Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  “Admiral, we’ve detected Down Beat radar emissions. The bogies are probably Backfire bombers.” The carrier’s electronic warfare officer looked a little pale, but his training was still holding.

  Brown was concerned but not alarmed. The Soviets often used American battle groups as live targets for training exercises. He’d seen it in both the Mediterranean and the Pacific. They did it to make a point, or to harass a formation. Both of these in our case, he thought. Well, let ’em come in and play. If the Soviets wanted to make a serious attack, they’d have sent at least three times the number of supersonic bombers now closing on his formation. No, this was just another game.

  He listened to the GQ klaxon echoing through the carrier and watched as MANNED AND READY appeared by every weapons mount and sensor system in the task force. The Soviets wanted to practice? Fine. Brown and his ships would get some more practice in, too. He moved to the anti-air plot and started snapping out orders.

  CHAPTER 32

  Roads South

  DECEMBER 30 — KIMPO AIRPORT, SEOUL

  “Miss Larson?”

  Anne looked up, startled by the Army officer’s question. She was still sitting on the floor in the main terminal, in the same spot where she’d tried to sleep all night. After the airfield had been shut down, she hadn’t been able to find anyone with new orders for her group, and there’d been no way to get anywhere. She’d tried butting her head against obstinate officialdom for many hours before giving up and storming back to her people where they sprawled on the floor. It had been a long night for all of them. Sleep hadn’t been easy to come by with the muffled thumping of heavy artillery growing ever louder to the north. But now maybe somebody had remembered where they were.

  The Army officer standing above her wore black “railroad tracks,” or captain’s bars, on the collar of his camouflaged uniform. The name sewn over his tunic pocket read HUTCHINS. He was a little shorter than Tony but looked personable enough.

  “Miss Larson?” he asked again.

  “That’s right,” she said, and stood up, feeling every aching muscle. “Are you from the base? My people and I need transport back to…”

  Hutchins held up a hand to stop her. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re not going to be able to get you back to the base. The Army’s orders were to evacuate you, and that’s exactly what I’m supposed to do. I’ve got a cobbled-together platoon and enough trucks to carry you all waiting outside. The new evacuation airfield is Kunsan, and my orders are to get your group there.”

  Anne shook her head. That couldn’t be right. Kunsan was over two hundred kilometers south of Seoul. There had to be closer airfields. She dug into her memory. “Can’t you get us out at Ch’unch’on or Suwon? It’ll take hours to get to Kunsan.”

  “My orders say Kunsan, Miss Larson,” Hutchins’s tone was apologetic, but firm. “Both those other fields are getting too close to the front lines. Besides, Kunsan’s supposed to be pretty heavily defended. It’s the safest place in South Korea right now.”

  Anne stopped herself from arguing. What the captain was saying made sense. She didn’t know what had made the upper-ups choose Kunsan as the primary air logistics point, but at least they had sense enough to defend it. Not like here. There were pillars of smoke still visible around Kimpo’s runways if you wanted to look for them. She didn’t.

  She glanced down at her watch and then at the hollow-eyed people sprawled across their luggage all around her. “Okay. When do we leave?”

  Hutchins smiled ruefully. “Right now, I’m afraid. The NKs are still moving south, and the Army wants your group and a lot of other people out of Seoul immediately.”

  Everyone around had heard their conversation, and with a soft groan her people got up and arranged themselves. Carrying the precious computer tapes, now more out of date than Anne liked to think about, they followed Hutchins through the crowded terminal.

  The airport’s normal office arrangements and passenger procedures had been completely superseded by preset wartime plans, and now last night’s air raid had confused things even more. They walked by offices set up on makeshift desks in the concourse and past crates packed with military gear and documents stacked all along the walls. Civilian evacuees like themselves clustered in every spot of open floor space.

  Hutchins led the party down a motionless escalator, through an unlit corridor, and suddenly into the open through an unused loading dock. They gasped as they came out into a howling wind that cut right to the bone, and they hastily buttoned up against the unexpected cold. A half dozen trucks sat idling by the roadside, a much more beat-up group than the ones they’d ridden in out to Kimpo.

  The soldiers who were supposed to serve as their escort matched the appearance of the trucks. In fact, if anything, they looked even more ragged. Anne could see two wearing bloodstained bandages, and the tall, black sergeant bellowing orders was in civilian clothes. The only sign of his rank was an armband with three stripes taped to it. The weapons the soldiers carried were even more varied, a mix of M16s, old M14 rifles, and even a few riot guns.

  The dismay she felt must have been mirrored on her face, because Hutchins answered her unspoken question. “No, ma’am, they aren’t regular infantry. If they were, they’d be up on the line.”

  He kept his voice low. “About half of them are from an artillery battery that was wiped out the first day. The rest are from supply or administrative units, and two of them that I know of were in the stockade for a little excessive celebrating on Christmas Eve.” He smiled crookedly.

  She didn’t smile back. “And just what did you do before the war started, Captain Hutchins?”

  Hutchins looked her in the eye and said, “I was administrative assistant to the Second Infantry Division’s civil affairs officer.” He saw her lips tighten and shook his head. “Look, Miss Larson, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t try read a book by its cover. I’ve been through the Infantry School, and I speak passable Korean. That’s one reason I got this job. Trust me.”

  He turned away to face the others in her group. He raised his voice to make sure they could all hear him. “Look, we don’t plan on doing any fighting. All we’ve got to do is load you people onto the trucks and see you safely to Kunsan. My men and I will do our best to make the trip as fast and safe as we can.”

  Hutchins smiled thinly as they started grumbling. “Count your blessings, people. My men and I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.”

  Turning his head back over his shoulder, he called, “Sergeant Evans! Load ’em up!”

  The grumbling didn’t stop, but the civilians moved to obey. They’d had enough of being this close to the war. Evans chivied them into six different groups and assigned each to a different truck. Their complaints got even sharper when they climbed into the backs of the frigid, canvas-sided vehicles. The cold morning sun hadn’t done anything to warm the trucks up. And just like those on the trip out to the airport, they’d have to be warmed by human body heat. Veterans now, Anne’s logistics staffers made sure the flaps on the backs of their trucks were securely tied down.

  This time Anne didn’t have to ride in the back. Hutchins asked her to sit with him in the cab of the lead five-ton truck. She squeezed in beside the captain and his driver, a cheerful-looking PFC named Bell, gratefully. It might be cramped and uncomfortable, but at least the truck cab had a heater.

  Hutchins was the last one in, and as soon as the door slammed behind him, they roared off, bumping over a half-plowed access road littered with debris.

  As they drove away from the airport, Hutchins explained their route on a marked-up map. They wouldn’t be allowed to use Highway 1, the main north-south artery between Seoul and Taejon. Instead the convoy would have to parallel it on smaller roads, first to a town called Anyang, then to the walled city of Suwon, and south from there.

  “With luck, we’ll be past Anyang by early afternoon, and Suwon by nightfall.”

  Anne looked at her watch, then at the map Hutchins had unfolded
across his lap. Anyang was only about twenty kilometers away, and it was just after nine in the morning. “Why so long to get to Anyang?’

  Hutchins corrected her. “Oh, we’ll get to Anyang in about an hour, but it’s one of the major traffic control points. After that, it’ll probably take us a couple of hours to reach the checkpoints and then get passed through. After that, our main problem should be traffic.” He shrugged. “I really don’t know much about what the roads are like outside the city.”

  Anne had the feeling he knew more than he was telling her, but she decided not to press it. Hutchins was in charge, and she’d just have to trust his judgment, at least for the time being. She slumped back against the seat to stare out at the passing scenery through the truck’s half-fogged windows. Bell had his defroster going full blast, but it wasn’t doing much good.

  They made fairly good time for the first few kilometers. All nonessential civilian vehicles were banned from the streets, and military convoys like theirs had absolute right of way.

  Things started changing once they left the city limits. They drove south on a two-lane road, through a countryside dotted with tiny farms, rice paddies, orchards, and small villages. War hadn’t touched this area much yet, Anne thought, as they drove through the main street of one village. Women and children were still walking out of shops with bags and bundles. But then she realized just how wrong her first impressions had been. Every house in the village had its windows boarded up, and there were armed police on every street corner. What was more, she couldn’t see a single young or middle-aged man wearing civilian clothes. They’d all been called up for active duty.

  Bell started cursing monotonously under his breath as he drove. The traffic was getting thicker, with civilian carts and cars jammed with women, children, and old men slowly giving way only when he leaned on the truck’s horn. Everything was heading south. Occasionally Hutchins would yell something in Korean out the window, but it didn’t help much. Nobody wanted to risk getting stuck in the snow heaped along the roadside.

  Their inching progress finally stopped altogether, and Hutchins snapped at Bell to stop hitting his horn. They sat with the engine idling for several more minutes without seeing any signs of movement in the packed mass of vehicles blocking the road ahead. At last the captain scrambled down out of the cab and motioned Anne to come with him.

  Reluctant to leave the warmth of the cab, but curious about the delay, she zipped up her jacket and followed him around the back of the truck. Most of Hutchins’s men were in the back, including his sergeant. “Evans, we’re blocked in solid. Send two men forward to see what the holdup is.”

  The noncom nodded and picked out two men, who, unsmiling and silent, picked up their weapons and jumped out. Anne followed them with her eyes as they threaded their way forward through the traffic jam. They were out of sight within a couple of hundred meters.

  She shook her head. If she had to be out here in the cold, she wanted to at least be able to see what was going on. Anne moved back through the freezing slush to the front of the truck. She climbed up onto the front bumper and from there up onto the hood.

  Hutchins saw what she had in mind and followed her. He helped her up onto the roof of the truck cab and stood below on the hood himself. The extra couple of meters of height made all the difference in their line of sight.

  Ahead, the road wound off to the left, following a shallow valley. For at least a kilometer it was packed with motionless carts, vehicles, and people. Beyond that a bend blocked their view, but she could see a makeshift-looking sign with something scrawled on it in large Hangul characters.

  Hutchins was looking at it through binoculars and translated. “Military Control Point. No civilian traffic beyond this sign without a pass.” He lowered the glasses and looked at the mass in front of them. “They’re not letting civilians pass, but the civilians aren’t leaving.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Jesus, what a way to run a railroad. We’ve got to get moving. Right now the North Koreans are moving south faster than we are.”

  He saw the look on her face and hastened to add, “Don’t worry, Miss Larson, we’ll be moving again soon enough. And remember, the fighting is still all north of the Han.”

  Anne nodded, knowing that the captain’s words were intended to reassure her. They didn’t. Suddenly she shivered. The wind was growing stronger and colder, cutting right through the jacket a salesman had once assured her would stand up to a Chicago winter. She thought wryly that she should have remembered to ask the man how Chicago compared to South Korea.

  Hutchins steadied her as she climbed down to the road. Remembering how cold the rest of her people must be, Anne started to work her way from truck to truck, telling everyone about the delay while keeping the back flap as tight as possible. For the most part everyone was comfortable.

  After a seemingly endless twenty minutes, the two privates came back, accompanied by a Korean corporal. He saw Hutchins, braced and saluted, and then launched into a rapid-fire report in Korean. The captain replied in the same language, and the corporal turned and trotted back through the crowd.

  Hutchins caught Anne’s eye. “There are two more convoys in front of us. They’re using military police to clear a path through the traffic, and they expect to be up to us in about an hour.”

  They waited, taking turns climbing up on the cab to check the MPs’ progress. After forty-five minutes with no sign of activity, Anne gave up and crawled back into the cab to try to get some sleep. Bell, an old campaigner, was already snoring.

  She tossed and turned, fighting her frustration with the knowledge that she’d done everything she possibly could. It didn’t help much. She knew that every hour away from her computer would mean more work sorting out the chaotic supply situation once they did finally reach Japan.

  She fell asleep making a list of things to do once she got there. The only thing was that Tony’s face kept coming between her and her list.

  ABOARD DPRK LIBERATOR, IN THE YELLOW SEA

  “Sonar reports high-speed screws bearing two six five degrees, Comrade Captain.”

  Captain Min Sang-Du’s head snapped up from the chart laid out before him. “All stop! And pass the word to all compartments for complete silence.”

  He straightened and stood listening as the faint whine of Liberator’s electric motors died away. The sound of the air recirculation system faded away next. The crew of his Romeo-class submarine would have to subsist on increasingly foul air until this latest danger had been avoided. With the heads malfunctioning the way they were, Min wasn’t sure anybody would notice.

  At last, satisfied that his orders for silence were being obeyed, Min stepped out of the cramped plot office and moved forward to the Sonar Room. For some unknown reason, the Soviet naval architects who’d designed the Romeo class had seen fit to cloister the submarines’ sonar operators in a tiny, inaccessible compartment without an intercom. As a result, sonar information had to be relayed by voice to the control room. And Min didn’t want to risk bellowing questions back and forth while someone on the surface was hunting his boat.

  “Contact now bearing two seven two degrees.” The lieutenant manning the Feniks-model passive sonar had his eyes closed while he fiddled with the gain and frequency controls.

  “Evaluation?” Min didn’t bother asking about range. Passive sonar couldn’t provide that kind of information without a lot of bearing cross-checks. And besides, the Feniks sonar his submarine mounted couldn’t hear anything much more than five kilometers away in these confined waters. Whatever was up there was already much too close for comfort.

  “Contact evaluated as a destroyer, type still unknown. Screws turning for an estimated ten knots. No active sonar operating.”

  Min rubbed his chin reflectively. The enemy destroyer wasn’t actively hunting them, then, at least not yet. Perhaps he’d ordered absolute silence just in time.

  He closed his eyes, trying to recall all the information shown on the chart back in the plo
t office. They were still sixty kilometers from their objective, and he had only a little more than twelve hours to reach it. There wasn’t much margin for error built into the mission timetable, and he couldn’t waste a lot of time lying doggo like this. Even arriving as little as half an hour late would force him to abort the mission. And that was something the admirals in Pyongyang would probably not forgive.

  “Contact now bearing three zero five degrees and fading. It seems to have missed us, Comrade Captain!” The sonar operator’s voice was jubilant.

  Min opened his eyes and smiled. Another barrier passed. He clapped a fatherly hand on the sonar operator’s shoulder. “Good work, Comrade. Keep it up and we’ll all avoid becoming Heroes of the Revolution for a long time to come!”

  The captain made his way back to the main control room and motioned to his first lieutenant. “Sung, go tell our passengers to start preparing their gear. I now estimate that we’ll arrive at the objective on schedule.”

  Min watched the man scurry aft and hoped his confidence was well placed. They still had a long way to go.

  ANYANG MILITARY CONTROL POINT, SOUTH KOREA

  Anne woke up suddenly, not sure at first what had startled her. Then she heard it again. A deep, menacing rumbling off some distance, but moving closer fast. She sat up and gasped as she saw the cause. Artillery shells were bursting in the fields ahead off to one side of the road, flinging dirt, smoke, and flame into the air.

  She could see Korean civilians abandoning their stalled cars and trucks and streaming off to either side, taking shelter inside farm buildings and ditches along the road. Hutchins jumped down off the cab and pounded on the door. “Out! Get out! Take cover!”