up the slope until he was even with the top, then scooted forward an inch at a time, stopping every few feet and focusing the scope on the sniper’s position. He was halfway across the berm when the sniper appeared in the scope’s NV. He was lying on his belly in the undergrowth, perpendicular to Fisher, his cheek resting on the rifle’s butt. His attention seemed focused on the S-road.
Fisher zoomed in until only the man’ head, shoulders, and upper torso filled the scope. He laid the crosshairs on a spot just behind the man’s armpit — a heart shot — then took a breath, paused, let it out. He squeezed the trigger. The SC-20 gave a muted cough. Two hundred yards away, the sniper lay still, his head slumped forward on his rifle.
Fisher wriggled back across the path and down the slope and waited another seven minutes for the berm guards to pass by. He crawled back onto the path, again moving inches at a time, until through his scope he had a clear view of the two soldiers sitting atop the sandbag revetments. He checked the wind again, found it unchanged, so he zoomed in on the pair. They were sitting side by side, within two feet of one another. The sandbags, stacked to chest height, left their legs dangling in midair. Fisher saw one of them laugh, his head tilted back, teeth flashing white in the night-vision.
Fisher laid the crosshairs on the center of the laughing man’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Even as he was falling backward into the revetment and his friend, wearing a surprised expression, was extending a hand toward him, Fisher fired again. The second man toppled behind the sandbags.
Fisher began scooting backward.
43
Fisher lay on his belly, perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the boot twelve inches before his face. Of all the places the soldier could have chosen for a bathroom break, the man chose this spot. Fisher closed his eyes for a moment, centering himself. Slowly, his heart rate returned to normal. The soldier unzipped his pants. Fisher heard liquid pattering the leaves beside his leg. After an agonizingly long thirty seconds, the guard rezipped, picked up his rifle from where it was leaning against the tree, turned around, and walked away.
After finishing off the two soldiers atop the revetment, it had been relatively simple to slip between the berm guard, crawl down the opposite embankment, then sprint to the revetment. From there he’d picked his way through the trees lining the S-road to the edge of the goat farm’s gravel parking lot, where he settled in to wait and watch.
His two options to gain entrance into whatever kind of facility lay beneath the farm both had their pros and cons. The bush-camouflaged air vents, numerous and easier to reach, appealed to Fisher, but there was no telling where a vent would drop him, so he’d chosen the farm itself. If the farm was what they thought it was, there had to be access for staff. Clearly, there was an entrance somewhere in the highway tunnel, but Fisher knew he’d never make it past the checkpoints. That left the farm. Somewhere amid the collection of covered pens and miscellaneous rooms he would find what he was looking for.
The guard who had just nearly urinated on him had emerged from one of the farm’s outbuildings, which was more of a raised construction trailer than a building. To the right of the trailer was a covered goat pen enclosed by a split-rail fence.
The guard climbed the wooden steps to the trailer and went inside. Through the window Fisher could see light and could make out voices speaking in Korean. Two, maybe three men, he estimated.
A quick check with the flexicam at the trailer’s window revealed two men, both sitting at a folding table playing cards. Each one wore a sidearm, and leaning against the wall beside them were a pair of rifles. Sitting on the floor in the corner was a bronze tabletop reading lamp. Against the near wall, just below the window, was a countertop and sink.
Fisher drew the SC-20 from its holster and thumbed the selector to COTTONBALL.
Another favorite of his, the SC-20’s Cottonball feature was made up of two parts: a slotted plastic cylinder — the sabot — which measured about two inches long and half an inch in diameter, and a spiked soft rubber ball roughly the size of a marble. Once fired, the sabot breaks away, leaving only the Cottonball, which, upon striking a hard object, shatters an inner pod of aerosol tranquilizer. Cottonball’s effective radius was three feet; any living thing inside the cloud lost consciousness within four seconds and stayed that way for twenty to thirty minutes.
Fisher crept up the steps, turned the knob with his left hand, and stepped through the door, the SC-20 already to his shoulder. He swung the door shut with his boot. In unison, both men spun in their chairs. The one farthest from Fisher started to rise.
“Sit,” Fisher barked in Korean.
The man hesitated.
Fisher shook his head and gestured with the SC-20.
The man sat down.
“Raise your hand if you speak English,” Fisher asked in English.
Both men raised his hand. One man — a senior sergeant, judging by the patch on his sleeve — was in his forties; the other man was no older than twenty. Fisher studied them for a few moments and decided he didn’t like the glint of anger in the younger one’s eyes.
He fired a Cottonball in his chest. There was a
Fisher pointed the SC-20 at the sergeant, who already had his hands raised. “Please… no shoot,” he said in stilted English.
“You’ve got a family, don’t you?” Fisher asked.
“Yes. A family.”
“And you’re close to retirement.”
“Yes. Uh… six… uh…”
“Months.”
“Yes.”
“You cooperate, and you’ll live to see your family and your retirement. You don’t cooperate, you’re going to die in this trailer. Do you understand?”
The sergeant’s bulging eyes told Fisher he understood perfectly.
“Yes, yes, please…”
Fisher stalked forward and knelt down before the sink. He opened the cabinet door, looked inside, then stood up and tossed the sergeant a pair of flexicuffs. “See that pipe bracket in there?”
The sergeant bent over and looked. “Yes.”
“Tie him to that. Not the pipe, the bracket.”
As the sergeant dragged his partner to the sink, Fisher walked to the floor lamp and unplugged it. He clicked on the SC-20’s barrel light, then checked the sergeant’s work and found it satisfactory.
“Empty your pockets on the table.”
The sergeant did so. Fisher sorted through the contents. He found no keys, but on the back of the man’s ID card he spotted a magnetic dot about half the diameter of a penny. Fisher pocketed the card. He gestured for the sergeant to sit down.
“What’s your name?”
“Kim. I am Kim.”
“Kim, there’s a facility beneath this goat farm. How do I get into it?”
Kim hesitated. His eyes darted left, then right.
Fisher thumbed the SC-20’s selector to SINGLE and fired a bullet into the wall beside his head. Kim started, nearly toppling sideways out of his chair.
“Next bullet goes between your eyes,” Fisher said, tapping his index finger on his own forehead, then pointing at Kim’s. “Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the entrance?”
