Red Phoenix (51 page)

Wait a minute. What were her feelings for Tony? Why was she so worried about getting to Kunsan on time, if not to see him? What was she
going to say to Tony in Kunsan when she did see him? What would he say to her?

Too many questions. She sat in the cab, musing and rehearsing and analyzing and discarding until she drifted off to sleep.

A sharp jolt woke her, bumping her head against the window hard enough to see stars. Rubbing the sore spot, she opened her eyes as Hutchins started chewing out his driver’s lack of skill.

She looked at her watch. Almost two hours had passed. “Where are we?”

Hutchins paused long enough in his tirade for Bell to answer. “We should reach Kwangch’on any minute, ma’am.”

She found it on the map and showed it to Hutchins. It was far enough down the coast to lift her spirits. She might get to see Tony yet, not that she knew what to say to him.

Hutchins took the map, trying to determine their exact position, and Anne started to look for landmarks. It was something to do.

One of the first things she saw was a highway marker, illuminated by the truck’s headlights, with “29” on it. “Captain, where does that put us?”

Hutchins glanced at the sign, then studied the map. His studious expression was suddenly replaced by anger. “It puts us on the wrong highway! We’re supposed to be on Highway Twenty-one, not Twenty-nine!

Bell tried to look at the map as well, but Hutchins pulled it away. “Just drive, Private.”

He studied the situation for a few minutes. “Which way did you turn in Hongsong when the road forked?”

Looking like a student unprepared for a pop quiz, Bell answered, “Right?”

It took another ten minutes to stop the convoy, turn the trucks around on the narrow two-lane road, and head back in the other direction. Hutchins drove while Anne navigated, and Bell curled up next to the door in not-so-distant exile.

Hutchins was irritated but hopeful. “We should still get you into Kunsan before noon.”

Anne was not comforted. Half her day with Tony would be gone.

KUNSAN AIRBASE, 35TH TACTICAL FIGHTER SQUADRON

Tony Christopher held the message Airman Rice had handed him and studied it for the third time. The airman carefully edged away toward a side door. “Luther, how did she sound? Was she sure she’d be here?”

“Sir, I wrote it all down just like she said it. ‘I am enroute by convoy to Kunsan from Onyang for air evacuation to Japan tonight. Expect to arrive by
dawn. Will call when I get there. Hope to see you. Anne.’ ” It had been easy to memorize the message. Rice had repeated it to the major four times.

She was alive. She was all right. She hadn’t been shot down or bombed at Kimpo. Intellectually he had known that she was probably okay, but there had been a chance, a possibility he didn’t like thinking about. And she would be coming to Kunsan, then leaving that night.

“Before dawn.” Well, he needed to sleep, but he needed to get some work down as well. His duties as ops officer had cut into his flying. He was only flying one or two missions a day now, and he did paperwork in the morning. He would be free to see Anne, but only if he got his desk clear first. There were some things he wanted to tell her.

He got busy. Flying was more important than paperwork, but it still had to be done. The adrenaline started to wear off from his mission, and his excitement about the message, and he started yawning. He kept at it, though, knowing that he would not sleep.

“Major. Major!” Somebody was shaking his shoulder. He looked up and saw Airman Rice standing over him. He looked apologetic.

“Sorry, sir, but they’ll stop serving breakfast soon, and I wondered if you wanted to get anything to eat.”

Groggily, Tony said, “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.” He started to put his head back down, then suddenly sat bolt upright. Breakfast ended at eight o’clock.

Rice was already heading for the door when Tony called to him. “Have there been any other messages?”

“No sir, not a thing.”

Tony sat at his desk and calculated. The sun had been already been up for an hour, and he had his first mission brief at fourteen thirty. And all he could do was wait.

“Hey, Saint, why so worried? We got a big mission on?” Hooter’s entry into a room was never quiet.

“Anne’s coming to Kunsan.”

“She’s safe? That’s great news! When will she get here?”

“She was supposed to be here an hour ago. She’s being evacuated out to Japan through the airbase here, and her convoy was supposed to arrive before dawn.”

“When does she leave?”

“Tonight.” He showed John the message, his frustration apparent.

“I see your problem. What have we got, six hours before the brief?” Suddenly John brightened. “I’ve got it! Victory through air power!”

Tony was baffled. “What in hell are you talking about?”

“Relax, Saint, I’ve got it all figured. I know an Army aviator, ‘Chips’ Nicholson. He’s a helicopter pilot, and he’ll do anything for two bottles of Scotch.”

Tony was still confused. “So?”

“So, since she can’t get here in time, let’s go find her. Chips can fly north, find the convoy, and set you down.”

Hooter pulled out a map lying on Tony’s desk. “Look, there’s only one way to get from Onyang down here. And Onyang’s only seventy miles away. That’s an hour in the chopper, and she’s probably well south of there by now. We can take off, fly there, and be back by lunch.”

Tony sat, considering. He usually made decisions quickly, but this was not his style. There wasn’t anything to worry about. The risk of enemy activity was slight.

He looked up at Hooter as his wingman paced the room. “What will Shadow think?”

Hooter shook his head. “My fearless leader, uncertain? Shadow won’t know.”

Tony thought about the risks, and the risk of not seeing Anne. “Okay. Let’s do it. By the way, why ‘Chips’?”

“He got his helo too close to a tree once. Luckily he was close to the ground. You go find the hooch, I’ll make a phone call.”

Tony felt at home on the flight line, but looking at the helicopter, he felt a little uneasy. Like most aviators, he regarded rotary wing aircraft as a momentary aberration of aerodynamics. Any minute now everyone would realize that they really couldn’t fly.

Lieutenant Nicholson was a savvy-looking pilot who greeted Hooter warmly, exchanging punches to the shoulder and friendly insults. Tony was introduced, with Chips saluting smartly. When Chips heard Hooter say “fourteen kills,” he was ready to do the favor for free.

“But since you went to all that trouble, I wouldn’t want to seem ungrateful. Hop in.” He collected the bottles and stowed them in a safe place.

John took the copilot’s seat and Tony the crew chief’s jump seat in the main cabin. The lieutenant started the turbines and they quickly spun up to full power. The UH-1 “Huey” usually transported twelve troops, in addition to the crew, so with only three men aboard, it leapt into the air.

Tony could see Hooter pointing out the route to the pilot, and he put on the intercom headset. “Hooter, there must be more than one convoy between here and Onyang. How will we spot hers from the air?”

“How many will have trucks full of American civilians?” John answered. “Don’t sweat it, Saint.”

The weather was clear, and with the doors closed the temperature was comfortable inside the chopper. The engine noise was another story, though, and Tony kept the headset on to block out some of it. They quickly passed over the airbase, the city itself, and then the Kum river just to the north.

The traffic into the city was heavy, but a convoy of military vehicles would be easily spotted among the civilian passenger cars and trucks. They flew north.

HIGHWAY 21, SOUTH OF KWANGCH’ON

Anne hated the sunlight. They were late, and their progress now was so slow they would be lucky to reach Kunsan at all. Bell was driving again, and cursing every time he had to shift gears.

They were driving through a narrow cut, with the road narrowing from two lanes to one. The road was a downgrade, which kept Bell very busy trying to manage the balky transmission.

As they listened to the driver’s profane monotone, loud honking started coming from the back of the column. Hutchins quickly halted the convoy, sure that some disaster had struck.

They piled out of the cab and ran toward the back. The honking continued for a few moments, then stopped as they reached the end.

Surrounded by a small crowd of soldiers and passengers was a jeep, occupied by one man. A lieutenant colonel climbed out from behind the wheel and he did not look happy. “Who’s in charge of this mob?”

Hutchins saluted. “Captain J. F. Hutchins, sir, Provisional Transport Detail.”

The colonel’s laundered, sharply creased battle dress and cold-weather gear contrasted with Hutchins’s rumpled uniform. His combat boots were the old-style leather kind and were finely polished. The name
AYERS
was stenciled over the breast pocket. While Hutchins’s captain’s bars were embroidered in black thread on his collar tabs, Ayers’s rank insignia were polished silver metal, oversize, and shone from not only his collar tabs but from his helmet as well.

“Captain, your lack of intelligence is only matched by your lack of military bearing and your obvious inability to maintain discipline. I am enroute to a vitally important conference, and your slow-moving circus has slowed from a crawl to a stop.”

Hutchins started to open his mouth to answer, but the colonel was just drawing a breath. “Since you decided to stop and delay me even further, all I can do is report your performance to your superiors and hope that they aren’t as incompetent as you are.”

He took Hutchins’s name, rank, serial number, and parent unit, then climbed back in his jeep. “Captain, I want you to get these junk heaps moving at top speed. If I miss that meeting, it may adversely affect the course of the war, and it will be your fault. Now move!”

They started the convoy up and pulled out of the cut as fast as the
transmission would allow. Occasionally a honk or two from the back would exhort them on. They reached the end about five minutes later, and they heard a roar as the jeep’s motor passed the convoy.

Colonel Ayers was sitting straight upright, at attention in the seat. He ignored the column and roared off to the south.

Hutchins had returned wordlessly to the cab, and Anne and Bell had followed suit, unsure of what to say as the officer sat expressionless. Finally, just after the colonel drove out of sight, Hutchins said, “You know, it’s hard to think of that man as the end result of millions of years of evolution.”

Colonel Ayers roared ahead, mentally ticking off a list of charges to bring against that dim-witted officer. Obvious lack of discipline. Ever since the war started, everyone had been getting sloppy. Uniforms, procedures, and especially courtesy toward senior officers such as himself had been given short shrift.

Well, he wasn’t going to let things go to pot. If he had to remind every man he saw about military courtesy, and take down every name between here and Chonju…

His musings, combined with a high speed, managed to carry him through Taech’on and the smaller village of Taech’ang. He was rehearsing the presentation to the morale board when he came to a checkpoint at one end of a bridge.

He beeped his horn and waved for them to open the gate, but the barrier stayed down and a Korean soldier came up and saluted.

Ayers didn’t bother returning the gesture. “Let me pass, man. I have to attend an important conference in Chonju!”

The soldier was unimpressed. “Certainly, sir, but I must see your orders and identification card, please.”

“My ID card?” He fumbled for the papers and identification. “Isn’t it obvious that I’m an American senior officer?”

The man reached for his papers. “Sir, you might be a North Korean saboteur. They are extremely clever and often disguise themselves as our soldiers.”

He examined the papers. “You are Colonel Ayers? We have a message for you, sir. Could you please follow me? It’s in the guard shack.”

“Of course, Private. Lead on.” He followed the Korean into a small building set off the road.

Inside, an officer was sitting behind a desk. The name on his uniform was
YI
.

The soldier looked at Yi and spoke in English. “Sir, this is Colonel Ayers. I believe there is a message for him?”

Yi stood and saluted. Ayers, glad to see the formalities being observed, returned the salute, but he was baffled by a sudden sharp pain in his right
side. He turned his head and looked down, just in time to see a knife sink into his ribs up to the hilt.

His last thought was an amazed protest: “But they had been so polite!”

Yi looked down at the body and smiled. A lieutenant colonel. “Sergeant, get him out of here.”

Sergeant Yong knew what to do. He called to the “off-duty” commandos in the building and started giving orders. The corpse was carried out by a back door and the small bloodstain wiped up. Yi himself started the jeep and drove it off the road to a small stand of trees.

A small vehicle park was growing there, out of sight of the road. He pulled up alongside a row of trucks. Some were empty, but most had carried cargoes of food, spare parts, or ammunition. One bloodstained vehicle had been filled with men, but Yi’s commandos had gunned them down as they sat in the back. Fifteen replacements would never arrive at the front.

The North Korean was pleased with his work. It had been a productive night and morning. They would continue to ambush military vehicles for as long as they could.

They had not molested civilian traffic. It was not their job to create terror, and it would also speed their discovery. They had even let a few trucks go through because civilian cars had been lined up behind them waiting.

Eventually a convoy too big or too well armed would survive their attack, but until then this road was no help to the South, or their imperialist backers. He especially hated Americans, because without their help they could have liberated the southern half of the peninsula years ago.