Steve Abbott: Devil's Gambit

“You sure about that?”

Sean shrugged. “Pretty sure, but I need to have a look with your eyes to be sure.”

Hunter handed him the Zeiss starlight glasses.

Sean hefted the compact field glasses. “Nice stuff. Not too heavy for low-light gear.”

Hunter chuckled. “It’s the upside of being on a classified budget.”

Sean panned the glasses around the harbor. “So what’s the plan?”

Hunter pointed to the dock and then to the train. “We’ve got two choices. We take them on the dock right after they offload, or we take them on the train. I’m leaning towards the dock. The fields of fire are better and we’re closer to the water if we have to beat feet in a hurry.”

Sean centered the SA-6 site in the glasses. “Okay, I’ve got me a Thin Skin height finder dead center of the site.” He swung the binoculars a little to the right. “And two Long Track surveillance units to the right of that. So far so good.” He panned back to the left. The sharp points of an SA-6 missile group sat on its launcher pointing up into the sky. Behind it was a large vehicle swathed in a heavy camouflage net. “Hold on.” Sean swung back to the center of the control vehicles and adjusted the binoculars’ focus. The offending radar dish sprang into clarity. It was dark green, oblong and stationary. “That looks more like a long range telemetry and tracking type than a fire control radar.” Fuzzy green and white soldiers moved in and out of the camouflage-shrouded launcher area. “There’s a lot more men on the second site than the one we took out earlier.” Sean focused on the launcher again. Something about the shape behind it was just plain wrong and then the pieces fell into place. “Oh Christ!”

“What?”

Sean dropped the glasses from his face. “That’s a TEL behind that SA-6 launcher. It’s a bloody TEL, they’re going to mount and launch the warheads from here.” He grabbed Hunter’s arm hard. “Call them back. Get all of them back. They’ll get cut to ribbons. Eisenhower can nail it with bombers.”

Hunter keyed his throat mike to Smoke’s frequency. “Umpire calls foul ball.” His ear piece squelched twice in acknowledgment. The SEAL commander looked at Sean. “You all right man?”

Sean looked gray and old. When he managed to smile it was just a shadow. “I wasn’t sure about it earlier, but this is my last op. I’ve been in the game too long. After all of that shit in the rock pile. The world’s not getting any better you know?” Sean shook his head. “Nah, that’s it for me, mate. After this, I’m out.”

Hunter kept his tone neutral. “You’re not going to do anything stupid are you?”

“What? Me die in a blaze of glory? Sacrifice for myself for Queen and country? That’s not on. Got my heart set on a long and glorious retirement, someplace remote and uncluttered.”

Hunter grunted. “Good. Last thing we need is a Jonah in the group.” He pointed to a cinder block warehouse close to the dock. “That sucker looks pretty deserted. Nobody has been in or out of it the whole time we’ve been here jawing. No lights either. I’ll get Smoke’s team to join up with us there. We can get ourselves set up to wait. We’ll be out of sight right up until this sub turns up. We’ll be in a perfect position to coordinate the attack.”

Sean looked at the gray slab-sided building. Rust from the tin roof had stained the cinder blocks in long brown streaks. “What about a back door?”

“What about it? When the shit dies down, we get out on our birds.”

Sung tolerated the Colonel because he had to. The combat engineer platoon had surveyed the launch site for the TEL. They were also providing the security. So far, there had been little go wrong, though the landline communications to the SA-6 site out by the peninsula were down again. Sung stared out into the morning gloom. It was just getting light enough to discern skeletal substance under the gray shadows of the harbor cranes and buildings. Sung had become a nervous wreck over the last few weeks. The sub was due to arrive an hour before dawn. More than enough time to offload the devices and get them to the mobile launchers out on the peninsula. Down on the dock, a squad of engineers moved their crane-equipped trucks into position.

“Your men are doing a fine job, Colonel.”

The Colonel grunted. “They should be. They’ve had enough practice.”

“The delays were unavoidable. The Americans seem to have gotten wind of our little exercise.”

“You tell me this now?”

Sung turned to face the Colonel. The dark made it hard for him to make out the man’s face. “Don’t worry. We know they were able to slip through the naval cordon. If the Americans knew what we were up to here, they would be kicking down our door to stop us.”

The engineer Colonel produced a cigar. His weathered faced flared ruddy orange in the glare of the match. “You should not underestimate the Americans. They have resources at their disposal that we can only dream of. I must make sure my men are prepared for any eventuality. If you will excuse me, Comrade Sung.”

Sung watched the man’s back disappear into the enveloping gloom. Underestimate the Americans? Hardly. He had sent the best man and crew for the job to retrieve the warheads. In less than one hour, the cargo would be dropped on the dock. A day later, it would be detonated over Japan and the Korean War could resume again, but this time to its rightful and glorious conclusion.

Smoke and his squad joined the SEAL’s main force by the abandoned warehouse’s loading bay. Hunter did a quick head count. “Good.” He turned to the SEAL on his right. “Jones, get that door open and keep it quiet.”

Jones climbed onto the loading dock and began to work on the door. It took him less than a minute to pick the bulky lock with a lock-pick gun. He sprayed lubricant onto every rusted surface and the heavy rolling door moved back with little noise.

Smoke tugged at the sleeve of Hunter’s arm. “Why the recall?”

“It’s more than a SA-6 site.” Hunter hooked his thumb at Addison. “Our British friend here says a damn TEL is sitting behind that SAM site. It looks like these assholes are going to slap the warheads one at a time onto the rockets and fire them off to God knows where. The thing is probably crawling with NKs. You would have been killed and this whole mission would have been blown.”

Smoke looked over at Addison. “Thanks.”

Sean just shrugged. “You’d have done the same.”

Rusting, dust-covered machinery and junk littered the warehouse floor. More trappings of the successful communist dream.

“Well at least we know we’re not going to be tripping over the cleaning staff,” Hunter joked.

A mezzanine in similar condition to the building’s contents hung around the entire warehouse, like a giant suspended track in some weird communist YMCA. Grime-covered windows lined the walk-around. Light pillared down onto the rough concrete floor through rust-edged holes in the weather-ravaged roof. Eight separate staircases, evenly spaced around the outside walls, provided access to the upper track. Hunter climbed the closest. The upper deck windows that remained intact were caked with filth. The rest were little more than jagged glass maws. Hunter took a look through one of the holes. The sub tender was close enough now to make out, without binoculars, individual sailors on her decks. There was still no sign of the sub.

“Dice, grab Sparks and get the secure satellite communications rig up and running. Eisenhower needs to know about that TEL out there.” Dice and Sparks, the communications tech, moved to the far south corner of the mezzanine. “Sanchez, I want you and your spotter to set up a firing position to cover the dock with the TAC fifty. When the shit goes down, drill the guy with the most gold braids. Then proceed to fuck them up as you see fit but I want whatever brass they have out there down or scrambling.” Hunter turned to his other sniper. “Longman, you and Thumper cover the tender. Use the M-107 to take out the bridge with SLAP rounds the make it uncomfortable on the upper decks. Thumper, hit everything else with 40mm HE.”