Red Phoenix Burning (4 page)

Whummp.

Beyond the river, to the north of their current position, a wavering orange glow marked the wreck of another fleeing car. That damned North Korean BTR-60 was still on the hunt.

They were out of time.

“Let’s go!” Kevin pushed himself to his feet and out onto the empty road. Boots pounded on the pavement behind him as the South Korean soldiers followed at a fast trot. The eight riflemen split up smoothly, with four tucking in behind him and four behind Sergeant Jeong to his left.

Forty meters. Twenty meters. Ten. Kevin’s pulse was speeding up, accelerating steadily with every footfall. The bridge loomed up out of the darkness, hemmed in on either side by tall trees.

They passed the empty UN checkpoint and threaded through the rusting, blue-painted bollards placed to close off the bridge to vehicles. Off at the other end, a flat-roofed building, KPA Post Seven, came into view, visible only because it was lighter-colored than the surrounding trees.

God help us now
, Kevin thought, as they crossed onto the span, moving toward the almost undetectable border between South and North Korea. Toward what might be the line between relative peace and all-out war. The air was still, without even a breath of wind, and almost unbearably humid. Despite that, and despite the weight of his armor, rifle, and other gear, he felt cold, chilled to the bone.

Lights flickered at the other end of the bridge. That last car was almost here. It sped up. They were close. Very close.

Shit! No!
There were shapes moving in that KPA guard post. It
was
manned. A sudden blaze of light flared as one of the North Korean soldiers inside tripped the searchlights—revealing a black Mercedes sedan slewing to a stop about fifty meters away.

And then its windshield shattered, smashed by shots from the building. More rounds lashed the sedan’s right side, puncturing metal, fiberglass, and plastic. Screams echoed above the rattle of automatic weapons fire.

A door flew open on the other side of the Mercedes and a dark-haired Korean man in a business suit scrambled out. He turned, reaching back inside the car, and then spun away in a spray of blood and shattered bone—hit by several bullets at the same time.

“Damn it!” Kevin snarled. He raised his voice. “Sergeant Jeong. Kill those bastards.”

Kevin dropped to one knee, raised his own M4, and peered through the sight. He aimed at a North Korean soldier firing an assault rifle and squeezed the trigger, holding the rifle steady as it kicked back against his shoulder. And again. And again.

Hit at least twice, the enemy soldier slumped forward, dead or dying.

One of the South Koreans from just off to his left fired a grenade launcher with a muffled
thump
.

The grenade went off inside the KPA guard post in a blinding burst of white light. A North Korean staggered outside, bleeding from a dozen places where shrapnel must have caught him. But he still clutched his rifle.

Half a dozen rifles cracked simultaneously. The KPA guard fell and lay still. Blood flowed black across the dirt.

Another grenade went off inside the building. Smoke and dust curled away through the blown-out doors and windows.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Kevin yelled. He made rapid chopping motions with one hand.

One by one, the South Korean soldiers lying prone or kneeling around him stopped shooting.

As the sound of firing faded, Kevin could hear another engine, this one deeper and throatier, roaring closer. It must be that BTR-60, he thought wildly. The wheeled North Korean armored vehicle was still out of sight and several hundred meters up that road to Kaesong, but it would be here in just a minute or two.

“Not good,” he whispered. Rifles and grenade launchers weren’t going to be of much use against that armored beast. They’d have to bug out and fast.

But not before he took a closer look at those poor, dead fools who had sparked all this carnage.

“Sergeant Jeong!” he called out. “Come with me! Send everybody else back across the bridge. Move!”

Without looking to see if his orders were being obeyed, Kevin ran toward the bullet-riddled Mercedes. He could see the driver splayed up against the dashboard. He came around to the open door, stepped over the body of the man who’d been killed while getting out, and peered inside.

It was a slaughterhouse. Four people, two of them women, lay sprawled in a heap in the back. One of the dead men clutched a briefcase. It had broken open, spilling stacks of hundred euro notes onto his lap.

Kevin swallowed hard and looked away.
My God
, he thought. What a waste. Mike Miller and the men in Checkpoint Three were dead; and for nothing.

“
Dowa juseyo!
“ a soft, pain-filled voice moaned from inside the Mercedes. Kevin knew enough Korean to understand: “Please help me!”

He stared back into the darkened interior. One of the women, the younger one, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties, was still alive. Her long black hair had fallen over her face, but he could see her trying to move slender fingers.

He whirled around. Sergeant Jeong stood there, his mouth open in shock as he heard the young woman’s tearful pleading. “Get her out!” Kevin snapped. “We’ll carry her across the bridge!”

Moving her without treating those wounds might kill her, he knew. But staying here was certain death.

With the young woman slung between them, they sprinted back across the Bridge of No Return. Halfway across, Kevin felt her clutch his arm. He looked down at her.

“It has begun,” she said quietly, tears falling onto the cracked concrete along with the blood from her wounds. “The burning has begun.”

Chapter 2 - Fog of War

16 August 2015

USS
Hawaii
(SSN 776)

North Korean East Coast, Sea of Japan

Commander Rick Jenkins was a troubled man. “Any change, Chief?” he asked as he poked his head into the ESM bay.

The intelligence specialist shook his head and pointed at the nearly empty screen in front of him. He was just as bewildered as his captain. “No, sir. The airwaves are damn near empty. No radio. No TV. No long-haul communications. I’m not even seeing the harbor coastal surveillance radar. It’s like everyone at the Wonsan naval complex decided to take the day off.”

“What about the air base?” pressed Jenkins.

“Nada, sir. But it still could be a little early for them. They mostly have MiG-19 and MiG-21 fighters stationed there, and those old birds don’t usually fly at night.”

“I’ve never seen it this quiet, Chief, ever,” Jenkins said, remembering previous surveillance missions. “Even during national holidays, the North Koreans always have their coastal surveillance radars up, and they keep their patrols out and about. We haven’t seen a single patrol boat sortie in the last eighteen hours. That’s just not right.”

“Beats me, Skipper. I’ve never seen anything like this either. It’s possible the naval base could be using landlines, but that only lets them communicate with the head shed at Toejo Dong. It won’t help with any of their local tactical units. And that doesn’t explain the radars, or the lack of them.”

“Total EMCON?” Jenkins suggested out loud. The only reason he could see for such a drastic move would be as a possible precursor to hostilities. The very thought sent shivers down his spine.

“It’s a possibility, sir. But I’ll let you know the moment I see anything.”

Jenkins walked slowly back to the command workstation, mumbling under his breath. His executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Joshua Wallace, was watching the feed from the raised BVS-1 photonics mast on the port vertical large-screen display when he heard his captain grunt.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Nothing, Josh. Just thinking how damn peculiar this whole situation is, that’s all.”

“Well, things are getting stranger with each passing minute, Skipper. We’re about an hour from sunrise and none of the fishing vessels have left port yet. For a country that routinely teeters on the edge of famine, not sending your fishing boats to sea means something very not good is happening.”

Jenkins ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. What the hell was going on? He knew the North Koreans were a strange people, but the complete absence of activity from one of their larger ports was weird even for them. Pulling up the geoplot display on the command workstation, he noted over a dozen contacts that his sonar techs had identified as fishing trawlers—all of them were far behind them.

“Everything else seems more or less normal,” remarked Wallace pointing toward the screen on his left, where the upper half of the Wonsan skyline was cast in the greenish hue of the infrared display. All looked quiet and serene. “We could try and get a little closer if you’d like, Skipper. The main naval facility is tucked away in the back of the bay. And we don’t have the best vantage point from out here.”

Both men turned and looked down at the digital chart on the navigation display. Since the BVS-1 mast also had the ability to receive GPS signals, their submarine’s exact position was constantly being updated. Wallace ran his finger along the fifty-meter line. “We could run right up along here without crossing over into North Korean territorial waters and still have some decent water beneath us.”

Jenkins nodded his approval. Their mission was to keep an eye on the DPRK’s East Sea Fleet, and he had the authority to walk right up to the Conventional Twelve-Mile Limit if he believed he needed to do so. “Very well, XO. Bring her around to course three three zero. We’ll close on the coast up to, but not across, the CTML.”

“Come about to course three three zero and close the coast to the CTML, but not across, aye, sir,” replied Wallace.

As
Hawaii
turned to the northwest, she began to inch closer to the coastline. Jenkins also brought his boat shallower, putting another few feet of mast out of the water. He wasn’t too concerned about being detected. There were no active radars nearby and the soon-to-be rising sun would be behind him. The early morning glare would be more than adequate to hide the exposed masts from any snooping eyes.

As the submarine drew nearer to the coast, the large flat-panel display began to show more and more of the city. An eerie greenish pulsating glow suddenly appeared on the screen. Its center was close to where the naval base was located. Both Jenkins and Wallace leaned forward as they tried to make out what they were looking at. It was bright green on the low-light display.

“Is that a fire?” Jenkins wondered.

“Possibly,” Wallace said slowly. “But if it is, it’s a damn big one.”

Their concentration was abruptly broken by the squawk of the ship’s intercom. “CAPTAIN TO ESM BAY.”

Jenkins pivoted and skirted around the fire control consoles and jumped to the ESM bay. “What do you have, Chief?”

“Once we got a clear line of sight, we started to pick up some short-range tactical radios, Skipper, probably army shortwave sets. Petty Officer Johnson has been trying to make out what they’re saying.”

A deep frown of confusion popped on Jenkins’ face. “The transmissions aren’t encrypted?”

“No, sir. They’re in the clear.”

The captain shifted his gaze to the young cryptologic technician; he seemed lost in concentration, listening intently to the Korean-language chatter a dozen miles away. “What are they saying, Petty Officer Johnson?” Jenkins asked quietly.

“It’s very jumbled, sir,” Johnson responded. “The voices are rather excited, and very intense—shouting actually. It’s tough to be sure, but I think this major just ordered his men to fire on the naval base headquarters building.”

The sailor’s report stunned Jenkins. He paused briefly, struggling to maintain his composure, then looked the petty officer square in the face. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that a North Korean army officer ordered his men to fire at the base headquarters? That he’s ordering his troops to shoot at their own countrymen?”

Johnson swallowed hard, but answered firmly. “Yes, sir. I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.”

Before Jenkins could press the young CT further, he heard his XO behind him shout out, “My God! Skipper, you better get out here and see this!”

Jenkins bolted back to the command workstation just in time to see several bright flashes on the large-screen display. Moments later, another set of flashes flared up—they were explosions, possibly RPG or even mortar fire. Johnson had been right. The North Koreans were fighting each other.

“Holy shit,” whispered Jenkins in disbelief.

“What the devil is going on, Skipper?”

“I have absolutely no idea, XO,” Jenkins replied more firmly. “But that doesn’t matter right now. I want you to prepare an OPREP-3 Pinnacle message ASAP. The whole chain of command needs to know that North Korea is flushing itself down the toilet.”

16 August 2015

Sixth Intelligence Squadron

Osan Air Base, South Korea

The sudden deep yawn caught Brigadier General Tony Christopher by surprise.
Oh Lord
, he thought, it was much too early in the morning to be staring at so many flat-panel displays.

Awakened by the US Forces Korea senior watch officer immediately after Eighth Army raised the alert, he had rushed over to the Seventh Air Force’s Air Operations Center while his boss jumped into a waiting staff car and headed for Seoul.

Tony frowned. He hadn’t even been back in country a month before the North Koreans started playing their usual games again. He should have expected it though; the Korean peninsula just didn’t seem to like him very much.

The first time he’d been stationed here, he’d found himself dragged into a full-scale war. Of course, he could have said the same thing about Iraq. Then again, he hadn’t been shot down during the two conflicts he flew in the Middle East. Now it looked like the North Koreans were getting feisty again, and Tony wondered just how bad things would get this time. He was glad Ann was still back in the States.

“Looks like you could use some coffee, General,” announced a staff sergeant as he placed a steaming mug on the table next to Tony.

“Absolutely! Thanks,” replied Tony gratefully, grabbing the mug and taking a cautious sip. “Ah, and a fine brew it is.”

“Glad you like it, sir,” the noncom said, smiling. “We go through a lot of the elixir of consciousness around here. It’s not exactly exciting watching a UAV video feed for hours on end.”

“I can imagine,” grunted Tony as he took another drink. As a fighter pilot, he shared the dislike of unmanned aerial vehicles held by all true aviators. He couldn’t argue that they weren’t effective and useful, but the idea of “flying” from a ground-based station was anathema. Where was the exhilaration, the joy, the sheer fun you experienced when you climbed into a high-performance aircraft and roared skyward? By comparison, a slow, klutzy, unfeeling UAV, with a limited field of view, was a very poor substitute.

“The remaining Reapers should be in position soon, General,” said the staff sergeant as he handed Tony a remote control. “You can use this remote to walk through the video feeds. The UAV’s position and altitude will be in the upper right-hand corner of the display, the heading scale will be top center, the target’s location . . .”

“I think I got it, Staff Sergeant, thank you,” Tony interrupted curtly. He’d spent ample time becoming familiar with the MQ-9 Block 5 Reaper. He even had some stick time, if one could call it that, so he was well-versed in the unmanned aerial vehicle’s capabilities.

The airman nodded and beat a hasty retreat. It was never a good thing to get caught patronizing a general officer.

Tony smiled slightly. That minor incident should make his life a little easier in the future. As the brand-new vice commander of the Seventh Air Force, he fully expected to be put to the test by its officers and enlisted personnel, if only to see if the rumors they’d all heard about him were true. Being the air force’s only living triple ace with seventeen combat kills had definite disadvantages, the chief of which being that everyone would want to see if he really
was
that good. Politely nixing the good staff sergeant should help a little in that regard.

As Tony continued slurping his coffee, he began thumbing through the live video stream from the six Reaper UAVs spread out along the DMZ. Fitted with a multispectral optical and infrared sensor package and a high-resolution multimode radar, the Reaper was truly an eye in the sky. Flying at thirty thousand feet, it could peer far beyond the North Korean border. Although the MQ-9s could be armed with an assortment of precision-guided munitions, for this mission all of them were unarmed. Without the extra weight of the ordnance, each Reaper could stay on station for twelve hours. Right now, information was far more valuable than bombs.

The initial sweeps were along the DMZ and just inside the border. Everything looked quiet—
a little too quiet
, Tony thought. The North Korean garrison buildings were visible, but there weren’t very many people moving about. And there were few, if any, guards and no patrols.
This is just bizarre
, Tony said to himself.

“Sir! You’ll definitely want to take a look at the video from Merlin Two Seven. It’s the MQ-9 covering the east coast corridor,” called out one of the sensor operators.

“Understood,” Tony replied. He switched over to the proper channel. But as soon as the image came up on the screen, his curiosity became confusion.

“What the hell?” he muttered, half to himself.

“Yes, sir,” spoke up the sensor operator. “That column of vehicles is heading north along Asian Highway 6,
away
from the DMZ. At their current speed, they’ll be in Wonsan a couple of hours after dawn. I . . . I can’t explain it, General.”

“General Christopher,” interrupted the senior watch officer, “we’re getting similar data from the other Reapers. Merlin Three Two has an armored column heading north on Reunification Highway. It looks like they’re moving toward Pyongyang.”

Tony launched out of his chair, a sudden surge of adrenaline relieving his weariness. “Major, I want a full accounting of DPRK units withdrawing from the DMZ. Get extra bodies in here if you need to, but I need to know which units are bugging out and where they’re going. Move!”

“Yes, sir!” The major began issuing a rapid series of orders to his Reaper teams while reaching for the phone.

Marching through the video feeds, Tony saw that four of the six UAVs showed similar scenes with North Korean army units heading north along major highways. Even around Panmunjom, the site of the earlier incident, troops were moving away from the DMZ. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, even though he couldn’t begin to explain what was happening. All he knew was the KPA was conducting a large-scale withdrawal from the DMZ. It was unprecedented, and unexplainable, and therefore unnerving.

Fifteen minutes later, the watch team provided a very rough sketch of what was going on along the DMZ. It wasn’t precise, but the data was good enough for Tony to order an alert sent out to all Combined Forces Command units.

He moved over to a video teleconference–capable computer, inserted his common access card, and logged into the secure computer network. Pulling up his address menu, he located the chief of staff, US Forces Korea, and hit the “Video Call” button. Tony waited impatiently while the connecting icon spun on the screen and the sound of a ringing phone filled the cubicle. After what seemed like an inordinate amount of time, the ringing suddenly stopped. A text box popped up on the monitor.

CONNECTION FAILED. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.

“Oh, for the love of . . .” Tony growled. He reached over, grabbed the handset for the secure line, and aggressively started punching buttons. The phone rang twice before a female voice answered.