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SPECTRE WAS SITTING in the hangar next to his broken Flanker as Kruger and Ringo walked in carrying their gear.
“What the fuck are you still doing here?” Kruger barked.
“Good to see you too, bub,” Spectre said as he stood to meet them.
“I’ll go check on the others,” Ringo said, not wanting to get in the middle of whatever shitstorm was about to be unleashed.
“I asked you a question,” Kruger said. “You were wheels up before I left.”
Spectre stood his ground as Kruger aggressively approached. “That is correct.”
“Well, what the fuck happened?” Kruger asked. “Why are you here?”
“I heard about Woody and Cowboy’s situations and I want to help.”
“Help?” Kruger asked and then pointed to the Flanker behind Spectre. “With one engine? Or one kidney?”
“Whoa, whoa, that is not my fault,” Spectre said. “There’s no reason to make this personal. You talked me into this and I talked Woody into it. We both owe it to him to do everything we can to get him out. You need my help.”
“It doesn’t matter who talked who into what, bub. What exactly can you do to help without a jet to fly?”
“I don’t know, but Woody is my friend and I’m not just going to fly home and forget about him. Put one of those DARPA pods on an A-10 and let me escort you in. Fix this jet and let’s fight our way in. Hell, put me in the command center and I’ll make copies and get coffee. But I’m not leaving my buddy behind.”
“Go home, Spectre,” Kruger said, sighing as he shook his head.
“Not without Woody,” Spectre replied. “You know me better than that. You need all the help you can get”
Sierra Carter walked into the hangar from Coolio’s work center, interrupting the standoff. “Ringo told me you were out here, Kruger.”
She walked up to him and hugged him, holding him tightly as he did little to resist. “I’m so sorry about Natasha,” she said.
“I know you’re upset, man, and I’m sorry for your loss,” Spectre said. “But please just let me help you.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Kruger said as he squirmed free of Sierra’s grip. “What have you learned?”
“We think we have a location on Reginald,” Sierra said. “Coolio is working on it now.”
Kruger turned to walk with Sierra. As Spectre followed, Kruger turned and went face to face with him. “Go home. I won’t ask you again.”
“Not until everyone comes home,” Spectre said defiantly. “You know damned well I’m not going anywhere. You’re just wasting time now.”
Sierra grabbed Kruger’s arm and turned him back toward the door for Coolio’s workstation. “Come now, Kruger. We don’t have time for this, and we may need all the help we can get.”
“Thank you, Sierra,” Spectre said as he followed them.
“Don’t think you won, bub,” Kruger warned.
The trio walked into Coolio’s workstation. Coolio was busy clicking through satellite feeds while Ringo and Tuna watched.
“What do you have, Coolio?”
Hearing Kruger’s voice, Coolio spun around in his chair and attempted to hug Kruger. Kruger blocked him and pushed him back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m so sorry, Kruger,” Coolio said. “About Natasha.”
“Would everyone please stop trying to hug me? You can throw the pity party later. Right now, we have two of our guys in enemy territory and we need to get them out. Coolio, what do you have?”
“I found the satellite phone Cowboy used to call in,” Coolio said as he rushed back to his desk. “I was able to remotely power it back on long enough to track it.”
Coolio zoomed in on a satellite image. “I narrowed it down to this farm house, just north of Kaesong. I don’t have any real time imagery on it yet, but I’m working on it.”
Kruger turned to Tuna. “Any words from Chapman on the asset that contacted them about Cowboy? Black Ice, I think it was?”
“Last, I heard, he was captured by the North Koreans,” Tuna said.
“What about Woody?” Kruger asked.
“Our asset on the inside visually confirmed his presence in the hospital. He’s on a ventilator, but they’re planning to move him to their Hoeryong Reeducation Camp. We think it’s by train,” Sierra replied.
“Train?” Kruger asked.
“The North Korean Army has a highly secure train that they use to move political prisoners and high value cargo from south to north. It has a medical car that we think they’ll use to keep Woody stable during the transport.”
“Do we know when?”
“The train is on its way there, boss,” Coolio replied. “I am tracking it now. My guess is it’ll be there within the next few hours – longer if it makes any stops.”
“So, we’ll have to split up the rescue forces, then,” Ringo said.
“That seems risky,” Tuna said. “It’s going to take all of us to take down a train.”
Kruger considered the options as he stared at the satellite image of the farm house on Coolio’s screen.
“It’s the only option we’ve got, mate,” Ringo said. “We can’t leave either of them behind.”
“Could you do both? Extract one and then the other?” Sierra asked.
“No,” Ringo replied. “That’s way too large of a tactical footprint. We’ll lose the element of surprise if a firefight kicks off and we have to hightail it out of there.”
Kruger finally broke his silence as the debate continued. “Tuna, are the 160th boys still on standby?”
They had asked the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment – the most elite helicopter flying unit in the U.S. Army – to be on standby in case they needed a ride. While they previously used their own in-house pilots, their rotary wing capabilities had been eliminated with the death of “Shorty” Roberts and his crew in Iraq two years earlier.
“They’re on the other side of the base, standing by,” Tuna said. “Why, what are you thinking?”
“Did they bring the stealth Blackhawks?” Kruger asked, referring to the specially modified and highly classified MH-X Blackhawk helicopters that had been used in Operation Neptune to kill Osama Bin Laden.
“They did.”
“Both of them?”
“That’s what I’m to understand,” Tuna replied.
“Good, we’ll need them. We’ll send a team to grab Cowboy or recon the farmhouse and the rest will intercept that train.”
“Kruger, we can’t possibly stop that train on our own,” Tuna said.
“We can if you let me help,” Spectre interjected from the back of the room.
Everyone turned to look at Spectre. Before Kruger could snap at him, Sierra asked, “How?”
“Take the DARPA pod off the Flanker in the hangar and hang it on an A-10. Let me do what A-10 guys do.”
“That’s suicide,” Tuna said.
“No,” Kruger said as he mulled it over. “It just might work. But we’ve got a lot of planning to do and a short amount of time. Let’s get Chapman on the phone.”