Red Phoenix Burning (3 page)

He grinned back at the other man. “I wouldn’t miss it, Lieutenant Colonel Miller.”

Checkpoint Three, Joint Security Area

The entire Panmunjom Truce Village was brightly lit by floodlights mounted on buildings and tall metal lampposts. Once past the entrance to the UN side of the compound, the convoy of trucks and Humvees carrying the security battalion’s ready platoon swung left onto a two-lane road heading west, and then turned sharply onto an even narrower one-lane road heading uphill toward Checkpoint Three. Trees and underbrush lined both sides.

“Stop here, Harmon,” Miller told his driver. They were near the top of the hill and within a hundred meters of the demarcation line, but still just out of sight of the closest North Korean guard post.

Kevin swung himself out of Miller’s Humvee, stifling a grunt as his knees and feet briefly took on the full weight of his body armor, ammo, and other gear. Counting the M4A1 rifle one of the security battalion’s sergeants had issued him before they drove out of Camp Bonifas, he was probably carrying around forty-five to fifty pounds of extra weight. That wasn’t the full load carried by an infantryman on an extended foot patrol, but it was more than enough—especially for someone who was closer to fifty years old than to forty.

“Better leave that in the Humvee, sir,” Miller said quietly, nodding at the assault rifle. “This close to the line, we only carry sidearms. Our KPA pals get nervous if they see heavier firepower.”

“And if we see some of those ‘pals’ are toting something a bit bigger?” Kevin asked.

“Then the rules have changed.”

“Swell.” Kevin slid the rifle back into the Humvee but left the door slightly ajar. If the rules had suddenly “changed,” he didn’t want to have to fumble with the latch.

The two 6×6 trucks carrying the ready platoon pulled in behind them and parked. South Korean soldiers dropped off the back of the trucks, quickly forming up in the shadow of the trees. Their camouflage gear had more pixelated greens and browns than the US Army pattern did, and they blended well with the tangled woods on either side of the road.

“Keep your men below the crest for now, Lieutenant Kim,” Miller told the officer commanding the platoon. “Colonel Little and I will go up to Checkpoint Three first. I don’t want to escalate this situation unless I need to. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.” The South Korean lieutenant turned and began issuing low-voiced orders to his NCOs.

Satisfied, Miller took his helmet off, clipped it to his tactical vest, and donned a soft, camo-patterned patrol cap. He watched as Kevin did the same. “No point in putting on our war paint if we don’t have to,” he said, his drawl deepening.

Together, the two officers walked up the road. It struck Kevin as surreal to step out into the fully illuminated patch of short-cropped grass and gravel in front of Checkpoint Three. During his time on the DMZ, light discipline was strictly enforced. Back then, if you were lit up, you were a target.
Old habits die hard
, he thought grimly, especially if those habits kept you alive. Just seeing their elongated shadows rippling across the grass ahead of them made his skin crawl.

He moved out toward the western edge of the hill, in front of the lights, and peered through his night vision binoculars. About two kilometers to the southwest, he could make out the huge, 160-meter-high flagpole the North Koreans had erected at the fake village they had built for propaganda purposes opposite South Korea’s Daesong-dong. He swung right, scanning across the landscape of low hills and fields beyond the woods and brush that marked the DMZ. The night vision binoculars showed everything in an eerie green. The highway came into focus, running straight through the fields outside Kaesong toward Panmunjom.

Miller joined him. “That damned caravan is about five klicks out and still coming this way.”

Kevin raised his binoculars higher and saw them. Six, no, seven cars were driving east with their headlights on. This far away it was hard to tell for sure, but they looked like a mix of luxury models—big Russian-made ZiL limousines and Mercedes sedans. His jaw tightened. In North Korea, vehicles like that were restricted to high-ranking party officials and top army brass.

“They’re heading for the Bridge of 72 Hours,” Miller said. “Which means we’re going to have these guys, whoever they are, right in our laps in about five minutes.”

Kevin nodded. Back in 1976, after axe-wielding North Koreans had murdered two Americans, Captain Bonifas and Lieutenant Barrett, the UN Command had closed off the only road access to the North Korean side of Panmunjom. Working feverishly over three days, the KPA had built the aptly named Bridge of 72 Hours as a replacement.

Movement beyond the oncoming cars caught Kevin’s eye. He focused his binoculars farther west along the highway, closer to Kaesong. There. He could make out a low-slung, eight-wheeled armored vehicle with a small, round turret up top.
Hell
, he realized,
that was a BTR-60, a North Korean APC
. It was driving flat-out and it was only a few hundred meters behind the caravan of limousines.

Suddenly a series of bright flashes, blindingly green in the night vision glasses, erupted from the BTR’s turret.

Almost simultaneously, the last car in the caravan swerved wildly and slammed head-on into one of the tall poplar trees lining the highway. Its doors popped open, but no one got out as a second burst of heavy machine gun fire ripped through the car—tearing it open from end to end.

Ten seconds later, the sound of a rapid-fire burst—a crackling staccato—arrived, rippling uphill at the speed of sound.

Everything fell into place in that instant. In the DPRK, modern luxury cars could only belong to high-ranking North Korean officials. Unexplained small-arms fire in the hills beyond the DMZ erupting almost at the same time as communications from Pyongyang goes off the air; and then the guards around Panmunjom pulling a sudden disappearing act could only mean something real bad was going down. Kevin lowered his binoculars and swung toward Miller. “That’s not a diplomatic mission, Mike. They’re trying to defect.”

“Agreed,” the other man said slowly. Then he nodded toward the highway. “But someone blew the whistle on those poor bastards.”

Kevin took another look, just in time to see a second car, this one a ZiL, spin across the highway with pieces of metal and rubber flying away in all directions. It crashed into a Mercedes and sent the sedan pinwheeling into the trees. Three figures scrambled out of the smashed cars onto the pavement and then crumpled as machine gun fire from the oncoming BTR caught them.

“Shit!” Miller growled. “They’re getting murdered. And there’s not a damned thing we can do about it.”

Another limousine skidded off the highway into a field. More men tumbled out of this wreck. They carried assault rifles and submachine guns, but another burst from the BTR tore them apart before they could shoot back.

There were just three cars left.

A dazzling speck of fire streaked westward down the highway from a squat building near the Bridge of 72 Hours and hit the lead vehicle. The ZiL exploded. Loyal KPA troops equipped with antitank guided missiles were manning the bridge defenses, Kevin realized.

The two surviving cars turned sharply, veering off the highway and onto a narrower road that ran southeast toward the western edge of the DMZ.

“They’re trying for the Bridge of No Return,” Miller said.

Kevin nodded. The old, crumbling bridge, used for prisoner of war exchanges after the First Korean War armistice but now closed to traffic, was the only other place where anyone could cross the Sachon River and enter the Joint Security Area. “You’d better get some of your guys down there, Mike.”

“Yeah—”

“We’ve got movement in KPA Four!” their radios squawked.

That was the two-story North Korean guard post with a direct line of sight on Checkpoint Three.

Kevin swung around and then felt himself hurled backward as the whole world around him flashed white. He hit the ground, bounced hard, and then found himself lying flat on his back. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Trailing streamers of flame, shards of wood, and jagged pieces of concrete arced across the sky overhead, tumbling away in all directions.

Time abruptly accelerated back to normal.

Acting on reflex, he rolled over and fumbled for the helmet clipped to his tactical vest. Once it was on, he cautiously lifted his head, trying to see what the hell had just happened.

The rules had changed.

Checkpoint Three was a blazing mound of rubble. A few years back, the UN Command had rebuilt the post, installing blast-resistant glass and thicker walls. But no one had planned for it to withstand a direct hit from an antitank missile.

Kevin caught a flurry of movement off to his left. It was Miller, dazed and bloody, rocking back and forth on his hands and knees and obviously trying to get to his feet.
Oh, God
, he thought, opening his mouth to shout a warning—

Crack.

Miller went down, hit in the head. His patrol cap went flying off into the darkness.

Kevin swallowed hard. The North Koreans had a sniper zeroed in on this hilltop. Without thinking, he rolled away to his right, angling downhill.

Crack.

Dirt and torn grass spurted from the spot he’d just abandoned.

He kept moving, scrabbling down the hill, seeking cover in the taller grass and clumps of brush. Twenty meters down, he stopped and risked a quick check of his surroundings.

Above him, the hilltop glowed red and orange in the light from the burning building. To his right, he could make out Miller’s Humvee and the two trucks parked beneath the trees. Shadowy, camouflaged figures flickered into motion, darting across the road in ones and twos and spreading out across the slope. Good, he thought. Lieutenant Kim was on the ball. He was already deploying his platoon for action.

Kevin glanced to his left, eyeing the thick forest that marked the winding trace of the Sachon River. There, on the slightly higher ground rising beyond the trees, he could just make out two pairs of headlights bucketing up and down along the rutted, potholed road that led to the Bridge of No Return. Some of the would-be defectors who had triggered this murderous attack were still alive, and still trying to escape to the South.

His resolve hardened. If Pyongyang wanted those people dead badly enough to risk reigniting the war, then it was his duty to try his damnedest to bring them across the line alive. But he wasn’t going to be able to do that on his own. It was time to get back in the fight.

He groped for his radio. It was gone, probably ripped away by the blast or torn off during his scramble down the hill. Swell. He really hoped that Lieutenant Kim’s men weren’t trigger-happy.

Slowly, carefully, Kevin got to his feet, making sure that his empty hands were clearly visible. He saw a South Korean soldier swing toward him, sighting down his rifle. He froze.

“Colonel Little?” a voice hissed.

“That’s me.”

Lieutenant Kim materialized out of the darkness. “Where is Colonel Miller?”

“He’s dead, Lieutenant,” Kevin said flatly. “Hit by a KPA sniper after they blew Checkpoint Three to hell.”

The young South Korean officer stiffened. For a moment, he was silent. Then he asked, “What are your orders, sir?”

“First, radio Major Lee and report the situation here,” Kevin said, thinking fast. With Miller’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Sobong, busy managing the evacuation of the civilians from Daesong-dong, Lee would have to assume operational control over the rest of the battalion. “Then you defend this position with two of your squads and your machine gun teams. Watch your flanks. Under no circumstances will you cross the demarcation line.”

“And if we see the enemy?” the young officer asked carefully.

“Then you shoot them, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” Kim nodded tightly. “And what about my third squad, Colonel?”

“I’m taking it,” Kevin told him. He nodded downhill toward the darkened blur that was the Bridge of No Return. “We’ve got company coming, and I plan to meet them personally.”

“I understand, sir.”

“There’s just one more thing, Lieutenant,” Kevin said as the other man turned away to begin relaying orders to his men.

“Colonel?” the Korean asked, puzzled.

“I need a rifle.”

The Bridge of No Return

Swearing under his breath, Kevin slid downhill, bulling his way through the overgrown tangle of underbrush and low-hanging tree branches by brute force. He could hear Sergeant Jeong and his eight men crashing through the woods behind him.

This kind of stunt was just plain nuts, and he knew it.

Running full-tilt through these patches of forest at night was just begging to be ambushed by the KPA. And he would have fried any junior officer who pulled this kind of dumb-ass maneuver in a peacetime exercise. But there wasn’t time for anything clever, or slow, or even safe. They had to get to the bridge before those defectors reached it.

Kevin broke out into the open at the bottom of the hill and dropped to one knee, breathing hard. Jeong and the others went to ground behind him, rifles pointed to the west.

They were at the edge of the road leading to the bridge. About sixty meters ahead, he could make out the rectangular shape of the old UN checkpoint. Sited at the east end of the span, it had been abandoned years ago as too dangerous a post.

KPA Post Seven was at the west end of the bridge. It was a bigger, more solidly built structure than the deserted UN checkpoint. If those people trying to escape the North were lucky, the bribes or fake orders they were relying on would have cleared Post Seven. Somehow, though, Kevin wasn’t willing to bet that they were that lucky.

He could hear engine noises now. Those last two cars must be getting pretty close. He glanced back at Jeong. The South Korean noncom looked young for his rank, but he seemed perfectly calm. “Follow me, Sergeant. You take the south side. I’ll take the north.”

Jeong nodded.

Suddenly, the staccato chatter of a heavy machine gun drowned out the sound of the approaching cars.