drag chutes had failed to open, so that the guns were now at the outer flooded edge of the airport rather than on it, and in the darkness a fight raged between the U.S. Airborne and NKA militia for possession of the guns.
Freeman knew it would all come apart if the six tanks that the Airborne’s Colonel Menzies was now sighting managed to reach the airport before the Airborne could get the 105-millimeters into action.
“You can take care of them, Rick,” Freeman told his Airborne commander. “Their goddamned rattletraps come apart if you fart. Over.”
“They’re our tanks, General. Captured M-60s.”
The general paused. “Then knock ‘em off with the howitzers.”
“When we get—” There was an explosion in the background, drowning Menzie’s voice. When he came back on the radio, he told Freeman, “General, there’s a good chance we’re going to lose the Galaxy. It’s one mother of a target — even in the dark. I ‘m concerned about my men, General. If that big bird goes…”
“Then our empty cargo Chinooks can take you out… How long do you think you can hold?”
“Not a matter of holding, General. We can hold all day, but it’s no good if we can’t get out.”
“An hour’s all I need, Rick. You hold.”
“Yes, sir.”
A minute later the sky over the airport went yellow, followed by an explosion — the Galaxy going up in flames, illuminating the Airborne better than any flare.
Freeman turned to Al Banks and a marine major. “I’m going on to Mansudae Hall.” He said it as if he were going over to the PX for a moment. Perhaps, thought the major, the general’s enormous self-confidence came from the long hours of preparation, of poring over the SATINT and Japanese intelligence reports. But then, anyone could read a map. There was more to it. Freeman’s elan had spread through all the men, now digging in around Kim II Sung Square, readying for the inevitable NKA counterattack with three of the bridges on the west side still intact.
“By God,” said Freeman, “what I wouldn’t give for an M-1.”
“Hey, General. You don’t need a tank, sir. You got us.”
They were hunkering down close to the Hummer.
“Where you from, son?”
“Brooklyn, sir.”
“You stay by me. I need a man like you.”
“Where we goin’, General?”
“We’re going to start a fire, son, right in that runt’s seat of government. By God, those Commies talk about ten days that shook the world. We’ll do it in ten minutes!”
There was a shuffling sound — the boy’s buddy hitting the cement.
“Down!” bellowed Freeman. There was another shot, but they couldn’t see where the sniper was.
“Medic!” called the boy from Brooklyn. The stretcher bearers ran over, crouching. There was a flash in the darkness south of the square from the Haebangsan Hotel. The Humvee’s machine gun roared to life, illuminating the rain and several marines nearby.
“Got him!” shouted the gunner.
As the Medevac team were lifting the downed marine onto a stretcher, Freeman touched Brooklyn’s arm. “C’mon, son. Work to do.”
“Yes, sir.” But now the boy’s voice was cracked with emotion as one of the medics, seeing his colleague was stripping open an emergency field dressing, reached over and stopped him, then pulled the marine’s poncho over his face, the rain bouncing off it with a drumming sound.
“Let’s go,” said Freeman, leaping into the Humvee, a squad automatic weapon with him and grenade vest packs in his right hand.
He turned to the marine major in charge of holding the square. “Give us forty-five minutes, Major. We’re not back, you go ahead with the withdrawal.”
“We’ll stay as long as we can, sir.”
“You’ll stay forty-five minutes and get your ass out of here. Second Tomcat wing’ll have enough to do with those MiGs without baby-sitting us. That means I want choppers in the air at oh six thirty. You hear me?”
“Loud and clear, sir.”
The major’s biggest worry wasn’t whether the general would get back or not but how best to protect the Chinooks, scattered all around. So far the general’s plan was working well, despite the airport and the sporadic fire of some Home Guard and militia troops working their way up Sunji Street, the marines now in the process of blocking it off. While this was happening, the major saw that the men from Freeman’s infantry were pushing more of the Chinooks to the west end of the square between the big protective blocks of the Art Gallery on the square’s south side, the History Museum on the north, and the river directly behind them to the east. Meanwhile on the top floor of the six-storied Grand People’s Study House, marines with spotting scopes took up positions.
“What’s your name, son?” Freeman asked the Humvee’s marksman/squad leader next to him in the cabin.
“Brentwood, sir.”
“All right, Brentwood — we’re going to visit Mansudae Hall. Ever heard of it?”
“On the map, sir. Aboard the LPH when we were going over the-”
“Well, son, you’re going to see it up close. You ready?”
“Yes, sir,” said Brentwood.
The general knew he wasn’t. No one was, before their baptism of fire.
“So far,” Freeman had told Al Banks back at the square, “on the ground we’ve only had chicken-shit resistance.”
“I think that’s about to change,” Banks had cautioned.
“By God, it’s the curfew,” Freeman had proclaimed in a moment of revelation, standing in the pouring rain, arms akimbo. “Thought everyone was staying inside from fright.”
In the Hummer, Freeman could hardly breathe, so excited was he by the prospect — a vision of glory so powerful — heaven so clearly on his side with the curfew and the rain and the monsoon, together with
In the ice-cold depths of the North Atlantic, eighty-three miles west of Scotland, the USS
“Okay, Pete. Be right there.” Robert Brentwood pressed the “stop” button on Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town,” swung his feet off the bunk, and made his way over to the washbasin to wake himself fully, his eyes and throat dry as parchment. He made a mental note to tell the chief engineer to turn the switch up on the air/water content control. Brushing his teeth, his mirrored image looking better than he felt, he was struck by how the public face — the face of duty — so often and so convincingly hid the deepest fears of the inner shadows. He glanced at his watch. Three-twelve p.m. Back home — that other planet — his mom would most likely be having her morning coffee, his father at the New York Port Authority, pushing paper and moving ships, cutting corners where he could and sucking Tums where he couldn’t. And what about Lana? Had she and La Roche patched it up? For the life of him, he couldn’t think why a man would want to break with a beautiful girl like that. Maybe it wasn’t all La Roche’s fault. It took “two to tango,” as his mother never tired of saying. Anyway, hopefully, if the burst message did come in, he’d be in Holy Loch tied up within two to three hours and there’d be lots of mail for everyone. Maybe a letter from young David, though that was too much to hope for, knowing his younger brother’s “allergy” to writing anyone. Well, hell, thought Robert, replacing the toothbrush, you’re no letter writer yourself, pal. You ready, Brentwood? he asked himself. Ready. And willing?
No — but ready.
The moment he began the walk toward the control room, Brentwood felt every sailor he passed watching him, wondering. He nodded to most and stopped at the galley.
“What’s on, Cook?”
