Black Wind (35 page)

41

A
SLOW GRAY DRIZZLE WAS
falling at McChord Air Force Base south of Tacoma when the C-141 lumbered in from its transpacific flight. The big jet's tires screeched on the damp runway before the aircraft rolled to a stop in front of a transit terminal, where its engines were shut down and the large rear cargo door lowered to the tarmac.

Holding true to his word, Dirk had slept nearly the entire flight and exited the ramp feeling refreshed but hungry. Summer followed behind in a groggier state, having slept unevenly in the noisy aircraft. An air transit lieutenant located the pair and escorted them to the base officers' club for a quick hamburger before returning them to the flight line. Spotting a phone booth, Dirk eagerly dialed a local number.

“Dirk, you're all right!” Sarah answered with obvious relief.

“Still kicking,” he chimed.

“Captain Burch told me you were aboard the NUMA ship that sank in the East China Sea. I've been worried sick about you.”

Dirk beamed to himself, then proceeded to tell her an abbreviated version of events since flying to Japan.

“My gosh, the same people that released the cyanide in the Aleutians intend to launch a larger attack?”

“It appears that way. We hope to find out more when we get back to D.C.”

“Well, keep your friends at the CDC informed. We have a terrorism emergency response team in place to combat sudden chemical or biological outbreaks.”

“You'll be the first one I call. By the way, how's the leg?”

“Fine, though I'm still getting used to these blasted crutches. When are you going to autograph my cast?”

Dirk suddenly noticed Summer waving him toward a small jet parked on the runway.

“When I take you to dinner.”

“I'm off to Los Angeles tomorrow for a weeklong conference on environmental toxins,” she said with disappointment. “It will have to be the following week.”

“Consider it a date.”

Dirk barely had time to sprint to the Gulfstream V jet that was warming its engines on the tarmac. Climbing aboard, he was chagrined to find Summer sitting at the center of attention, surrounded by a small group of Pentagon colonels and generals on the jet bound for Andrews Air Force Base.

The large executive jet buzzed over the Jefferson Memorial at six the next morning en route to landing at the Air Force base located just southeast of the nation's capital. A NUMA van was waiting for the pair and whisked them through the light early morning traffic to the headquarters building, where Rudi Gunn greeted them in his office.

“Thank God you're safe,” Gunn gushed. “We were turning Japan upside down looking for you and that cable ship.”

“Nice idea but wrong country,” Summer said with a gibe.

“There's some folks here who'd like to hear about your ordeal firsthand,” Gunn continued, hardly giving Dirk and Summer a chance to relax. “Let's go to the admiral's office.”

They followed Gunn as he led them around the bay to a large corner office overlooking the Potomac River. Though Admiral Sandecker was no longer the director of NUMA, Gunn subconsciously refused to acknowledge the fact. The door to the office was open and they walked in.

Two men were seated at a side couch discussing coastal port security, while Homeland Security Special Assistant Webster sat in a chair across from them, studiously reviewing a file folder.

“Dirk, Summer, you remember Jim Webster from Homeland Security. This is Special Agent Peterson and Special Agent Burroughs, with the FBI's Counterterrorism Division,” Gunn said, motioning a hand toward the two men on the couch. “They've met with Bob Morgan already and are very interested to know what happened to you after the
Sea Rover
was sunk.”

Dirk and Summer settled into a pair of wingback chairs and proceeded to describe the entire course of events, from their imprisonment on board the
Baekje
to their escape on the Chinese junk. Summer was surprised to note that three hours rolled by on an antique ship's clock mounted on the wall by the time they finished their saga. The homeland security administrator, she noted, appeared to turn whiter shades of pale as their report progressed.

“I just can't believe it,” he finally muttered. “Every shred of evidence we had pointed to a Japanese conspiracy. Our whole investigative focus has been centered on Japan,” he said, shaking his head.

“A well-designed deception,” Dirk stated. “Kang is a powerful man with considerable resources at his disposal. His means and abilities should not be underestimated.”

“You are certain he aims to target the United States with a biological attack?” asked Peterson.

“That's what he insinuated and I don't believe he was bluffing. The incident in the Aleutians would seem to have been a test application of their technology to disperse a bioweapon into the air. Only now they have boosted the strength of their smallpox virus to a much more virulent form.”

“Not unlike stories I've heard that the Russians may have created a vaccine-resistant strain of smallpox back in the nineties,” Gunn added.

“Only this one's a chimera. A deadly combination of more than one virus that takes on the lethal elements of each,” Summer said.

“If the strain is immune to our vaccines, an outbreak could kill millions,” Peterson muttered, shaking his head. The room fell silent for a moment as the occupants considered the horrifying prospect.

“The attack in the Aleutian Islands proves that they have the means to disperse the virus. The question becomes, where would they target a strike?” Gunn asked.

“If we can stop them before they have the chance to strike, then it doesn't matter. We should be raiding Kang's palace, and his shipyard, and his other sham businesses, and we should be raiding them right now,” Summer said, slapping a hand on her leg for emphasis.

“She's right,” Dirk said. “For all we know, the weapons are still on board the vessel at the Inchon Shipyard and the story can end there.”

“We'll need to assemble more evidence,” the homeland security man said flatly. “The Korean authorities will have to be convinced of the risk before we can assemble a joint investigative force.”

Gunn quietly cleared his throat. “We may be on the verge of providing the necessary evidence,” he said as all eyes shifted his way. “Dirk and Summer had the foresight to contact Navy Special Forces before leaving Korea and briefed them on Kang's enclosed dock facility at Inchon.”

“We couldn't authorize them to act, but a well-placed call by Rudi got them to at least listen to what we had to say,” Summer grinned toward Gunn.

“It's well beyond that now,” Gunn explained. “After you and Dirk departed Osan, we formally requested an underwater special ops reconnaissance mission. Vice President Sandecker went out on a limb to obtain executive approval in hopes we'll be able to locate a smoking gun. Unfortunately, with the ruckus over our military deployment in Korea it's a sensitive time to be nosing around our ally's backyard.”

“All they need to do is snap a picture of the
Baekje
sitting at Kang's dock and we've got proof positive,” Dirk said.

“That would certainly boost our case. When are they going in?” Webster asked.

Gunn looked at his watch, then mentally calculated the fourteen-hour time difference between Washington and Seoul. “The team will be deployed in about two hours. We should know something early this evening.”

Webster silently gathered his papers, then stood up. “I'll be back after dinner for a full debriefing,” he grumbled, then made his way toward the door. As he left the room, the others could hear just a single word being muttered repeatedly from his lips as he vanished down the hall: “Korea.”

42

C
OMMANDER
B
RUCE
M
C
C
ASLAND
looked up at the Korean night sky and grimaced. A heavy bank of low rain clouds had drifted in over Inchon, obscuring the earlier clear skies. With the low clouds came illumination, the optical boomerang of light waves from thousands of the port city's streetlamps, residences, and billboards. Refracting off the clouds, the lights brightened the midnight hour with a fuzzy radiance. For a man whose livelihood depended on stealth, the dark of night was his best friend, the arrival of clouds a curse. Perhaps it will rain, he thought hopefully, which would improve their cover. But the dark clouds silently rolled by, holding their moisture with taunting stubbornness.

The Navy SEAL from Bend, Oregon, hunched back down in the rickety sampan and glanced at the three men lying low under the gunwale beside him. Like McCasland, they were clad in black underwater wet suits, with matching fins, mask, and backpack. As their mission was one of reconnaissance, they were armed for only minimal close quarters combat, each carrying a compact Heckler & Koch MP5K 9mm submachine gun. Clipped to their vests were an assorted mix of miniature still and video cameras, as well as a pair of night vision goggles.

The weathered boat putted past the commercial docks of Inchon, trailing a pall of blue smoke from its sputtering outboard motor. To the casual eye, the sampan appeared like a thousand others in the region used by merchants and tradesmen up and down the coastal Korean waters as a common mode of transport. Hidden beneath its aged-appearing exterior, however, was a fiberglass-hulled assault craft. With a high-speed inboard motor, the covert boat was specially built to launch and retrieve small teams of underwater special forces.

Meandering through the quiet north corner of the harbor, the sampan approached within two hundred meters of the Kang Marine Services entry channel. Exactly on cue, the twenty-two-foot boat's motor sputtered and coughed several times, then died. Two SEALs, disguised as a pair of derelict fishermen, began swearing loudly at each other in Korean. While one of the men tugged at the outboard motor to restart it, the other made a loud show of grabbing an oar and splashing it in the water in a clumsy attempt to row them toward shore.

McCasland peered over the gunwale with a pair of night vision binoculars trained on the sentry post at the mouth of the channel. Two men looked back from the interior of their guard hut but made no move toward a black speedboat tied up a few feet away. Satisfied the guards were too lazy to investigate further, he called quietly to the three men beside him.

“In the water. Now.”

With the gracefulness of a Persian cat leaping from a settee, the three men slipped quietly over the side and into the water with barely a gurgle. McCasland adjusted his faceplate, gave a thumbs-up to the two “fishermen,” then followed the frogmen over the side. Having grown hot in the boat wearing the insulated wet suit, he was refreshed by the cool water as it seeped against his skin. Clearing his ears, he submerged to a depth of twenty feet, then leveled off, peering around into the black gloomy murk. The dank, polluted harbor water offered only a few feet of visibility, which fell to zero at night without a flashlight. McCasland ignored the blind diving conditions and spoke into a wireless underwater communication system attached to his face mask.

“Audio and nav check,” he barked.

“Bravo here. Nav confirmed. Out,” came one voice.

“Charlie here. Nav confirmed. Out,” followed a second voice, this one with a slight Georgia twang.

“Delta here. Nav confirmed. Out,” the third diver's voice copied.

“Roger, stand by,” McCasland replied.

Above them, the two SEALs in the sampan had beached the boat next to a battered and abandoned pier within sight of Kang's security men. Making a show of repairing the boat, the two men clanged tools together and cursed loudly as they pretended to fumble with the motor while the men in the water carried out their mission.

Below the surface, McCasland activated his Miniature Underwater GPS Receiver (MUGR), or “Mugger” as it was nicknamed. No larger than a Palm Pilot, the small device contained a navigation system that was calibrated by signals from the GPS satellite system. McCasland briefly kicked up to a depth of ten feet, where the underwater receiver could pick up the GPS signal and establish a fixed base point. A muted green display screen popped on, displaying an animated trail that zigzagged through and around a series of obstacles. Based on aerial survey photographs and the description provided by Dirk and Summer, McCasland had programmed a series of GPS waypoints into the Mugger. The aggregate points created a path to the covered dock entrance they could follow while completely submerged. All four divers held one of the devices, which also showed one another's relative position with a tiny flashing light. Swimming in complete darkness, they could follow the path to the covered dock while staying within just a few feet of one another.

“Okay, let's move,” he spoke into his faceplate after descending again.

With a deep thrust of his fins, McCasland kicked forward into the inky water, his eyes glued to the electronic compass and depth gauge, which he ensured never wavered from the twenty-foot mark. Reaching the entrance to the private ship channel, he turned and swam into the narrow inlet, passing almost directly beneath the security guards' speedboat, which bobbed on the surface well above him. Over McCasland's shoulder, the three other SEALs followed in a triangular pattern a few feet behind.

Day or night, the SEAL divers would have been nearly impossible to detect due to their use of rebreathers. Forgoing the standard dive tank of compressed air, which generates telltale exhaust bubbles visible on the surface, the Navy divers utilized a Carleton Technologies VIPER system for their air supply. Embedded within a sleek-looking backpack, the VIPER rebreather provided pure oxygen to the divers that was recirculated through a chemical scrubber, which removed harmful carbon dioxide while dispelling only a minute amount of exhaust. The streamlined system could enable the divers to remain underwater for up to four hours should the need arise. But with no visible exhaust bubbles rising to the surface, their whereabouts were safely concealed from the naked eye.

Following the Mugger's imaginary trail, the four divers swam through the winding inlet, kicking through the black water until they approached the entrance to the enclosed dock. The quarter-mile submerged swim would have exhausted most sport divers, but years of demanding physical training made it seem like crossing the street to the hardened SEALs. Their heartbeats thumped just above resting as they regrouped in front of the massive door to the enclosed dock. McCasland then swam in a circular pattern until his hands found a pylon that supported one side of the entrance. Following the pylon up, he ascended slowly until finding the lower edge of the sliding door, which hung three feet beneath the water's surface. Confident he was at the proper location, he descended again to the depth of the other divers.

“Proceed with preliminary recon. Regroup this position in three-zero. Out.”

From this point on, each diver had a different trail to follow inside the covered dockyard. Dirk and Summer had drawn a detailed map of the dock layout from memory, which was used to establish a different reconnaissance point for each diver. McCasland had the farthest and most dangerous assignment, to swim to the land's-end side of the dockyard for a frontal view of the facility. Two other divers would reconnoiter the main dock to verify and film the
Baekje
, while the fourth diver would stand by as backup near the entrance door.

The bright overhead lights of the hangar illuminated the upper water shallows, casting a dark shadow from the dock's supporting concrete pilings. McCasland found that at a depth of fifteen feet, he could just make out the dark outline of the pilings in the water ahead of him. He held the Mugger to his chest and kicked harder, using his vision to guide him quickly down the length of the dock. After passing dozens of pilings, a solid wall of concrete suddenly rose up before him and he knew that he had reached the end of the pier. Resting against a pylon, he readied a digital camcorder and prepared to surface, fighting back an uneasy feeling of defeat. He had felt a strange void while swimming beneath the pier, sensing an absence of the mass he thought he should feel nearby even though it was out of sight.

Quietly breaking the water's surface beneath the edge of the dock, his eyes confirmed the empty feeling in his stomach. The giant covered dockyard was bare. There was no four-hundred-foot cable ship tied up in front of him. In fact, the main dock was completely empty. McCasland silently scanned the facility with his camera, finding only one vessel in the entire structure, a beat-up tugboat perched on a drydock. Nearby, a group of bored dockworkers on the graveyard shift were chasing each other around in a forklift, the only signs of life in the massive structure.

His filming complete, McCasland ducked underwater and kicked back along the dock toward the main entrance door. Reaching the support pylon, he pulled up the Mugger and saw that the other three divers had already returned and were waiting in the surrounding waters a few feet away.

“Mission complete,” he said curtly, then swam off into the inlet.

The four SEALs made their way back to the beached sampan and silently crawled inside. The mock fishermen suddenly found the cure to the ailing motor and restarted the outboard engine. With more vocal cursing, they cruised past Kang's inlet and motored off into the night.

Once out of sight, McCasland sat up and took off his faceplate, taking a breath full of the dank port air while staring at the twinkling waterfront lights. A drop of rain struck him on the face, then another and another. Shaking his head, he sat silently while a healthy deluge opened up from the skies on the frustrated commando.