee climbed higher.
Gulls glided on the wind above him, casually watching him.
He was alive. For a moment, he stopped and let that realization sink in. Furthermore, if he’d survived, others could have survived as well. His mind flashed to thoughts of his crew, the US Navy SEAL Lieutenant Andrews and his team, and he wondered if any of them had made it to shore. Were they huddling somewhere among the sand dunes, trying to survive the cold? He looked out across the ocean, hoping to make out the sight of a DayGlo-orange lifejacket bobbing on the swell. The sea rolled away from him, dark and foreboding, unrelenting and unforgiving.
Making his way around the side of the cliff, Lee headed toward the beach he’d caught a glimpse of in the distance, wanting to get into the warmth of the sun. From his vantage point, he could see a rugged coastline, windswept and barren, stretching for miles as it curved into the haze of sea spray.
There was someone down there on the beach, not more than a couple of hundred yards away.
“Hey,” he yelled, waving his hands over his head in excitement, but his cries were drowned out by the crash of the waves.
Was it Andrews? He couldn’t be sure.
Lee was buoyed. It never occurred to him he was stranded in North Korea, in a hostile country intent on destroying its southern neighbor.
He waved his hands again, but the dark figure didn’t respond. Whoever it was, they were pointing at the low cliffs running along the edge of the beach. The man jogged a few feet and then turned and pointed again, which confused Lee. It was only then he heard the crack of gunfire over the pounding surf. The unrecognizable man shot at someone, but he was so far away the vision of the handgun firing and the smack of the shot echoing through the air were disconnected in time. The crack of gunfire arrived a second or so after the the man’s arm recoiled with each shot.
Several dogs burst onto the beach, running down from the sand dunes. The man was shooting at them with a handgun. The dogs attacked him, knocking him to the ground and tearing at his body. Lee stood there stunned, watching as a pack of dogs savaged the man, tearing at his arms and legs.
Several North Korean soldiers ran onto the beach, following hard behind the dogs. They were shouting and waving their arms, but Lee couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was only then he realized he was standing there in the open wearing a DayGlo-orange life jacket. Had they turned, they would have seen him instantly.
Lee dropped behind a weathered, worn boulder and pulled his life jacket off, tossing it on the rocks. Peering out from behind the boulder he watched as the soldiers kicked at the body lying on the wet beach. From where he was, Lee could see blood running on the sand, mixing with the waves rolling across the gentle slope leading down to the ocean.
More soldiers came running down from the dunes, their indistinct cries carried on the wind.
Lee turned away. Sitting down on his haunches, he held his hands up to the side of his head, pulling at his hair as he groaned, saying, “No, no, no.”
For a brief moment, he had felt a surge of adrenaline at the excitement of not only being alive, but in seeing that someone else had survived. He’d forgotten where he was. He was stranded on a North Korean beach. This could have been one of the craggy beaches on the Taean peninsula south of Incheon, but the cruel reality of his physical location was brought thundering home to him by the body lying on the sand.
More soldiers poured onto the beach.
Dogs strained at their leashes, trying to pull free and savage the fallen American.
The man had to be one of the SEALs, Lee figured, as he was wearing a black wet suit. The American didn’t move. None of the North Korean soldiers rendered any assistance. They stood around the body. A couple of them sheltered their faces from the wind with their hands, and Lee guessed they were lighting cigarettes. That they could be so callous, so indifferent to the American’s slow, painful death stunned him. The American must have been shot, as the dogs alone wouldn’t have killed him. Lee could see he was beyond help, and he found himself hoping the man wasn’t suffering, hoping that death would be mercifully quick.
Rotor blades beat at the wind. Lee could hear a helicopter passing by out of sight beyond the cliff. The engine sounded wrong. It was too rough to be either South Korean or American. The North Koreans were hunting for survivors from the air. They were looking for him, and that realization personalized the danger he felt. If they found him, they’d kill him.
The sound of rotor blades grew louder, echoing off the rocks, making it hard for him to identify where the chopper was coming from. Within seconds, the helicopter would be on top of him. He had to hide.
Lee scrambled into a gap beneath a couple of boulders. Crabs scurried out of sight. He wedged his body in a narrow gap, with his boots resting in water.
A helicopter hovered overhead. It was an old Russian Hind. Its rotor blades thrashed at the air in a vicious tempo. The chopper was almost directly above him. To one side, his discarded life jacket fluttered across the ground under the downdraft. Lee panicked seeing the orange material flapping, knowing it would give him away. He scrambled out of hiding, not sure whether he was too late. His knees and shins scraped painfully on the rocks as he grabbed for the jacket. Above, he caught a glimpse of the tail boom on the Hind as it turned, sweeping over the area. Lee knew there would be at least two spotters onboard, one looking to port, the other to starboard. He rolled back under the boulder, catching his elbow on a rocky outcrop and tearing his jacket. His heart pounded in his chest as he slid back into the gap in the rocks.
The Hind hovered overhead for several minutes, and Lee expected dogs and soldiers to descend on him at any moment and drag him out of hiding, but the chopper left, racing away along the beach before turning inland.
Lee lay there in the cold, shivering. His mind felt lethargic, sluggish. Hypothermia was setting in and he struggled to care. What would it matter if he died here? What would it matter if he slipped into an unconscious state never to awake again? He wanted to care, but his body was shutting down, telling him this was a better death, a kinder death, one free from pain.
Sunlight broke through the clouds, glistening off the wet rocks beyond the shadows.
Lee reached out his hand, resting his fingers on the sharp, jagged rocks, marveling at the warmth soaking into his wrist. The sun coaxed him out with the promise of life. Slowly, he crept forward until he was lying in the sun, sheltered from the wind. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, but his mind began to clear and his survival instincts took over.
He crept around the base of the cliff until he found a gully leading to the cliff top. The gentle slope led him away from the beach.
The sun had risen high in the sky.
The storm clouds had passed, revealing the azure blue dome of heaven.
Lee couldn’t help but wonder if this was the day he’d die; such a beautiful day.
He looked around from the top of the hill, some three hundred feet above the raging sea. From what he could tell, the tides had swept him onto the headland of a vast peninsula. Various coves and inlets stretched out on either side, with a mountain range dominating the hinterland.
Crouching down, Lee used the waist high brush for cover, watching as a line of North Korean soldiers walked abreast of each other in the marsh behind the cove. They were moving away from him, sweeping the area, whacking the bushes with sticks, flushing out the game, except that their quarry was men. With rifles slung over their shoulders and a couple of dog handlers leading the way, the line of soldiers stretched for almost a kilometer inland. No more than a couple of feet separated any of them.