Stephen Mertz - The Korean Intercept

"Okay." Terri spoke the single word in the small voice of a child. She closed her eyes, saying no more.

At the mouth of the cave, Scott and Paxton remained one to either side, each with a finger on a trigger. Scott shouted something in Korean, responding to the men outside. There was a surly reply from without. Scott translated for the others.

"They're not soldiers. They're bandits. They've given us sixty seconds to surrender. Big Mouth out there says he's holding a fragmentation grenade with a ten-second fuse. We don't show ourselves, he throws in the grenade." Scott flicked a quick glance around the confines of the cave. "That means we all die."

"Well hell," said Paxton. "Let's do as the man says. Jesus, Commander. I don't want to die. You've got to get us back home. We've got to take any chance we can!" Paxton's blond hair was mussed, his face streaked with dirt and fear, no longer the movie-poster-handsome face.

Scott glanced at Kate. "Will Terri make it, if we move her?"

Kate rose from kneeling at the side of the woman who had become her friend during their intensive astronaut training together. "Terri's dead," she said in a grim voice. She unholstered her pistol.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. And we're dead if someone out there throws in a grenade. I don't see where we have a choice."

Paxton looked mightily relieved. He looked happy enough to jump up and down. "Kate's right!"

Scott sighed. "She always is. Okay. I'll step out first. If they open fire, you two do your best. Good luck."

Kate started to say something, but Scott had already managed to hobble the single awkward step it took for him to swing his straightened leg through the shrubbery that choked the mouth of the cave. He disappeared from their sight, leaving Kate and Bob Paxton alone with the dead woman. When Kate's eyes locked with his, she saw that his were glassy with uncertainty. "Get a grip, Bob. This is no time to lose it."

Paxton didn't look so sure. "There was nothing like this in the goddamn training."

"Can it," she said. She couldn't believe that she had once been attracted to this man.

From outside, she heard Scott address someone in Korean. There was a cruel, guttural laugh and the briefest sound of a scuffle. Then she heard Scott grunt in pain. She could wait no longer. She'd rather die giving backup to a teammate than crouch here, hiding. She took a step forward, bringing up her pistol and bracing herself for whatever she would find confronting her.

Paxton's jaw dropped. "Kate, no, for Chrissake, wait! What if-"

She didn't have an opportunity to reply, nor to propel herself through the shrubbery as she'd intended to. Instead, Ron Scot was propelled into the cave under force of a powerful shove from outside. He plowed into her with enough impact to send them both stumbling backwards. Kate fought to maintain her balance, simultaneously steering Scott toward a rough, curved wall of the cave, where he could reach out a hand and steady himself on his good leg, to brace himself from falling. She noted that he wore a nasty purple bruise on his forehead that was swelling by the second, and an open, ugly red wound along the scalp line. Scott did not fall. He remained standing when Kate released him. This allowed her to spin around just in time to see the man, who had obviously shoved Scott, now come storming into the cave.

There was the cruelty of a killer about him, every bit as palpable as his foul body odor that permeated the dank closeness. He wore a dirty padded jacket and ragged pants. His face was scarred, probably from smallpox. He held an M16 automatic rifle.

Scott explained quickly, "His name is Han Ling. Three of his men are outside, and they're not much prettier than he is. He's Chinese, but he speaks Korean."

Paxton had stepped away from the cave entrance, pointedly keeping his pistol aimed at the ground, a sign of surrender. This did him no good. Before he could speak, before anyone saw it coming, the intruder whipped the rifle sideways in a sharp movement that snapped the rifle's butt squarely into Paxton's startled face. There was a bone-crunching sound. Paxton fell back with a cry, falling to the ground, the pistol skittering from his fingers. He drew himself into a crouch against the cave's wall, staring wild-eyed from behind the hands that he clasped to his face.

"My nose! Jesus Christ, he broke my goddamn nose!"

Kate and the bandit faced each other. Like Paxton, she held her pistol aimed at the ground. The intruder glared at her menacingly, and she took advantage of the opportunity he was obviously offering her by not opening fire and cutting her to ribbons. She let the pistol drop from her fingers. It clattered onto the cave floor.

The man gestured with his rifle. Paxton sidled over to join her and Commander Scott, near the sprawled remains of Terri Schmidt. The bandit scooped up their dropped pistols while maintaining a one-armed grip on his Ml6, a finger on the trigger and the muzzle aimed at them. He nonchalantly slipped the sidearms into a wide, colorful sash that served as his belt, with the pistol butts reversed, old American West style, for quick cross-draw. The bandit motioned them outside with the rifle barrel, issuing a gruff command in his own tongue.

Kate asked Scott, "What are they going to do with us?"

"I make out something about taking us into the mountains. He's speaking a regional dialect that I don't know."

Bob Paxton still held his broken nose with both hands. A stream of bloody droplets dotted his tunic. "This isn't happening," he gurgled. "This can't be happening."

"Move it, Specialist," ordered Scott briskly. "We'll try to set that nose as soon as we get our asses out of here. We're worth more alive than dead to them. If they'd wanted us dead, we'd damn sure already be dead."

Kate did her best to pretend that a gnarly mountain bandit wasn't pointing an automatic weapon at her. She spoke to Scott, nodding toward the body at their feet. "What about Terri? We can't just leave our dead."

Scott sighed. His eyes were infinitely sad. "We can't help Terri now. We'll do whatever it takes to recover her remains. But for now… I promised this guy we'd go where he wanted to take us."

The bandit seemed to understand what they were talking about. With a smile of pure maliciousness, he summoned up phlegm and spat upon Terri Schmidt.

Kate held her emotions in check. It was easy enough to do. At the moment, her emotions were utterly numb to the point of being nonexistent. She eyed the bandit coldly and spoke to Scott. "Sir, do you think he knows about the shuttle?"

"Don't know yet. Can't tell."

Paxton made a whimpering noise. "If I see a chance, I'm making a run for it."

Scott hobbled to the mouth of the cave. "With this busted stem, I'm not running anywhere." Kate could tell that he was doing his best to keep the resignation and defeat he must have felt from filtering into his voice. He disappeared from the cave.

She followed, but not before sending Paxton a glower even under the gun of the bandit who covered them with his Ml6. She hissed, "Don't blow it, Bob. Follow orders or we'll all die."

The bandit lost patience, and she and Paxton were both shoved from the cave, Kate first through the shrubbery, to the knoll of ground outside. Three bandits stood waiting on the knoll. Except for the fact that they were younger, no more than teenagers, in every other respect-from clothing to armament-they were nearly identical to Han; including sour body odor and bad attitude. They stood with their rifles aimed at Scott.

Despite his splinted leg, the flight commander was steady enough to halt the forward momentum of Paxton as the scientist was pushed out from the cave's interior. Paxton would have tumbled over a sharp drop-off, to further injury and possible death, if Scott hadn't been standing there to intercept him. Han stepped from the cave. He stormed over to stand toe-to-toe with Scott, shouting directly into Scott's face.