Steve Abbott - Devil's Gambit

The fire teams moved to stations along the mezzanine.

Sean grabbed Harris by the arm. “Bill, stick with Gayle and the Russians. I’m going for a look down the other end of the building and keep an eye on Chun. The bugger is up to something.”

Bill’s eye’s flicked over to Chun. The Korean was sitting on his heels with his back to the wall, staying out of the way. “He is a quiet one, isn’t he?” The comment came out under Bill’s breath.

“Too quiet, if you ask me.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him. Don’t be long. I’m starting to get a twitch.”

“Great, you and your bloody twitch.”

Harris was defensive. “It’s not been wrong yet.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sean shot back.

From the remnants of the windows in the north end of the warehouse, Chanjon looked gray and beaten. Sean needed to get a better look at the TEL launcher. He wasn’t sure why. It didn’t make much sense to him for the North Koreans to park a launcher so far from Seoul. Seoul was the obvious target. Pusan was far down the coast. The Air Force base was another good target. He put his rifle up to the window. He had meant it when he had told Hunter, SEALs got all of the nice toys. This rifle was proof of it. It was an M-4A3 and M203-equipped, but not like any Sean had ever used. Some weapons engineer had decided to bring the grenade launcher into the computer age. The scope was a new lightweight thermal sensing unit. It used a hybrid lithium polymer battery and had a sensing range up to five hundred and fifty meters. Thermal imaging without the bulky battery pack was amazing to Sean, but the gun’s real power lay in the scope’s computer. Point the aiming dot at your target, the gun scope would calculate distance and elevation. A near perfect hit every time, depending on the range. Selecting between grenade launcher and rifle was a flick of a switch. Even the 40mm rounds for the launcher were different. Hunter had called them “smart darts.” Lighter, longer and more aerodynamic, they had a greater range and accuracy than the old bull-nosed rounds.

The TEL was too far away for the scope to get a good look at what was under the camouflage netting. Sean cursed himself for not keeping Hunter’s binoculars. The site was at least a kilometer away. He could see the little white blobs that were soldiers dancing around the outside of the launcher. They were prepping the unit for a launch.

Chun had kept to the background. It was better that way, for him, for everyone. It had been wise to leave Forest on the Eisenhower. He would have turned into a liability here. The west had far too few who understood the North Korean mindset. Chun would have regretted having to kill Forest if he had gotten in the way. Sung was here. The man was too vain to let this culmination of his work go by without his hand hard upon it. Chun had to get away. The more he waited, the less chance it would be his hand that would bring the about end of Comrade Sung. Chun felt the weight of the Tokarev pistol inside his coat pocket. He had managed to slip the small pistol off of the dead guard at the other missile site. Every one of the bullets inside its magazine were for Sung. Every one.

Sean hunkered down beside Hunter at the satellite uplink. “This stinks. They’re crawling all over that TEL out there. Looks to me like they’re getting ready to launch the thing on a moment’s notice. Trouble is I can’t see the payload section well enough. But one thing’s for sure, that sub’s going to be here in a hurry.”

Hunter looked at the lightening gloom outside on the other side of the grime-streaked warehouse windows. “Well the bastard had better get here soon or we’re doing this in daylight.”

“There’s one other thing.”

“Spill it.”

Sean spat on the dusty concrete. “The TEL’s too big.”

“What?”

“It’s too big. The launcher looks longer than the ones we took out in the desert.”

“Yeah well, you know how much the NKs are into modifying their missile units.”

Sean was unconvinced. “I think it’s a launcher for one of their Nodong-2s.”

Hunter scratched at his chin. “Shit, I hope not. Those things can hit mainland Japan from here… oh fuck.”

“Oh fuck is right.” Sean keyed his throat mike. “Gayle you’d better come over here. Bring Bill and the Russians if they’re with you.”

Gayle got there first. “What’s up Addison?”

“That launcher out there is too big to be a standard TEL. I think it’s one of the new Nodong-2 launchers.”

Harris crouched down on his heels beside Sean. “I love it when research programs are ahead of schedule.”

Yevgeny nodded in agreement with Sean. “Da, of course. It would make sense for it to be this new Nodong launcher. There is nothing worth a nuclear warhead within SCUD distance of here.”

Gayle cut in, “The Nodong can hit mainland Japan.”

Hunter was puzzled. “But why? They rely on Japan as a source of hard currency. It would be like cutting their own throat.”

Sean spoke up, “It doesn’t matter why or where they want to send the bloody things to. If one of them gets off the ground, it’ll be hell to pay wherever it lands. We take out the sub, we take out the warheads, we take out the Koreans. No pissing about, no crap, that’s the game here, nothing else.”

Harris grunted agreement. “Sean’s right. The higher-ups can deal with the who’s who later.”

The dark oily waters of the bay split as the thin reed of the Great Leader’s search antennae pushed its way above the surface. It was soon joined by the attack periscope.

The Leader’s Captain panned the periscope view over the dock and sub tender. “What’s our bottom, Helm?”

“One hundred meters, sir.”

“Still nothing on the threat receivers?”

“Just our own radar sets, sir, and a pair of helicopter sets to our rear. Ours as well. Definitely not American. Probably a security patrol.”

“Very well. Prepare to surface.” The periscope slid with oiled precision down into the deck. The Captain moved under the hatch to the fair-weather bridge. He was joined a second later by the most senior of the political officers. Now that the mission was nearly complete, the political officer was beaming over the career success this would bring him. The Captain turned his back to the man. “Take us to the surface. XO, you have the conn.”

“Aye, sir. XO has the Conn.”

The Great Leader started to rise under the Captain’s feet.

Donovan and Macintyre kept their Hinds low and fast. If the waves ahead of him suddenly swelled, there was a good chance both helicopters were going swimming. The two door gunners waited at the ready by machine guns slung on nylon straps, hanging from the ceiling.

It would get hot enough for everybody soon enough. A South Korean radio operator, a last minute addition to the crew sat by the front bulkhead of Donovan’s hind, just in case the NKs got curious about the arrival of the two helicopters without orders.

“Movement in the bay. Looks like a sub,” one of the SEALs called down.

Hunter nodded to the communications tech and grabbed his rifle. “Send the go code the second things go loud. I want the Hinds to nail that missile launcher on the first pass. The sub can wait.”

The SEAL observer called down his next observation to Hunter. “The NKs are forming up on the dock.”