a wave of heat one side and looked over to see a cargo plane on fire. One wing tip touched the ground, and the front of the plane looked chewed up.
The cargo door was open and soldiers in camouflaged uniforms were running out of the plane. Some helped injured comrades, and there were several inert forms lying on the ground near the back.
Anne looked around the field. Antiaircraft guns were firing, making a sound like ripping metal. She followed one line of tracers and saw a delta-winged fighter jinking. Another stream of tracers joined the first, but the fighter barrel-rolled away.
She followed its flight path and saw its target. A four-engined shape was turning, diving, trying to get out of the MiG’s path, but the fighter followed easily. A smoke trail appeared in front of the attacker, and then a second one followed.
The cargo plane turned, trying to perform a break maneuver that would take a fraction of a second for a fighter. It was far too slow, and both missiles hit on the starboard wing. It broke away, spinning crazily, and the rest of the aircraft fell, trailing smoke.
She didn’t see if the MiG escaped. Looking at the airfield, she saw fires, columns of smoke, and craters in the runway. At least two cargo aircraft had been destroyed, with full loads of human cargo.
An Air Force lieutenant came up to her. “Miss Larson? You and your group should come back inside the main terminal. We’re closing the airfield.”
They would have to find some other way of getting out of Seoul
Tony dragged into the ops building, feeling as if he were nine hundred years old. The last mission had been a good one, a close air support flight that had turned into an air-to-air hassle with another two kills for him and no friendly losses. If he weren’t so tired, he might actually smile.
He noticed a commotion around the situation board. The progress of the NK offensive was posted on a large map, updated by the intelligence officer. Pistol was taping up a message, which was being read with intense interest by other pilots and ground crew.
“Pistol, what’s all the excitement?” Tony wasn’t too tired to be curious. Besides, if it involved the war, it was his business to stay informed.
“Big raid at Kimpo, Saint. The gomers massed enough aircraft to get past the CAP and attack the field.”
Tony’s chest felt cold. Anne was supposed to be getting evacuated through Kimpo. “How much damage did they do?”
“Pretty bad. They bombed the runway and the main terminal, which was packed with evacuees. Worse still, they got four transports on the ground and shot down one that had just taken off. Total killed is going to be over five hundred. They’ve closed the airfield until further notice. I think they’ll start diverting stuff down here…”
Tony turned and walked away. There were enough people listening to Pistol so that nobody noticed his abrupt departure.
His office was mercifully close. He ignored several message slips and dialed two numbers. One was Anne’s apartment, the other the logistics office where she worked. There was no answer at either.
CHAPTER 29
Juggernaut
Lieutenant General Cho stood by the roadside watching his troops march south down the thoroughfare the imperialists called Highway 1 or the Main Supply Route. He stood in the shadow thrown by a wrecked South Korean M-48 main battle tank.
The tank and its crew had been killed on the first day of the war as they tried and failed to stem the North Korean offensive. Its twisted gun barrel still pointed north along the highway. The three T-62s it had destroyed before dying were already gone, pulled off the battlefield back to rear-area repair shops. They would fight again. The M-48 would not.
The wind veered slightly suddenly, and Cho’s nostrils twitched as they caught the faintest smell of death rising from inside the tank. He was immediately thankful for the freezing temperatures that had delayed the onset of corruption and decay. Seeking fresher air, he stepped away from the M-48 and stood motionless again, silhouetted by the setting sun.
Cho clasped his hands behind his back and smiled. Tanks, trucks towing artillery pieces, APCs, and other vehicles jammed every lane on the highway, rolling steadily on their way to the front nearly twenty kilometers ahead. Columns of marching infantry paralleled the highway on both sides, pushing through the snow to leave the road to their mounted comrades.
Red Phoenix was working. The frozen ground and iced-over rice paddies were giving his men a mobility undreamed of in the warmer summer or spring months. And Korea’s harsh winter weather was playing its part by degrading the enemy’s air attacks on his columns — making it difficult for South Korea’s surviving F-16s and F-5s to find their targets.
Cho knew that the same weather hampered the North’s air forces even more, but he had never counted on their support to win this war. A draw in the air battle would satisfy him and leave the ultimate outcome in the hands of his tank and infantry commanders.
He lifted his binoculars and scanned the low hills rising at irregular intervals on either side of the road. Every elevation in sight was occupied by camouflaged ZSU-23-4s, 57mm flak batteries, and their associated radars — his backup defenses should enemy aircraft leak through the MiG-29, MiG-23, and MiG-21 interceptors loitering overhead. Heavier antiaircraft guns and SAM sites farther back provided added protection.
Cho knew that some of his units had been hit hard from the air, but his air defense commanders had assured him that the imperialists were paying a high price in planes for every attack. He knew their claims were almost certainly exaggerated, but even so the toll of downed aircraft had to be wearing away the American and South Korean squadrons — loss after loss that would eventually render them ineffective.
Satisfied for the moment with the apparent readiness of his air defenses, he turned on his heel and faced south, studying the heavy black smoke cloud roiling high into the sky on the horizon. A huge cloud formed by burning villages and hundreds of wrecked vehicles. And he could hear a dull, muffled, thumping noise as his artillery continued to pound the retreating enemy, sending still more smoke and dust into the air.
Cho slowly lowered the binoculars to his chest and looked again at the landscape around him. The smoke pall staining the sky had reminded him that war, however successful or necessary, carried a bitter price. He could see that easily enough in the shattered buildings along the roadside and in the twisted corpses and abandoned, burned-out tanks and vehicles, strewn across the countryside. He could read it in the weary, vacant-eyed troops huddled around small fires off the highway — the remnants of his two first-echelon infantry divisions.
According to his reports, both divisions had lost nearly seventy percent of their effective strength in four days of continuous fighting. But they’d inflicted equally heavy losses on the enemy units opposing them.
Cho made a mental note to see that they were refitted and brought back up to strength with reinforcements as soon as possible. He would need every man he could lay his hands on.
“Comrade General! A message from General Chyong at the forward HQ!”
He turned and took the message flimsy from his thin-faced aide-de-camp. He frowned. The young man would simply have to learn to work calmly and more quietly. War was too important for high-pitched voices.
But the frown vanished as he read Chyong’s message. Advance elements of the II Corps were nearing Pyokche — barely fifteen kilometers from the outskirts of Seoul. Soon his troops could begin veering southwest, aiming to cross the Han river at Kimpo. Excellent. In just five days they had breached the puppet government’s fortifications and driven more than twenty-five kilometers against heavy opposition.
His counterpart at V Corps was having a slightly harder time of it as his divisions pushed down the Uijongbu Corridor. But even so, his columns were reported to have captured Chon’gong — a village twenty kilometers south of the DMZ and right at the mouth of a long valley leading right to the heart of Seoul. Soon the V Corps would also begin to swing away from the puppet regime’s capital, moving at an angle to cross the Han to the east.
The offensive was going well. With luck and skill the People’s Army would soon be able to encircle the
