wounds.
“You hit?”
The big corporal smiled thinly. “Nope, L-T Guess they just wasted some more ammo.”
“Maybe.” Kevin coughed in the dust-choked air. “What’re your casualties?”
The smile disappeared. “Two dead. Watkins and Lonnie Smith. A couple more wounded. None bad, though.”
Kevin frowned. Four gone out of the men he’d brought in. That left only five men, plus him. Not enough. He ducked as a new burst of AK fire from above tore up the bottom of the staircase. He looked at Reese. “Any chance of a rush up those stairs, Corporal?”
The man considered it for a second and then spat onto the dust-coated hardwood floor. “Not a chance in hell, L-T. They got it covered too well.”
“Grenades, then?”
Reese shook his head slowly. “They’d just toss ’em back down at us. That’s how Lonnie bought it.”
Kevin took another grenade off his combat webbing and stood, careful to stay flattened up against the wall. “Get your boys together, Reese, and I’ll show you a little ol’ trick I once heard about from a sergeant I knew.” He felt himself starting to sweat.
With the squad backing him up, Kevin edged closer to the staircase. He stopped, inches away from the opening, and listened. Footsteps and whispering voices wafted down the splintered stairs. Then he lifted the grenade and pulled the pin, counting the passing seconds silently. One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three.
“For Christ’s sake, L-T. Throw it!” Reese sounded shaken.
Kevin shook his head while counting. One thousand five. Now. He stepped to the opening and lobbed the grenade up the stairs.
Sohn saw the grenade bounce off the bannister and roll toward him. He reached for it. Another weapon to hurl back in the imperialists’ faces. The thought brought a thin-lipped smile to his face as his fingers closed around the grenade.
It exploded.
Kevin used the tip of his boot to roll the dead North Korean officer over and winced at the sight. The man must have taken the full force of the explosion at point-blank range.
“L-T?”
He looked up. Reese was standing nearby, breathing hard.
“We got ’em all, sir. The building’s cleared.”
Kevin nodded and felt the fatigue he’d held at bay starting to rush in. “We lose anybody else?”
The corporal shook his head. “Not a one, L-T, thank God.”
“Yeah. And a sergeant named Pierce.” Kevin sank to his knees.
“You all right, L-T?” Reese sounded worried. “You ain’t hit, are you?”
It took an effort to answer. “No, just used up.” He straightened his back. “Look, go find Montoya and tell him to contact Battalion and let ’em know it’s done.”
Reese stood still for a second and then saluted. Kevin nodded wearily and closed his eyes, listening as the corporal’s boots clattered downstairs. They’d won.
McLaren glanced at his watch. Just after midnight. He picked up his binoculars and focused them on the scene to the north.
Taejon lay burning, eerily illuminated by flares. Shells burst brightly in the center of the city, and he could hear the clatter of automatic weapons clearly — even at this distance. Tracers floated lazily through the air, reaching for unseen targets.
He turned to the South Korean major general standing next to him in the foot-deep snow. “Well, General, can you hold?”
The other man didn’t move, staring intently at the ruined city. “Yes, we can. My troops have already shattered three of the communists’ best divisions. Their dead are stacked like cordwood in Taejon’s streets.”
A helicopter roared low overhead, carrying wounded to the field hospital at the foot of the hill.
“And your own casualties?”
The major general shrugged. “They are very heavy, too. Around fifty percent.” He paused. “We could use reinforcements, General. These men have fought hard. They deserve a short rest.”
McLaren nodded. “You’ll get them. But only a brigade. I need every other man elsewhere.”
“A brigade is sufficient. We will hold them here.”
“Excellent, General.” McLaren turned back to watch the fires burning their way through Taejon. More flares popped above the city, and the sound of gunfire rose higher. Another North Korean attack going in, more men dying, he thought. “Doug!”
Hansen came out of the shadows. “Yes, sir?”
“Signal all commands. Let’s get Thunderbolt ready to go.”
The sacrifices made at Taejon would not be in vain.
The long convoy rumbled slowly along the winding road, moving at a walking pace through the darkness. MPs stationed beside the road with shielded flashlights guided the intermingled, kilometers-long column of tanks, trucks, and self-propelled guns. Whenever a vehicle broke down, teams of engineers, mechanics, and combat soldiers were quickly mustered to shove it out of the way and into cover. The column could not let anything delay it. It had to be dispersed and under camouflage before the next Soviet spy satellite swung high overhead.
There were other convoys on the road that night. All were moving west, trundling down toward the flatlands near the sea.
The preparations for Thunderbolt were under way.
CHAPTER 40
The Tango Incident
Admiral Thomas Aldrige Brown looked at a display screen filled with symbols. To the trained eye it showed a carrier, a battleship, over fifteen Navy amphibious ships, ten merchant ships, and thirty escort vessels. Of course, Brown thought, you had to know what you were looking at. For instance, a small blue circle with the letters “ANCH” next to it represented the amphibious landing ship
Brown smiled thinly as the luminous computer display flickered slightly, updating the information it showed. He remembered the visiting congressman who’d complained that the
The admiral agreed. It was expensive. It was also invaluable. At a glance it allowed him to see the location and status of every ship under his command and every identified threat they confronted. And that was precisely the kind of data he needed to make decisions in battle.
Right now, though, the screen showed a mass of ships steaming placidly north along the South Korean coast.
Brown eyed the ships of his ASW screen carefully, looking for weaknesses in their patrol patterns even though he hoped that their job on this trip would be comparatively easy. Intelligence rated the current North Korean
