Permafrost. M. Schwartz
their leader would need to start a full-fledged war, not to mention the brutal torture they would be forced to endure. Being caught alive was not in the cards when it came to going to the hermit kingdom.
“Your C-17 cargo plane will leave from MacDill in six hours. Double-check your life insurance, say bye to your families, and pack your gear. You will be flying from here to Hickam Air Base in Hawaii. From there, you will take another C-17, fly over Camp Eagle near Hoengseong where you will airdrop there at an estimated time of 1700 local time. After that, you will catch a South Korean-flagged C-130 that will have filed a flight plan in accordance with routine border security flights, and that bird will drop you over your LZ at an estimated time of 0200 local time. You have plenty of time to sleep on your way there, so make use of it. If all goes according to plan, you should beat the truck to the dirt road intersection here on the map by about an hour or so, depending on how fast you get through the mountains. The truck appears to be stopping at various cities to refuel and meet with contacts. But it is going deliberately and methodically slow as if they don’t want to be noticed,” the female’s voice explained, images displaying a video of their trip. “Also, you will have a drone over you at all times carrying a few armaments, just in case you need them.” The team smiled, liking the fact of having a silent protector watching their backs with a bird’s-eye view of the combat zone. “Thank you, and good hunting.”
The lights in the room came on, and the projector screen dimmed, eventually turning off. A man walked into the briefing room carrying six thin black binders.
“Gentlemen, please sign the updated life insurance forms on your way out,” he proclaimed, sitting the binders on a table. The team quickly signed the forms they had signed dozens of times before and left the building. Walking outside, Baron paused for a moment and took a deep breath of the evening air filling his nose with the salty smelling air from the bay. Baron thought he could almost hear the waves crashing in the distance. Stepping off down the steps from the building and headed toward his house, he noticed the man he took the truck from just now getting back and inspecting his car for damage. Baron tossed him his keys and kept on walking, never breaking stride. So, North Korea? Baron thought. Haven’t been there before. This should be interesting. But why all this trouble for one doctor? Why send us for some school researcher? Something didn’t add up, and Baron’s gut knew it.
5
Feint
The team landed softly from their jump, some running as they touched down on the grass, some lifting their legs and sliding on the grass to a halt on top of a South Korean mountain. After a quick inventory and gear check, the teamed donned their night-vision goggles and headed into the warm Korean night.
“Coms check,” Lieutenant Coleman chirped. “Trident 1, good.” The team’s commander was Ian Coleman. He was second in his class at the Naval Academy and received brilliant marks for his tactician skills—ability to read the terrain and track almost any animal or human. The lieutenant had started his illustrious career out as a submarine officer but said that there hadn’t been enough challenge in it. He applied for the SEAL program and had excelled most expectantly. The only flaw that Baron had found was that he had a short fuse when it came to situations that require patience and was prone to use excessive force when it came to interrogations or hostage negotiations. Baron had witnessed his commander put a bullet between the eyes of a gunman holding people hostage instead of talking them down, twice. Although he had never lost a hostage so command couldn’t reprimand him too much, he still always took the riskier route in certain situations—a leadership trait Baron did not envy.
“Trident 2, good,” Special Warfare Operator Second Class (SO2) Reyes, their sniper, keyed. Armando Reyes was disturbingly accurate with his rifle and was nicknamed Specter by his team since he had an uncanny ability to move in and out of situations like a ghost with no one ever seeing him, not even his teammates. His slim outline, smooth facial features, and black skin helped him blend into most clandestine situations. He not only shot perfect with his MK11 but also the M4, AK-47, an assortment of pistols, grenade launchers, and even throwing knives. Baron couldn’t actually remember the last time he saw Reyes miss anything he was trying to hit.
“Trident 3, good,” Chief Petty Officer Baron whispered, checking all of his explosives to make sure they were accounted for and secure. It turned out Baron’s love affair with stress made him a prime candidate for being the team’s explosive expert and primary when it came to explosive ordnance disposal. He had spent a few weeks training with other military branch’s EOD teams and excelled much quicker than his other classmates. Apart from his leadership role, now that he had been promoted to chief, Baron loved being the explosive expert and took great pride in it.
“Trident 4, good,” SO3 Jackson, the heavy weapons enthusiast, whispered. Kurt Jackson was Reyes’s best friend from Texas. They had been from the same neighborhood, joined the Navy on the buddy program, and stuck with each other every step of the way. Jackson looked like one of those guys in the weightlifting magazines and was a mountain of a man. Standing at 6'9" and 280 pounds of solid special operations muscle and onyx skin that looked like it had been cut with lapidary precision, Kurt carried the M249 Saw like a pistol and could sprint with ease carrying the majority of the team’s ammo, communication equipment, and a spare rocket launcher.
“Trident 5, good,” SO1 Gomez, their translator and tech wizard spoke up. Peter Gomez was unique in most ways. He refused to advance to a higher rank in favor of being in the field all the time. His father had died in Tower 2 on 9/11, but he was only eight and too young to remember most of the details accurately from that day. Instead, he learned about them through his mother and the local news as he got older. Gomez had received a scholarship to MIT and was in his second year of dual-majoring in electrical engineering and linguistics when his mother had been killed in Boston. She had taken up distance running to reduce the stress and cope with the loss of her husband, and while visiting her son at MIT one spring, went running in the Boston Marathon where debris struck her from one of the homemade explosives. The next day, he dropped out of school and enlisted in the Navy. Since then, Gomez had put his brilliant brain to use and was sent to multiple schools for language since he had an ear for it. He had since been rated fluent in Russian, German, and Spanish. He modestly claimed to be only “conversational” in Korean, Mandarin, and Thai.
“Trident 6, good,” SO2 Owens, the corpsman said lastly. Steve Owens was your typical soldier if there were such a term. He had been a trauma nurse at the Denver ER clinic for two years. He wanted to get his master’s degree and needed money, so he signed up for the Navy. He tells the story as two wrong busses and a signature later, he was in the SEAL program as a corpsman though Baron knew better. It takes a certain person to conduct field surgery in a combat zone, someone who thrives off that kind of stress. For Owens, it was Sunday brunch to open up a wound on the battlefield, stabilize, and transport. He would never admit it, but Baron knew he had become addicted to the adrenaline rush, only the intensity of combat could bring.
“Five, call it in,” Coleman ordered in a hushed voice.
“Jackal, Jackal this is Trident 4 over.”
“Trident 4, Jackal. What’s your status, over?”
“Jackal, Four. We are mission green and on schedule. Check-in two hours. Over.”
“Four, Jackal. Roger, good copy. Jackal, out.” The line to command died.
Sweat dripped down Baron’s face five minutes into the night march in the mountains. The summer heat here was powerful, though it still wasn’t as bad as South Florida in July and August. After crossing six miles in two hours, the team was across the border and into North Korea. They could have done it in a better time, but neither country officially knew they were there, and if seen by North or South, in the still heavily militarized DMZ, they were confident there would be shooting. So they took their time and did it slowly and methodically. Once across the border, they took shelter under a small grove of trees near a road they were told the vehicle would be passing by, or so they hoped. The landscape looked arid and desolate. A few clumps of skinny, unhealthy looking trees sporadically placed in mostly pale-brown dirt and dead grass. A zephyr carried a subtle odiferous sting of rot on the hot and thick air