Red Phoenix (13 page)

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CHAPTER
9

The Dead Zone

SEPTEMBER 24—CAMP HOWZE, NEAR TONGDUCH’ON, SOUTH KOREA

Captain Matuchek was obviously not in a good mood.

“Goddamnit, Little. Next time I ask you a question during a map exercise I don’t want a friggin’ military history lecture.”

Kevin nodded. And winced. Oh, Jesus, did his head hurt.

Matuchek carried on. “I wanted to know where you would have placed your machine gun teams to support an assault up Hill five seventy-two. I don’t give a flying frazzoo about limey Lord Wellington and his patented, Waterloo-style, rear-slope defense. Do you read me, mister?”

Kevin nodded again, cautiously, half-afraid that the top half of his brain would fall right out on his company commander’s desk. “Yes, sir. Loud and clear, sir.”

“Okay, consider yourself chewed out. I’ll take your word that it won’t happen again.” Matuchek rolled his chair back a few inches and opened a desk drawer. He pulled out a file folder and slid it across to Kevin. “Anyway, you won’t be participating in the next exercise. You and your platoon are rotating to Malibu West for a week, starting at oh four hundred hours tomorrow.”

Kevin picked up the folder. Malibu? What the hell?

Matuchek chuckled. “Don’t look so happy, Lieutenant. You aren’t going to see any bikini-clad surfer chicks up at Malibu West. That’s the name we use for Hill six forty.” He grinned a little wider. “You’ll be in scenic bunker accommodations along the DMZ, just a couple of klicks north of the lovely little village of Korangp’o.”

“Just us, sir? I mean, what about the rest of the company?” Kevin tried hard to keep his head perfectly still as he talked.

“Oh, we’ll be right behind you. In position along the MLR, the Main Line of Resistance. You’re pulling outpost duty, Lieutenant. You know, first
to fight and first to fall.” Matuchek laced the fingers of his hands together on top of his desk and looked slightly smug. “I’ll expect to see your platoon on trucks heading out the camp gate at oh two hundred tomorrow. Sergeant Pierce will know what kind of equipment and supplies to take.”

At 0200? Two o’clock in the morning? Wonderful. A night road march and his first one at that. But two weeks with the 2nd Infantry Division had taught Kevin not to complain—at least not out loud. Matuchek was a good company commander, but he had a hair-trigger temper and it seemed that right now was not a good time to reveal any more gaps in his knowledge or experience.

Kevin hadn’t been able to get the hang of handling the captain yet. Everything that he did seemed to set Matuchek off. The man definitely wasn’t the nurturing type. One of the other platoon leaders had told him not to worry too much about it. There was a rumor going around that the captain and his wife back in the States were having “marital difficulties” and that was the real source of Matuchek’s discontent.

It was easy enough to believe that the rumor was the straight scoop. Korea was classed as a hardship post—no wives or families allowed. And any two people could grow far apart over twelve months. But understanding the reason for it didn’t make Kevin’s position as the focal point for Matuchek’s temper any easier.

“Okay, Little. That’s all for now. Study that folder. You’ll find a platoon deployment drawn up by the officer you replaced. Don’t bother to change it. He knew what he was doing. Dismissed.” Matuchek jerked a thumb toward his office door.

Kevin took the hint and left in search of his platoon sergeant.

Walking across the compound to find Sergeant Pierce was a chore. The ground wouldn’t stay still, it just kept rolling up and down, and the bright morning sun sent his shadow lurching ahead of him.

He frowned at no one in particular. Somehow he was going to have to find a way to get off Matuchek’s shit list. The trouble was he wasn’t quite sure just how to go about doing that.

Take the map exercise the grouchy bastard was pissed off about for example. Kevin and the other A Company platoon leaders had been simulating an attack to recapture an American defensive position along the DMZ during a hypothetical war. Moving little cardboard counters back and forth on a map to show deployments and assault formations. Kevin had been demonstrating how he would position his platoon’s infantry squads and weapons teams to support the attack when Matuchek had suddenly blown up and ripped him up one side and down the other. All because he’d made an offhand comment about how machine gun support wasn’t going to do much good because most of the “Aggressor” defense force would logically be dug in behind the hill—protected from direct line-of-sight support fire. It had made
sense then. And it made sense now. But maybe he shouldn’t have tried to show off by pointing out that deploying on a reverse slope was a tactic going all the way back to Wellington’s beating the French at Waterloo. It had seemed like the right thing to say at the time.

Kevin shook his head slowly and then wished he hadn’t. The ground didn’t stop moving when his eyes did. He’d just have to keep his mouth shut about military history around the CO. Matuchek obviously wasn’t much of a scholar.

He’d also have to take it easy next time the other company officers invited him into town with them. Sirroci, Owens, and O’Farrell had called it his “initiation” to South Korea, and they must have hit every bar in Tongduch’on before lurching back to camp. He thought he could remember eating dinner in some tiny cafe, but he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d eaten. Judging from the raw, burning feeling in his stomach and throat, it must have been liberally laced with garlic and some really hot red peppers. Of course, from what he’d seen of Korean cuisine so far, that could describe just about anything.

With an effort he tried to stop concentrating on his hangover and to start thinking about just where his platoon sergeant might be closeted at this time in the morning.

Kevin found Sergeant Pierce in the platoon armory supervising a weapons-cleaning detail. Ten men in work fatigues were busy scrubbing away at every moving part of their rifles. It was one of those boring, routine, and absolutely necessary jobs that occupy most of a modern soldier’s time. To keep an M16 up and firing took a liberal amount of 10-weight sewing machine oil and a daily cleaning.

Kevin’s ROTC instructors had gone to great lengths to make sure that he knew that a jammed M16 could be just as fatal for its owner as a tank that wouldn’t run. That was something Sergeant Pierce obviously agreed with wholeheartedly, and he spent a lot of time making sure that 2nd Platoon’s weapons were clean and ready for action.

Kevin poked his head into the small, cramped room and motioned the sergeant outside to give him a quick rundown on their new orders.

“Malibu West, sir?” Pierce was considerate; he kept his voice below its normal booming level.

“That’s right, Sergeant. And the captain wants us up and out of here by oh two hundred tomorrow.” Kevin knew the sergeant and he were going to be damned busy for the next few hours. The logistics involved in moving forty-five men, their personal gear, two M60 light machine guns, three Dragon antitank guided missile launchers, and a week’s worth of supplies up to the DMZ were incredibly complicated. Among other things he had to arrange transportation for his platoon, get the latest artillery support plan, set up his communications—everything, in fact, down to making sure the
platoon’s mail would get delivered. Just thinking about it threatened to turn his headache into a real bastard of a migraine.

Pierce eyed him closely. “Look, Lieutenant, I’ll start pulling things together for the move. That’s all SOP anyway.”

Yeah, thank God for SOP—standard operating procedures. Anything the Army had to do more than three times was written down as SOP. He could find the information he needed in the Army’s bible for troop movements, Army Manual FM 55-30, catchily titled “Army Motor Transport Operations.” There were always shortcuts that experienced officers could use that weren’t covered in the manuals. But Kevin knew he had a long way to go before he could consider himself experienced.

“You don’t need to worry about a thing, sir. The boys have been up to Malibu West so often they could probably load everything up in their sleep,” Pierce said.

“Right, Sergeant.” Kevin cleared his throat. “You go ahead and get started then. I’ll tell Lieutenant Rhee about our new orders and meet you back at the barracks to go over the movement ops order.”

Pierce saluted and left whistling. Kevin watched him leave, envying the man’s seeming ability to take anything that happened in stride.

He turned on his heel and headed for the two-story, whitewashed BOQ to find his South Korean counterpart, Lieutenant Rhee.

Under the Combined Forces structure set up back in 1978, virtually every American line and staff officer had a South Korean counterpart assigned to handle liaison with the ROK Army. It was a step that had been taken partly for political reasons—to smooth over growing South Korean resentment that an American general always commanded all allied forces. But it was also a very practical concept. In a situation where there were more than fifteen South Korean soldiers for every American, the counterpart system helped make sure that language and cultural barriers didn’t impede military efficiency as much as they might have.

When Kevin had arrived at Camp Howze, Rhee had been off attending some kind of staff course, so he’d only met the Korean lieutenant a couple of times. But they’d gotten along fairly well, and Rhee spoke perfect English. So perfect in fact that Kevin felt embarrassed that he’d only been able to pick up a few sentences of phrasebook Korean.

Second Lieutenant Rhee Han-Gil, wearing a crisp, newly pressed uniform, opened the door to his room at Kevin’s first knock and waved him in. Except for a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray on the desk, the room looked ready for an inspection by the entire General Staff. Every book was perfectly aligned, Rhee’s clothes hung in regulation order, and the sheets on his cot were pulled so tight that it looked like you could bounce even a paper won—the Korean currency—off it. The South Korean lieutenant seemed just
as ready for an inspection. He was shorter than Kevin and stocky, but he had a lean, sharp-featured face.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant Little?” Like most Koreans, Rhee was a stickler for titles. The easygoing, informal way most Americans spoke to each other was completely alien to people raised in a culture steeped in the need to show respect for authority. Rhee would have been shocked if Kevin started calling him by his first name.

“We’ve got movement orders—short-notice ones.” Kevin tried not to let his dislike for Captain Matuchek show. “We’re being sent up to some place called Malibu West for a week.”

“Ah, yes, Malibu West. I have been there before. I’m afraid that it is not nearly so glamorous as the real Malibu in California must be.” Rhee smiled slightly.

Kevin let that pass. He’d never been to Malibu anyway. “Yeah. Well, we’re moving out early tomorrow morning, so I thought I’d better let you know. You’ll need to be packed and ready to go by oh two hundred.”

The Korean pointed to a duffel bag standing in the corner. “Thank you, but there is no need. I am quite ready. But I can make use of the time to coordinate with the units holding the other outposts on our flanks.”

“How the hell … did Matuchek already tell you we were moving up to the Z?” Kevin asked, irritated that the captain might be trying to make him look like an ill-informed idiot.

Rhee looked apologetic. “Oh, no. The captain didn’t tell me anything. It’s just that the communists caught my country sleeping once before. We shall never be caught that way again. We’re trained to be ready for any eventuality.”

“Well, you’re way ahead of me on this one,” Kevin admitted. He paused, realizing it was probably time to swallow a little more pride. “Look, if you’ve been up to this place before, maybe you can give me some advice on what to take up there. I mean, besides the usual, my combat gear, rifle, stuff like that.”

Rhee nodded. “Of course, I’d be honored to assist you in any way I can.” He thought for a moment. “First, I should take a set of extra blankets if I were you. The nights are growing colder and we won’t have any heat up at the outpost.”

Kevin was surprised. “What? Well, hell, why don’t we take a couple of camp stoves with us then?” Christ, you’d have thought some bright Army officer before him would have figured that one out.

Rhee didn’t look impressed. “Unfortunately,” he said, “camp stoves produce smoke. And the communists have the unpleasant habit of using smoke as an aiming point for the occasional mortar shell.”

Mortars? Oh, brother, this was getting worse and worse. A posting to West Germany would have been so much better. The Russians and their East
German puppets might be a dour lot, but at least they didn’t lob mortar shells over the inter-German border on a whim.

Kevin shook his head. “Okay, no camp stoves. Blankets instead. Anything else unusual I should bring?”

Rhee flexed his fingers. “Well, you might bring along a deck of cards.” He twisted his Korean Military Academy class ring back and forth. “A good game of your American five-card stud always helps to pass the time.”

So, Mr. Perfect enjoyed a game of poker, did he? Kevin concealed his surprise. He’d been in the country long enough to learn that the South Koreans were a proud people. It wouldn’t do to offend or shame Rhee by making a big deal out of the fact that he liked to play cards. After all, it wasn’t as if he had a surplus of friends over here. He grinned. “Okay, you’re on. I’ll see you on the parade ground at oh one thirty tomorrow.”

Rhee smiled back. “As you American say, it’s a date.”

“And Lieutenant,” he said as Kevin moved to the door, “I thought your point about the machine guns in today’s exercise was very interesting.”

“Yeah, well, thanks. But I’m afraid the captain didn’t exactly think so.”

Rhee didn’t exactly smile either, but Kevin could swear he saw an eyebrow twitch upward. “The captain is, of course, a good soldier. Is there anything so perfect, however, that it cannot be improved?”