'You can count on us, Chief,' Wilkinson said.
'I'll try to slip back in here tomorrow night, same time, and let you know what the word is. No promises. If I don't show, just hunker down and sit it out. Those weapons are in case things get too tight and I can't make it.'
'Wait a minute,' Coyote said. 'Won't you need these?'
'Not to worry, pal. I won't have time to stop and play with our NK friends, and those things'd just slow me up anyway. I don't care what the bastards do to you, you keep them hidden until you hear a rescue op going down, get me?'
'Right, Chief.'
'When you hear the fun and games begin ? explosions, helicopters, American voices, anything like that ? that'll be the time. Use them to protect yourselves until the cavalry arrives.' Huerta paused. When he spoke again, his voice carried the whip crack of command, even at a whisper. 'Until then, keep 'em out of sight. You guys start playing cowboy and you'll get all of us killed, get me? Don't even load the damned thing until it's time to use it! I don't want an accidental shot giving the whole damn thing away!'
'Count on it, Chief,' Wilkinson said.
Coyote felt the heavy authority of the pistol in his hand. The SEAL was taking a terrible chance by leaving the gun and knife with the prisoners, but it might be their one chance of survival if their captors started slaughtering them during a rescue attempt.
'Okay,' Huerta said. 'I trust you. Don't do nothing crazy. I'll try to make contact again tomorrow night, let you know what's happening.'
Abruptly, the head pulled away. There was a whisper of noise from the ceiling as the SEAL climbed back toward the roof ridge, then silence.
For the first time since his capture, Coyote allowed himself the luxury of hope.
'Those poor bastards don't have a chance,' Huerta said. 'Not unless we go in fast and pull them out. I mean like tonight!'
It was two hours since he'd made contact with the prisoners inside the compound. Unwilling to approach the building's wall on the ground and in the open, he'd used his line and grapnel to get up on the roof, then secured himself by the waist so he wouldn't fall and crept spiderwise to the overhang so he could reach the window.
The prisoners' description of the North Korean questioning had convinced him that they were in serious danger. Their captors might be expecting an American attack, and it was unlikely that they would keep the prisoners together or in one place for very long. The likeliest move would be to transport them to P'yongyang. When that happened, rescue would be out of the question.
Sikes looked at the map Huerta had drawn, then compared it with the actual camp, spread out below them in the golden light of the dawn. The SEAL team had created a hide for itself, an OP sheltered behind a blind of brush and loose rock overlooking the base and well away from the nearest roads. The lieutenant pointed to something that looked like apartment buildings beyond a motor pool garage and a cluster of supply sheds. 'Barracks?'
'Yes, sir. Two sentries there.' Huerta pointed out notations on his map. On his way out, he'd scouted the compound. 'Also here, and here. Roving patrols here…'
'Too big a job for fourteen men,' Sikes said. His mouth quirked in a passable imitation of a smile. 'Too big even for fourteen SEALS.'
'No such thing, Lieutenant,' Larry Gordon said, crouched behind the OP's blind nearby. He patted his M-60 machine gun affectionately. 'We can take 'em!'
'What do you think?' Sikes asked. 'A battalion inside the compound?'
'About that.' Huerta thought about what he'd seen. Security inside the camp was not all that good. 'Securing the prisoners won't be the problem,' he said. 'We can handle the bad guys inside the camp. But we're going to have to bring in helos to get us out, and holding out against NK reinforcements from outside is gonna be a bitch.'
Sikes studied the map a moment longer. 'Agreed,' he said at last. He pointed toward the airfield, sprawled across the ridge-top spine of the peninsula to the north. The valley between that ridge and this one was filled with the regular outlines of fenced-in compounds, military-looking buildings, massed trucks, and military vehicles. 'We've got hostile air based there… and a major Army base of some kind down there in the valley.' He dropped his arm. 'Shit. Ten minutes after it goes down, we could have half the North Korean Army on our asses.'
'We could bring in some cavalry,' Huerta pointed out. 'Just enough to hold on until we could evac the hostages.' Already, he was thinking of the op like a hostage rescue, something he'd trained for intensively during a tour with SEAL Team Six.
They discussed the situation for another fifteen minutes, suggesting alternatives, planning, revising. Finally, Sikes looked across the hide to where Tom Halliday was unfolding the compact satellite dish and aligning it with a nondescript piece of the southern sky. The unit could assemble a burst transmission and hurl it to a Navy comsat hanging in a stationary orbit 22,000 miles above the equator, then on to Washington and to the Navy ships waiting beyond the eastern horizon.
'Well, the decision won't be ours,' Sikes said at last. 'Thank God. But if we can get some help, we'll go in.'
The SEALs crouched lower over the map as they went over their options, composing the message they would transmit.
Admiral Magruder let his finger slide across the stretch of blue labeled Yonghung Man on the map. Hundreds of close-spaced numbers gave depth readings. The finger came to rest on the out-thrust slash of the Kolmo Peninsula. Symbols on the map marked the airfield at the peninsula's base, the tangled maze of Wonsan's streets across the narrow gut between peninsula and mainland, the red-flagged triangles of known SAM and radar sites along the coast. 'This stretch of beach looks clear,' he said.
The man in camouflage fatigues opposite the plot table from the Admiral was Colonel John Caruso, commander of the MEU's Marines. Next to him was Admiral William E. Simpson, CO of the four ships of the amphibious squadron. They'd heloed in from the Chosin only an hour earlier and stood now in Flag Plot with Magruder, studying the map of the North Korean coast.
Admiral Simpson traced narrow corridors on the map, between the islands which interrupted the approaches to Wonsan. The islands bore exotic names: Yo-do, Sin-do, Su-do. Do, Magruder remembered, was Korean for island. 'These stretches could be mined,' Simpson said thoughtfully. 'Gun emplacements on these islands.'
'We have plenty of Mark 106 sleds to take care of the mines,' Magruder said.
'Air strikes can take out the gun emplacements,' Caruso added. 'And any NK air out of this airstrip will have to be neutralized before my boys go ashore.'
'We can handle that,' Magruder said. 'This'll be Winged Talon all over again, except this time we'll carry it out!'
The brief message from Bushmaster had electrified the staff and senior officers of TF-18. Here was a real chance to rescue the men of Chimera's crew ? all of them ? from a single compound four miles from the coast. There would not be a better chance than this. Bushmaster had warned that the prisoners might be moved soon. When that happened, they would be beyond the carrier group's reach forever. A rescue, if it was to be attempted at all, would have to be mounted within the next day or two, and that meant getting a start on the planning now.
'Do you think your people can pull it off?' Magruder asked Caruso at last. 'Two thousand men against… God knows. Ten thousand? Twenty?'
'More'n that if we're not in and out, chop-chop.' The colonel frowned. 'I gave you my recommendations the other day, sir. I thought we could do it then. I think we can do it now. But the show's gonna be yours.'
'I know.'
Caruso's plan, submitted as one of the options the task force had been examining two days before, had been for a Marine landing to secure a base on the mainland, with recon teams ranging inland to secure the American prisoners… assuming that preliminary reconnaissance could locate them. At the time, no one knew where Chimera's crew was being held, and the plan had been shelved in favor of Winged Talon.
But now…
