The grenade missed crashing through the window, but when it detonated against the sill, its blinding flash and loud roar was still disorienting enough to allow Tokaido and Lim to make it as far as the front steps of the bungalow before one of Yulim’s goons flung open the door and confronted them with an AK-47. He was blinking incessantly, however, clearly half-blinded by the grenade. Tokaido dived forward, tackling the man before he could get off a shot. As they felt to the threshold, Lim rushed past them into the bungalow.
Yulim had retreated behind his desk and been spared the brunt of the stun grenade, and as Lim charged into the living room, he rose into view, gun raised.
“At least I get to take you to hell with me,” he taunted, pulling the trigger.
The commandant’s gun misfired, however. Lim didn’t bother gloating. He stitched Yulim’s midsection with an autoburst from his carbine. Yulim dropped his gun and doubled over, clutching his ravaged torso. Blood spurted through his fingers and when he glared up at Lim, a pool of crimson bubbled up through his lips and spilled down his chin.
“Go ahead,” he gasped hoarsely. “Finish me off!”
Lim stared at Yulim, trembling with rage. He took aim with his carbine, pointing the barrel at the commandant’s face. At the last second, however, he took his finger off the trigger and instead leaned forward, shoving Yulim to the floor and towering over him.
“I’d rather see you die slowly,” he said.
Yulim groaned as he writhed on the floor, still eyeing Lim with contempt. He opened his mouth to speak but instead coughed up more blood. A second later, he went limp.
Lim was still staring down at the body when Tokaido came up from behind and put a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s over,” he told his cousin. “Let’s go.”
ONCE MEDICAL SUPPLIES had been tracked inside the storage facility, several Rangers began to treat those wounded in the skirmish while Mack Bolan and Major Cook took a stretcher and first-aid kit up the hill to where Akira Tokaido and Lim Seung-Whan had finally managed to staunch the flow of blood from Major Stevens’ thigh wounds.
“We’ll take over,” Bolan told the two cousins. “Go ahead and check on your family.”
As Lim and Tokaido headed back to the prison yard, Cook applied fresh cotton pads to Stevens’ thigh while Bolan readied the antiseptic.
“We’ve got the place secured?” Stevens asked.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Bolan told him. “Once we get you stabilized, we’ll round up as many vehicles as we can get our hands on and see if we can make it to the border.”
Stevens nodded, then winced as Bolan poured astringent on his wounds. “How’d we fare?” he asked.
“So far we’ve got four dead and six wounded,” Cook reported. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
Stevens stared past Bolan and Cook at the prison grounds. The captured North Koreans had been corralled against the side of one of the barracks and were being guarded by four Rangers, two of which were positioned behind the .50-caliber Browning machine gun Bolan had used at the onset of the firefight. The wounded were being treated just inside the other bungalow while another five commandos went about the grim task of gathering together the bodies of those beyond medical help.
“What’d you find in the cave?” Stevens asked Cook.
The major began to explain the layout of the storage facility, then suddenly stopped talking and glanced up into the leaden sky overhead. Bolan and Stevens looked up, as well, their attention, like Cook’s, drawn by a faint rumbling in the clouds.
“Thunder?” Cook murmured.
Bolan listened intently, then shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.”
The rumbling slowly grew louder. A few seconds later a helicopter materialized out of the clouds. It was a converted civilian Boeing MD-500, one of countless similar choppers acquired by the KPA during the 1980s and retrofitted with a 30 mm Hughes chain gun.
And it wasn’t alone.
As Bolan, Cook and Stevens watched, a second gunship emerged from the cloud cover, followed by a third and then yet another.
“Holy Christ,” Stevens moaned, eyes on the growing force in the sky.
Soon a total of fourteen MD-500s had swarmed above the encampment. Most were armed with submounted chain guns, but at least five of the gunships were additionally outfitted with rocket pods containing TOW missiles. Down in the prison yard, the Rangers stopped what they were doing and took up defensive positions. They held their fire, however, unsure how best to deal with the sudden turn of events.
“There’s no way we can take them all on,” Stevens said, staring at the aerial force. “They’ll cut us to ribbons!”