Carrier by Keith Douglass

Author:Keith Douglass [Douglass, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, General, Technological, Fiction, Espionage
ISBN: 9780515105933
Publisher: Jove Books
Published: 1991-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

0355 hours Nyongch’on-kiji

Huerta lay flat on his back in the muddy ditch, moving in tiny increments beneath the chain-link fence which surrounded the inner compound of the North Korean base. Runoff from repeated rains had carved this channel beneath the fence unnoticed by its builders, and now the SEAL was using it to gain entrance to the area suspected to be where the Koreans were holding the crew of the U.S.S. Chimera.

He was unarmed save for a knife and his Mark 22, a silenced, custom-made 9-mm first used against guard dogs in Vietnam and subsequently known as the “hush puppy.” Those were for use as a last resort only, of course. The last thing he needed at the moment was a dead guard; if he killed someone, he would have to drag the body out of the camp and hope the sentry’s superiors thought he’d deserted while on watch.

He’d left his night-vision gear with the others as well; it was too easy to become reliant on those technological wonders, too easy to lose touch with the night. And now Chief Huerta was the night, a black shadow among shadows, edging silently under the fence through the runoff gully.

He’d already traversed the first, outer fence, using bolt-cutters to snip through a few links of the fence in the shadow of a guard tower next to a pole. The rest of the team waited for him outside.

The camp identified as Nyongch’on-kiji lay in a high saddle in the ridge line some seven miles south of Wonsan’s waterfront district, surrounded on two sides by rugged escarpments which climbed higher still. A highway passed through the saddle, connecting Wonsan with the town of Anbyon ten miles to the south. At this hour there was little traffic.

The SEALs had reached the eastern slope overlooking the camp after an hour’s hike from the coast. From the vantage point of their OP amid boulders, brush, and the scraggly, stunted pines that clung to the rocky slopes in this region, they’d surveyed the camp, identifying the building which was their prime target. One of the long, single-story structures inside the inner fence was the building in the satellite photo which had first confirmed the presence of Westerners inside the Nyongch’on compound the previous day.

That building was Huerta’s target now. He’d been lucky so far: no encounters, no guard dogs, and only isolated glimpses of sentries doing their rounds in the distance. If he could get close enough to the suspect building to confirm that Americans were being held there now …

0410 hours Nyongch’on-kiji

Coyote heard it first, a muffled thump as though something had landed on the roof of the hut. He’d been lying awake on the straw ticking which served as a mattress, and the sound seemed to originate beyond the wooden timbers of the ceiling directly over his head. He sat up. Commander Wilkinson, lying nearby, sat up as well.

“What is it?” Wilkinson’s whisper was harsh in the near-darkness. The room’s interior was dimly illuminated by

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