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.
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 naive 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
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 could 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.
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
