Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  The conversation wandered, and finally Tony was yawning so much that they excused themselves.

  His “bed” was an alcove in a stack of hay bales, arranged to conceal him completely once he was inside. He was asleep in seconds.

  A bright light in his eyes and harsh voices in Korean yanked him out of a deep sleep. The hay bales above him had been removed, and a black-suited man, armed with a pistol, was holding a flashlight and inspecting him closely.

  Tony struggled to sit up, and the man stepped back. There were two more like him, while Mr. Sook and his entire family stood to one side in the barn.

  The black-clad men were obviously soldiers, and probably Koreans. They not only wore cold-weather gear, but also knitted hoods that covered all of their faces except their eyes. One, probably their leader, was conversing in harsh tones with Mr. Sook, while another stood near Tony, and the third covered the door. They were armed with communist-made AK-47 assault rifles.

  His heart sank, and he tried to decide what to do next. His pistol was within reach, but the odds that he could take out three alert and armed men were poor at best. And how many of the Sook family would be hurt if he started shooting? But wouldn’t they already suffer for collaborating with the enemy? Still, the thought of just accepting capture…

  The leader saw Tony moving and came over. He stood at attention, saluted, and said in accented English, “Good morning, Major. I am Lieutenant Kim of the South Korean Army Special Forces. We can get you back to your own lines. Are you able to travel?”

  “Yes,” Tony said automatically, still recovering. With that, they gathered his possessions, Tony said thank you and good-bye to the Sooks, and they set off into the night.

  Tony was full of questions. “I don’t understand. Our lines are miles away. How did you get here?”

  “We didn’t come here, sir. We stayed behind when the communists advanced.”

  “But the farmer said it would take until late tomorrow for help to come.”

  “We have a system set up with all the citizens here. They knew that if they left a sign in a certain location, they would get ‘help.’ They were told it would take twenty-four hours. We are much closer than that, but there is no need for them to know everything.”

  “What happens next?” Tony asked. They told him.

  They hiked the rest of the night, about three hours, and around dawn Tony was blindfolded. Another half-hour march followed, with Tony’s stumbling progress supported by a man on each side.

  Finally they took off the blindfold and Tony found himself in a solidly constructed underground bunker. It had a bunkroom, a kitchen/mess hall, storage rooms, and several other sections he wasn’t allowed to see. In fact, he never saw the entrance, from either side.

  They waited there all day, and then at nightfall they took another hike, this one about two hours long.

  Lieutenant Kim had used satellite communications to arrange a rendezvous. With what, he wouldn’t say. He just kept them moving, checking more and more frequently on a large-scale map of the area. Finally he took out a small device and started pacing. Tony realized it was a portable inertial navigation unit. Their rendezvous would be precise, almost to the yard.

  Kim finally signaled a halt and deployed his men as pickets around the area. They waited.

  Tony didn’t see or hear the helicopter until it was almost on top of them. It came up over a small rise, no more than twenty feet off the ground, and moved toward them. Kim pointed something that looked like a flashlight at the helicopter, but no light shone.

  It had the desired effect, though. The machine slowed and altered course to head directly toward the Korean.

  Tony knew it was a helicopter, but in the faint starlight it looked more like a monster or a dragon. There were bulges all over the nose of the craft, a long probe sticking fifteen feet out in front, and protuberances on the sides as well.

  Kim waved him over. “This is your ride home, Major.” He shook hands with Tony, then handed him a package. “These are messages and personal letters. Will you deliver them for us?”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Can I do anything else for you or your men?”

  “No sir, just kill communists. Good-bye.” They saluted.

  Even now, with the helicopter landing nearby, it was nearly silent. He got a closer look as it landed and recognized it as a Pave Low special operations helicopter. He could see large drop tanks under the side sponsons, miniguns in the doors, and a Sidewinder!

  He had heard about them, even seen one now and then at an airfield. They had infrared TV, terrain-following radar, armor, jamming systems, and enough weaponry to fight their way out of a jam. They were used for special operations, inserting or extracting people behind enemy lines…

  Sort of like him.

  The helicopter’s wheels touched the ground, and as if operated by a switch, a door opened and a red-lit interior was visible. The light seemed bright after the pitch-darkness. A crewman waved to him, and he ran over. Wind from the rotors buffeted him but he hardly felt it as he ran to the ship.

  The crewman tossed out a few crates, then grabbed his arm and pulled him up and inside. The door slammed and he felt the craft rise. Almost immediately it started moving forward and didn’t seem to rise anymore.

  Tony looked around. The original CH-53 was big enough to carry a small truck, but this one’s innards were filled with electronics consoles and ammo boxes.

  The crewman handed him a headset and Tony put it on. A few moments later he heard, “Hello, Major. Captain Wells here. Welcome back.”

  Tony was grabbing for support as he heard those words. The craft had moved suddenly down, sideslipped, then climbed. Answering as best he could, he said, “Glad to be here, Captain. Are we having problems?”

  “None, sir. We are away clean and making good time. Would you like to come forward?” The machine went through a roller-coaster bump.

  “Yes.” Curiosity replaced uncertainty, and he unplugged the headset. Moving forward, he pulled aside the curtain that blocked even the dim red light from reaching the cockpit.

  His eyes adjusted further, and by the dim light of the instrumentation he saw the two pilots. At first he couldn’t make out their faces, then realized they were wearing masks, or goggles. Those had to be infrared goggles, designed to give the wearer vision in low light. Or no light.

  He looked forward and was rewarded with the breathtaking view of the hilly landscape only fifty feet below him rushing by at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

  The instrument panel was twice as complex as his fighter’s. He recognized a terrain-following radar display, a thermal-imaging TV picture, and computerized map display. It looked more like the bridge of Star Trek’s Enterprise.

  He firmly believed they needed it. A hill loomed up in front of them, and the craft neatly banked without changing altitude or losing speed. In mid-maneuver the pilot reached around to shake Tony’s hand. “Glad to see you, Major.” He waved at the panel and the view out the windscreen. “Sorry this isn’t as exciting as one of your ships, sir.”

  Tony forced his voice to remain calm. “That’s all right. How much more of this before we climb to cruising altitude?”

  “We’ll stay at this height all the way back. The avionics can handle this easily, and we don’t like even our own side to see too much of our operations. Another hour and a half and you’ll be back at your squadron.”

  The flight back was the hardest part of his trip.

  CHAPTER 38

  Dire Straits

  JANUARY 7 — ABOARD USS O’BRIEN, IN THE TSUSHIMA STRAIT

  Captain Richard Levi, USN, sneaked a glance at the barometer as he came on the bridge. It was still holding steady, a reading confirmed by the nearly cloudless sky and by the gentle, rolling motion of O’Brien as she steamed toward Pusan at twelve knots. His compact frame easily followed the motion of the deck.

  His bridge crew stiffened slightly but didn’t react in any other way. Levi didn’t like a lot of fuss i
n normal times, and he especially didn’t like needless ceremony under war conditions. People busy saluting and clicking their heels were all too likely to miss that first crucial warning of an incoming missile or torpedo.

  He nodded to his executive officer and stepped out onto the bridge wing, leaning out over the rail to look back at the three boxy cargo ships trailing placidly in his Spruance-class destroyer’s wake. One wore the dull-gray paint scheme that marked it as a Navy Sealift Command ship, but the others stood out in bright colors designed to please the eye and attract paying customers.

  Together the three merchantmen carried a vital cargo — a major share of the 25th Infantry Division’s heavy equipment. The 25th’s personnel had been flown into South Korea over the preceding week, but they would remain as useless as if they were still in Hawaii until equipped with the tanks, artillery, and APCs loaded aboard USNS Andrew T. Thomas, the Liberian-registered Polar Sea, and the Danish-flagged Thorvaldsen. Seventh Fleet’s orders were clear. All three had to get through.

  U.N. Forces were fighting hard on the peninsula, but they were still being forced backward, away from now-besieged Seoul. Scuttlebutt said the ground pounders needed all the help they could get to avoid being shoved into the sea. The 25th’s heavy weapons were part of that help.

  Levi put his back to the chill, five-knot wind sweeping across the destroyer’s superstructure and looked east, his eyes hunting for the other part of his command — the tiny, Perry-class frigate Duncan. There she was. He could just make out a slightly darker patch of gray rolling up and down above the gray-green sea. He’d put the frigate about four miles out on the convoy’s eastern flank. Out where her hull-mounted SQS-56 sonar had a better chance of picking up an NK diesel sub moving in for a sneak shot inside the O’Brien’s “baffles,” an area aft of the destroyer where the noise of her own engines and screws deafened her sonar.

  The wind veered slightly and strengthened, whining through the radar and radio antennas clustered above the destroyer’s bridge. Levi ignored the noise and squinted into the morning sun climbing skyward beyond his companion frigate. Sunlight glinted off a Plexiglas canopy. Duncan had one of her two SH-60B Seahawk helicopters up, laying a passive sonobuoy line several miles to the north and east of the convoy’s track — right along the most likely angle of approach for an enemy sub looking for an easy kill.

  But not the only one. Wings winked silver at the edge of his vision and then dipped from view. Seventh Fleet had allocated a P-3C Orion to the escort and he’d stationed it well to the north — twenty miles or so ahead of the small group of UN vessels bound for Pusan. The P-3 had been systematically laying successive lines of passive buoys, trying to clear a path for the O’Brien and her invaluable charges.

  North and east were covered as well as they could be under the circumstances. And Levi had brought his convoy as close to the western edge of the island of Tsushima as he possibly could without running them aground. The water was so shallow at that point that any damned NK sub trying to stay submerged would have to be half-buried in the mud. He could pretty well rule out that direction, at least until they emerged from alongside the island. He’d have to rearrange his escorts and air assets when that happened. He also planned not to worry overly about his back. Any diesel submarine coming in from the south, chasing after the convoy, would either run its batteries flat or make so much noise snorkeling that it would be easy to hear, pinpoint, and destroy.

  Levi blinked rapidly, clearing the dazzling afterimages left by looking too near the sun out of his eyes. With a last, quick glance around the horizon, he turned and reentered the comparative warmth of O’Brien’s bridge. They were coming into the danger zone and it was time for him to get back to the ship’s Combat Information Center. It was also time to move a little more cautiously. Levi didn’t plan to walk into an ambush with his eyes shut or his sonars less than one hundred percent effective.

  “Mr. Keegan?”

  “Sir?”

  “Slow to eight knots, and signal the rest of the convoy to do the same.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” His executive officer nodded to the rating standing by with a signaling lamp. O’Brien would keep radio silence for as long as possible. There wasn’t any point in handing the North Koreans a free fix on the convoy’s position. Levi intended to make them work for it.

  ABOARD DPRK GREAT LEADER, WEST OF TSUSHIMA

  Senior Captain Chun Chae-Yun studied the plot carefully, conscious of the need to keep a confident, relaxed expression on his face. It had been a long war already for Great Leader and its crew. Many of the junior ratings were starting to show signs of the enormous strain imposed by the need for constant noise discipline and by the high state of readiness required on a war cruise. So, under the circumstances, it was vital that he set a good example by remaining unrattled — no matter what happened.

  Chun had to admit that it was hard to control his mixed feelings of dread and excitement as the prospect of new action loomed nearer. After several successive victories during the first days of the war, most of Great Leader’s maneuvers since had been wholly devoted to its own survival — and many of its fellow submarines hadn’t been so fortunate. One by one they’d fallen prey to American and South Korean aircraft or to hunter-killer groups of enemy frigates and corvettes. They’d exacted a heavy toll of imperialist merchant shipping and warships, but the exchange ratio remained lopsided and tilted in entirely the wrong direction.

  Now, the latest signal from the high command offered a chance to avenge those defeats. Intelligence agents in the Japanese port of Yokosuka had signaled the departure of a small but important convoy. Such a convoy could have only one destination — the imperialist supply base at Pusan. And so Chun’s Great Leader and two older, Romeo-class boats lurked in its projected path, ready to send the American convoy to the bottom of the Tsushima Strait. A small squadron of three fast attack boats — Osa-class boats armed with Soviet-made SS-N-2C Styx surface-to-surface missiles — waited north of the island, equally ready to pounce on any survivors left afloat after the submarines struck.

  Chun had placed his newer, more capable Kilo-class sub in position to cover the western approach to Pusan. The two Romeos waited to the east of Tsushima — forced by their inadequate sonars to rely heavily on periscope sweeps to visually detect an oncoming enemy. Even so, the Americans should find it impossible to slip by them unobserved. Or so he hoped.

  He pondered the chart again, rubbing his chin reflexively. Perhaps it would have been better to concentrate his entire force north of Tsushima, close to Pusan’s outer approaches. It would have exposed his units to more risk of detection, but it would also have made it more likely to find and strike the American convoy before it reached the safety of the harbor. Perhaps… Chun shook his head almost imperceptibly. Such thoughts were of little use now. His first plan was undoubtedly the best. Second-guessings were a waste of time and energy. He had a battle to prepare for…

  The navigator’s voice broke in on his thoughts. “We’ve reached the westernmost edge of our patrol circuit, Comrade Captain.”

  Chun looked up from the chart. “Very well. Come about to zero nine zero degrees. Maintain a speed of five knots.” He caught his first officer’s eye. “Make another inspection of the boat. Ensure that all compartments are fully prepared for noise discipline and for possible damage control.”

  They could expect to make contact with the enemy force at any moment now. Great Leader would be ready.

  ABOARD THE DPRK LIBERATOR, EAST OF TSUSHIMA

  Captain Min Sang-Du stared at the chronometer hung on one wall of Liberator’s tiny plot office. Where the hell were the Americans? He’d run the calculations over and over in his mind and on the chart. Given the last known course and speed of the American convoy, he should have sighted them by now. So what were they up to?

  Had they gone west of Tsushima? That possibility didn’t concern him very much. Such a course would take the imperialists straight into the waiting torpedoes of Great Leader
. True, that would rob Min and his crew of their share of the glory, but glory was overvalued when the fate of nations was at stake. No, it was the other possibility that bothered Min. The possibility that the Americans were slipping farther to the east than expected — and might already be crossing behind him on their unimpeded way to Pusan. Any captain who allowed that to happen could expect the worst from the naval security service, and he would receive it.

  Min shivered in the cold, clammy air. The air inside Liberator’s cramped hull was growing fouler and damper by the hour. Condensation ran off the walls, even off some of the equipment. He leaned over the chart once more and penciled in a hypothetical new course for the American convoy — one that would carry them well away from his current patrol path — and then stood back to look at his handiwork. Yes, that seemed right. And at twelve knots, the imperialists could be… there. He marked the spot and made a decision. The Americans were not here, therefore they must be there.

  The North Korean captain made his way back into the crowded Control Room. His first officer waited, eyes questioning.

  “Comrade Sung, lay us on course zero three five.”

  The submarine heeled slightly as it spun slowly through the water, turning to the northeast.

  ABOARD SIERRA FIRE, OVER THE TSUSHIMA STRAIT

  The P-3C Orion shuddered slightly as it hit a small pocket of turbulence. Sierra Five was flying low, cutting through a zone where the hotter air rising off Tsushima ran into colder air held over the ocean. It was hunting submarines, flying low over a twenty-mile-long line of previously dropped sonobuoys, listening in at each in turn for the first sound that might warrant a Mark 46 torpedo.

  The Orion shuddered again, this time sloshing hot coffee down the front of the second sonarman’s flight suit as he tried to slide back into his chair. He swore viciously and tried mopping at the spilled liquid with the corner of an air navigation chart.