Red Phoenix

CHAPTER 17 Operation Purify

As his armored personnel carrier clattered around a gentle curve, General Chang stood high in an open hatch to look back along the road. The hundreds of APCs, trucks, and tanks carrying three battalions of his division stretched behind him in a rumbling, four-kilometer-long column, their dimmed headlights casting dancing shadows across ice-covered rice paddies beside the highway.

He glanced at his watch and then over to the right at the dark, narrow band that marked the Imjin River. They were on schedule, just minutes away from the small town of Sonu. From there a short drive would take the column to the Main Supply Route, Highway 1. Once on the MSR, they would be just forty kilometers from the outskirts of Seoul — a distance he planned to cover in less than three hours.

Chang dropped back down into the APC’s red-lit interior. He wormed his way past the radioman and flak-vested bodyguards to a small, hinged table covered with maps showing their route to the capital. His aide had just penciled in a small dot to show the regiment’s position. They were almost up to the next security checkpoint.

Without looking up from the map Chang reached out and took the papers his aide offered. He thumbed through them, smiling slightly. So far at least, Hahn’s forged movement orders had held up beautifully. Then his smile disappeared. The papers were damp. Chang glanced at his aide and frowned as he saw that the man was sweating like a pig, with dark stains discoloring his tunic collar and underarms. It was warm inside the crowded APC, but not that warm. Was the man afraid? Chang’s nostrils wrinkled in disgust and he turned away toward the front of the troop compartment. He had no time for cowards now.

The general climbed back up through the hatch to let the cold night air flow over him. Within four hours his troops would be fanning out across Seoul. And an hour after that, he, Chang Jae-Kyu, the son of a rice farmer, would be the new president of the Republic of Korea.

Chang smiled at the thought. Yes, he would be the president. And he would do precisely what had to be done to restore order to his nation’s troubled cities. Many of the rebellious students and workers would die, but their deaths would bring countless others to their senses. Then, with calm restored, he and his fellow officers would reform society — bolstering the sense of discipline, self-restraint, and respect for authority that had characterized Korea for countless generations.

He had no doubt that the foreign traders would return once all that had been accomplished. But they would trade on his terms, without arrogant demands that Korea surrender its sovereign right to govern itself as it pleased. Chang shook his head, cutting off that train of thought. It was pleasant to contemplate, but first he and his three thousand troops had more immediate work to do — work that would certainly require speed and determination, and work that might well require gunfire, grenades, bayonets, and blood.

Chang straightened as the APC came over a small rise a few hundred yards from Sonu. He could see barricades, and sandbagged machine gun nests blocking the road ahead. They’d reached the next security checkpoint.

He leaned down in through the hatch and signaled the driver to stop. His radioman was already ordering the rest of the regimental column to halt. Chang swung himself down off the APC and dropped lightly onto the road. He pulled his phony travel orders out of his pocket and strode resolutely forward to speak with the Special Forces lieutenant commanding the roadblock.

The phone rang, jerking McLaren awake and upright in bed with a muttered curse. He’d been up late checking over plans for the next scheduled military exercise. He fumbled on the nightstand for the phone.

“McLaren.”

“Sorry to wake you, General.” It was Doug Hansen. “But I’m afraid we have a situation developing.”

McLaren looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was past two A.M. “Go on.”

He could hear Hansen suppressing a yawn. “I just got a call from one of our battalion COs up near the Z. One of his observation posts has reported seeing South Korean troops leaving their base and heading south. The Twelfth Mechanized Infantry Regiment. They’re part of the 4th Infantry Division, commanded by a General Chang. And that’s not an authorized movement, General.”

McLaren threw the covers aside and swung out of bed, reaching for his pants. “How long ago did they leave, Doug?”

“About two hours ago. It took some time for the report to get passed through channels.” Hansen’s voice was apologetic.

“Shit.” McLaren cradled the phone with his shoulder while bending over to tie his shoes. “Hell, they could be halfway to Seoul by now.”

“Yes, sir.”

McLaren started buttoning up his shirt. “Okay, Doug. I’ll be down in the Operations Room in two minutes, and I want all the details you can dig up on that regiment and this Chang character. If I’m going to get on the horn and ream that bastard General Park out properly, I want to know what I’m talking about.” He hung up.

Goddamnit. He’d warned the South Korean government not to try using their military to fight the rioters. But it looked like they’d gone ahead and decided to try it anyway. He’d just have to hope that an early-morning phone call to the chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff would be enough to persuade them to pull the troops back to base before any shooting started.

McLaren snapped his bedside lamp on and leaned over to stare into the mirror. He ran a hand over his face, feeling the rough stubble. Well, there wasn’t time to shave. He threw on his uniform jacket and headed for the door.

The Eighth Army Operations Room was already crowded with half-asleep staff officers getting in each other’s way. McLaren paused in the door, looking for Hansen. Christ, what a zoo.

There. He saw his aide on the phone at a desk across the room. He plunged into the room, working his way past his officers and nodding as they greeted him.

Hansen saw him and put the phone down. “Good morning, General.” He handed McLaren a file folder. “That’s what we’ve got on this General Chang, and the switchboard is waiting to put your call through on General Park’s private line. He’s not at his headquarters.”

Not at his headquarters? That was strange. If the South Korean government was conducting a major military move, you’d expect its JCS chairman to be at his post — even if it was in the middle of the night. McLaren filed that away mentally as something to wonder about later. There were more immediate concerns.

He leafed through Chang’s personnel record. “Give me a quick rundown on this guy. What’s he like?”

“He’s a good soldier, sir. Very tough, even for a Korean. Saw combat as a captain during the Vietnam War.”

McLaren nodded. He’d seen the Koreans fighting in Vietnam at first hand. They had been good. Very good.

“What about his politics, Doug?”

“Real hard-line, General. Just the kind of guy they’d pick to shoot up some demonstrators.”

Friggin’ great. “Okay, patch me in to Park’s line. I’ll come on after you’ve got him on the phone. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around waiting for him to roll out of bed.”

McLaren headed for his office. He didn’t want the whole world to hear the kind of language he was going to use while speaking to a four-star South Korean general.

It took three minutes to get Park on the phone.

“Good morning, General McLaren. I assume there’s an important reason for this call.” Park sounded both tired and irate.

“There certainly is, General.” McLaren clenched his teeth, trying to control his own anger. “I’m calling to see just what the hell you and your government are trying to pull.”

Park was puzzled. “What? What are you talking about, General McLaren?”

“I’m talking about the mechanized infantry regiment you’ve got on the road to Seoul right now, General Park. The regiment that’s moving without my authorization. That’s what I’m talking about.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for several seconds. Then Park spoke again. “General McLaren, please believe me. I do not know anything about this movement.”

Damn. It sounded as if he were telling the truth, and it explained what he was doing at his home instead of his headquarters. “Could these troops have been given their orders by somebody else in your government?”

Park was firm. “No one else has the authority to move troops away from the DMZ. And I would have cleared such a move with you first, General.”

“Then just what the hell are General Chang and his men up to, General Park?”

“Chang?” Park said slowly. “General Chang? I know this man. They call him the Iron Man. He is one of those officers we have been concerned about. If he is moving toward Seoul, it is without the government’s knowledge or consent.”

Suddenly it was clear to McLaren. “Oh, Christ. He’s launching a coup.”

“Yes. I think you are right.” McLaren could hear shuffling noises as Park got dressed. “If you will excuse me, General McLaren, I must look to the safety of my country. I must alert the President and my Special Forces commanders. I’ll call you back when that is done.”

Park hung up, leaving McLaren holding a dead phone. He put it down and headed out the door back to the Ops Room at a run. “Doug! Tell the J-3 I want all American commands on full alert, pronto!”

Hansen looked up from a road map of the area around Seoul. “What about the ROK troops, General? Do we alert them, too?”

“No, just our own men. At least for right now.” There wasn’t any way of telling how many other units were involved in this coup attempt. And McLaren didn’t want to let Chang and his fellow conspirators know the cat was out of the bag.

He looked at the wall clock. Park had maybe an hour and a half to organize a reception for Chang’s regiment before it reached Seoul. He hoped that would be long enough.

As the black staff car slowed for a stoplight, General Hahn pulled his pistol out of his shoulder holster, checked the magazine, and slid it back into place. He glanced at his deputy, Major Yi. “You have the papers?”

Yi tapped the briefcase lying between them on the seat. “They’re all here, sir. The arrest orders, authorizations, everything.”

Hahn nodded. He twisted in his seat to look out the back window as the car accelerated away from the light. The truck loaded with his DSC troopers was still right behind them, rolling along Seoul’s empty streets. They were just minutes away from the main Special Forces barracks for the Capital Corps.

Once there, he and his men would arrest all the Special Forces senior officers for allegedly plotting against the government. And with the barrack switchboards manned by “loyal” DSC soldiers, the government’s frantic calls for help wouldn’t be heard until it was too late.

Hahn smiled. Chang’s plan had a brilliant simplicity to it. While Hahn’s DSC troopers eliminated pro-government officers for supposedly plotting a coup, the real rebels would be pouring into Seoul unmolested. Under the cover of a phony coup attempt, Chang would launch a real one.

But as they rounded the last corner, Hahn’s smile faded. The Special Forces Barracks was ablaze with lights. Trucks loaded with armed Black Berets were pulling out through the main gate and turning north toward the city outskirts. They were too late. Someone or something had alerted the government.

Hahn briefly considered aborting his mission, but he knew he was already in too deep to extricate himself. Better to carry on in the hope that he and his men could still grab enough of the Special Forces officers to cripple their command and control before Chang’s troops reached the city.

Two sentries in full combat dress waved the staff car to a halt at the gate. One covered the driver with his M16 while the other, a sergeant, walked back to Hahn’s rolled-down window and saluted.

“Papers, sir.” The sentry had to shout to raise his voice above the roar as another heavily laden truck careened out through the gate.

Hahn fished in his tunic and came up with his identity card. The sergeant took it and studied it under a flashlight. He handed the ID back and then leaned half in through the window to sweep his light around the car’s interior. Yi flinched as the beam caught him right in the eyes. Hahn sat impassively, his eyes closed against the glare.

The sergeant stepped back and saluted. “Very good, sir. You may proceed.”

Hahn tried to look disinterested. “What the hell’s going on, Sergeant? Some kind of exercise?”

“Don’t know, sir. Orders. Maybe there’s another riot building.” The man nervously fingered his slung assault rifle and looked back at the truck now stopped right behind Hahn’s staff car.

Hahn followed his gaze. “You can clear them, Sergeant. They’re with me.”

The Special Forces trooper licked his lips. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. Only our own people are allowed into the compound tonight. Your men will have to wait here until someone changes my orders.”

“Sergeant, I’m a general in the Defense Security Command and I’m changing your orders. Right now.”

“With respect, sir, that’s not good enough. Not tonight. You’ll have to speak with someone up at the HQ.” The sergeant jerked a thumb at a building across the barracks courtyard.

Hahn stared at him for a moment. Was it worth trying to bull ahead through the gate? He glanced quickly at the other sentry. The man hadn’t moved an inch during the whole exchange, and he still had his rifle pointed straight at Hahn’s driver. No go. And every minute he wasted out here was another minute that let more of these Special Forces fish slip through his nets.

He nodded. “All right, Sergeant. I’ll get you your precious authorization.”

Hahn turned back to Major Yi. “Stay here with the men until I send for you.”

Yi bobbed his head in understanding and got out of the car. The sentries stepped back, clearing the way, and as they did, Hahn leaned forward and tapped the driver’s seat. “Let’s go.”

The car slid ahead into a large, floodlit courtyard jammed with parked trucks and running soldiers. Hahn could see men hoisting heavy equipment onto the trucks, including Dragon missile launchers. That clinched it. The Black Berets knew about Chang’s assault column. Nobody carted along antitank missiles to crush a student riot.

His driver parked in front of the headquarters building and got out to hold the door open for him. Hahn climbed out, settled his uniform cap squarely on his head, and marched up the steps into the Special Forces HQ.

He walked straight into an organized pandemonium of ringing telephones and rushing clerks. Many were out of uniform, and their rumpled clothing made it clear that they’d been rousted out of their bunks not long before. Hahn felt a little more sure of himself. Whatever had alerted the government had done so only at the last minute. That meant they probably didn’t have a source inside the conspiracy itself. There might still be a way to pull this thing off.

Hahn grabbed the nearest clerk. “You! Where’s the duty officer?”

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.

His lips tightened. Quite an honor. The government considered him so dangerous that it made him the personal target of more than a hundred riflemen and machine gunners. A thought crept into his head through the shock. Perhaps they were right to fear him. After all, these men were also soldiers. They could not be happy with the chaos they saw around them. Why should they be his enemies and his undoing?

He straightened up and slowly brought his hands down toward his sides. He turned his head away from the searchlight’s glare, seeking out the line of troops ahead of him.

“Soldiers of Korea!” Chang’s voice carried easily through the night air. “Fellow soldiers.”

He paused, searching for the right words. “Do not let yourselves be turned into unthinking pawns for these corrupt politicians! Don’t help these ink-stained bureaucrats use you as a shield while they destroy our country!”

He took a step closer to the barricades. No one fired. He wished he could see their faces, could see the effect his words were having.

“Join us!” Chang waved an arm back toward the silent column of vehicles massed behind him. He saw movement out of the corner of an eye. There were government troops in position along the sides of the highway as well. It had been a thoroughly planned ambush.

“Join us to oust these fat ones who sit idle while you are beaten by communist mobs. Join us to restore order in the streets and prosperity to our nation.” He was within a few yards of the barricades now. It was working. He could see rifles beginning to waver, and he could hear muttering from the men ahead of him.

Chang took another step forward and started to smile. He was going to do it. He was going to bring these men over to his side. All it would take were a few more carefully chosen words. He opened his mouth to speak.

Two hundred yards away, Colonel Lee brought his night-vision glasses down slowly. He’d set up his CP on a flat-roofed warehouse to get a better view of the action. That had been a mistake. Now he was too far away to counteract the man’s oratory. The Special Forces officer shook his head. Chang was good. He’d hit just the right note, and Lee could see his men wavering, starting to turn toward rebellion.

Now there was only one way left to stop that. He looked at the sergeant lying prone on the roof next to him. “Do it.”

The sergeant nodded and lifted the sniper rifle to his shoulder. He squinted through the scope for a moment and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet caught Chang in the throat, tore through, and exploded out the back of his neck.

There was no pain, but Chang found himself falling backward onto the pavement. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs, and when he opened his mouth to cry out, he couldn’t get any air into his lungs.

Oh. Chang knew he’d been shot, knew he was dying. Time seemed to slow; he could see the stars overhead spiraling down to earth. Sons of bitches. They’d never given him a chance. It was over.

Chang was dead before the gunner aboard his APC came out of shock long enough to trigger his.50-caliber machine gun. But he avenged his general twenty times over as the burst caught men at the barricade and threw them back in a spray of blood and shattered bone.

A Special Forces heavy weapons team on the left flank saw the carnage and slammed a Dragon missile into the APC’s side. It exploded, ripping through the PC’s thin aluminum armor and hurling it over onto the pavement upside down and on fire.

Then the other Black Berets opened up, flaying the trapped column with antitank missiles, grenades, and machine guns. It was a slaughter. Chang’s men were in a tightly packed march formation with their vehicles spaced just far enough apart for safety during the drive south. It was a formation that guaranteed disaster under fire.

Drivers who tried to wheel out of the column to escape the crossfires laid down by the Black Berets either collided with the vehicles in front or back or were shot dead. Canvas-sided trucks were shredded by machine-gun fire that butchered the soldiers trapped inside. Men who’d dropped onto the pavement were cut down before they could lift their rifles. High-pitched screams from the wounded echoed above the gunfire. A tank, trying to escape, ground its way over a loaded truck, crushing it into a crumpled mass of blood-soaked steel. Seconds later, a Dragon missile caught the tank and blew its turret off, sending flames roaring into the night sky. Trucks and APCs exploded, throwing flaming gasoline high into the air. Smoke from burning vehicles billowed above the highway, blotting out the setting moon.

By the time Colonel Lee got his men back under control, Chang’s column was a tangled mass of wrecked and burning vehicles and dead and dying men.

Chang’s coup attempt was over. But the retribution had just begun.