OUTCAST Ops: Red Ice

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Tanner hit the dirt as the North Koreans opened fire. The swarm of bullets passed over his prone body, digging into the dirt walls of the gully or striking the scattered rocks. The other four OUTCASTs, above and to either side of the gully, fired back, multiple 9mm bursts punching into the half-dozen western-dressed gunmen. Tanner returned fire a heartbeat later, adding his firepower to the team’s. Trapped with nowhere to hide, the North Koreans died quickly.

Tanner got to his feet and ran for the opening. The others descended the gully’s sloping walls and joined him.

“Bring the Wasp,” Tanner told Stephen, who brought the robotic aircraft down with a few taps on the tablet’s screen. Dante picked up the drone and secured it to the back of Liam’s harness.

The mine tunnel was wide and level, but there were no lights, no sign that anyone had been in the tunnels for a while. With their NVGs making them look like aliens, Liam and Tanner lead the way, staying near the walls. The others followed, Naomi and Dante behind Tanner, while Stephen trailed Liam.

Twenty yards in, the tunnel split into two passages, one going in the same direction of the main tunnel, while the other branched off to the left at a forty-five degree angle. Tanner signaled the team to stop.

“Which way?” Liam asked.

Tanner stared into the tunnel ahead of them. “I’ve got footprints going this way.”

“Got footprints here too. Do you want to split up?”

“No. Too easy to get lost in these tunnels. We’ll continue along the main passageway until we either find something or run out of tunnel.”

They continued on. After a few more yards the tunnel veered left, then a few after that, tracked right. The farther in they went, the more twisting and uneven the tunnel became, as if the miners had been drunk. They heard sounds, distant and badly distorted by the tunnel’s echoes. Wary of an ambush, the team took each turn and twist slowly.

The tunnel made a sharp turn right, then after a few yards, a hairpin turn left. As they started around the sudden turn, Tanner saw movement in the tunnel ahead. “Back!” he warned, just as the tunnel lit up with multiple assault rifle and machine gun fire. The team hugged the floor while slugs ricocheted off the tunnel walls.

The wall to Tanner’s right exploded as hundreds of bullets slammed into it, showering him and the others with rock dust. Liam, the nearest to the corner, slid a shell into his grenade launcher and stuck his MP5 around the bend. The whump of the M-203 being fired was lost in the last few seconds of the barrage. The gunfire was erased by an explosion. A large cloud of dust and smoke came around the corner, filling the tunnel with a dense cloud.

“Liam,” Tanner said. “That was stupid. Trying to cave us in?”

Liam yanked the MP5 back, opened the grenade launcher’s breech, letting the spent shell fall to the floor, then reloaded. “It stopped them, didn’t it?”

The team surged to their feet and raced around the corner, weapons up and seeking targets.

Rhee charged out of the tunnel, followed by Muhn and his men. The two combatants manning the machine gun stiffened to attention, but Rhee waved them down. “Blow the tunnel!” he snapped as he stormed past them. “And bring that machine gun to cover the tunnel leading into the complex.”

He stomped into the guard room, the men sitting there coming to attention. “You four help your comrades move that machine gun station, and guard it.” The men saluted and rushed out of the barracks.

“Muhn,” Rhee said. “I want two of your soldiers to guard the escape tunnel until I return. Make sure they help the guards get the machine gun set up and ready to fire before we get back.

The scar-faced man nodded. He tapped two of his subordinates on the shoulder and they broke away from the group.

Rhee glanced at the others. “Hyoung and you two — with me.”

When they emerged into the main caverns, Rhee inspected the area before he saw the guard commander at the security station. “Report!”

“We have intruders.” P’il said quickly, pointing at one of the monitors.

Rhee gazed at the monitor, where masked figures trotted down the tunnel toward the camera, until one of them pointed his weapon at it and pulled the trigger. A distant gunshot echoed through the tunnels as the video signal dissolved to snow.

Rhee’s scowl deepened. “Get every fighter you can into that tunnel and stop them.”

P’il nodded and left at a run, barking orders into his radio.

Dust and smoke filled the tunnel ahead of them. The team charged ahead, fingers on triggers. There was no gunfire as the dust began to subside.

After a few yards, the tunnel widened to twice its width. Bodies in green fatigues were lying around what had been a tripod-mounted DShK machine gun. Blood was everywhere, as Liam’s grenade had brought down a large chunk of the roof down on the defenders. A couple of the fighters and the machine gun had been crushed by a boulder a quarter the size and weight of a compact car, while others had been struck in the head and shoulders by smaller rocks.

“Keep moving,” Tanner urged.

Another opening, located at the other end of the wider tunnel, was the only exit. The team negotiated the jumble of rocks, aware that another cave collapse could occur at any moment. Once they reached the opening, Dante removed the Night Wasp from Liam’s harness, and with a few taps on the tablet from Stephen, sent the drone into the tunnel’s airspace

Tanner and Liam looked over Stephen’s shoulder as the former CIA agent piloted the micro-drone through the tunnel. This passage felt newer than the entrance tunnel; it sloped up more gradually and lacked the accumulation of rocks and dust. The wooden support frames supporting the tunnel roof also appeared to be modern.

After fifteen yards, the passageway opened into a cavern, longer than it was wide. Half a dozen overhead lights illuminated everything in the chamber. Stephen sent the drone up so that it was above the lights and near the relative safety of the dark ceiling.

As the aerial camera swept the room, Tanner and Liam eyed the control tablet. They saw prison cells lining the walls, a dozen steel cages on each long side. Fifty or sixty men and women, dressed in rough and dirty clothing, yelled and carried on at half a dozen guards standing in the middle of the cavern. One of the guards was speaking rapidly into a radio, and several more glanced in the direction of the opening where the drone had entered.

Liam motioned to the screen. “How you want to do this?”

“We hit them hard and fast,” Tanner said.

Naomi leaned over. “Wait. Swing the camera around so it’s pointing at the walls above the cages again.”

Stephen performed the action and the team could now see blocks along the walls, with wires running from one block to another.

“Shit!” Liam breathed. “Looks like the place is rigged for a massive detonation.”

Naomi nodded. “More than enough to bring the roof down, that’s for sure. See if you can trace where the wires are going.”

The drone moved again and the team followed the wires. Naomi pointed at the screen. “Wires exit through the opening there on the other side of the chamber.”

Liam shook his head. “Which means the entire place could be rigged.”

“Plan doesn’t change.” Tanner straightened up. “We just hit them even harder and faster.”

The team turned and charged into the tunnel. Shouts came from ahead, only a few at first, but swelling as more and more people added their voices to the cacophony. There were words in the babble of voices, but none in English, and the percussive assault of metal striking metal punctuated the vocalizations.

One of the guards closest to the tunnel saw the OUTCAST unit charge out of the tunnel. He screamed and spun toward the team only to go down as Tanner triggered the grenade launcher and sent a load of buckshot into him. The blast also smashed into another guard, shredding his arm and leg and knocking him to the tunnel floor.

The rest of the team opened fire, the flurry of 9mm rounds cutting through the guards’ bodies before any of them could get a shot off. As the last guard fell, Tanner reloaded his M203 while he moved across the chamber, Liam behind him and to his left. The rest of the team followed. To either side, the prisoners shouted at the infiltrating squad, arms thrust between the bars to plead for release.

“Should we let them go?” Dante asked, pausing to look into one of the overcrowded cages. He wanted to free them.

Tanner shook his head. “They’re safer here for the time being. Let’s keep moving.”

Stopping long enough to retrieve the drone, the team raced into the next tunnel.