Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  Their planes were old, antique relics for the most part. Their tanks and artillery were laughable by modern standards. And their men were underequipped. But there were so many of them and they were close to the Trans-Siberian Railway, the lifeline between European Russia and its Far Eastern possessions.

  Everyone knew that the Chinese were just waiting for the right moment to stab the motherland in the back. Hadn’t those yellow-skinned, “pseudo-communists” spent years sucking up to the West, begging for technology and trade? Didn’t they insist on setting an independent, often anti-Soviet, foreign policy?

  Yes, Borodin thought, the Politburo was wise to worry about North Korea’s leanings. The State didn’t need any more enemies in this part of the world — it needed friends and allies. Puppets. It was vital to give North Korea’s Great Leader as much help as he deserved, at the highest price he was willing to pay. The Koreans had already agreed to allow overflights by Soviet aircraft. Next, port visits by Soviet warships would be expanded into a basing agreement. The new aircraft he and his team would teach the North Koreans to fly were the first token of Soviet reciprocity. Others would soon follow.

  His mission was to smooth the way for the diplomats and their treaties by showing these Asiatics just how valuable Soviet assistance could be.

  He focused his attention back on Kim Jong-Il, the Dear Leader, still mouthing sanctimonious phrases about their “historic friendship” and the “common struggle against imperialism.” By all accounts the younger Kim should prove an ally in this quest for great Soviet influence, even if an unwitting one. His thirst for advanced military technology was well documented, and it was a thirst the Chinese could do little to satisfy.

  Borodin came back to full consciousness of his surroundings as he realized that Kim’s speech was finishing, winding up with what must be a standard invocation. “And so we are confident that the colonel and his men will gain a greater understanding of the international socialist struggle and the dynamic contribution made to it by the Korean people under the guidance of our Great Leader.”

  Kim stepped back from the podium to thunderous applause supplied by the phalanx of officers and enlisted men drawn up in the open area of the hangar. Borodin clapped along with them, meeting Kim’s eyes steadily and with a diplomatic smile stuck on his face. The North Korean dipped his head slightly toward the podium.

  That was Borodin’s cue. As briefed, he bowed to Kim and the other dignitaries and felt carefully for the prepared speech scripted by the Foreign Ministry.

  “The people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics send their greetings …” Borodin read the hackneyed phrases aloud almost without thinking about them. He had read the same kind of stilted nonsense a dozen times before in a dozen different countries. These ceremonies were unimportant. The real work would come later, behind closed doors and in the cockpits of jet fighter aircraft. He was growing impatient to get on with it. The sooner they began, the sooner he and his men could get out of this bleak, Asiatic fortress-state.

  GRU SECURE SECTION, SOVIET EMBASSY, PYONGYANG

  “… The sophistication and extent of the underground installations is impressive, as is the level of training …”

  Borodin laid down his pen and rubbed his eyes. The harsh, bright fluorescent lights of the GRU office were painful this late at night. He looked up from the paper, trying to get his eyes to focus on something farther than a few centimeters away. Not that there was much to see. A few old, battered wooden desks, paint scraps peeling off the walls, two clocks, one on Moscow time, the other set for Pyongyang, some filing cabinets, and the obligatory portrait of the General Secretary. Functional, but not esthetic. Borodin savored that last word. That was the kind of word only those who were really kulturny, cultured, could remember when they were on their last legs.

  Little Mother, but he was tired. It was absurd to fly across eight time zones, spend a full day, and then spend the night hours trying to write a coherent arrival report. But his instructions from Moscow were clear. Complete, accurate, and timely reports were to be written, encoded, and transmitted by the mission commander, by him, each and every day. North Korea was clearly now a high priority for the staff bigwigs at Defense Ministry HQ.

  He looked at what he had just written and nodded to himself. Certainly that was accurate enough. The North Korean air installations and crews were impressive. More than impressive in fact.

  After the speech-making mercifully ended, the younger Kim had taken him in tow for a thorough tour of the Pyongyang-East Airbase. Borodin shook his head at the memory of it all. The vast transport plane hangar had just been the start. Behind it and above it lay a whole connected series of tunnels, barracks, offices, quarters, control centers, maintenance shops, and fuel storage tanks. The base radar installations were constructed in elevator shafts so that they could “pop up” and “pop down” for protection against enemy air attack. SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile batteries and radar-controlled, antiaircraft gun positions dotted the mountain slopes — ready to turn any strike aircraft attacking the few above-ground installations into piles of flaming wreckage.

  Even the logistics facilities and train yards were hardened to prevent resupply trains from being caught at their most vulnerable point.

  Naturally the North Koreans had saved the best for last.

  A hangar even larger than the first, crammed with sleek, delta-winged interceptors, Jian-7s — Chinese-model MiG-21F derivatives. They’d allowed him to move freely throughout the hangar, inspecting everything at close range. For Borodin it had been like diving nearly thirty years back into his own past. The MiG-21 had been the first real combat aircraft he’d ever flown.

  So many years ago. He and his wife, Tania, had still been a happy couple then. Borodin shook his head. Those were unprofitable memories. It was more important to concentrate on the task he faced here and now.

  The colonel narrowed his eyes, trying to recall as much as possible of Kim’s last little speech, delivered near the wingtip of one of the camouflaged fighters. What had the man said? “We are confident of our ability to resist an imperialist attack and deliver a crushing blow in return. There are bases like this all over the People’s Republic, and they make the aggressor’s task impossible.”

  Borodin tapped his pen thoughtfully against his chin. There had been something else. Something that had struck him as even more bombastic, more dangerous somehow. Ah, yes. “Four more bases like this one were recently completed near the present Demilitarized Zone. From them we will be able to launch our final drive for the liberation of the South. Our troops are well trained and can use our equipment at its maximum effectiveness.”

  Borodin hadn’t liked the sound of that. “Final drive for the liberation of the South.” From anyone else he would have dismissed it as the standard propaganda line. But there had been a tone of inevitability or certainty in Kim’s voice that sent chills up his spine. Should he highlight that statement and his impression of it for Moscow’s attention?

  No, perhaps not. You’re tired, Sergei Ivanovitch, he told himself. You’re dreaming. Putting strange interpretations on things you heard hours ago. Stick to what you know — air combat — and let the diplomats worry about the other things going on around this place.

  He leaned closer to the paper, shutting away the uncertainties by remembering the show they’d put on for him.

  Kim had no sooner finished speaking when he’d turned and nodded to a nearby North Korean Air Force colonel, who’d simply raised his hand overhead and shown a clenched fist.

  A klaxon had blared from the hangar roof high overhead and Borodin had jumped. He’d had to stifle the urge to run for an aircraft — the old reflexes were still there from his days in the air defense forces, Voyska PVO. Instead he’d turned to watch men pour from doors in the walls. He’d picked one man in a flight suit out of the mass and tracked him as he ran over to a MiG — no a Jian-7, he corrected himself, not quite the same thing.

  The North Korean pilo
t had bounded up the ladder like a gazelle as ground crew circled the aircraft, moving equipment and performing last-minute checks. Then a howling roar as the first jet engine fired up. The noise had bounced off the walls and hurt Borodin’s ears.

  He’d felt air moving and looked up to see huge ventilation fans pumping fresh air into the hangar. More noise. The pilot he’d been concentrating on had just started his engine. Most of the exhaust seemed to be directed into a vent or pipe directly behind the aircraft. More tunnels in the rock, Borodin thought. Mother of God, these people were like moles.

  As the first interceptor rolled off its chocks toward the main hangar doors, a North Korean Air Force colonel had pointed wordlessly to a huge clock directly over them. Obviously started the moment the alert began, it had shown just a little more than two and a half minutes elapsed time. Even considering the simpler systems and controls on the MiG-21/Jian-7, that was still a good time, well within Soviet training norms.

  The exit doors, however, had still been closed. For a moment Borodin had half-wondered if they planned to show him an interceptor smashing head-on into reinforced steel. But then, as the Jian-7’s nose wheel crossed a yellow line painted on the floor, he’d heard a loud, ringing alarm above the howling jet engines and watched in amazement as the hangar doors snapped open, tons of metal moving in seconds. The jet had shot through, followed by another and another, until the entire battalion of aircraft had been scrambled. The entire exercise had taken nine minutes and fifteen seconds.

  Borodin thought that was a damned good time. Even assuming that he’d been shown a hand-picked group of pilots and ground staff, it was clear that the weekly practice alerts carried out by the North Koreans paid off in professionalism and speed.

  The colonel nodded to himself. Yes, mix the pilots he’d seen today with the newer MiG-23s he knew were operating out of other bases, add the even more advanced planes his country was shipping soon, and you’d have a damned good air force. An air force capable of handling almost any mission it was given.

  Borodin remembered Kim Jong-Il’s cold, challenging stare. The final liberation he had said. Could he have been serious? What was it General Petrov had said about the North Koreans? Something about Pyongyang being almost inside the Soviet Union’s nets. Borodin began to wonder if it might not be more accurate to turn that phrase around.

  CHAPTER 5

  Night Flyers

  SEPTEMBER 9 — KUNSAN AIR FORCE BASE, SOUTH KOREA

  Captain Tony Christopher, USAF, stood outside the squadron building watching the sun set beyond the flight line. One hand held his gray helmet and oxygen mask. The other held a thick stack of papers — flight plans, bomb range restrictions, maps, and divert fields — all the stuff that training missions are made of. He wished again that the F-16 had a bigger cockpit. He always had a tough time squeezing his six-foot frame plus assorted paperwork into the plane.

  He squinted into the bright, orangish-red light thrown off by sun as it dipped toward the Yellow Sea. Where in God’s name was his wingman?

  Suddenly hands landed heavily on either shoulder. Tony started a bit but kept his voice calm. “Hi, Hooter.”

  “Shit, Saint, you’re no fun. I did that to you yesterday and you jumped three feet.” His wingman, First Lieutenant John “Hooter” Gresham, came around to stand beside him.

  “Yeah, well my nerves are all worn-out and I need what’s left for this mission. You’ve got four ninety-four.”

  “I know.” Hooter looked smug. ‘As your friendly training records officer, I make it a point to keep fully informed.” Every pilot in the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron did more than just play fighter jock full-time. Each also wore another “hat,” doing all the other administrative work needed to keep the squadron flying and combat-ready. Hooter’s second hat kept him busy making sure that every pilot complied with the rigorous training schedule set down by Air Force regulations.

  Hooter snapped his fingers. “Say, that reminds me. Speaking in my official capacity, I need to know when you want to schedule your next chemical warfare flight.”

  Tony groaned. “C’mon, Hooter. Cut me some slack. I just did it a couple of months ago!”

  Hooter grinned. “Nice try, revered boss and flight leader. But you and I both know that a new period started July first. And you’ve gotta fill in the square once every six months.”

  Every pilot Tony knew hated chemical warfare training. Trying to fly a plane while wearing the special protective gear it required was like wrestling a giant octopus in a Turkish steam bath.

  “Okay, okay. But can I at least wait till it cools off some? That rubber suit is hell. Just let me worry about this hop for right now.”

  “You got it.”

  This was going to be a night ground-attack training mission, and although the F-16 can fly and fight at night, it does not have sophisticated sensors like the Air Force’s dedicated attack aircraft. To see their target, Tony and Hooter were going to have to coordinate their efforts: one plane would drop flares while the other made the attack run. Simple, until you remembered that each pilot would be flying at four hundred knots, so close to the ground that an unintentional twitch could turn both F-16s and their highly educated pilots into a short-lived fireball and a shallow crater.

  They needed teamwork to fly and teamwork to fight. Tony studied his sandy-haired wingman out of the corner of his eye. When you wear the same clothes, have the same job, and talk about the same things, you do not lose your individuality. Differences become more apparent, not less. And there were differences. It was as if somebody in the Air Force personnel office had decided to try teaming opposites as an experiment.

  Tony was the quieter of the two. There is no such thing as an introverted fighter pilot, but his unhurried movements and restrained speech contrasted sharply with Hooter’s ebullient manner. Anyone watching the two of them together would notice the wingman in almost constant motion, his boundless energy seemingly uncontainable.

  Tony was vastly more experienced than Hooter, which may have explained some of the difference. After the Air Force Academy, Tony had moved directly into the F-16 and had been with the aircraft from the beginning. After his initial tour he had attended Fighter Weapons School, at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Unlike Red Flag, which teaches air combat, Fighter Weapons School teaches how to employ effectively all types of ordnance. Only the best pilots qualify for admission.

  The men who graduate from that difficult course teach the rest of their squadrons what they know, which is how to best apply the Falcon’s impressive firepower against any kind of target. Additionally, it was an important ticket to be punched on the way to higher rank and more important assignments.

  After the school, Tony had continued to assimilate everything he could find, not only to stay current, but because he knew it might make the difference someday. He was definitely the squadron’s, and maybe the wing’s, best expert on how to blow up things with airplanes. He had been in Korea for over half a year.

  Hooter, in contrast, was still in his first tour, fresh from ROTC, and had only been in Korea a few months. He was still discovering the Falcon’s good and bad points. Every flight was an adventure, an experience to be remembered.

  Tony welcomed Hooter’s almost constant stream of jokes and tricks, knowing that he applied the same energy to his ground duties and his flying.

  Also to his after-hours activities. They were only a few years apart in age, but Tony had to work hard to keep up with his younger companion.

  Though he’d never have admitted it out loud, Tony knew he couldn’t consider himself the best flier God had ever made. He was good, damned good, but he wasn’t the best. Instead, he’d found his edge in air-to-air combat with an ingrained ability to look at an adversary’s maneuvers, plan a step ahead, and force the other guy all over the sky. He’d overheard Hooter talking about him in the O-Club one night.

  “Now the Saint doesn’t fly the best plane in the sky,” his monumentally inebriated wingman had said
, “but he does fly confounded tactical.”

  Hooter, on the other hand, was a natural shot and a demon flier, but he lacked experience and sometimes he lacked good judgment. His abilities and aggressiveness could usually get him out of the tight spots he landed in. In Tony’s book, though, “usually” wasn’t good enough. He’d been working Hooter hard to get him to understand the difference between “acceptable risk” and “frigging stupid.” Still, they’d been flying together for months now, and Tony had to admit that they made a damned good team. Their very different personalities and flying styles made a winning combination in the air.

  There were differences on the physical side, too. Hooter was shorter by four inches, which meant a lot more room in the cockpit. That was just as well because Tony knew that his wingman had trouble keeping still anywhere. He smiled to himself. Even now he could see Hooter shifting from foot to foot while they waited to get a jeep ride out to the aircraft shelters.

  He came out of his thoughts as the jeep they’d been waiting for came careening around the squadron building and slowed down to a crawl in front of them.

  Hooter was already in motion. “Hey, Saint! Shake a leg. Daddy’s come to take us to the prom!”

  Tony grinned and clambered aboard. They sped off across the tarmac toward the aircraft shelters.

  Their planes for the night’s mission, side numbers 492 and 494, were parked in shelters G and H. These were reinforced concrete arches, strong enough to take anything up to a one-thousand pound bomb hit and protect the airplane inside. The armored blast doors in front and back were massive, but perfectly balanced, so that if the power drive for the door failed, they could be pushed open by hand. They could also be sealed against poison gas.

  Crew chief Baines was already in shelter G waiting for him. Sergeant Baines was assigned to tail number 492 full-time. The same pilot did not fly this plane all the time, but Baines was always its crew chief. As far as he was concerned, it really belonged to him, and the pilots just “rented” it for occasional hops.