Dragon Sim-13

18

Thirty minutes of brainstorming had turned up no feasible plan. Riley kept silent, but he knew what the plan had to be. He'd known all along. Mitchell must also see that they had only one choice. Riley had desperately hoped someone else could come up with a less drastic course of action. No one had.

Riley was getting ready to speak when Mitchell beat him to it. "All right. Enough. It's time to face reality. We can't run from these guys. Not only can we not outdistance them carrying Olinski — and I don't want to hear any more bullshit from you about getting left behind," the captain warned Olinski, "but also there's no point in going west. For all we know there's another search line coming up the mountains on that side. There must be people at the crash site. West is out.

"North and south are out, too. The search line extends as far as we can see in both directions. We'd never be able to do an end run around the flank. For all we know it extends fifty kilometers each way. That leaves us with the original problem. We have to either head east or hide in place. We're fooling ourselves if we think we can do either.

"The bottom line is that we have to make the Chinese change their tactics. There's only one way I can think of to do that. Set up a diversion."

Mitchell let the significance of what he had just said sink in for a few seconds.

Olinski was the first to react. "I volunteer, sir. If you all could get me up to the high ground over there to the north, I could use the SAW and get their attention."

Mitchell had expected this and shook his head. "No. If the people doing the diversion are going to have any chance at surviving, they've got to be able to run. I'm not sending anybody on a suicide mission."

Riley raised his hand for attention. Everyone fell silent. "Here's what I propose. Two men, healthy men, take an SVD sniper rifle and the SAW machine gun. They go up in higher ground along that finger there to the north. Just after dark the one with the SVD starts taking out the Chinese along the search line. I'm sure they won't be practicing strict discipline. Hell, they'll probably have fires going all along the line. We shoot enough of them, and keep it up, until they have to react.

"The rest of the team hides. The best place will probably be down near the stream over there. Hopefully, once the shooting starts, the Chinese will break their line and move past those team members who are hiding, missing you in the dark. Once the Chinese go by, our guys head on down to the pickup zone. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to do it in the confusion. If you make any accidental contact, you can use the silenced submachine gun to take care of it. /

"The two guys in the hills keep the Chinese's attention as long as they can, then try to make it down to the pickup zone or, if that isn't possible, try to escape into the hills. Two healthy guys might have a chance where the whole group of us wouldn't. We coordinate a pickup zone back in the mountains for those two. If the rest of the team gets out tonight, you get base to run another exfiltration for those two on another night."

Riley stopped and looked at the captain. They both knew they had to go with this plan. It was the only way. It was feasible — all except the last part, Riley thought. There's no way those two men would survive. But at least they'd go out fighting.

The detachment commander stood up. "I agree, unless anyone can come up with a better suggestion." Mitchell looked each team member in the eye. No one said anything. "I'll decide who does what. Dave, come with me."

Riley and Mitchell walked about twenty meters away from the team and sat down on two rocks.

Riley preempted the captain. "Listen, Mitch. I know you're going to volunteer yourself to do this. Deep inside you know that's bullshit, for the same reasons you gave Olinski. We've got only four healthy men — me, Hoffman, Chong, and Comsky. It's got to be two of us. One of the two has got to be a trained sniper. That's between Comsky and me. We need to leave Comsky with the main party because he's the medic. That means I'm the one with the sniper rifle."

Mitchell didn't protest. He hated the decision. But it was the right decision.

Riley continued. 'Then it's between Hoffman and Chong for the SAW. Chong's qualified on the SAW and it's his weapon. I'd also prefer having Chong with me. If anybody can navigate our way through the mountains at night and keep us from getting tracked down, it's him. I'll leave Hoffman with you for another reason. If the exfil bird doesn't come tonight — and you and I both know it's a long shot — he's your best bet for figuring out something when you get to the coast, whether it be hot wiring a boat or rerigging a radio. You're going to need him."

Mitchell let out a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. "You're right, as always, Dave. It's going to be you and Tom. I'll give him the news."

Yanji was a mining and industrial city with a population of one hundred thousand. Tugur was running the search operation from the regional army headquarters in the center of town. The six Z-9 attack helicopters of the 3d Aviation Regiment were crouched in the fields surrounding the headquarters along with eight S-70 transportation helicopters.

Tugur had taken the time to interrogate the hunters and miners who had been picked up in the sweep. Checks had confirmed their identities, but despite that, the local commander had been too frightened of the wrath of General Yang to release them. Unfortunately, that was the extent of his initiative. He had not thought to ask the prisoners if they had seen anything unusual. Tugur made up for this deficiency in his interrogation. They all replied in the negative, except for one disgruntled old miner who complained that someone had stolen the battery from his truck the previous night.

Tugur was interested in the report of the stolen battery. Who would go all the way up to the mountains to steal a battery from a truck? And if the terrorists had done it, why steal the battery and not the truck? Tugur puzzled over this but could not come up with an answer. He put it aside in the activity of coordinating the sweep's halt for the night. Still the detail gnawed away in the back of his mind. Something about the battery was important; he could feel it.

From the tall tree Riley watched the olive-green tide reach high water for the day only a kilometer and a half away. He observed the soldiers' preparations for the evening. Like soldiers anywhere, they were gathering wood for fires to take away the night's chill. Riley noted the lack of defensive preparations. The trucks, with their heavy machine guns mounted over the cabs, were not tactically placed in positions with good fields of fire. Instead, they were haphazardly parked in the places most convenient for the company commanders.

The line had made it almost a kilometer past the pickup zone — only a fraction of an inch on the map in Riley's pocket but a significant distance on the ground. Riley continued to study the terrain as the sun went down. He and Chong would move out to the sniper position on the ridgeline as soon as it got dark. Satisfied that he had seen all he wanted to, Riley climbed down.

The rest of the team was waiting for him at the base of the tree. They'd spent this time building a small terrain model, using dirt, sticks, and small rocks. The men gathered around the scale model as Riley made his report, pointing out the places he was talking about.

"The sweep line's made it along a front basically from here, to here, to here. About a klick and a half from here and a little under a klick in front of the pickup zone, if you draw a straight line from our location to the PZ. They don't seem concerned about making contact. Looks like there'll be a bunch of guards standing around fires all along the line. The fires are about thirty meters apart. I still don't think you could sneak through. The off-duty people are bedding down for the night all around, wherever they feel like it. The vegetation isn't thick enough here to cover you."

Mitchell nodded his head in agreement as Riley continued. "The plan we decided on still stands. Tom and I will go up to this position here on the ridge. We'll leave at twenty thirty, after it's fully dark and they've had a chance to settle in down there. We'll take two of the remaining sets of PVS-5 night-vision goggles. The rest of you will move down here, to this stream that runs into the river. Hide as best you can in the thick vegetation along the bank. At zero zero thirty local I'll start picking off people along the guard line. It's about two thousand meters from where I'll be shooting to the nearest Chinese, so they're going to have to move forward to engage me. Once they get inside a thousand meters, Tom will open up with the SAW. We'll keep engaging them until they get to within five hundred meters, at which time we'll head on up into the mountains."

Riley turned to Mitchell, and the captain began to brief them on the rest of the plan. "After Dave and Tom engage, we wait. In the confusion, we try to find the best time to move through the Chinese line along the stream bank. They might even move everyone out and pass us by. At worst case, they're going to have to thin their line to go after these two. Either way, we go through. I'll be in the lead with my silenced MP5 and wearing the last set of PVS-5s. Hoffman and Comsky will carry Olinski. C.J., you bring up the rear. Hoffman and Comsky will use the silenced .22s if they have to shoot. C.J., you take Olinski's shotgun.

"We've got an hour and a half from when Dave starts shooting to make it to the pickup zone. We'll wait there until 0500. If no aircraft comes by that time, they most likely aren't going to be coming. We use the remaining two hours of darkness to move downslope and find a hiding place. The next night we'll continue on to the border. Any questions?"

C.J. raised his hand. "What about the markings on the pickup zone? And frequency? The aircraft is going to have a hell of a time finding that place — if it comes at all. Also, there still might be shooting going on. We probably ought to be up on the radio to assure them that we're really there."

Mitchell agreed. "We've got four infrared chem lights left; we can use those for pickup zone marking. We've also got infrared strobes on all our vests. Olinski will have the PRC68. We think it still works after Hoffman put it back together. If Ski sees or hears anything resembling a friendly helicopter, he's going to start calling on the agreed-upon frequency. Anybody else?"

Hoffman stirred and looked at Riley. "Top, they don't need to get within five hundred meters to engage you. They can start engaging you from the search line using the 12.7-millimeter machine guns on the trucks. They've got the range to reach out there."

Riley had figured his junior engineer would make that observation. He hoped no one would ask too many questions about the diversion team's role. Most particularly he hoped no one would ask questions regarding their survivability. "I've thought of that," Riley answered. "Those machine guns have the range but they're not going to be able to find us until they get close. I've got a couple of tricks I'll use to hide my muzzle flashes. The Chinese are going to have to move. Once we start popping their people off, they'll be so mad they'll be hard to hold back. I just hope enough of them come forward to allow you all to slip through without making contact."

"Camp Page tower, this is army helicopter 579. Request permission to depart airfield on a heading of eight zero degrees. Over."

"Roger army helicopter 579. You are cleared for taxiway and departure. Over."

Jean Long released the brakes on the Blackhawk as Lassiter increased throttle. The aircraft rolled on its three wheels out to the main runway that ran the length of Camp Page. They turned and faced to the east.

Jean tenderly lifted the collective and slipped the cyclic forward, and the heavily laden helicopter pushed away from the clutches of the earth. A two-foot gap appeared beneath the wheels. Getting the feel of the unusual center of gravity caused by the internal fuel bladders, Jean hovered there for ten seconds. She glanced over at Lassiter, who smiled, shrugged, and nodded. Increasing power and lift, she quickly gained altitude and flew off toward the high mountains that encircled ChunChon to the east.

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.

The disappearance of army aircraft 579 quickly gained notoriety. Sokch'o Control contacted Camp Page Control with the report. Camp Page Control alerted the battalion commander of the 309th Helicopter Battalion. When the battalion commander found out that no one had authorized the flight, and also that live Stinger missiles were on board, he quickly notified his higher headquarters at the 17th Aviation Brigade in Seoul.

Following standard procedures, a nationwide alert was put out for the missing helicopter. All U.S. and Korean agencies were informed. A search was mounted off the coast in the vicinity of Sokch'o to look for helicopter wreckage. It didn't occur to anyone that the helicopter had not crashed.

Mitchell led his men carefully through the dark. It was only seven hundred meters south to the streambed, but they were moving very slowly.

The night was clear. The moon would be rising in another two hours. Until then, they had only the starlight to guide them. Mitchell was wearing the only set of night-vision goggles; the rest of the team stumbled along in the dark. Only four hundred meters to the east, they could see the fires of the Chinese picket line.

Mitchell tried to force all thoughts out of his mind, except for those needed to make this move. He didn't want to think about the two men heading up the mountain. He didn't want to think about the slim chance that a helicopter would make it to the pickup zone tonight. He didn't want to think about what he would do when the helicopter didn't show. In spite of his efforts, these thoughts swirled around in his mind.

He was walking slowly, to allow those behind him to keep up. Hoffman and Comsky carried the stretcher, watching each step to avoid dropping Olinski. Hoffman, at the lead end of the stretcher, was only two feet behind the captain, following two small pieces of luminous tape sewn into the back of the captain's black watch cap. Comsky held onto the trail edge of the stretcher and shuffled his feet along the ground to avoid tripping. C.J. brought up the tail, staying in contact by continuously reaching out and touching Comsky's back.

After only a hundred meters, Mitchell realized that he was going to have to help carry Olinski. The man's weight was too much for Hoffman. Mitchell grabbed the lead end of the right stick with his left hand. His right arm was still tied against his side to prevent the sutures from pulling out, and his MP5 hung on its sling on his chest. The indomitable Comsky handled the tail end of the stretcher by himself.

Mitchell led the way through the undergrowth. They were going downhill slightly, as the terrain sloped into the streambed. After forty minutes, they reached the edge of the thicker undergrowth along the bank. Mitchell cautiously guided them downstream. He wanted to get as close to the picket line as they could before the action started. Slowly he moved them another two hundred meters closer. He halted the team in an area of especially thick underbrush. Carefully, trying not to make any loud noises, they crawled under the bushes and sat down in a tight circle to wait. It was 10:45 p.m. Another hour and forty-five minutes until the shooting started.

That phone call the previous night was bugging Moore. It was a loose end, and he didn't like loose ends. If the Strams people were still playing their game, he wanted to know about it. They had more important things to worry about here than some stupid simulation.

Moore grabbed the file for the Dragon Sim-13 exercise from his safe and flipped through it until he found the administrative phone numbers for the Tunnel. He scanned the list until he spotted the office number for the man who had outbriefed them yesterday. Moore wasn't sure if anybody would be at work on a Saturday, but he wanted to try and clear up this thing. Moore punched in the number on his secure STU III phone. He waited as it buzzed on the other end. On the seventh buzz he was just about to hang up when it was picked up.

Wilson had barely heard the ringing of the secure phone on his desk. He was in Meng's office, where the two were going over the Medusa program. Wondering who could be calling on a Saturday, he jogged out and picked up the phone. "Doctor Wilson here."

"Doctor, this is Colonel Moore. Could you please go secure?" I hope he isn't calling about the damn after-action report, Wilson thought as he turned the key that made the phone secure for classified conversations. "Yes, sir. What can I do for you?"

The voice at the other end sounded hesitant. "This is kind of strange, but I'd like to know whether you all are still running something with Dragon Sim-13."

"What do you mean, Colonel, running something? We shut down yesterday right after you all left."

"Well, my duty officer got a strange phone call last night from someone claiming to be the commander of DET-K, saying something about having troops on the ground in China that he had to get exfiltrated. I was wondering if it might have been someone from your Tunnel, checking up on us after the fact, so to speak."

Wilson frowned. "No, sir. No one from here called as far as I know. Like I said, we shut down yesterday morning. Did you call Colonel Hossey in Korea to see if he really was the one calling?"

"It's after midnight over there, and I doubt that anyone will be at the DET-K compound. I'd have to contact the Eighth Army duty officer to get ahold of Hossey. I really didn't want to go through all that hassle if someone was just pulling a prank. I am worried, though, because whoever was calling obviously had some classified information about the exercise."

"Well, I can't help you on this end."

"Thanks anyway. I'll try tracking down my people. Maybe it was one of them. Out here."

Wilson put the phone down slowly. It was odd. He looked down Tunnel 2 at the door to Meng's office. It had been a strange morning ever since he had shown up, three hours ago. Meng had been acting very weird, even for him. As the two of them worked on the Medusa program, Meng had seemed to be trying to pass on to Wilson as much information about the program as he could — almost as if Meng felt he wasn't going to be around much longer.

Something occurred to Wilson. He looked down his phone number list taped to the top of the desk and punched in a four-digit number on the secure internal NSA phone. The phone was picked up on the first ring.

"Imagery. Sandra."

"Sandra, this is Ron Wilson from the Tunnel."

"Yeah, Ron. What's up?"

"Could you check on something for me?"

"Sure. What do you need?"

"My boss, Doctor Meng, had some pretty interesting imagery of a crash site that we were going to use. I was wondering if you could give me an idea of where and when that imagery was taken. Doctor

Meng said something about you all pulling it from your files yesterday."

"Wait a minute. Let me check the log." The minute stretched into two. Finally Sandra was back. "If you're talking about some photos we faxed down to you and over to Korea early yesterday morning, I've got it here. Let's see, it was 0614 Zulu on the ninth, and that was hot off the computer down link. Real-time stuff. I don't know why Meng thought it was coming out of the files. He asked for it specifically by location."

Wilson looked toward Meng's door. "Could you tell me what area that imagery was covering?"

"Let's see. Yeah. It's in China. Northeast. Manchuria. Real close to where the Chinese, Russian, and North Korean borders come together."

Wilson felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach.

"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.

Commander Lemester emerged from the hatch leading to the fantail and came upon this extraordinary scene — two men holding rifles on his crewmen. He stared in amazement for a few seconds, then bulled his way forward. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The larger of the two men walked over to him. Lemester's eyes grew wider as he recognized Trapp. Not again.

Wilson had spent the last fifteen minutes digging through the master computer. Every time he felt he was coming close to an answer, he'd run into a locked file that only Meng could open. Wilson decided it was time to stop fooling around. He left his terminal and went to Meng's office. The old Chinese man was still working on the Medusa program. "Who was on the phone? What took you so long?"

Wilson didn't say a word and waited until Meng glanced up. He looked his boss in the eye. "I was just talking to Colonel Moore down at US-SOCOM. He wanted to know what was going on with Dragon Sim-13.

Apparently it didn't end the way the simulation showed. I just went through the master computer files. What's in the file locked under your personal code?"

Wilson watched in surprise as Meng slumped into his chair and put his head in his hands. "Look for yourself," he muttered. "The code word is 'Goddess.' "

It wasn't even a standoff. With millions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry on board, the Rathburne was not prepared to deal with two men holding automatic rifles on the ship's captain. There was a ten-man contingent of marines on board and, within five minutes of the helicopter landing, they had ringed the helipad. By then it was too late.

Trapp pressed the muzzle of the AK-47, taken from Hooker's personal gun collection, against Lemester's throat. He repeated the demands. "I'm going to tell you this only one more time. We want this helicopter fueled now. If you don't, or if those jarheads try anything stupid, two things are going to happen. First off, I'm going to blow your head clean off. Then my friend — who, by the way, isn't all together upstairs — is going to release the dead-man's switch he's holding. That box, if he releases pressure on the switch, can radio-detonate a twenty-pound satchel of C-4 inside the helicopter. The C-4, combined with the fuel the helicopter does have on board, will really mess up the rear end of your ship. All we want is a little fuel. It isn't worth a lot of people dying over."

Lemester stared at the small man sitting in the back of the helicopter. The man waved crazily and smiled at the naval officer. He held a small box in his right hand. Lemester didn't know what the box was but he had to assume it was a detonating device. Lemester had no idea what was going on. There was no way he'd jeopardize the safety of his ship. The man could have his fuel. There would be other ways to deal with this.

Lemester yelled to Peppers. "Send two men out here to refuel this helicopter."

Peppers briefly considered disobeying. He didn't like the idea of giving in to the demands of these terrorists. They'd obviously taken the crew of the helicopter hostage. Still, he had been trained to do as ordered. Also, he couldn't come up with a better plan. He detailed two men to bring the fuel hose forward.

Five minutes later they were done. 579 was ready to go. Long gave Trapp the thumbs-up. Trapp let out a sigh. The first part was done. Now came phase two. As Long started up the helicopter, Hooker climbed out of the back cradling a satchel in his arms. With his AK-47 slung over his back, he walked over to the coiled fuel hoses and placed the satchel down. Then he walked over to join Trapp on the edge of the helipad. The helicopter lifted off and flew into the night sky.

Trapp could tell that the ship's captain was totally bewildered. The navy people had undoubtedly assumed that he and Hooker were two terrorists holding the aircrew hostage, but now it was apparent that they were all working together. Trapp knew that the ship's captain was trying to figure out why the two of them were staying on board.

Trapp smiled at the captain. "That satchel my friend placed over your JP4 fuel tanks has the C-4 in it. He still has the detonator in his hand. We'll stay that way for a while, until the helicopter is definitely out of range of your surface-to-air missiles and beyond reach of any air force help you might call. So why don't we all sit down and get comfortable."

Lemester's shoulders slumped in defeat as Trapp motioned for him to sit down on the edge of the helipad.

Moore didn't waste any time on preambles. "What have you people done?"

On the other end, Wilson tried to explain as best he could. "Doctor Meng continued running the operation when he cut off your communications with the FOB after the briefback. Meng simulated being the SFOB and gave the authorization code words for the mission to go."

"For God's sake, why?" Moore yelled into the phone. He looked at the clock and cut into Wilson's sputterings. "I don't have time for this. I've got a helicopter inbound for China that I have to do something about." Moore hung up and started leafing through his phone book.

He didn't know Meng's motives or how he had manipulated all of them, but the conclusion was inescapable. The mission had really been accomplished, and now Hossey had talked somebody into flying back into the operational area. Things were getting out of hand. It was time for damage control.