The team crouched in the snow. They peered through the night vision glasses, meticulously scanning in all directions. Satisfied that there was no one within sight, they rose and moved forward. They came within thirty yards of the site when the muffled sound of distant voices drifted through the forest.
A whisper came over the headsets. “Heat signature fifty yards to the left. Single person.”
Marcus looked over and saw the man in the distance. The dim yellow glow of his body stood erect, facing away from the camp. A bright white line, hot and steamy looking, arced directly out of his midsection. The snow in front of him glowed a fading yellow.
The man finished, zipped his snowsuit, and turned back to the camp. The SEAL team remained still as stones and watched him return. A voice called out from somewhere behind them, making their collective hearts jump their chests.
A figure moved up quickly behind them. He was carrying a Kalashnikov sniper rifle and walking through the snow toward the work site.
The man who had just finished urinating turned in the direction of the sniper. He raised his hand and started walking toward his comrade, straight in the direction of the SEAL team.
They dared not even exhale. The man moved into the midst of their group. Not wearing night vision, he had not seen the SEALS as they hunkered down low into the snow. The SEAL’s white smocks and the random twists of brush and tree branches that jutted up from the frozen surface concealed them almost completely.
The men met in the middle of the two lines of SEALS. They stopped and began a conversation in Korean.
“Comrade, why didn’t you answer the radio?”
“My batteries must have frozen. I didn’t hear anything. “
“It is time to come in. The captain has found what we came for, and we are going to leave early. He already sent Team 1 back to the pickup area with one case, and he is packing up the second now.”
“Good, I am ready to leave. I can’t feel my feet anymore. I hope those four don’t use up all the hot water before we get back to Mr. Kim’s house. It is too cold here, worse than the mountains at home.”
“Maybe, but here, at least they have rabbits and other animals to eat, not like home where the mountains are nothing but rocks. I still taste that rabbit stew.”
“It would have been better if we had some kimchi to put with it.”
“Yes, but then the Americans would certainly have found you, when your hot, spicy kimchi farts drifted into the city.”
The sniper laughed and replied, “Yes, but that would have at least kept me warm, with all that heat inside my snowsuit. Besides, it would have been a good chemical weapon, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, even better than this stuff we are taking from the Americans. Maybe we didn’t need to come here at all. We could have just told the Glorious Leader to bottle your farts and drop them on the Americans. It would burn their eyes out, then we could make them all work in factories for us until we are rich!”
The two men laughed and started back to camp together. As they walked the sniper glanced around with a pensive look.“I think a herd of animals must have come through here. The snow has been disturbed all around us.”
“I am surprised Sergeant Soo didn’t see them on his side, ” the first man said.
“I didn’t see anything, ” replied the sniper, “but I have heard that caribou move very silently. A thousand of them could walk by and you wouldn’t even know it. My uncle was stationed in Siberia in the eighties. He saw giant herds of caribou that he said walked like ghosts.”
“Maybe. Whatever it was, I didn’t see anything. But there sure are a lot of tracks through here.”
One more step, and the sniper’s snowshoe came down on Petty Officer 3rd Class Miller’s leg. The soldier’s snowshoe twisted. He lost his balance and stumbled forward, toppling into the snow. A soft grunt escaped Miller’s throat. The startled North Korean soldiers raised their weapons toward the sound.
Several hoarse puffs of hot air broke through the night and the two North Koreans crumpled into the snow, dead before they fell. Dark spots of their blood sprayed across the bright whiteness of the snow and on Miller.
Miller and the SEAL nearest him, PO1 Clark, made sure the two were dead, then stuffed their bodies deep into the snow.
“Let’s move. We’ll come back and check them for documents later,” whispered Chief Wasner.
Marcus spoke into his mike. “Wazzy, I could only understand part, but they said something about chemical weapons down there.”
“Forester,” called Wasner, “you’re the Korean linguist here. What did they say?”
PO1 Forester translated a summary of what he heard, then added, “Sounds like we know why they came all this way, Chief.”
“Well, boys, let’s go play tag with these commie bastards, said the chief, then added introspectively, “Commie bastards…now, that’s a retro kinda phrase, ain’t it, Mojo?”
“Wazzy,” Marcus whispered as he moved forward, “You are the definition of retro.”
The men moved forward quickly now, ready for an assault.
As they drew to within ten yards of the place Marcus had been earlier in the day, one of the SEALS whispered into his radio. He spotted a man in a concealed position. The heat signature of the man glowed softly from under a mound of snow.
“Jeez, that guy must be cold,” whispered PO2 Herold. “He ain’t glowing too bright.”
“Well, how about you turn his heat off, Herold, my boy,” replied the chief.
“With extreme prejudice, Chief.”
A harsh puff erupted from Herold’s suppressed Barrett .50 caliber. A fountain of flesh blood burst out of
