Act of War

CHAPTER 34

Jimi Fordyce looked Billy Tang square in the face and said, “Are you crazy? Not only no, but hell no. There’s no way I’m authorizing that.”

“What if I told you I wasn’t asking for your authorization?”

“You’re going to get us all fucking killed,” Johnson stated.

Fordyce held up his hand to calm his teammate down and kept his attention focused on Tang. “I’m not letting you jeopardize this mission, Billy. The answer’s no.”

“But what if his sister does know something?” said Tang.

“What if she doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll know for sure. Isn’t that better than wondering what if?”

“Completing our mission is what’s better, period.”

Tang looked at him. “And our mission was to gather as much intel as possible. This is possible.”

“No,” Johnson said. “It’s insane.”

Fordyce waved him off again. “If you go down there and you get caught, you’re going to bring an army down on us. I won’t have that.”

“The key word here is if I get caught. They’re not going to catch me. Do you know how many times I have snuck in and out of the DPRK?”

“I don’t know if you have a huge set of balls, or you really are just crazy, but you’re talking about fences, armed guards, and prisoners who are conditioned to snitch. You know damn well if they see a strange face, they’re going to find the nearest guard and raise the alarm in the hope of getting an extra half-ration of cabbage soup.”

Tang shook his head. “It’s a labor camp. Those people are being worked to death. You think they sit up all night playing Mah-Jongg? By the time I slip in there, they’ll all be asleep.”

“Except for the guards,” Fordyce replied.

“You saw the map Jin-Sang drew. The part of the fence he sneaks through is less than a hundred meters from the infirmary. He says the guards don’t patrol that area as often.”

“And ‘the check is in the mail’ and ‘I’ll still respect you in the morning,’ ” Johnson snarked.

Tang ignored him. “If it’s too hairy, I’ll pull the plug. Believe me, I have no desire to spend the rest of my life in a place like that.”

“No,” Fordyce repeated.

“Damn it, Jimi. That girl may hold the key to unlocking the entire thing. When conditions on the ground change, the op parameters have to change.”

“We get in, we get what we can, and we get out. Those are our parameters. Nothing has changed.”

“If I got up right now,” said Tang, “and began to walk down into that valley, what would you do? Shoot me?”

“No,” Fordyce replied. “Tuck would.”

Looking up from his rifle, Tucker smiled.

“And then I’d shoot you again,” said Johnson. “Just to make sure.”

“Bullshit. I don’t think any of you would shoot me.”

Johnson shouldered his rifle. “Let’s find out. Start walking.”

“Nobody’s walking and nobody’s shooting,” Fordyce ordered. “At 2100, just as planned, we ruck up and retreat back over that ridgeline. We work our way down the other side, meet up with our ride, and head back to the coast.”

Tang looked over at Jin-Sang. “What about him?”

“We’re going to feed him one last time before we go, give him some pain meds, and then gag him and tie him up. I’ve got a signal mirror in my kit. We’ll tape it to him. By the time there’s enough sun in the valley, we’ll be long gone.”

“They’ll torture every last piece of information out of him.”

“Which is why you’re going to ask him some questions about the terrain northwest of here and if there are any rail lines. Make them think that’s the direction we’re going.”

“You don’t think they’ll double their coastal patrols and put everything they have in the air?” Tang asked. “They’ll look northwest, all right, but they’ll look in every other direction, too. Talk about kicking the hornets’ nest.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Johnson asked. “We know this kid. We know his whole life story. Now you want to kill him?”

“No, I don’t want to kill him,” Tang asserted. “We can bring him with us.”

“You are fucking crazy.”

“Why? If we can get him to the rally point and into the truck, Hyun Su can get him into South Korea. There are special organizations there that will take him in.”

Fordyce shook his head. “One minute you want to sneak into a DPRK labor camp, the next you want to carry a kid with a tib/fib over a mountain.”

“Wrong. I want you to carry him over the mountain,” said Tang. “I still plan on talking to his sister.”

“Tuck should have shot you last night when he had the chance,” said Johnson.

“Enough,” ordered Fordyce. Looking at Tang, he said, “Billy, we’re not taking this kid and you’re not going to talk to his sister. I can’t be clearer than that. Start packing up your shit. That’s an order.”

“You can’t leave him here,” said Tang.

“Watch me.”

“Jimi, they’ll torture him and they may even decide to make an example out of him for sneaking out of the camp. They could execute him.”

“He should have thought about that before he snuck out.”

“Look at him,” Tang insisted. “He’s a fucking kid and he’s starving. What would you do?”

“It’s not my fight,” Fordyce replied.

“Not your fight? You’re a Navy SEAL, for Christ’s sake. You’re a good man. All three of you are. I know that. I also know that we’re different than the North Koreans. Life means something to us. Freedom means something to us. We can save this boy. We have to save him. And as far as his sister is concerned, if she has even one piece of intel that can help protect our country, I’m willing to do what it takes to get it.”

Fordyce began to interrupt, but Tang motioned to be allowed to finish. Fordyce allowed him to speak.

“I have enough red herrings, fake backstories, and outright deceptions planned that if I got captured, and that’s a big if, I could keep the North Koreans chasing their tails for months. By the time they untangled everything and figured out that I was American and not South Korean, you’d all be long gone,” said Tang. “I wouldn’t compromise this operation.”

“Not at first,” replied Fordyce. “But they’d torture you, too, and eventually, you’d tell them everything.”

“Of course. No one can hold out forever.”

Lieutenant Jimi Fordyce looked long and hard at both of his SEALs, but he didn’t need to ask Johnson or Tucker what they thought. They were his brothers. He could read their minds.

Looking back at Tang he said, “I’d better not regret this. Okay, let’s map out how we’re going to make it happen.”