Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  The cleanup Thunderbolts saw the missile launch and banked right to strafe the orchard it had come from. Short cannon bursts from each hammered the orchard into a splintered tangle of fallen trees and dead men.

  Kevin heard new explosions cracking nearby and tore his horrified gaze away from the carnage in the woods. He glanced back toward the lead A-10 just as it suddenly disappeared in a wall of smoke and flame.

  45TH MEDIUM ANTIAIRCRAFT BATTERY, NEAR TUIL, SOUTH KOREA

  Alerted by the tank company commander’s last bellowed warning, the 45th’s gunners frantically swung their six S-60 towed antiaircraft guns through an arc, trying to lead Chon’s snub-nosed A-10. The jet was moving too low and fast for precise aiming. They could only try to throw a proximity-fused barrage ahead of the speeding plane and hope that it ran straight through the deadly cloud of explosions and spiraling fragments.

  Each gun only had time to lob three shells toward the selected aim point before Chon’s wingman spotted their muzzle flashes and strafed the battery into oblivion.

  Most of the North Korean gunners didn’t live to see it, but they got lucky.

  One of the eighteen 57-millimeter shells burst just above and behind Chon’s A-10. The explosion tore the plane’s starboard engine off and sent fragments slicing through A-10’s armor, deep into its fuselage — tearing through control cabling, hydraulics, and fuel tanks. The fragments didn’t cause any fires or internal explosions that would have destroyed the jet outright, but they did damage or destroy too many vital systems for it to remain flyable for long.

  BLUE DRAGON FLIGHT LEADER

  Chon swore under his breath as he wrestled to regain control. The unexpected flak burst had ripped the stick out of his hands and tossed the A-10 into a dive. Now, without its starboard engine, the plane bobbled through the air like an epileptic duck.

  The electronics for his HUD were out, gutted by a shell splinter, but he could see the ground rushing upward and his backup altimeter spinning down as the plane lost altitude.

  Grunting with the effort, Chon pulled the ungainly A-10’s nose back level less than a hundred meters above the snow-covered ground and risked a quick glance at the instrument panel. Red MALFUNCTION warning lights blinked on almost every crucial indicator. No good. He could feel the aircraft growing less responsive with each successive maneuver. It was time to get out.

  He pulled the wavering A-10 up into a shallow climb, feeling the stick shudder in his hands as the vibrations grew worse.

  “Black Dog Nine, this is Blue Dragon Leader. Over.” He paused, waiting for a response, and watched the altimeter climb slowly past seven hundred meters while his airspeed bled off — dropping from over 300 knots to just under 200 in seconds.

  “Blue Dragon Leader, this is Black Dog Nine. Over.” The airborne controller’s voice sounded calm, impartial, almost soothing.

  “Black Dog Nine, Blue Dragon Leader declaring emergency. Triple A hit east of Tuil. Ejecting. Out.” Chon put his hand on the ejection handle.

  “Roger your last, Blue Dragon Leader. SAR on the way. Good luck.” The voice sounded a little less detached, a little more human now.

  As the shuddering A-10 leveled out, Chon paused for just a split second to thank whatever gods were looking out for him. With a SAR — search and rescue — chopper on the way to him now, all he had to do was survive the ejection and any North Korean reception committee that might be waiting for him on the ground.

  He tapped the 9mm pistol in his shoulder holster once and punched out.

  NEAR TUIL, SOUTH KOREA

  Kevin saw the A-10 pilot’s chute blossom over the village moments before oily, black smoke from the burning tank company blotted out visibility. He shook his head, knowing that the pilot didn’t have a chance. The North Koreans would probably be on top of him before he could even shrug out of his parachute harness.

  Rhee saw the drifting parachute, too, and scrambled up out of the ditch. Kevin followed him, ready to move away under cover of the smoke.

  But Rhee had other ideas. Instead of heading south, toward safety, he lurched off north through the virgin snow with his M16 at the ready.

  Kevin stumbled after the South Korean lieutenant. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Rhee glanced sidelong at him and snapped the safety on his M16 off. “To help the man who helped us.”

  Oh, Jesus, Kevin thought, we’re gonna put our necks on the chopping block for a flyboy we’ve never met. But he jogged forward with Rhee, unslinging his own rifle as he ran. He was too tired and too cold to argue — too tired to even feel much fear at the thought of death. A stray thought flashed through his brain as they crested a low rise and came out of the smoke. Did most soldiers do the things they did in war because they were too damned fatigued to know any better?

  There wasn’t time to think the question through. The parachute was lower, sinking rapidly toward the cluster of houses that marked the small village they’d come through the night before. The wind shifted slightly and the chute skimmed low over the tangle of tiled roofs and stone walls to collapse in a billowing mass of windblown silk a couple of hundred meters ahead.

  Kevin saw the pilot roll over, stand up, and start frantically tugging at the chute’s harness to free himself. He ran faster and stumbled as Rhee put out a hand to stop him. The South Korean pointed to the right, toward other shapes emerging from the smoke — four North Korean infantrymen who’d survived the slaughter in the orchard.

  Damn. Now what? Rhee leaned close to him and said, “Keep moving. We can flank them. They’ll think we’re part of that.” He pointed back over the rise toward the burning tank company.

  Kevin nodded and they ran forward again through the ankle-deep snow, angling slightly to close with the enemy soldiers moving in on the A-10 pilot still struggling with his balky chute.

  Kevin watched the North Koreans carefully as he and Rhee closed with them, waiting for the sudden shout that would show they’d been spotted and identified.

  It didn’t come, but Kevin could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. Anytime now. They came down off the hill onto low, flat ground carpeted by frozen rice paddies and waist-high, snow-covered dikes. The North Koreans were still running on open ground as Kevin and Rhee slithered down the first embankment and half-ran, half-slid across the ice to the next.

  The four North Korean infantrymen were within thirty meters when Rhee suddenly flopped down on a paddy dike and brought his M16 up to his shoulder. Kevin did the same, and the movement caught the attention of one of the enemy soldiers. The man goggled at Kevin, yelled something to his comrades, and started to lift his AK47.

  Rhee fired a three-round burst into the North Korean. One bullet caught the man in the stomach, and he screamed and toppled to the ground, wriggling in short-lived agony. Rhee’s shots echoed back from the village and surrounding low hills.

  The other three were turning in shock when Kevin fired — a long, scything, uncontrolled burst that emptied his magazine and kicked up the snow all around them in a white mist. Two were thrown back dead, but the third dropped to his stomach, seeking cover. While Kevin frantically tried to snap a new magazine into his M16, he saw the muzzle of the North Korean’s automatic rifle swing toward him and flash.

  A bullet moving at supersonic speed cracked through the air near his head. Shit! Kevin jammed the magazine in place and started to bring his M16 around. He knew he wasn’t going to make it. The North Korean’s next burst couldn’t possibly miss.

  He gasped as Rhee fired, hammering the ground around the North Korean. Bright-red blood spilled out into the snow. Both Kevin and the South Korean lay motionless on the dike, looking for signs of movement. There weren’t any. The whole fight had taken less than ten seconds.

  Footsteps crunched in the snow behind them and they whirled round. It was the A-10 pilot, gun in hand and a broad smile plastered across his flat-featured face. Kevin could see an angry-looking bruise puffing up on the man’s left cheek.

  “I owe yo
u my thanks, gentlemen! I won’t ask what you’re doing here. Wise men don’t question heaven’s gifts.”

  Rhee stood up, slung his rifle across his shoulder, and saluted. “It was our pleasure, Major.”

  Kevin was speechless. They’d just killed four men, four human beings with fathers and mothers and others who loved them, and now these two were acting as if they’d just met in some fancy restaurant in Seoul. He could feel himself starting to shake, and he fought down a sudden urge to vomit. Suddenly he could almost hear Pierce’s voice, loud and booming in his ears. Don’t be an asshole, Lieutenant, it said. They would have done the same to you. Remember your platoon. Which would you rather be? Innocent and dead? Or alive and able to feel guilty?

  Kevin straightened. His hands were still shaking, but he no longer felt gut-wrenchingly sick. If that North Korean’s bullet had been one inch closer …

  Rotors beat off to the south, the sound rising above the crackling flames still consuming the smashed North Korean tank company. The pilot heard it, knelt, and shrugged a small radio off his shoulder. He extended its collapsible aerial and thumbed a switch.

  “Blue Dragon Leader. This is Echo Two-Niner. We have your signal. Identify yourself. Over.”

  “Chon Sang-Du. Major. Four five four niner two three.”

  A pause. Then the radio squawked again. “Confirmed, Blue Dragon Leader. Stand by for pickup.”

  Chon glanced up at Kevin and Rhee and then bent to the radio. “Roger, Echo Two-Niner. Two friendlies also at this location.”

  “Copy that, Blue Dragon Leader.” The rotors clattered closer.

  Chon looked up again at Kevin and Rhee. “Can I offer you two gentlemen a ride?”

  Rhee grinned at the Air Force major and gave him a thumbs-up.

  All three turned as the search and rescue UH-1H Huey helicopter lifted above the hill, hovered overhead for a moment, and then settled in to land amid a rotor-blown snowstorm.

  As they hurried toward the waiting chopper, Kevin felt the tension drain away. They were getting out in one piece. Back to their own lines. He was safe.

  He was wrong.

  CHAPTER 27

  Hard Target

  DECEMBER 27 — OVER THE FEBA

  Tony Christopher looked down at the white, dirty-gray, and brown landscape twenty thousand long, cold feet below his Falcon. They were crossing the “forward edge of the battle area” — the FEBA — in a relatively quiet sector and it showed. No explosions. No missile trails. Just a few burnt-out tanks and trucks littering the ground. The grunts were well hidden on both sides, either for warmth or for safety.

  He glanced up into a layer of hard-edged white cloud just over his fighter’s canopy. The Falcon’s air superiority gray camouflage paint blended nicely with the deceptively solid-looking ceiling overhead. The air was smooth, and the F-16 slid through it like a tiger stalking silently through tall grass.

  Tony’s eyes flicked over his HUD indicators briefly and then resumed their routine scan of the airspace around and below his plane, looking for the telltale shimmer of movement that might reveal a hostile. They were flying this mission on the Mark I Eyeball detector — for the moment, at least. He and the other Falcon pilots in this formation all had their radars off to avoid alerting the NKs to their approach. Tony hoped that the F-15 Eagles flying top cover and Stingray, the E-3 AWACS plane orbiting well to the south, were keeping a sharp lookout on the high side of the clouds.

  Tony flew onward, trusting to his instincts and experience to warn him if something went wrong. One part of his conscious mind disengaged itself from the purely mechanical task of flying the airplane and started reviewing the mission coming up. Any way you cut it, this one was going to be a bitch.

  “MISSION SUMMARY: Provide flak suppression and close air cover for South Korean F-4s assigned to destroy divisional artillery 2 kilometers west KUWHA.” It had looked easy enough on paper earlier this morning. Easy that is until you stopped to think about what those words really meant.

  Tony knew all too well. It meant coordinating the movements of nearly fifty aircraft from different units. Reconnaissance planes to take prestrike photos. Tony’s F-16s for defense suppression. South Korean F-4D fighter bombers to make the actual attack on the primary targets themselves. American F-15 Eagles for high cover. An irreplaceable E-3 AWACS for control and long-range radar warning. And finally, more recon aircraft to photograph the results of the strike. Their photos would show if they had to go back in and do it again.

  It all formed an intricate dance, and Tony knew his place in it. He’d practiced often enough in peacetime, and it had worked well enough in the war, so far.

  This target, though, was an especially difficult one. “Divisional artillery” for the North Koreans meant 152mm howitzers buried in concrete emplacements, called HARTs, for hardened artillery sites. The guns were always guarded by multiple batteries of automatic weapons and sometimes even SAMs. And as soon as enemy radar picked them up, there’d be fighters added to the other defenses. All in all, not a fun time.

  He didn’t envy the South Korean F-4 Phantom crews their task either. The recon photos the squadron’s intelligence officer, George Michaels, call sign “Pistol,” had laid out at the predawn mission briefing had shown what they were up against.

  There were three batteries of 152mm guns, each with four pieces. Each gun sat secure in its own concrete emplacement, protected by a roof nearly two meters thick and by armored blast doors to the front. The gun areas were further protected by thick earthen dikes. Each HART also had tunnels connecting it to its neighbors and to well-stocked, underground magazines. Cratering those minifortresses was going to take split-second precision — precision the South Korean pilots might find hard to produce with tracers reaching out for them and SAMs flying all around.

  Tony shook his head slowly. That made the squadron’s defense suppression role vital to the overall success of the mission. He glanced back at the other planes pacing his Falcon. Each had six Rockeye cluster bombs hanging under its wings. Rockeyes were designed to scatter explosive bomblets that could damage antiaircraft guns and SAM vehicles, kill their crews, and knock out fire control radars. While the eight F-16s assigned to the mission couldn’t hope to destroy all the sites defending the HARTS, they could suppress and disrupt enough of them to give the F-4s the “quiet” time they needed.

  And in all likelihood the F-16s would be called on to do even more than that. Besides their air-to-ground ordnance, all of his planes carried a center-line drop tank and two Sidewinders on their wingtips. They’d loiter over the battle area after their attack runs and intercept any NK fighters that tried to break up the Phantoms’ HART tap dance. Stingray, the AWACS plane aloft, could warn them of approaching enemy aircraft and give them a steer.

  There was someone else in on this little party, too. A converted cargo plane, call sign Rivet. Tony didn’t know much about its capabilities, but the grapevine said it was covered with antennas and most of its crew spoke Korean. He and his pilots had been instructed to treat any Rivet calls as gospel.

  Tony glanced down at his INS display. It was vital that they arrive at the right location and right altitude within thirty seconds of the planned time. Timing was everything in this kind of mission. It wouldn’t do at all to screw up during his first flight with a new rank.

  A new rank. Tony still couldn’t believe it. The squadron CO, Lieutenant Colonel “Shadow” Robbins, had called him over into the planning area that morning, before the brief. He’d assumed that Shadow wanted to see him about something connected to the morning’s mission. He’d been wrong.

  Robbins had stood as Tony walked over to his desk, looking him over. “How are you feeling, Saint?”

  Tony remembered stifling a yawn. Six hours sleep wasn’t enough to regenerate the nervous energy expended in flying and fighting at high speed, not with lives depending on each and every decision. But he’d answered the CO’s question the only way he could. After all, everybody was short on crew rest.
“Fine, sir. What can I do for you?”

  Shadow’s next words had brought him fully awake. “Quite a bit. First thing is, stand at attention!”

  He’d braced, wondering just what the hell was up and noticing that all activity had stopped in the Mission Planning Cell. He’d also glanced out the corner of his eye and seen people filling the doorway.

  The answer to his unspoken question had come seconds later when Robbins picked up a telex and started reading. “In accordance with the secretary of the Air Force instruction dated twenty-Seven April 1986, combat personnel serving in billets may be promoted to ranks required for proper execution of those duties. Therefore, by order of General G. F. Taylor, Commander Eighth Air Force, you are promoted to the rank of major, with all the privileges and responsibilities of the rank. And I’m making you ops officer effective immediately.”

  Major Christopher. Tony mouthed the words beneath his oxygen mask, after first making sure that his radio wasn’t transmitting. They had a nice ring to them, but he hadn’t really wanted the promotion — at least not the way he’d gotten it. Stepping into Kenneth Beam’s dead shoes seemed like kind of an unlucky thing to do. And the burst of applause from the other members of the squadron clustered at the briefing room door had made him even more uneasy. Still, he knew that the squadron needed an excuse to celebrate, to feel happy. It was one way to help forget all the empty chairs in the pilots’ mess.

  And Hooter — well, Hooter was just Hooter, Tony thought, grinning to himself. Trust his wingman to bring him down to earth. The tousle-haired little runt had been waiting for him in the ready room, kneeling, and as Tony had come close, he’d bent at the waist and touched his head to the floor with his palms on either side.

  Tony hadn’t had any choice but to laugh. “Hooter, you’ve been over here too long.”

  “Just showing proper respect for the exalted status of my flight leader.” He’d stood up, dusting off his knees and reaching out to shake Tony’s hand. “Congratulations, Saint.”