Red Phoenix (78 page)

Park snapped a new magazine into his CAR-15 carbine and slung it across his shoulder. Then he whistled sharply, summoning his Black Berets to the rally point. They’d idled here long enough. He and his team had been inserted by helicopter behind enemy lines two days before and held in readiness for just such a mission. Now they had other work to do. The communists had a whole network of supply dumps, communications facilities, and security detachments posted along this highway. Park intended to destroy them.

“Sir!” Sergeant Kwon came toward him with something clutched in his hand. Park remembered seeing the burly sergeant sawing away at the uniform of one of the North Korean officers.

Kwon stopped in front of him, saluted, and held out a strip of cloth. “A trophy for your collection, Major.” The sergeant grinned broadly at his own joke.

Park took the rigid piece of cloth and stared at it. A shoulder board with a single star. The insignia of a People’s Army major general. He nodded in satisfaction. One of the six North Korean divisions trying to stem General McLaren’s attack had just lost its commander and its entire staff.

He slipped the dead general’s shoulder board into his tunic and turned to leave. His men followed in single file. They had a long march ahead to reach the next objective.

1ST BRIGADE, 10TH INFANTRY DIVISION, HIGHWAY 4, SOUTH OF UCH’ON

“Gunner! Sabot! Tank at ten o’clock!” The South Korean captain felt his M-48’s turret swing left and waited.

“Up!”

“Fire!” The tank bucked as its 105-millimeter main gun went off with a loud roar. Acrid fumes filled the turret as it recoiled and spit out a used shell
casing. The gunner hurriedly loaded another armor-piercing shell. It wasn’t necessary.

Their target, a T-55, sat burning on the raised shoulder of the highway. Fifteen others were scattered across the iced-over rice paddies, wrecked and on fire. It was over. The counterattacking North Korean armored battalion had been slaughtered—caught charging across open ground by twenty South Korean tanks waiting hull-down behind the highway embankment. A single M-48 sat mangled, its turret ripped open by a communist shell.

The captain undogged his hatch and stood high in the turret, gulping down deep breaths of fresh air. Although the entire engagement had taken just five frantic minutes, he was exhausted, worn ragged by the extraordinary combination of extreme physical exertion, fear, and intense concentration needed in battle.

The brigade commander’s voice crackled through his headphones. “All units. Continue the advance in echelon. Division objective is now Uch’on.”

The M-48’s commander squinted into the setting sun and nodded to himself. The village of Uch’on lay eleven kilometers ahead. They just might be able to make it before nightfall. And that would put the division’s lead elements more than thirty kilometers past what had once been the thinly held North Korean main line of resistance.

Thunderbolt had broken through.

II CORPS HQ, NORTH OF TAEJON

The two generals stood together in the shadow thrown by a tall tree. Both were bundled against the cold.

Off to the south Taejon’s battered skyline glowed faintly with the light of a hundred fires, and smoke rising from the city stained the sky a dull, barren black. At this distance the sounds of the fighting were muted, reduced to little more than the quiet crackling of small-arms fire interspersed with the heavier thumping noises made by artillery and mortar rounds.

Colonel General Cho Hyun-Jae grimaced. “I fear, Chyong, that we stand on the edge of disaster. You’ve heard the reports?”

Lieutenant General Chyong nodded. They’d begun picking up the scattered transmissions earlier in the morning. First, news of a possible amphibious invasion on the coast near Seoul. Then, fragmentary reports of a massive assault force rolling out of the eastern mountains. Every signal had been garbled—a victim of imperialist radio jamming. Nothing was certain.

Chyong studied his commander carefully. The older man looked inexpressibly weary. “Is there more news?”

Cho shrugged, barely lifting his shoulders. “Nothing. I’ve dispatched
couriers to each of the division headquarters with word to send me more details. I’ve heard nothing from them.” He shook his head. “Since my security troops report that the countryside behind us is crawling with puppet government assassins, I suspect that my messengers have been intercepted.” He drew a hand across his throat.

“Perhaps.”

Cho looked down at his hands. “In any event, our course is clear. We must shift forces northward to meet this enemy thrust. The imperialists cannot be allowed to sever our line of communications. We must counterattack.”

He turned away from the sight of Taejon. “I shall need two of your best divisions, Chyong, and two more from the Fourth Corps. I’ll also need two of the three armored regiments supporting your attack.”

Chyong frowned. Cho’s requisitions would leave his corps a toothless tiger, incapable of capturing the city. And there were other problems that could not be ignored. “My forces are at your disposal, comrade. But my casualties have been very heavy. Even my best units are barely at half-strength.” He moved closer. “Worse yet, our supplies are extremely low—food, ammunition, fuel, everything. There may not be enough fuel to move my tanks far enough north to attack the imperialists.”

Cho’s lips thinned in anger. “I am aware of your supply problems, comrade. Intimately aware!” He took a breath, trying to relax. “Pyongyang has assured me that resupply columns are moving south at this moment. Your tanks will have their fuel. That I promise you.”

Chyong wished his leader sounded more confident that Pyongyang’s promises would be fulfilled.

PHOENIX FLIGHT, OVER HIGHWAY 23, NORTH OF SOKSONG

Major Chon looked at the dark, undulating landscape flowing by five hundred feet beneath his plane. The moon had risen an hour ago, and it now threw just enough light to keep him out of trouble. He glanced quickly back over his shoulder and then forward again. The three other A-10s of his flight were still in position, following him at three hundred knots.

He smiled beneath his oxygen mask. Technically, A-10s weren’t night-capable aircraft, but the high command was throwing everything it had into this counteroffensive. Their orders were clear—to keep the pressure on the North Koreans around the clock. And if that meant that he and his men had to take unexpected risks, then Chon would see to it that those risks brought results on every mission.

Their prey this time was a North Korean supply convoy that had been spotted late in the afternoon by an RF-5A photoreconnaissance aircraft. Even though the NK trucks had been carefully camouflaged and concealed
among some trees, their still-warm engines had shown up clearly on the recon plane’s infrared film. Intelligence believed the communists were moving only at night to try to avoid detection.

Chon’s flight had been readied immediately as part of the ongoing effort to interdict all supplies heading for the Taejon area.

“Phoenix Flight, this is Voodoo, over.” A quiet voice came through his headphones. There was his signal. Voodoo was an observation plane, an OV-10D Bronco. It had the low-light and thermal-imaging sensors that Chon’s attack aircraft lacked, and the slow-moving spotter had been launched at dusk, an hour before Chon’s jets. The radio contact meant his A-10s were approaching the most likely area now.

“Phoenix Flight, location Alpha X-ray four seven three seven, over.”

There wasn’t any need for the spotter plane to say what was at that location. Chon looked at the map taped to his knee and made some rapid calculations. The A-10’s avionics weren’t all that sophisticated, and a lot of the navigating was still done by the pilot.

“Roger, Voodoo, ETA three minutes.” Chon flashed his navigation lights twice to alert his subordinates and banked a little to the left. Once on course he stole a quick glance behind. The other A-10s were still with him.

He checked his armament panel, then glanced at the map. The terrain stayed hilly, with a highway winding around the highest elevations. The best approach route was across the road, moving from east to west, but they would have to do some fancy flying to avoid slamming into a hill at three hundred knots.

He clicked his mike. “Phoenix Flight, this is Lead. Standard attack from the east. Voodoo, our ETA is one minute.”

The spotter plane pilot came back on the air immediately. “Roger, Phoenix. Prepped for illumination on your call.”

Chon answered with two clicks and flashed his lights again. He broke hard left, knowing that his wingman, Captain Lee, would follow him. He looked right and saw the other pair moving away, off to the north.

There was the highway, a thin black line against an irregular gray-and-white landscape. “Voodoo, this is Phoenix Lead. Now, now, NOW!”

Chon kept his eyes on the surface of the road. Even so, the sudden bright, white light cast by the OV-10-dropped string of flares ruined his night vision. Their harsh, flickering illumination wasn’t easy to see by. He blinked, looking for patterns, regular shadows or shapes along the road.

There.

A row of boxy shadows, still moving in column down the road.

Chon’s thumb reached for the cannon trigger as his A-10 dropped lower toward the road.

ON HIGHWAY 23

The flares swaying down out of the sky could mean only one thing. Disaster.

“Get off the road! Disperse!” Major Roh In-Hak screamed into his radio, then leaned out of the truck cab. He waved his arms frantically, motioning the drivers behind him off to either side of the road. Most stared uncomprehendingly back.

It was too late. Roh heard a howling whine and looked back and up. Two dark, cruciform shapes were roaring down out of the sky—heading directly for him. Death on the wing.

The major panicked and threw himself out of the truck cab. He pinwheeled down a steep embankment and landed hard against the frozen earth of a rice-paddy dike. He lay motionless, gasping for air.

Roh looked up at his still-moving truck just as the first attacking aircraft fired. Its bulbous nose was illuminated by a blaze of light even brighter than the flares drifting overhead, and a stream of fire reached out and ripped into the earth near his truck. Then it leaped toward the vehicle as the pilot corrected his aim.

The North Korean major buried his face in the ground as the truck exploded, sending a searing sheet of orange-and-red flame just over his head. It had been carrying artillery ammunition destined for the heavy guns bombarding Taejon. He knew his driver was dead.

More explosions rocked the earth, lighting up the hills on either side of the narrow valley they were in. Roh stayed down as fragments whined all around, trying to shut out the awful sounds as screams blended with the roar of jet engines and the rippling thunder of high-velocity aircraft cannons.

The noise faded and then died away entirely. The enemy planes had finished their strafing runs.

Roh raised his head cautiously and then scrambled to his feet. He ran back toward the rest of the column to check the damage and was relieved by what he found. Only the first three trucks had been hit—all carrying ammunition or food. The supply convoy’s precious fuel tankers were still intact.

But they were trapped on this road. His vehicles couldn’t possibly escape over the rough countryside. And Roh knew the enemy pilots would be back to finish what they’d started. He went from truck to truck, banging on cab doors and screaming, “Deploy! Deploy! Troops take up positions in the trees! Get the antiaircraft vehicles operational!”

The column’s air defenses were pitiful. Every one of the People’s Army’s remaining mobile antiaircraft guns were stationed up at the front. As a result, all Roh had to defend his trucks with were a few locally manufactured guns, clumsy 37-millimeter weapons mounted precariously on flatbed trucks, and a sprinkling of shoulder-launched SA-7 SAMs carried by the convoy’s small infantry detachment. He knew it wouldn’t be enough.

Roh heard the jets thundering back and started running away from the road.

PHOENIX FLIGHT

As he banked hard right to come around again, Chon armed his cluster bombs. They would drop all their ordnance in one pass, and there would be no second chance.

“Phoenix Flight, this is Lead. Attack in echelon.”

Clicks acknowledged his order, and Chon started concentrating on his flying. More flares went off ahead, lighting up the rugged countryside, and he pulled the A-10’s nose higher to clear a hill just ahead.

As he popped over the tree-lined hill’s jagged summit, Chon saw what looked like a cloud of fireflies and streaks of light zipping past his canopy. Tracers. He tried to avoid flinching. The A-10 was armored, but no sane pilot trusted in armor to keep his airplane flyable. He’d already been shot down once by enemy flak and he wasn’t about to let it happen again.

Chon punched his flare dispenser to automatic and set his HUD for a cluster bomb drop directly over the center of the road now coming up fast.

One concentration of tracers attracted his attention. His eyes narrowed. They were coming from some sort of flak vehicle, and he was tempted to give it a quick cannon burst after he’d made his pass. Chon fought the temptation. Attacking alerted defenses wasn’t wise. The mission was to destroy what they were trying to defend.

He reached for the bomb release.

ON HIGHWAY 23

Roh told the men near him to fire, and purely for effect, he emptied his own pistol at the dark shapes streaking overhead. He could see their undersides clearly in the light cast by his burning vehicles.

As his pistol clicked empty, the North Korean swore to himself. He’d identified the attackers. They were American A-10s and pistol bullets wouldn’t bother them any more than they would a tank. Each spewed a trail of incandescent flares as it roared past.

His motionless truck column disappeared in a blinding series of rippling detonations. Hundreds of flashes tore up and down the line of now-abandoned vehicles and blossomed across the frozen paddies on either side of the road. A cluster of furnace-white fireballs rising in the air told him that the fuel tankers needed at Taejon were gone.