Red Phoenix

CHAPTER 16 Tremors

High on a hill above the full-scale mock-up of a Korean town, General Chang watched the afternoon’s scheduled urban-assault exercise move toward its planned climax.

The sharp rattle of automatic weapons fire mixed with the hollow crump of exploding grenades reached General Chang’s ears as he lay watching the assault blast its way into the village. He kept his binoculars focused on the lead platoon as it advanced up a narrow street.

Yes, that was the way to do it. One squad back shooting the hell out of likely enemy firing positions while another group dashed forward to close with the next house. The troops flattened against its walls while two men lobbed grenades in through doors and windows. Chang smiled as he saw the soldiers go in firing before the smoke from the grenades had even stopped billowing out of the building. Damn right. Charge in before the bastards inside had time to clear their heads.

Without lowering the binoculars he said, “Make a note. Commend the first platoon. Give them a two-day pass.”

His aide, crouching beside him with a pad and pencil, scribbled frantically, adding a new line to his tenth page of notes from this exercise alone. The general must be in a generous mood, he decided. For the conscript soldiers of South Korea’s army, a two-day pass was an almost unheard-of luxury. There’d be a lot of celebrating in the barracks tonight, and General Chang, the soldier’s soldier, would see his popularity soar even higher.

Chang swung his binoculars over to follow the other part of the assault force. They were also making good progress, grenading their way deeper into the village. He watched and listened as the firing rose to an echoing crescendo and died away into a spatter of individual rifle shots. Then the firing stopped.

“Tango One Five, this is Tango One One,” the radio crackled.

Chang took the microphone held out by his radioman. “Go ahead, Tango One One. This is Tango One Five.”

“The objective is secure. Repeat, the objective is secure.”

Chang thumbed the mike switch. “Acknowledged. Assemble your troops in the town square. I’m coming down. Out.”

The colonel tossed the mike back to his radioman, stood up brushing the dirt off his uniform, and headed toward his jeep. He was pleased. The exercise had gone like clockwork, with the village cleared of its hypothetical North Korean or subversive defenders in less than forty-five minutes.

Chang clambered aboard his jeep and settled back as it tore off down the winding, dirt road toward the small group of houses that marked Exercise Area Five. He threw his head back and let the cold air rush over him. Winter was coming on fast and they would have snow soon. He smiled. Many in the cities hated the winter, the icy north winds, the shorter days. But for farmers, the winter was a welcome time — a chance to rest from endless days spent laboring in fields and rice paddies. Chang had always liked the winter.

His jeep, radio aerial whipping in the breeze, slewed around a street corner and braked in front of the infantry company assembled in the village square.

“Attention!” D company of his 1st Battalion straightened in a single fluid motion.

Chang stood in his seat and returned their salute before jumping down out of the jeep. He strode over to the captain commanding D Company. “Fine work, Captain. Your boys looked very good.”

“Thank you, sir. We’ve been working them hard these past few weeks.”

Chang knew that was true. Every unit in his division had been given an accelerated training schedule. That wasn’t surprising, given the chaos sweeping through the country. And if anyone had noticed that most of the extra combat training centered on urban fighting, well, they’d kept their thoughts to themselves.

He looked the company over carefully. Every man’s gear looked in good order and ready for use. These men looked tough and they’d acted tough. He made a snap decision. D Company would lead the column into Seoul.

He studied the captain, too. The man had a good record. His men obviously liked and trusted him. And he was known around the 1st Battalion officers’ mess as a rabid political hard-liner. He was just the kind of officer Chang was looking for.

“Very well, Captain. You can dismiss your company now.” Then Chang held up a hand. “But before you do, you should let them know that they’ve just won themselves a two-day pass.”

He could see the front ranks smiling proudly, and he knew he’d just won another group of men who would fight for him when the time came.

“Company! Form in a column of twos and head for the barracks!”

The captain’s command roar cut through Chang’s thoughts. He turned back to the man. “Oh, and Captain?”

“Sir?”

“Join me in my quarters this evening for a drink. We’ve much to discuss, you and I. Be there at nineteen hundred hours sharp.”

The man beamed. “Yes, sir! I’m honored, General.”

Chang returned his salute and wheeled toward his jeep. He had other units to visit before this day was through.

McLaren stood at his window watching the tear gas rise above the city to the north. If Seoul’s politicians had thought the cold weather would end the rioting, they’d been damned overoptimistic, he thought sourly. Instead of tapering off, the disturbances were spreading over all of South Korea. From the reports he’d seen, most of the major industrial cities — Pusan, Taegu, and Taejon — were at a standstill.

Of course a lot of that could be blamed on the American and European trade sanctions. Overseas buyers had started breaking their contracts even before the sanctions went into effect, not wanting to get stuck with lot of overtaxed, unprofitable merchandise when they did. As far as McLaren could tell, the only people who were going to benefit from this whole mess were the international trade lawyers who were being called in left and right.

Certainly the sanctions weren’t helping South Korea’s workers. Large-scale unemployment had been a thing of the past for Korea, but now more than ten percent of the work force had been thrown out on the streets. And the numbers were rising fast. Government projections showed a twenty percent unemployment rate by early December.

The results were predictable, but McLaren didn’t find any pleasure in having predicted them. The workers who’d been tossed out on their ears, courtesy of the U.S. Congress, were siding with the radical students. And their protests were taking on an increasingly anti-American tone. In the past two weeks McLaren had seen sixteen of his men hospitalized with injuries after they’d been caught up in riots, and he’d been forced to curtail most leaves. As a result, morale in his command was starting to sag. Korea was already a strange place for most of the American soldiers stationed there, and being kept cooped up in their compounds wasn’t helping things any.

McLaren swore to himself. About the only thing that was going according to plan was his effort to bollix up the troop withdrawal planning process. He’d started by letting the routine paperwork pile up on his desk before sending it back down with requests for minor and meaningless changes. And his staff, surprised as all hell at first, had caught on fast. He hadn’t had to say a word, but they were now actively doing their best to screw things up along with him. It was too goddamned ironic, he thought. Here he’d worked hard for months to organize a smoothly operating staff, and now they were showing just how good they were by turning a difficult administrative task into an impossible one. Admiral Simpson had joined in as well. Whatever paperwork did get through the maze here in Korea usually came back from Washington stamped UNSAT.

Jesus, George Patton was probably rolling over in his grave. McLaren smiled slightly at that thought. Hell, if Patton had faced the same kind of situation, he’d probably be down sitting in the clerk’s filing room with a flamethrower right now — burning paperwork as fast as he could.

He turned away from the window and moved back to his desk. Normally kept bare, it was now covered with a mass of spilled papers and manila folders. He controlled the urge to sweep it all off onto the floor. Instead he picked up the latest set of draft equipment transfer orders for the 2nd Division’s tank battalion. He started reading, making marginal notes to himself from time to time. This was good stuff. The battalion’s S-4 had found a way to cut two weeks off the time it would normally take to ship his unit’s tanks back to the States. McLaren scribbled a reminder to himself to commend the officer’s ingenuity and then scrawled “Disapproved — try again” across the draft. He tossed it back on the stack.

There was one thing about this paper chase that he’d already decided. Officers who’d submitted grade-A plans wouldn’t suffer for it. He’d continue to give them high marks for efficiency even while ripping their work to shreds. Of course, that would create a clear paper trail pointing directly at him if Congress started getting suspicious about the slow troop withdrawal and sent its GAO snoopers sniffing around. But McLaren would be damned if he’d screw up the careers of a dozen promising young officers just to protect himself.

If there was going to be any heat from this thing, he’d take it himself. After all, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been under fire before for not playing the game the way the Army or congressional bureaucrats wanted it played. McLaren smiled to himself, remembering.

First there’d been that Tactics Review Board they’d stuck him with while he’d been recovering from wounds suffered in the Tet offensive back in ’68. He’d issued a minority report criticizing the tendency to rely on firepower to make up for inadequate patrolling and small-unit action. He’d also fired a verbal blast at Washington’s interference in field operations. That had earned him — what? — four years in a backwater training unit? Then there’d been his critical review of the Carter administration’s first try at building Rapid Deployment Force — a hodgepodge of units that hadn’t been very rapid, very deployable, or much of a force. He’d spent the next year in the Pentagon’s Manpower and Recruiting doghouse before a new administration had given him another field command.

McLaren grinned. He’d been a good little boy for too long this time. It was time to raise a little hell. His career was at its peak anyway. No one was going to make him SACEUR — Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. He didn’t have the diplomatic skills you needed for that job. And no Washington brass hat in his right mind was going to put him on the Joint Chiefs. Nope. Korea was it and it was enough. While wearing his many hats as Eighth Army CO, Commander U.S. Forces, Korea, Combined Forces chief, and others, McLaren commanded nearly 700,000 troops — a force just about the size of the entire regular U.S. Army. Now Congress wanted to end all that, to pull out of the Korean peninsula? Well, they’d just have to wait longer than they’d thought.

McLaren got back to work throwing sand into the gears.

Tony Christopher knocked on Anne’s apartment door precisely on time. That had been easy to arrange, since he’d already been waiting anxiously in the car for fifteen minutes.

Anne Larson opened the door and stepped out, wearing a stylish fur-trimmed coat with a high collar that elegantly framed her curly mane of copper-colored hair and her fair complexion.

“Hi there.” He smiled. “Ready to go?”

She made a quick half-twirl as though modeling her winter coat and smiled back at him. “Definitely. Is this place a long drive?”

“Nah, just twenty or so klicks. I mean, kilometers.” Tony stepped aside to let her go first and then followed her downstairs to the front door. As Anne reached for the knob, he reached around her and opened the door, pushing it open a little awkwardly in the close quarters.

She looked slightly surprised but said “Thank you” anyway.

The steps outside were slick following a late-night rainstorm, and Tony offered her his arm. Anne didn’t seem to see his gesture and reached instead for the railing. Should have known better, he thought. You’ll have to watch showing your semi-chauvinist streak, old son.

He pointed out his car, parked half a block down. A battered old four-door Hyundai, it had been passed from pilot to pilot as they rotated through his squadron. And despite Tony’s best attempts the day before, it was less than sleek.

They walked up to the passenger side and Tony reached for the door handle. This time, Anne protested, “Hey, c’mon, I’m a big girl now. I’m strong enough to open car doors.” She smiled as she said it, but she still grabbed the handle before he could.

Mentally kicking himself, Tony looked crestfallen. “Sorry, Anne. I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t …”

Now she looked a little sheepish herself and tried to pass her reaction off with a joke. “It’s okay, Tony, I’m just not used to such correct behavior from a fighter pilot.” She bent down and climbed in the Hyundai.

Tony shut the door after and moved, frowning, around to the driver’s side. Then he shrugged. Can’t let it shake you, he decided. Redheads are touchy, right?

Anne leaned across and opened his door from the inside.

The business of pulling out into traffic gave him a few moments to consider his next move. Anne’s gentle rebuff had made him realize he was acting like a kid on his first date. Not good.

Trouble was, he wanted to make a good impression. He couldn’t use his normal style on Anne. Momentary memories of his “normal” style and Maria filled his thoughts, but he quickly suppressed them.

Okay, Tony, just relax, he thought. He looked over at Anne, who was sitting quietly. When she saw his glance, she smiled quickly but said nothing. He decided to try again.

“I hope you like this place, Anne. The view is nice, and the history’s sure interesting.”

“I’m sure I will,” she said with warmth in her voice. It sounded a little forced, but the feeling was there.

He chattered on, relieved to find a topic he could discuss without anchoring his foot solidly in his mouth. “I read up on Namhan Mountain last night. It hasn’t really been used for over two hundred years, but the Koreans first built on the site two thousand years ago.”

She whistled softly under her breath. “Two thousand years! I’ll bet our ancestors were still wearing skins and running from Roman soldiers back then. How much of this place is still standing?”

Things went easier from that point, and they passed the rest of the forty-five-minute drive exchanging tidbits of history on Korea in general, and their destination in particular. Tony was delighted to find something that both he and Anne could talk about — an interest they shared. Could share, he corrected himself.

In any event, the drive from Seoul seemed much too short. It was a clear winter day, and the road led southeast, climbing slowly. It took half the trip just to get clear of Seoul. The sprawling city had grown to within a few miles of their destination.

As they left the city behind, they started to see Namhan Mountain rising on the left. There were regular shapes visible on the top, which from this distance meant an impressive size.

Luckily the road didn’t end at the base of the mountain but instead wound up and around toward the summit. As they climbed, Anne could look back and see the Seoul skyline spreading out behind them. She described it to Tony, who dutifully kept his eyes on the road through the long drive to the top.

They pulled into a parking lot and got out of the car. Although it was a cool day, they were lucky. There wasn’t much wind. What there was, was just nippy enough to make them hurry toward the monolithic walls rising ahead.

The sign said “Namhan Castle,” or “Namhansan-song” in Korean. It wasn’t a castle in the European sense, with turreted battlements and a drawbridge. Instead, high stone walls stretched to the left or right. In some places they were twenty feet or more high.

“Fortress” was a much more suitable word, with all its connotations of immense size and strength. Namhansan-song reminded Tony of the Great Wall of China, wrapped around a single hilltop.

A cozily warm visitors’ center supplied them with pamphlets, and they took turns reading aloud the most interesting portions and picking out where to go first.

Tony was a little appalled at the size of the place. The guidebook said there were over eight kilometers of wall, and Anne sounded as if she wanted to see all of it. Her enthusiasm pulled him along, though. And as they started out on the path, he reached out and she took his hand. It happened without either of them thinking much about it. They walked that way toward the gate.

The old gates were open, and as they neared them, Anne pulled him off to study the wall. It was made of dressed stone, well weathered, but it was possible for their inexpert eyes to tell whether it was two hundred or two thousand years old.

There were, however, some modern-looking pockmarks on the surface. Anne looked at him questioningly, and Tony tried to puzzle out their meaning. It came to him suddenly.

“They’ve got to be from the Korean War, Anne. This place was probably used by both sides during the battles for Seoul.”

“Such a shame.” She sighed. “Imagine this place, thousands of years old, defaced with bullets.”

“I don’t think the fortress minds, Anne.” He smiled. “Remember, it was never built as a monument. It was built for war.” He patted the stones. “Thirty years is just an eyeblink for this place.”

He took her hand again and they walked inside.

The first thing they did was climb up to a point on the wall that overlooked Seoul. The guidebook had stressed Namhansan-song’s view, and it hadn’t been exaggerating. From their vantage point, Tony and Anne could see the entire Han River valley.

Looking to the northwest, Seoul’s skyscrapers, bridges, and sprawling suburbs spread out before them. The Han River entered their view from the right, the northeast, and then snaked its way through the city and off over the western horizon. There was a slight haze over the city itself, charcoal smoke from the hundreds of thousands of households. Some of the taller buildings seemed to thrust right through it.

They stood together, drinking in the view. Neither wanted to leave, so they stood and quietly pointed out various landmarks to each other. As the cold mountain air started to work its way into them, helped by a slight breeze, Tony stood close to Anne and then put his arm around her. She smiled and leaned into him a little.

They started following the walls, walking quickly to warm up. Marveling at the exhibits, they read the plaques describing various aspects of the wall’s history and construction. Tony’s disastrous attempts to read the Korean side of the plaques became a running joke as they proceeded.

Suddenly they were back at their starting point, and Tony realized he was very tired. Arm in arm they trudged back to his car.

As he started it up and pulled out of the parking lot, Tony looked over at Anne. “I’m glad we could see the fortress together. It was a great morning.”

“Thank you for asking me, Tony.” She smiled coquettishly. “Now, where should we go next?”

They spent the drive back deciding.

General Chang stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray and looked slowly around the crowded room, seeking out the eyes of every officer present. None avoided his gaze. He nodded to himself. They were committed and he could trust them.

The conspirators were meeting in the back room of the Han Chung Kak kisaeng house again. It was a good cover. No one would question an officer who chose to avail himself of the company of Seoul’s most charming women. And if internal security had noticed Chang’s frequent visits here, it might even lead them to write him off as nothing more than a middle-aged womanizer. If so, he thought, that would be an impression they would soon regret.

But General Hahn had assured him that the government knew nothing of his plans. Oh, the bureaucrats were nervous enough, jumping at shadows on every side. But they didn’t have the detailed information needed to break up his coup attempt. And with General Hahn busy laundering Defense Security Command reports before they reached the higher echelons, they never would.

Chang brought his thoughts back to the matter at hand. The final brief for Operation Purify — the code name he’d selected for the coup. Almost everything was in place. The ten other officers in the room represented the merest tip of the cadre he’d organized. They would be responsible for briefing other groups of supporters at each of their duty stations. Chang was proud of his efforts. In a little over a month he’d managed to recruit middle-grade officers in nearly every major command of the South Korean Armed Forces. That had required a lot of hard work and a lot of risk, and now the payoff was at hand. Within the next few weeks the Republic of Korea would wake to find itself with a new group of political and military leaders — leaders who would rescue the nation from its turmoil.

“The time for action is nearly at hand, gentlemen.” That startled them. He could see the surprise on their faces.

Colonel Min spoke first. “General? Are you sure we are ready? After all, we’ve been meeting for just a month. Can we afford to risk failure with a hasty throw of the dice?”

Others around the room nodded. Chang had caught them off guard. They’d anticipated a more leisurely planning process.

Chang snorted, “Gentlemen, the risks are greater the longer we wait.”

He waved a hand at General Hahn. “Friend Hahn here has kept the government’s lapdogs off our trail so far, but every passing day brings another chance for them to pick up the scent.” Hahn nodded at that.

Chang continued, “Besides, gentlemen, our nation is fast approaching the edge. If we wait much longer, we may not have a country left to save.”

That was something of an exaggeration, but only just. Every officer in the room had been appalled by the speed with which South Korea’s economy and its political stability were unraveling. Most of the nation’s industrial conglomerates, the chaebol, had already been brought to their knees by a combination of strikes and foreign trade sanctions. Skilled and unskilled workers of every description had been turned out of their idle factories, ready for exploitation by radical students. Rioting had flared across the peninsula, and the Combat Police seemed unable to contain the growing civil disorder. Hundreds had been killed, thousands injured, and thousands more were in “protective detention.” There were even rumors that many of the conscripts who made up the Combat Police force were deserting, taking their skills and weapons over to the rioters.

And now South Korean coalition government seemed on the brink of collapse. Opposition leaders were demanding more power from the ruling party — power they hadn’t won at the polls and power the ruling party wasn’t willing to surrender. The National Assembly had been deadlocked in petty political maneuvering for weeks while the crisis outside built steadily.

Chang reminded them of all of that and asked, “Is there any man here who can doubt the need for swift action?”

He turned to Min. “Isn’t it better to throw the dice quickly than to be caught with them in hand?”

Min, still uncertain, looked at the others around the room and then down at his locked hands for a moment before replying. “You’re right, Chang. We have no choice.”

The others muttered their agreement.

Chang spoke slowly. “Thank you, gentlemen. I know that this is a tremendous gamble for us all, but you all know my reputation as a gambler.” There were smiles at that. Chang had been known throughout the Academy as a risk-taker, but he’d also been known as a winner.

Chang pulled a map out of his briefcase and unfolded it across the table. The other officers leaned forward to get a better look.

“The key, my friends, is speed. The quicker we act, the less time available for the politicians to react. True?”

They nodded.

“So we must move with lightning speed to decapitate the current regime. That’s the only way to do it. Seize the reins of government here in Seoul and the country will follow.” Chang stabbed a finger at the capital as he outlined his plan.

A column made up of picked units from his own 4th Infantry Division would move from the DMZ to Seoul down the Main Supply Route. General Hahn would provide the necessary papers to take them through the rear-area checkpoints. Once in the capital, special assault troops would seize the President and his cabinet, the National Assembly building, and the Armed Forces HQ complex. Hahn and his fellow conspirators in the DSC would be responsible for making sure that the government’s “black berets,” the Special Forces, didn’t intervene before these objectives were seized.

Once ensconced in the Blue House, Chang would make a nationwide broadcast announcing the change of government and promising a swift restoration of order and prosperity. That would be the signal for the other plotters to arrest their senior officers and assume full command of their respective units. With luck and careful timing, the governing elite would never know what had hit them.

Chang finished his briefing and sat down. The others stood clustered over the map, tracing out the intricate movements needed to bring the coup off. After a moment they, too, sat down.

Hahn spoke for them all. “It can be done.”

Chang smiled. They were ready.

McLaren looked up from his pile of paperwork. “Come in!”

His aide stepped into the room and saluted.

“Take a pew, Doug. And spare me the formalities.”

Captain Hansen smiled and sat down. “What can I do for you, General?”

McLaren glanced out the window before asking, “How are things out there, Doug?”

“Lousy.” His aide frowned. “There are barricades up near the National University and the Combat Police aren’t even trying to go near them. Instead, they’re just trying to keep the city center operating under some semblance of normalcy.”

“Shit.”

“Amen to that, General. If things get much worse, we may have to consider moving the HQ out to the field — at least until things cool off here.”

McLaren grimaced. “I’m not even going to consider that suggestion. The South Koreans would take that as the final sign that we’re on the way out. We’re gonna stay right here in Seoul until the very last stages of this dumbshit troop withdrawal are completed.”

His aide kept a straight face with difficulty. Everyone in close proximity to the general knew that McLaren was playing fast and loose with the congressional mandate to pull out of South Korea. But nobody would admit to knowing that.

“Okay, Doug. I called you in here because I’ve got a little something I want you to do for me. And it’s gotta be done ASAP and on the sly.”

Hansen wondered what the general’s “little something” would entail this time. The last one had taken several straight twenty-four-hour shifts, a lot of computer time, and gallons of coffee to come up with. But that was the price you paid for working close to someone with stars on his shoulders. There was an old Army joke that if God told you to do one thing and your commanding general told you to do another, you’d better hope God was forgiving because the general certainly wouldn’t be.

“I want you to visit every one of our major commands up near the DMZ. Talk to the COs for me and tell them I want to know first thing, and I mean first thing, whenever a South Korean unit makes a troop move that I haven’t personally authorized.”

“Yes, sir.” Hansen was puzzled and didn’t bother to try to hide it.

“And I don’t want any of our Korean liaison officers hearing about this, okay? This is between you, me, and the people I’m sending you to talk to. Clear?”

“Clear, sir.” But Hansen’s voice made it obvious that it wasn’t at all clear.

McLaren decided to brief him more fully. The U.S. Army had never been big on unquestioning obedience. “Relax, Doug. There’s a method to my madness.”

McLaren got up from behind his desk and crossed the room to the window. “What I’m worried about is this. With all the shit flying in Seoul and the other cities, I’m convinced that it’s only a matter of time before the government tries to bring regular troops in to crush the rioters.”

He swung round to face Hansen. “Now, we can’t afford to let that happen. For a variety of reasons I don’t want to wake up one morning and read about another Seoul massacre, especially not one committed by troops nominally under my command. So I want to know what the government’s up to before anything like that happens.”

Hansen nodded his understanding.

“Okay, then. Now I don’t want our South Korean officers to know I’ve tightened our reporting procedures because my relations with the government and the General Staff are damned tenuous at best. If they hear we’re ‘spying’ on them, it’d piss them off even more. And that’s something I really don’t need at this stage.”

McLaren finished. “All right, Captain, you have your orders. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay, dismissed. And good luck.”

Hansen saluted, wheeled, and left to hit the road. He had a lot of ground to cover in the next several days.

McLaren watched the door close behind his aide and turned back to stare out the window again. He had a feeling that there was something ugly out there just waiting to pounce. Something worse than the endless rioting he’d already seen. But what the hell was it?