'I don't think I like this,' Wilkinson said.
Coyote had to agree.
CHAPTER 20
'Kot hasipsiyo!'
This time a third class radioman named Heatley died, slammed forward off his knees as the major's automatic pistol barked, and adding his blood and brain tissue and chips of bone to the dark splatter of gore on the wall next to the door.
In the silence which followed, Colonel Li turned and smiled at his kneeling audience. 'I'm sure you all are aware of the helicopter which arrived not long ago. You will be interested to know that orders have arrived from my superiors in P'yongyang directing that you be sent there for, shall we say, further debriefing.'
There was a stir among the prisoners. Coyote kneeled with the rest, trying to control the hammering in his chest. The torture of watching men being shot in cold blood with clockwork regularity was worse than any beating he'd suffered so far.
'I feel it is only fair to warn you that you cannot expect such… lenient treatment in P'yongyang as you have enjoyed here,' the colonel continued. 'General Chung Sun-Jae, who has come here from the capital to take charge of you, is a man interested in results but with little concern for the time it takes… or the means employed to get them.' He shrugged, a deliberately Western gesture. 'I had hoped that some of you at least would be willing to cooperate with me first. Any persons here who wish to do so, of course, have only to ask to see me, Colonel Li. Perhaps you can yet be spared the uncertainties that a prolonged stay in P'yongyang would bring.'
'Screw you, flat-face,' someone in the back ranks of the Americans muttered.
Li ignored the interruption. 'At dawn tomorrow, all of you will be loaded onto trucks and transported west to special camps in the P'yongyang area. Those who decide to cooperate with me will receive special privileges… better food, medical aid… and a chance to avoid General Chung's more creative approaches to prisoner interviews. Certainly, we should be able to spare you the pain and humiliation of a trial, as well as whatever punishment the court chooses to hand down. For the rest of you, well…' The officer looked down and nudged Heatley's body with the toe of his boot. 'Perhaps you will come to envy these men who have already given their lives. They might well be the lucky ones, yes?'
'And until then?' Gilmore asked. He seemed stronger now, with a new will born of anger. 'Is it your intention to continue murdering my men until dawn?'
Li pursed his lips, as though weighing his words. 'Let us simply say that six more of your men will have the opportunity to escape socialist justice between now and the time when I must turn you over to General Chung.' He gave the Americans a final contemptuous glance, then departed, followed by Major Po. His guards slammed the door shut behind them.
'This whole setup stinks,' Bronkowicz said after they'd gone. 'The bastards are violating every rule of prisoner interrogation going.'
'What'd you expect, Chief?' one sailor asked. 'The Geneva Convention?'
'Shit, no. But they're going about this thing all wrong. You want to brainwash a prisoner, you isolate him, don't let him talk to his buddies. You sure as hell don't try to get him to break in front of his shipmates. That just makes it harder.'
'Sounds like you know something about brainwashing, Chief Zabelsky said.
'Hell, these are the sons of bitches that invented it. I just can't figure what they're up to, going' about it this way!'
'They're after me, Chief,' Captain Gilmore said. There was anguish behind the eyes. 'They got Pueblo's captain to cooperate by threatening to shoot his men, remember? I guess this time they're actually doing it just to prove they mean business. They want me to see you, to feel you dying, one by one, until I agree.'
'You don't agree to nothin', Skipper,' Bronkowicz said roughly. 'Ain't none of us going to break for those bastards, and you shouldn't either.'
As long as we're together, ain't none of us going to break,' Zabelsky said. He glanced meaningfully toward the corner where Lieutenant Novak sat alone.
'That's not going to last, sailor,' Wilkinson said thoughtfully. 'He said 'camps,' plural. They're splitting us up. Just to make a rescue harder, if nothing else.'
'They're never going to let us go,' one sailor said, a low murmur in the silent room. 'They're never going to let us go.'
And Coyote had to agree. Added to the horror of the systematic killings was the chilling certainty that the North Koreans could never let any of them go now, not if the People's Democratic Republic feared the storm of world opinion the stories of Chimera's crew would raise once they won their freedom. Either P'yongyang didn't care about world opinion, or…
Or they did not plan on releasing them.
He faced the possibility that he might be forced to spend the rest of his life here, cut off from world and family and Julie.
'So what're we gonna do?' Bronkowicz asked. He glanced toward the door, as though uncertain whether he should say more. There'd been considerable speculation among the prisoners that the North Koreans might have listening devices hidden in the building walls, but since there'd been no search for the hidden weapons, no indication that they knew their base had been infiltrated that morning, it seemed safe.
But that could change at any moment.
'We have to make contact with the SEALS,' Coyote said. He forced the image of Julie from his mind. 'One of us has to get away, tell them what's happening.'
'Maybe they know.'
'How? They're watching, I bet, probably saw that Hip land. But we have to get word out that we're being moved at dawn tomorrow.'
Coleridge nodded. 'If a rescue is being planned, they have to know. Remember Son Tay.'
There was no need to say more. Son Tay was the name of the North Vietnamese prison camp twenty-three miles from Hanoi which had been the target of an American raid in November 1970, a raid aimed at releasing American POWs held there. The operation had been a spectacular success in every way but one.
The POWs held at Son Tay had been moved elsewhere shortly before the raid.
It would be ironic indeed if an American rescue mission mounted to free Chimera's crew likewise arrived at the prison, only to find the place empty.
'I'll go,' Coyote said quietly. He glanced up at the windows.
The late afternoon light was rapidly fading. 'As soon as it's dark.'
'Why you, son?' Wilkinson asked.
Coyote shrugged. 'Any of the rest of you guys had survival training?' Several men nearby shook their heads. 'E and E courses? No? Well, I guess I'm elected.'
He'd known from the start that he was the logical candidate. Ordinary Navy training included staying afloat and survival at sea, but touched little if at all on the practical aspects of living off the land. As an aviator, Coyote had suffered through more than one survival course. He knew how to evade enemy patrols, how to trap small animals for food, how to find water, how to…
But then, what he was really counting on was finding the SEALS. There was no point in escaping at all if he had to face a sixty-mile hike to South Korea afterward. He would never make it past the patrols and mine-fields of the DMZ. Besides, any would-be rescuers had to be warned about the impending move.
'You'll want to take the pistol, then,' Bronkowicz said.
Coyote shook his head. He'd already thought about that and discarded it. 'No way. If I'm caught, the Koreans'll know we had outside help.'
'Hey, guy, you can't just-'
