Dragon Sim-13

2

The two rear, side doors of the air force C-130 were open to the chill night air. Sergeant First Class Dave Riley took a firm grip on either side of the left-hand door and leaned out of the aircraft into the 135-mile-an-hour wind, searching for the drop zone (DZ). As the aircraft made minor adjustments in direction, the lights of a small town sparkled and danced below in the clear night sky. Off to the left, the flicker from houses on the mountains could be seen even with the aircraft at eight hundred feet.

As the plane crossed Highway 4, Riley pulled himself back into the aircraft. "One minute," he yelled, holding his index finger aloft to the nine jumpers already hooked to the cable running the length of the aircraft. The dim red glow of night lights in the cargo bay made the interior only slightly brighter than the sky. Riley could make out the glint from the wide-open eyes of the first jumper as the man shuffled a little closer. The lead jumper was now poised within three feet of the open door.

Riley leaned back out of the door, locking his elbows and blinking in the wind. He could see the lights on the drop zone. The small lights, arranged in an inverted L pattern, indicated that the jump was a go.

The base of the inverted L designated the point where he would release the first jumper. This drop zone was small — only ten seconds long. Riley had one second per man to get his entire team out. A few seconds late or early would put some of the jumpers in the trees or rice paddies that surrounded an open field. As jumpmaster, Riley's primary concern was the safety of his jumpers.

Riley took a deep breath and watched the release lights grow closer. Even though he had been on airborne status his entire twelve years in the army, he disliked jumping. No matter how many jumps a man had, or how accomplished a parachutist he was, there was always that element of chance involved — especially at night. The ground couldn't be seen clearly during descent. You could easily land in a soft sand pit or in a hole that could snap your leg like a twig. A safe landing was determined by the winds, the pilot, and the jumpmaster, as well as the jumper. That was one of the reasons why Riley always preferred jumpmastering — so he could control two of the four variables.

At least the drop zone was marked on this particular mission. Riley hated blind drops, where the jumpers had to trust the navigation of the air force to locate the drop zone, then exit the aircraft simply on the green light, with no spotting by a jumpmaster. Riley had a lot more trust in his jumpmastering abilities than in an air force navigator's skills.

Loaded down with a parachute on his back and a rucksack hanging in front under his reserve, Dave Riley appeared dwarfed by his equipment. At only five feet seven inches tall, and weighing barely 145 pounds, Riley was by far the smallest man on the team. His dark skin and black eyes were inherited from his Puerto Rican mother; it was hard to say what physical characteristics had been imparted by his long-forgotten Irish father. His angular face reminded people more of a native American's than a freckle-faced Irishman's. Riley's body was that of a middleweight prizefighter — lean, ropy muscles with no apparent fat. He needed that strength to hold himself in the doorway of the aircraft wearing equipment that more than doubled his weight.

When he estimated the drop zone lights to be at a forty-five-degree angle from the plane, Riley leaned out and did one final 360-degree check for any other aircraft or hazards that might be in the area. The safety was controlling Riley's static line, keeping it from becoming entangled as the wind blew it about. These last seconds seemed to take forever. Slowly, the drop zone edged beneath the aircraft. Satisfied, Riley pulled himself back into the plane, turned to the lead jumper, and pointed at the exit. "Stand in the door!"

Riley grabbed the static line as the first jumper took his position in the door. He peered over the man's left shoulder, watching the lights pass under the aircraft. The green light lit up on the side of the door. Half a second later, Riley screamed "GO!" and smacked the lead jumper on his rear. The man was gone.

The rest of the jumpers swiftly shuffled forward and out — sucked into the dark night sky. As they flashed by, Riley grabbed each man's static line with his right hand and passed it smoothly to his left, pinning it against the trailing edge of the door. Riley was right behind the ninth man. He slapped both palms on the outside of the aircraft and threw himself forward and out, tucking his body into a tight position. "One thousand," he counted as the turboprop blast tore at him and he could see the tail of the aircraft between his feet. "Two thousand" as the aircraft roared away. "Three thousand" as he felt the beginning of the opening shock.

Before Riley made it to four thousand, the deploying chute jerked him upright. In the space of four seconds he had gone from a forward, free-fall speed of 135 miles an hour to practically zero. His first action was to check the canopy to make sure it had deployed properly. As he scanned the nylon umbrella over his head, he reached up and gained control of the toggles that steered the MC1-1 parachute. He waited a few seconds, until the chute automatically settled in line with the drift of the wind, then he pulled the left toggle, turning into the night's slight breeze to counteract the eight-mile-an-hour forward speed of the parachute.

Jumping at eight hundred feet left little time for sight-seeing, but Riley took a quick glance about and in the moonlight counted the nine other chutes stretched along the trail of the aircraft. At least everyone looks like they're over the drop zone, he thought. Chonjinam drop zone was so short that sometimes an entire team didn't make it out on a pass, in which case the aircraft had to circle around and do another. That was okay in training, but on a combat jump one pass was all the air force would give them. Riley's standing team policy was that if one man went out the door, everyone on the team went in the same pass. That made for some fierce arguments with aircrews, since the last members of Riley's team would occasionally jump on the red light— the navigator's signal that they'd reached the end of the drop zone. Riley had implemented this policy for two reasons: to instill a solid sense of teamwork, and to train exactly as if the mission were real.

One hundred and fifty feet above the ground, Riley reached down and pulled the two quick releases that dropped his rucksack to the end of its fifteen-foot lowering line, where it dangled below him. Landing with the bulky rucksack still tight against the front of the jumper's legs made him a candidate for a broken leg. Lowering it too soon, above two hundred feet, induced oscillations that swung the jumper back and forth, leading to a much harder impact. The dark ground rushed up as Riley kept his eyes focused forward on the horizon. Pulling his knees tight together, Riley pointed his toes down and prepared to land. He grunted with the shock of hitting the ground, and rolled onto his right side.

Riley stood up and began unbuckling himself from the harness. As he did so, he scanned the area to see if he could spot other team members. Another jump done. Now the ground mission began. Once out of the harness, the first thing he did was unsling his M16A2 from his shoulder and prepare it for action. Although he was carrying only blanks and knew that there would be no "enemy" on the drop zone, old habits were good to keep.

Riley grabbed the apex of his canopy, s-rolled the parachute, and shoved it into its kit bag. Then he shouldered his rucksack and threw the kit bag on top. His slim frame was bent almost double with the combined weight of forty-eight pounds of parachute and a hundred pounds of rucksack. Staggering toward the tree line on the northern end of the drop zone, he made his way to the assembly point. Riley figured that a troop of cub scouts armed with butter knives could wipe out his team right now, separated as they were and laden down with rucks and chutes. Infiltration was the most vulnerable part of any Special Forces operation.

It took Riley twenty minutes to make the eleven hundred meters to the assembly point. He was sweating in the early summer night air. Along the way, he linked up with two other team members. Pete Devito was the team's senior medic; he easily carried his gear atop his bodybuilder's six-foot-two, 220-pound frame. Riley considered Devito a good man. They'd been together in the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, on Okinawa during a previous assignment, and Devito had shown himself to be a conscientious soldier and medic.

The other man, Smith, was the team's junior engineer and one of the first-termers on the team. For a while, desperate for bodies, Special Forces had allowed soldiers to enlist in the army, go through basic and advanced training, and airborne school, and then straight to Special Forces school. The traditional way was to accept only seasoned noncommissioned officers (NCOs) into Special Forces training. Older NCOs complained about the young kids, but Riley liked them. Sure, they could do foolish things at times and were occasionally immature, but overall they were smart, most of them having spent some time in college, and they added a youthful enthusiasm to things. The process of allowing first-termers into Special Forces had been discontinued a few years ago; Smith was one of the last of the breed.

Behind his innocent-looking face, Smith had a devious mind. Combining him with Hoffman, the team's senior engineer, made for an extremely effective demolitions team. Both were young and inexperienced, but extremely intelligent. Hoffman, with his mop of red hair and thick glasses, had been dubbed Little Einstein by the team. Give him a problem, and in a few minutes it was solved.

As the three men passed into the tree line, a voice called out to them in the dark: "Running."

"Cloudy," Riley replied, followed by Devito and Smitty, calling out their mission code names as running passwords. They entered the small assembly area nestled among the trees. Five other members were already there — three providing security and two digging. They'd have to dig a mighty big hole for ten parachutes and helmets, Riley knew. For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of being angry at his new team leader. During mission planning, Captain Peterson had insisted on caching the parachutes, despite Riley's arguments to the contrary. That's the way the young captain had been taught in the Special Forces Qualification Course at Fort Bragg and, by God, that's the way they were going to do it. By the book. Riley felt that a man who didn't let common sense overrule the book was a dangerous fellow. He had seen enough of this type in his twelve years in the army.

Riley took a quick count in the dark. Eight of ten present. He was missing the new team leader — that figured — and Comsky, the team's junior medic. On first impression Riley had wondered how Comsky had made it through the extremely rigorous Special Forces medical school. He just didn't seem to be clicking on all cylinders at times. He even looked slow and dumb. Only five and a half feet tall and barrel chested, Comsky had thick, bushy eyebrows and a body covered with hair. He'd been dubbed the Ape by the other team members when he had first walked into the team room, and the nickname had stuck. He played the ape role sometimes to amuse the rest of the team, scratching his arms and swaggering around the team room. However, given a medical emergency, he seemed to come alive and worked as well as any Special Forces medic Riley had seen — in fact, better than most. Comsky was also one of the strongest men, pound for pound, Riley had ever met.

After fifteen minutes, the last two members straggled in, beating their way along the tree line. Riley checked his watch. Fifty minutes to assemble. Piss poor, he thought. On a real mission, if they'd been spotted jumping in, the drop zone would have been crawling with enemy forces by now. And the team leader wanted to sit here just off the DZ for a couple of hours while they dug a big hole to dispose of their parachutes. Not only that, but there was no way they could properly camouflage the hole in the dark. Anybody coming by, unless they were blind and stupid, would instantly recognize that something was buried here. They might as well put up a sign: "Parachutes Buried Here!" But Riley would play the game. He'd give Captain Peterson a little more rope to hang himself. That was the only way the man was going to learn.

The training mission tonight was to move about six kilometers from the drop zone to a power line and simulate destroying it with dummy demolitions that the team carried. The mission had to be completed by 0400 the next morning; at this rate, Riley knew they'd never make it. It was already 2315, and he estimated another two to three hours to finish the burial cache. Riley settled down for the wait as the team members rotated between burial detail and security. Digging in ground laced with roots and rocks, while trying to be as quiet as possible, made for slow progress.

At 010 °Captain Peterson started getting nervous. Riley figured that Peterson had finally gotten it through his head that they weren't going to make it to the target on time. Peterson came over and whispered to him.

"Sergeant Riley. I don't think we're going to make the target at this rate. The men don't seem to be digging fast enough. Here's what I want to do. Leave four men here to finish the cache and the rest of us go up and hit the target. We'll link up at the exfiltration point. You pick the men to stay. In fact, I want you to be in charge here. I'll take the other element up to the target."

Lord give me patience, thought Riley. Sounds like he memorized that little spiel. There's nothing worse than changing a plan in midoperation, especially if contingencies haven't been planned for. The captain's intimation that the team wasn't digging fast enough pushed Riley past his limit. He had had enough of this nonsense. Time for the captain's Special Forces schooling to really begin, Riley thought.

"With all due respect, sir, would you care for my opinion?" Without waiting for a reply, Riley drove on, speaking in a quiet, biting, forceful tone that the captain had not heard in the week he'd been with the team. The captain stood silent as he watched Riley's dark face in the moonlight.

"First off, sir, I told you that we'd never get these chutes buried in time. Secondly, we don't even need to cache the damn things because once we blow the power line, under the enemy scenario in this exercise, any so-called enemy with half a brain is going to figure out what happened. If we don't make exfiltration by 0700 it isn't going to matter if we made the parachutes disappear by magic into the fourth dimension, because we're going to be running so fast and hard, we're going to have a lot more important things on our mind. Like staying alive. So forget the parachutes. We leave them here as they are. I'm signed for them. If they get ripped off it's my ass. We hit the target like we planned with all ten team members and we go now!"

Riley turned from the stunned team leader. With hand signals he let everyone know to put on their rucksacks and move out quickly, then watched with satisfaction as the many hours of drilling paid off. Within a minute they were moving, the team leader sullenly falling into place in the formation.

The lead man, weapons specialist Sfc. Tom Chong, wore night-vision goggles, as did Riley and the last man. The bulky goggles were a pain to use sometimes, but on night missions like this they were worth their weight in gold. Through the goggles the moon-and starlight was computer enhanced, and everything appeared almost as it would in daylight. The only drawbacks were that all images were in a shade of green, and the viewer lost his sense of depth perception to a large extent. The advantage of being able to see in the dark more than made up for these disadvantages.

Chong could see like a cat in the dark, even without the aid of the goggles. The point man also had an uncanny sense of location and direction. Riley depended on him extensively during night moves. On many previous exercises in rough terrain, even when Riley himself had been confused, Chong had found the way. Riley had worked with some excellent trackers, but he had never seen anyone able to move like Chong.

The other team members referred to Chong jokingly as their resident native. Chong had been born in Korea and spoke the language fluently. He had also attended the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, California, to learn Mandarin Chinese. Chong had helped the team out numerous times with his ability to speak the local language as they roamed the Korean countryside. He also got them better deals when they shopped in the native markets.

The slim, dark-skinned man in the lead had the azimuth and distance to the target memorized, as did Riley. Using his pace count, Riley figured that they were within a kilometer of the target when the team leader signaled a halt. Riley moved back to the captain to find out what was up. He found the detachment commander crawling under his poncho and making a map check with a red-lens flashlight. In doing so, he was making enough noise to attract the attention of anyone within five hundred meters. Riley figured that Peterson had learned this little trick in Ranger school. He waited until the team leader was done.

"We're about two kilometers from the target, Sergeant Riley. I think we need to head more to the west."

"Sir, we're less than a klick away and right on track. Chong is the best navigator I've ever seen at night and he knows this land. I've been checking his azimuth and pace count and we're dead on. Trust me, sir. Unless of course your pace count is much different." Riley waited. He figured that the new team leader had not been keeping a pace count since leaving the cache site. The lack of an answer confirmed this.

Riley gave the move-out signal. In twenty minutes the team was on target. Following a quick halt to drop rucksacks, the team broke down into its various tactical elements.

Riley settled back in his overwatch position and observed the team run through the maneuver they had practiced. Four team members split into two groups and moved out along the service road of the power line to provide security. Each two-man team had one of the new squad automatic weapons (SAW) and a pair of light antitank weapons (LAWs). Two other team members were fifty meters back in the tree line, where the team had dropped all ten rucksacks, and would link up once the charges were set and blown. Riley and Captain Peterson observed from the tree line as the two team engineers ran up and placed the charges on the tower holding the power lines.

From leaving the tree line to completing wiring their charges, Smitty and senior engineer Sgt. Dan Hoffman took two minutes and thirty seconds.

They double-primed the plastic explosive for a nonelectrical detonation as they'd been taught to do by Riley. Before he made rank and became team sergeant, Riley had been a Special Forces engineer also, so he rode his engineers hard and set high, exacting standards.

Hoffman did a last check and then moved back toward the tree line, unreeling his detonating wire. Once the engineer reached the overwatch position, Riley flashed a red-lens flashlight at both flank security teams and they rushed back. After accounting for all personnel, Riley signaled Hoffman to blow the charge. Hoffman pulled the igniter and yelled "Boom!" Riley jumped.

"Sorry, Top. Just thought I'd do it for effect," Hoffman admitted sheepishly as they moved back to pick up their rucks.

Riley was happy with the actions on target. Less than five minutes from leaving the rucks to picking them up. The team could do better, but that wasn't bad. They threw on their rucks and moved out. The dummy demo was left in place to be evaluated and removed the next day.

The team made it to the pickup zone (PZ) thirty minutes early. It was just getting light enough to see out into the dry streambed where the helicopter was supposed to land. At exactly 0658, Riley stepped out onto the rocks under the watchful guns of his team and turned on his strobe light. Light flickering, he waited. The appointed time came and went. At 0702 Riley shut off his light and came back to the team.

Exfiltration was supposed to be a highly coordinated and exactly timed event. A window of two minutes prior and two minutes after the designated time was all that was allowed for security reasons. In this case, however, Riley mused, the highly coordinated part seemed lacking.

Another blown exfiltration because the helicopter didn't come. Since he'd been on Team 3, Special Forces Detachment-Korea (DET-K), Riley had not been exfiltrated on time on more than half his training missions, due to helicopters not showing up on time or at all. It worried him. He'd been told by other, more experienced Special Forces NCOs about helicopter pilots in Vietnam who had flown through all sorts of obstacles, both natural and man-made, to pick them up. But in this peacetime army, it seemed that the birds wouldn't fly if there was a cloud in the sky.

Riley heard the muttered curses of the team members as they realized that they had a fifteen-kilometer walk back to the truck pickup point. God help us if we ever have to do this for real and those birds don't show, Riley thought. We'd be walking a hell of a lot farther than fifteen kilometers.

Meng pointed at a stack of papers on one of his desks. "Those are your copies of the oplans for the units involved, along with my initial mission assessments."

Ron Wilson looked at the bulging stack with little enthusiasm. After just having finished the debrief on Dragon Sim-12, he wasn't thrilled about jumping right into the next mission. In his opinion, Doctor Meng was pushing the whole project too quickly. Wilson knew that Meng wanted to get onto the Medusa scenario, but this pace was too much. "What's the time line, Doctor?"

Meng didn't even bother turning. "Top sheet."

Wilson looked at the schedule with dismay. "Inbrief tomorrow?"

Meng looked up from where he was still flowcharting the mission. "The operation starts here tomorrow morning. I'll inbrief the strategic mission commander and his staff then. You can relax for a little while. I want you to look over the Medusa scenario for me anyway. You'll pick up your shift day after tomorrow on Sim-13."

Wilson sighed as he started sorting through the pile of papers, all stamped top secret. He was getting very tired of all this work. His responsibility in the Strams exercises was to back up Meng. The two of them usually split the time for the exercises, each spending twelve hours on duty.

As he started reading the first oplan, Wilson saw that this next mission was going to involve special operations aircraft and troops. That meant the majority of the actions on their end would be to monitor the message traffic between the strategic mission commander at Fort Meade and the forward operating base (FOB) that would launch the actual mission, at least until it became time for the part on the ground to begin. Then the computer would kick in, generating the simulated message traffic. For the people back at Fort Meade, the whole operation looked realistic and continuous from start to finish.

Wilson looked up. "Are we going to offset the aircraft and the team involved?" An offset meant sending aircraft and troops on a mission similar to the one in the oplan but in a local training area rather than the target country.

Meng looked up briefly from his work. "No. Once the team gives its briefback, we go to the computer exclusively. The offset didn't work well in the Bear Sim with Special Forces. The computer can do a much better job than the offset. Besides, we're not testing the team. We're testing the people in Tunnel 3." Meng turned back to his work.

The setup was complicated and Wilson didn't appreciate having inadequate time to get everything going. He glanced at Meng hunched over his tables. Wilson considered Meng a weird genius. There was no doubting the man's ability at programming. He could accurately portray a mission from start to finish to the strategic mission commander and staff in the Tunnel, using the oplans, simulated mission, and feedback from the employed element. But the man had the personality of a rock. He wasn't friendly with anyone on the staff and usually ran the actual Strams exercise by himself once it started, sleeping in his office in the Tunnel for the duration of the mission. It irritated Wilson to have Meng hanging around looking over his shoulder during his shift. Meng slept less than four hours out of every twenty-four, which meant that he was constantly around. Wilson wasn't sure whether it was because Meng didn't trust anyone or simply because he had nothing else to do. An aging photo of a young Chinese woman and a small boy sat on Meng's desk, but Wilson had never heard him make any reference to a family. He wished that the old man had someone waiting at home.

Wilson gathered up the mass of papers and stuffed them into his carrying case to lock in the safe. He didn't have any more time to ponder the idiosyncrasies of Doctor Meng. He wanted to go home and relax for a little while before having to start split shift again.

Captain Mitchell slammed down the phone. "Goddamn support pukes." Sergeant Major Hooker looked up from his desk. "What's the matter, sir?"

Mitchell pointed at the phone. "I hate those damn things. All I ever get is bad news over them. First the helicopter pilots decide not to fly, and now the transportation battalion tells me that the backup truck didn't go out to the ground pickup point this morning. The driver didn't get up on time."

The sergeant major picked up his phone. "Let me handle this, sir." He punched in a few numbers and waited while the traditionally faulty phone service tried to figure out where the connection was to be made. Mitchell got up from his desk and wandered over to the sergeant major's to listen in. Mitchell enjoyed watching Hooker in action.

Hooker stood only five feet two inches tall. Mitchell had always meant to look in the regulations to see if Special Forces had a height requirement, but he had never gotten around to it. Hooker was well known throughout the Pacific special operations community. When Mitchell first arrived in this assignment more than eighteen months ago, he had been told many stories about the diminutive DET-K sergeant major. Since moving up to the headquarters shed to be the DET-K operations officer, Mitchell had grown to really enjoy working with Hooker. He'd also started to believe many of the stories he'd been told about the man.

Hooker didn't tell war stories like a lot of the older NCOs did. When the sergeant major talked about his experiences, it was usually for the purpose of making a point or educating those around him. He had a lot of stories. Hooker had been around Special Forces for twenty-eight years, twenty-three of them in the Far East.

Mitchell was a contrast physically to the squat sergeant major. Eight inches taller and fair haired, Mitchell had the build of a lean, longdistance runner. This was his first tour of duty in this part of the world. He had nine years in the army, the first three with the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas. Mitchell had then volunteered for Special Forces training. He'd wanted more challenge than riding around in the back of an armored personnel carrier through the Kansas countryside. Special Forces had given him that. The six-month Special Forces Qualification Course (Q course) had introduced him to a new type of warfare and a new type of soldier. The NCOs who taught the Q course had impressed Mitchell from the start with their overall professionalism and depth of expertise in unconventional warfare. The tactics taught at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School made a lot more sense to Mitchell than those he'd learned at the infantry school at Fort Benning.

The course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, had also introduced him to something more than a new part of the army. He'd met his wife there.

During a practical exercise in rescuing downed pilots and moving them through a resistance network, Mitchell's student team had picked up a female helicopter pilot. Mitchell's first impression of the slender, five-foot-six, dark-haired pilot was not favorable. He was the serious type; she, on the other hand, made a joke of everything. At first he took her jabs personally. After being forced to stay together in a safe house for almost thirty-six hours, however, his opinion of Capt. Jean Long had slowly undergone a transformation. He realized that her teasing wasn't meant to belittle him. It was simply her way of dealing with the world. She laughed at the stupidity built into the exercise and at the other ridiculous things life brought her way, and she didn't really care if other people disapproved of her attitude.

By the time he was ready to pass her on to the next link of the escape network, they had formed the basis of a friendship. Four months later they were married. Mitchell had never thought he'd tie the knot that quickly, but he had never regretted it. Life had certainly been an adventure since he'd met Jean Long.

Mitchell's musings were interrupted by Hooker's roar into the phone. "Sergeant, this is Sergeant Major Hooker. You got ten minutes to kick that driver in the ass and get him over here to my compound. I want to look into his beady little eyeballs before he goes to pick up my people. I got troops standing ass deep in a shit-filled rice paddy waiting on that yo-yo. You read me loud and clear, Sergeant?"

Hooker slammed down the phone without waiting for an answer. He smiled at Mitchell. "Sir, you just have to know how to talk to these people. NCOs don't understand all those fine manners and etiquette they taught you at West Point. You have to master the firm but gentle art of persuasion in a manner similar to mine."

Mitchell laughed. Hooker was a master of persuasion, but he didn't know much about being gentle. "Hey, Sergeant Major, tell the colonel I'm out with the deuce and a half. I'll go with the driver to make sure he gets to the right spot."

Hooker nodded. "All right. Better you than me facing down Dave Riley anyway. He's going to want an explanation for both the helicopter's no-show and the truck being late. Since your wife is one of them-there whirlybird drivers, you might be able to explain it better than me. By the way, are you going up or is she coming down here this weekend?"

Mitchell replied while grabbing his map and beret. "I'm going to take the train up there. Already got tickets on the 4:20. When I talked to her last night on the phone she said she's got to work again tomorrow. Got two birds she has to test-fly. If she finishes them today she might have the afternoon off tomorrow. We should have all day Sunday together."

Hooker shook his head. "Man, they're working her to death. When's the last time she had a weekend off?"

Mitchell had to think about that. "Probably about two months ago. When we went to Soraksan National Park for the weekend."

"Need a ride over to Chongyangni Station?"

"I'd appreciate it, but I can take the subway."

"No trouble, sir. We'll leave here at 1545."

Mitchell paused as a thought occurred to him. "You don't suppose we're going on alert because of all this stuff going down in China, do you, Sergeant Major?"

Hooker considered that. "I doubt it, sir. Everything seems to be pretty static."

Mitchell shook his head. "I don't know. On the news there was a story that they tried sending troops into Beijing and the troops didn't buy off on it."

Hooker shrugged. "Who knows what the hell is going on over there. I sure haven't been able to figure out this part of the world, and I've spent quite a few years running around here. China has always been the great enigma." Hooker smiled proudly. "Hey, you like that fancy word I used?"

Mitchell gave the sergeant major his thanks for the ride offer and went outside to wait by the gate of the small compound that housed DET-K. The compound consisted of six buildings, one for the headquarters and one for each of the five A teams that made up the unit. It was located on the south post portion of Yongsan Army Military Base, nestled in the heart of Seoul. On a day when the winds blew away the cloud of pollution that usually covered the city, you could see the Seoul Tower on a hilltop rising above the city to the north, and the tall 63-Building to the south on the other side of the Han-Gang River. Today wasn't one of those days — a foreboding gray cloud hovered above the city.

Mitchell saw a deuce-and-a-half truck swing around the corner, roar past the softball field, and come toward him. He knew that if he didn't go with the truck, there were better than even odds that the driver wouldn't make it out of the city. Seoul had not been designed with cars in mind. In fact, it hadn't even been designed at all; it had just grown. There was a definite shortage of road signs, although a big improvement had been made during the buildup for the Olympics. Mitchell could read Korean characters and make out most signs, although he was a long way from being fluent in the language.

The driver pulled the truck up and got out. "Sir, I'm supposed to report to a Sergeant Major Hooker."

Mitchell decided to have mercy on the young man. "Private, you don't want to talk to the sergeant major. He hasn't had his breakfast yet and he might make you the first course." He clambered up the passenger side. "Let's roll."

It was a long and tiring fifteen-kilometer walk back to the pickup point. Riley enforced strict tactical discipline the entire way. As he continued to control the operation, he could sense the captain getting irritated with him. That was all right with Riley. They could hash things out after they got back to the team room.

Riley drove himself and his team hard, because he'd seen the results of half-assed efforts. In the peacetime army it was hard to keep the motivation level up. Occasionally, Riley just got tired of pushing. His soldiers sometimes resented his pickiness, what he called "attention to detail." But it was attention to detail that determined whether a soldier lived or died. Still, he tried to be fair, and his men respected him for that. Riley had two passions: his team and his martial arts training. Unlike many other soldiers serving a tour in Korea, Riley didn't have a mistress off post. Nor did he frequent the GI bars every evening. Riley dedicated himself to taking care of his team. The ten members of Team 3, Special Forces Detachment-Korea, were his family.

On the way to the pickup point, they reached a bridge spanning a small but deep stream. Riley stopped the team and signaled for Hoffman and Sfc. Lech Olinski, the team's intelligence sergeant, to come forward. Riley instructed them to emplace a one-rope bridge downstream from the road bridge for the team to cross on.

Hoffman stared at Riley for a second, then realized the futility of complaining. It would be much easier to go nontactical at this point and walk across the road bridge. But Riley didn't know the meaning of the word nontactical.

As the two moved off to the riverbank and broke out a 120-foot rope, Riley heard Hoffman mutter to Olinski. "Guess the man figures we need a bath, hey, Ski?"

Olinski grunted in reply. Riley smiled to himself. Olinski was not exactly verbose. As intelligence sergeant, he was the second-highest-ranking noncommissioned officer on the team, and Riley knew that he could count on Olinski's support for his strict training habits. Olinski had the same outlook Riley did.

Olinski was one of those people with a varied background that Special Forces seemed to attract. His parents were Polish and he himself had lived in Poland until he was eleven, when the family had escaped to West Germany. Olinski had spent three years there, then came to the United States to live with an uncle. At seventeen he enlisted in the army and joined the Rangers, where he rose to the rank of staff sergeant. When someone at the Department of the Army happened to see that Olinski spoke fluent Polish, German, and Russian, Olinski was asked to volunteer for Special Forces. After finishing his training, Olinski had spent several years in the 10th Special Forces Group, which had Europe as its area of orientation. When DET-K had picked up some responsibility for eastern Russia, Olinski had been sent to Korea for a one-year short tour.

Since his arrival, Olinski had maintained a reputation as a quiet but extremely competent intelligence sergeant. His knowledge of Soviet and Warsaw Pact armies and security forces came from more than just books. He also had his personal childhood experiences to draw on.

Olinski looked his name, with a broad Slavic face and tall lanky body. Besides the usual Polish jokes, Olinski was often the butt of other younger, and less experienced, team members' jibes for his willingness to be miserable when there might be an easier way out. In the Rangers, Olinski had learned to ignore the pain and discomfort that hard, realistic training entailed. This hard-core quality endeared the man to Riley, who was fond of saying that pain was weakness leaving the body.

Riley watched as Olinski lowered his body into the chilly mountain stream. This was the price one had to pay to be good, Riley thought. The easy way got you killed. With the rope tied around his waist, and his M16A2 held overhead, Olinski sidestroked to the far bank, being careful not to swallow water. Any water in the Korean countryside was extremely suspect: pollution and the Korean way of fertilizing fields with human waste ensured that. In his dripping uniform Olinski anchored the rope around a tree, then turned to provide far bank security.

Hoffman enlisted the aid of three other team members and they anchored the near end of the rope on a tree, then tightened it down as much as possible. Hoffman hooked Olinski's and his own rucksack onto the rope with snap links and started across. The natural stretch of the rope made the center section of the bridge sag so that Hoffman's head went underwater briefly, but he pulled himself over quickly. One by one, the rest of the team followed.

Sending his ruck over with Devito, Riley remained until last. He untied the near bank rope and swam it over. On the far bank, he coiled the rope and hung it on the outside of his ruck as the team moved out to cover the last kilometer back to their pickup point. When they reached the road junction where the truck was supposed to be, Riley sighed as he saw nothing there. He was too tired to get angry. Typical, he thought. He knew it would show up sooner or later. Between Hooker and Mitchell at the Operations Shop, one of the two would get things rolling.

Riley missed Mitchell. The captain had been Riley's team leader for sixteen months before moving up to the DET-K S-3 slot. Riley had enjoyed working with someone who was competent and also willing to learn. During those sixteen months, Riley had imparted as much knowledge as he could to Mitchell, and at the same time learned a few things himself. They had split the chore of running the team in an efficient manner.

The two had formed an extremely close professional and personal bond during their time together. Because of that bond, Team 3 had become what all Special Forces teams should be but few achieve: twelve individuals welded into an effective, cohesive fighting force. The team worked and played together. The Mobile Training Team (MTT) mission to Australia, six months ago, culminating in a successful joint training mission with the Australian Special Air Services (SAS), had put a fine edge on Team 3—an edge that Riley saw the new team leader threatening.

Besides the professional aspect, Riley enjoyed Mitchell's company and had even learned to like the captain's wife, although Riley questioned the idea of women in the army. He also didn't understand why she had kept her own last name, but he figured that was none of his business, and he knew that if he mentioned it, Captain Long would make that very clear to him. She was one of the most stubborn and self-reliant persons Riley had ever met. Riley and Jean Long had a mutual but wary respect for each other that was beginning to become a friendship.

Riley steeled himself as Captain Peterson came over and sat down next to him. Riley was tired, hungry, and wet. Add the lack of transportation, and he was in no mood to deal with a petulant captain.

Peterson wasted no time on small talk. "Sergeant Riley, I did not appreciate the way you talked to me at the cache site."

Riley stood and gestured for the officer to follow him. He wasn't about to argue in front of the rest of the team. Riley led the captain to the other side of the road.

"Yes, sir. I can understand that. But to be honest I don't appreciate the way you've been treating me this past week. You haven't listened to my advice nor have you tried to seek it out. If we're going to work together, then you have to work with me. I'm willing to work with you."

Peterson didn't seem to be buying it. "I'm the commander of this team. If you can't go along with that, then I'm going to have to do something about it and go to the colonel."

Riley shook his head in wonderment at the captain's lack of common sense. "Sir, there's no need to get Colonel Hossey involved. I think you might find that's not so smart. He's not going to move people around just because they don't get along. I realize I can be kind of mule headed sometimes, but you need to realize where the expertise on this team lies. I've got ten years of Special Forces experience. There's a bunch more experience sitting across the road in the heads of the other enlisted people on this team." Riley turned and looked the young captain in the eyes. "You have six months of schooling and two weeks in country."

Peterson looked at Riley steadily for a few seconds, then walked away. Riley rubbed his eyes; he was getting a headache. He looked up as he heard the roar of a truck headed their way.

A U.S. Army two-and-a-half-ton truck rolled down the one-lane dirt farm road toward them. Riley stepped out in the road as the truck pulled over. He hid his smile as Captain Mitchell got out of the passenger side of the cab. "Where was our helicopter? And why the hell is the truck late?"

Mitchell flicked a half salute toward Riley. "Nice to see you too, Sergeant First Class Riley." Mitchell looked up at the sky. He pointed at a wisp of a cloud floating above the jagged peaks of the ridgeline to the south. "See that cloud? That's why the helicopter didn't fly. As far as the truck goes, I decided to do some sight-seeing on the way down. Took some beautiful pictures of a rice paddy."

"Keep it up, asshole," Riley grumbled as he signaled for the team to load their rucks on the truck. "The chutes are about fifteen k's that-a-way, right off the DZ. Hopefully some Korean farmer hasn't found them by now and used them to make four thousand new shirts."

Mitchell turned as Peterson came up. "Got room in the cab for me?"

Mitchell hesitated, looking briefly at Riley, then back at his fellow officer. "How about you navigate the driver up to where the chutes are cached and I'll ride in the back? We'll go to the target and recover the demo after we get the chutes." Peterson nodded and walked to the front of the truck.

"Looks like you two are getting along great," Mitchell whispered to Riley as they headed to the rear to join the rest of the team.

"He'd better pull his head out of his butt, Mitch," Riley muttered. Then, out of earshot of the team, he turned to Mitchell. "You believe the little shit actually has threatened to go to Colonel Hossey and complain about me?"

Mitchell could see that Riley was upset, so he answered seriously. "Yeah, well, if he does that, the Old Man will smoke him like a cheap cigar."

Riley shook his head, not so sure. "I'm getting tired of dealing with you officers. He's even dumber than you were," Riley said, smiling to show that he was getting over his anger. "Maybe it's easier to join than fight, and I'll go get my warrant after all."

Mitchell laughed. "You'd be part of the enemy then." He grabbed Olinski's outstretched hand, pulling him up into the truck. Looking at the familiar faces of Team 3, he felt a wave of sadness that he was no longer part of the team.

Meng put aside his work every half hour to listen to the latest CNN report regarding the situation in Tiananmen Square. He wasn't sure what to make of the unsubstantiated reports of fighting between elements of the 38th Army and the 27th Army on the outskirts of Beijing. He could well believe that the 38th had turned back, refusing to enter the city to crush the students. The majority of the conscripts in the 38th were from the Beijing area and were probably sympathetic to the students.

Meng looked through one of the classified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reports on the makeup of the Chinese Army. He could see why the 27th Army had been brought in. It was from the Nei Monggol Military District, which meant that the soldiers in that army would have little in common with the students in the square.

Meng sensed that the tinder and firewood were all piled up in Tiananmen Square waiting for the match. It was just a matter of time before it was ignited. He said a silent prayer before turning back to his work.

Mitchell scrunched up in his seat as the old Korean lady sat down next to him and jammed her large bundle between them. Mitchell smiled at her. She looked back passively for a moment, then turned her attention elsewhere.

It was a two-hour train ride from Seoul to ChunChon, where Mitchell's wife was stationed. They had come to Korea about eighteen months ago on a joint assignment. Korea was normally a short tour of one year for soldiers because it was unaccompanied, meaning that families and spouses stayed behind in the States. When Jean had gotten orders for an unaccompanied tour to Korea, Mitchell had volunteered to go over also so they could be together. In exchange, the army, which didn't know the meaning of the words good deal, lengthened their respective tours to two years.

As Mitchell reflected on it, he thought they might have been better off with Jean going on the short tour and him staying back in the States. For the first sixteen months in country Mitchell had been commander of Team 3; Jean had worked in the 17th Aviation Brigade headquarters at Yongsan. During that time, despite being stationed at the same post, they had seen little of each other. Mitchell had been gone more than 50 percent of the time on field training exercises and deployments around the Orient. Then, just two months ago, when he had finally moved up to staff, which meant he would have less field time, his wife had been offered command of an aviation company. Only it was in the 309th Aviation Battalion of the 17th Aviation Regiment, stationed up in ChunChon about ninety kilometers northeast of Seoul.

Jean had needed a command in an aviation unit and this was the only one available in her specialty, which was aircraft maintenance. She'd had little choice but to accept the job. Although the position was professionally rewarding for her, the separation made both of them miserable. She worked almost every weekend to keep up with the demands of being a company commander, on top of her duties as maintenance test pilot. Since she had taken the command, they had gotten to see each other for only about half of any weekend.

As the train pulled out of Chongyangni Station, Mitchell was contemplating the prospect of another eleven years in the army under such intolerable conditions. He already had nine years in, but somehow, ever since he and Jean had gotten married, an army career just didn't seem that bright any more. He knew that as they both reached higher rank, the number of jobs would become more limited. Therefore, opportunities for them to be assigned together would also be more difficult to find. It was a trade-off he wasn't sure he wanted to make.

Mitchell decided to squelch his negative thoughts and occupy himself more productively. A Korean girl of about three or four was peering at him over the seatback. Mitchell knew that his short blond hair and occidental facial features made him stand out to the Koreans. He stuck out his tongue and she promptly grabbed her mother and pointed at him, yelling excitedly, "Mi-Guk, Mi-Guk" — American.

Mitchell feigned surprise and pointed back at the little girl, saying, "Han-Guk, Han-Guk" — Korean. The girl squealed and stuck out her tongue at Mitchell. The old lady, next to Mitchell, smiled and said something to the mother. The mother passed the girl back to the old lady, who perched the child on top of her bundle on the seat. The rest of Mitchell's train ride was spent entertaining the young girl with a variety of facial distortions and pidgin Korean.

Captain Jean Long was presently six thousand feet above ChunChon conducting a test flight of an OH-58 helicopter. The aircraft had just finished phase maintenance, and it was important to make sure that everything had been put back together correctly.

She sat in the right-hand seat, and a young lieutenant, new to the battalion, sat in the left. Jean liked taking up new lieutenants fresh out of flight school for test flights. It opened their eyes to what was required to check out a helicopter before it could be flown on missions. Sometimes line pilots treated their helicopters like toys, with little consideration for the amount of maintenance needed to keep them flying.

She was getting ready to do one of the more interesting tests. Slowly rolling off the throttle, she watched her N-l indicator until the engine clutch disengaged. The rotor blades, no longer powered by the engine, began to autorotate. That meant the blades were turning free, slowing the aircraft's descent as it plummeted without power. This was an emergency procedure normally used in case of engine failure. Jean knew that the young pilot next to her had done maybe three or four autorotations during flight school. As a maintenance test pilot, she did them almost every day.

She watched as the altimeter unwound, briefly checking the lieutenant out of the corner of her eye. She could tell that he wanted to grab the controls and get the aircraft back under power. She waited until she was sure that the helicopter was working satisfactorily, then slowly increased throttle, slowing the descent. Bringing the aircraft to a hover, she then began the approach to the airstrip at Camp Page. Carefully maneuvering the helicopter down the flight line, she slipped in between two parked Blackhawk helicopters and touched the skids lightly to the ground.

As the blades slowed she turned to the lieutenant. "What do you think? You want to go to maintenance school and become a test pilot?"

The young man shook his head. "Ma'am, it's all yours. I'd rather be in the line unit. We get to fly the real missions."

Yeah, right, Jean thought. What do you think we just did? That's why your knuckles were white from grabbing the side of your seat when I autorotated, she smiled to herself. Another manly man who wanted to do manly things. Thinking about men, her mind turned to her husband, who should be on his way right now. She looked at her watch and shook her head. She had so much paperwork left to do in her office that she doubted she'd be done by the time he arrived.