Red Phoenix Burning (9 page)

The government’s reasons were obvious. The North was a dangerous neighbor and a possible opponent, but the ROK leadership had precious little information about the current state of affairs. Rhee’s mission might give them vital clues about what was happening, or about to happen. The country could then take steps to counter any harmful actions, or at least prepare.

The military needed information on the KPA’s readiness. Reports of deserted outposts and unusual operating patterns left the generals and admirals in the dark. Unstable political situations often bred military adventures, ill-advised but still destructive. And then there was the WMD issue. What was their status? While Rhee’s team couldn’t answer all the questions, much could be deduced from the information they brought back.

There was also the personal angle. Like almost everyone in the south, Rhee had distant relatives in North Korea, ones he’d never met, but still felt connected to. There were still many alive who’d been separated from parents and siblings in the First Korean War. The older generation was now gone, but that made the ties to those left just that much more important.

Family mattered in Korea—a lot. Even though they’d been taught all their lives that the North was an enemy, bent on their destruction or enslavement, that only applied to the regime, to the Kims and their minions. To the average South Korean, the average North Korean was a prisoner in his own country—starved and mistreated. Unification would not just end an evil regime, but liberate their families from lifetimes of suffering.

Rhee could see the impatience in the rest of his team, even in the sub’s thirty three-man crew. Speculation and discussions about what might be happening had taken on a life of its own, and finally the captain had forbidden all discussion of the topic unless it related to Rhee’s mission.

Rhee kept his team busy, distracting them with quizzes about the local geography or other details of the mission, with weapons drills, and even language practice. Aside from regional accents, the language in the North had changed, with slightly different pronunciations and different terms. Rhee and his men would be wearing KPA uniforms, but the game would be over if someone spoke like they’d come from Seoul.

It was a small team, just four men. Rhee had chosen Lieutenant Guk Yong-soo, the platoon leader who’d brought his men across the finish line in under an hour and forty-five minutes. The other two men, Master Sergeant Oh and Corporal Ma, were out of Guk’s platoon. Oh had served two tours in Afghanistan, but the lieutenant and corporal had no combat experience.

General Kwon had first insisted that Rhee have someone else lead the mission, but when he’d realized that his colonel intended to go, and announced the rest of his team, he’d argued against any new men. “Not this first time, Colonel.”

“Especially this first time, sir,” Rhee had countered. “It’s only going to get worse later. It always does. They’re good, and they’ll come back veterans.”

“Make sure you come back with them, Colonel,” Kwon insisted.

Guk and Ma were both thrilled to be chosen for the mission, maybe a little too thrilled in Rhee’s opinion, but Master Sergeant Oh had simply nodded and gone to prepare his gear. Of course, the entire platoon helped them get ready, and they’d flown out for Pyeongtaek naval base later that day.

They left the sub via the lockout chamber, one at a time, first the lieutenant, then Oh, Corporal Ma, and finally Rhee. Because of the sub’s moderate size, and the captain’s considerable skill, they’d managed to close to the ten-fathom line, which would save them a lot of swimming. Rhee shook hands with the captain, thanked him for the smooth trip, and promised to be back at the rendezvous in three days. The sub would loiter along the northern coast, eavesdropping electronically and keeping her batteries topped off.

The Yellow Sea was relatively warm in August. To Rhee, it was almost like bath water, and he surfaced in total darkness. The other three were within meters, and linked up as soon as he appeared. The sub’s captain had put them exactly where he was supposed to. A scan of the surface and the shoreline showed no movement and few lights. Fuel in the North was scarce, and the dark coastline beckoned.

With their bearings established, they submerged again and swam east, into enemy territory. Rhee automatically counted his kicks as he swam, checking the time, depth, and especially direction. He swam through a cool black void, with no up or down, no light except the faint glow of the watch and compass on his wrist when he uncovered them. At times, he thought he felt an eddy or surge of water from one of the other nearby swimmers, but probably not. They tried to move through the water with as little disturbance as possible. Not only did it reduce the chance of being spotted; it saved energy.

It was still over a mile to the shoreline. The seafloor shallowed very slowly, so they’d chosen to come in at high tide, to get as much cover from the water as possible. A half hour into the trip, Rhee was starting to watch the remaining time more frequently. He told himself it was to make sure he didn’t overshoot, and he was mostly right.

The four came up within seconds of each other; four black bumps a hundred meters offshore. His night vision gear showed no activity on the beach, in fact, no sign of human presence at all. Guk, next to him, was making a similar scan, and gave Rhee the “all clear” sign as well. Oh and Ma, on either side, were scanning the sea, and also saw nothing untoward.

The water was only a meter and a half deep here, and they water-crawled about half the distance before stripping off their swim fins and dashing to the shore. The beach surface was loose rock, and it was hard to move silently. The good news was that there were plenty of larger stones and boulders for cover. They quickly removed their swim gear and cached it in a rocky hollow and camouflaged it. They’d need it in a few days, but they couldn’t carry scuba gear all over North Korea.

They were all in North Korean People’s Army uniforms, matching their real ranks, except for Rhee, who wore a major’s insignia on a commissar’s uniform. If challenged, they were a patrol searching for defectors from their unit, which given the situation in the North, seemed likely. Three carried standard-issue North Korean Type 88 rifles, while Master Sergeant Oh had a KS-23 combat shotgun. They all carried a North Korean Type 66 pistol, a copy of a Russian 9mm Makarov weapon. Rhee and Guk wore theirs openly, the others had them concealed but accessible. Ma carried a SATCOM radio, and at Rhee’s instruction, sent the signal reporting that they had arrived safely.

The team also carried an electronic listening station broken down into several subcomponents. After their mission was finished, they would assemble and leave the device behind. It could eavesdrop on short-range communications that usually could not be picked up by sensors in the South. Planners had selected several potential spots along their path where it could be placed. While it would almost certainly be found eventually, it would not be found quickly, and not until long after the team had left.

The beach, really a small cove, had a stream in the center leading inland. Hurrying the other three a little, Rhee led them along it. They’d landed right after evening twilight and had a lot of ground to cover during the short summer night. After making sure everyone’s night vision gear was functioning, the colonel checked his watch and started east with Lieutenant Guk leading the way. They were a few minutes behind schedule, and Rhee told him to set a fast pace.

Although Rhee was confident of his choices, the four had not had a chance to train together as a team. Normally they would have practiced the entire mission in the South, or at least the critical parts of it. Instead, Rhee had kept the plan simple, using the basic skills that anyone in the Ghost Brigade was expected to have mastered—like crossing an enemy landscape at night without being detected. As they walked, Rhee listened carefully, checking their noise discipline.

The land rose smoothly and quickly became rolling wooded farmland, dotted with orchards and clumps of pine forest. Given the perennial food shortage in North Korea, every hectare of arable land was tilled, but many of these fields were idle this season, either by design or circumstance. Rhee could see hills rising in front of them. That would slow them down, but the hills would also help screen their movements, and give them a good place to observe their target.

Their goal was Chongju, fifteen kilometers to the east, a relatively short distance, but of course, they would not be following a straight path. Chongju was headquarters for the 425th Mechanized Corps, roughly equivalent to a South Korean division. His orders were to observe the corps for any unusual activity. He was to be especially alert for any signs of general mobilization, and to get a definite count of the units present. The division had several cantonments scattered around the Chongju City proper. His team would have to check each one, then be back at the beach in slightly less than seventy-two hours.

They followed the stream inland for a few kilometers. Farmland lay on either side, although there were lighted houses to the south. The stream led toward the north side of a farming village, and after checking his bearings, Guk led the team east.

They quickly reached a two-lane road and followed it to the northwest, bypassing a larger town, Choyang-ni, to the south. There was absolutely no traffic on the road, and Rhee felt like he was back in the water, moving through empty darkness. The sound of the summer insects kept it from being completely silent, but Rhee had to work at remembering this wasn’t just a midnight stroll through a peaceful rural countryside.

They crossed a major highway, a two-lane paved road, and the land began to rise. Their goal for the night was a 230-meter high hill that lay to the east of Chongju and overlooked the first garrison they were supposed to observe. About nine kilometers from the beach, it was as far as they could get in the short night and still have time to set up a decent secure hiding place.

They were just over a kilometer from the shore, moving cross-country, when Guk, still in the front, suddenly gave the signal to stop and went to one knee. Rhee dropped as well, and froze in place until Guk whispered in the headset radio: “Movement. Four forward.”

Rhee was fourth in line, and he moved as quietly and quickly as he could until he was next to Guk. The lieutenant didn’t have to explain why he’d stopped. A group of people was crossing a field ahead of them, moving right to left. Rhee could see several adults and a gaggle of children. Based on their size, they ranged from their teens to toddlers. They were still some distance away, but they appeared to be carrying bundles and suitcases. He saw no weapons.

“Civilians going cross-country?” Guk asked.

“Heading west or northwest. They’ll reach the shore soon,” Rhee predicted. “I’ll wager one of them has a boat, or knows where one is.”

The commandos could hear the group now, speaking softly but still talking far too much if they were trying to avoid detection. They were about thirty meters away, and unless they changed their direction, would pass well ahead of Rhee’s team. What bits of conversation he heard confirmed his theory that they were heading for a boat, and the lament that one had to be alive to harvest any crops.

Rhee checked his watch. This was not helping their timetable. He patted Guk’s shoulder and whispered, “Good work. Keep up the pace, but there may be more.” The lieutenant started out again, and Rhee let the others pass before taking his place at the rear again.

There were more, enough so that Rhee wished they’d brought a small UAV to give them an aerial view. Not only would it have allowed them to go around the singles, pairs, and families moving through the darkness, but the colonel wanted to see just how many there were. Was there a pattern? Were there so many because they were close to the coast? If the civilians were all moving away from a central point, that would be a place he wanted to investigate.

As it was, when Guk spotted someone, all they could do was stop, make sure the civilians were not heading straight for the team, and then wait for them to pass. While Rhee and the others saw signs that the civilians—now refugees, Rhee corrected himself—were being watchful, none showed any sign of detecting their presence.

Guk was steering them past one group by leaving the road and paralleling the tree line, when he stopped and called for the colonel again. It was the same words, “Four forward,” but Rhee could tell something was wrong.

They hadn’t shown up on Ma’s night vision goggles because the bodies were cold, but Guk had spotted them by their shapes against the smooth ground. Rhee saw a jumble of bodies, large and small, and ordered “Ma, on lookout” on the headset radio.

While Corporal Ma kept watch, the other three first checked the bodies for any sign of booby traps, then gently untangled them.

It looked like a family group, two older adults, three more in their twenties, and a teen boy. All were civilians, and had been shot. Two piles of clothes and small belongings lay on the cloths that had bundled them together.

“No valuables,” Oh reported.

“This was done by soldiers,” Guk concluded.

“Concur. Robbed and shot,” Rhee answered. “Gather any identity documents you can find.”

“The soldiers didn’t bother taking those,” Guk commented, handing several to Rhee. His disgust was plain.

The colonel didn’t expect the papers would be of much intelligence value, but the sheer fact that refugees were being murdered by soldiers, probably deserters, was important. He also carefully marked their location. These poor souls had family, here in the North and perhaps even in the South. They might have lost their lives, but Rhee would make sure they were not lost forever.

Rhee was reluctant to leave them where they lay, but there was no time for anything else. He ordered Guk on point again, and they resumed their trip through a land in upheaval.

Two kilometers from their destination, Guk halted them again. “Gun emplacement ahead.”

That surprised Rhee. That hadn’t been on the satellite photos. Of course, they were American satellite photos taken over a week ago. Rhee had been told during the briefings that newer ones weren’t available. They might not exist, or ROK intelligence might not have asked for them. A request might have started a discussion about why they were needed, and the Americans might not have been too happy about Rhee’s mission.