Carrier

CHAPTER 17

The SEAL team consisted of Lieutenant Brandon's thirteen men, operating under the call sign "Bushmaster." They sat crowded shoulder to shoulder on narrow seats, facing outward, bathed in a dim red glow barely sufficient to illuminate the helicopter's cabin. Anything like normal conversation was impossible under the hammering of the SH-3H Sea King's five-bladed rotors, so there was no talking. Each man, his face and hands heavily blackened, wore a wetsuit, life preserver and harness, and a face-mask. Each man held swimfins, letting them dangle between his knees. At his feet was a waterproof rucksack holding weapons and equipment.

They'd boarded the Sea King over an hour earlier, watched only by a few curious sailors on Jefferson's flight deck. Now they were approaching the Korean coast, skimming the waves at one hundred fifty miles per hour.

Several possible plans had been discussed for inserting the team. The most common means for getting SEALs ashore was to release them from the diving trunk of a submarine, but the nearest U.S. sub equipped for SEAL ops was still a day's sailing time away, and the shallow waters east of Wonsan were risky haunts for subs in any case. Both HALO ― A parachute drop from high altitude with the chute opening delayed until the last moment ― and HAHO ― A drop from high altitude with the chute opened immediately and steered across dozens of miles to the drop zone ― had been considered and discarded. Jefferson's Prowlers were busily jamming North Korean radar, but it was still possible that parachutists, especially high-flying, long-ranged HAHO jumpers, would be spotted coming in. Besides, the North Korean landscape was a rugged jumble of mountains, woods, villages, and industrial complexes. Without pathfinders to secure and mark the DZ, a parachute landing was extremely risky.

The solution, to insert by helocast into the sea and make the final approach to shore by raft, was risky too, but it offered several advantages. North Korean radars ― those that could burn through the American jamming ― had been picking up Jefferson's SAR helos all evening. Helicopters had been deliberately overflying the area for hours now, even deliberately penetrating the twelve-mile limit. By now, one more helo wouldn't attract undue attention… if it was seen at all against the scattered returns from the waves.

Too, in a helocast, the possibility of one or more jumpers injuring themselves was smaller, and this was an op where even one casualty would seriously weaken the team's chances.

Lieutenant Sikes held one hand to the communications helmet he wore. "Three minutes!" he heard the aircraft commander say over the headset.

Sikes picked up his equipment bundle and padded barefoot across the cabin to the big sliding door on the starboard side, feeling the deck vibrate beneath his feet. A Navy helicopter crewman grinned at him and gave a jaunty thumbs-up, then undogged the door and slid it back. Wet air thundered past the opening.

The blackness outside was complete. The SEAL lieutenant took his position by the door, turned, and gave his men a hand signal. "Get ready!"

Sikes removed the communications helmet and handed it to the sailor as the team members unstrapped themselves and gathered up their gear. The stick leader, Boatswain's Chief Manuel Huerta, helped the lieutenant drag a black-shrouded bundle weighing more than three hundred pounds and fitted with safety lines and flotation collars, across the deck and position it near the door. He signaled again. "Stand up!"

The men unbuckled themselves and shuffled into line, Huerta taking his place at the head, facing Sikes. Wind tugged at the lieutenant's life vest, but its force was lessening. The Sea King was slowing now as it approached the drop zone.

"Check equipment!" As for a parachute jump, each man checked the gear of the man in front of him, rucksack snap-linked to harness, fins looped over one arm, knife, flare, first-aid kit, and pistol secured to web belt. Sikes double-checked them all, and Huerta checked him. The sailor, hearing a warning from the aircraft commander over his com helmet, held up his forefinger, crooked over to show half. Thirty seconds. "Stand in the door!" The lieutenant could make out the oily flash of wave tops in the blackness below the helo, could taste air-flung salt as the rotors lashed spray from the surface. The Sea King had slowed now to less than twenty knots, coasting a bare fifteen feet above the water. The seaman gave a signal. "Go!" The bundle went out first, already unfolding as its C02 valve triggered. Huerta was next. Earlier that evening, a metal bar had been welded to the helo's side, just ahead of the door and extending three feet from the hull. Huerta reached out the door and grabbed the bar, swung clear of the cabin with his body angled slightly forward and his gear bag dangling below, then let go. The splash was lost in the roar of the engines.

One by one, the SEALs shuffled forward and repeated the procedure. When the last man had vanished into the spray-whipped night, Sikes grinned at the sailor, took his own place at the bar, then let go.

The water was cold, engulfing Sikes in a numbing grip. By the time he resurfaced, the Sea King had already picked up both speed and altitude, its roar dwindling into the night. The lieutenant slipped his fins on, cleared his mask, then began closing with the rest of the team. He could hear them nearby, gathering at the black rubber raft riding the heavy sea swell. The IBS ― Navyese for Inflatable Boat, Small ― could carry fourteen men and up to one thousand pounds of gear. It took only minutes for the SEALs to get themselves and their gear on board, to unship the waterproofed electric engine and secure it to the motor mount. Sikes checked his compass and indicated a direction. Land was that way about five miles off if the helo had put them in the right place. The IBS began moving silently through the night.

One of the bunk-rooms reserved for six of the wing's junior officers was affectionately known as a Me Jo, a humorous acronym which stood for Marginally Effective Junior Officers. The quarters belonging to six of VF-95's lieutenants and j.gs had been taken over by pilots and RIOs from half a dozen of the wing's squadrons.

The party was in full swing when Batman arrived, at least twenty men crowded into the bunk-room, talking, laughing, and making the inevitable "there I was right on this guy's tail" motions with their hands as they described again and again their specific engagements during the dogfight. Snake Hoffner and Zombie Callahan were enjoying the attention as they talked about their fish-eye view of the battle and their long, cold wait until a SAR Sea King had reached them. They'd been released from sick bay only moments earlier, arriving just before Batman. Since liquor was strictly prohibited aboard ship, refreshments were limited to Kool-Aid and coffee served from a pair of silver ten-gallon urns set on a cart in the corner. Food ranged from chips, pretzels, and other assorted junk from the ship's exchange to "autodog," soft ice cream so-called because of what chocolate ice cream was supposed to look like as it was extruded from the automatic dispenser.

Batman was late, having spent several hours debriefing and several more with paperwork. There'd also been his fruitless search for Tombstone. Pulling a succession of bolters was rough, and he wanted to know how the Vipers' skipper was doing.

"Attention on deck!" Tigershark McConnell shouted, grinning broadly, as Batman walked in. "Gentlemen, our day's high-scorer has just arrived!"

A coffee mug bearing Jefferson's name and number was pressed into his hand. "Thanks, Tiger. Frenchie also scored two, you know."

McConnell raised the paper cup he was holding. "Fallen comrades," he toasted. "They were the best." Batman sipped the amber liquid in his mug and nearly choked on the smoky bite of scotch. "That's good," he managed.

"We got different flavors," Army Garrison Murcheson said from the refreshment table. "Scotch, rum, vodka, wine, Michelob, Black Label, Lowenbrau…"

"Not to mention Kool-Aid," Malibu added. "Name your Poison, compadre."

Batman raised his mug. "This'll do… just fine." He was mildly surprised at the ebullient mood. Somehow, Batman had thought that the tone of the gathering would be more subdued after the deaths of Dragon, Snoops, and ― perhaps most shocking of all ― the Deputy CAG. In some ways, the party had the aura of nostalgia, good humor, and fellowship that Batman imagined must characterize an Irish wake, a celebration of good comrades bravely gone, made light by the forced bravado of "the same thing can't possibly happen to me."

If there was anything dampening the gathering's mood, it was the knowledge that someone up the chain of command had "screwed the pooch," aborting the Alpha Strike minutes before it was due to go in. Somewhere along the line there'd been a failure of nerve, and the men of Jefferson's air wing had paid for it that afternoon. Though casualties might well have been higher had Operation Winged Talon gone in, the deaths of French, Ashly, and Whitridge were perceived as the results of the bungling of an uncaring and impersonal bureaucracy. Morale was down, and more than one officer could be heard discussing the mental and moral shortcomings of "those Washington REMFs."

"So, compadre," Malibu said as Batman drained his mug. "You ever corral Tombstone?"

"Negative." Batman shook his head. "I was hoping to find him here."

"Fat chance. Y'know, dude, I think the man's layin' low."

Snake Hoffner became part of the conversation through the sheer press of the crowd. It seemed unlikely that the Me Jo could hold even one more man. "Hey, I heard old Tombstone pulled a couple bolters," he said. "Was it bad?"

Malibu shrugged. "He's been wired since Coyote and Mardi Gras bought it."

Batman studied his empty mug. It was not something he particularly wanted to talk about. Hoffner was young, one of VF-95's nuggets. His dunking in the Sea of Japan that afternoon had done nothing to dampen his youthful exuberance. He hadn't yet learned all the social graces of the aviators' fraternity. Like the fact that you didn't talk about a man who might have lost the stuff that made him part of the brotherhood.

"'Tention on deck!"

This time the alert was for real. Captain Fitzgerald stepped into the room and the men rose, awkwardly attempting to keep drinks and paper plates from spilling as they stood at attention.

"Carry on, gentlemen," he said, smiling broadly. Batman thought he looked… older now, or perhaps it was just the effects of exhaustion. Fitzgerald had rarely been absent from either the bridge or CIC during the past three days, and the beginnings of blue smudges on the pouches beneath his eyes were showing.

"Just wanted to drop in and tell you men 'well done,'" the Captain said, "And to let You all know that Jefferson has been officially credited with eight blue bandit kills today. That's one each for Lieutenants Taggart, Garrison, McConnell, and Grabiak. Two kills for Commander French." He sobered for a moment, then brightened again as he turned and looked Batman in the face. "And two for this hotdog here! If we keep this up, the NKs aren't going to have one goddamned fighter left!"

There was an answering explosion of applause and laughter.

"I know I speak for all of us… and for Admiral Magruder as well, when I say that Commander French and Lieutenants Ashly and Whitridge will be sorely, sorely missed. They were good men, all of them, good aviators and good shipmates. But they gave their lives in the service of their country, and no man can ask for a better epitaph than that." He looked around, noting coffee mugs and paper cups. "Well now, I don't suppose anyone's saved some of that Kool-Aid for me?"

"Comin' right up, Captain." Someone handed him a paper cup. He sipped at it appreciatively, made a sour face, and looked at it.

"Lemonade," he said, sounding disappointed. He looked up at Batman. "You know, Wayne, too much sugar can be bad for you, especially when you have to fly the next day. Screws up your metabolism."

"Yes, sir."

"That goes for all of you. Not too much sugar." Fitzgerald tossed off the rest of the cup. "That's all, men. Have a good evening. Thanks for the… Kool-Aid."

"Good night, Captain."

Batman stared dubiously into his own mug. "What did you give him, Tiger? Lemonade, or…?"

"I'll never tell," Tigershark replied primly.

The laughter and easy conversation picked up again moments after the Captain had gone. Malibu took Batman's mug. "Let me get you a refill. What's your flavor?"

"More of the same," Batman replied. "But with ice this time."

"You think Tombstone'll be okay?" Hoffner asked.

"They don't make 'em any better, Snake," Batman said. "He'll do just fine."

Another junior officer crowded close. Lieutenant j.g. Peter Costello was about the same age as Snake but looked even younger. "Hey, listen, Batman, I wanted to say congratulations on your kills! Real smooth work, y'know?"

Batman smiled. "Thanks, Hitman." Costello's running name, it was said, was derived from the tough Italian street-kid manner he affected at times.

"I saw it, man," Army Garrison said, leaning over Hoffner's shoulder. "Watched his first missile going' in smooth as silk…" He slapped the palm of one hand across the other. "Kapow! Fireball city!"

"No shit?" Costello shook his head. A nugget pilot with VF-97, he'd missed the fight. He looked positively wistful.

Batman wasn't certain what to say. A modest answer didn't seem to be in character somehow, but a cocky reply would have been out of place. Malibu gave him an excuse to turn away by returning with his drink. "Great timing, Malibu. Thanks."

"Hey, Batman?" Costello persisted. "I was wantin' to ask you. What's it feel like, killing a man?"

The question took Batman completely by surprise. He blinked. "What?"

"I was just wondering how it felt, killing a human being like that. You feel different? Anything?"

The words hit Batman like a hammer blow. He'd always considered himself to be a professional, hard and detached. That the question should rock him so badly surprised him as much as the question itself.

"Hey, Batman?" Malibu laid a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

"Fine. I'm fine." He made himself swallow the rest of his scotch, letting the liquid fire mingle with the fire in his stomach. A new emotion mingled with the others. Shame. He was ashamed of letting the others know how he felt.

Suddenly he had to get away. He handed his mug to Hoffner, the ice cubes tinkling merrily. "Stow this ― I think I'm going to turn in."

He pushed his way through the crowd, ignoring the back-slaps and shouted congratulations as he went.

Batman wanted to be alone with thoughts grown suddenly black.

Surf hissed and thundered, the breakers faintly luminescent under the glimmer of lights from the oil refinery on a bluff overlooking the bay to the south. Chief Huerta let the waves carry him toward the beach in a succession of rushes. He held his rucksack in front of his body with his left hand, using it as shield and flotation device. His right hand held a Colt XM 177E2 Commando braced across the top of the rucksack. The SMG, barrel-heavy because of the custom suppressor affixed to the muzzle, tracked in his hand as he watched the blackness of the shore.

Another wave picked him up and slid him forward until rough sand grated under his legs and swim vest. He waited as the outgoing water sucked at his body, leaving him for the moment exposed on the beach. There was no movement at all, no sound save the repetitious roar of the surf.

Huerta sensed motion to his left. Machinist's Mate First Class Brian Copley was all but invisible in the darkness, but Huerta could make out the flicker of a hand motion, questioning. He replied with a hand sign of his own. "Go!"

Minutes earlier, the two of them had dropped from the raft fifty yards offshore. Lieutenant Sikes was waiting now with the others while they checked out the beach.

A low whistle, barely heard through a lull in the surf, told him the way was clear. As the next wave picked him up and slid him forward again, Huerta rose to a low crouch and loped forward. He ran twenty yards up the beach, then threw himself down at Copley's side. Working quietly, they pulled night-vision goggles from waterproof pouches and put them on. Switched on, the goggles enhanced the available light enough that the SEALs could see a man-sized target at three hundred yards.

They exchanged more hand signals. The SEALs split up, checking a hundred yards up and down the coast.

The beach was narrow, with a steep, boulder-strewn slope rising like a wall in front of them. There were buildings close by, a seaside resort and the ramshackle huts of a fishing village, but this stretch was empty.

Huerta met Copley once more, signaled him to mount guard, and made his way back to the water's edge. He switched off his starlight goggles and raised them up on his head to conserve battery power. Taking a penlight, he aimed it out past the surf and pressed the switch once… twice… three times. There was no response ― no sense in alerting other watchers along the shore ― but minutes later Huerta glimpsed the subdued flash of a black paddle dipping against a wave. The IBS had motored in from the drop point, stopping only once when a North Korean torpedo boat had growled past on patrol. Though their DZ had been well inside the twelve-mile limit, the team had still been forced to motor a long way to reach this portion of the coast, and speed was essential. For the final approach silence and invisibility were the watchwords, so they'd come into the beach with the motors off, using paddles to keep from broaching to in the surf.

Figures materialized out of the night, carrying the dripping rafts. Lieutenant Sikes touched his shoulder, a silent "well done." Huerta led the rest of the SEAL team back up the beach to where Copley was waiting with his suppressed Smith and Wesson M-760 SMG, prone behind his rucksack.

They worked swiftly, half mounting guard while the other half stripped off wetsuit tops and donned camouflaged combat suits, boots and web gear. Headgear, like weapons, was largely a matter of personal choice. Most of the men wore boonie hats. Some, like Huerta, preferred a simple sweat band of camo cloth.

The SEALs took another fifteen minutes using paddles to scoop out holes above the beach's high-tide line where they buried the rafts and motors, paddles, wetsuits, fins, and goggles. Whatever happened now, they would not be needing them again. They spent minutes more checking themselves and each other, making certain that exposed skin was covered with camo grease-paint, that snaps and swivels on rifles and equipment were secured with black tape, that no one wore anything which might shine or clink or rattle and thus give their presence away to the enemy. Rucksacks, lighter now with only ammo, rations, and survival gear, were strapped to backs and loose buckles and ends secured. Each man also donned night-vision goggles which gave him an oddly mechanical appearance, like a robot in a cheap SF horror film.

Huerta and Sikes checked a waterproof map. The SEALs had arrived precisely on the strip of beach chosen from the satellite photos they'd studied at Coronado and during their trip across the Pacific. The North Korean Army camp where at least some of the prisoners had been sighted lay four miles inland, near the village of Nyongch'on-ni. Other features were marked on the map, possible targets for air raids, possible locations of American prisoners, but the team's first priority was to check the camp identified as Nyongch'on-kiji.

Huerta pulled back the velcro seal of his luminous watch and checked the time. It was 0240 hours. They could be there in an hour or two if nothing delayed them.

Each man already knew his place in patrol formation. Huerta, as assistant squad leader, took position behind Vic Krueger, who was lugging one of the team's two M-60 machine guns. With another silent hand motion from Sikes, the team began moving, treading up the slope as silently as ghosts in the night.

CHAPTER 18

Huerta lay flat on his back in the muddy ditch, moving in tiny increments beneath the chain-link fence which surrounded the inner compound of the North Korean base. Runoff from repeated rains had carved this channel beneath the fence unnoticed by its builders, and now the SEAL was using it to gain entrance to the area suspected to be where the Koreans were holding the crew of the U.S.S. Chimera.

He was unarmed save for a knife and his Mark 22, a silenced, custom-made 9-mm first used against guard dogs in Vietnam and subsequently known as the "hush puppy." Those were for use as a last resort only, of course. The last thing he needed at the moment was a dead guard; if he killed someone, he would have to drag the body out of the camp and hope the sentry's superiors thought he'd deserted while on watch.

He'd left his night-vision gear with the others as well; it was too easy to become reliant on those technological wonders, too easy to lose touch with the night. And now Chief Huerta was the night, a black shadow among shadows, edging silently under the fence through the runoff gully.

He'd already traversed the first, outer fence, using bolt-cutters to snip through a few links of the fence in the shadow of a guard tower next to a pole. The rest of the team waited for him outside.

The camp identified as Nyongch'on-kiji lay in a high saddle in the ridge line some seven miles south of Wonsan's waterfront district, surrounded on two sides by rugged escarpments which climbed higher still. A highway passed through the saddle, connecting Wonsan with the town of Anbyon ten miles to the south. At this hour there was little traffic.

The SEALs had reached the eastern slope overlooking the camp after an hour's hike from the coast. From the vantage point of their OP amid boulders, brush, and the scraggly, stunted pines that clung to the rocky slopes in this region, they'd surveyed the camp, identifying the building which was their prime target. One of the long, single-story structures inside the inner fence was the building in the satellite photo which had first confirmed the presence of Westerners inside the Nyongch'on compound the previous day.

That building was Huerta's target now. He'd been lucky so far: no encounters, no guard dogs, and only isolated glimpses of sentries doing their rounds in the distance. If he could get close enough to the suspect building to confirm that Americans were being held there now…

Coyote heard it first, a muffled thump as though something had landed on the roof of the hut. He'd been lying awake on the straw ticking which served as a mattress, and the sound seemed to originate beyond the wooden timbers of the ceiling directly over his head. He sat up. Commander Wilkinson, lying nearby, sat up as well.

"What is it?" Wilkinson's whisper was harsh in the near-darkness. The room's interior was dimly illuminated by the indirect light from the compound's streetlights spilling through the narrow windows high along the two long walls.

"Something on the roof," Coyote replied. His heart pounded in his chest. The night's quiet had seemed as much a torture as the beatings he'd endured earlier. Their captors had taken many of the men out in small groups, beaten them, threatened them with torture or death, demanded their signed confessions, then returned them to the Wonsan Waldorf. The sudden end to the routine was ominous. The uncertainty was as much an instrument of torture as North Korean boots and rifle butts.

Coyote heard a faint, scuffling sound. Something heavy was sliding down the roof now, making its way from the peak of the roof toward the south wall. He followed the movement in the near darkness, then rose, tiptoeing past sleeping or unconscious men toward the wall and its line of windows. Several other men, aware now that something was going on, rose and followed him.

The faint light from the sky was suddenly blotted out. Straining against the darkness outside, Coyote realized he was looking at the silhouette of a man's head, lowered over the edge of the roof and peering into the window upside down. A sudden, unreasonable hope flared in Coyote's chest. "Who's there?"

"What was the monster killed by Bellerophon?" a muffled voice replied.

Wilkinson, standing on top of an overturned bucket at Coyote's shoulder, stiffened. "Chimera," he said, leaning against the open window.

"Well, either you people are round-eyed North Koreans with a classical education, or you're just the guys I'm looking for," the upside-down shape whispered. "Chief Huerta, USN SEALS."

Coyote sensed the excitement spreading through the room, heard the hasty, whispered words as more and more of the men of Chimera's crew awoke.

"Is it a rescue?" Coleridge asked.

"Not yet," the SEAL replied. "We've got a team in place outside the camp. I'm just here to make sure you're you. How many guys are in there?"

In quick, terse exchanges, Wilkinson answered the SEAL's rapid-fire questions, giving him the numbers he needed: 170 prisoners, including 18 badly wounded men who would need stretchers and special care if they were to be moved.

"You mean all of you are being held in one place?" the SEAL asked.

"Yeah," Wilkinson replied. "I think they're still trying to decide what to do with us… and it's easier to guard all of us together."

"Well, that's good, anyway," Huerta said. "Makes it easier to get you all out."

"When?" Wilkinson asked. "When's the rescue?"

"Can't say yet, sir," the SEAL replied. Evidently, there was light enough at his back for him to recognize Wilkinson's uniform and rank bars. "First thing is to let people know you're okay." There was a pause. "You got a place in there to hide some weapons?"

Coyote thought about a corner tucked away among the rafters he'd noticed earlier, a spot someone could reach by getting on someone's shoulders. "Yeah!" he said. "There's a place!"

Huerta hesitated, as though thinking it over. "Okay. Somebody reach through the window."

The windows were too narrow for a man to squeeze through ― the reason, perhaps, why they weren't barred or screened over ― but Chief Bronkowicz helped Coyote up so he could stretch his arm over the sill. It was a long reach. The eaves of the roof extended well beyond the wall, but Coyote felt something cold and heavy placed in his open palm. He pulled it back inside. Light gleamed from the parkerized finish of a.22-caliber pistol, the barrel swallowed by the heavy cylinder of a long suppressor.

Two times more, Coyote reached into the night, retrieving a Marine Kabar combat knife and two fully loaded magazines for the pistol.

"Listen up now," the voice at the window said. "It's vital that those weapons not be seen by the gooks, get me? They see those, they'll know we're in the area."

"You can count on us, Chief," Wilkinson said.

"I'll try to slip back in here tomorrow night, same time, and let you know what the word is. No promises. If I don't show, just hunker down and sit it out. Those weapons are in case things get too tight and I can't make it."

"Wait a minute," Coyote said. "Won't you need these?"

"Not to worry, pal. I won't have time to stop and play with our NK friends, and those things'd just slow me up anyway. I don't care what the bastards do to you, you keep them hidden until you hear a rescue op going down, get me?"

"Right, Chief."

"When you hear the fun and games begin ― explosions, helicopters, American voices, anything like that ― that'll be the time. Use them to protect yourselves until the cavalry arrives." Huerta paused. When he spoke again, his voice carried the whip crack of command, even at a whisper. "Until then, keep 'em out of sight. You guys start playing cowboy and you'll get all of us killed, get me? Don't even load the damned thing until it's time to use it! I don't want an accidental shot giving the whole damn thing away!"

"Count on it, Chief," Wilkinson said.

Coyote felt the heavy authority of the pistol in his hand. The SEAL was taking a terrible chance by leaving the gun and knife with the prisoners, but it might be their one chance of survival if their captors started slaughtering them during a rescue attempt.

"Okay," Huerta said. "I trust you. Don't do nothing crazy. I'll try to make contact again tomorrow night, let you know what's happening."

Abruptly, the head pulled away. There was a whisper of noise from the ceiling as the SEAL climbed back toward the roof ridge, then silence.

For the first time since his capture, Coyote allowed himself the luxury of hope.

"Those poor bastards don't have a chance," Huerta said. "Not unless we go in fast and pull them out. I mean like tonight!"

It was two hours since he'd made contact with the prisoners inside the compound. Unwilling to approach the building's wall on the ground and in the open, he'd used his line and grapnel to get up on the roof, then secured himself by the waist so he wouldn't fall and crept spiderwise to the overhang so he could reach the window.

The prisoners' description of the North Korean questioning had convinced him that they were in serious danger. Their captors might be expecting an American attack, and it was unlikely that they would keep the prisoners together or in one place for very long. The likeliest move would be to transport them to P'yongyang. When that happened, rescue would be out of the question.

Sikes looked at the map Huerta had drawn, then compared it with the actual camp, spread out below them in the golden light of the dawn. The SEAL team had created a hide for itself, an OP sheltered behind a blind of brush and loose rock overlooking the base and well away from the nearest roads. The lieutenant pointed to something that looked like apartment buildings beyond a motor pool garage and a cluster of supply sheds. "Barracks?"

"Yes, sir. Two sentries there." Huerta pointed out notations on his map. On his way out, he'd scouted the compound. "Also here, and here. Roving patrols here…"

"Too big a job for fourteen men," Sikes said. His mouth quirked in a passable imitation of a smile. "Too big even for fourteen SEALS."

"No such thing, Lieutenant," Larry Gordon said, crouched behind the OP's blind nearby. He patted his M-60 machine gun affectionately. "We can take 'em!"

"What do you think?" Sikes asked. "A battalion inside the compound?"

"About that." Huerta thought about what he'd seen. Security inside the camp was not all that good. "Securing the prisoners won't be the problem," he said. "We can handle the bad guys inside the camp. But we're going to have to bring in helos to get us out, and holding out against NK reinforcements from outside is gonna be a bitch."

Sikes studied the map a moment longer. "Agreed," he said at last. He pointed toward the airfield, sprawled across the ridge-top spine of the peninsula to the north. The valley between that ridge and this one was filled with the regular outlines of fenced-in compounds, military-looking buildings, massed trucks, and military vehicles. "We've got hostile air based there… and a major Army base of some kind down there in the valley." He dropped his arm. "Shit. Ten minutes after it goes down, we could have half the North Korean Army on our asses."

"We could bring in some cavalry," Huerta pointed out. "Just enough to hold on until we could evac the hostages." Already, he was thinking of the op like a hostage rescue, something he'd trained for intensively during a tour with SEAL Team Six.

They discussed the situation for another fifteen minutes, suggesting alternatives, planning, revising. Finally, Sikes looked across the hide to where Tom Halliday was unfolding the compact satellite dish and aligning it with a nondescript piece of the southern sky. The unit could assemble a burst transmission and hurl it to a Navy comsat hanging in a stationary orbit 22,000 miles above the equator, then on to Washington and to the Navy ships waiting beyond the eastern horizon.

"Well, the decision won't be ours," Sikes said at last. "Thank God. But if we can get some help, we'll go in."

The SEALs crouched lower over the map as they went over their options, composing the message they would transmit.

Admiral Magruder let his finger slide across the stretch of blue labeled Yonghung Man on the map. Hundreds of close-spaced numbers gave depth readings. The finger came to rest on the out-thrust slash of the Kolmo Peninsula. Symbols on the map marked the airfield at the peninsula's base, the tangled maze of Wonsan's streets across the narrow gut between peninsula and mainland, the red-flagged triangles of known SAM and radar sites along the coast. "This stretch of beach looks clear," he said.

The man in camouflage fatigues opposite the plot table from the Admiral was Colonel John Caruso, commander of the MEU's Marines. Next to him was Admiral William E. Simpson, CO of the four ships of the amphibious squadron. They'd heloed in from the Chosin only an hour earlier and stood now in Flag Plot with Magruder, studying the map of the North Korean coast.

Admiral Simpson traced narrow corridors on the map, between the islands which interrupted the approaches to Wonsan. The islands bore exotic names: Yo-do, Sin-do, Su-do. Do, Magruder remembered, was Korean for island. "These stretches could be mined," Simpson said thoughtfully. "Gun emplacements on these islands."

"We have plenty of Mark 106 sleds to take care of the mines," Magruder said.

"Air strikes can take out the gun emplacements," Caruso added. "And any NK air out of this airstrip will have to be neutralized before my boys go ashore."

"We can handle that," Magruder said. "This'll be Winged Talon all over again, except this time we'll carry it out!"

The brief message from Bushmaster had electrified the staff and senior officers of TF-18. Here was a real chance to rescue the men of Chimera's crew ― all of them ― from a single compound four miles from the coast. There would not be a better chance than this. Bushmaster had warned that the prisoners might be moved soon. When that happened, they would be beyond the carrier group's reach forever. A rescue, if it was to be attempted at all, would have to be mounted within the next day or two, and that meant getting a start on the planning now.

"Do you think your people can pull it off?" Magruder asked Caruso at last. "Two thousand men against… God knows. Ten thousand? Twenty?"

"More'n that if we're not in and out, chop-chop." The colonel frowned. "I gave you my recommendations the other day, sir. I thought we could do it then. I think we can do it now. But the show's gonna be yours."

"I know."

Caruso's plan, submitted as one of the options the task force had been examining two days before, had been for a Marine landing to secure a base on the mainland, with recon teams ranging inland to secure the American prisoners… assuming that preliminary reconnaissance could locate them. At the time, no one knew where Chimera's crew was being held, and the plan had been shelved in favor of Winged Talon.

But now…

The real question was what Washington would think. Winged Talon had been aborted minutes before the Navy aircraft had hit Korean air space, and since that time there had been no explanation, no word at all save that the SEALs should be sent in and that TF-18 should hold station at Point November. It seemed unlikely that they would approve a full-fledged Marine landing one day after calling off a far simpler, far cheaper air strike.

Magruder was still angry about that call, angry with a simmering, barely restrained resentment which needed little to boost it to white-hot fury.

"Recap it, then," Magruder said at last. "Air strikes to take out KorCom radar, SAM sites, and guns. A heliborne Marine assault on Nyongch'on to support the SEALs and secure the prisoners. Marine assault at Kolmo to give us a secure base from which to support the Nyongch'on op. Why not just go straight in from the task force with helos? Why have the Marines go ashore at all?"

"Too many things could go wrong, with nothing in reserve," the Marine colonel said. "We only have two large flight decks, Jefferson's and Chosin's… and Jefferson is going to be busy with CAP and ground strikes. We have no guarantee that all of our helos will arrive at Nyongch'on intact, and we might have to reinforce before we evacuate. It'll help to have a shore-based helo pad, and the airfield will provide us with just that. Any helos that are damaged on the ground at Nyongch'on will have a friendly place to set down and off-load only a few miles from the DZ and won't have to make it all the way back to Chosin, eight, ten miles out at sea."

Magruder nodded. "Makes sense."

"Besides, the beachhead will help divert enemy attention away from Nyongch'on. Our boys are gonna have their hands full in there, no matter what, but we can help 'em take some of the heat off."

"Okay. Bill? How long before you have a detailed working plan?"

Simpson pulled at his lower lip. "My staff's already working on it. I can have a preliminary on your desk in three hours. Your boys'll have to work out the air ops and fire control."

"A preliminary's all I'll need for right now… to sell Washington on the idea."

Simpson grinned. "I'm glad that's your department, Tom, and not mine. I'd get mad and want to kick bureaucratic ass."

"Who says I won't?" He looked at the map again, at the small forest of red triangles, SAM sites and hardpoints. This was going to be lots more expensive than Winged Talon, in men, money, and aircraft. But then, from the look of things, Washington was going to ignore the military option in favor of the diplomatic one.

And how long, he wondered, before those boys at Nyongch'on came home? How many wouldn't come home at all? He wondered if Washington would even let them take the first, necessary steps. He felt a stab of fire in his gut, an old ulcer burning anew. Sometimes it was hard to know who the real enemy was.

CHAPTER 19

Batman queued up with other officers to buy a meal ticket from the cashier, picked up a tray, and started down the cafeteria-style line. It wasn't that he was hungry ― quite the contrary, in fact ― but the mechanical actions of moving through the chow line were a piece of mindless routine that allowed him to put off the thoughts that had been troubling him since the party the night before. Finding an unoccupied table in the corner of the wardroom, he slumped at the seat and began picking at his food without interest. His thoughts kept returning with a kind of morbid fascination to the subject of death.

Kill or be killed. There was no other way to look at aerial combat. All of his training, all of his preparation, all of the lectures and classes and maneuvers he'd gone through during his Naval career had been directed to one end and one end only: to place Lieutenant Edward Everett Wayne on the six of an enemy combat aircraft so that he could destroy it. During the actual dogfight, he'd not thought of the MiGs as anything other than targets in a kind of video game in the sky where machines exploded in flame and debris, jacking up the victor's score.

The sudden shift in his mind, from thinking of them as targets to thinking of them as men with families, wives, children…

Through much of the previous night, he'd wrestled with those thoughts, wondering if he should go talk to one of Jefferson's three chaplains. There was an inner reserve which made him hold that idea at arm's length. He respected the chaplains, respected their experience and the Navy traditions which stood behind them but what could they tell him that he didn't already know? None of the carrier's sky pilots were aviators themselves, none had been in combat.

How could they address what he was feeling now?

Besides, Batman had heard stories of chaplains who'd gone to the ship's captain with what otherwise would have been considered confidential information… if that information was potentially dangerous to the man, the ship, or the crew. He suspected that CAG would ground him so fast it would make his head spin. Navy combat aviators had to have their heads screwed on straight at all times.

So maybe he should ground himself… or turn in his wings. Every part of Batman's background, his whole being rebelled against that idea. It would be an admission of weakness, of failure. An admission that he no longer had the right stuff.

But Batman felt that if he didn't talk to someone he'd blow his stack. The only people with whom he had enough in common were other aviators, the very men for whom he had to maintain the facade, the band-of-brothers act that all was well.

There was no one, not even Malibu…

Across the wardroom, an officer in khakis rose from his table and carried his tray toward the galley window. Batman recognized the lanky gait, the pale, pale blond hair of Tombstone's RIO.

Tombstone! There was a man who had never made a point of maintaining the machismo of the aviator brotherhood. The guy's got problems of his own, Batman thought… but possibly it was the fact that Tombstone was having problems that made him seem like the right man to see.

Batman picked up his unfinished breakfast and hurried from the wardroom.

A lieutenant informed him that CINCPAC was on the line. "I'll take it here," Admiral Magruder said. He picked up the handset and stabbed a button. The hollow-sounding hiss of a satellite-relayed signal sounded in his ear. "Task Force Eighteen," he said, using the time-honored Navy tradition of identifying himself by the name of his command.

"Tom?" the voice at the other end said. It had the faintly artificial quality of a security-scrambled transmission. "This is CINCPAC. I'm afraid the answer is… sit tight. Washington wants you to take no action at all until further notice."

Magruder had expected as much, but the disappointment was keen nonetheless. "Understood, Admiral," he said.

"We appreciate your situation, Tom," the voice continued. Magruder had spoken with CINCPAC several times during the past few days and knew Admiral Bainbridge shared his own feelings of helplessness… and anger. What did Washington think it would accomplish, screwing around this way?

But to voice those feelings would be unprofessional and would change nothing.

"A diplomatic initiative is under way," Bainbridge continued. Even through the scrambling it sounded as though the words had a bad taste in his mouth. "The White House crisis team has high expectations for a successful resolution."

"Very well, sir."

"Your plan has been code-named 'Righteous Thunder." It is to be held in reserve, pending a breakdown in negotiations… or the decision by the Command Authority to proceed with a full military option."

CINCPAC's stress of the word "full" meant an all-out invasion, Magruder knew. They could all well be standing at the verge of a new Korean War… and with 1990's weapons, this one would make 1950 look like kindergarten.

Hell. Washington couldn't want that.

But the alternative didn't sound promising either. For P'yongyang, negotiation was simply another form of warfare. The North Koreans might hold Chimera's crew for months, for years, with nothing being settled. They would hold show trials, parade "confessions" extorted from their captives, promise a release and then change their minds in response to some imagined or contrived slight by American authorities. The anguish would go on and on.

"I am not optimistic about the promise of negotiations with these people," Magruder said.

"That's putting it mildly, Admiral. It'll be Pueblo all over again, only worse."

"What about Bushmaster, sir?" Even on a scrambled line, Magruder didn't want to make a direct reference to the SEAL team already ashore.

"Bushmaster remains in place. They will be a positive asset for Righteous Thunder… if it comes to that."

"Understood."

"Hang in there, Tom. Seventh Fleet is already deploying, so you'll have plenty of backup in another day or two. Until then, it's up to you to keep an eye on the bastards."

"Aye aye, Admiral."

"CINCPAC out." The line went dead.

Magruder replaced the handset. Colonel Caruso would be proceeding with the final preparations for a landing in any case. In a situation like this one, the Marine motto of Semper Fidelis was best reinforced by the Boy Scouts' Be prepared.

They would be ready to go in, no matter what happened. And as much as Magruder felt that Washington was making a mistake, he would be ready as well, ready to carry out the President's orders.

But the frustration he felt was almost tangible, like the thundering shudder in the air on the flight deck during a cat launch. He turned to an aide. "I'll be on the Flag Bridge."

The waiting was always the hard part.

The lookouts gave warning seconds before the door banged open. Coyote watched in silence with the men of Chimera's crew as Major Po walked in, flanked by guards with AK-47 rifles.

There'd been no more interrogations since the day before, no attention from their captors at all save for the arrival several hours before of a squad of silent peasants who replaced full honey buckets and left behind a washtub containing the midday meal: an unsavory mash of rice and chunks of raw fish.

"All you, kneel down!" Po shouted. The Americans stirred uneasily. This was something new in the routine. "All down, sonabichi! All down!" the major screamed. A guard slammed his rifle butt into the shoulders of the nearest American sailor, driving him to his knees. Reluctantly, other sailors began, facing the Koreans in a thickly packed semicircle.

Coyote knelt with the others, sharply aware of the hostility among the prisoners. The SEAL's pre-dawn visit had instilled a fierce new hope in all of them. They'd not been abandoned, whatever their captors might say.

The Koreans felt it too, Coyote thought, They looked nervous and wary of the Americans. He thought of the pistol and knife, hidden away among the rafters in the back of the room. All we need to do is hold out a little longer, he thought.

"Where sonabichi captain!" Major Po snapped. He looked among the Americans until he found Gilmore. "You! You!" He indicated two sailors. "You bring!"

Goaded by blows and snarled orders, the sailors dragged the Captain to the center of the semicircle and propped him up. Gilmore was weaker today. Coyote wasn't even certain the man was aware of his surroundings.

The major surveyed the scene, then turned to face the door. "Turo ose yo!"

More soldiers spilled into the room, followed a moment later by Colonel Li. The man exchanged several low-voiced phrases with the major, then surveyed the gathered Americans. "We will try something different," he said, the words cold and without accent. "Captain Gilmore, I hold you responsible for the lives of your men. You can order them to cooperate, or watch them die one by one."

"Go… hell…" Gilmore said. His voice was very weak, his face pale and drawn.

Li shrugged. "As you will." His gaze passed across the Americans once more. Again, his eyes locked with Coyote's, then passed on to a sailor kneeling nearby. He pointed. "Paro ku kot!"

Two North Korean soldiers slung their rifles and advanced on the sailor, who tried to back up, tried to rise, but was grabbed before he could get to his feet. They grabbed him, one holding each arm, and dragged him to the wall next to the door. Colonel Li nodded to the major, who drew his pistol and snapped back the slide with a loud snick-clack, chambering a round.

They made the American kneel again, his face against the wall. The major stood behind him, the muzzle of the pistol pressed against the back of the sailor's head.

"Captain?"

"Don't do it, Captain!" the sailor screamed. "Don't-"

One of the men holding him slammed an elbow against the side of his head. "Kae!" the soldier snapped. "Choyong hi!"

Struggling, the Captain tried to rise. Coyote felt the tension, the sheer rage among the Americans building, felt his own heart hammering under the assault. He remembered the staged firing squad, the fear and the sheer relief he'd felt at the unexpected reprieve, and wondered if this was the same thing again.

"Hang on, Sobieski!" someone shouted. "The bastards don't mean it!"

Li looked at the major. "Kot hasipsiyo!"

The shot was like a physical blow, unnaturally loud inside the bare-walled room. A splash of scarlet appeared on the wall in front of the sailor's face. The two soldiers released Sobieski's arms and he sagged to the floor. There was a gaping red cavity where his forehead had been.

"Two hours, Captain," Li said. His voice was scarcely above a whisper, but every man heard it in the ringing silence which followed the shot. "In two hours I shall return. You and your men will sign the confessions we have prepared for them, or in two hours another of your men will die. Until then, Captain…"

The silence remained long moments after the Koreans departed.

The immense hangar deck occupied fully two-thirds of Jefferson's 1,092-foot length, two levels below her flight deck and extending from just forward of her number one elevator almost all the way aft to the fantail. The deck was covered by the same dark-gray, non-skid surface as the flight deck, while bulkheads and overhead were painted white. Hanging in row upon colorful row along the overhead were flags of countries, U.S. territories, and states, as well as Navy signal flags. The hangar deck echoed with voices, the metallic clangor of tools and hand carts banging and squeaking in the vast, almost subterranean space.

Tombstone picked his way carefully across the deck. It was busy, a maelstrom of purposeful confusion. The room was crowded with aircraft, so much so that navigating in a straight line was impossible, for the planes, wings folded, were parked so close together that each nearly touched its neighbors. With over eighty aircraft in a carrier air wing, there never seemed to be space enough on board ship to store them all. Indeed, even during launch and recovery operations, some had to be kept topside on the flight deck. Tombstone found himself wondering again how the Mangler could possibly work out the intricate geometry of moving them from hangar deck to flight deck and back without becoming hopelessly mired in an aircraft carrier's version of gridlock.

He'd been heading aft toward the fantail but found that route blocked. Jefferson's boats and launches were stored in the aft end of the hangar bay, close by the passageway leading to the fantail, stacked two-high on spidery wheeled cradles, and the way through was a narrow one. This afternoon it was walled off by a row of flat-topped mules. Crews were moving among the parked aircraft on preflight inspections, readying them for combat in case Operation Righteous Thunder was given a go, and spare equipment had been wheeled back out of the way.

Tombstone decided to get his view of the sea at an elevator instead.

Jefferson had four elevators, three to starboard, one to port, flat deck sections which moved between the hangar deck and the flight deck along rails on the outside of the hull. They were accessed from the hangar bay through broad, oval openings in the bulkheads which were normally left open for ventilation below decks, though they could be sealed off with massive sliding doors in cold weather. Dodging blue shirts and their mules, Tombstone made his way to the elevator portside and aft.

Like the fantail, the elevators offered unobstructed views of the sea rushing past the ship some twenty feet below. Walking into the light spilling into the hangar bay from outside, Tombstone had to stop and fish in his jacket pocket for his sunglasses. A mule and several blue shirts were manhandling an F-14 onto the elevator, and he moved out of their way, leaning against the elevator's safety netting.

Musing, he looked at the sunglasses before putting them on. They were the teardrop pilot's model with gold wire frames… like his leather flight jacket, very much in keeping with his image as a Navy aviator.

The image he was no longer able to maintain.

"Ho, Tombstone. I've been looking for you."

He turned and saw Batman advancing across the red and yellow warning stripes painted on the deck. Like Tombstone, Batman wore sunglasses and jacket, his hat cocked at a rakish angle. He acknowledged the lieutenant with a nod and hoped the man didn't want a conversation. Tombstone didn't feel like talking just now.

"Listen," Batman said. "I've been trying to find you all day." Tombstone smiled. Jefferson was a small city with a population of over six thousand. Usually it was easy to get lost in her, but somehow, this time, he'd failed. "Well, looks like you found me."

"Yeah." Batman looked uncertain… even embarrassed. "Look, I know this might not be the best time, Stoney, but I don't know who else to talk to. I'm… I'm wondering if I can do it again." With a sharp motion, Batman pulled the sunglasses off and looked into Tombstone's eyes. "I killed two guys yesterday. You shot down your MiG and it didn't even faze you. I need to know how you handle a thing like that."

So that was it. Several sharp or sarcastic replies rose in Tombstone's mind, but he pushed them aside. The openness, the vulnerability in Batman's expression was something he'd not seen there before.

"I don't think I have any answers," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't… handle it. I have a feeling it's going to stay with me for a long time."

When Batman didn't answer, Tombstone continued. "That was what all the training was for, right? ACM? Making the kill?"

"Making the kill… right. But it was always… you know. A target. Not a man."

"I doubt very much that the enemy pilot would have extended you the same courtesy, but that's beside the point. You strap on an F-14 for one purpose only, to engage the enemy, to shoot him down before he shoots you down or before he kills friends and shipmates. If there's a better reason than that, I've never heard it."

"I keep wondering if those guys I nailed had families."

"Of course they did." Bitterness edged Tombstone's voice. "Coyote had family. Mother, father. A wife I'm going to have to go see when we get back to the World."

"Is that all there is to it? Revenge? They hit you, you hit them back?"

"Hell, no. I'll leave that to the politicians." Tombstone's fists clenched. "But I might lock and fire remembering what a hell of a fine guy Coyote was."

As he said it, for the first time since his bolters the night before, Tombstone pictured himself going up again, pictured himself once more bringing the HUD pipper into line with an enemy MiG. Tombstone was an aviator. There was no escaping that part of him.

A warning klaxon sounded, a harsh bray above the noises of machinery and sea. The elevator gave a lurch, then began rising up the side of the carrier.

"You know you can't have any doubts about it once you're up there, right?" said Tombstone.

"I'm realizing that now."

"You remember the Top Gun motto?"

The other aviator nodded, but Tombstone pressed ahead. "'Fight to fly, fly to fight… fight to win!'"

"Fight to win. Yeah."

Tombstone shrugged. "The decision is yours, son, but if you don't mean business, you've got absolutely zero reason to be up there."

"So how about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Coyote and Mardi Gras. Frenchie… Losing those guys was a real shock. I thought, well, some of the guys were wondering if you'd lost it, know what I mean? Lost the edge."

It was not the edge that he'd lost so much, Tombstone realized now, as the will to push that edge, to see how far it would stretch. To do what he did, to be who he was, meant accepting a measure of responsibility which he'd never yet been able to shoulder comfortably.

"I haven't lost it, Batman. Not yet." He was surprised to discover he meant it.

With another lurch, the elevator arrived topside, meshing perfectly with a round-cornered gap cut from the carrier's flight deck. It was as frantic here as it had been below. Red-shirted ordnancemen were arming the parked aircraft for their next mission. At several points on the deck, red lines delineated the bomb elevators where missiles and other munitions were being brought up from the ship's magazines for loading. Other men crawled over and under each aircraft, giving them their preflights.

No longer masked from the wind by the curve of Jefferson's hull, Tombstone had to lean over and shout to make himself heard. "You're the one with the responsibility," Tombstone yelled. "For yourself and your shipmates! You have to know why you're up there, and that's to fight to win. If you don't, you let yourself down, and your shipmates!"

They started across the flight deck, keeping clear of hurtling mules and ordies hauling bomb carts.

"Hey, Stoney. You won't… I mean…"

Tombstone grinned. "I won't tell a soul, Batman." Together they walked toward the island.

"Kot hasipsiyo!" The shot rang out, splattering more blood across the wall.

Seaman Jacobs crumpled as the soldiers released him and he fell, collapsing to the floor across Sobieski's body. Coyote felt the horror of the death, of the methodical murder of a helpless man.

Li faced the ring of stunned Americans. "A death every two hours, Captain, until you and your men cooperate." He gathered his men with a gesture. "Kapsida!"

Bailey, the corpsman, was the first to move when the Koreans left, hurrying to Jacobs's side and feeling the man's throat for a pulse. "He's dead."

"We've got to do something," Zabelsky said. The words were a low murmur, almost a litany. "We've got to do something."

"Nothin'… we can do," Gilmore said. "Nothing…"

"We've got a gun-"

"Belay that right now!" Bronkowicz growled. "We won't help the SEALs… we won't help ourselves if we give it all away now."

"Yeah," Wilkinson said. "What are you going to do, son, shoot your way into the compound out there? Then what?"

Zabelsky whirled, his face a mask of rage. "Jacobs was my buddy!"

"And our shipmate," Bailey said softly. He laid a hand on Zabelsky's shoulder. "We don't help him by getting ourselves shot too."

A clattering sound from outside caught their attention. "Hey, guys!" one of the lookouts called. "It's a helo!"

"Not one of ours," Zabelsky said.

"Shit no. Commie job, looks like. Red star on the tail."

Coyote joined the lookout, balancing atop a bucket to see out. The helicopter was settling to earth amid whirling dust, landing at the small airstrip on the far side of the compound. "Mi-8 Hip," he announced, recognizing the type. "Military transport. Looks like we have visitors."

"What kind?" Wilkinson asked.

"VIPs," Coyote replied. He could just barely make out several men climbing from the bulky machine's side door, walking doubled over beneath its still-turning rotors. One wore an officer's uniform ornate with medals and gold braid. The others looked like aides or junior officers. They were met by Li and Major Po, both of whom saluted the newcomers with crisp military precision. "Looks like high-ranking brass."

"I don't think I like this," Wilkinson said.

Coyote had to agree.

CHAPTER 20

"Kot hasipsiyo!"

This time a third class radioman named Heatley died, slammed forward off his knees as the major's automatic pistol barked, and adding his blood and brain tissue and chips of bone to the dark splatter of gore on the wall next to the door.

In the silence which followed, Colonel Li turned and smiled at his kneeling audience. "I'm sure you all are aware of the helicopter which arrived not long ago. You will be interested to know that orders have arrived from my superiors in P'yongyang directing that you be sent there for, shall we say, further debriefing."

There was a stir among the prisoners. Coyote kneeled with the rest, trying to control the hammering in his chest. The torture of watching men being shot in cold blood with clockwork regularity was worse than any beating he'd suffered so far.

"I feel it is only fair to warn you that you cannot expect such… lenient treatment in P'yongyang as you have enjoyed here," the colonel continued. "General Chung Sun-Jae, who has come here from the capital to take charge of you, is a man interested in results but with little concern for the time it takes… or the means employed to get them." He shrugged, a deliberately Western gesture. "I had hoped that some of you at least would be willing to cooperate with me first. Any persons here who wish to do so, of course, have only to ask to see me, Colonel Li. Perhaps you can yet be spared the uncertainties that a prolonged stay in P'yongyang would bring."

"Screw you, flat-face," someone in the back ranks of the Americans muttered.

Li ignored the interruption. "At dawn tomorrow, all of you will be loaded onto trucks and transported west to special camps in the P'yongyang area. Those who decide to cooperate with me will receive special privileges… better food, medical aid… and a chance to avoid General Chung's more creative approaches to prisoner interviews. Certainly, we should be able to spare you the pain and humiliation of a trial, as well as whatever punishment the court chooses to hand down. For the rest of you, well…" The officer looked down and nudged Heatley's body with the toe of his boot. "Perhaps you will come to envy these men who have already given their lives. They might well be the lucky ones, yes?"

"And until then?" Gilmore asked. He seemed stronger now, with a new will born of anger. "Is it your intention to continue murdering my men until dawn?"

Li pursed his lips, as though weighing his words. "Let us simply say that six more of your men will have the opportunity to escape socialist justice between now and the time when I must turn you over to General Chung." He gave the Americans a final contemptuous glance, then departed, followed by Major Po. His guards slammed the door shut behind them.

"This whole setup stinks," Bronkowicz said after they'd gone. "The bastards are violating every rule of prisoner interrogation going."

"What'd you expect, Chief?" one sailor asked. "The Geneva Convention?"

"Shit, no. But they're going about this thing all wrong. You want to brainwash a prisoner, you isolate him, don't let him talk to his buddies. You sure as hell don't try to get him to break in front of his shipmates. That just makes it harder."

"Sounds like you know something about brainwashing, Chief Zabelsky said.

"Hell, these are the sons of bitches that invented it. I just can't figure what they're up to, going' about it this way!"

"They're after me, Chief," Captain Gilmore said. There was anguish behind the eyes. "They got Pueblo's captain to cooperate by threatening to shoot his men, remember? I guess this time they're actually doing it just to prove they mean business. They want me to see you, to feel you dying, one by one, until I agree."

"You don't agree to nothin', Skipper," Bronkowicz said roughly. "Ain't none of us going to break for those bastards, and you shouldn't either."

As long as we're together, ain't none of us going to break," Zabelsky said. He glanced meaningfully toward the corner where Lieutenant Novak sat alone.

"That's not going to last, sailor," Wilkinson said thoughtfully. "He said 'camps,' plural. They're splitting us up. Just to make a rescue harder, if nothing else."

"They're never going to let us go," one sailor said, a low murmur in the silent room. "They're never going to let us go."

And Coyote had to agree. Added to the horror of the systematic killings was the chilling certainty that the North Koreans could never let any of them go now, not if the People's Democratic Republic feared the storm of world opinion the stories of Chimera's crew would raise once they won their freedom. Either P'yongyang didn't care about world opinion, or…

Or they did not plan on releasing them.

He faced the possibility that he might be forced to spend the rest of his life here, cut off from world and family and Julie.

"So what're we gonna do?" Bronkowicz asked. He glanced toward the door, as though uncertain whether he should say more. There'd been considerable speculation among the prisoners that the North Koreans might have listening devices hidden in the building walls, but since there'd been no search for the hidden weapons, no indication that they knew their base had been infiltrated that morning, it seemed safe.

But that could change at any moment.

"We have to make contact with the SEALS," Coyote said. He forced the image of Julie from his mind. "One of us has to get away, tell them what's happening."

"Maybe they know."

"How? They're watching, I bet, probably saw that Hip land. But we have to get word out that we're being moved at dawn tomorrow."

Coleridge nodded. "If a rescue is being planned, they have to know. Remember Son Tay."

There was no need to say more. Son Tay was the name of the North Vietnamese prison camp twenty-three miles from Hanoi which had been the target of an American raid in November 1970, a raid aimed at releasing American POWs held there. The operation had been a spectacular success in every way but one.

The POWs held at Son Tay had been moved elsewhere shortly before the raid.

It would be ironic indeed if an American rescue mission mounted to free Chimera's crew likewise arrived at the prison, only to find the place empty.

"I'll go," Coyote said quietly. He glanced up at the windows.

The late afternoon light was rapidly fading. "As soon as it's dark."

"Why you, son?" Wilkinson asked.

Coyote shrugged. "Any of the rest of you guys had survival training?" Several men nearby shook their heads. "E and E courses? No? Well, I guess I'm elected."

He'd known from the start that he was the logical candidate. Ordinary Navy training included staying afloat and survival at sea, but touched little if at all on the practical aspects of living off the land. As an aviator, Coyote had suffered through more than one survival course. He knew how to evade enemy patrols, how to trap small animals for food, how to find water, how to…

But then, what he was really counting on was finding the SEALS. There was no point in escaping at all if he had to face a sixty-mile hike to South Korea afterward. He would never make it past the patrols and mine-fields of the DMZ. Besides, any would-be rescuers had to be warned about the impending move.

"You'll want to take the pistol, then," Bronkowicz said.

Coyote shook his head. He'd already thought about that and discarded it. "No way. If I'm caught, the Koreans'll know we had outside help."

"Hey, guy, you can't just-"

"It'll be okay! You guys keep the gun, like Huerta said. You may still need it if… when things go down."

"Good God, man, how do you expect to get out?"

For answer, Coyote walked over to a wooden beam, one of a dozen along the walls of the building which supported the roof. He ran his hand over the age-roughened, splintered wood and smiled. "Someone get that SEAL knife and I'll show you."

Huerta pressed his eye to the rubber eyepiece of the starlight scope. "They're taking someone now." The whisper did not carry beyond the confines of the SEAL hide. Four other men, including Lieutenant Sikes, lay in the hollow, watching the camp below them through night sights and IR gear. The other SEALS were invisible in the rapidly gathering darkness, spread out along the hillside.

Sikes took his turn at the scope. "One man, two guards. Think he broke?"

Huerta shrugged silently. They'd not been able to hear what was going on in the camp, but it was clear something out of the ordinary was happening. A sentry outside the POW building had vanished inside for a moment, then left at a run, returning minutes later with help. Now a prisoner was being escorted across the compound toward the structure already identified as an HQ.

Jerry Kohl, one of the team's two snipers, shifted, following the men through his G3 rifle's Varo image-intensifier sight. "They're taking him past the fence."

"Keep cool, everyone," Sikes reminded them. "There's nothing we can do for the poor bastard now."

Coyote deliberately slowed his pace as he passed the ten-foot, concertina-wire-topped chain-link fence which ringed the camp. It was almost fully dark now, but he could see the lights of a village in the valley below the ridge-top saddle in which the camp was built, and the dark masses of surrounding mountains rising on either side, still faintly visible against the darkening sky.

"P'palli!" one of the guards barked. The order to hurry needed no translation.

Now what, Coyote asked himself. His pleas to see Colonel Li had been answered at once. Presumably, that was where they were taking him now, flanked by two flint-eyed North Koreans with AK assault rifles dangling from slings over their shoulders and Soviet-manufactured hand grenades on their belts.

And Coyote's only weapon was surprise, and the wooden stake he had tucked up his left sleeve.

It hadn't taken long to carve the makeshift blade from a flat sliver of wood peeled from one of the Wonsan Waldorf's roof supports, whittling it to wicked sharpness. With no cutting edge the thing wasn't much as a knife, but it would be deadly as a stabbing weapon if aimed at a soft target. It would give Coyote a single strike, no more, and a few seconds of surprise and confusion. He would have to get it right the first time.

But it appeared he had overestimated his own chances… or underestimated the alertness of his guards. The camp perimeter was well lit here, and Coyote could see the shadows of guard towers behind the lights. Everything depended on surprise.

Deliberately, he staggered, clutching himself across his belly. The guards turned, then closed in. "Irona!" one snapped. "P'palli ose yo!"

Coyote straightened, the improvised knife firmly grasped in his right hand as he drew it from his sleeve, slashing out and up. The stake entered the guard's throat at the angle beneath his jaw and rammed through into the back of his mouth. The man gave a strangled cry and clawed at his face. Coyote's thrust hadn't been deep enough to kill, but the guard lost all interest in Coyote.

And Coyote was already grabbing for the guard's rifle.

Coyote had guessed that the rifle would be charged ― no guard walked into a room occupied by almost two hundred angry prisoners without chambering a round first ― but with the safety on. He didn't bother to take it from the Korean, but dragged his hand down over the selector switch, then closed his finger over the trigger while the weapon was still slung from its screaming owner.

He fired, a flat burst that stabbed flame into the night and shattered the silence of the camp with hammering autofire. Driving his left shoulder into the guard's chest, he pivoted gun and man together, dragging the flashing muzzle into line with the second guard. The man pitched backward, arms spread, as Coyote smashed the first guard with all the strength at his command before he could pull the wooden knife free. The soldier went down, stayed down.

Coyote could hear excited shouts as he untangled the AK-47 from the guard's body. He had his surprise. Now he needed to make the most of it.

Stooping, he unhooked one of the grenades from the guard's belt. It was a Soviet RGD-5, bright apple-green in color with an oversized cotter pin ring and a tall, thin detonator rising from the round body. He yanked out the pin, sent the grenade bouncing toward the fence, and hit the dirt facedown.

"Chogi!" someone yelled. Searchlights swept across the compound now, and the thin, ragged howl of a siren was starting to wail. There was a brief stab of gunfire from the darkness, then another. "E yop e ult'ari!"

A long burst of autofire blasted from one of the towers a hundred yards away. Coyote felt something like a hammer blow in his leg, halfway up his thigh. The impact was hard enough to slap his leg aside but, strangely, there was no pain. Then the night erupted in flame.

"What in the hell is that crazy bastard doing?" Sikes pressed his eye to the night-vision device, straining to gather more information from the oddly flattened, monochrome image it gave him. The flash of the grenade had seared the device's optics for a moment, leaving a fuzzy blind spot which slowly cleared. He could see the bodies of two guards on the ground, could see the American POW scrambling forward on his belly, an AK clutched in his arms. The grenade had twisted the chain-link fence, punching it out from the base enough to offer a determined man a way out.

"He's making a break!" Kohl said, his face still pressed close to his Pilkington scope's eyepiece. "He's trying to wiggle under the fence!"

"Shit!" Huerta said, "He's hit…"

Sikes had only seconds to make a decision which could well spell disaster for his team. If the SEALs tried to help the POW, there was every possibility that the North Koreans would discover their presence.

But he also knew there must be one god-awful important reason for the man to be trying to escape.

That decided him. "Kohl! Give him cover!"

The G3 was fitted with a sound suppressor, and the shots would not be heard over the shouting, gunfire, and sirens sounding in the camp now. The wound inflicted by the 7.62-mm NATO round would be close enough to that caused by an AK-47 round that the Koreans would never know the difference ― certainly not without an autopsy. By the time the Koreans got around to that it would be too late.

Kohl held the sniper rifle steady on its bipod for a moment, then squeezed the trigger. Even with the suppressor, the shot sounded unnaturally loud among the rocks, and Sikes had to tell himself again that, if the camp guards heard it, they would never be able to tell where it came from.

In the camp, a guard pitched headlong from one of the wooden guard towers. Kohl selected a new target and fired again. A North Korean guard, running full-tilt toward the disturbance, staggered and dropped.

"Huerta!" Sikes snapped. When the SEAL faced him, the lieutenant signaled, pointing down the slope. Huerta nodded and slipped over the rim of the hide. Kohl took aim once more.

CHAPTER 21

Coyote fired the AK-47 again, a wild spray directed in the general direction of the gunfire probing toward him from the advancing Korean soldiers. He had no idea whether he hit any or not. His single hope was to make them keep their heads down long enough for him to get through the gap under the fence.

Bullets tunneled into the clay close by, sending up spurts of wet earth almost in his face. The rifle clicked empty and Coyote tossed it aside. Lying on his back, he began wiggling under the skirt of the chain-link fence.

His plan had already gone sour. He couldn't feel much of anything in his left leg, but there was a deadness there, a gone-to-sleep numbness. When he touched it, his hand came away slick with blood.

How far could he get, in the dark, in hostile country, with gomers on his heels, and him not even able to stand on his leg, much less run on it.

But there was no turning back, not now. He kicked out with his right leg, pushing himself backward under the fence. A fresh burst of gunfire splattered the ground close by, and something spanged off the metal of the fence a few feet above his head. A ragged edge of fencing caught his flight suit, pinning him. Nearly panicking, he kicked harder.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a Korean soldier thirty feet away. Illuminated by the beam of a searchlight, the man was moving forward relentlessly, AK raised, his eyes already locked with Coyote's. The AK came up, aiming.

The top of the Korean's head exploded in a spray of blood and chips of bone and the man lurched heavily to one side, then collapsed. A moment later, the searchlight flared and went out, leaving Coyote in near darkness.

He kicked again and felt his flight suit tear free. The ground outside the fence dropped away sharply, and Coyote rolled down the hill into the brush at the bottom.

It was then that the pain hit him, a searing fire in his thigh, midway between hip and knee. He grasped his leg between both hands, squeezing hard. The bone, miraculously, did not seem to be broken, but the wound throbbed and ached like hell. He found he could stand on it ― barely ― that he could hobble forward if he didn't put too much weight on his left leg.

Coyote's eyes were still dazzled by the camp's lights and he could see little of his surroundings. There were rocks and trees nearby, though, and the black shape of a hillside facing him. He could make out the trees in the illumination spilling from the camp and decided that they offered him his best chance of hiding. Continued shouting from the other side of the fence suggested that the Koreans had lost him, but that wouldn't last for long. Soon they'd be on his trail, possibly with dogs.

How was he going to find the SEALs before he was run to earth?

He was limping past the gnarled trunk of a pine tree when hands snaked out and grabbed Coyote's collar and mouth, yanking him to the ground. The shock jarred his leg and he bit his lower lip hard to keep from screaming.

"You stupid, sorry son of a bitch!" a voice snarled in his ear. "What in the hell do you think you're trying to pull!"

And Coyote nearly burst out laughing, so sharp was the shock of relief.

Admiral Magruder looked at the hard copy of the comsat from Bushmaster and swore. The situation ashore, it seemed, was rapidly getting out of hand.

The message had not mentioned who it was that had escaped from the North Korean army camp ― coding and the need to keep burst transmissions short precluded such mundane chit-chat ― but it sounded to Magruder as though the man must be one of the spooks, someone with James Bond-style delusions. He could well have wrecked everything by alerting the North Koreans to Bushmaster's presence. As it was, the SEALs must be going into deep hiding to avoid enemy search parties.

On the other hand, the information was certainly timely. If TF-18 was going to do anything, it would have to act now, this night… or watch Chimera's crew whisked forever out of reach.

"Ron?"

An aide snapped to attention. "Yes, Admiral!"

He handed him the message. "Copies of this to Admiral Simpson and Colonel Caruso. And Captain Fitzgerald."

"Yes, sir."

"And fire up TAC COM. Priority CRITIC."

"Aye aye, sir." Americans were being shot over there. Damn!

He wondered what the Washington appeasers and negotiators would think of this. If they didn't get their asses in gear now…

The President looked at the copy of the message relayed from Admiral Magruder and felt the weight of his office pressing down on him. He looked up, his eyes meeting Schellenberg's. "So, Jim, we're going to negotiate with these people? Sit down and talk things out?" He felt his blood pressure rising. He closed his fist and smashed it down on the table. "My God! Three of our sailors murdered in cold blood… and we're going to negotiate with them sometime next week?"

"I… don't have an answer, Mr. President. Possibly there are communication problems between P'yongyang and Nyongch'on."

"Communications problems." He sighed and looked away. The others watched him anxiously from around the table.

Caldwell licked his lips. "Sir, we can't deploy through South Korea before-"

"Not an option, General. Not now. The point is to get our people back, and if they're in P'yongyang…" He shrugged. "They might as well be on the moon. Hell, I think they'd be easier to reach on the moon! I cannot go before Congress or the American people and justify starting up the Korean War all over again for…" He let the words trail off. Where was the moral line in the dust across which an American President could step while balancing American lives against the risk of war? Would he commit combat troops to save two hundred men? For ten? For one?

The same decision had been faced time and time again by the White House, and the answer had never been clear-cut. Gerald Ford had sent the Marines into Cambodia to free the Mayaguez, sacrificing forty-one dead to rescue thirty-nine American merchant seamen. The Marines hadn't complained at the time. They would have said that putting their lives on the line to preserve American lives and property was their job.

But the guy who sent them in had some major questions to settle in his own mind first. When is the use of troops as an expression of U.S. foreign policy justified?

He turned to one of the aides hovering in the background. "Get me a direct line to Admiral Magruder."

No one spoke. No one met the President's eyes, knowing that the time for advisors ― and for debate ― was past. The silence lay heavy in the room as technicians worked to patch through to the Jefferson directly, each man, for the moment, alone with his thoughts. The President thought about Admiral Magruder. He'd never met the man, but the speed with which he'd assembled a workable operational plan earlier during the crisis spoke well of him, and of the efficiency of those under him.

The minutes dragged by. Getting a working communications linkup and going with a spot halfway around the globe was not always as simple as dialing long distance.

"Mr. President?" The aide extended a telephone handset. "Admiral Magruder, TF-18. It's scrambled."

He raised the receiver to his ear. "Admiral Magruder, this is the President."

"Good morning, Mr. President." The line was scratchy with static, but the admiral's voice was firm and distinct.

The President glanced up at the clock showing Tokyo time. It was evening in the Sea of Japan. "Admiral, do you feel that Operation Righteous Thunder, as currently planned, has a chance to succeed?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "If we move fast, yes, sir. We have a good chance."

"It's a big operation. Things could go wrong."

"Things always go wrong, Mr. President. We just have to allow for it in the plan."

"And your recommendation is…?"

"That we go for it, sir." Static crackled on the line. "My God, Mr. President, they're shooting our people in there. If we have the chance to pull them out, we'd damn well better take it."

"If things go wrong, we could lose a lot of people."

"And if we do nothing, Mr. President, the hostages could all die."

"Yes." The President looked across the table at the others, cabinet members and advisors. He felt quite alone. "Yes, of course. Admiral, please hold."

The President depressed the privacy button on the handset. "Gentlemen, I have no other option." He expected protest, but got none. Caldwell nodded slowly. Schellenberg stared at his hands, folded on the tabletop before him.

He released the button. "Admiral, I'm giving you a conditional go on Righteous Thunder."

"Conditional, Mr. President?"

"I'm putting the ball back in your court. I have no choice but to order a military response to this situation. If you believe that you have a chance of securing the release of Chimera's crew before they are moved ― if the level of risk is acceptable in your opinion ― then you have my authorization to go in."

"Yes, sir."

He locked eyes with Caldwell as he continued. "If you do not move on your own, we will begin mounting a major military response out of South Korea, probably within two days." He hesitated. Schellenberg was still not meeting his gaze.

"I understand, Mr. President." A burst of static hissed over the line.

"Good luck, Admiral." He handed the phone back to the waiting aide.

"Mr. President-" the Secretary of State began.

"Not now, Jim." The President pressed his hands over his eyes. "Gentlemen, we're committed. Possibly to a new war with North Korea."

"Do you think Magruder has a chance?" Hall asked.

"If he does, God knows he'll have a better crack at it if we're not trying to run things from here. Magruder's a good man. All we can do now is delegate and pray."

Abruptly, the President stood up, eliciting a flurry of squeaking chairs as the others did so as well. "And now, if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I have to go work out what I'm going to tell the American people." And what he would tell the wives and families later. There would be body bags coming home from this one. How many, only God knew.

Admiral Magruder replaced the phone in its cradle. Captain Fitzgerald stood beside him, hands on hips. "They bought it?"

He nodded. "It's a go." Magruder took a deep breath. His heart was hammering in his chest as hard as it ever had during any carrier landing. He was under no illusions about the limits of the authority that had just been handed to him. If Righteous Thunder failed, not even the President would be able to save his career. He would be the admiral who'd tried ― and botched it.

Magruder found himself thinking about one particular failure of American arms in recent history, the debacle at Desert One, during Operation Eagle Claw in Iran.

The situation there had been similar in some ways, a large number of Americans held hostage by a hostile regime, an attempt to reach them by helicopters flown off a U.S. carrier. Eagle Claw had been unthinkably complex, much more so than Righteous Thunder. The chances for success in Iran had been slim to begin with.

But contributing to the disaster had been Washington's efforts to micromanage the entire affair. President Carter had been trying to direct the entire operation by satellite link from the White House, and a disaster had happened.

Magruder reached over to the plot table and picked up the latest TENCAP stat. It showed the inner harbor of Wonsan, Chimera tied up at the dock, close alongside the Russian warship. At least this President was giving his man in the field his head. The admiral knew that his career would stand or fall by his own decision. "Lieutenant," he snapped, gesturing to an aide. "Get Admiral Simpson on the horn. Now."

"Aye aye, sir!"

Magruder grinned suddenly as he turned to face Fitzgerald, the first real smile to crease his face in several days. "By God, Jim. This time we're going to take them!"

Coyote shook his head in amazement. "You guys can't be for real."

Lieutenant Sikes grinned, his teeth startlingly white against the blacking on his face. "That's the way we earn our pay."

"Yeah, but fourteen men against three hundred…"

"Don't worry, fly-guy," one SEAL said, caressing his silenced Uzi SMG. "We'll get 'em to surround us then kill them all. No sweat."

Coyote decided he did not understand SEALs and never would. They looked… dangerous was the only word that came to mind.

They spoke in whispers, careful not to disturb the night. The compound had been in a frenzy ever since Coyote's escape, with groups of men hurrying about inside and patrols filing through the front gates and into the surrounding darkness. More than once, the SEALs had heard men thrashing through brush in the distance, searching for the missing prisoner, but so far no one had come close to the hide. The Americans would be safe until the enemy started using dogs or infrared gear ― which would take time to organize for a small base like this ― or until daybreak.

And by then it would be too late.

Coyote's leg throbbed, a pounding agony beneath the bandages. One of the SEALS, a black guy named Robbins, had cleaned and dressed his wound. He'd been lucky. The AK round had torn through the fleshy part of his thigh, missing both bone and major blood vessels. There'd been a lot of blood, though, and the leg hurt like hell now that the initial shock had worn off. Whatever happened tonight, he'd be staying put, at least until he could find something he could use as a crutch.

"Okay," Sikes said, gathering the small circle of men with his eyes. "Here's the way we'll play it. Kohl, you stay put with the fly-boy. Your first responsibility is the POWs. You see what looks like a major move on the Chimera's guys, get me on the TAC COM. Depending on where we are at the time, I might have you start taking them down… or sit tight while we deploy. No way to call it at this point."

"Right, Lieutenant."

"Rest of you guys are with me. You all know your targets?"

There was a chorus of nods and affirmative grunts. "Good. We'll lay low until midnight. You guys have until then to check your weapons, get your demo packs ready and get some sleep. It's gonna be a long night."

Coyote's guts churned. The SEALs had been taking an almost bloodthirsty zeal in their last-minute planning, ever since word had come through on their compact satellite receiver from Jefferson that the rescue op was on for tonight. In general, the SEAL team's part in Righteous Thunder was simple: secure the prisoners and an LZ within the Nyongch'on compound, then send the message "Sunrise Blue." Reinforcements, code-named Cavalry One, would arrive shortly after that. Zero hour had tentatively been set at 0200 for the SEAL assault and 0400 for the arrival of Cavalry One, though those times were flexible, subject to immediate change.

If Sunrise Blue was not transmitted, Cavalry One would come in anyway, but no one wanted to think about what that would mean. A helo assault into a hot LZ with an alerted enemy would not be pretty.

Coyote's real fear was that he had been responsible for this whole operation… and if things went down bad, it would all be his fault. His escape had aroused the North Korean camp with the thoroughness of a stick thrust into a hornet's nest, and with about the same result. Enemy patrols continued to wander through the darkness nearby, and the single sentry outside the POW compound had been replaced by an armed band of at least ten soldiers, armed with AKs and a Russian-made RPD machine gun.

If the SEALs couldn't infiltrate the enemy camp, if Chimera's crew was spirited away somewhere out of reach before the op could be launched, it would be his fault.

Tombstone felt renewed.

The excitement extended to every man on the flight deck crew, visible in the crisp motions, signals and gestures, the jaunty grins, the two-fingered V-for-victory signs raised above their heads in salute. One yellow shirt stood in a pool of light from a nearby work lamp, looked up at Tombstone, and rammed his fist into the air. Tombstone grinned and returned the greeting with a thumbs-up as the yellow shirts began breaking down his Tomcat, releasing the chocks and chains which held her to the deck. Morale aboard the Jefferson had never been higher. We're going in this time, Tombstone thought. And this time nothing's going to stop us!

"How you feeling back there, Snowball?"

"Never better," his RIO replied. He sounded self-assured, businesslike. "Radio frequencies set, nav guidance punched in. We're ready to roll, skipper."

"Here she goes." He started up the Tomcat's engines, first the left, then the right, feeling the surge of power shudder through the airframe. Gently, he set the gray-white throttle handles by his left hand to idle, waiting until the breakdown was complete. A yellow shirt waved his colored wand, directing Tombstone out of his parking space.

Slowly, the F-14 moved toward the catapult. Above the thrumming roar of his engines, Tombstone heard the sudden, howling thunder of an A-6 Intruder's twin Pratt and Whitney turbojets revving to full throttle, then the shuddering blast of sound as a catapult hurled the aircraft out over the ocean. The building excitement was tangible. This was it!

The order to assemble for a briefing had come through from CAG less than three hours earlier. As before, Tombstone would be leading the tactical CAP for the ground attack aircraft, Hornets and Intruders. The Alpha Strike would be going in low, hard, and fast, skimming the waves almost all the way in; their primary targets included most of the objectives of the aborted mission of the day before, SAM sites and coastal radars, AA batteries and communications centers, as well as the airfield at Kolmo across the bay from the Wonsan waterfront.

It was imperative that the Strike, code-named Desperado, knock out the SAMs and radar. If it didn't, the entire op would almost certainly fail. For the first few hours, the operation's success would be riding on the A-6 Intruders of VA-84 and VA-89, the Blue Rangers and the Death Dealers. The Hornets of VFA-161 and VFA-173, the Javelins and the Fighting Hornets, would be following close behind, taking down what the Intruders missed.

Meanwhile the F-14s, code-named Shotgun, would provide cover for Desperado.

As CAG had laid it out at the briefing, Righteous Thunder would go down in a series of stages. The air-to-ground strikes were Phase One. Phase Two would begin approximately two hours later with CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters in their minesweeper role, using towed sleds to clear the approaches to the landing beaches for the Marines. At about the same time, a special flight of four RH-53D Sea Stallion helos designated Cavalry One would depart from the U.S.S. Chosin. The Marine landings were scheduled to begin with high tide, at approximately 0545 hours in the morning.

Tombstone checked his cockpit clock. Two hours to go before the helo ops began, six until the landings began. Jefferson's air wing had that long to open the way for the Marines. It was a tall order.

In the darkness of the flight deck, colored lights probed and clustered, darted and winked, like workers attending a queen bee. Blue shirts checked flaps and control surfaces. A red shirt held high the red-tagged wires which had safed the Tomcat's air-to-air missiles until he'd removed them. Tombstone checked the wires, verifying the count. This time his load mix was six Phoenix and two Sidewinders. The rules of engagement for this mission were to hit the other guy before he hit you… which meant the long-range Phoenix could be used to best advantage.

What surprised him most was the realization that he had no questions about his own part in things, despite his failure the night before. He felt the familiar, rapid hammering of his heart beneath his harness, sure, but the doubts were gone. It was strange how his talk with Batman had steadied him.

Fight to fly, fly to fight, fight to win. He owed it to the other men in the squadron to see the Top Gun slogan through. He owed it to himself.

And to Coyote.

The F-14 moved into place on catapult one. A green shirt standing to the left of the aircraft held up the lighted board: 68,000. Tombstone unclipped a penlight from the clipboard on his thigh and held it against the cockpit canopy, describing a circle which indicated that he agreed with the figure for the Tomcat's weight.

The familiar succession of clanks, rattles, and thumps followed as the hook-up men clipped the launching bar on the Tomcat's nose gear to the catapult shuttle ― riding in its slot on the flight deck. The catapult officer waved his green-filtered flashlight horizontally, signaling Tombstone to bring his throttles up to military power.

He checked the control stick and rudder pedals: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Amen. All correct. The cat officer signaled again, up and down this time. Tombstone responded by sending the throttle the final notch forward to full burner, then switched on his navigation and running lights. The green light shone from the carrier island.

"They're givin' us the word, Stoney!" Snowball said.

"Hang onto your stomach, Snowball. It's go. Go!"

The deck officer touched his light to the deck, then raised it, pointing off the bow. There was a second's pause, and then the Tomcat slammed forward into the night.