Suddenly the SDV hit something. BAM!!!
His head jerked violently forward and back, and he braced himself for an explosion.
“Hold…!” Naylor half screamed.
A loud grinding noise blotted out all other sounds. Crocker saw the right front of the vehicle crumple like wet cardboard, crushing the copilot’s legs and sending the SDV tumbling left. Wedged between Dawkins and the metal seat behind him, he couldn’t move.
“Boss! Boss!”
“Fuck!”
The pressure grew more intense and cut off his breath. What remained of the SDV spun right, causing him to hit his head against the side abutment and black out. He dreamt he was swimming with Cyndi, and she was holding on to his collar. He opened his mouth to complain that her nails were digging into the side of his neck. Then he realized that ice-cold salt water was burning his wounds and he was sinking. He started kicking, when something smacked against his right side, and a hand tried to grasp his arm but slipped off.
His lungs burned like hell, so he used a trick he’d learned in BUD/S-breathing out a little and releasing some of the carbon dioxide that had built up in his lungs. It worked, but he was struggling, disoriented, and couldn’t see shit. Something slid across this chest. First he thought maybe it was a sea lion or a large fish, then realized it was a person, struggling to get to the surface. He linked his right arm under the other person’s armpit and kicked upward with all his might. The night air above hit his lungs cold and hard. His eyes and skin stung from the salt.
He pulled the two of them up and remembered where they were-the North Korean bay of Hamgyong. Not his favorite location. He searched for his men, signs of the enemy, and wreckage of the SDV. His NVGs were missing, so all he saw was dark sky and ocean, and the reflection of the island complex burning to his right.
Nothing to his left. Nothing in front of him or to his immediate right. No flotsam he could make out. No one calling out.
Only us two?
He hadn’t even bothered to check the identity of the man he was holding. In the light from the fire saw Dawkins’s gaunt, expressionless face.
“You with me, Dawkins?” Crocker asked. “You okay?”
He moaned something unintelligible and seemed even more disoriented than Crocker was.
“Lay back alongside me and we’ll kick together.”
Dawkins’s body provided some warmth. The current was taking them past the east end of Ung-do. If it continued like that, it would pull them out to sea.
Hearing a hissing sound, he thought for a second that maybe it was someone calling for help. He stopped kicking and listened. All he heard was the wind slapping at the whitecaps in the bay, and maybe playing tricks with his head.
The best he could do was keep them afloat and hope to steer to land. When they got within three hundred meters of the east end of the island, the current started to pull them north. Now Crocker worried that it would take them back into the bay and into the hands of the North Korean People’s Army. Given a choice between drowning in the Sea of Japan or being tortured, he wasn’t sure which was worse.
It wasn’t really up to him, because the current was too strong to fight. The best he could manage was to use his arms and legs to try to steer north and away from the island. Dawkins remained in a state of semiconsciousness. When they passed the eastern end, he saw signs of the NKPA response. Maybe a dozen military patrol boats sat in the penumbra of the burning facility along the northern shore. What they were doing besides observing the fire was impossible to tell from a distance.
He heard engines and the faint echo of men shouting, and hoped they wouldn’t be spotted. Not likely, as they were at least two hundred meters away, and the northern current was growing more robust.
Seeing the boats in the distance, Dawkins shouted, “Help! We’re drowning!”
Crocker immediately clamped a hand over his mouth. “Bad idea!”
He’d rather freeze to death or drown in the bay than give himself up. No way he was putting himself, his family, and his country through that.
His body was almost numb now, and as the numbness spread so did a primordial warmth, which he understood was one of the first symptoms of hypothermia. Nothing he could do except to try to stay afloat and not lose consciousness. He heard helicopter blades beating in the distance and saw searchlights exploring the water south of Ung-do. Maybe they had spotted wreckage, bodies, or survivors.
“It’s a good thing we’re drifting north,” he said to Dawkins’s head, cradled under his right arm.
Dawkins didn’t respond.
Crocker was in Alaska on a winter warfare exercise, blowing hot air into his hands. Then he was back. The sky overhead was still furry black-no moon or stars. He saw his mother knitting by the fire, glasses perched on the end of her nose. His father stood by her side, holding a ball of yarn. He thought it was his first memory, and he was going back to the beginning of his life.
Water washed over his chest and reached his mouth. He spit it out and coughed.
It happened again, and he looked left. Realized he was on land. The island of Ung-do glowed in the distance. Dawkins lay on his side like a beached fish. Crocker extended an arm in his direction, but he was out of reach.
“Dawkins. Hey, Dawkins!”
He slid over and lifted him carefully. Saw that he was breathing.
“Dawkins! You hear me?”
Dawkins blinked and looked at him with surprise. “What happened? Where are we?”
Dawkins’s lips were blue, and he trembled from head to toe. Crocker wanted to start a fire or wrap a blanket around him, but realized he had nothing on him but his smart suit, boots, and belt. No body armor, no NVGs. Even the SIG Sauer was missing from its holster.
Hearing a scraping noise, he lay belly-down on the sand. About seventy meters down the shore to his right, someone was emerging from the water, pushing something flat and dark. The sight was so surreal, he wondered at first if he was imagining it, like his mother by the fire. But when he blinked and opened his eyes the dark figure was still there, so he continued to make himself small and narrowed his focus. The man seemed to match a familiar shape and size.
Crocker squeezed Dawkins’s arm, held a finger to his lips to tell him to remain quiet, and scooted on his belly to the shrubs along the bank. From there he made his way closer. When he was sure it was Akil, he emerged and approached, optimism surging into his system like oxidized blood.
“Akil! What the fuck took you so long?” he whispered.
“Boss? You son of a bitch…”
They embraced like it was the happiest moment of their lives-two exhausted men in shredded smart suits on a beach in enemy territory.
Akil was pulling a plastic panel that looked like it had come from the SDV, with another man on it.
“Who’s that?”
“Sam. Smashed his leg and ankle. You locate the others?”
“I’ve got Dawkins with me. That’s all.”
“Oh.” Akil looked disappointed.
“He’s suffering from hypothermia,” Crocker said, pointing at Dawkins’s silhouette on the sand. “I lost everything-comms, weapon, med kit, even my pistol.”
“I found this.” Akil gestured toward a backpack lying beside Sam on the plastic panel. “Don’t know what’s in it. Pretty sure Naylor and Hutchins died on impact. Suarez, I didn’t see him.”
Crocker was already digging through the backpack, which seemed to have belonged to Suarez. He concentrated on the toaster-sized metal Personal Recovery and Survival (PRS) kit at the bottom. Inside, sealed behind a watertight rubber gasket, he found a stainless-steel mini-multitool with pliers, a wire cutter, file, and awl; a 14mm AA-liquid-filled compass; a red LED squeeze light (red to protect night vision as well as not give away your position); a ferrocerium rod with tinder tabs in a resealable bag; forty water purification tabs in an amber vial; a 2x3-inch signal mirror; two thermal blankets; fifteen feet of Kevlar cord; safety pins; a can opener; duct tape; a roll of stainless-steel wire; a fresnel magnifying lens; a pack of antibiotic ointment; two water storage bags; and a small med kit.