by Ian Slater
To Tae, who had been in the front line of the counterinsurgency war for so many years, the murders of the Americans did not come as a surprise. Of all the Communist countries, the North Korean regime was unquestionably the maddest. What did disturb him was the extent of the savagery toward the hated migooks, so that by the time the column reached Chorwon, more than forty Americans had been butchered. More than anything else, it told Tae that the Communists feared no retribution — that they were quite sure, like the North Vietnamese before them, that they were going to win, so they feared no reprisal.
An American next to Tae, his left eye bloodied and sodden, the dressing slipping down his face, tripped in a mud-filled pothole. Instinctively Tae’s right hand shot out to steady him. The next second Tae heard shouting, the mustard-colored water splashing about him, as prisoners stumbled away from him and the young American. A heavy thud and Tae’s head shot forward, a burning sensation in his shoulder blades as he sprawled in the mud. He heard the guard cock the Kalashnikov and, looking up, saw the banana-shaped magazine curving down toward the wounded American soldier. The skin around the American’s good eye crinkled in a smile as he fixed his gaze on the South Korean major. “Thanks, buddy—” he began. The Kalashnikov jumped, the sound of the bullet echoing through the lonely, rainy valley either side of the column. The guard swung the semiautomatic toward Tae, about to pull the trigger again, when he saw the label hanging from about Tae’s neck and began screaming that Tae shouldn’t be here, waving his hand back in the direction of the DMZ, shouting that Tae should have been taken west to divisional headquarters at Kaesong. Tae got up unsteadily from the mud, the white of his eyes so marked in contrast to the mud that he looked like a minstrel clown.
He replied in as nonthreatening a tone as he could that he’d gone where he’d been ordered. During the incident the column had not stopped, only a few heads turning back out of curiosity, the savagery visited upon the American having already become the norm. As Tae knew only too well, people could get used to anything. An NKA sergeant, superioR-1ooking, unusually tall for the NKA, came bustling up, chastening the guard. Hadn’t there been an explicit order about conserving ammunition? The guard quietly turned the tables on the sergeant by dutifully pointing out that the collaborationist South Korean major should have been shipped back to divisional headquarters for investigation. The sergeant frowned, Tae realizing the label had even more power than he had realized, glad he hadn’t taken it off. At least it might buy him time, perhaps even special treatment, though this, he knew, could end up being followed by much worse than what was being meted out to the column.
Leaning forward, the sergeant wiped the mud from Tae’s collar, the patch of newer cloth showing where the major’s pips had been before he’d torn them off and thrown them away when the random killing had begun.
“You follow me,” the sergeant told Tae.
“Sergeant, may I request a favor?”
“What is it?” the sergeant asked sharply.
“The American’s identification tags. Could I have—”
“Dog tags!” said the NKA sergeant in English exuberantly. “I study English at Beijing. Foreign Language Institute.”
“Ah,” said Tae noncommittally.
The sergeant cut the dog tags’ cord with his bayonet. With the tags there was a small gold cross on a slim chain, which the sergeant pocketed. “His God did not help him,” he said, grinning, handing the dog tags to Tae.
Tae said nothing and dropped the identification disks into his tunic pocket. The sergeant was now going through the American’s wallet, taking out won bills. He saw Tae watching him and suddenly became rigidly officious. “This is for the People’s Army,” he said.
“I was looking at the photograph,” said Tae quietly.
The sergeant handed him the wallet with an air of stiff magnanimity. “You may have it.”
“Thank you,” said Tae.
The sergeant waved down a motorbike and sidecar, its driver and passenger caked in mud, the engine spitting and coughing as if it were about to give up any moment. Ahead, Tae saw the long column of sodden American and South Korean soldiers, fatigues clinging to them like black wrap as they continued trudging along the narrow, flooded road that disappeared into another misty valley. It was the most hopeless sight he had seen.
The sergeant ordered the driver to take the South Korean major ahead to Uijongbu, explaining that he was an important prisoner, to be debriefed as soon as possible. There was an argument, ending with the passenger in the sidecar getting out grumpily and stalking off with the guard who’d shot the American to the rear of the column. The sergeant ordered Tae into the sidecar and started binding his hands with twist wire. Tae wondered if they’d let him keep the wallet at Uijongbu. He took his only comfort in the cyanide strip hidden in his boot. It was doubtful, he thought, that they’d take his boots away from him.
The bike moved off slowly, sliding at first in the mud, the sidecar ahead of the bike, the sergeant pushing; then it picked up speed and straightened. Tae looked back at the murdered American, a khaki heap in the rain, wondering who he was.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Washington, D.C.
It was breakfast time, the sharks were hungry, and Press Secretary Trainor, having strongly advised the president to spend a day or two at Camp David being presidential, meeting with Arab heads of state, now gladly offered himself for consumption, enjoying the cut and thrust with the pack, some of them former colleagues, a few still friends.
“But shouldn’t the president be in the White House?” It was from some young hotshot blonde at the Post, her white lace bra clearly etched beneath the tight white silk blouse and black tie that only accentuated her femininity rather than conveying the no-nonsense tough-press-woman image she’d intended. Trainor responded, smiling, assuring them that “the president is receiving regular reports on the situation in Korea.” What he didn’t say was that the last report had been received at 5:00 a.m., four hours ago—6:00 p.m. in Korea. Trainor saw the young reporter scribbling frantically, about to launch another question, but in all the excitement she’d forgotten to predicate her first question by indicating there’d be a follow-up. Trainor pointed to the Atlanta Constitution, who did announce he had a follow-up. “Mr. Trainor, we’ve had reports from Kodo News Service that North Korean forces are already halfway down the peninsula. Can you confirm this? “
“Well, with the DMZ being already halfway down the peninsula, Mr. Burns, I’d be surprised if they weren’t.” A chuckle from one of Burns’s colleagues. A mistake, thought Trainor— don’t alienate them. “I know what you mean, Mr. Burns. No, we don’t have any information that would confirm that.”
“Or would deny it?”
Get it over quickly, thought Trainor. “No. Ah, Miss Vogel?” She was a tall, older, freckle-faced woman they called “String Bean,” who had seen four presidents come and go. Her favorite technique was to let the eager pitchers go first, then she’d step in with the curve ball. “Mr. Trainor—” and no crappola, her expression seemed to say “—when did you last hear from Seoul? And I have a follow-up.”
“This morning,” Trainor answered — you crafty old bitch, and I know your follow-up.
“Precisely when was that?”
Trainor paused. Say you don’t know and you’ll be assigned gofer status. Tell her it was four hours ago and your information’s got whiskers on it. Trainor had never had to deal with a military “incident” this size before, but he knew enough that in modern conventional warfare, let alone nuclear strikes, four hours could turn defeat into victory or vice versa. “Earlier this morning,” he answered. “Ms. — ” Trainor looked puzzled, trying to read the name on the press pass of a newcomer, giving him time to regroup his defense. She was a honey blonde, good-looking, about five feet four inches, cool blue eyes.
“Miss Roberts,” she said. “Does the president plan to remain at Camp David until the New Hampshire primary?”
Trainor struck a thoughtfu
l pose, giving the question its due, both hands on the lectern, remembering that the opinion polls were showing a surge in support of Mayne as the presidential candidate least likely to involve the United States in military actions around the world, especially in another quagmire in Asia. Trainor’s strategy of getting Mayne off to Camp David over the weekend before he could make any premature statement about Korea left Senator Leyland plenty of room to lose himself in how he’d deal with the Korean situation. “Stay away from it, Mr. President,” Trainor had advised. “Ask anyone in the street where the hell Korea is. They don’t have a clue. Over there somewhere. The Olympics one time.”
“The president,” Trainor answered, “has full confidence in General Cahill, commanding officer of all U.S. forces in Korea, and in the Republic of Korea’s ability to repel the incursion.”
“That’s a new one,” a reporter muttered in the first row, “ ‘incursion.’ “ Trainor wasn’t happy with his answer either, but only because he had mentioned Cahill first and not the ROK. He couldn’t mention President Rah of South Korea — even his own people had serious doubts about his commitment to democratic rule. The best you could say was that the “old fox,” as they called Rah in Korea, was more liberal than anybody in Pyongyang.
“How big is this ‘incursion’?” someone shouted from the back.
“Ah — the information we have, John, is that it’s regimental size.”
The blonde from the Post was on her toes, both hands waving in the forest of other hands, pen mikes, and barely controlled mayhem. “How big is that?” she called out, willing to show her ignorance of military dispositions the moment she sensed Trainor’s throwaway nonchalance as a little too cool. “How big is that?” she repeated loudly, stretching to her full height, the lace bra threatening to burst right out of the blouse.
A beefy, middle-aged West German reporter from Der Spiegel looked at her as if appraising a good leg of lamb. “Depends,” he said to no one in particular but with his eyes fixed on her. “It means two and a half thousand men in the NKA, nine hundred in the U.S.”
“Quite a difference,” she said.
The German’s bottom lip protruded, “Ja. I think he wants you think American. Nine hundred.”
Trainor was pointing to someone else in the front row as the blonde, sitting down, pressed the German, “How come they’re so different in size?” She tried to read his name from his press card, but it was hidden beneath his blue suede jacket.
“Very confusing,” he answered. “NKA is based on the Russian regiment, you see. They only have the same firepower, though, as a U.S. regiment.”
Now the Post was really confused. “So there’s no difference really?”
The German held his hand up for her to be quiet, his attention shifting to Trainor. Someone, probably a plant, he thought, was asking for the administration’s response to Senator Leyland’s accusation that the apparent “debacle” now overtaking one of America’s “foremost allies” was an example of the “serious implications of President Mayne’s cutting of the defense budget.”
Trainor loved it. It wasn’t a plant, it was a gift from Heaven. He could take the high road. “If Senator Leyland wishes to disparage our allies and use this incident to inflame sword rattling, then, of course, he’s free to do so. This administration, this president, has repeatedly said that the security of the United States has no price. And quite frankly, I’m — er — I’m somewhat taken aback by the senator’s apparent attempt — did he use the word ‘debacle’?”
“Yes,” came a shouted chorus. “No TV at Camp David?” called out another. There was laughter.
Trainor shrugged. “All I can say is that ‘debacle’ is an odd word to be using only hours after some violations of the DMZ have been reported. But if Senator Leyland is so desperate for votes that he wants to characterize—”
“They’re shelling Seoul, aren’t they?”
“That’s not new,” retorted Trainor. They were closing in on him, but he saw a way out. “Gentlemen — and ladies—” He was flushed, but it was anger they were seeing, not embarrassment. “If you people spent as much time in Korea as you did in the—” he almost said, “Tel Aviv Hilton,” but stopped himself in time “—in the Middle East, you’d realize that in Korea, as in the Middle East, incursions take place every week along the Korean DMZ and that there have been several false alarms already. As recently as July we had…”
The hands shot up again. “Are you saying, then, that this is a false alarm?”
“No — I’m not saying that. There are significant numbers of troops moving, but — ah, as yet we don’t know the full extent…”
An aide slipped in from behind the podium, keeping his eyes low out of the glare, deposited a note on the lectern, and was gone. Despite the heat, rhetorical and that coming from klieg lights, Trainor felt his gut go cold. General Cahill, the note informed him, had ordered the three remaining bridges leading south out of Seoul to be blown within the hour.
Trainor didn’t read the rest of the page or notice the fact that Cahill’s decision signified much more than the imminent collapse of Seoul.
Because the subway stations of Hapchong, Yongsan, Ichon, Oksu, and Kangbyon — all on the north side of the river — had been gutted by NKA infiltrators earlier that morning, the three bridges to be blown — Songsan, leading to Kimpo Airport, Tongjak Bridge, seven miles east, leading out of the city from Yongsan and Niblo Barracks, and Chamshil Iron Bridge near the old Olympics site, all packed with high explosives, ready for destruction — were the only escape routes left for millions of civilians still trying to flee the city, and there would be no time to clear the bridges, even if they could be cleared, by the time set for demolition. All Trainor knew was that his and National Security Adviser Schuman’s plan to distance the president in order to underplay the situation was collapsing around him. Mayne had to get back to the White House. And fast. The news conference, amid howls of protest, the scratching of chairs and dousing of lights, was called to an end, Trainor excusing himself, smiling, nodding, saying “No comment,” trying to avoid the snaking TV cables that, despite his strict instructions to have them coiled and bound with fluorescent tape, seemed as disorderly as ever, waiting to trip him up.
* * *
If it was a cold-blooded military decision on Cahill’s part to blow the three bridges, it was a hot-blooded affair for the millions of terrified civilians — mostly women and children and elders, their screams heard above the screams of artillery, some stumbling, near death — pressed into three enormous funnel-shaped escape routes converging on the three remaining bridges, many people on the outer edges of the funnels spilling off, others shoved aside down embankments into the now putrid river or trampled to death by those behind in the unstoppable force that was five million trying to flee the razored hail of hot steel.
The NKA’s Fourth Division met its first really sustained resistance around Uijongbu. In doing so, the NKA tied up so many of the rear guard elements that the NKA Special Forces Corps on the western flank driving south from Munsan to reach the Han three miles west of Seoul’s western outskirts easily forded the Han in an armada of lightweight canvas boats under cover of heavy smoke.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Melissa Lange was one of Pacific Northwestern’s brightest and most beautiful, her swept-back ash-blonde hair and wide, sensitive eyes turning heads wherever she went on campus. She didn’t flaunt it, but she knew she had it, which made it doubly hard for her to understand why David Brentwood, down to his candy-cane-striped shorts, was standing in the middle of the room, glued to the TV, its bluish aura intensified by the soft peach lighting of the room and the heavy drapes shutting out the morning sun. “You’ll catch cold,” she said.
“They can fight, the bastards,” he said. “Got to give ‘em that.” Behind ABC’s Sam Donaldson there was a gray high-relief map of South Korea, four wide red arrows curving down from the DMZ converging on Seoul.
“Holy Cow!” said David, shaking his
head. “Look at this!” There were pictures, very shaky, bad sound tracks, of the bridges being blown, the air full of black smoke and dirt-cored waterspouts. Then a very wobbly shot, as if the cameraman had stumbled, of the bridges, the Songsan’s span now V-shaped, some of the spans of the Chamshil Iron Bridge still standing, others simply not there, the smoke from it strangely yellow, the explosions having set afire a nearby barge of sulfur. Melissa was out of bed, pulling on her panties. Tongjak Bridge was the next to go, the TV screen going fuzzy, interspersed with thousands of flickering dots. “Jesus!” said David, pointing at the set. “They’re people!” He moved closer.
At first Melissa didn’t answer, her arms reaching behind her and up, clipping her matching black bra against her milk-white skin, but David was now on one knee, fiddling with the controls. “They’re people, Mel.”
“They can’t be,” she said, glancing over. Suddenly her anger at his inattention to her paled against what was happening on the screen. A commercial came on for Australian beer, “the golden throat charmer.” Only now did David see that Melissa was dressing. “Hey, Mel, what’re you doing?”
“What’s it look like?”
“Hey, no, honey. Listen, I just wanted to — my brother’s out there with the Seventh Fleet.”
“Men and war,” she said. “You love it.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do. That’s why you’re in the reserves.”
