Red Phoenix

by Larry Bond

  7TH LIGHT INFANTRY DIVISION HQ, NEAR CH’UNGJU, SOUTH KOREA

  Major General Frank Connor turned angrily on his ops officer, “Goddamnit, Art! It doesn’t make sense!”

  The shorter man spread his hands. “I agree, sir. But General McLaren confirmed our orders personally.”

  “Shit!” Something was way off base here, Connor thought. He’d seen the daily situation maps. The allied forces needed every man they could spare up along the Han River defense line and pronto. And what were he and more than two-thirds of his troops doing? Sitting on their backsides in the same, camouflaged camps they’d been sent to just after arriving by air from the States. And that, according to his ops officer, was just what McLaren wanted.

  Conner paced past the headquarters tent entrance and stopped, watching the last, red rays of sunlight streaming over the mountains surrounding Ch’ungju. He frowned. What was Mad Jack McLaren waiting for?

  JANUARY 2 — ECHO COMPANY HQ, SOUTH OF THE HAN RIVER

  “Sir?”

  Kevin Little came instantly awake and reached for the M16 at his side. “What is it?”

  Montoya stuck his head through the tent flap. “It’s Major Donaldson, L-T. On the radio.”

  Kevin wormed out of his sleeping bag, teeth already starting to chatter as the cold hit him again. His eyes and mouth felt gritty, as though they were filled with sand. Six hours of uninterrupted sleep had helped, but it couldn’t make up for everything that he had lost since the war started.

  He rose to a crouch, threw on his parka, and followed Montoya out of the pup tent.

  Echo Company lay at rest in a small hollow between two hills several kilometers south of the river line. The hills weren’t much to speak of, but they were high enough to block the wind, and Kevin was thankful for small favors. His men had been on the edge when they’d been pulled out of the line. Another few hours of straight duty and they would have been too slaphappy to do much more than wave hello to the North Koreans.

  It was snowing again. Kevin felt the soft, wet flakes striking his face, but he couldn’t see them. The moon was down and it was pitch-dark under clouds that covered the whole sky.

  The only light came from the north, a flickering, eerie half-light reflected in the clouds that Kevin would once have thought was lightning. Now he knew it was only North Korean heavy artillery pounding the poor bastards deployed right up along the Han.

  But the battle noises seemed louder than they had when he’d gone to sleep. And now the faraway rattle of small arms fire mingled with the crashing sounds made by impacting artillery.

  “Here, L-T.” Montoya led him over to a truck with its engine idling. The RTO had obviously decided to set his radio watch up in something that had a heater. Smart thinking.

  Kevin clambered into the cab and picked up the handset. “India One Two, this is Echo Five Six. Over.”

  “Echo Five Six, wait one.” An unfamiliar voice.

  Then Donaldson came on the circuit. “Kev? Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got a situation here. A Bravo Oscar situation, understand?”

  For a second, Kevin didn’t. His brain seemed to be working at about half-speed, or maybe less. Then it clicked. Bravo Oscar. The military phonetics for the letters b and o. Bug-out. Retreat.

  He pressed the transmit button. “Two, this is Six. Message understood. Over.” He wanted to ask why, but this didn’t seem like a good time to play “20 Questions.”

  Donaldson answered him anyway. “The NKs are across the river, Kev. J-2 said they couldn’t do it without bringing up replacement bridges, but they did it anyway. Only came across at one point, but they’ve thrown everything into it and our guys can’t stop them. Both the Second of the Thirty-Sixth and an ROK battalion have wrecked themselves trying. Anyway, the NKs will have their armor across by morning.”

  Damn. “Understood.”

  “Okay, then, Kev. Get your people saddled up. Brigade wants us on the road in two zero minutes. We’re going back to Point Little Rock to set up a new line. Out.”

  Kevin signed off and then fumbled inside his tunic for the list of new geographic code names they’d been issued just that morning. He ran his finger down the columns until he found Point Little Rock. Jesus Christ. They were going all the way back to Suwon, an ancient, walled city south of Seoul.

  He sat in the truck cab for a moment, feeling cold despite warm air blowing through the dashboard vents. He was caught up in a total disaster. They were losing Seoul. Hell, they were losing the war.

  JANUARY 1 — THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

  General Carpenter’s soft Georgia drawl rolled easily across the ear. His words weren’t so comforting. “There’s no way round it. Out projections show our pilot losses reaching the critical point. These strikes against hardened targets in North Korea are bleeding us dry.”

  The Air Force Chief of Staff clicked to the next slide. “To keep our squadrons in the ROK up to strength, we’re going to have to start cutting into the pool of combat-qualified pilots we’ve earmarked for Europe should a crisis erupt there.” Carpenter paused and looked over at his Navy counterpart. “I understand the Navy’s in a similar fix.”

  Admiral Fox nodded somberly. “A few more raids like this last one and we’ll have to start stripping pilots out of our Atlantic Fleet squadrons.” Fox, the Chief of Naval Operations, was a medium-sized man who still wore his white hair in a crew cut. He also wore aviator wings on his uniform.

  Carpenter studied the assembled NSC crisis team carefully, measuring out each of his next words. “Put simply, ladies and gentlemen, we no longer have the human resources to be everywhere at once.”

  Murmurs swept through the Situation Room. The implications of Carpenter’s report were both clear and troubling. The longer the war in Korea went on, the more pilots would be lost. The more pilots lost, the weaker the U.S. Air Force and the Navy’s carrier air wings would be if the conflict escalated. And the longer the war went on, the more likely it would escalate.

  The assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs stopped tamping down his pipe and looked up, impatience clearly written across his face. “Why can’t you meet your needs by calling up some of your reserves, General? I’d always heard that most of the airline pilots in this country learned how to fly in the Air Force. Surely you’ve kept track of those men?”

  Carpenter kept his tone level. “Yes, we have. A lot of ’em are in the Air National Guard squadrons that we’ve already called up. But those who weren’t will have to get some pretty intensive refresher training. And that takes time — time we’re not likely to get.”

  Blake Fowler leaned forward in his chair. The President had asked him to chair the crisis team in Putnam’s place. Putnam, meanwhile, was up on the Hill soothing Congress, and the President had made it clear that he was expected to stay up there until further notice. The Chief Executive apparently didn’t want his so-called national security adviser in a position to cause more damage to the nation’s interests. At the same time, he wanted to avoid a messy personnel crisis while trying to cope with a major war. So, officially, Putnam still had his job, even though Blake had to all intents and purposes replaced him.

  Blake found it an uncomfortable position to be in. It smacked too much of the kind of petty political infighting and intrigue that he’d always despised. And he wondered, now that backroom maneuvering had worked to his advantage, whether or not his outlook would change. He hoped not. He’d rather reside in academic obscurity somewhere than turn into something resembling George Putnam.

  He nodded to the Air Force general. “Have you got anything else to give us right now, General?”

  Carpenter shook his head. “No. Not right now. I just want to make sure that the President knows how thin we’re getting stretched. This thing is sliding across the edge of being a purely local crisis.”

  Blake nodded. Carpenter’s assessment on narrow grounds matched his own broader-based view of the situation. The Soviets were growing ever bolder in their sup
port of North Korea. Satellite photos clearly showed trains loaded with new artillery, replacement tanks, and aircraft rolling across the border at Hongui. And Warsaw Pact merchant ships laden with military gear crowded North Korea’s ports.

  China’s support for Kim Il-Sung’s invasion was somewhat more tepid. But it was there, nonetheless. Chinese munitions trains packed the yards at Sinuiju. Blake had seen the transcript of the meeting between the PRC’s premier and the American ambassador to Beijing. The language used had been convoluted, carefully obscure, but the message it conveyed had been clearer. Continued North Korean victories would bring continued Chinese support.

  And now the North Koreans were across the Han River barrier and driving south. McLaren’s latest telex made it clear that he expected Seoul to be completely surrounded within hours. Where things went from there, Blake couldn’t imagine. So far, every success the allied forces had gained had been only temporary — with each small victory followed short hours later by some new setback.

  Blake shook his head and turned to the crisis team’s next agenda item. The U.S. and South Korea were going to have to start winning some soon, or this war was going to flare out of control.

  CHAPTER 35

  Boiling Point

  JANUARY 2 — THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “Idti napravo!”

  “Smotri Pozadi!”

  Blake Fowler watched the frown on the President’s face grow deeper as he listened to the taped voices and bursts of static. The Chief Executive seemed to have aged at least ten years in the nine days since casualty reports began streaming in from Korea. Fatigue and tension had worn new furrows in his face, his hair had thinned noticeably, and the eyes that had looked so open and honest in TV campaign commercials were now red-rimmed and darkly shadowed. Looking at him, Blake decided that the only thing that must be worse than governing the United States during a war was governing it during a war that was being lost.

  When the tape came to an end, the President sat quietly for a moment, staring across his desk at a point somewhere off in space. Then he reached out and laid a finger on the printout in front of him. “And this is a verbatim transcript and translation of what I’ve just heard?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. One of our signals intelligence aircraft intercepted those transmissions from the MiG-29 fighters engaging Navy jets over the Yellow Sea two days ago.”

  “Why’d it take so damned long to get here?”

  Blake didn’t react to the President’s irritation. It was understandable, if unfair. “Rivet intercepts literally thousands of hours worth of enemy communications, sir. It takes time and a lot of expertise to ferret out the wheat from the chaff. They found this transmission at two o’clock this morning, our time.”

  The President eyed Blake angrily for a second longer, then his gaze softened, and he wearily nodded his understanding. He swung round toward the Oval Office window. Snow cloaked the Rose Garden. The high-backed chair muffled his voice when he spoke again. “The U.N. Security Council is meeting again tonight to discuss the situation in Korea, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. At seven o’clock. The Soviets have been delaying things with procedural motions, but they’ve run out of those.”

  The President swiveled back to face Blake. He put a hand on the cassette tape player in front of him. “Well, what do you think about using this in the debate?”

  Blake considered his answer carefully. “The intelligence community will object, sir, but — ”

  “I’m not asking them. I’m asking you.”

  “Yes, Mr. President, you are.” Blake took his glasses off briefly, polished them with a handkerchief, and put them back on his nose. “I think we should play every last second of this intercept. Normally, it’s vital to protect intelligence sources and methods, but the North Koreans know we have things like Rivet. We wouldn’t be fooling anybody by denying it. We’ve used them in the past to prove our case. The political impact of those tapes outweighs normal security precautions.”

  He paused, feeling slightly uneasy at speaking of politics so glibly. It made him sound like George Putnam. “The truth is, Mr. President, this war’s being fought on more than just the physical level. We’ve got to win both the international PR and global political battles as well.”

  The President nodded again. “Agreed. Hell, I’d just like to win somewhere sometime.”

  Blake stayed silent. He understood the President’s frustration and concern. He’d also begun to catch a glimmering of the strategy McLaren seemed to be pursuing and approved of it. He just hoped they could keep the lid on things outside Korea long enough for the general to put his plans into effect.

  “All right then, we’ll send these up to New York by special messenger.” The President’s eyes narrowed. “And that’s not all I’m going to send. I want those Russian bastards to know just how seriously we view this.” He picked up the phone. “June, get me the secretary of state, please.”

  He put a hand across the mouthpiece and looked closely at Blake. “Paul Bannerman helped get us into this mess. Now maybe he can help get us out of it.”

  Before he could reply, Blake heard a voice from the receiver and kept quiet as the President started speaking. “Yeah, hello, Paul… Yes, I’ve heard them… Yes, we’re going to use them… When? Why, hell, tonight, that’s when. Look, Paul, I want you up at the Security Council for the debate … Yes, I want you to lead our side of it… Instructions? Give them hell… Nope, that’s it. Those are my instructions. You know what to do. Good luck, Paul. I’ll be watching.”

  The President hung up slowly and looked steadily across the desk at Blake. “Now we’ll see just how far my so-called friend in Moscow’s ‘earnest desire for peace’ really goes.”

  PERMANENT MISSION OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA TO THE U.N.

  For once the scrambled phone connection to Beijing was miraculously free of atmospheric interference.

  “Do you have any questions?” The Premier’s tone made it clear that he didn’t expect any. He sounded tired, worn out by an all-night debate that had lead to this call.

  “No, comrade. Your instructions are clear and I shall carry them out without hesitation.” The ambassador stood holding the phone while watching the rush-hour traffic stream past below his Manhattan office. He eyed his watch. It was indeed fortunate that this last-minute call from the PRC’s Politburo had caught him preparing for the evening’s scheduled Security Council meeting. In another few minutes he would have been enroute to the Council chambers and out of reach of secure communications.

  “Excellent. Speak with me when you are done. The time will not matter.” The phone went dead.

  The ambassador hung up slowly and then reached out and activated the intercom on his desk. “Send Comrade Chin in at once. We have some work to do before the debate begins.”

  THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER, NEW YORK

  The high-ceilinged chamber was packed, every seat and aisle filled with diplomats from around the world, reporters, and security guards. A hundred whispered conversations rose from the crowd and mingled in a murmuring roar like that of the surf crashing on shore. This would be the first Security Council meeting on the situation in Korea that could be expected to go beyond dry procedural squabbling.

  Paul Bannerman, the U.S. secretary of state, settled into the seat normally reserved for the Chief of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and mopped delicately at his brow with a monogrammed silk handkerchief. The White House had quietly alerted the major TV networks to the fact that major diplomatic fireworks were in store for this session, and they’d all risen to the bait. His speech would be broadcast instantly into a hundred million homes all across America and into hundreds of millions more around the world. And Bannerman knew that sweat was the price he would pay for that kind of audience.

  TV cameras needed light and lots of it, and the harsh, white lamps brought in by the networks had already turned the Security Council chamber into a steam bath. Despite that, ever
yone around the circular row of desks reserved for the Council’s five permanent and ten elected members still wore close-fitting, immaculately tailored wool suits. As always, diplomatic formality took precedence over comfort.

  Bannerman kept his eyes on the U.N. Secretary General as members of his technical staff wheeled in the audio equipment he’d requested. The Secretary General had been briefed on what he planned and hadn’t seen any alternative but to comply. Bannerman knew that the U.N. chief ordinarily disliked theatrics, but he’d had to admit that these weren’t exactly ordinary circumstances. He sat up straighter as the Irishman cleared his throat and leaned closer to the microphone. “Mr. Secretary, the Security Council is assembled. Please proceed.”

  Bannerman nodded and slowly laid his prepared remarks on the desk, moving deliberately to ensure that all eyes were on him before he spoke. He stayed seated while speaking, as the rules prescribed. Keeping delegates in their chairs was supposed to help keep tempers in check and prevent passions from being inflamed. He wasn’t sure that it ever made much difference in the end.

  He began simply. “Mr. Secretary General, fellow members of the Security Council, and people of the world. This meeting is being held in a time of great crisis. Not just a crisis in my country or for the beleaguered Republic of Korea. No, not just for us. The events of this past week concern all members of the United Nations interested in peace and liberty and justice.”

  Bannerman paused, surveying the crowd around him. The Soviet ambassador sat quietly, with an expression of carefully uncamouflaged boredom plastered across his face. The secretary hardened his voice and looked straight at the Russian. “We’re meeting tonight to respond to the naked aggression launched by North Korea in violation of an armistice secured by this very body.

  “But first, I must raise a related issue of the highest possible consequence. I speak now of the actions taken by a member of this Security Council to assist North Korea’s aggression — actions that violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the resolutions adopted by the United Nations in June and July of 1950.” Bannerman paused again, listening to the murmurs that swept through the Security Council chambers at his words. Then he continued, “To be blunt I’m referring now to the Soviet Union’s decision to intervene militarily against the United Nations forces defending the Republic of Korea.”