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Lee keyed his microphone to transmit externally and spoke in Korean, saying, “This is Foxtrot Echo Sierra Four Zero to Sunwi-do. Foxtrot Echo Sierra Four Zero is complying with instructions from Sunwi-do, conducting one last sweep to the south and returning to Incheon. Over.”

Strangely, there was no reply. Lee barely registered the silence, he was focused intently on the instruments before him.

Park fought to keep the Sea King steady as they struggled through the storm. Gusts buffeted the craft. The cyclic control was a steel rod set into the floor of the cockpit, controlling the direction in which the helicopter faced. The control stick shook in his hand as the storm raged around them.

Lee double checked his instrumentation. He understood the concept of target fixation and the tendency for pilots to drift into anything they stared at for too long. Although he could see the breaking caps of the waves rushing beneath them, to focus on the ocean would be a mistake. The wave height was misleading. In the dark of night, all either pilot could rely on was their instruments. Night flights were particularly taxing, and with the weather, Lee couldn’t afford to let his concentration drift. He switched from external coms to internal.

“Bring us up to fifty meters and take us to a hundred knots,” he said to the co-pilot, looking at the radar and the fluorescent green outline that marked the shore several kilometers off in the distance. “They know we’re here. There’s no point in trying to hide anymore. Let’s hope they buy our course correction as legit.”

Lee was speaking in English as a courtesy to the Navy SEALs listening in on the cockpit chatter. English was the de facto norm for aviation, and should have been the accepted language for communication with Sunwi-do, but the North Koreans were nothing if not belligerent. International standards were of no concern to them. They preferred forcing the South Koreans to use Korean over the airwaves.

The churning ocean may as well have been featureless. The flashing strobe lights on the chopper reflected off the waves, breaking through the night briefly every few seconds. Their searchlight lit up a patch of sea out in front of the helicopter, but the light was for show. They weren’t looking for anyone.

Although the Sea King was carrying eight US Navy SEALs, this flight would be logged as a search and rescue mission, with the manifest noting only four South Koreans onboard: Lee, Park, the loadmaster and a rescue swimmer.

Lee knew well enough not to ask about the purpose of the American military operation. The South Korean Coast Guard had been used for several other unofficial missions in the past few years. Their regular patrols and the occasional rescue of fishermen aboard a swamped trawler or the need to ferry medicines to merchant ships gave them a veneer of credibility with the North Koreans. The Coast Guard was a known entity, nothing out of the usual even at the most unusual of times, but somehow the North Koreans smelled a rat on this cold, dark night.

The Sea King helicopter had a pronounced radar profile, but that didn’t seem to bother the Americans. They could have used one of their stealth helicopters, but even within the restricted zone inside their military base, keeping a top secret helicopter under wraps was no easy feat. It might have been invisible in the dark of night, but on the ground such a helicopter attracted too much attention. There were too many curious civilians and service personnel. The potential for compromising a mission was too great, and the US military had long known the simple options were often the best. Paranoia was rampant within the North Korean military. All it took was a few loose words in a bar or a leak to a reporter and tensions could escalate. Piggybacking off the coast guard was a natural fit. There was nothing out of the ordinary about their daily ops.

The coast guard was the first resident at the new international airport outside of Incheon. For the most part, it was little more than a construction zone, with the airport’s completion not due for years to come. Construction work made it easy for the SEALs to come and go as US engineering contractors without attracting unwanted attention. There was no official policy of course, but the US Navy SEALs liked hitching a ride with the South Korean Coast Guard, as their presence with the Guard was unnoticed.