do almost anything if it was necessary, but he didn’t want to place his men in any additional danger if he didn’t have to. They were already way far out on the risk curve as it was. If everything the CIA had been told about this location was true, then they were going to start bumping up against North Korean foot patrols soon enough. His biggest fear was that they might have dogs. If that turned out to be true, they would be looking at some serious trouble.
Until that trouble showed itself, though, Fordyce wasn’t going to worry about it. He had enough on his mind. Checking his map once more, he gave his team the signal to ruck up. When they were all ready, he led them out of the trees and up toward the ridgeline.
They moved slowly through the rocks and loose shale. It was like climbing a mountain of guitar picks. Time after time, their footing gave way and sent a cascade of stones sliding down behind them.
Fordyce adjusted their path and tried to pick a course through the green-gray haze of his night vision goggles that would give them firmer footing, but still allow them to summit in an area with plenty of natural cover. It wouldn’t do them any good to arrive at the top, only to be caught out in the open and possibly spotted by the Chinese or North Koreans below.
As they climbed, Fordyce also kept an eye on their time. They needed to be over the ridgeline and down far enough on the other side before the sun came up. They had identified three potential locations via satellite for covered overwatch positions, but you never really knew how good a site was until you saw it for yourself. Concerned they were falling behind, Fordyce picked up the pace.
Just before the ridgeline, he stopped. Pointing at Les Johnson, whose face was covered in camouflage paint like the others, he signaled for him to crawl up and take a look.
Fifteen minutes later, Johnson came back. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” he whispered.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Fordyce. “Why?”
“That valley is pitch black.”
“They must be practicing light discipline.”
Johnson grinned. “Or we’re not in the right place.”
Fordyce flipped Johnson the finger. They were in the right place, but that was Johnson—always a smart-ass. His father had been an executive with an outdoor clothing company in Maine. Had he followed in his father’s footsteps, he’d be on his way to running that same company, but Johnson hadn’t been cut out for the button-down corporate world. He’d been a hellion as a teen, a real troublemaker. In hindsight, his father probably should have provided more “wall-to-wall” counseling. It wasn’t until Johnson got kicked out of his third private college and had a pretty serious run-in with the Freeport PD that he realized he needed to get his act together.
The police chief had coached Johnson in Little League. That was back before Johnson’s parents had divorced and he had begun his spiral toward becoming a less than productive member of society. The chief painted an ugly picture of where Johnson was headed if he didn’t apply some serious course correction. He capped it off by introducing him to a Navy recruiter in Portland, who also happened to be a SEAL. Whether it was his similar upbringing or his no-bullshit style, the SEAL, and what he had done with his life, appealed to Johnson. Within forty-eight hours, he had signed up, shipped out, and the rest was history.
After Fordyce showed him the spot on the map where the first potential overwatch site was, he signaled for Johnson to take point. It was easy for your senses to become dulled and for you to miss something if you didn’t rotate out. It was time to put fresh eyes and ears up front. There was no telling what kind of intrusion or antipersonnel devices had been placed along the downward slope to prevent exactly what they were doing.
They moved much more slowly and deliberately now that they were on the valley side. They took great pains to make sure they didn’t create a single sound or send any loose rocks tumbling down the slope in front of them. They needed to be ghosts—and that’s exactly what they were.
When they arrived at the first overwatch site, they could tell right away that it wouldn’t work. It had looked good on satellite, but there was one side that was too exposed.