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PLAN B SUCKED. THERE was no getting around it. As Ringo checked Kruger’s wingsuit and equipment a final time, the C-17 taking them to the edge of friendly territory and humane civilization depressurized to allow the cargo ramp to lower. Deep down, Kruger wondered if they had made the right decision, or if they were about to dive head first into making a bad situation even worse.
They were just over thirty-thousand feet above South Korea, wearing specially designed stealth wingsuits which integrated with their advanced body armor and allowed them to carry their gear while maintaining a small radar cross section. Their helmet-mounted displays gave them the ability to glide forty miles into enemy territory undetected while precisely popping their chutes and landing at their intended overwatch position. It also had infrared and night vision capabilities, since they were jumping nearly three hours before sunrise.
It sounded good on paper, but the technology was largely untested and it did nothing for them to get them out of the country once they were done. They would have to hump it out on foot after taking the shot, a feat that both realized meant it was likely a one-way mission.
But that’s what they had both signed up for. They knew it. They didn’t like it. It was the cost of freedom. That was the price of saving hundreds of thousands of U.S. lives from the war that the man behind the North Korean curtain was trying to start. It wasn’t an ideal plan, but it was the only one they had left. They had no time to worry about Woody or Cowboy or Natasha or the others. They just needed to finish the mission.
Ringo finished checking Kruger’s gear and then tapped him on the shoulder. Kruger turned around and Ringo gave him a thumbs up.
“Comms check, Raven One,” Kruger said, using the secure radio. They were both wearing oxygen masks attached to the advanced helmets that housed the head up display for their wingsuits.
“Raven Two,” Ringo replied.
“You ready, bub?” Kruger asked.
“I’d bloody well better be. I didn’t put all this on for nothing.”
“I hate jumping out of perfectly good airplanes,” Kruger replied.
Ringo laughed and pointed to Kruger’s wingsuit. “Not jumping, mate. Flying out of a perfectly good airplane. There’s a difference.”
“Ugh,” Kruger groaned without keying his radio.
Other than the crew chief, they were the only two in the empty cargo hold of the massive C-17. The crew chief gave them the “one minute” warning as she opened the rear cargo ramp.
Kruger and Ringo exchanged a fist bump as they waited for the jump light to turn green. When it did, Kruger led the way, running off the back of the ramp and jumping into the dark abyss on the other side of the DMZ. To help minimize their radar cross section, Ringo waited thirty seconds before following.
As he safely separated from the C-17, Kruger deployed his wingsuit. His head up display showed a diamond over the landing zone in North Korea thirty miles away. All he had to do was maintain his glide.
With Ringo out of the aircraft, the C-17 started a hard turn back south and closed its cargo door. They were on their own, and on their way once again to kill Choe Il-Sung. Anything that happened from this point forward would be denied by the U.S. government and they’d be left to fend for themselves. Even Project Archangel and the rest of the team would be helpless to rescue them.
Kruger watched the distance between Ringo and himself in the HUD. Ringo was exactly where he was expected to be as they glided through the clear, moonless sky. So far, so good.
As they glided deeper into North Korean airspace, Kruger’s radar warning receiver suddenly beeped, indicating a P-18 SPOON REST D early warning radar had been detected. On Kruger’s display, a line with the letters SR indicated that the surveillance radar was off to his left.
“Heads up, I’m getting SAM indications,” Kruger said to Ringo over the secure radio.
“Roger, I see him,” Ringo responded.
Kruger kept an eye on the indication as the beeping continued. With the early warning radar in acquisition mode, there was nothing he could do. Their suits were specially designed by DARPA and MIT to give them the radar cross section of a small bird. The radar warning receiver was only receiving the radar energy from the acquisition radar as it looked for threats within the airspace.
If the SPOON REST air surveillance radar found them and handed off to a nearby SA-2 surface to air missile tracking radar, that would be cause for alarm. It would mean that the site had locked on and was actively targeting them. The next indication after that would be a missile launch from the SA-2, and at that point, survival would depend on visually picking up the large telephone-pole-sized missile and defeating it with the suit’s limited countermeasures and evasive maneuvers.
While it was survivable, it was not ideal. They were on an optimum glide profile to their designated area with only a small amount of wiggle-room. Any maneuvering to defeat the missile would likely put them miles off course, and possibly into populated areas.
“The bloody thing is targeting me!” Ringo said a few seconds later.
“Just stay on course, bub,” Kruger said calmly. “We’re halfway there.”
“Easy for you to say!”
“Start worrying if you see a big telephone pole flying toward you,” Kruger reassured him. “Until then, they can’t see us and they’re just fishing in the dark.”
After a few tense seconds of beeping, the targeting indications went away. Ringo looked up and saw an aircraft’s anti-collision light flashing above him.
“You’re right, mate. It was another aircraft.”
“The landing zone isn’t far,” Kruger said. “Looks good from here.”
Kruger followed the flight computer’s prompts and descended down to two hundred feet. The steep descent allowed him to carry speed as he zoomed along the treetops. When he reached the predesignated point, a drogue chute automatically deployed to slow him down, followed by his parachute.
The opening shock was still severe despite the help from the drogue chute, but Kruger managed to shake it off and steer his parachute canopy down into the small clearing. It was an opening in the woods near the base of a hill where they would be setting up for their shot.
As he reached the clearing, Kruger made a sharp turn to descend beneath the tree line and then flared as he touched down. He gathered up his chute and took off the wingsuit, hiding it as Ringo landed behind him.
Once on the ground, Ringo collected his gear and hid it before joining Kruger. They retrieved their suppressed H&K MP-7 personal defense weapons and started up the hill toward their overwatch position.
After an hour of slow hiking, they were in position. Kruger assembled his modified CheyTac M200 Intervention sniper rifle chambered in .408. It was the perfect tool for the long-range shot they were planning.
Ringo set up his spotting equipment and the two set up for their shot. Kruger checked his watch. In six hours, the target would be in place and they would finally stand down the looming threat for good.
And then he could work on getting Natasha out of there.