“We’re looking,” Grimsdottir said.
Ben’s voice came on the line. “Sir, within a quarter mile of you — to the east and west — are two SAM sites,” he said, referring to surface-to-air missiles. “The normal complement for these are twelve men apiece. They’re not hardened soldiers, but I’d still give them a wide berth. To the south, where you just came from, is that NKWP retreat and checkpoint, another SAM site, a radar station, and a supply depot. To the north, where Miss Grimsdottir tells me you’re headed, are some empty artillery positions — basically crescent-shaped sandbag revetments; a barracks, which we believe is only partially manned; and an abandoned sewage disposal plant.”
“How far?” Fisher asked.
“Half a mile.”
“Will is downloading a higher-resolution annotated map to your OPSAT right now,” Lambert said.
Twenty seconds later it was on Fisher’s screen. He studied it. Three hundred yards to the west of his position, at the end of the drainage ditch in which he lay, was a grove of trees running from north to south.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Pecan orchard,” replied Ben. “It runs north for about a mile, right past the sewage plant.”
“My kind of place,” Fisher said. “I’m moving.”
Twenty minutes later, having picked his way from tree to tree through the pecan grove, Fisher dropped to his belly in the tall grass that bordered the sewage plant’s fence. He switched his goggles first to NV, then infrared, scanning the plant’s outbuildings and roads for activity. The plant, which roughly covered a square mile, was laid out in an L-shape, with a pair of rectangular Quonset hut-style buildings aligned on each arm of the L and a filtration pond situated between them. Running into the pond on a raised, cross-girdered platform was a six-foot-diameter sewage pipe.
He saw neither movement nor signs of habitation on the grounds. No lights, no cars. He zoomed in on one of the buildings. The windows were covered in an even layer of dust and grime. He studied the dirt parking lot and was about to zoom back out when something caught his eye: a pattern in the parking lot’s dirt.
“Grim, do we have any data on the weather around here? Specifically, wind patterns.”
“Hold on,” Grimsdottir said. She came back thirty seconds later. “This time of year, steady winds; northerly; average speed, about twenty miles an hour.”
“Bingo,” Fisher muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Tell you later.” Fisher flipped a switch on his goggles, linking them to his OPSAT. “Are you seeing this?” he asked.
“We see it,” Lambert replied. “Bad feeling about those buildings, Sam.”
“I agree. They’ll eventually get to them. Grim, how long has this plant been abandoned?”
“Checking… Best guess, about two years. Why?”
“The sewage pipe running into the filtration pool… Just wondering how dry it’s going to be.”
There was a long pause, then Grimsdottir said, “Oh, boy. Better you than me.”
“Lamb?”
“I agree. It’s your best bet, Sam.”
“Okay, I’m moving again.”
Racing the coming dawn, Fisher scaled the fence and sprinted, hunched over, across the open ground to the edge of the parking lot, where he crouched down. He could now see the windblown streaks in the dirt lot. But in lee of the buildings, along their southern walls, the dirt showed no streaks. The plan Fisher had been contemplating solidified in his mind.
He sprinted across the lot to the nearest building’s long wall and knelt at a mullioned window. He looked over his shoulder. Perfect. Where he’d passed over ground not shielded by the buildings, his footprints were clearly outlined in the dirt. Before long, with the coming of daylight, the wind would come up and hopefully wipe them clean.
Fisher drew the Sykes from its sheath and smacked the handle against the glass. The mullioned square shattered. Fisher reached through the opening, unlatched the window, and slid it up. He crawled through, closed the window behind him, and looked around. The building’s interior was dominated by three open, steel-sided storage pools topped by a catwalk.
He found what he needed almost immediately. Fisher ran forward, ducked between two of the pools, then to the opposite wall, where he crouched before a window. He unlatched the window, slid it up a half inch, then back- stepped to the ladder, carefully stepping in his own footprints.
Fisher climbed the ladder to the catwalk and sprinted down its length to the far wall and the opposite ladder. Where the catwalk met the wall, there was a waist-high railing; above this, a louvered vent leading to the outside.
Fisher climbed the railing and balanced himself on the top rung as he wrestled the vent free from the wall. He placed the vent beside him on the railing so it was balanced against the wall, then pulled from one of his waist pouches a six-foot length of parachute cord. He secured one end to one of the vent’s louvers, the other to his ankle.
Next he boosted himself in the opening, rolled onto his back, and wriggled through until he was suspended, his torso outside, his legs inside. A few feet above his head was the roof’s peak. He grabbed the edge with both hands, then gradually drew his legs through the vent and slowly let them drop until the vent cover, still attached to his ankle, popped back into the opening. He gave the cord a firm tug to ensure the vent was locked into place, then released his right hand from the roof and undid the knot.
He placed his right hand to the roof, took a deep breath, and chinned himself up to the roofline. He hooked a heel on the edge and rolled himself over.
He backed up twenty paces, then sprinted forward and leapt over the gap to the next building and kept running along the peak, his boots pounding on the tin roof until he reached the opposite edge, where he stopped.
Ten feet below him was the raised sewage pipe; to his right, thirty feet away, it ended at the filtration pool. Fisher jumped down and headed for the opening.
41
Fisher’s eyes snapped open.
After sliding into the pipe, he’d crawled for a hundred feet until the opening was but a distant circle of gray light, then chose a patch of the pipe’s corrugated bottom that looked slightly less sewage-encrusted than the rest, and settled in. He took off his rucksack, propped his head against it, and folded his hands across his chest. It took forty minutes for the adrenaline buzz in his limbs to wear off and for his mind to stop spinning. He drifted off to sleep.
He rolled onto his belly and looked down the length of the pipe to the opening. A gust of wind whipped around the opening, peppering the sides with grit. He caught the ozone scent of rain. He checked his watch: seven thirty.
From outside came the roar of engines — three, he estimated — followed by tires skidding in the dirt and barked orders in Korean.
He’d chosen the sewage plant as his bolt-hole not only for its proximity but because he was certain the North Koreans would consider it a worthy site to search. A critical part of E&E (escape and evasion), was to sometimes give your pursuers exactly what they expected.
Two minutes passed. An alarmed voiced shouted, followed by more barked orders. Fisher caught only one word:
