Red Phoenix Burning (21 page)

The towers and a few of the buildings showed marks from the combat, and numerous trails of smoke curled and merged into a haze that filled the air and stung his eyes. Rhee didn’t see anyone in protective gear, so he assumed it was just smoke. He also noted the blackened hulks of two armored vehicles. Those were not listed as part of the depot’s garrison.

Lieutenant Gung Ji-han waited nearby on one knee. It was light enough to see his expression, and Rhee knew the news wouldn’t be good.

As the cabin door opened and Rhee stepped out, Gung stood and saluted solemnly. “Mission failure, sir. At least two large trucks left the compound during our attack. An early estimate is at least eight pallets of 152mm ammunition were on them.” He pointed to a road that ran past the depot. “They were headed north. My UAV controller is trying to locate them now.”

“Casualties?” Rhee asked.

“Four of my team are wounded. Three are mobile, but Corporal Park has two bullets in the chest and my medic’s fighting to keep him alive. The medevac helicopter is en route. At least thirty KPA dead, with another fifty-plus prisoners and wounded. We know there are stragglers in the woods, but we don’t know their intention.”

Rhee nodded acknowledgment. Many North Korean soldiers had used combat as an excuse to desert, but others simply became separated during the action and might still be motivated to fight. “All right, elaborate,” he ordered.

Gung kept it short. “The trucks were already here when we landed, along with another company of troops and the two fighting vehicles. We called for UAV support, but their ETA was too long. We could see the trucks were preparing to leave, so we attacked.”

Rhee nodded his understanding. It was a difficult situation—two or three times the expected odds, and facing the immediate prospect of losing control of the WMDs. “I would have chosen to attack as well,” Rhee encouraged the lieutenant.

But it was still a loss. Forty percent casualties and they had not stopped the trucks, after all that. And Gung’s team would have to be rebuilt before they could take on another mission. He’d get a detailed debrief of the combat later, but for the moment, he would endorse the lieutenant’s decision.

Gung seemed to take some reassurance from Rhee’s statement, but there was a lot to do. “Where are your people now?” Rhee asked.

“My medic’s with Corporal Park, the UAV controller’s looking for the trucks, two are guarding the prisoners, two more are searching the woods, and the last two are checking the buildings for stragglers and documents.”

“All right, Lieutenant. Make sure your UAV controller transmits the data on the trucks to brigade. I’m going to get you some help. You can’t provide security with only six effectives. They’ll . . .”

A dirt-streaked trooper ran up and saluted the pair. Rhee recognized him as one of Gung’s team, but couldn’t remember his name. He was winded, and the soldier’s expression held bad news. “In the woods,” he reported between breaths, pointing. “Bodies. Lots of them.”

Rhee said, “Show us,” and they followed the soldier back at something just less than a dead run. They slowed at the wood line, moving along a path through thick brush and young trees. About ten meters into the woods, the smell reached them, and they all gagged at the stench of rot and decay.

Another ten meters brought them to the scene. A stream ran through the woods, although in August there was no water in it. The V-shaped gully, about two meters deep and two meters across, was choked with bodies. Rhee could see civilians in work clothes, soldiers in DPRK uniforms, the bright colors of both women’s and children’s clothing. His mind flashed back to the bodies he and Oh found murdered and robbed what seemed like a long time ago. If that was a crime, what was this?

Gung had turned away and was clutching a tree, vomiting and shaking with reaction. Oh had tears in his eyes. Their guide was on one knee, and appeared to be praying.

Rhee Han-gil felt the weight of his command more than he ever had. It was his job to know, and he forced himself to walk over to the edge. From that angle, he got a better view of the depth of the gully, and could see the corpses jumbled together. The ones toward the bottom were discolored from decay, and he tried to guess the number of dead. His mind rebelled, but there were at least a hundred, maybe twice that number.

His stomach churned, not just from the stench, but the thought of so much pointless death. A crime like this
should
reek, he decided. It should foul the air and rise until the heavens were repelled. What about the men who did this? Did they carry the smell with them?

Rhee’s emotions collapsed from a whirl of different feelings into a tight knot of anger. He ordered brusquely, “With me,” and strode quickly down the path, back the way they’d come and toward the depot. Lieutenant Gung, still wiping his mouth, followed with the others.

As they emerged from the woods, without breaking stride, Rhee asked, “Where are the prisoners?”

Gung answered, “We put the enlisted men in their barracks, and the officers and noncoms in two empty ammunition bunkers.”

“The officers, then.”

The soldier left to return to his duties, while the lieutenant increased his pace to take the lead. As they entered the camp, another trooper ran up to the group. He was heading for the lieutenant, but stopped when he saw the colonel, bracing and saluting crisply. “Sir, Private Geun Seo-bin.”

Rhee returned his salute. This soldier wasn’t as distraught as the first, but obviously had disturbing news. “Report.”

“Sirs, I think you should see what we found in the officers’ quarters.” He pointed to a wooden structure next to the headquarters building. Rhee was in no mood for distractions, but the trooper’s expression was earnest and grim. The North Korean officers weren’t going anywhere.

It was only a few meters to the small building. The door was intact and the walls unmarked. There had been no fighting here. A short corridor led to four doors, two to a side. All four had evidently been locked, because they were now kicked in.

Private Geun led them to the first door on the right. “This is the commander’s quarters,” he explained. Rhee saw something that reminded him of a poor student’s dormitory room. A bed, little more than a cot, occupied the opposite wall, while a desk and battered chair stood next to a window on the left. The drawers had all been pulled out and their contents dumped in the search for documents. The wall to the right was filled by a wardrobe, ransacked, and two wooden footlockers, side by side. Both had been padlocked, but the hasps were now broken. The private walked straight over to the nearest footlocker and opened the lid.

Rhee and the lieutenant could see bundles of currency, watches, cell phones, and other electronic devices. A metal circle that might hold keys was strung with rings. The colonel reached over and opened the second locker. Its contents were identical.

There could be no mystery where it had come from. Rhee had actually felt his anger begin to subside as they inspected the officers’ quarters, but at the sight of the looted wealth, it returned and flared into a white-hot rage.

Wordlessly, Rhee turned and headed back outside. Gung and Master Sergeant Oh hurried to follow him. “Which bunker are the officers in?” the colonel demanded.

Still trying to catch up, Gung answered, “Number four, in the back row.”

Each bunker was a little larger than a two-car garage, made of roughly cast concrete, with a wide metal door. The uneven surface was unpainted and weathered, the only marking a large black number on the gray-painted door. While the other two readied their weapons, Lieutenant Gung opened the latch. “We broke the one on the inside, so they couldn’t get out,” he explained.

Gung had to pull hard to swing the heavy door open. The space inside was much smaller than its outer size would indicate. About four meters square, the bare walls and floor were harshly lit by a single fluorescent fixture. There was room for four or six pallets of artillery ammunition, but it was empty.

Four men sat on the floor, against the side or rear walls. They didn’t rise or do more than turn their heads toward Rhee and the others. Rhee could see that while they were disheveled, none were wounded.

One looked older than the others, and was a captain, according to his collar tabs. Rhee asked Gung, “Is this one the senior officer?”

“The depot commander,” Gung confirmed. “We captured him trying to escape into the woods.”

Rhee and the others still held their weapons at the ready, and he motioned with the muzzle, pointed toward the captain. “You. Get up.”

The North Korean pointedly ignored the order, turning his face away from Rhee, but Rhee lunged forward and grabbed the front of the man’s fatigue shirt and dragged him out of the room as if he was a bag of potatoes—a small bag. As Rhee stepped outside, he ordered Gung, “Shut it.”

Using both hands, Rhee roughly pulled the man upright, then slammed him back into the side of the bunker. “The bodies in the woods.” Rhee spat out the words, not bothering to phrase it as a question.

“I don’t know . . .” was as far as the captain got before Rhee jammed his forearm into the other’s throat. Rhee held it there, watching the prisoner weakly struggle, until he could bottle up the anger again, and stepped back. The North Korean fell to his knees, gasping and rubbing his throat.

“Tell me.” Rhee wasn’t wasting words.

Coughing and rubbing his throat, the captain looked to either side. A lieutenant stood to one side, weapon not leveled, but ready. A sergeant stood farther back, watching the woods but also quite capable of shooting him, if he made a break toward that direction. Their expressions did not have the fury of the colonel, but they looked more than willing to kill.

Rhee started to move, but the captain forestalled him by speaking quickly. “Our orders were to kill anyone who approached the depot, or who we thought was trying to go south, or any deserters.”

“Did your orders include robbing them?”

“They didn’t need it anymore,” the captain answered.

The anger in Rhee’s chest filled him like cold liquor, burning even as it chilled. Without thinking, he drew his pistol and racked the slide.

“Colonel,
stop
!” The shout caught Rhee with the pistol’s muzzle inches from the captain’s forehead. He kept the weapon pointed at the officer, but turned his head to see Master Sergeant Oh, walking quickly toward them. “Don’t do it, sir.”

Rhee swallowed hard, and looked at the piece of human filth in front of him. Oh’s shout was unheard of, a serious breach of military discipline, and it was that as much as his words that had made the colonel pause.

“He’s a prisoner, sir. It’s not worth your career.” Oh spoke softly, but his tone was a little different than one a noncom would use addressing a colonel. They were also comrades, who served together and trusted each other completely.

His mind processed the sergeant’s words, and Rhee realized he didn’t need to kill the North Korean anymore. The fury drained away, leaving him almost weak for a moment. He turned to the lieutenant and ordered, “Put this
gesekida
back in his hole.”

Gung, looking both horrified and relieved, motioned with the muzzle of his K7. The prisoner slowly stood and walked back toward the front of the bunker, Gung three paces behind.

Holstering his pistol, Rhee sighed and said softly, “Thank you, Master Sergeant. I lost control, and was a fool.”

“You were closer to him than I was, that’s all, Colonel,” Oh answered. He added, “We need you, sir.”

Gung returned and stood silently until Rhee noticed him. “The prisoner is secure, Colonel.” He said it so carefully that Rhee knew the lieutenant was almost as traumatized as the North Korean.

Rhee gathered his thoughts. “Before we were interrupted, I was going to get you some additional security while we moved the remaining WMDs out, then we’d abandon this place. Now that’s changed. We’re going to hold it. I’ll bring in regular infantry as well as an additional team from the Ninth, and specialists to take out the WMDs, per normal procedure. And I’m going to bring in investigators from the Judge Advocate General. You are not to remove the prisoners until I say so.”

“You want them to remain here?” the lieutenant confirmed. Standard operating procedure was to get the prisoners out of the way as soon as possible, usually on the same aircraft that brought in the WMD and ordnance disposal experts.

“That’s right. Use them, especially that
shipcenchi
of a captain and the other officers, to remove the bodies from the ravine. That will take quite a while, and I’m sure the JAG investigators will want to take them into custody after that. With luck, they’ll die in front of a firing squad.”

25 August 2015, 9:00 a.m. local time

Near Chaeryong, North Korea

It didn’t look like a gas station, but the farmer they bribed with the last of Cho’s yuan notes insisted that if anyone had gasoline, it would be the restaurant north of the Baesok train station. He’d been quite precise, and even given Cho a map and a note.

“For that much money, he should have filled the tanks with his blood,” Cho grumbled as they approached the location.

“I think you did well to get any information at all,” Kary remarked, “much less a place where we can get fuel for three trucks.” She sounded optimistic. Cho reserved judgment, watching the fuel gauge. They’d had to siphon fuel from the other two trucks to keep the flatbed going, and if they couldn’t find fuel somewhere, they’d all be walking.

Traffic was light, and three trucks in company should have attracted more attention, but there were few people about, and the military units they’d passed on the road had ignored them, headed either north or south at speed. The country looked empty. They were still about a hundred kilometers from the southern border by road. The advancing South Korean army was closer, maybe half that distance. Kary wondered how many people had left their homes to go south or just avoid the fighting.

They’d been stopped twice at checkpoints, but Mayor Song’s paperwork and a story about orders to take an American woman south had been enough to get them through, along with a few bills as bribes. North Korea might be in upheaval, but people always needed money.