The man pointed to a door at the end of a long corridor. Hahn released him and moved down the hallway. He pushed open the door and stepped inside.
There was only one man inside the small office, a lieutenant. The lieutenant’s eyes widened when he saw Hahn’s insignia, and he put down the phone he’d been holding. He had dark circles under his eyes and he’d missed a button while putting on his shirt.
“Where’s your CO, soldier?” Hahn said harshly, tossing his briefcase onto the man’s desk.
“He’s up with the column, sir. I can raise him on the radio if you’d like.” The lieutenant reached for the phone he’d just set down.
Hahn shook his head. “No good. I need to talk to the senior officer here in this compound, right now.”
The lieutenant looked even more worried. “Well, that’s me, General. Everyone else is on the road.”
Curse it. Hahn could feel his part of the plan slipping away from him. How much did the government know?
“Okay then, Lieutenant. Maybe you can tell me what all this fuss is about.”
The man looked surprised. “I’d have thought you’d know more about that than I would, sir. All I know is that General Park called my colonel about half an hour ago and told him to get every company and heavy weapons team we had on the road north.”
Hahn grabbed his briefcase back off the desk. There wasn’t any further point in hanging about here. Arresting one junior officer wasn’t going to put a crimp in the government’s reaction. He was just exposing himself to unnecessary risk. He had to get back to DSC headquarters and warn Chang about the Black Berets waiting for him. Maybe they could switch the assault column to an alternate route.
“Very well, I’ll talk to your commander later. Carry on, Lieutenant.” Hahn returned the man’s salute and left the office, shutting the door behind him.
The lieutenant stared at the closed door for a moment. What had that been about? What was a senior DSC officer doing showing up at the compound with a truck full of armed men?
Well, there was only one way to find out for sure. He picked up the phone again. “Corporal, get me General Park’s adjutant.”
Across the city, the Ministry of National Defense was hastily being prepared for a state of siege. The dress- uniformed guards who normally patrolled outside the squat, reinforced concrete headquarters were gone — replaced by troops in full battle dress. They were busy throwing up sandbagged machine gun nests in the streets around the building and on the roof. Armored personnel carriers now blocked the ministry’s main entrance.
Brigadier General Kim Tong-Ki turned away from the windows and put the phone down. He looked across the office at his boss, General Park. “Sir, I’ve just had a very strange conversation with the duty officer at the Special Forces barracks.”
Park looked up from the map he was studying. The first elements of the Special Forces group stationed in Seoul had just reported reaching their blocking positions. Park was trying to decide how far he could trust the other units in the capital garrison. The obvious answer was not very far at all. There was no telling how far Chang’s conspiracy reached.
“Yes, go on.” Kim could hear the strain in his commander’s voice.
“It seems that a General Hahn, a DSC man, showed up there a few minutes ago with a whole truckload of troops. He was looking for the unit’s senior officers, and he left when he heard they were already gone. Does that mean anything to you, General?”
“Not a thing. But we can soon straighten it out.” Park waved an aide over. “Go find General Lew in the Operations Room and tell him I need to see him.”
Kim nodded his understanding. Lew ran the Defense Security Command. If anyone knew what this General Hahn was up to, it would be him.
Lew, a compact, muscular man, was as puzzled by Kim’s news as General Park had been. He shook his head. “No, I didn’t send him up there. In fact, I’ve been trying to reach him for the last hour myself. He’s one of my best commanders, and I wanted to put him on alert.”
Park stood motionless for a moment, stroking his chin. He looked at Kim. “What’s the last reported position of this rebel column?”
“Ten kilometers north of the outlying districts. They passed through one of our checkpoints about ten minutes ago.”
Park and his senior officers had made the decision not to alert their routine security posts along the MSR. None of them were strong enough to put up much of a fight against Chang’s three thousand crack troops. At most they might have been able to delay his advance by a few minutes, and that wasn’t worth losing the chance to pull a bigger surprise on the renegade colonel when he got closer to Seoul.
Park considered the timing carefully. If they hadn’t been alerted, Hahn and his men would have been inside the Special Forces compound roughly half an hour before Chang’s column reached the capital. No one would have been expecting them, and no one would have stopped them from doing whatever they had planned. It might be coincidence. But could he take that chance?
No. Better to wrong what might be an innocent man than to risk the loss of a government. He turned to Kim. “Pass the word to the security forces. Arrest General Hahn.”
They were right on time, moving at a steady twenty kilometers per hour down the multilane highway. The frost-covered fields and rugged hills of the countryside were beginning to give way to tall, block-long apartment buildings, sprawling factories, and huge, flat-roofed warehouses. It was still dark and Chang could see stars sparkling in the icy black night sky. But the crescent moon was sinking lower on the horizon, and the sun would rise in less than three hours. If he had been a poet, he would have been moved by what he saw.
Instead, he thumbed a switch on the microphone. “All units. All units. This is Tango One Five. Five kilometers to Point Alpha.”
He switched off and handed the mike back down to his radioman in the troop compartment. Point Alpha was the code name he’d chosen for the intersection at which his column of PCs, trucks, and tanks would split, with each unit moving separately to its assigned objective. He would personally lead the battalion heading for the Blue House to arrest the President.
He felt a hand on his leg and looked down. His aide stood below, hunched over and swaying as the PC rumbled down the highway.
“We’re almost up to the final checkpoint, sir. Any change in instructions?”
Chang shook his head. “No. I’ll handle this one personally. But tell Captain Sung that I want his best platoon ready to move in if there’s any trouble. I don’t want our fat friends in the ministry alerted to the danger just yet.”
The man nodded and dropped down into the crowded troop compartment. Chang settled back to enjoy the ride. Everything was going according to plan.
The last checkpoint on the MSR loomed out of the darkness, a row of reflector-topped barricades stretched across the road. He could see a few black-bereted figures moving behind the barricades, their assault rifles slung across their shoulders. The lights were on in the guardhouse built beside the highway. Chang’s PC slowed to a halt a few yards in front of the roadblock, and he clambered down off the vehicle. He stretched, checked to make sure he had his papers, and started walking toward the guardhouse.
Suddenly he found himself speared by a dazzlingly bright light that threw his shadow back along the road for yards. His eyes closed involuntarily in the glare, and he raised a hand to try to block it out. Some bastard had turned a searchlight on him.
“General Chang.” The megaphone robbed the speaker’s voice of any individuality. “This is Colonel Lee of the First Special Forces Group. You are under arrest for plotting against the security of the state.”
Damn. They had been betrayed. It was the only explanation. Who was it? Was it that DSC bastard Hahn? Chang stood still for a moment, stunned.
“You will come forward with your hands raised above your head. And you will order your troops to dismount from their vehicles without their weapons. Any man carrying a weapon will be shot without further warning.”
Chang heard boots slamming down on the pavement ahead and equipment rattling, and through half-open eyes he saw the barricades lined with fully equipped Black Berets. Most of their weapons were pointing at him.
