Bullets tunneled into the clay close by, sending up spurts of wet earth almost in his face. The rifle clicked empty and Coyote tossed it aside. Lying on his back, he began wiggling under the skirt of the chain-link fence.
His plan had already gone sour. He couldn't feel much of anything in his left leg, but there was a deadness there, a gone-to-sleep numbness. When he touched it, his hand came away slick with blood.
How far could he get, in the dark, in hostile country, with gomers on his heels, and him not even able to stand on his leg, much less run on it.
But there was no turning back, not now. He kicked out with his right leg, pushing himself backward under the fence. A fresh burst of gunfire splattered the ground close by, and something spanged off the metal of the fence a few feet above his head. A ragged edge of fencing caught his flight suit, pinning him. Nearly panicking, he kicked harder.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a Korean soldier thirty feet away. Illuminated by the beam of a searchlight, the man was moving forward relentlessly, AK raised, his eyes already locked with Coyote's. The AK came up, aiming.
The top of the Korean's head exploded in a spray of blood and chips of bone and the man lurched heavily to one side, then collapsed. A moment later, the searchlight flared and went out, leaving Coyote in near darkness.
He kicked again and felt his flight suit tear free. The ground outside the fence dropped away sharply, and Coyote rolled down the hill into the brush at the bottom.
It was then that the pain hit him, a searing fire in his thigh, midway between hip and knee. He grasped his leg between both hands, squeezing hard. The bone, miraculously, did not seem to be broken, but the wound throbbed and ached like hell. He found he could stand on it ? barely ? that he could hobble forward if he didn't put too much weight on his left leg.
Coyote's eyes were still dazzled by the camp's lights and he could see little of his surroundings. There were rocks and trees nearby, though, and the black shape of a hillside facing him. He could make out the trees in the illumination spilling from the camp and decided that they offered him his best chance of hiding. Continued shouting from the other side of the fence suggested that the Koreans had lost him, but that wouldn't last for long. Soon they'd be on his trail, possibly with dogs.
How was he going to find the SEALs before he was run to earth?
He was limping past the gnarled trunk of a pine tree when hands snaked out and grabbed Coyote's collar and mouth, yanking him to the ground. The shock jarred his leg and he bit his lower lip hard to keep from screaming.
'You stupid, sorry son of a bitch!' a voice snarled in his ear. 'What in the hell do you think you're trying to pull!'
And Coyote nearly burst out laughing, so sharp was the shock of relief.
Admiral Magruder looked at the hard copy of the comsat from Bushmaster and swore. The situation ashore, it seemed, was rapidly getting out of hand.
The message had not mentioned who it was that had escaped from the North Korean army camp ? coding and the need to keep burst transmissions short precluded such mundane chit-chat ? but it sounded to Magruder as though the man must be one of the spooks, someone with James Bond-style delusions. He could well have wrecked everything by alerting the North Koreans to Bushmaster's presence. As it was, the SEALs must be going into deep hiding to avoid enemy search parties.
On the other hand, the information was certainly timely. If TF-18 was going to do anything, it would have to act now, this night… or watch Chimera's crew whisked forever out of reach.
'Ron?'
An aide snapped to attention. 'Yes, Admiral!'
He handed him the message. 'Copies of this to Admiral Simpson and Colonel Caruso. And Captain Fitzgerald.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And fire up TAC COM. Priority CRITIC.'
'Aye aye, sir.' Americans were being shot over there. Damn!
He wondered what the Washington appeasers and negotiators would think of this. If they didn't get their asses in gear now…
The President looked at the copy of the message relayed from Admiral Magruder and felt the weight of his office pressing down on him. He looked up, his eyes meeting Schellenberg's. 'So, Jim, we're going to negotiate with these people? Sit down and talk things out?' He felt his blood pressure rising. He closed his fist and smashed it down on the table. 'My God! Three of our sailors murdered in cold blood… and we're going to negotiate with them sometime next week?'
'I… don't have an answer, Mr. President. Possibly there are communication problems between P'yongyang and Nyongch'on.'
'Communications problems.' He sighed and looked away. The others watched him anxiously from around the table.
Caldwell licked his lips. 'Sir, we can't deploy through South Korea before-'
'Not an option, General. Not now. The point is to get our people back, and if they're in P'yongyang…' He shrugged. 'They might as well be on the moon. Hell, I think they'd be easier to reach on the moon! I cannot go before Congress or the American people and justify starting up the Korean War all over again for…' He let the words trail off. Where was the moral line in the dust across which an American President could step while balancing American lives against the risk of war? Would he commit combat troops to save two hundred men? For ten? For one?
The same decision had been faced time and time again by the White House, and the answer had never been clear-cut. Gerald Ford had sent the Marines into Cambodia to free the Mayaguez, sacrificing forty-one dead to rescue thirty-nine American merchant seamen. The Marines hadn't complained at the time. They would have said that putting their lives on the line to preserve American lives and property was their job.
But the guy who sent them in had some major questions to settle in his own mind first. When is the use of troops as an expression of U.S. foreign policy justified?
He turned to one of the aides hovering in the background. 'Get me a direct line to Admiral Magruder.'
No one spoke. No one met the President's eyes, knowing that the time for advisors ? and for debate ? was past. The silence lay heavy in the room as technicians worked to patch through to the Jefferson directly, each man, for the moment, alone with his thoughts. The President thought about Admiral Magruder. He'd never met the man, but the speed with which he'd assembled a workable operational plan earlier during the crisis spoke well of him, and of the efficiency of those under him.
The minutes dragged by. Getting a working communications linkup and going with a spot halfway around the globe was not always as simple as dialing long distance.
'Mr. President?' The aide extended a telephone handset. 'Admiral Magruder, TF-18. It's scrambled.'
He raised the receiver to his ear. 'Admiral Magruder, this is the President.'
'Good morning, Mr. President.' The line was scratchy with static, but the admiral's voice was firm and distinct.
The President glanced up at the clock showing Tokyo time. It was evening in the Sea of Japan. 'Admiral, do you feel that Operation Righteous Thunder, as currently planned, has a chance to succeed?'
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. 'If we move fast, yes, sir. We have a good chance.'
'It's a big operation. Things could go wrong.'
'Things always go wrong, Mr. President. We just have to allow for it in the plan.'
'And your recommendation is…?'
'That we go for it, sir.' Static crackled on the line. 'My God, Mr. President, they're shooting our people in there. If we have the chance to pull them out, we'd damn well better take it.'
