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LOCATION: GOVERNMENT BONDED CUSTOMS WAREHOUSE
CITY: SINUIJU, NORTH KOREA
DATE: APRIL 16, 2026 | TIME: 2300 HOURS
This was the part that made Chen Guo nervous. His wife always made fun of him for being a bad liar.
He would always tell her there are worse things to say about a man, but the point was made.
While he was lined up to leave Dandong, he checked the second envelope in the glove box. It was all he could do to not leave the truck there and run home to tell his wife right then and there.
The amount of money in that stack of bank notes would set him and his family up for life. He stashed it into his bag and kept his eyes forward.
Guo's mind was still racing as he showed the first cargo manifest on the Chinese side. The inspector glanced over it, and raised his eyebrows when he got to the middle of the page.
"Move along," he said, removing one page and passing the rest of the packet back to Guo.
All standard procedure. Except for that eyebrow.
What's in the back of this truck? Guo wondered as he pulled forward onto the bridge. Traffic wasn't too bad tonight. Shouldn't take too long.
Once he arrived in the bonded customs warehouse on the North Korean side, it was about to get tricky. Because the instructions the men from Beijing had given him were clear.
Two minutes before he arrived in the warehouse, he was to take a pill they provided. They said he would experience some severe discomfort, but in the end, they promised him he would be safe.
His hands shook as he put the tablet in his mouth and took a swig of water.
As always, Guo backed into the spot indicated by the customs official.
He reached for the second cargo manifest.
Opened his door.
The smell of damp concrete and hydraulic fluid hit him.
He took one step down, and his world went black.
When he came to, he was on the cement floor surrounded by all seven men and women who worked the night shift at the warehouse.
One was fanning him with a clipboard, and two others were helping him sit up. The rest stood around, asking him in perfect Chinese if he was feeling okay.
Slowly, Guo stood with their help, and once his head cleared, he told them he felt fine.
Fantastic, in fact. Because he knew he'd played his part well.
"Alright, show's over," the foreman said. "Let's get his truck unloaded so he can get back home."
During the commotion that conveniently drew the attention of the entire warehouse staff, two men and four women exited the back of the Foton Aumark box truck.
Before they opened the truck's rear doors, Nina Vosper cast her camouflage spell Obfuscation, and both the cameras and the people in the building saw nothing as the six disappeared into the night.
Grim and his team quickly found the military express train bound for Nampo and boarded the third car, as per Li's instructions.
The rail car was labeled "TOP SECRET NO INSPECTION" in Korean, and it was full of smaller, stacked wooden crates. They filed to the back of the car and found what they were looking for.
A huge wooden box took up the back third of the car, and a small door stood open. The System translated the text for them. In both Chinese and Korean, it was labeled "Munitions."
"Not this shit again," Brick muttered as he looked at the enclosed space.
Sienna put her hand on his shoulder and reminded him of his reward. A smile on his face, Brick ducked and stepped inside.
Once they were in the oversized crate and closed the door, they found lighting, food and water. And a note from Li Wei.
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With apologies from the Chinese government.
And from your friend.
Good luck out there.
Jade Sentinel
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The six sat cross-legged and settled in for the seven hour journey on the express train bound for Nampo, the largest Naval shipyard in North Korea.
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TEAM: MOUNTAIN TEAM ALPHA
CITY: IWON, NORTH KOREA
DATE: APRIL 17, 2026 | TIME: 0200 HOURS
After they finished at the airport, Mountain Team Alpha drove the armored transport further into the mountains to the west.
Just before 0200, they found their next target: the fiber optic junction for the eastern seaboard.
All top secret communications to and from the military installations on the east coast of North Korea routed through this station.
It was time to make those communications an impossibility.
They pulled the vehicle right up to the gate. Two guards out front stood quickly, shielding their eyes from the bright head lamps.
Four coughs from suppressed rifles later, and they dropped to the dirt.
One of the Alpha team members leapt over the chain fence and hit the button to open it.
It had barely swung open two feet before the team was inside, fanning out to defensive positions.
Two men loaded the guards into the transport, to be disposed of elsewhere.
The other four entered the building. They were a little surprised to see only a single technician inside.
He was sitting at a desk and drinking coffee, when he suddenly found himself surrounded by four men with rifles pointed at him.
The technician dropped his coffee to the floor and fell backward in his chair.
He got up and immediately dropped to his knees.
"Please…" he stammered, "I have a family. I won't say anything. Please let me go."
The SEALs looked at each other, and the team leader nodded.
They pooled together all the cash they'd taken from the men at the motor pool. It was enough for the technician to eat for a month.
One of the Korean SEALs took the technician's wallet from his pocket and made a show of memorizing the man's address.
He handed the wallet back and stuffed the cash in the technician's coat pocket.
"You never saw us," he said. "Now go home, and come back tomorrow for your shift like nothing happened. Understood?"
The technician just nodded and shuffled out. He didn't even glance at the other two SEALs on his way out. Just got in his car and drove away.
"Let's get to work," the Alpha team leader said. "We've got to be at the exfil point in three hours."
They split up.
Two men drained the coolant from the backup generators. Without cooling, the fiber gear would overheat in minutes and shut down.
It would look like standard equipment failure, but would take hours to fix.
While they did this, two more team members used handheld lasers to burn the fiber connectors. Wisps of acrid smoke rose as the wires burned, and they've move on to the next. They burned as many connections as they had time for.
The last two team members were outside, behind the building.
When they got the signal everyone else was done, they cut the main power feed to the station.
As they were leaving the small building, they heard sizzling and fizzing from inside. They could see sparks as they shut the door.
As the Alpha Team pulled away from the regional fiber optic junction, they heard a few loud pops. They latched the gate behind them and drove into the dark, headed toward the predetermined exfil location.
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TEAM: MOUNTAIN TEAM BRAVO
CITY: CHAHO, NORTH KOREA
DATE: APRIL 17, 2026 | TIME: 0200 HOURS
Mountain Team Bravo rolled back north along the same coastal road they'd taken hours earlier, the box truck's diesel engine rumbling low in the night. The checkpoint they'd passed before was empty now, its guard shack lit only by the flicker of a dying bulb.
Thirty minutes later, they turned off toward their final target. It was the backup lifeline for the east coast's military communications: a microwave relay hub.
The compound rose from the slope like a shadow, a cluster of low concrete buildings crowned by radar dishes and spidery antenna masts that rose more than two hundred feet into the night sky.
Five guards milled in the yard, their breath visible in the chill air. Bravo's sniper and spotter lay prone in the truck's shadow. Five muffled coughs from suppressed rifles cut through the quiet, and each man dropped where he stood.
There was no time to hide the bodies.
The team flowed through the gate, boots whispering over gravel. C-4 was placed with efficiency. The small, shaped charges tucked against the hub's electrical feed and the base of the tallest masts. Timers glowed faint green in the dark as they were armed.
The six withdrew to the truck. Just enough fuel left to make it back.
They drove in silence, parking the vehicle in the same shadowed corner of the fishing lot where they'd found it. The keys went on the dash, exactly as before.
They slipped into the forest, moonlight mottling the ground ahead. At the shallow inlet they'd marked earlier, the cache of swim gear lay just where they'd buried it under a layer of coarse sand and forest brush. Bravo dug it free, the rubbery scent of damp neoprene rising in the cool night air.
Minutes later, Alpha emerged from the treeline, their eyes still alert. They'd returned their own transport to the motor pool and made the last stretch on foot.
All twelve men stowed weapons and other gear into waterproof sacks and began wriggling into cold, slick wetsuits.
Oxygen tanks were checked. Regulators tested. The System's mission clock glowed faintly on every interface: 0400 exactly.
They swam out in two columns, the world narrowing to the muted hiss of their breath and the cold grip of the Sea of Japan. As they descended, the sea floor loomed in ghostly moonlight filtered through black water. The SDVs waited for them, moored to the sea floor, the inert shapes half-swallowed by shadow.
Each team loaded into their craft. The electric motors engaged with a low, thrumming hum, and they slid silently toward the rendezvous point.
When the Colorado's hatch loomed out of the dark, it yawned open to swallow them one at a time. The chamber sealed, seawater drained away, and within minutes the SEALs stood in the control room, hands wrapped around steaming mugs of coffee.
Commander Darius "Spike" Coleman glanced at his XO and gave a single nod. Orders rippled through the crew, and the Colorado angled into firing position.
At exactly 0600, the first edge of sunlight broke the horizon.
And three Tomahawks erupted from the depths in a plume of bubbles and force. One arrowed straight toward the Chaho submarine base. The second curved south to the Munchon Naval Base. The third knifed into the Wonsan Harbor.
The strikes landed within heartbeats of each other, their detonations blooming into rolling pillars of fire and black smoke.
At Iwon Airport, Alpha's handiwork came alive. The control tower toppled, fuel depots and radar arrays vanished in blinding fireballs, and the runway tore itself apart in a rain of steel and concrete.
Outside Chaho, the munitions and fuel depot Bravo had marked for destruction lit the coastline in a roiling inferno that was a wonder to behold.
If anyone in the area was left alive to witness it.
In less than five minutes, North Korea's east coast war machine had gone silent, its response capability gutted before most of its soldiers even opened their eyes.