“Look Sara, I know it’s not the normal life. I want it to be different too. Asya and I need to tie up this Hercules thing. You know that. The rest of the team are starting to wonder if I’m ever coming back. But even when this thing is done, there will always be times when we’re apart for long stretches. It’s just the nature of our jobs. We already talked about why I can’t leave mine. I don’t want you to have to leave your work either. You’re good at it and you love it. What I wanted to do, was just cement our commitment to each other. There isn’t anything we can do about the practical stuff, but I wanted you to know how serious I am.”
Fogg leaned in and kissed him. When they parted, she looked up at him with tears glistening in her eyes, but no drops had yet fallen down her smooth cheeks. “I love you. You are a damn romantic fool, you know that? Yes, I’ll marry you. I have no idea how we’ll make it work, but yes.”
He smiled. “Really?”
“Really.”
THREE
The view of the valley was a V shape, between two low green hills. The chemical weapons plant, a bland affair with slabs of rectilinear gray concrete and rolls of razor-wire fencing, stood in the middle of the valley. Several undernourished soldiers in bluish-gray uniforms walked glumly around the perimeter, but their patterns were lazy rather than random. Guard towers, like in a prison complex, occupied the four corners of the facility, but the men stationed in the towers were armed with old Soviet era AK-47 assault rifles, just like the men ambling around the perimeter. To the east, a small dirt road led back to the main tarmac and the town of Sonbong to the south.
From the hills, through the V, the facility looked like a target at the end of a long shooting gallery. The small grassy hillside held four oblong bushes, gray rocks and large tufts of brilliant green grass. When one of the bushes snickered, one of the others spoke.
“Rook, we’re supposed to be undercover here. What’s your problem?”
“Sorry, Queen,” Stan Tremblay, callsign: Rook said, shifting in his ghillie suit. Like the other members of Chess Team, he had once been a Delta Operator. That changed when the team became part of a black budget, ultra-secret organization known as Endgame. The ghillie suit, made of netting and artificial foliage, made the wearer appear to be a shrub — provided the wearer stayed still. The effect when Rook moved was as if the bush had taken on a life of its own and rolled over on the ground. “It’s hard to take these douchenozzles seriously. Plus, my ass is starting to ache.”
The first bush that had spoken, Rook’s teammate and current field leader, Zelda Baker, callsign: Queen, shifted as well. “They do seem pretty lazy, but the state of your ass is not my primary concern here.”
Another bush spoke. “My ass is so asleep it’s snoring.” The third bush was larger than the others. The man inside, Erik Somers, callsign: Bishop, was a huge mountain of a man, yet generally the most patient and least talkative of the team. “When are these guys gonna do something? We’ve been up here in the hide for a month, and they still have yet to send out or receive a shipment. By the time something happens, my muscles might have atrophied.”
“You too, Bishop? This is supposed to be deep cover. Quit breaking radio-silence, and stop moving.” The bush that was Queen, shook briefly toward the top, and Rook could tell Queen was shaking her head back and forth in disgust, the way she frequently did at his antics.
They each wore small tactical radios, so they could communicate remotely. They had earpieces and thin microphones that stuck to their throats with a gooey glue-like substance. But instead of relying on the radios, they were speaking out loud. If any North Korean soldiers had been in the vicinity, their position would have been given away. A softer voice spoke up now, from the receivers in their ears.
“At least you two still have asses. Mine fell off last week, and I’ve been looking for it ever since.” Shin-dae Jung, callsign: Knight, the team’s sniper, was in a different location, far closer to the weapons plant.
The bush that was Queen rolled over. “Sweet Jesus, is there no such thing as military bearing?”
Rook laughed, and his ghillie suit shook. Soon Bishop was snickering too. “Blue, seriously. What the hell? Why are we sitting here in the boonies? Either this place is or isn’t concocting chemical weapons. Either way, let’s blow it up and go home. Anything so I don’t have to listen to these clowns anymore.”
A softer, but more serious voice sounded through their earpieces.
“Sorry team. Gaining intel on this facility has been sketchy at best. Everything points to chemical weapons, but I’ve been reluctant to just send you in. Who knows what conditions are like in there. You might attack the place and wind up sucking in lungfuls of airborne weaponized anthrax. Or it could be a prison, and if you blow it up, you’d be killing hundreds of innocent civilians and protestors. Until we get some better intelligence, you’re gonna have to stay put. I can’t even offer you any satellite coverage on this one. North Koreans would go ballistic if they detected a satellite or a spy plane overhead. Best I can do is this remote communication. Their systems are not sophisticated enough to pick up our tactical radios, and even if they were, they’d never break the encryption.” Tom Duncan, callsign: Deep Blue, the team’s founder and handler, was back at their headquarters in New Hampshire. His voice was sympathetic, and none of the team would argue with the man. He was, after all, a former President of the United States.
“Maybe it’s time we shook things up then,” Queen said.
“What are you thinking, Queen?” Deep Blue’s voice sounded concerned on the radio.
“Knight, how close are you to the building?” Queen asked.
“Did you see that guard on the southeast tower spit just now?” came the reply in their earpieces.
“Seriously?” Queen asked.
“It landed on my leg.”
“Damn, Knight,” Rook chuckled, then sat up and pulled his ghillie suit mask off his head. He turned to Bishop’s location, only to find that Bishop had already removed his mask too. Over the last week, Knight had gotten more and more brazen with how close he crept to the building. He was now inside the lazy route the guards walked around the building, inching around as a bush that any of the guards should have noticed wasn’t there the previous week.
“See if you can make your way toward the windows on the eastern side and we’ll let you know when it’s clear so you can stand up and peek in,” Queen said, then she sat up and pulled her own mask off. “These damn things are stifling.”
“Risky, but understandable. Good call, Queen. I’ll check back with you in an hour. Deep Blue out.”
With masks off, the three team members in the hills were still camouflaged. Their faces were painted with forest swirls of green and black, and both Queen and Rook wore black and green polyester buffs on their heads to hide their blonde hair. Bishop, with his chestnut Iranian-American skin, left his shaved bald head exposed, although it was painted with the same camo as his face. Rook procured an energy bar and tore the packet open. He began to munch on it, small pieces of the bar lodging in his month of heavy beard growth, which had begun as a carefully sculpted goatee, but was now a mess of hair thick enough for small creatures to nest in it. Bishop began stretching his shoulders, moving in small movements. Although he was over six thousand feet from the occasionally watchful eyes of the plant’s guard towers, he knew that sudden or large movements might attract the human eye. He was camouflaged enough for the distance, even without the ghillie mask, but he wouldn’t tempt things with a big arm sweep. Queen lay down on the ground on her back, then flexed her neck sideways, procuring a loud pop as her cervical vertebrae realigned.