Robert Doherty - The Citadel

"What's wrong?" Tai asked.

Without answering, Vaughn opened the first aid kit attached to the outside of his rucksack and pulled out a sterile gauze pack. He quickly tore it open and then put his mittens back on before pressing the cloth up against the cut. It immediately turned bright red as the blood soaked through.

"He got cut," Logan said. "It's not deep, but scalp wounds bleed a lot because the blood vessels are right on the surface."

"We need to go back to the plane now and settle in," Vaughn said. "Hopefully, this thing will blow over quickly."

Brothers shook his head. "I don't think so, mate. McMurdo says this is a big front. We may be stuck for days."

Vaughn looked at Tai. She took a deep, icy breath, then took charge. "All right." She pointed at Burke. "You hold the bandage in place. Make sure you keep the pressure on." She gestured to Vaughn, Brothers, and Logan. "Let's all get on this thing."

They grabbed hold.

"On my count of three," Tai said, "we turn counterclockwise. Ready? One. Two. Three."

They leaned into the wheel and strained. To no avail.

"Again. Ready? One. Two. Three."

The second attempt was also a failure.

"All right," Tai said, taking deep breaths. "Let's take a break for a second."

Vaughn looked at the wheel. "How about we try it the other way? Clockwise?"

Tai nodded, and they all reassumed their positions. "Ready?" Tai asked. "One. Two. Three."

They all leaned into it, and with a loud screech the wheel moved ever so slightly.

"Again," Tai gasped. "One. Two. Three."

The wheel turned almost a full inch.

"Again."

As they continued to labor, the wheel turned inch by inch. It was slow and hard, but it moved. Vaughn estimated they made a full revolution of the wheel after five minutes of effort. Yet there was no indication they'd unclocked the door. They went at it again, the wheel moving somewhat easier now, and managed another two complete revolutions. And then it stopped. No amount of effort could get it to move any more.

"I think we've gone as far as we can go," Vaughn said.

Logan tapped the metal door. "I'd say it opens inward. It makes sense down here. You want doors to open in because the outside could be blocked by snow or ice."

Vaughn sat down on the ice, his back to the center of the door. He jammed his feet into the ice and snow as best he could then pushed. The others stared at him for a moment, then Logan sat on one side and Tai on the other. Together they put pressure on the door. With a low creak, a small gap appeared on the right side, and they all adjusted, keeping up the pressure. The door swung open wider, the three scrambling to keep the momentum going until it was wide enough for a person to slip through.

"Hold it!" Vaughn finally called out, and they stopped. He got to his feet and peered around the edge. In the darkness beyond he could just make out a metal landing and staircase. The Citadel beckoned. Tai pressed into his side, shining a flashlight in.

"Ladies first," Vaughn said.

Tai slipped in, followed by Vaughn.

The stairs did a ninety-degree turn and seemed to descend directly down into the depths. An open area next to the top of the stairs had a pulley system rigged on top, suggesting that was the way heavy gear could be transported up and down.

Tai shined the light down, and it showed wood planking about twenty feet down and something else at the bottom of the stairs, but from their position they could only make out a vague outline.

Tai leaned over the railing and shone the light directly down. "Oh, shit," she muttered.

Vaughn leaned over also. What had been a vague form was now clearly the body of a man lying at the base of the stairs, facedown, his hands stretched out in front of him, almost an act of supplication.

"Great," Vaughn muttered. "Come on."

Tai cautiously followed Vaughn down the metal steps. The man hadn't moved. When they reached the bottom, Vaughn shone his own light on the body, revealing a figure clothed in Army-issue clothes, circa the 1950s. Three black holes were stenciled in the back of the man's jacket, surrounded by a red frame of blood. Vaughn knelt down and turned the body over. Sightless eyes peered out from a young face, forever frozen in the surprised grimace that must have come as the bullets slammed into his back.

Vaughn looked closely at the face of the corpse, marveling at the frozen preservation. He wondered how long the man had been dead. He looked up at Tai. "Let's get everyone in here before the storm gets worse."

Indonesia

Among the tens of thousands of islands that made up the Republic of Indonesia, this was one of the smaller and less significant. At least to most outsiders. It was an island whose lone small village had been completely wiped out by the tsunami that struck on December 26, 2004.

The village was now reoccupied. But not by fishermen and their families, as the old village had been. It was occupied by a strange international conglomeration. One drawn together from secret meetings around the world. Surprisingly, it was a group that owed its formation to one man: the President of the United States. Because gathered on this small island, working together and training each other, were small elements from the various countries that had been dubbed the Axis of Evil and from the terrorist organizations the United States was at war with.

There were Al Qaeda operatives, Iranian commandoes, a small group of representatives from the Abu Sayif, remnants of Saddam Hussein's elite inner circle, and an elite Special Forces team from North Korea.

This latter group kept itself apart from the others as much as possible. Mainly because their commander considered his men to be real soldiers and the others to be terrorists at best, although they considered themselves freedom fighters.

The commander, Major Min, once more read through the message his radio operator had decoded twenty minutes ago. It was the longest message he had ever seen transmitted over high frequency radio in all his years of special operations. He was holding a complete operations plan (OPLAN) for a new mission that was to commence immediately.

Min's face twisted in a sneer as he read the concept of operations. Those desk-bound fools in Kaesong! He looked up at the thatched roof of the hut that comprised his team's headquarters. Hyun was a small man, less than five and a half feet tall and weighing no more than 120 pounds dripping wet. He was the spitting image of Bruce Lee, the major difference being that Min had actually killed many more men than Bruce Lee had ever simulated killing in his movies.

"Get me Hyun," he snapped at Kim Chong Man. As his executive officer scurried out to the airstrip, Min leafed through the pages of the OPLAN, his mind trying to rationalize the words. This was going to be difficult, very difficult.

Min had been on this island for four months, supposedly advising the other groups on various Special Forces techniques, particularly bomb-making and covert operations. At least that's what they were supposed to be doing. Min had found that the other groups did not like getting advice. In his personal opinion, the real reason he and his men were here was to make a small political statement to these other groups that North Korea supported them in some manner.

Min had been in Special Forces for twenty-one years and had run more than his share of classified missions, so he was no stranger to being awakened in the middle of the night and handed an OPLAN. This one, however, was different in several important aspects. The first was the fact that it was outside of his immediate area of operations. The second was the strategic significance of the mission. It all looked very nice on paper, but implementation was going to require great sacrifices and effort. One of Min's favorite adages was that nothing was impossible to the man who didn't have to do it.