Devil's Fork

CHAPTER 43

  EARLY THURSDAY

  Incheon, South Korea

  A sea breeze ran through an empty dark street in Incheon. As it was the middle of the night, few cars drove by. Most people were inside. A still silence permeated through the air.

  On one side of the street, shadows moved cautiously. A team of 40 men walked slowly and silently. Dressed in all black, they carried small rifles in their arms. Masks hid their faces and helmets shielded their heads. They had tubes sticking out of their eyes, giving them light in the dark. They bent slightly at the hips and almost walked in step. From a distance they looked like one large spider crawling up the street. They were one block away from a house to which they had been asked to pay a visit.

  They stopped as they came to a street corner. They planned to enter a house on the next street. The roads around them continued to sit in silence. Someone walking or driving by might not have noticed the presence of the shadows. After two simple hand signals the team split into two long lines of twenty and crossed the street side by side. They measured their steps, and despite their bent knees and waists, their heads did not bob up and down. They walked like cats.

  Half a block away from their target, the column of shadows closest to the road bent lower and began to walk faster. As the two groups approached their target house, the first group of twenty assembled in a straight line on one side of the main door. The second, faster moving group swung around and lined up on the other side of the front door. There were now two lines of men flaring out of either side of the door. Each shadow checked his rifle and equipment. When done, each man put his hand quietly on the shoulder of the man in front, to signal readiness. When each front man’s shoulder had been tapped, a hand signal went up. The front man of the left column reached for the doorknob and gently tried turning it. More force would have been used to turn a volume knob in a car. But the gentle touch was all that was needed. The point man felt that the door was locked. He threw up another hand signal. The second man on the left side team stepped out of his column. He pulled out what looked like a three-foot long metal cylinder with handles sticking out. He paused for a moment facing the door. He signaled his colleagues to ready themselves. He took one more moment for himself.

  Suddenly he hit the end of the battering ram right into the doorknob. The entire door shook and opened half an inch. He swung his battering ram one more time right above the doorknob. The door flew open. The battering ram operator took one large step back. Instantly, the shadows on either side of the door sprung through the threshold, alternating one by one.

  Inside, the first few men from the right side had moved to the far right corner, effectively making a 90 degree turn upon passing through the door. In the room ahead of them they saw two men sitting on the floor who started to stand up. The point man and second man put one bullet through each of them. They moved briskly into the room and turned at the far corner.

  The left side team made the 90 degree turn in the other direction and moved to the far corner of the room in front of them. It was empty. There was no furniture in the house.

  The men behind the first two teams went to the stairs that were straight ahead of the door. The point man took a quick look up and aimed his rifle at a 45 degree angle in front of him. He started slowly placing foot ahead of foot on the steps. The men behind him followed.

  The room to the right had filled up with black uniformed men at this point. They started walking towards the back of the house. There was a door at the back of the room. They approached the sides of it, rifles raised. After they were all positioned, they leapt one by one through the door into the room on the other side. As they moved into the back room, they each walked to the corners at the right and left side, checking the rest of the room once their corners were clear. After they had cleared the empty room, they realized where they were. It was a kitchen. As they looked into the adjacent room on the other side of the house, they saw the other team of shadows flooding it. It was empty as well. Now the entire first floor was clear. The men turned back and walked towards the stairs at the front of the house. The other team was ascending them now.

  The team on the stairs had reached the first landing by now. As the point man turned on it to continue up he saw something move at the top. He did not have time to react – whatever it was had disappeared. The point man took a step up and then some kind of round object started bouncing down the stairs. The rugged shell and the clank it made on each step revealed its identity immediately. A grenade was approaching them. The point man turned around and pointed a finger back. The men behind him started backing down the stairs. The point man backed around the landing and tried to take a couple steps down the stairs. The grenade exploded as it neared the landing. The team on the stairs felt the shock. A fiery explosion shot through the stairwell, going up to where the grenade came from and downwards too. The team on the stairs, bent down and covering their heads, managed to withstand the blast as it shot above them. As they came around, they heard shouting at the top of the stairs. Someone up there seemed to be willing to put up a fight. The person at the top was warning his comrades. The point man looked back and saw that the men behind him were ready. He made a step onto the landing. As he turned on the landing he saw a man’s face at the top of the stairs. The man’s face was a little too relaxed given the situation, the point man thought. Then the man at the top pulled out a gun – a small pistol. He took a few shots down the stairs. His firing was slightly wild and aimless. The man at the top then disappeared. The point man and his team were lying prone on the steps. A bullet flying past one’s head had the stopping power of one that hit its target.

  Soon the man at the top reappeared. He stuck his pistol out again and began firing repeatedly. This time the point man and his colleague behind him returned fire. Several shots flew at the man at the top, but he hid himself too quickly.

  A grenade started plopping down from the top of the steps again. The game continued. The shadows on the stairs realized that their night was going to be longer than they had hoped.