47 MORANBONG STREET
PYONGYANG
Dewey heard the faint click of a door latch. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was lying in the hallway just outside the bathroom. His face was against the floor.
He took a few seconds to look around. He saw a dead soldier, then his eyes shot to his own chest. The syringe was still sticking out. He was alive.
There was a voice, then shouting from the entrance to the apartment.
Dewey felt around for his gun, finding it on the floor near his leg. He heard footsteps and more voices, all speaking Korean. There was more shouting—orders being barked.
He reached to his chest and yanked the syringe out, then picked up the gun and slowly turned his head just as a voice came from the bedroom, just a few feet away. Dewey lifted his head and focused his eyes, seeing legs. The soldier started shouting. Dewey wheeled the gun and fired, hitting the man in the stomach just as another soldier stepped into the room behind the first man, who was kicked backwards, doubling over and letting out a pained groan. Dewey triggered the pistol a second time; the gun spat a silenced bullet into the man’s forehead, knocking him sideways before he crumpled to the floor in an awkward spiral.
Dewey climbed to his feet and put another bullet into the first soldier’s eye, killing him. He walked through Talmadge’s apartment, stepping over bodies, calmly surveying the carnage.
He was dazed. How long had he been asleep?
One of the men’s radios squawked and a voice spoke, again in Korean.
They would be coming. Any minute.
Go.
For the first time, he heard sirens.
They’re coming.
He ran through the apartment and charged into the corridor, then sprinted down the hallway. An apartment door was cracked open and it shut quickly. Dewey kicked the door open and a woman was standing inside. She was old, dressed in a nightgown, and her hands went reflexively above her head in terror.
Dewey moved by her and went to the window. He switched out mugs on the pistols as he looked down on the street. Several military vehicles were just pulling up to the building. He watched in stunned silence as soldiers leapt from the vehicles. A block away, he saw more vehicles rolling in.
He had to get away.
Dewey moved back through the apartment without saying anything, shutting the door and running back down the hallway. He reached the fire stairs and moved up, climbing three steps at a time, passing the two men he’d killed earlier. He kept close to the outer wall of the stairwell as he suddenly became aware of the faint sound of steel-toed boots several floors below: soldiers moving up to find him.
When he reached the roof of the building, he stepped to the edge, carefully looking down. A dark sedan pulled into the alley, its headlights on. The vehicle’s doors opened and two men in dark suits rushed from the car, each man clutching a weapon, leaving the lights on and the engine running. He saw the men run down the alley and enter the building across the alley from Talmadge’s apartment building.
Overhead, Dewey heard the telltale electric whirr of rotors cutting the air somewhere to his left, then spotted the lights on a helicopter, cutting through the sky.
“Fuckin’ A,” he muttered.
Dewey surveyed the rooftop across the alley—the one he’d leapt from. He had no choice. He would need to make the jump again.
The chopper grew louder and louder and then a set of powerful halogen lights flashed brightly from its underbelly, lighting up the dark sky in a white searchlight that swept across the sky and found the roof—and then Dewey.
He went back to the stairwell door—he needed to go back down. But bullets suddenly erupted from inside the stairwell. A high-pitched staccato from a submachine gun. Dewey ducked and lurched out of the way just as slugs ripped the steel door. He slammed the door shut and looked for another place to hide from the chopper.
A thunderous series of booms as the chopper’s minigun began firing. Bullets rained down in a line that cut across the roof in his direction.
Dewey charged for the roof edge, running as fast as he could just feet ahead of the quickly moving line of bullets. He needed to get up enough speed to make the jump. But just as he was about to leap he watched in shock as a swarm of soldiers emerged onto the rooftop across the alley—his only escape. He was barely able to stop due to his momentum. He diverted at the last second, lurching left, diving to the ground and rolling. He trained his gun up at the chopper and fired, pumping bullet after bullet. Bullets pinged the chopper, making loud metallic thwangs, and then glass shattered. The mag clicked empty just as the minigun stopped and the chopper wheeled up and back, getting away from Dewey’s bullets, but moving into a new attack position.
The assault was furious—gunfire drowned out by the mad whirr of rotors chopping air. Sirens roared from the streets below. It was chaos.
Dewey was on his back, shielded by the eave of the roof as the soldiers across the alley fired just above his head. He reached into his ruck and searched for another mag. He slammed it into the gun and removed a third pistol from the ruck just as the door to the roof of Talmadge’s building opened and the helicopter swooped back in and the spotlight from the chopper again found him.
With one gun, Dewey pumped bullets at the doorway as the first soldier barreled through, hitting him in the chest. He triggered the second gun at the chopper overhead, dinging and banging the fuselage, causing the chopper to again spin around and carve left, out of the way.
Another soldier emerged from the doorway and Dewey fired, striking him squarely in the forehead. When a third soldier attempted to duck back inside the stairwell, Dewey fired twice, missing the first time, hitting the back of his head with the second bullet.
He reached into the ruck and pulled out a grenade just as the chopper spun around again and lit him up in bright white. He pulled the pin and hurled the grenade toward the roof across the alley, then triggered the gun at the chopper. The chopper’s minigun erupted, pelting the roof just feet from where he lay tucked against the eave. He heard glass shatter and then a faint scream. The chopper lifted up—and then the air shook as the grenade exploded on the other roof. Screams and shouting echoed in the wind-chopped air. A man emerged onto the rooftop near Dewey—Dewey fired, ripping a slug into the soldier’s chest, dropping him.
Dewey looked over the parapet for a brief instant, again registering the idling sedan in the alley.
Dewey was surrounded by chaos, trying to simply last until the next second, but he was outnumbered and outgunned.
He fired at the chopper but heard the click of the spent mag. He popped it out and reached into the ruck, searching for another mag. He found the last one. He pulled it out and slammed it in.
Gunfire started up again from the neighboring roof. Bullets thudded against the concrete and whizzed just over his head. The grenade had killed a few of them but there were more.
Dewey was almost out of ammo.
He crawled along the roof, hidden by the eave, a dozen feet from where the gunmen on the neighboring roof thought he was. He reached into the ruck and grabbed the low-jump chute he hadn’t had time to use in the forest. He quickly attached the chute to a steel ring on his weapons vest, and pulled straps across his chest, then stood—both guns out and trained across the alley—just as the chopper again lit him up and the minigun erupted above. In that brief quarter second of surprise, Dewey counted four gunmen across the alleyway. He started running toward the roof edge, pumping both triggers as fast as his fingers could flex, surprising the men, who swiveled their rifles toward Dewey but too late. A dull staccato of metallic thuds was barely audible. He cut down the remaining gunmen as he ran fast, reaching the eave of the roof, hitting it with his right foot and leaping out into the open air just as the chopper pelted the ground near him with bullets. Dewey tumbled falling toward the ground—gaining speed—then ripped the chute. It popped open even as he descended faster and faster toward the tar below. The chute ruffled a sec and then burst open, arresting Dewey’s descent just as he reached the ground. Bullets rained from the sky as the minigun tracked him in the alley, but Dewey was already running, yanking off the chute and diving into the open front door of the idling sedan. He slammed the gas just as two soldiers charged around the corner, rifles out, firing at the car. Dewey ducked as bullets tore into the windshield, then felt the car strike one of the men in the same moment a terrible scream came from below. Dewey turned the wheel as the car hit the main road and then sat up, weaving through the military vehicles and then tearing down the dark Pyongyang street.