by Larry Bond
The sergeant stepped back and saluted. “Very good, sir. You may proceed.”
Hahn tried to look disinterested. “What the hell’s going on, Sergeant? Some kind of exercise?”
“Don’t know, sir. Orders. Maybe there’s another riot building.” The man nervously fingered his slung assault rifle and looked back at the truck now stopped right behind Hahn’s staff car.
Hahn followed his gaze. “You can clear them, Sergeant. They’re with me.”
The Special Forces trooper licked his lips. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. Only our own people are allowed into the compound tonight. Your men will have to wait here until someone changes my orders.”
“Sergeant, I’m a general in the Defense Security Command and I’m changing your orders. Right now.”
“With respect, sir, that’s not good enough. Not tonight. You’ll have to speak with someone up at the HQ.” The sergeant jerked a thumb at a building across the barracks courtyard.
Hahn stared at him for a moment. Was it worth trying to bull ahead through the gate? He glanced quickly at the other sentry. The man hadn’t moved an inch during the whole exchange, and he still had his rifle pointed straight at Hahn’s driver. No go. And every minute he wasted out here was another minute that let more of these Special Forces fish slip through his nets.
He nodded. “All right, Sergeant. I’ll get you your precious authorization.”
Hahn turned back to Major Yi. “Stay here with the men until I send for you.”
Yi bobbed his head in understanding and got out of the car. The sentries stepped back, clearing the way, and as they did, Hahn leaned forward and tapped the driver’s seat. “Let’s go.”
The car slid ahead into a large, floodlit courtyard jammed with parked trucks and running soldiers. Hahn could see men hoisting heavy equipment onto the trucks, including Dragon missile launchers. That clinched it. The Black Berets knew about Chang’s assault column. Nobody carted along antitank missiles to crush a student riot.
His driver parked in front of the headquarters building and got out to hold the door open for him. Hahn climbed out, settled his uniform cap squarely on his head, and marched up the steps into the Special Forces HQ.
He walked straight into an organized pandemonium of ringing telephones and rushing clerks. Many were out of uniform, and their rumpled clothing made it clear that they’d been rousted out of their bunks not long before. Hahn felt a little more sure of himself. Whatever had alerted the government had done so only at the last minute. That meant they probably didn’t have a source inside the conspiracy itself. There might still be a way to pull this thing off.
Hahn grabbed the nearest clerk. “You! Where’s the duty officer?”
The man pointed to a door at the end of a long corridor. Hahn released him and moved down the hallway. He pushed open the door and stepped inside.
There was only one man inside the small office, a lieutenant. The lieutenant’s eyes widened when he saw Hahn’s insignia, and he put down the phone he’d been holding. He had dark circles under his eyes and he’d missed a button while putting on his shirt.
“Where’s your CO, soldier?” Hahn said harshly, tossing his briefcase onto the man’s desk.
“He’s up with the column, sir. I can raise him on the radio if you’d like.” The lieutenant reached for the phone he’d just set down.
Hahn shook his head. “No good. I need to talk to the senior officer here in this compound, right now.”
The lieutenant looked even more worried. “Well, that’s me, General. Everyone else is on the road.”
Curse it. Hahn could feel his part of the plan slipping away from him. How much did the government know?
“Okay then, Lieutenant. Maybe you can tell me what all this fuss is about.”
The man looked surprised. “I’d have thought you’d know more about that than I would, sir. All I know is that General Park called my colonel about half an hour ago and told him to get every company and heavy weapons team we had on the road north.”
Hahn grabbed his briefcase back off the desk. There wasn’t any further point in hanging about here. Arresting one junior officer wasn’t going to put a crimp in the government’s reaction. He was just exposing himself to unnecessary risk. He had to get back to DSC headquarters and warn Chang about the Black Berets waiting for him. Maybe they could switch the assault column to an alternate route.
“Very well, I’ll talk to your commander later. Carry on, Lieutenant.” Hahn returned the man’s salute and left the office, shutting the door behind him.
The lieutenant stared at the closed door for a moment. What had that been about? What was a senior DSC officer doing showing up at the compound with a truck full of armed men?
Well, there was only one way to find out for sure. He picked up the phone again. “Corporal, get me General Park’s adjutant.”
DECEMBER 8 — MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
Across the city, the Ministry of National Defense was hastily being prepared for a state of siege. The dress-uniformed guards who normally patrolled outside the squat, reinforced concrete headquarters were gone — replaced by troops in full battle dress. They were busy throwing up sandbagged machine gun nests in the streets around the building and on the roof. Armored personnel carriers now blocked the ministry’s main entrance.
Brigadier General Kim Tong-Ki turned away from the windows and put the phone down. He looked across the office at his boss, General Park. “Sir, I’ve just had a very strange conversation with the duty officer at the Special Forces barracks.”
Park looked up from the map he was studying. The first elements of the Special Forces group stationed in Seoul had just reported reaching their blocking positions. Park was trying to decide how far he could trust the other units in the capital garrison. The obvious answer was not very far at all. There was no telling how far Chang’s conspiracy reached.
“Yes, go on.” Kim could hear the strain in his commander’s voice.
“It seems that a General Hahn, a DSC man, showed up there a few minutes ago with a whole truckload of troops. He was looking for the unit’s senior officers, and he left when he heard they were already gone. Does that mean anything to you, General?”
“Not a thing. But we can soon straighten it out.” Park waved an aide over. “Go find General Lew in the Operations Room and tell him I need to see him.”
Kim nodded his understanding. Lew ran the Defense Security Command. If anyone knew what this General Hahn was up to, it would be him.
Lew, a compact, muscular man, was as puzzled by Kim’s news as General Park had been. He shook his head. “No, I didn’t send him up there. In fact, I’ve been trying to reach him for the last hour myself. He’s one of my best commanders, and I wanted to put him on alert.”
Park stood motionless for a moment, stroking his chin. He looked at Kim. “What’s the last reported position of this rebel column?”
“Ten kilometers north of the outlying districts. They passed through one of our checkpoints about ten minutes ago.”
Park and his senior officers had made the decision not to alert their routine security posts along the MSR. None of them were strong enough to put up much of a fight against Chang’s three thousand crack troops. At most they might have been able to delay his advance by a few minutes, and that wasn’t worth losing the chance to pull a bigger surprise on the renegade colonel when he got closer to Seoul.
Park considered the timing carefully. If they hadn’t been alerted, Hahn and his men would have been inside the Special Forces compound roughly half an hour before Chang’s column reached the capital. No one would have been expecting them, and no one would have stopped them from doing whatever they had planned. It might be coincidence. But could he take that chance?
No. Better to wrong what might be an innocent man than to risk the loss of a government. He turned to Kim. “Pass the word to the security forces. Arrest General Hahn.”
DECEMBER 8 — THE MAIN S
UPPLY ROUTE, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
They were right on time, moving at a steady twenty kilometers per hour down the multilane highway. The frost-covered fields and rugged hills of the countryside were beginning to give way to tall, block-long apartment buildings, sprawling factories, and huge, flat-roofed warehouses. It was still dark and Chang could see stars sparkling in the icy black night sky. But the crescent moon was sinking lower on the horizon, and the sun would rise in less than three hours. If he had been a poet, he would have been moved by what he saw.
Instead, he thumbed a switch on the microphone. “All units. All units. This is Tango One Five. Five kilometers to Point Alpha.”
He switched off and handed the mike back down to his radioman in the troop compartment. Point Alpha was the code name he’d chosen for the intersection at which his column of PCs, trucks, and tanks would split, with each unit moving separately to its assigned objective. He would personally lead the battalion heading for the Blue House to arrest the President.
He felt a hand on his leg and looked down. His aide stood below, hunched over and swaying as the PC rumbled down the highway.
“We’re almost up to the final checkpoint, sir. Any change in instructions?”
Chang shook his head. “No. I’ll handle this one personally. But tell Captain Sung that I want his best platoon ready to move in if there’s any trouble. I don’t want our fat friends in the ministry alerted to the danger just yet.”
The man nodded and dropped down into the crowded troop compartment. Chang settled back to enjoy the ride. Everything was going according to plan.
The last checkpoint on the MSR loomed out of the darkness, a row of reflector-topped barricades stretched across the road. He could see a few black-bereted figures moving behind the barricades, their assault rifles slung across their shoulders. The lights were on in the guardhouse built beside the highway. Chang’s PC slowed to a halt a few yards in front of the roadblock, and he clambered down off the vehicle. He stretched, checked to make sure he had his papers, and started walking toward the guardhouse.
Suddenly he found himself speared by a dazzlingly bright light that threw his shadow back along the road for yards. His eyes closed involuntarily in the glare, and he raised a hand to try to block it out. Some bastard had turned a searchlight on him.
“General Chang.” The megaphone robbed the speaker’s voice of any individuality. “This is Colonel Lee of the First Special Forces Group. You are under arrest for plotting against the security of the state.”
Damn. They had been betrayed. It was the only explanation. Who was it? Was it that DSC bastard Hahn? Chang stood still for a moment, stunned.
“You will come forward with your hands raised above your head. And you will order your troops to dismount from their vehicles without their weapons. Any man carrying a weapon will be shot without further warning.”
Chang heard boots slamming down on the pavement ahead and equipment rattling, and through half-open eyes he saw the barricades lined with fully equipped Black Berets. Most of their weapons were pointing at him.
His lips tightened. Quite an honor. The government considered him so dangerous that it made him the personal target of more than a hundred riflemen and machine gunners. A thought crept into his head through the shock. Perhaps they were right to fear him. After all, these men were also soldiers. They could not be happy with the chaos they saw around them. Why should they be his enemies and his undoing?
He straightened up and slowly brought his hands down toward his sides. He turned his head away from the searchlight’s glare, seeking out the line of troops ahead of him.
“Soldiers of Korea!” Chang’s voice carried easily through the night air. “Fellow soldiers.”
He paused, searching for the right words. “Do not let yourselves be turned into unthinking pawns for these corrupt politicians! Don’t help these ink-stained bureaucrats use you as a shield while they destroy our country!”
He took a step closer to the barricades. No one fired. He wished he could see their faces, could see the effect his words were having.
“Join us!” Chang waved an arm back toward the silent column of vehicles massed behind him. He saw movement out of the corner of an eye. There were government troops in position along the sides of the highway as well. It had been a thoroughly planned ambush.
“Join us to oust these fat ones who sit idle while you are beaten by communist mobs. Join us to restore order in the streets and prosperity to our nation.” He was within a few yards of the barricades now. It was working. He could see rifles beginning to waver, and he could hear muttering from the men ahead of him.
Chang took another step forward and started to smile. He was going to do it. He was going to bring these men over to his side. All it would take were a few more carefully chosen words. He opened his mouth to speak.
Two hundred yards away, Colonel Lee brought his night-vision glasses down slowly. He’d set up his CP on a flat-roofed warehouse to get a better view of the action. That had been a mistake. Now he was too far away to counteract the man’s oratory. The Special Forces officer shook his head. Chang was good. He’d hit just the right note, and Lee could see his men wavering, starting to turn toward rebellion.
Now there was only one way left to stop that. He looked at the sergeant lying prone on the roof next to him. “Do it.”
The sergeant nodded and lifted the sniper rifle to his shoulder. He squinted through the scope for a moment and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet caught Chang in the throat, tore through, and exploded out the back of his neck.
There was no pain, but Chang found himself falling backward onto the pavement. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs, and when he opened his mouth to cry out, he couldn’t get any air into his lungs.
Oh. Chang knew he’d been shot, knew he was dying. Time seemed to slow; he could see the stars overhead spiraling down to earth. Sons of bitches. They’d never given him a chance. It was over.
Chang was dead before the gunner aboard his APC came out of shock long enough to trigger his.50-caliber machine gun. But he avenged his general twenty times over as the burst caught men at the barricade and threw them back in a spray of blood and shattered bone.
A Special Forces heavy weapons team on the left flank saw the carnage and slammed a Dragon missile into the APC’s side. It exploded, ripping through the PC’s thin aluminum armor and hurling it over onto the pavement upside down and on fire.
Then the other Black Berets opened up, flaying the trapped column with antitank missiles, grenades, and machine guns. It was a slaughter. Chang’s men were in a tightly packed march formation with their vehicles spaced just far enough apart for safety during the drive south. It was a formation that guaranteed disaster under fire.
Drivers who tried to wheel out of the column to escape the crossfires laid down by the Black Berets either collided with the vehicles in front or back or were shot dead. Canvas-sided trucks were shredded by machine-gun fire that butchered the soldiers trapped inside. Men who’d dropped onto the pavement were cut down before they could lift their rifles. High-pitched screams from the wounded echoed above the gunfire. A tank, trying to escape, ground its way over a loaded truck, crushing it into a crumpled mass of blood-soaked steel. Seconds later, a Dragon missile caught the tank and blew its turret off, sending flames roaring into the night sky. Trucks and APCs exploded, throwing flaming gasoline high into the air. Smoke from burning vehicles billowed above the highway, blotting out the setting moon.
By the time Colonel Lee got his men back under control, Chang’s column was a tangled mass of wrecked and burning vehicles and dead and dying men.
Chang’s coup attempt was over. But the retribution had just begun.
CHAPTER 18
Reactions
DECEMBER 10 — NEAR THE DMZ, SOUTH KOREA
“Attention!” The sergeant major’s roar echoed over the snow-covered parade ground. One thousand men snapped to attention, their shoulders thrown back and post
ure ramrod straight. For a moment the sergeant major studied them, his narrowed eyes looking for any weakness or imperfection.
Satisfied, he wheeled and threw a rigid salute to the group of officers facing the assembled troops. “Battalion present and ready for inspection, sir!”
General Bae returned his salute casually. “Very good, Sergeant Major. We’ll begin now.”
The man dropped his salute and fell in behind Bae as he walked along the ranks, checking uniforms and weapons at random. Occasionally he stopped to have a name taken either for commendation or for punishment. But only occasionally.
Bae smiled thinly to himself. The battalion was in good fighting trim. Ready for anything. The phrase echoed in his mind: ready for anything. This was the unit he had planned to take to Seoul to reinforce Chang’s coup attempt if necessary.
The general continued his inspection but his mind was far away, concentrating on a more urgent problem. What had gone wrong with Chang’s plan?
Chang was dead. That was certain. Bae had heard the news from a friend in the Defense Ministry. But there’d been a complete security clampdown on exactly what had happened along the MSR north of Seoul. All Bae knew for sure was that a five-kilometer stretch of the highway was still closed — forcing supply convoys coming north to detour around it. And the 4th Infantry Division’s camp was quarantined, surrounded by a thick cordon of heavily armed Black Berets.
The general had avoided making any contact with the other plotters since the abortive coup, feeling certain that the DSC’s spies would be watching combat officers even more closely now. In a few days, perhaps, it might be safe to arrange a meeting to try to pick up the pieces. Bae shook his head slowly. Chang had been their inspiration. He wasn’t sure how many of the others would have the stomach to try again now that the Iron Man was gone.
Behind him, the sergeant major frowned as Bae walked right by a private with traces of weapons lubrication oil staining his tunic. He stopped, gave the man a ferocious glare, and then hurried on after his general. Something was bothering the Old Man all right.