Ballistic Force(90)

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN


Zane Island, Pacific Ocean

“I’ll see you in a few hours, then,” Mack Bolan said, wrapping up his long-distance call to Akira Tokaido.

“We’ll be ready and chomping at the bit,” Tokaido responded over the secure line Bolan had commandeered after his return to the Army’s air base on Zane Island.

Bolan ended up the call. When he emerged from Major Cook’s office, the officer was waiting for him in the adjacent squad room.

“We’re all set,” Bolan told him.

As the men left the squad room and headed for the airfield, Bolan quickly briefed Cook on the gist of his three-way conference call with Tokaido and his contact in the States. He explained that once he’d learned of plans to fly a special ops force into North Korea to seek out Lim Seung-Whan and the other waylaid kidnap victims, he’d suggested that the Bonifas crew needn’t take on the risks of attempting a deep insertion in a U.S. plane that could be picked up by KPA radar. Instead, they could stay put and wait to be picked up by the ops crew Bolan and Cook were assembling here on the island. After all, the Zane crew planned to stick with the original itinerary plotted for the FETC Young-333, using the North Koreans’ own cargo plane to infiltrate their air space. The only challenge would be deviating from their assigned flight path as they began their descent for Kaesong so that the commandos could be air-dropped closer to the Changchon enclave. Of course, once the drop was made, the plane would promptly double back to Incheon, hopefully before the KPA began to realize that their long-sought defectors weren’t being brought back home, after all.

“Speaking of the defectors…” Cook said once Bolan had finished briefing him. They’d reached the airfield and both men saw Li-Roo Kohb, Shinn Kam-Song and Shinn’s wife, Mi-Kas, waiting to board a Cessna Citation X that would soon take them to Hawaii. There, Bolan suspected the trio would have to endure yet another debriefing as well as a tongue-lashing for having violated the terms of their defection, but eventually they would be back on the mainland and in a position to get their lives back in order. No matter how rough it might be for them to yet again readjust to new identities, Bolan hoped they would realize how much better off they were than if the REDI agents had managed to haul them back to their homeland.

When Shinn Kam-Song spotted Bolan and Cook, he motioned to his wife and Li-Roo Kohb, and soon the three of them were shuttling across the tarmac toward their liberators. Once they reached the Americans, Shinn said, “We were hoping to see you. We owe you our lives.”

“Just doing our jobs,” Bolan told them.

“How can we thank you?” Shinn wanted to know.

“Play it safer this time,” Cook responded. “Remember, this isn’t North Korea. Here, the people checking up on you are doing it for your own good. Understood?”

Bolan and Cook exchanged a few more words with the defectors as they led them back to the Cessna, then the Executioner excused himself and veered over toward another plane that had landed on the runway earlier. It was a C-130 Hercules on a supply run from Oahu. The unloading process had already begun, and along with the usual shipment of equipment and food rations, the plane’s cargo included nearly two dozen wooden caskets intended for the victims of the firefight that had taken place earlier on the other side of the island. Jayne Bahn stood near the rear of the plane, her right arm in a sling, watching the caskets being placed on a tram for the short trip to the nearby hangar where the bodies had been transferred. She didn’t notice Bolan until he’d reached her side. When she turned to him, Bolan could see that she was in a somber mood.

“If that bullet had hit me another inch to the right, one of those caskets would be for me,” she reflected.

“Perspective,” Bolan said. “An hour ago you were complaining because you couldn’t finish out the mission.”

“That still sucks but, yeah, at least when I fly back I’ll be riding first-class instead of lying horizontal.”

“Not a bad consolation prize,” Bolan said. “And if that gang-banger back in L.A. fingers Hong as the guy who killed Starr, you’ll have done what you set out to do.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” Bahn said. “Hell, I might even get some of that bonus I was talking about.”

“Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Bahn forced a smile. “So, when do you head out?”

“Soon,” Bolan said.

“Good luck to you.”

“Thanks. I have a feeling I’ll be needing it.”

“You’ll be fine.” Patting her sling, Bahn added, “I’ll be up and running in no time myself. How long do you figure it’ll be before we crash into each other again?”