column turned left into a side passage leading to another, much narrower tunnel continuing south — under the DMZ.
This tunnel sloped downward and it grew darker with each step forward. Their officers now led with flashlights to show the way. The air grew thicker, and the noise behind them fell away — sinking to a dull, murmuring mix of voices, clanking tank treads, and idling engines. The men in front could see lights bobbing up and down ahead down the corridor. Officers went down the column whispering harsh warnings about the need for silence.
Finally the column halted at the foot of a long, gently sloping ramp leading up — up toward the surface. Up toward the enemy. Sweating combat engineers were manhandling jury-rigged blast doors into place, and far ahead, at the very end of the tunnel, the assault troops could see other engineers moving with careful precision to place explosive charges against the roof.
It was nearly time.
Time for war.
CHAPTER 20
Decapitation
PFC Williams was bored. Bored and cold and dead-tired. He yawned, his breath visible in the chilly night air, and tried to shift the M16 slung over his shoulder into a more comfortable position. The rifle wasn’t that heavy, but after several hours of walking a sentry beat it was starting to dig into his back whenever he turned to make another circuit of his post.
The private stopped at the edge of the brick wall and stared out toward the Itaewon district just beyond the compound. He could almost hear snatches of off-key Christmas carols mixed with off-color rock-and-roll favorites drifting out of the bars. Of all the rotten luck. Pulling guard duty on Christmas Eve. And right when HQ had finally lifted its restrictions on GIs going off-post.
He shifted his rifle again. Boy, this was really stupid. Walking a beat like this didn’t make sense. Not anymore. Not with all this high-tech stuff the Army could lay its hands on. Why didn’t they just rig a few low-light TV cameras to cover the perimeter and let somebody sit somewhere nice and warm to watch them?
He came to the end of another circuit and started back the other way, cursing softly under his breath and leaving a fine mist floating in the air behind him. He wanted to go someplace and get warm, but with his luck that’d be the one time the sarge checked upon him. And then he’d wind up pulling guard duty on New Year’s Eve, too. Instead, Williams decided that he definitely, definitely wasn’t going to reenlist. He’d put in the rest of his time in this man’s Army and then he’d head back home — back to Seattle. He started imagining what he’d do first in civilian life. First, sleep for a week. No interruptions. No reveille. Nothing. Then he’d find a girl and …
Williams never heard the soft, warning scrape on the wall behind him. The last things he felt were strong arms pulling him backward, and then something terribly cold and sharp sawing at his throat.
The North Korean commando major lowered the American’s body to the ground, knelt beside it, and wiped the man’s blood off on his dead back. He snapped his fingers twice, signaling the rest of his men forward over the wall. They made it without raising any alarm and dropped softly one by one beside him, fanning out in a half-circle while unslinging their submachine guns.
The major smiled to himself. This was going to be even easier than it had been in rehearsal. The mission planners had been right. The Americans were fast asleep, caught napping because they’d chosen to celebrate this bourgeois holiday.
His sergeant crouched next to him and held out a clenched fist. The team was in. They’d cut right through perimeter security without any problem. Now they had to find their targets and strike fast and strike hard.
The North Korean scanned the mostly darkened compound around him, trying to compare it with the maps and photos he’d studied back at Special Forces HQ in Kaesong. Ah, there it was. He pointed the house out to his sergeant, who nodded. The major smiled again in anticipation. In the next five minutes they were going to win a war that hadn’t even started yet. And they were going to do it with a few carefully placed knife thrusts and gunshots. The liquidation of the American butcher McLaren and his senior command staff would plunge the imperialist forces into confusion — confusion that would aid the first waves of the Great Fatherland Liberation Force now sweeping forward to the attack.
He rose to his feet and gestured his men forward toward the darkened house on a low hill. They stood, slung their automatic weapons again, and followed him at a trot. Each man carried a razor-edged commando knife ready for instant use. This was to be a silent killing — silent at any rate until the first Americans managed to raise an alarm.
McLaren paused by the window in his darkened study. He drew on his cigar, brightening the slow-burning tip momentarily, and looked out across the base without seeing much of anything. For once he was content just to stand still, to relax, to savor the slightly acrid taste of the cigar. Better make this one last, Jack boy, he told himself. This is it for another year.
The doctors had warned him to cut down. Cancer. Emphysema. None of those words had held much fear for McLaren — not after the corpse-strewn battlefields he’d seen in Vietnam. And cancer, well, cancer had taken his wife from him, and she’d never smoked a day in her life. But he’d followed their advice; pressure from his daughter had seen to that. Over the years he’d worked himself down to this one cigar, a cigar he reserved as a sort of Christmas present to all his old vices.
He sucked in reflectively, held the smoke for a moment, and blew it out, forming a perfect circle. It floated up past the window and McLaren’s eyes followed it. He used to keep his children quiet for an hour or more just watching him do that. The thought saddened him. It had been a long time since they’d had the whole family together. Not since Elly’s funeral in fact. He pushed the memory away.
He had hoped to see his daughter for the holidays this year, but the events of the last few weeks had persuaded him to have her cancel the trip out from Washington.
McLaren drew on the cigar again and blew another smoke ring. But this time his eyes followed it only halfway up the window. He froze. There were men moving out there — black-clad men slipping from building to building, working their way in from the perimeter. They were coming toward him.
His mind came awake. He’d seen men moving like that before. Sliding from shadow to shadow with speed and in silence. Cong assault teams crossing the fields outside his battalion’s firebase to wreak havoc on the sleeping Americans. Rangers and LRRPs crawling through the jungle to repay the favor. SAS men putting on a counterterrorism demonstration. Only this wasn’t Vietnam and it wasn’t a demonstration. He came out of his trance. Don’t just sit there, dumbshit, move! He grabbed for the desk phone and stubbed his cigar out.
“Sir?” The operator’s voice was drowsy.
“Security.” McLaren lifted the phone off the desk and crouched down. No point in making himself a bigger target than necessary. He wished that he’d thought to keep a personal weapon in this room instead of upstairs in his bedroom.
He heard the phone ringing in the base security office. Once. Twice. Three times. Answer the phone, goddamnit.
“Security. Captain Miller.” The man sounded out of breath and more than a little irate.
“McLaren here.” He could almost hear the man coming to attention. “I want a full alert. Now. Total illumination of the compound. This is not a drill, Captain. We’ve got intruders on base and you can assume I’m a priority target.”
He could hear Miller starting to gobble something at him, but he cut him off. “I don’t have time to chat, Captain. I’ve got a situation here. Carry out your goddamned orders!”
He could see a small group of men gathering across the way. They were now less than fifty yards from his quarters. They’d surround the house, of course, and trying to make a break for it would be suicidal. McLaren had no doubt that these guys would be the first team. He could surprise one or two of them, maybe, but his only hope
