Red Phoenix (37 page)

He slapped the side of the turret in frustration. “Come on, you puling swine. Move!”

His men raced even faster to fold and stow their white camouflage nets. Their company commander’s morning temper tantrums were infamous. All
his urgings, however, couldn’t do much to speed the moment when they could start turning over their T-55s’ powerful, water-cooled diesel engines.

And when the sun rose blood-red, only five of the company’s eight remaining tanks had their diesels revving at full throttle.

The captain muttered angrily to himself as he waited for the other tank commanders to get their armored behemoths underway. His breath steamed in the frozen air. The temperature was dropping again.

Something flickered at the corner of his eye and he turned, squinting painfully into the rising sun. Nothing. Nothing. There.

He stood rooted in place for a moment, mesmerized by the oncoming shapes. Then he grabbed for the twin handles of the turret-mounted DShK-38 heavy machine gun and bellowed, “Air raid warning—EAST!”

BLUE DRAGON FLIGHT, 25TH SQUADRON, ROK AIR FORCE

Major Chon of the South Korean Air Force smiled beneath his oxygen mask as his American-built A-10 Thunderbolt II lifted its ugly nose above the ridgeline and dropped back down in a gentle dive toward the ice-covered rice paddies below.

He glanced quickly right and left. The three other planes of his flight were pacing him, flying in a line-abreast formation to maximize their chances of sighting a worthwhile ground target.

Chon smiled again. This was more like it. Much better than yesterday.

The first day of the war had been a disaster for the ROK’s lone A-10 ground attack squadron. Right at the start, North Korean commandos had crash-landed right on Yanggu’s runways and fanned out across the field, shooting up and grenading barracks, maintenance shops, a Vulcan antiaircraft battery, and the nearest I-Hawk SAM battery. They’d inflicted heavy casualties and damage before Air Force security troops had killed them.

The air raid that followed had been even worse. The 25th’s A-10s were still taxiing out when a squadron of MiG-23s roared in out of the mountains—laying a string of concrete-piercing bombs across the now-defenseless base and its aircraft shelters. The bombs had turned three of the squadron’s twelve planes into flaming wrecks and had grounded the rest until the base’s shattered runways could be repaired.

That was bad enough. But then the Air Force staff gurus in Seoul had given first priority to the ROK’s fighter and air defense squadrons. As a result, specialized runway repair crews hadn’t arrived at Yanggu until late in the day—near dark. And by then the crews had been so exhausted that it had taken nearly six hours to fill in the holes and restore the runways to operational status.

That was all in the past now, though, and Chon expected today’s
tank-killing missions to erase the stain on his squadron’s honor. They’d been ordered up into the predawn gray to hunt down enemy armored units that had been spotted late yesterday moving into overrun some of the few troops still holding firm against the North Korean onslaught.

Chon scanned the low, undulating ground rushing toward him. Small, scattered clumps of trees, a snow-covered road and rice paddies, houses on the horizon—a tiny village. Ah. There they were. He spotted clouds of steam and exhaust smoke rising near the village where a cluster of T-55 tanks and other armored vehicles were gunning their engines to dispel the growing cold.

He broke radio silence. “Blue Dragon flight, this is Lead. Target at two o’clock. Attack in sequence.”

Chon banked right and dropped lower, lining up for a quick strafing run. The other three A-10s followed suit. He thumbed a switch on the stick, setting the plane’s internal decoy dispenser system to
AUTOMATIC. NOW
the A-10 would pop an IR decoy flare every couple of seconds through his attack run. With luck, any heat-seeking SAMs fired at him would be attracted to the flow of fast-burning magnesium flares instead.

The South Korean major settled his thumb back on the trigger for the plane’s GAU-8 30mm rotary cannon and watched the cluster of enemy tanks and APCs grow larger in his HUD’s target reticule. His thumb tensed, waiting.

NEAR TUIL, SOUTH KOREA

Lying half-hidden in a nearby drainage ditch, Kevin Little and Rhee watched in amazed relief as the first dark-green, flat-winged A-10 screamed down out of the sky toward the North Korean tanks, trailing an incandescent stream of slowly falling flares.

They’d taken shelter in the ditch early in the morning, too punch-drunk to spot the camouflaged T-55 company just a hundred meters ahead. When the tank engines had coughed to life, each had known they’d had it. Their improvised hiding place was right on the enemy’s line of march, and the North Koreans couldn’t possibly miss them once the tanks started rolling.

The A-10 fired and its nose disappeared in a blaze of light as it threw a hail of heavy, depleted-uranium slugs toward its targets.

The slugs vaporized snow and threw up fountains of new-made mud in a straight line pointing right at the parked T-55s. Then the bullet stream slammed into the thin top armor of the first tank, slashed through steel, and fireballed it—throwing burning diesel fuel and armor fragments high into the air. A second tank exploded, and a third sat lifeless and immobile, shredded from end to end.

The A-10 roared overhead, picking up speed as its twin turbofans went to maximum thrust. Its companions came in close behind, completing the slaughter. More North Korean tanks and APCs were ripped apart.

Kevin’s eyes followed the lead plane pulling up out of its strafing run. As it raced low over a white-cloaked orchard, a streak of orange flame leapt out from among the dead trees—darting after the Thunderbolt. Christ, North Korean infantry must be bivouacked in the grove, he thought, and one of them had fired a hand-held SAM to try to avenge his tank-driving comrades.

Aware of the oncoming missile, the A-10 suddenly jinked hard left, climbed sharply to clear a low ridge, and spewed a new cluster of flares. The SAM veered off, closing on one of the decoys.

The cleanup Thunderbolts saw the missile launch and banked right to strafe the orchard it had come from. Short cannon bursts from each hammered the orchard into a splintered tangle of fallen trees and dead men.

Kevin heard new explosions cracking nearby and tore his horrified gaze away from the carnage in the woods. He glanced back toward the lead A-10 just as it suddenly disappeared in a wall of smoke and flame.

45TH MEDIUM ANTIAIRCRAFT BATTERY, NEAR TUIL, SOUTH KOREA

Alerted by the tank company commander’s last bellowed warning, the 45th’s gunners frantically swung their six S-60 towed antiaircraft guns through an arc, trying to lead Chon’s snub-nosed A-10. The jet was moving too low and fast for precise aiming. They could only try to throw a proximity-fused barrage ahead of the speeding plane and hope that it ran straight through the deadly cloud of explosions and spiraling fragments.

Each gun only had time to lob three shells toward the selected aim point before Chon’s wingman spotted their muzzle flashes and strafed the battery into oblivion.

Most of the North Korean gunners didn’t live to see it, but they got lucky.

One of the eighteen 57-millimeter shells burst just above and behind Chon’s A-10. The explosion tore the plane’s starboard engine off and sent fragments slicing through A-10’s armor, deep into its fuselage—tearing through control cabling, hydraulics, and fuel tanks. The fragments didn’t cause any fires or internal explosions that would have destroyed the jet outright, but they did damage or destroy too many vital systems for it to remain flyable for long.

BLUE DRAGON FLIGHT LEADER

Chon swore under his breath as he wrestled to regain control. The unexpected flak burst had ripped the stick out of his hands and tossed the
A-10 into a dive. Now, without its starboard engine, the plane bobbled through the air like an epileptic duck.

The electronics for his HUD were out, gutted by a shell splinter, but he could see the ground rushing upward and his backup altimeter spinning down as the plane lost altitude.

Grunting with the effort, Chon pulled the ungainly A-10’s nose back level less than a hundred meters above the snow-covered ground and risked a quick glance at the instrument panel. Red
MALFUNCTION
warning lights blinked on almost every crucial indicator. No good. He could feel the aircraft growing less responsive with each successive maneuver. It was time to get out.

He pulled the wavering A-10 up into a shallow climb, feeling the stick shudder in his hands as the vibrations grew worse.

“Black Dog Nine, this is Blue Dragon Leader. Over.” He paused, waiting for a response, and watched the altimeter climb slowly past seven hundred meters while his airspeed bled off—dropping from over 300 knots to just under 200 in seconds.

“Blue Dragon Leader, this is Black Dog Nine. Over.” The airborne controller’s voice sounded calm, impartial, almost soothing.

“Black Dog Nine, Blue Dragon Leader declaring emergency. Triple A hit east of Tuil. Ejecting. Out.” Chon put his hand on the ejection handle.

“Roger your last, Blue Dragon Leader. SAR on the way. Good luck.” The voice sounded a little less detached, a little more human now.

As the shuddering A-10 leveled out, Chon paused for just a split second to thank whatever gods were looking out for him. With a SAR—search and rescue—chopper on the way to him now, all he had to do was survive the ejection and any North Korean reception committee that might be waiting for him on the ground.

He tapped the 9mm pistol in his shoulder holster once and punched out.

NEAR TUIL, SOUTH KOREA

Kevin saw the A-10 pilot’s chute blossom over the village moments before oily, black smoke from the burning tank company blotted out visibility. He shook his head, knowing that the pilot didn’t have a chance. The North Koreans would probably be on top of him before he could even shrug out of his parachute harness.

Rhee saw the drifting parachute, too, and scrambled up out of the ditch. Kevin followed him, ready to move away under cover of the smoke.

But Rhee had other ideas. Instead of heading south, toward safety, he lurched off north through the virgin snow with his M16 at the ready.

Kevin stumbled after the South Korean lieutenant. “Where the hell are you going?”

Rhee glanced sidelong at him and snapped the safety on his M16 off. “To help the man who helped us.”

Oh, Jesus, Kevin thought, we’re gonna put our necks on the chopping block for a flyboy we’ve never met. But he jogged forward with Rhee, unslinging his own rifle as he ran. He was too tired and too cold to argue—too tired to even feel much fear at the thought of death. A stray thought flashed through his brain as they crested a low rise and came out of the smoke. Did most soldiers do the things they did in war because they were too damned fatigued to know any better?

There wasn’t time to think the question through. The parachute was lower, sinking rapidly toward the cluster of houses that marked the small village they’d come through the night before. The wind shifted slightly and the chute skimmed low over the tangle of tiled roofs and stone walls to collapse in a billowing mass of windblown silk a couple of hundred meters ahead.

Kevin saw the pilot roll over, stand up, and start frantically tugging at the chute’s harness to free himself. He ran faster and stumbled as Rhee put out a hand to stop him. The South Korean pointed to the right, toward other shapes emerging from the smoke—four North Korean infantrymen who’d survived the slaughter in the orchard.

Damn. Now what? Rhee leaned close to him and said, “Keep moving. We can flank them. They’ll think we’re part of that.” He pointed back over the rise toward the burning tank company.

Kevin nodded and they ran forward again through the ankle-deep snow, angling slightly to close with the enemy soldiers moving in on the A-10 pilot still struggling with his balky chute.

Kevin watched the North Koreans carefully as he and Rhee closed with them, waiting for the sudden shout that would show they’d been spotted and identified.

It didn’t come, but Kevin could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. Anytime now. They came down off the hill onto low, flat ground carpeted by frozen rice paddies and waist-high, snow-covered dikes. The North Koreans were still running on open ground as Kevin and Rhee slithered down the first embankment and half-ran, half-slid across the ice to the next.

The four North Korean infantrymen were within thirty meters when Rhee suddenly flopped down on a paddy dike and brought his M16 up to his shoulder. Kevin did the same, and the movement caught the attention of one of the enemy soldiers. The man goggled at Kevin, yelled something to his comrades, and started to lift his AK47.

Rhee fired a three-round burst into the North Korean. One bullet caught the man in the stomach, and he screamed and toppled to the ground,
wriggling in short-lived agony. Rhee’s shots echoed back from the village and surrounding low hills.

The other three were turning in shock when Kevin fired—a long, scything, uncontrolled burst that emptied his magazine and kicked up the snow all around them in a white mist. Two were thrown back dead, but the third dropped to his stomach, seeking cover. While Kevin frantically tried to snap a new magazine into his M16, he saw the muzzle of the North Korean’s automatic rifle swing toward him and flash.

A bullet moving at supersonic speed cracked through the air near his head. Shit! Kevin jammed the magazine in place and started to bring his M16 around. He knew he wasn’t going to make it. The North Korean’s next burst couldn’t possibly miss.

He gasped as Rhee fired, hammering the ground around the North Korean. Bright-red blood spilled out into the snow. Both Kevin and the South Korean lay motionless on the dike, looking for signs of movement. There weren’t any. The whole fight had taken less than ten seconds.

Footsteps crunched in the snow behind them and they whirled round. It was the A-10 pilot, gun in hand and a broad smile plastered across his flat-featured face. Kevin could see an angry-looking bruise puffing up on the man’s left cheek.