Act of War

CHAPTER 59

In the time that they had been inland, the weather forecast had gone from bad to worse. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Fordyce looked at Billy Tang and said, “I’m putting my foot down.”

“Fuck putting your foot down, LT,” Johnson interrupted. “I’m going to put my foot up his ass.” Pointing his finger right in Tang’s face he said, “You and Jin-Sang are coming with us.”

The CIA operative didn’t know what he appreciated more, Johnson’s insistence, or that the SEALs had finally started calling the little boy by his correct name.

“Listen,” Tang replied. “You guys need to think about yourselves. That storm’s coming. Look at how much wind we’ve got, and we’re not even at the coast yet. You’re going to need to double-time it to make your pickup.”

“You let us worry about the pickup, Billy,” Fordyce said.

“You’re going to rappel down that rock face with him and then swim him out in those swells? He’s so drugged up, we won’t be able to get him to hold his breath long enough to get down to the ASDS. That’s just stupid.”

“I told you before, we don’t do stupid.”

The CIA operative looked at the men. “I was wrong when I said I thought SEALs were honorable. You are honorable. But this isn’t open for discussion. You guys need to get back. It’s imperative.”

“You’re right. This isn’t open for discussion.”

Tang held up his hand. “Hyun Su and I can get him into South Korea. It’s going to take a few days, but we can make it happen. As long as Tuck gives me enough meds to keep him comfortable, everything will be okay. As soon as we get to Seoul, I’ll take him right to the embassy. They’ll want to debrief him and they’ve got an excellent medical team there. Besides, you can’t bring a kid who’s been exposed to a potentially drug-resistant form of TB onto a submarine.”

Fordyce looked at him. “Are you finished?”

Tang stood there, unsure of how to respond.

Fordyce didn’t wait for an answer. “One of the dumbest things you can ever attempt,” he said, “is to tell a SEAL what he can’t do. We’ll let the medical officer decide on quarantine protocols. But we came in as a team and we’re going out as a team. I don’t give a fuck if the North Koreans suspect we were here. They’re so paranoid they suspect everyone. Now, you either learn how to follow my orders, or this time I will have Tucker shoot you. Is that clear?”

The CIA operative had no idea how the SEALs were going to pull it off, but he trusted them. Shaking his head, he smiled and resigned himself to the fact that they were all leaving together.

Fordyce put his index finger behind his left ear and bent it forward, indicating that he was still awaiting a response.

“Sir, yes sir,” Tang replied, throwing in a crisp salute.

“You damn well better salute me. It’s the least you can do for the ass-chewing I’m going to get. Now, let’s talk about how we’re going to roll this out.”

The water was worse than any of them had anticipated. The incoming storm had picked up considerable strength and was roiling the sea with chop. Fordyce’s brilliant plan was looking much less brilliant by the second.

Tucker and Johnson had argued over who would stay behind with Billy Tang and Jin-Sang. It would take two people to move the little boy and there was no way they were going to leave Billy alone. As the corpsman, and one hell of a gunfighter, Tucker won the argument. Johnson, though, was a stronger swimmer, and Fordyce was glad to have him as his swim buddy for the trip out to the ASDS.

Hyun Su brought them all the way to the coast and made two drops. The first was half a klick in from the cliff the team had climbed less than seventy-two hours ago. After loading Tucker up with extra magazines, Fordyce and Johnson bailed out of the truck and Hyun Su continued. He would drop Billy, Jin-Sang, and Tucker on a strip of beach two kilometers north.

The sound of the truck receding into the distance was replaced by the sound of waves pounding against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

Roping up, Fordyce and Johnson double-checked their gear, stepped out over the edge, and rappelled down. As he watched the waves crash below, Fordyce knew he had made the right choice. It would have been a nightmare trying to get Jin-Sang out this way.

At the bottom of the cliff, they rechecked the integrity of their drysuits, put on their swim gear, and did a final assessment before getting wet.

Timing the waves so as not to get battered against the rocks, they picked their moment and jumped.

It was a grueling swim, made just as difficult by the waves as by the current, which was as determined as it had been on their swim in to pull them off course.

They swam using GPS as their guide. Once they reached their GPS point, Fordyce switched to a handheld acoustic locator to pinpoint the minisub. As soon as they were above it, they oxygenated their lungs, then took a deep breath and dove beneath the surface.

Feeling their way along the structure, they came up into the ASDS through the moon pool in its belly. Johnson climbed out first and Fordyce handed their gear up to him.

Once the gear was secure, Fordyce gave the pilots a new set of orders. After the moon pool was locked off, the pilots retracted their anchors and headed up the coast toward the beach.

As the minisub made its way through the water, Fordyce and Johnson unpacked its lone combat rubber raiding craft. They were going to do this down, dirty, and in a hurry. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but it was the only option they had.

When the ASDS arrived off the beach, the pilots deployed the anchors and cleared Fordyce and Johnson to launch. Opening the moon pool, the two SEALs kicked everything into high gear.

Outside the minisub, they began inflating the CRRC and rose with it to the surface. The swells were even worse now, but Fordyce and Johnson focused on the task at hand.

Marking their location on GPS, they attached the outboard engine, and moments later were moving.

The waves pounded the crap out of them as they headed toward the beach. Riding prone up front, weapon out ready to engage the enemy, Fordyce took the worst of it. It felt they were under the water more than they were on top of it.

By the time they hit the beach, Tucker and Billy Tang were already out of their hide and coming at them with Jin-Sang.

Fordyce knelt in the sand to cover them as Johnson spun the craft around. As soon as he had it pointed back out to sea, the men laid Jin-Sang inside. Tang joined him and then Tucker and Fordyce helped get the boat into deeper water before leaping in themselves and taking their positions forward. Johnson rolled the throttle and the CRRC shot off into the waves. They had been on and off the beach in the blink of an eye.

The ASDS had its comms antenna up and Fordyce radioed the pilots via UHF that they were on their way back.

By the time they hit their GPS point, the minisub had already surfaced.

They entered via the top hatch. Tang went in first, accompanied by a ton of water as a wave crashed right on top of them. As carefully but as quickly as they could, Johnson and Tucker handed Jin-Sang down to him. The ASDS was bobbing like a cork and it was difficult for Tang to maintain his balance. When the boy was safely inside, Johnson flashed Fordyce the thumbs-up and began feeding gear to Tucker, who had already climbed into the hatch.

Once the CRRC was stripped, the two remaining SEALs scuttled it with their knives and let it sink as they dropped through the hatch and closed it above them.

As soon as everything was tight, they gave the pilots the word to get moving. The sooner they were out of North Korean waters and back on the USS Texas, the better all of them were going to feel.

Fordyce looked over at Jin-Sang. Tucker had placed a new mask on him and had wrapped the boy in a dry Mylar blanket. He was out of it, but not so out of it that he couldn’t sense the relief of the men around him. Slowly, Jin-Sang lifted his hand and flashed Fordyce a thumbs-up.

The SEAL returned the thumbs-up and then began thinking of everything they needed to report back to Washington as soon as possible.