Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  Saber’s missile had also guided, and there were only two contacts left. They were splitting up, diving for the deck, afterburners lit up. They were heading north. Tony watched them go, bright flame flaring aft. The Diamonds’ fuel state wasn’t up to a high-speed chase.

  Besides, the Phantoms had done their work. The last F-4s were just making their attacks. He ordered the Diamonds to disengage, and with the Garnets, they trailed the Phantoms out of the area. They didn’t have enough fuel to cover the poststrike reconnaissance aircraft. The spyboys would just have to take their chances.

  The egress route was west of the target, but close enough for Tony to see a cloud of gray dust and black smoke hanging over the area. There was another blotch, off to his right, on a hillside. As he got closer, he could see the remains of a Phantom that had slammed into the ground. He couldn’t see if the canopy was in place.

  As his flight passed the wreck, Bookmark called. “Diamond Lead, we have two wounded birds. Request close escort, over.” It looked as if they weren’t finished.

  The F-16s tanked on the south side of the DMZ, and Tony counted noses. Owl was missing, his wingman losing sight of him during the big dogfight with the Fishbeds. Dish’s own wingman, Ivan, had taken a piece of flak in his left wing. He was still airworthy but had to reduce speed or the vibration would shake him apart. Viceroy was gone, too.

  Two for fifteen or so. He guessed that was an acceptable loss ratio. It didn’t feel like it though. In silence the F-16s joined on the limping Phantoms and turned for home.

  KUNSAN AIRBASE, SOUTH KOREA

  The ops office was quiet now. The day’s last missions had been flown. Fourteen hours of grueling planning, preparation, and flying — all mixed in with desperate minutes of high-g combat. By rights, Tony should be asleep, worn down by responsibility and exertion. But he couldn’t sleep.

  He was too worried about Anne. He’d been able to push her face out of his thoughts in the air, but his fears for her had come back as soon as he was on the ground. She was still in Seoul, and the North Koreans were pushing hard to take the city. Combined Forces HQ said they were still about two days away, but NK heavy guns had been shelling Seoul from Day One. The worst of it was, he couldn’t do anything to help her.

  The phone rang again. Come on, Anne or somebody, answer. This was the first clear line he’d been able to get in three days of trying.

  Ring. Answer it. Please, God.

  “Logistics Center.” It sounded like her. It had to be her.

  “Anne?” He heard the quaver in his voice and tried to still it.

  “Tony! Oh, Tony.” He heard her take a deep breath. “Are you all right?”

  His heart jumped slightly. She was worried about him. About him. “Yeah. Oh, yeah. Look, Anne, I’m fine. No problem.” He hurried on. “But what about you? I mean, they’re hitting the city pretty hard.”

  She sounded calmer. “They aren’t shelling near us, Tony. They’ve been hitting the defenses and military bases. We’re pretty safe.”

  “Only ‘pretty safe’? Jesus, Anne, the gomers are moving on Seoul.”

  There was a pause. Then she said, “I know. But don’t worry, Tony. They’re going to fly us out, move the entire operation to Japan. They’ve already started moving records and such. We’ll go anytime now. One bag apiece, just the essentials. You know the drill.”

  His pulse started slowing. Evacuation. Thank God somebody in the high command had some brains. “Are you taking the scarf I gave you?”

  He could almost see her smile. “Yes. Look, Tony, I’m going to be fine. I’m more worried about you. Really, how are you doing?”

  “I’m flying, Anne, that’s all I can tell you. I’m doing okay.”

  He heard voices in the background. Then she said, “Tony, I’ve got to go now. Work to do. I’ll let you know where I am when I get to Japan.”

  “Okay…” He searched for the right words but didn’t trust himself to say them.

  “I’ll miss you, Tony. I’ll call as soon as I can.”

  There was a click, then silence, and he put the phone down reluctantly.

  CHAPTER 28

  Evacuation

  DECEMBER 28 — SEOUL LOGISTICS BASE

  The orders came late in the day. Anne hadn’t gotten much sleep lately, and there was a dullness behind her eyes. She had to read them twice before she understood them.

  Waving one hand over her head, she called, “Everyone! Listen, we just got the order. We move out at eighteen hundred.” She saw their panicked expressions and looked at her watch. It was 4:10 P.M. — 1610 hours military time.

  Everything had come to a dead halt, and she saw no reason to start it up again. “All right, if you can’t finish it in five minutes, pack it away. Trucks will pull up at six o’clock to take us to Kimpo. We’re going to Misawa, Japan, and set up there.

  “Gloria, keep taking messages. We can’t tell anyone we’re evacuating, so it’ll just be awhile before we get them their data.”

  The office had changed in the last four days. Everyone had moved their belongings, one bag each, into the office. The enemy had closed steadily on the city, until fighting could be heard almost constantly to the north.

  Last night she had told Tony that they had not been shelled, that the North Koreans had more important targets. The base had been shelled twice since then. Stray rounds had come within a few hundred feet of the computer center. There had been no damage, and nobody hurt, but she had felt the barest introduction to combat. From an infantryman’s point of view, this was not even close. But she wasn’t a soldier, and neither were her staff. She wondered what Tony must feel, being shot at daily since the war started.

  There were blackout curtains on the windows, and the basement had become an air raid shelter and dormitory. They had worked hard to keep track of the logistics situation, which had included reversing the flow of materiel out of Korea, managing the stream of supplies coming into the war zone, and searching supply bases worldwide for critically needed items.

  They had been on twelve-hour notice for days, trying to be ready to shift the entire operation to Misawa’s computers as quickly and smoothly as possible.

  She had planned the transfer carefully. All the data was being copied onto tapes, and two copies of each tape were being made. That would take most of the hour and fifty minutes they had. Twelve hours’ notice. That was a laugh.

  She paused. In a way it was good. It would minimize the time that they were unable to operate. The Army had already started setting up a site at the airbase there, and thank heaven they used the same type of computer. An hour to the airport, another hour to load, and then it was about a two-hour flight to Misawa. Another hour to get to the base’s computers, and an hour to load the software and data. With luck, they would be back in business by breakfast. It would be a long night, though.

  The trucks came early, with a mixed U.S. and Korean escort. In addition to the vehicles for the logistics center’s personnel, there were two more full of soldiers, and an armored car at the front. The lieutenant in charge loaded them as if the plane were waiting at Kimpo airport with its engines turning over.

  They loaded in the cold dark, with no lights and apparently no organization. Anne and the other supervisors tried to keep their people together, but she wouldn’t be sure if they’d succeeded until they got to Kimpo airport. Finally a soldier half-threw her onto a truck. She felt like a side of meat going into a freezer.

  It was dark in the back, and what little light there was disappeared when they lowered the canvas flap on the back. That caught her in midstride, and she would have fallen but for friendly hands catching her. Anne groped and half-stumbled her way to a seat, landing just as the truck started moving.

  She followed the turns the truck made in her mind and tracked them until they turned right outside the main gate. All she could think of was how cold the seat was. It didn’t get any warmer.

  There were frequent stops, and once, sirens. Finally her curiosity got the
better of her and her seatmates. They loosened the rope tying the canvas top to the side of the truck body and raised it enough to peek through.

  The crack was small, and they were moving so slowly that there was no rush of cold air. After being in the dark truck for so long, the blacked-out city looked almost light.

  Anne saw buildings damaged by bombs or artillery. Once an entire row of shops was leveled, but even the lightest damage would have been the lead story on the evening news back home.

  There had been little effort at cleanup. From the looks of the rubble, it had just been pushed out of the street. Some of it was still smoldering.

  A dusk-to-dawn curfew was in effect. This had been ignored inside the busy Yongsan Army Base, but outside, it was strictly enforced.

  Every major intersection had a checkpoint, and armed patrols walked the streets between them. Additionally, she sometimes saw weapons poking out of building windows. She knew that most of the post-1950s construction in Seoul had included features that would allow them to be used as bunkers. The city was being turned into one giant fortress.

  In the almost total blackout, the city looked dead. Ten million people lived here, but the only signs of life were armed soldiers and occasional convoys like theirs.

  They stopped at an intersection where some sort of roadblock had been set up. She couldn’t see the head of the column, but there was a sandbagged gun emplacement on the two corners she could see, and a barrier across each entrance to the intersection.

  There were two Koreans dressed in civilian clothes standing at one of the corners. Both were men. They had their hands in the air, and they were being searched none too gently by a soldier while another covered them with an M16 rifle. The truck started up, and her last view was of the two men being knocked to the ground.

  As they went down one street, movement caught her eye, and she saw soldiers at work outside a building. As Anne studied their movements, she realized they were wiring the foundation with explosives.

  It took almost an hour to reach the airport, by which time Anne didn’t know if the truck was actually warming up or she was just going numb.

  There was more security at the airport, including tanks and antiaircraft guns. They pulled up to the main terminal, gratefully unloading into its heated interior. Unsure of what to expect, Anne was startled to see a Korean Air Lines ticket agent waving her over.

  The agent asked for identification from each member of the party, examining it closely before returning it. One person did not have a ID card, and Anne had to sign a temporary ID form, taking responsibility for her.

  After the last staff member had been verified, Anne said, “How long will it be until our flight takes off?”

  The agent replied, “We can’t tell, ma’am. Not until tomorrow morning, at least.”

  There was a general commotion and several voices repeated Anne’s question. “But what about our orders? We’re on twelve-hour notice for immediate departure.…”

  “Miss Larson, that means the Air Force wants you here twelve hours before scheduled flight time, just in case they get more sorties than they plan on. I’ve been here for four days, and I guarantee that barring miracles, you will not be on a plane before dawn tomorrow.”

  She should have known. She knew how logistics worked. Try to have the cargo to be shipped present well before the scheduled flight time. So what if the cargo spent all night at an airport? All they could do was wait. She hadn’t even brought a book for the flight, just a manual to review upload procedures.

  They filed past the security station. Metal detectors were, of course, being used, but instead of civilian guards, no-nonsense Korean soldiers with submachine guns watched everyone.

  Once she was past the metal detector, Anne looked down the long corridor to the departure area. It was full of people, with rope barriers set up to control their movements. The logistics staff morosely took up their positions at the end of the line. It was going to be a long night.

  It was impossible to sleep. About every half hour everybody had to move forward five feet, or some new group of evacuees appeared, asking questions and bemoaning their fate. Even if they could have settled down inside, the roar of jets outside was incredible. The concourse was glassed-in, so they could see the operations on the field.

  Cargo planes landed constantly. Every three minutes a four-engined transport, either a C-130 or C-141, would roar in. After a while she noticed that there were occasionally longer gaps, after which a monstrous C-5 would lumber in. As one would clear the runway, another landed. On the parallel runway next to it, cargo aircraft took off.

  Every half hour or so, a cargo aircraft would taxi up to their gate. She watched through the glass as troops or light equipment unloaded, while fuel trucks drove up and attached hoses to the aircraft. Evacuees would stream aboard, chivied by Air Force personnel. The ramp would go up, the hoses detach, and the plane would taxi away, headed for takeoff. Total elapsed time was fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on how fast the evacuees moved aboard.

  As a logistics expert, Anne could appreciate the organization and timing involved. There were delays, of course. Twice mechanics had to be called to work on some part of an aircraft, but they had come on a run and had worked frantically to correct the fault. They’d succeeded though, and airplanes continued to land and take off.

  She had almost dropped asleep once, when suddenly sirens went off all over the base. The few lights that were on went out, and she heard the roar of jet fighters. Nothing else happened, and after about ten minutes the lights came back on.

  She dozed as best she could, and watched the people she worked with, and who worked for her. It was interesting to see who complained, who accepted their fate, who helped out. She knew she wasn’t in the last category. Few were, especially as the night wore on.

  Dawn finally came, and they had shuffled and moved into what would have been a waiting area for departure under more normal circumstances. They started to get themselves organized, and the group in front of them went through a door. They were next.

  Another cargo plane came and went, and an Air Force tech sergeant came out and said, “Army Logistics staff. Follow me for boarding.”

  Smiling and relieved, they went through, expecting to march into the cargo door of an aircraft. Instead, they went into a large room with metal walls and grease stains on the floor. From the signs on the wall, Anne guessed that it had been used for storing maintenance equipment. It was noisy, but when Anne saw the source, she was glad. Someone had moved two gas heaters into the otherwise unheated building.

  All the maintenance gear had been removed, and the floor had been marked off into several large areas. The sergeant started calling off names, in alphabetical order. As each person answered, he checked their ID again, then handed them a battered index card. He pointed over to an empty marked-off space and told them, “Get in it and stay in it.”

  Anne’s turn came, and she looked at her card. Hand-lettered, it said “C-141, 50.” She would be the fiftieth person on that aircraft, and they now knew it would be a C-141 Starlifter. She saw one group ahead of them and knew it wouldn’t be long now.

  Their square started to fill up, first with her group, then a group of civilians who turned out to be Air Force maintenance contractors. The area looked full, but the Sergeant checked his clipboard and called out, “Seventeen!”

  A side door opened and another group of civilians came in. These were obviously dependents, mothers with children in their arms or clinging to them as they walked.

  The last people were worming themselves into the area when the sirens went off again. Anne was near a window and saw people running for cover. Suddenly four fighters appeared in her field of view and split off.

  They had to be MiGs, she thought, because they were firing. She saw one drop bombs and bank away. She suddenly felt herself being pulled to the ground as the explosives hit. The shock wave shattered the glass and spread fragments over everyone in the building.

&nbs
p; There was a second explosion, much closer. The walls started to shake, and the Air Force people started shouting “Out! Everyone out!” There was a double door on each side of the building, leading out to the field, and people poured through it.

  She moved with the crash of people and was outside in seconds. As she emerged from the building, Anne felt a wave of heat one side and looked over to see a cargo plane on fire. One wing tip touched the ground, and the front of the plane looked chewed up.

  The cargo door was open and soldiers in camouflaged uniforms were running out of the plane. Some helped injured comrades, and there were several inert forms lying on the ground near the back.

  Anne looked around the field. Antiaircraft guns were firing, making a sound like ripping metal. She followed one line of tracers and saw a delta-winged fighter jinking. Another stream of tracers joined the first, but the fighter barrel-rolled away.

  She followed its flight path and saw its target. A four-engined shape was turning, diving, trying to get out of the MiG’s path, but the fighter followed easily. A smoke trail appeared in front of the attacker, and then a second one followed.

  The cargo plane turned, trying to perform a break maneuver that would take a fraction of a second for a fighter. It was far too slow, and both missiles hit on the starboard wing. It broke away, spinning crazily, and the rest of the aircraft fell, trailing smoke.

  She didn’t see if the MiG escaped. Looking at the airfield, she saw fires, columns of smoke, and craters in the runway. At least two cargo aircraft had been destroyed, with full loads of human cargo.

  An Air Force lieutenant came up to her. “Miss Larson? You and your group should come back inside the main terminal. We’re closing the airfield.”

  They would have to find some other way of getting out of Seoul

  DECEMBER 29, KUNSAN AIRBASE

  Tony dragged into the ops building, feeling as if he were nine hundred years old. The last mission had been a good one, a close air support flight that had turned into an air-to-air hassle with another two kills for him and no friendly losses. If he weren’t so tired, he might actually smile.