caught herself.
Walking toward him, she asked, “Where’s Tony?” but she knew the answer when he didn’t answer immediately. In the last few strides her expression changed, as she tried to maintain control, and realized how hard that could be.
Hooter waited until she came closer, then said, “Let’s go to your office.”
“But what’s happened? What about Tony?”
“Please, Anne, let’s talk in your office.”
Her face became a mask even more expressionless than John’s.
They walked around a corner, down a short hall. Stepping into a small office, John let her go in first, then gently closed the door behind him.
She watched him closely, and after waiting half a moment, she said, “Tony’s plane was hit.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes. But I saw him bail out. As far as I know, he’s healthy.”
She took a deep breath. “Thank God. When I saw you, I was so afraid it was something else.” Even now she couldn’t say that Tony might have been dead.
Hooter sketched out the mission, how Tony had been hit, and the ejection. Her initial relief was worn away as Hooter described the location: rough country, well behind the lines, and in winter. He was also out of rescue helicopter range.
John tried to talk about smaller things: Tony’s work at the squadron, standard rescue procedures, the progress of the air war in general.
She followed his lead and they chatted for about five minutes. Finally, when there didn’t seem to be any more point to it, she mentioned her meeting and he excused himself.
Anne didn’t return to the meeting. After Hooter left, she sat at her desk and tried to understand what she felt. She knew she was tired. The stress of her job, the importance of her task, had kept her working twenty-hour days. One of the bright spots in these two days had been the visits by Tony. Seeing someone outside of her job, outside of the war, was something she had cherished.
Tony would show up in the morning, sometime after breakfast. They would talk for a while, and then he would have to go back to the squadron. With the two buildings on the same base, he was never gone long. Besides, everyone in the squadron knew where to find him.
They had talked about their interests, past experiences, their beliefs and goals. She had learned more about him in those few short chats than in all the dates they had gone out on.
Now she would have to make it without his help, and she didn’t know if she could. There were things she hadn’t said, on the road to Kunsan or here in her office. Next time she saw him, they would have something new to talk about.
Tony marched and tried to figure out if he was lucky or unlucky. On the unlucky side, he’d lost his $16-million fighter, had to bail out in the middle of an enemy-occupied area, and now had to walk across frozen hillsides until he could reach his own lines.
On the plus side, he was healthy, except for a sore arm from that damned tree he’d crashed into on landing. He was south of the DMZ by at least twenty miles. That meant he was in friendly, if occupied, territory, and presumably the locals wouldn’t come after him with a pitchfork.
That about did it for the plus side. He remembered a few more on the minus side, though. It was dark, and he didn’t have the faintest idea of where he was.
In the immediate sense he knew his location. He’d been marching along the side of this godforsaken hill for about three hours and was reasonably sure he was heading south.
In larger terms, he didn’t know where to head for. He still had his map, but it was impossible to read until he had some light.
He probably should stop anyway, he thought. He had survived the ejection process relatively intact, but he knew it had taken a lot out of him. He felt a little light-headed and had to stop frequently to rest. Only a desire to get clear of his wrecked aircraft had kept him moving.
It took him another half hour of moving south before he found a likely spot to hide. A small stream had undercut its bank, providing a spot just big enough for a man to lie down.
Tony used his survival knife in his off hand to hack off some pine boughs. Even in his fatigued state he was careful to take them from several trees, and to stay on bare ground as much as possible.
He enjoyed hacking at trees. That damn pine tree had snagged his chute, slamming his right arm against the trunk hard enough to give it a really good bruise. He was sure it wasn’t broken, but it was very, very sore.
And he’d been left dangling twenty feet off the ground. He’d looked a little ridiculous hanging there, with an inflatable raft hanging just off the ground, and his survival kit actually resting on the snow.
Luckily the Air Force included fifty feet of nylon line in the parachute pack for just such eventualities. It had loops and buckles that allowed a pilot to lower himself to the ground. Of course, it was a little harder in the dark with a sore arm, but he’d made it down after about ten minutes. And then it had taken him another twenty minutes to deflate and hide the raft, shred and bury his code card, and pack up his chute and survival kit.
Now every move made his arm ache, and grabbing tree limbs involved a lot of moving.
He hacked off enough branches to pad the ground, with enough left over to lean against the bank and hide him. Wrapping himself in his chute with the green part showing, Tony settled in for the night, relatively warm and delightfully horizontal.
He woke up to sunlight filtering through the pine branches over him. Disoriented, he started to get up and looked around, then froze when he remembered where he was. Checking his watch, he realized he had slept nearly nine hours.
Lowering himself carefully onto the branches under him, he listened for movement, voices, anything. The branches concealing him also served to block his view of the area round him.
Tony waited and listened, deciding after about five minutes that he was alone. While waiting, he became aware of his own body. His arm hurt like fire, most of the joints in his body were complaining, and he was hungry.
Once he was sure it was safe to do so, he solved the last problem first by digging into his survival kit. Munching on a fruit bar, he pulled out his map.
Never having done any orienteering, and using an air navigation chart, and being unsure of his general position, he was pretty pleased with the results. He was almost certain of which valley he had bailed out over, and he could follow his general direction of travel in the night. On the scale of the map, it was hardly a line.
Tony estimated at least fifty miles to the friendly lines. If he could cover twenty, then somehow alert combat rescue, they could home in on his emergency transmitter. He was keeping it safely off for as long as possible. The NKs could home in on it just as easily as his people.
Okay, at least two days’ travel, maybe seven. Better get started. He’d have plenty of time on the way to figure out how to contact his side.
Reluctant to leave the warmth and security of his hiding place, he stepped out and creakily stretched, looking around carefully for any sign of movement. The change from predator to prey was jarring, but he was fatalistic. In fact, he felt almost optimistic.
His plan was to keep moving south until he came to an east-west highway that crossed the ridge to his right. Besides moving south, he had to go east, or he would end up near Seoul, obviously not a good idea these days.
He made good time. Moving fast helped fight the cold. After about two hours a road appeared on the horizon, and Tony dropped prone as he watched for movement or vehicles.
After fifteen minutes he hadn’t seen a thing. Judging from the size of the towns on each side of the ridge, there probably wasn’t a lot of traffic between P’ochon and Sinpai. Still, roads were roads. They would be patrolled.
He approached carefully, slowing to about half his marching speed. In the end he didn’t have to risk the road. There was a low spot in the ridge and he decided a climb was better than the road. The trees covered him, and by midafternoon he was over the top and had a good view of the land ahead of him.
In addition to the tree-covered landscape, he saw a small cluster of buildings. Dropping to his knees, he tried
