And closer…
Captain Sun pressed the radio handset to his ear. 'Yes, Comrade General!' he shouted. The Shilka had ceased fire, but the engine was thundering now as they rumbled forward. 'Yes! Enemy commandos had infiltrated Nyongch'on-kiji!'
'How large a force, Captain? Have you made contact yet?'
'We have silenced one machine gun, Comrade General. Enemy strength unknown. We have not yet made contact with our own troops.'
'What of your own force, Captain?'
Sun had already called the other Shilkas. He'd been unable to raise Numbers Two and Three, and Number Four had thrown a tread. 'Two out of action, one damaged, Comrade General. I have moved my vehicle into the camp, where the Americans cannot get at me without bombing their own people.'
'Good thinking, Captain. Continue your operation. Flush out the Americans in the camp. Reinforcements are on the way to support you.'
'Very well, Comrade General. I-'
The Shilka rocked wildly, as though recoiling before a blow from a gigantic sledgehammer. The radar operator was slung from his seat and smashed against the turret's steel bulkhead. White smoke boiled out of nowhere, fouling the air, burning Sun's eyes. 'Comrade General!' he screamed into the handset. 'Comrade General!'
No answer. The set was dead.
'We must get out, Captain!' the gunner said, his eyes wide with fear.
'Don't panic!' Undogging the hatch above his head, he drew his pistol, a Chinese Type 59 ? a copy of the Soviet Makarov ? then flung the hatch open.
Flames licked at the Shilka's engine compartment. By the light, he could see the jaggedly twisted metal on the starboard skirts where a high-explosive round had smashed the drive wheel. Of greater concern was the fire. If the flames reached the fuel supply or the ammo stores, they wouldn't find enough of Number One's crew to bury.
He hitched himself out of the hatch and swung his legs over the side. Thunder rolled once more. To the southwest, green tracers arced skyward until a fireball rolled into the heavens.
So, Number Four was gone as well. Captain Sun felt tears burning his eyes, and not just from the acrid smoke. These Americans ? their ROK allies ? had invaded his country, murdered his countrymen. If he could reach them…
Movement caught his eye and he turned. He saw men ? big men, too tall to be South Koreans ? moving out of the shadows. One braced a familiar-looking, meter-long tube over his right shoulder, an RPG-7. A tank killer…
'Ani!' Sun screamed. 'No-'
The M-760 bucked in Sikes's hands, the rounds pinning the Korean officer back against the hull of his ZSU. At the same moment, Austin triggered the RPG for a second shot. The booster charge ignited and kicked the five- pound grenade clear of the launcher; the rocket fired an instant later, lifting the grenade in a swiftly rising trajectory which sent it arrowing straight toward the target, just as a second crewman clambered out of the turret.
Austin's first shot had nearly missed. SEALs trained regularly with foreign weapons like the RPG-7, but that was the first time he'd tried to fire one in combat, in the dark, and against a moving target.
This time his target was stationary, well-lit by the flames rising from the rear deck. The rocket-propelled grenade hissed into the ZSU's broad turret and struck a foot above the dying Korean's head. The flash lit up half the compound. Austin and Sikes ducked as exploding ammunition banged and thumped. Fire engulfed the vehicle with a roar.
There was no trace at all left of the ZSU's crew.
Austin lowered the tube from his shoulder. 'You think that's all there were?'
'Better be. We need to get Cavalry One down here pronto. I'm betting those boys called for help.'
'Oh, shit!'
'Shit is right. C'mon. Let's get back to the airstrip.'
Lieutenant Shaw turned in his seat, peering out of the cockpit as his Intruder banked over the compound. He could see the funeral pyres of four ZSUs, three on the road and one fifty yards inside the main gate. Ground fire seemed to have ceased.
'Shotgun Leader, this is Desperado Five-three-seven. I think we've cleared up your little difficulty for you.'
'Roger that, and thanks,' Tombstone Magruder's voice replied. 'We're passing the word to Cavalry One.'
'Any sign of Jolly and Chucker?'
'Negative on that.' There was a small hesitation. 'We have people monitoring the SAR frequencies. If they made it out, we'll extract them.'
'Damn right we will,' Shaw replied. Like most of his running mates, he did not particularly care for Jolly's obnoxious attitude, but Chucker was a good guy and this time around no one was going to be left behind to enjoy the North Koreans' ideas of justice and mercy.
Not even Jolly Greene.
The flame and horror of the whirlwind attack at Nyongch'on-kiji had seared themselves into Colonel Li II- Sung's mind. He'd been asleep in the officers' quarters when the first explosion had rocked the building; he'd gotten dressed and into the compound in time to see the headquarters building in flames, to hear the screams of soldiers cut down outside the barracks.
Many had escaped. Colonel Li had joined a group of twenty or thirty men, scrambling across the wreckage of the east perimeter fence where a watchtower had collapsed and dragged the wire down. For hours now, he and the ragged band of soldiers had wandered around on the dark slopes southeast of the camp. From there he had a clear view of the pass, lit now by burning ZSUs and the torches of Nyongch'on's fuel-storage tanks. There might be another hundred survivors, possibly more, scattered among the rocks and barren slopes beyond the perimeter fence.
This night would be the end of his career. He knew that, accepted it in a fatalistic way. It had already ended General Chung's career rather abruptly. He'd seen the general outside the headquarters building, nearly cut in half by one of those devilish American claymore mines.
Other heads would roll because of this. The American prisoners should have been separated into small groups on the first day and scattered across the breadth of the People's Republic. It had been folly to keep them together in one place… a folly which could only have been born of over-confidence. The weakness of American will in the face of strength was preached so often and so loudly that, perhaps, there were those in the halls of power in P'yongyang who had come to believe in it.
How many Yankee commandos were there, anyway? There was no way to be certain; fifty, at least, Li thought. No smaller group could have done so much, so quickly. Some of the men thought the attackers were the dreaded South Korean Special Forces, but Li did not believe that. No, these were Americans, seeking their own.
'Comrade Colonel!' one of the men said urgently. 'Comrade Colonel! Listen!'
He heard nothing at first, but then the sound grew, swelling rapidly on the night air, a deep-throated clatter which could be only one thing.
'Helicopters!' He turned sharply, searching among the soldiers with him. He had seen one with a Type 80 machine gun, a Chinese copy of the Soviet PKM. There he was. 'You! Set up your weapon, quickly!'
The Type 80 was belt-fed, with a bipod under the muzzle. It took seconds to prop the weapon on a rock as
