by Larry Bond
“As weak as ever, you mean!” Kim could feel his temper slipping out of control, building toward a towering rage. He let it. “For your information, Mr. Ambassador, this Soviet ‘indiscretion’ you refer to is its willingness to side openly with us — instead of hiding in the shadows as your country has done!”
The ambassador was unruffled. “There were other considerations in — ”
“I’m sure there were,” Kim interrupted, all concern for self-control cast aside. “Considerations like the almighty Yankee dollar and your capitalist kowtowing to the Western bankers! You Chinese have finally sunk back to your old role as bootlickers for your imperialist masters.”
“Surely that is unfair, comrade. We’ve sent thousands of tons of valuable supplies across our common border, without the slightest discussion of any need for payment. And now” — the ambassador pointed to the paper lying on Kim’s desk — “we are fully prepared to increase even that already generous level of support.”
That was too much. Did these swine truly believe he could be bought like some common street whore? Kim grabbed the PRC’s weapons offer and crumpled it into a ball. “That is what I think of your pathetic attempt to bribe your way into my friendship!”
The man simply looked at him without any expression at all. “Shall I report to my government that our offer of additional assistance has been refused, comrade?”
The room turned red and Kim threw the wad of paper into the man’s face in a fury. “Yes! And report it in person. Your presence in the People’s Republic is no longer welcome. You are expelled!”
The ambassador nodded. “Very well, comrade. My government will undoubtedly submit another representative for your accreditation at the earliest possible moment.”
Kim struggled for control. The damned Chinese hadn’t even flinched when the paper struck him. He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. Then he said coldly, “Your government may do as it sees fit. And I may even consider its request — though I fear my calendar is somewhat full for the moment.”
He pressed the buzzer on his desk. “Send Captain Lew in.”
Lew wore no badges of rank, as befitted his status as an agent of the State Political Security Department. “Yes, Dear Leader?”
Kim didn’t waste words. “Escort the ambassador to his embassy and from there to the airport. Under no circumstances will you allow him to communicate with anyone save his own diplomatic staff. Do you understand me?”
Lew nodded sharply. The Chinese ambassador remained motionless, apparently uninterested in this extreme breach of protocol and common diplomatic courtesy.
“Good.” Kim’s lips thinned. “Now, get this man out of my sight.”
He dismissed the matter from his mind. He didn’t need the Chinese. The Soviets had far better weapons and had been far more willing to part with them. They had shown themselves worthy of his trust and his exploitation. He would rely on the Soviets — for the time being.
BEIJING, THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
The Premier regarded the telexed report from the Pyongyang embassy with a wistful smile. Kim Jong-Il was so painfully predictable — not like his father at all. At least not as Kim Il-Sung had been at the height of his personal power. He shook his head slowly. The younger Kim was so intemperate, so arrogant.
A thought struck him. Perhaps the North Koreans really believed they could win this war without China’s assistance? It was possible. Their naïve self-confidence must certainly have been buoyed by their apparent victories so far. After all, the North’s armies drove deeper into the South with each passing day.
On the surface, then…
The Premier smiled more broadly. He’d known many apprentice engineers who’d looked only at the outside of a seemingly solid concrete dam without ever imagining the dangerous fissures that might be spreading throughout its interior. And Kim Il-Sung’s bloated son was more an apprentice than most.
Well, the apprentice had made his first clear error. The Premier carefully folded the telex and slipped it into his briefcase. Many of his colleagues on the Politburo would be deeply interested in its contents — deeply interested indeed.
He rose to his feet easily, heading for the morning’s scheduled Defense Council meeting. The dance was changing, spinning into new form, and the Premier wondered whether all its participants would be quick enough to learn its new steps.
Somehow he doubted it.
CHAPTER 36
Rear Guard
JANUARY 3 — ECHO COMPANY, WEST OF SUWON, SOUTH KOREA
Kevin Little saw a sea of flame ripple across Suwon as more North Korean shells landed — smashing tile-roofed houses and tearing huge gaps in its ancient stone walls. Other explosions rocked the summit of Paltal Mountain, near the old city’s center. Temples, pavilions, and fortresses that had taken years of hard labor to build were being destroyed in minutes. He shook his head. The allied troops guarding Suwon weren’t anywhere within a kilometer of the North’s barrage. They’d abandoned the city’s historic center in a vain effort to preserve it from destruction. The North Koreans weren’t being so accommodating.
“Hey, Lootenant? Do you suppose we could get on with this? I ain’t exactly up here to play tourist, you know. See, I cain’t go back to my CO without your John Hancock on this here form to show that I dropped the stuff off at the right unit. Okay?”
Kevin turned away from the growing firestorm and back to the portly, double-chinned sergeant waiting impatiently, clipboard in hand. Something about the man had struck him as odd, and it had taken a while for the pieces to fall into place. Now he knew what it was. The sergeant’s combat fatigues looked brand-new and unwrinkled. Odder still, the man was clean. To someone who hadn’t been within half a klick of a working shower for days, seeing the supply sergeant’s shiny and well-scrubbed face was like running head-on into an alien from outer space.
He shook off the shock and shook his head. “No, it’s not okay, Sarge. I’m not signing for anything until I’m satisfied that it meets my military requirements.”
The shorter man frowned and Kevin tried making himself clearer. He could tell vaguely that he was starting to lapse into meaningless jargon. He was getting too tired for all of this. “Look, I can’t fight my company properly without enough ammo, and the load on your trucks gives me less than half my basic supply.”
More shells burst over the city and the supply sergeant flinched at the noise. He looked worried. “Hell, I’m sorry, Lootenant. But I just plain don’t have any more ammo to give you right now. Nobody else has any more.”
Goddamn the Army. Kevin felt the fury bubbling up inside him. Not enough men. Not enough time. And now not enough frigging ammunition even to fight properly. He fought against showing the anger he felt. The sergeant wasn’t the problem, just a symptom.
He felt his jaw tightening and grimly eyed the crates his troops were hastily hauling out of a pair of mud-spattered three-quarter-ton trucks.
The sergeant saw his face and shrugged apologetically. “Brigade’s promised us more before nightfall. But the roads are a mess… so I don’t know how much stock to put in that.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Amen to that, Lootenant.” The sergeant looked back down the slope to where GIs were frantically digging foxholes and trying to clear fields of fire through the undergrowth. Kevin waited silently while the man came to some kind of decision. “Look, I’ve got a couple of boxes of claymores on the trucks. They ain’t spoken for yet. Maybe I could let you have those.”
“I’ll take ’em.” Kevin didn’t hesitate. Echo Company was stretched way too thin along this line, and a few strategically placed claymore mines might come in real handy indeed. Used properly, a claymore could do a world of hurt to an enemy infantry unit. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. When it was triggered, a claymore’s pound of C4 plastic explosive hurled six hundred steel balls out in a sixty-degree arc to its front — literally scything down anything or anyone within its burst radius. Echo cou
ld use that kind of firepower.
The supply sergeant tugged at his lower chin thoughtfully. “You’ve got them.” He nodded abruptly. “Okay, then. I’ll just go down and tell the boys to hurry it up. Got my rounds to make, and I don’t want to stay here in your hair too long, after all.”
Kevin knew the man really meant that he didn’t want to risk getting caught up in the next North Korean attack, but he couldn’t blame him one bit. Nobody in his right mind would willingly hang around to be shot at.
He returned the sergeant’s salute and watched him move off down the hill toward the now-nearly-empty trucks. Then he swung away impatiently, looking for his squad and platoon leaders. He had a defensive position to finish laying out and too damned little time to do it in.
2ND BATTALION, 91ST INFANTRY REGIMENT, NEAR UIWANG, NORTH OF SUWON
Captain Chae Ku-Ho of the North Korean People’s Army waited patiently while his battalion commander scanned the horizon through a pair of East German — manufactured binoculars. The major was very proud of those binoculars, and Chae understood his pride. They were superb instruments.
“Magnificent! Magnificent! Can you see it, Captain?”
“Yes, Comrade Major.” The smoke pouring from a hundred fires obscured Suwon and billowed high into the atmosphere, mixing with heavy, gray storm clouds that still covered the sky. There would be more snow soon, Chae decided.
“And look at that blacker stuff rising beyond the city. That’s fuel oil and aviation gas burning. The imperialists must have fired their airbase to prevent us from capturing it. We have them on the run, Captain. They’re already beaten in their own minds.”
Chae agreed with his commander but didn’t see the point in saying anything. The enemy troops might be mentally defeated, but they still had to be physically destroyed for it to mean much. He waited patiently until the major had seen enough.
At last the man lowered the binoculars and turned to face him. “Very well, Chae. Let’s not waste any more time. Your orders are simple.” The major pointed to the low, tree-covered hills rising to the west of Suwon. “The division’s axis of advance runs straight through there. And we’ve been selected to spearhead the advance.” He paused.
“A great honor, Comrade Major.”
The man nodded. “Yes. In any event, Chae, I want your company to lead the battalion. Intelligence assures me that we can expect only light opposition from isolated enemy rear guard forces. The rest of the fascists are running back down the highway as fast as they can.”
Chae had his own doubts about the major’s intelligence reports, but he remained silent. The Main Political Administration’s agents had unpleasant ways of dealing with officers suspected of defeatism or insufficient ardor.
“What about tank support, sir?”
The major waved his question aside. “The tanks are being sent further west, where the ground is more suitable for their use. We won’t need them. This will be infantry work only, Chae. We’ll rout the enemy out with the point of the bayonet!”
“Yes, Comrade Major.” Chae was careful not to let any expression show on his face. “I’ll get back to my troops, then.”
“Indeed, Captain.” The major’s tone grew colder. Perhaps he’d sensed Chae’s lack of enthusiasm for his leadership. “I’ll expect your column to be underway within twenty minutes.”
Chae saluted and headed back to his company’s bivouac inside the still-smoldering ruins of Uiwang. He shivered in the wind and grimaced. At least he and his troops would have a brisk six-kilometer march to warm themselves with before going into the attack. The People’s Army’s trucks were too valuable to risk to enemy fire.
ECHO COMPANY
They were as ready as it was humanly possible to be. Or so he hoped, Kevin Little admitted to himself. Anyway, there wasn’t time to do any more work preparing the position. He checked the magazine on his M16. It was full, but he only had six more in the pouch attached to his combat webbing. He patted the ammo pouch to make sure it was still there and for the thousandth time, he silently cursed the fouled-up supply situation. Where the hell were all those planeloads of ammo and other gear that the scuttlebutt said were landing every few minutes from the States?
Seven magazines wouldn’t last long in the kind of firefight they’d soon be facing.
A two-man OP sited along the treeline to the north had reported several infantry columns marching south toward them. And Battalion had passed along similar reports from the other companies holding this part of the line. There wasn’t much doubt about it. They were going to get hit.
Kevin trudged wearily through the ankle-deep snow, just putting one foot in front of the other — taking stock of his company’s situation for one last time. He’d had his troops dig in just behind the crestline of the small, tree-covered hill they’d been ordered to hold. The hill itself would block the line of sight for any North Korean observers and force the NK commander to commit his own forces without much idea about where the company’s main strong points were.
Not that there were many of those. Major Donaldson had scraped together a few more replacements for him, but he still had less than sixty men left to hold a position more suitable for a full-strength rifle company with attachments. As it was, he’d been forced to put everyone up on the line just to avoid leaving gaping holes in his defense. The idea of fighting without having some kind of reserve left Kevin feeling cold. It reminded him too much of the fiasco on Malibu West. That had been one of his mistakes up there, too.
He shook off the thought. This wasn’t the time or place. Maybe later. Maybe after the war, always assuming he lived that long.
His 1st and 2nd Platoon leaders — Corporal McIntyre and Sergeant Geary — just nodded when he stopped by their foxholes to go over the battle plan. They looked haggard, dog-tired and hollow-eyed. But then, hell, so did everyone else in the company. Five days and four nights out in the open under extreme stress and in arctic temperatures had pushed the troops to the edge of their endurance. Many were coming down with bronchitis, severe chest colds, or pneumonia. Kevin knew that, by rights, fully a third of his men should have been in the hospital for treatment. The trouble was, he couldn’t spare them — any more than he could spare himself.
He kept going, half-walking, half-sliding downhill through the snow toward the weakest point in his line — a brush-choked ravine that cut between the hill held by his company and the one occupied by Matuchek’s Alpha Company. A frozen, narrow stream turned and twisted its way south at the bottom of the ravine, and the tangle of small trees, shrubs, and tall grass its waters had fed made movement difficult and observation next to impossible. It was the perfect place for a North Korean infiltration through his position.
Knowing that and knowing what exactly to do about it were two very different things, but Kevin had done his best. He’d scraped together a blocking force by stripping the 2nd Platoon of a machine gun team and four precious riflemen. These six men now held positions along either edge of the ravine, ready to pour a vicious crossfire into any NK troops moving up through the dense underbrush.
He’d done more. He’d had the blocking force emplace no fewer than six claymore mines along the gully — ready to shred the vegetation and anyone in it with a total of 3,600 plastic-explosive-driven steel balls. It would be enough to give the first North Korean attack down the ravine a very bloody nose indeed. It wouldn’t be enough if there were a second or third assault.
Well, he’d have to worry about that later. Kevin moved back up the slope toward the two-man foxhole that served as his CP. Montoya was already there, helmet pulled low over a green scarf wrapped around to cover his ears. The RTO just shook his head when Kevin asked if there were any new orders from Battalion.
“What about Rhee? Any word on him?”
“Not a peep, L-T. Maybe he’s wangled himself a cushy staff job.”
Kevin grinned at Montoya’s stab at humor, but he didn’t really find it too funny. Rhee had been summoned earlier in the morning to the
temporary Brigade HQ at Yongju-sa — Dragon Jewel Temple — a Buddhist temple complex several miles south of Suwon. The orders hadn’t explained why and they hadn’t given Kevin any indication of when he could expect Rhee back. Goddamned rear-area dips, Kevin thought savagely. They probably wanted the Korean lieutenant to fill out some pointless requisition. And now he was short his second-in-command just before going into battle.
He felt uneasy at the prospect. This would be the first time he’d gone into action without Rhee at his side, and Kevin knew how much he’d come to rely on the South Korean’s calm, good humor and guts. Damn it.
“L-T. Hey, L-T.” Montoya laid a gloved hand on his shoulder. “The OP’s coming in.”
He took the handset. “Echo Five Six to Echo Eyes. Give me a sitrep. Over.”
“Echo Five Six, this is Eyes.” Kevin could hear the man panting into his mike as he and the other sentry jogged back to the company. “We’re coming in. First November Kilos are just about four hundred meters from our position. Strength estimated at one, repeat, one battalion. No tanks or PCs.”
“Acknowledged. Five Six out.” Kevin handed the mike back to Montoya. “Pass the word to all posts that we’ve got bad guys on the way with friendlies in front of ’em. Tell everybody to hold their fire until I give the word.”
WHOOOOSH. WHAMMM. WHAMMM. WHAMMM. The howling din of artillery landing somewhere to their front drove Montoya and Kevin to the bottom of their foxhole — an action duplicated by everybody else in Echo Company. It took several seconds to realize that the shells weren’t exploding around them, and several more before anybody cared to raise his head above ground level.
Kevin wriggled out of the foxhole and bellycrawled up to the crestline of the hill. Forty-year-old pines, oaks, and willow trees blocked much of his view, but he could see well enough to realize that the North Korean shells were tearing up the whole northern edge of the forest. He almost smiled. Major Donaldson had been right. Trying to defend from there would have been tantamount to committing suicide. It was too bloody obvious a target for enemy artillery.