Pete Cawdron: Feedback

The coast guard was the first resident at the new international airport outside of Incheon. For the most part, it was little more than a construction zone, with the airport’s completion not due for years to come. Construction work made it easy for the SEALs to come and go as US engineering contractors without attracting unwanted attention. There was no official policy of course, but the US Navy SEALs liked hitching a ride with the South Korean Coast Guard, as their presence with the Guard was unnoticed.

The SEALs were dressed in civilian wetsuits, which Lee knew was to give them deniability should they be caught during whatever clandestine activity they were undertaking. He didn’t want to know. He just wanted to fly. He and his crew got a monthly stipend for being on standby for these supposed training runs, and performing an actual training run brought a bonus that doubled their monthly salaries. Besides, it felt good to be needed, to be surreptitiously part of the team.

Lee kept his mind in the present.

“Lieutenant. We are five minutes out from our closest approach to the coast, approximately three kilometers south by southwest of the original drop point.”

“Roger that,” came the reply from Lieutenant Andrews. “We’ll be fine. We are ready to drop.”

A warning light flashed on the cluttered instrument panel.

“The storm’s really screwing with the radar,” Park said. “But there’s definitely something out there. We’re not alone.”

“Another chopper?” Lee asked.

“Negative. Moving too fast.”

Lee was about to suggest the blip was a radar ghost, an artifact of the storm misleading their instruments, when Park called out, “It’s coming straight at us.”

“Heading?” Lee asked, trying to remain calm. His mouth ran dry. Adrenaline surged through his veins.

“From due north, our nine o’clock.”

“Can we drop below radar?” Andrews asked.

“You’re not helping,” Lee replied tersely, already bringing the Sea King lower as they raced along, dropping to barely thirty feet above the crest of the rolling swell. “If that’s a MIG, we’ll never get low enough because he’s got look-down radar. We might be able to play hide and seek with land-based radar, but he’s going to light us up like a goddamn Christmas tree.”

“I’ve lost him,” Park cried. Seconds later, Park slammed his hand against the upper windscreen, pulling against his five-point harness as he watched a dark shape streak by overhead. “FUCK!”

Lee struggled with the control stick as the wash from the jet rocked the helicopter, causing the Sea King to skew sideways and twist in the air. He fought with his foot pedals to correct the yaw introduced by the buffeting winds from the MIG, fighting to keep the helicopter on course.

Park cried, “Damn that was close. I could see his fucking flight lights.”

“His radar is probably as fucked up as ours is in this weather,” Lee said. “I doubt if he saw us until he was right on top of us. Probably scared him as much as us.”

Lee keyed his microphone to broadcast and spoke rapidly in Korean, saying, “ Sunwi-do. This is Foxtrot Echo Sierra Four Zero. We are an unarmed civilian aircraft complying with instruction to leave North Korean airspace. Over. ”

There was no reply.

“ Sunwi-do. This is Foxtrot Echo Sierra Four Zero. We are Search and Rescue helicopter returning to Incheon. Over .”

“Will he be back?” the Navy SEAL asked.

“He’ll be back,” Lee replied grimly. “His turning circle is worse than a destroyer, it will take him out a couple of miles, and that will buy us some time, but he’s got the smell of blood, he’ll be back.”

Lee applied steady pressure to the rudder with his foot, watching as the compass heading turned to due south.

“We need to get that little girl,” Andrews said. “Drop us anywhere you can.”

Girl? That was the first time Lee heard the SEALs mention their target that night. In the years to come, he would look back on that moment as a pivotal point in his life. From then on, everything had been about that mysterious child. Even then, in his mind’s eye, he struggled to understand why the US military would be interested in a young North Korean girl. Was she really worth risking the lives of a dozen SEALs and aircrew? Was the life of one little girl worth the risk of provoking war?

Lee was rattled. As he leveled the Sea King, he wondered about the girl. Who was she? What had she done? Why was she so important to the US government? Did she even know about the maelstrom of covert activity unfolding around her?

As a rescue pilot, Lee risked his life for complete strangers several times a month, but he’d only ever rescued a child on one occasion. A yacht had capsized in heavy weather. The GPS distress beacon had guided his team to the stricken vessel. When they arrived on the scene, all Lee could see were bodies floating face down in the water. It had been the loadmaster that spotted the child, a young girl of eight clinging to a large cushion that had been washed overboard.

The rescue swimmer had gone down on the winch to effect the rescue. He’d grabbed her on the first try, bundling her into a recovery basket.

After spending four hours in the water, the young girl was in shock. Once she was onboard, the loadmaster wrapped her in a thermal blanket, coaxing her body temperature back to normal while the rescue swimmer continued to retrieve the bodies. The chopper remained at the scene for several grueling hours, recovering the bodies of her father, her mother, her brother, her sister and her grandmother.

The rescue helicopter touched down at the airport a little after midnight the following morning. Lee could still remember the look on her face, her cold clammy skin and dilated pupils. She lunged for him as he reached out to help her down from the chopper. The girl threw herself into his arms and clung fiercely, as if she were still in danger of dying alone in the water instead of safe on dry land. He’d tried to comfort her, but there was no comfort to give.

It was four in the morning before Child Services arrived to take her away, and in the intervening time she never spoke a word. She cried as she left. It was the first time he’d seen her cry since they fished her out of the ocean. The elderly lady from Child Services was kind and soft spoken, but that didn’t matter. The young girl reached out for Lee. Her eyes flooded with tears, and Lee found himself crestfallen as she was pulled away.

The incident left Lee shaken. There was nothing more he could have done, and yet he felt the weight of guilt bearing down on him. To see a child so distraught left him devastated.

In the back of his mind, Lee struggled to reconcile the words of the US Navy SEAL; We need to get that little girl . Those words cut through to his heart. He breathed deeply, steeling his mind to focus on the present. He had no idea who this girl was, but right now she had to take second place. He hated himself for the decision he had to make, but he had no choice. The safety of his crew came first.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Lieutenant Andrews. “There will be no drop. You’ll have to find another way into North Korea.”

“Son of a bitch!” Andrews yelled, thumping the steel bulkhead of the helicopter.

Andrews had no idea how hard that decision was for Lee. Looking into the darkness, Lee felt physically sick.

“That MIG must have been on an exercise,” Park said. “There’s no way they could have scrambled a MIG that quickly in this weather.”

“Go dark,” Lee replied.

Park flicked a bunch of toggle switches and the strobe light and spotlights turned off. The backlit instruments in front of him cast a soft red glow throughout the cabin. With no external lights, the night closed in on them. Lee kept his eyes on the altimeter and elevation bubble. He eased the Sea King slightly higher, wanting to compensate for their blind view.