Red Phoenix

CHAPTER 37 Technical Difficulties

Tony knew it had been going too smoothly. Seeing Anne almost daily, reinforcements arriving, fewer fighters opposing them. Something had to go wrong.

The afternoon mission was no pushover; airfields never were. This was not a standard package. To keep the element of surprise there would be no warning by reconnaissance or jammer aircraft. Hugging the sides of the valley, his Falcons would make one run, dropping their bombs and then escaping before the defenses were fully alerted. It sounded like a good plan, Tony thought. He had thought it up, briefed it, and was now leading it.

Seeing the hillsides whizz by on either side didn’t leave much time for second thoughts, but he knew they were taking a risk. The only concession he had made was to have two F-16s stand by along their exit route. Armed for air-to-air combat, they would cover his group’s escape and maybe bushwhack any aircraft taking off with revenge on their minds.

The inertial navigation system showed that the last waypoint was coming up. They had been heading generally north, skirting known defenses and using the valleys to stay below enemy radars. Watching the readout, he checked the map strapped to his knee and looked at the hills around him. There was a notch on the right, and he started a gentle turn toward it.

Behind him were ten other Falcons, five pairs spaced at two-mile intervals. His was the easiest position, the lead. Normally he would have taken the rear position, but navigating to the target was also his responsibility, and that could be done only from the front.

The war had been going well in the air. American fighters were doing their jobs, and Soviet-supplied aircraft couldn’t replace the pilots the North Koreans had lost. Tony had nineteen kills to his credit now, but hadn’t made one in two days. He didn’t expect to make one on this mission either. It was air to ground, all the way.

Their target was an airfield close to the border. Intelligence said that a squadron of attack aircraft, among other things, was based there.

With the number of enemy fighters reduced, UN airpower was being used to hit targets well behind the lines, enemy assets that helped keep their offensive rolling. These included road junctions, bridges, ammo dumps, and airfields. Especially airfields.

This one was located on the floor of a valley where three mountain ridges came together and petered out. The aircraft were kept in hardened shelters dug into the side of one of the ridges. It was heavily defended, with gun and missile batteries sited near the runways and on the hills around.

As tough as it was, it was better to attack them here than wait until they were in the air. The enemy would use these planes to reinforce attacks and exploit breakthroughs. In spite of friendly air defenses, the NK planes could do a lot of damage after they took off.

It had been a long flight. There was a lot of turbulence, both from the wind off the mountains and the sun’s uneven heating of the ground. They would be attacking late in the day, when there was just enough light for the fighters to see their target, but less for the gun crews trying to pick them out of a darkening sky.

He interrupted his musings to check the time, then the armament display. His HUD was set up for air-to-ground mode, and the two bombs were already armed. The thousand-pound weapons would be dropped in one fast pass, and besides the mandatory cannon and the Sidewinders, these were his only ordnance.

The notch had widened out into its own valley, and Tony felt a roller-coaster sensation as he followed the rise and fall of the terrain. He waggled his wings and started down. From here to the target the map said the ground was flat. They would halve their altitude of two hundred feet, and Tony was going to do his best to stay below that.

They reached the initial point, and Tony blinked his running lights on, then off. Turning slightly, Tony quickly lined up on the approach bearing to his particular target. He spared one glance over his shoulder and was rewarded by a glimpse of Hooter exactly where he should be, then he moved the throttle to full military power.

The jet leaped forward, shooting out onto the valley floor like a projectile from a gun. Behind him, separated by ten-second intervals, pairs of fighters would be pouring out of the gap.

His radar warning receiver lit up instantly. He set the countermeasures dispenser on AUTO. It would kick out chaff and flare cartridges according to a predetermined pattern until he turned it off or until it ran out. The gun and missile crews had their radars up, which was not unexpected. The question was, were the crews alert? Where were the directors pointed?

Tony was busy trying to spot his target, a set of camouflaged doors carved in the eastern slope of a ridge. The long shadows from the setting sun should make them easier to spot, but it was hard to look for long in a jet moving at over six hundred knots. Especially one only a hundred feet off the ground.

“Hooter, I see it. I’m coming left a squidge.” He heard two clicks in answer and hoped that his wingman saw his target as well.

There were dark half-circles in the hill. The blast doors were inset a few feet, and the edges of the tunnel were throwing shadows onto them. Perfect. He swung the cursor up and locked his radar on the nearest opening.

They had been over the airfield for ten seconds, and the receiver had grown brighter. A beep-beep filled his phones, joined instantly by Hooter’s call “SAM left! They’re going for the Two pair.”

Hooter had spotted a smoke trail headed for one of the planes in the pair behind his. That was Dish and Ivan.

Tony couldn’t do anything to help. He and Hooter were committed. Luminous symbols were crawling across his HUD, showing the target, the course to steer, everything else he needed to put a pair of bombs within five feet of where he wanted them. Ten seconds more and they would be on top.

“Saint, I can see the launcher. It’s a Gecko at seven o’clock.”

The SA-8 Gecko was a modern battlefield missile on a mobile launcher. It was a dangerous opponent, equipped with an optical backup in case its radar was jammed. Hooter’s voice rose in pitch. “Ivan’s hit!”

Tony clicked twice in acknowledgment. He was too busy to talk. Five seconds to go. Flak bursts and tracers were starting to appear and were closer than usual. By this time in the war, the gun crews were getting experienced.

And they were well placed. Someone had guessed how an attack would be made. The SAM launcher was well sited to engage aircraft as they entered, and the guns covered the part of the attack run where they would have to fly straight and level.

There. The pipper had crawled down a line until it crossed the target. RELEASE appeared in the lower left corner and Tony pressed a button on the stick. At the same time he pushed the throttle all the way forward. The increased thrust pushed him into the seat just as he felt the two bombs leave the aircraft.

Two BLU-109 bombs arced toward the target. Designed to penetrate reinforced concrete, they had thick, hard cases. If either one hit the twenty-foot-wide door, it would go right through and explode inside.

He pulled up and to the right, hard, and watched the indicator run up from one g to seven times the force of gravity. He was grunting, tensing his muscles to fight the pull when a white smoke trail passed over and in front of his plane.

The bastard almost had him. His first thought was the launcher that Hooter had called earlier, but this came from a different direction. Probably another unit from the same battery. They had launched optically to avoid warning their target. Waiting until the American aircraft finished their run, they fired the SAM as he was turning and climbing, either too busy maneuvering to see the launch or too close to the edge of his envelope to do much about it.

It was blind luck it had missed him. Hooter was still pulling out of his run, so he couldn’t have seen it either. Tony made a decision and instead of leveling out and then diving back down, he kept climbing. “Hooter, SAM launcher on the right. I’m taking it.”

He heard the two clicks as he thumbed his stick and the CANNON prompt appeared on the HUD. Tony craned his neck overhead and followed the thinning smoke trail back. There. The wheeled launcher was parked on a level spot, “above” and to the right.

He pulled hard and rolled right, swinging the sky and ground over to their customary positions. It was a steep shot, but he fired and saw hits. SAM launchers were never armored, and hitting the delicate electronics might keep it out of action for a little while, even if the vehicle wasn’t destroyed.

He pulled out, higher than he would have liked, and turned to the exit heading. Looking left and back he could see smoke rising from the shelters. As he craned his neck back farther to see Hooter, black puffs appeared around Tony’s aircraft. The fighter shook, as if it had hit a bump, and suddenly rolled hard left. The right side of the cockpit starred in three places, and the air outside took on a whistling sound.

“I’m hit! Tuba, take over.” Tuba was the alternate package commander, and he acknowledged Tony’s call.

Tony automatically corrected and brought the wings level, but he paused a moment, afraid to look at the instruments. His limbs felt frozen. He knew he had been hit, but how bad?

He gently tried the controls, first the ailerons, then the rudder. Both responded normally. Pushing his nose down, he headed south, which was the exit route anyway. Rule number one for a wounded bird was to get out of Indian Country.

At six hundred knots he was quickly away from the airfield. The air defenses were concentrating on the aircraft now attacking, so Tony’s only problem was getting his damaged Falcon home. A quick scan of the instrument panel showed him one obvious concern. Oil pressure was falling.

Throttling back to cruise power, he called his wingman. “Hooter, I’m hit, losing oil pressure. Look over my right side.”

“Rog, Saint.” Hooter’s plane pulled up quickly until he was flying abreast of Tony’s fighter, fifty feet apart and two hundred feet off the ground.

“You’ve got a couple of good-sized holes in the fuselage,” Hooter reported. “Come up a bit so I can check your belly.”

Tony climbed fifty feet, and Hooter slid underneath and looked him over. “Yep, big black streak coming back from a hole. Something big hit you, maybe a five seven.”

“Rog, Hooter, probably the oil pump.”

Without oil pressure the engine would not get enough lubrication; the bearings would heat up and soon freeze. It wouldn’t happen immediately, but the chance of making a safe landing at base was almost nil.

They could hear the rest of the raid making its attacks and breaking off as well. Tuba, the alternate commander, had led them out along the planned route, while Tony had taken another, so that if enemy fighters showed up, they would be drawn to the larger group and ignore Tony and Hooter.

Normally they would call for combat rescue, but they were still too far north. He would have to fly south another fifteen minutes before he would be in range for a pickup.

All Tony could do was nurse his crippled bird as far south as possible. His fighter was a valuable machine, and if he could make it to an airfield, it could fight again. Also, any landing, on a road or even a cowpath, was better than a wheels-up into a rice paddy or bailing out.

And the longer he stayed in the plane, the closer to friendlies he was. Every minute in the air was worth a day of walking on the ground. In open country, that is. Most of Korea was mountains and valleys, and the time to work through the country below him would be measured in weeks, not days.

Survival classes notwithstanding, Tony was determined to stay with the bird until the last possible second. He started a gentle climb, not wanting to throttle up but still milking every bit of altitude he could without losing speed.

Consulting his map, he saw the closest airfield that could take him was Taejon. Of course he had to bypass Seoul and the front, but one thing at a time.

He climbed above the valley walls and turned to the south. In a few minutes he would be across the old DMZ.

According to the engine temperature, a few minutes might be all he had. He compared it with the earlier temperature and computed the rate of increase in his head. No way he would make it to base. Underneath the aircraft the terrain rose and fell like a stormy sea. Nowhere to even try a wheels-up. “Hooter, I’m losing the engine.”

His wingman’s voice was both encouraging and desperate. “Hang in there, Saint. Don’t leave until the engine falls off.”

“I won’t, buddy, but I’m setting up for an ejection, while I have the chance.” Tony heard two clicks in response.

He looked over at Hooter’s aircraft. He was flying abreast and slightly above him, doing his best to look for threats and monitor Tony’s status. In the cockpit he saw his wingman give him a thumbs-up gesture.

Okay, so he was leaving work a little early today. First he hit the switch that wiped out his IFF codes. If that black box survived a crash with the codes still loaded, the enemy would learn a lot. The only documents in the cockpit were a small code card and his map. He stuffed those in his pocket. He would shred the card and bury it after he landed.

After he landed. Tony forced himself to think positively. The Aces II was a very smart seat and had gotten a real workout since the war began. If the pilot survived the initial hit and was able to pull the ring, the seat was certain to get him out of the aircraft.

The problem was that in order to clear a fast-moving jet fighter, the seat had to move even faster. If not, the ejecting pilot would be struck by the tail of his own plane and certainly killed.

About half the pilots that had ejected so far had suffered some sort of injury on ejection: compression fractures of vertebrae, dislocated shoulders, even concussions.

At six hundred knots air was almost as solid as the ground. Something as nonaerodynamic as a man in a seat would be whipped by winds that made a hurricane look tame. Add little or no oxygen and freezing temperature to a parachute landing, and any pilot would be very reluctant to leave his nice, safe damaged fighter.

Tony had a lot of things going for him, though. He was uninjured, could set his airplane up at the optimum altitude and speed, and would have time to brace himself for the ejection shock.

He looked at the gauge and saw the temperature still rising. Not as quickly, but things would start to fail soon. He put his visor down and tightened the knob as hard as he could, then tightened the chin strap on his helmet. Next, the bayonet clips that attached the oxygen mask to his helmet. A lot of pilots had their masks ripped off, and he needed it to protect his face from the slipstream.

The throttle was still set for cruise speed, about five hundred knots. He pulled it back, reducing the thrust almost to idle. This wouldn’t cover ground as quickly, but reducing the speed from five hundred to one hundred knots would make the ejection a much less brutal process.

As the airspeed fell, his climb slowed, then he started to lose altitude. To compensate he pulled up more and more until his speed stabilized and the nose was angled thirty degrees in the air.

Tony felt intensely vulnerable. Slow, power fading, over enemy territory — all he could do was hope nobody noticed them. Hooter was taking a risk, too. If they were bounced by more than two aircraft, John would have his work cut out for him, both defending Tony and covering his own behind.

Settling into his seat, he pressed his spine tight against the seat back and made sure his feet were set squarely on the rudder pedals.

Almost throwing his head back, he jammed it against the headrest, then settled it in, making sure that he was facing straight ahead and wasn’t offset to either side.

About two steps away from punching out, Tony used his peripheral vision to look at the temperature gauge. Still climbing, but not there yet. Was there a funny sound in the roar of the jet behind him?

Screw the head position. He checked Hooter and saw him still flying above and ahead, probably wishing he had a towing hook. Feeling a little more desperate, he looked over the ground below. Ridges and valleys alternated, with lakes and occasional groups of trees occupying what flat land there was.

In a way he was glad. Air Force instructors said that if you were behind enemy lines, you should try to bail out over rough country. It would slow the progress of enemy units trying to reach you, and give you lots of places to hide, but it was not supposed to be a problem for a rescue chopper.

Well, what if the chopper can’t get to you? He’d have to make it out on his own. He looked at the temperature gauge and immediately snapped his head back against the headrest.

“Hooter, it’s almost showtime.”

“Rog, Saint. Can I do anything for you?”

“Mark my position and then get the hell out of here. A circling jet will only attract attention. I’ll try and work south so the rescue people can get to me.”

“Roger, copy.”

“And tell Anne.”

Tony heard two clicks. There was definitely a new note to the roar of his engine, but he stayed with the aircraft. Every second in the air brought him closer to recovery. The gauge was now past the red line, but the number was meaningless. Essentially, any moment parts of the engine would decide to take a separate vacation.

He felt a shudder and had to correct to bring the wings level. No point in risking a clean ejection. He said, “Punching,” and snapped his elbows back against the seat. His hands fell down onto the yellow-and-black-striped loop between his legs. He grabbed it hard, took a breath, and pulled.

Nothing. Shit! The hit must have taken out part of the circuitry. Time for Plan B.

He kept his right hand on the loop, still pulling. Moving his left arm only from the elbow down, he moved his hand over to the side of the cockpit, just under the canopy rail. He knew where the switch was by touch and did not even risk turning his head to find it with his eyes.

His fingers found the cover and flipped it up. There was a simple toggle switch underneath. This was normally used on the ground only, to raise the canopy. He flipped it up.

He heard a motor behind his head start to whine and snapped his left hand back to the loop. He saw the canopy frame start to move, and then daylight appeared under the front. The whistling sound increased to a roar.

The slipstream suddenly caught the raised edge of the clear bubble. The mechanism was designed to hold the hundred-pound canopy up against gravity, not down against thousands of pounds of pressure. The linkage pulled apart, the hinges at the back sheared off, and the canopy tore away from the airplane.

Tony was exposed to the hundred-knot wind for only a few thousandths of a second. Two short lanyards led from the canopy to the ballistic charges under the ejection seat. Unlike the primary circuit, with its torn wiring, these worked. The lanyards went taut.

Tony felt the seat move beneath him. Used to seven or nine gravities during violent maneuvering, the seat threw him out of the fighter with an acceleration of thirty-three g’s.

The force of the blast shocked him and distorted his time sense. He felt the single shock of the explosive start to fade, but suddenly it was augmented by the rocket motor on the base of the seat. This only fired for a few tenths of a second, but the straps in front tightened as it pulled him back as well as up, slowing his forward speed. He saw the cockpit sides pull away from him and was suddenly surrounded by open sky.

He watched his aircraft as it fell away from him. The cockpit looked odd and empty without the canopy, and the ejection rail stuck out well above the line of the fuselage. It was in a slow left roll, preventing him from seeing the damage to his ship.

He was disappointed and desperately wanted to confirm that the damage to the Falcon was fatal, that there was no way he could have made it back to base. The fighter was desperately needed, almost as much as the pilot who flew it, and its loss would make everyone’s job that much harder.

The slipstream was still buffeting him, but it no longer felt like a wild animal tearing at him. Tony felt a motion behind him and realized the seat was falling away, having done its job. There was a rustling sound, and he looked up in time to see his chute deploy in apparent slow motion.

He didn’t believe it. The damn thing actually worked! The circular canopy was half green, with orange and white quarters filling out the circle. Tony gazed at it, admiring the way they had spaced the colored sections, the way it looked in the light from the setting sun.…

The setting sun. Night. On the ground! Tony snapped out of his daze and looked down. The rocky hillside was rushing up at him. He took a few moments to look around, to try and get the lay of the land.

It was a snow-covered slope, patches and streaks of brown showing through where the ground was especially rough. And there were pine trees dotting the slopes, with a large patch right under him.

He pulled on a pair of red handles, and a vent opened on the back of his chute. He might be able to steer clear. He looked at the setting sun, trying to mark the western direction against a prominent landmark.

The land sloped down to a river. If the ground wasn’t so rocky, it would be a pleasant valley to farm. The river ran roughly north-south and would serve as a good guide for his travel.

He heard a roar and saw Hooter’s Falcon fly past. The jet was close enough for Tony to see Hooter’s thumbs-up gesture, and Tony was sure he could see Tony’s wave and clasped hands over his head. Hooter would carry his location and the fact that he ejected safely back to the squadron.

The fighter flew off down the valley, leaving Tony alone. He missed the freedom of flight, the feeling of control over his destiny. He looked down, watching the ground rush up. His control would be much more limited, for the time being.

He had taken the time to clean up and change after the debrief. Walking into Anne’s office wearing a flight suit was a little too melodramatic for his taste. Hooter knew where to find Anne. He and Tony had visited her twice during mornings off from flying.

In spite of the hour the building was lit up and busy, with people coming and going. From the outside it looked like any of the office buildings on base, but someone had nailed a hand-lettered sign that said LOGISTICS over the original AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE RECORDS. Under the board with the single word painted on it, someone had added another sign: HELP WANTED, APPLY WITHIN.

Anne’s receptionist, Gloria, said that she was in a meeting, but after seeing John’s expression she went to call her. John had carried bad news before, worse news than this, but it was never easy. He put on an expressionless mask that he saved for occasions like this and waited.

Anne came out of a hallway door, dressed in blue jeans and a sweater. She looked tired, with a fresh layer of concern about whatever had called her from the meeting. She saw Hooter and almost stopped in midstride, but she caught herself.

Walking toward him, she asked, “Where’s Tony?” but she knew the answer when he didn’t answer immediately. In the last few strides her expression changed, as she tried to maintain control, and realized how hard that could be.

Hooter waited until she came closer, then said, “Let’s go to your office.”

“But what’s happened? What about Tony?”

“Please, Anne, let’s talk in your office.”

Her face became a mask even more expressionless than John’s.

They walked around a corner, down a short hall. Stepping into a small office, John let her go in first, then gently closed the door behind him.

She watched him closely, and after waiting half a moment, she said, “Tony’s plane was hit.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes. But I saw him bail out. As far as I know, he’s healthy.”

She took a deep breath. “Thank God. When I saw you, I was so afraid it was something else.” Even now she couldn’t say that Tony might have been dead.

Hooter sketched out the mission, how Tony had been hit, and the ejection. Her initial relief was worn away as Hooter described the location: rough country, well behind the lines, and in winter. He was also out of rescue helicopter range.

John tried to talk about smaller things: Tony’s work at the squadron, standard rescue procedures, the progress of the air war in general.

She followed his lead and they chatted for about five minutes. Finally, when there didn’t seem to be any more point to it, she mentioned her meeting and he excused himself.

Anne didn’t return to the meeting. After Hooter left, she sat at her desk and tried to understand what she felt. She knew she was tired. The stress of her job, the importance of her task, had kept her working twenty-hour days. One of the bright spots in these two days had been the visits by Tony. Seeing someone outside of her job, outside of the war, was something she had cherished.

Tony would show up in the morning, sometime after breakfast. They would talk for a while, and then he would have to go back to the squadron. With the two buildings on the same base, he was never gone long. Besides, everyone in the squadron knew where to find him.

They had talked about their interests, past experiences, their beliefs and goals. She had learned more about him in those few short chats than in all the dates they had gone out on.

Now she would have to make it without his help, and she didn’t know if she could. There were things she hadn’t said, on the road to Kunsan or here in her office. Next time she saw him, they would have something new to talk about.

Tony marched and tried to figure out if he was lucky or unlucky. On the unlucky side, he’d lost his $16-million fighter, had to bail out in the middle of an enemy-occupied area, and now had to walk across frozen hillsides until he could reach his own lines.

On the plus side, he was healthy, except for a sore arm from that damned tree he’d crashed into on landing. He was south of the DMZ by at least twenty miles. That meant he was in friendly, if occupied, territory, and presumably the locals wouldn’t come after him with a pitchfork.

That about did it for the plus side. He remembered a few more on the minus side, though. It was dark, and he didn’t have the faintest idea of where he was.

In the immediate sense he knew his location. He’d been marching along the side of this godforsaken hill for about three hours and was reasonably sure he was heading south.

In larger terms, he didn’t know where to head for. He still had his map, but it was impossible to read until he had some light.

He probably should stop anyway, he thought. He had survived the ejection process relatively intact, but he knew it had taken a lot out of him. He felt a little light-headed and had to stop frequently to rest. Only a desire to get clear of his wrecked aircraft had kept him moving.

It took him another half hour of moving south before he found a likely spot to hide. A small stream had undercut its bank, providing a spot just big enough for a man to lie down.

Tony used his survival knife in his off hand to hack off some pine boughs. Even in his fatigued state he was careful to take them from several trees, and to stay on bare ground as much as possible.

He enjoyed hacking at trees. That damn pine tree had snagged his chute, slamming his right arm against the trunk hard enough to give it a really good bruise. He was sure it wasn’t broken, but it was very, very sore.

And he’d been left dangling twenty feet off the ground. He’d looked a little ridiculous hanging there, with an inflatable raft hanging just off the ground, and his survival kit actually resting on the snow.

Luckily the Air Force included fifty feet of nylon line in the parachute pack for just such eventualities. It had loops and buckles that allowed a pilot to lower himself to the ground. Of course, it was a little harder in the dark with a sore arm, but he’d made it down after about ten minutes. And then it had taken him another twenty minutes to deflate and hide the raft, shred and bury his code card, and pack up his chute and survival kit.

Now every move made his arm ache, and grabbing tree limbs involved a lot of moving.

He hacked off enough branches to pad the ground, with enough left over to lean against the bank and hide him. Wrapping himself in his chute with the green part showing, Tony settled in for the night, relatively warm and delightfully horizontal.

He woke up to sunlight filtering through the pine branches over him. Disoriented, he started to get up and looked around, then froze when he remembered where he was. Checking his watch, he realized he had slept nearly nine hours.

Lowering himself carefully onto the branches under him, he listened for movement, voices, anything. The branches concealing him also served to block his view of the area round him.

Tony waited and listened, deciding after about five minutes that he was alone. While waiting, he became aware of his own body. His arm hurt like fire, most of the joints in his body were complaining, and he was hungry.

Once he was sure it was safe to do so, he solved the last problem first by digging into his survival kit. Munching on a fruit bar, he pulled out his map.

Never having done any orienteering, and using an air navigation chart, and being unsure of his general position, he was pretty pleased with the results. He was almost certain of which valley he had bailed out over, and he could follow his general direction of travel in the night. On the scale of the map, it was hardly a line.

Tony estimated at least fifty miles to the friendly lines. If he could cover twenty, then somehow alert combat rescue, they could home in on his emergency transmitter. He was keeping it safely off for as long as possible. The NKs could home in on it just as easily as his people.

Okay, at least two days’ travel, maybe seven. Better get started. He’d have plenty of time on the way to figure out how to contact his side.

Reluctant to leave the warmth and security of his hiding place, he stepped out and creakily stretched, looking around carefully for any sign of movement. The change from predator to prey was jarring, but he was fatalistic. In fact, he felt almost optimistic.

His plan was to keep moving south until he came to an east-west highway that crossed the ridge to his right. Besides moving south, he had to go east, or he would end up near Seoul, obviously not a good idea these days.

He made good time. Moving fast helped fight the cold. After about two hours a road appeared on the horizon, and Tony dropped prone as he watched for movement or vehicles.

After fifteen minutes he hadn’t seen a thing. Judging from the size of the towns on each side of the ridge, there probably wasn’t a lot of traffic between P’ochon and Sinpai. Still, roads were roads. They would be patrolled.

He approached carefully, slowing to about half his marching speed. In the end he didn’t have to risk the road. There was a low spot in the ridge and he decided a climb was better than the road. The trees covered him, and by midafternoon he was over the top and had a good view of the land ahead of him.

In addition to the tree-covered landscape, he saw a small cluster of buildings. Dropping to his knees, he tried to make them out but could only tell that there were several, they were small, and they appeared to be permanent structures. That meant the inhabitants had to be South Korean, and presumably friendly.

It took him the rest of the afternoon to get closer, making dashes from cover to cover. That was fine, because he would rather make the final approach in dusk.

He crouched in cover about twenty yards from the edge of the small settlement. There were three small houses, one barn, a long, low building built into the hillside, and some small sheds. There were lights, and smoke coming from the chimneys.

He had seen a few people about, all women or old men. They had been doing chores, a lot of them connected with the long building.

Finally it was fish or cut bait time. Either he could sneak into one of the outbuildings and try and hide there for the night, or approach the people here.

He risked discovery hiding in one of the outbuildings, and the locals might have useful information. Such as if there were any NK units around here.

A middle-aged woman came out of the nearest house, heading for the barn. Bundled against the cold, she carried two buckets and strode quickly toward the building.

Tony waited until she had gone inside, then ran to the door. He pushed it open, slowly, to see a dark, wood-beamed interior with stalls for farm animals. Stepping up to a trough, the woman was just about to pour a bucket’s contents into it when she turned her head to the sound of the door opening.

“Nu gu sayo…”She had started to say something to whoever she thought was coming into the barn. When she saw the tall American, she froze and grabbed the edge of the trough to steady herself. Tony smiled and bowed, and she automatically bowed back, then caught herself.

Her rapid-fire Korean was so much gibberish to Tony, and he tried to calm her, slowly and softly asking if anyone spoke English. She quieted, and finally on the third repetition she pointed over to a hay bale and made a sitting motion. As soon as Tony sat down, she set down the bucket and ran out of the barn.

All Tony could do was wait. Either she would bring help, or the enemy. On the off chance that it was bad news, he got up and flattened himself against the wall next to the door. He drew his pistol and worked the slide.

A few moments later she reappeared with an older man following her. She looked at the hay bale, puzzled, then sensed a movement to her right and saw him holstering his pistol and stepping forward. The woman frowned but shrugged her shoulders, then stepped out of the way.

Tony bowed to the older man, who smiled and said, “You are among friends. I am Sook Yon-Gil. This is my sister-in-law.” She bowed again, then left.

Tony was surprised. Many Koreans in Seoul spoke some English, but this was a long way from the big city. “Your English is excellent.”

Mr. Sook smiled and bowed. “I worked with the American Army in the last war. How may I help you?”

Tony explained who he was. What he needed was obvious.

Mr. Sook was direct. “You can stay here tonight, Major. My sister-in-law will bring you dinner, and you can sleep in the barn. We are the only ones who know of your presence here. It is best if most of the family does not see you.”

Tony was aware of the risk they were taking. “Are there any North Korean units around here?”

“No, not since their initial passage.” The man scowled. “We have nothing here they care about, and they were still barbarians. My brother has a broken arm, thanks to them.”

The woman came back in with a covered basket and began to set out food. Mr. Sook continued, “Eat and rest. I must discuss this with my brother and brother-in-law. I will come back later. We don’t get much news about the war.”

Tony relaxed and tried to eat slowly. The survival kit rations were neither hot nor filling. The meal was, and delicious to boot. Mr. Sook returned as Tony was finishing, accompanied by his two male relatives. The pilot rose as they came in.

The three men stepped in, formed a line, and then bowed deeply. Reflexively, Tony returned the bow and waited.

Mr. Sook was obviously the oldest of the three brothers and the head of the family. His expression was solemn, and contrite. “Major Christopher, I am ashamed. My brothers have reminded me that I failed to thank you for what you are doing. All three of us fought in the last war. Two of my brothers died. Our two sons were called up when the communists invaded us.

“We can help you to reach safety much more quickly than by walking south. We are…‘sending a message.’ With luck, we should have a reply by evening tomorrow.”

They would not explain further but asked him for news about the war. Tony provided them with an overview while Sook translated, then the Koreans started asking more detailed questions.

Some were about cities and towns, and others about military units. He was glad when he could say that he didn’t know if a city had been occupied. When he did know, the news was usually bad.

The conversation wandered, and finally Tony was yawning so much that they excused themselves.

His “bed” was an alcove in a stack of hay bales, arranged to conceal him completely once he was inside. He was asleep in seconds.

A bright light in his eyes and harsh voices in Korean yanked him out of a deep sleep. The hay bales above him had been removed, and a black-suited man, armed with a pistol, was holding a flashlight and inspecting him closely.

Tony struggled to sit up, and the man stepped back. There were two more like him, while Mr. Sook and his entire family stood to one side in the barn.

The black-clad men were obviously soldiers, and probably Koreans. They not only wore cold-weather gear, but also knitted hoods that covered all of their faces except their eyes. One, probably their leader, was conversing in harsh tones with Mr. Sook, while another stood near Tony, and the third covered the door. They were armed with communist-made AK-47 assault rifles.

His heart sank, and he tried to decide what to do next. His pistol was within reach, but the odds that he could take out three alert and armed men were poor at best. And how many of the Sook family would be hurt if he started shooting? But wouldn’t they already suffer for collaborating with the enemy? Still, the thought of just accepting capture…

The leader saw Tony moving and came over. He stood at attention, saluted, and said in accented English, “Good morning, Major. I am Lieutenant Kim of the South Korean Army Special Forces. We can get you back to your own lines. Are you able to travel?”

“Yes,” Tony said automatically, still recovering. With that, they gathered his possessions, Tony said thank you and good-bye to the Sooks, and they set off into the night.

Tony was full of questions. “I don’t understand. Our lines are miles away. How did you get here?”

“We didn’t come here, sir. We stayed behind when the communists advanced.”

“But the farmer said it would take until late tomorrow for help to come.”

“We have a system set up with all the citizens here. They knew that if they left a sign in a certain location, they would get ‘help.’ They were told it would take twenty-four hours. We are much closer than that, but there is no need for them to know everything.”

“What happens next?” Tony asked. They told him.

They hiked the rest of the night, about three hours, and around dawn Tony was blindfolded. Another half-hour march followed, with Tony’s stumbling progress supported by a man on each side.

Finally they took off the blindfold and Tony found himself in a solidly constructed underground bunker. It had a bunkroom, a kitchen/mess hall, storage rooms, and several other sections he wasn’t allowed to see. In fact, he never saw the entrance, from either side.

They waited there all day, and then at nightfall they took another hike, this one about two hours long.

Lieutenant Kim had used satellite communications to arrange a rendezvous. With what, he wouldn’t say. He just kept them moving, checking more and more frequently on a large-scale map of the area. Finally he took out a small device and started pacing. Tony realized it was a portable inertial navigation unit. Their rendezvous would be precise, almost to the yard.

Kim finally signaled a halt and deployed his men as pickets around the area. They waited.

Tony didn’t see or hear the helicopter until it was almost on top of them. It came up over a small rise, no more than twenty feet off the ground, and moved toward them. Kim pointed something that looked like a flashlight at the helicopter, but no light shone.

It had the desired effect, though. The machine slowed and altered course to head directly toward the Korean.

Tony knew it was a helicopter, but in the faint starlight it looked more like a monster or a dragon. There were bulges all over the nose of the craft, a long probe sticking fifteen feet out in front, and protuberances on the sides as well.

Kim waved him over. “This is your ride home, Major.” He shook hands with Tony, then handed him a package. “These are messages and personal letters. Will you deliver them for us?”

“Of course, Lieutenant. Can I do anything else for you or your men?”

“No sir, just kill communists. Good-bye.” They saluted.

Even now, with the helicopter landing nearby, it was nearly silent. He got a closer look as it landed and recognized it as a Pave Low special operations helicopter. He could see large drop tanks under the side sponsons, miniguns in the doors, and a Sidewinder!

He had heard about them, even seen one now and then at an airfield. They had infrared TV, terrain-following radar, armor, jamming systems, and enough weaponry to fight their way out of a jam. They were used for special operations, inserting or extracting people behind enemy lines…

Sort of like him.

The helicopter’s wheels touched the ground, and as if operated by a switch, a door opened and a red-lit interior was visible. The light seemed bright after the pitch-darkness. A crewman waved to him, and he ran over. Wind from the rotors buffeted him but he hardly felt it as he ran to the ship.

The crewman tossed out a few crates, then grabbed his arm and pulled him up and inside. The door slammed and he felt the craft rise. Almost immediately it started moving forward and didn’t seem to rise anymore.

Tony looked around. The original CH-53 was big enough to carry a small truck, but this one’s innards were filled with electronics consoles and ammo boxes.

The crewman handed him a headset and Tony put it on. A few moments later he heard, “Hello, Major. Captain Wells here. Welcome back.”

Tony was grabbing for support as he heard those words. The craft had moved suddenly down, sideslipped, then climbed. Answering as best he could, he said, “Glad to be here, Captain. Are we having problems?”

“None, sir. We are away clean and making good time. Would you like to come forward?” The machine went through a roller-coaster bump.

“Yes.” Curiosity replaced uncertainty, and he unplugged the headset. Moving forward, he pulled aside the curtain that blocked even the dim red light from reaching the cockpit.

His eyes adjusted further, and by the dim light of the instrumentation he saw the two pilots. At first he couldn’t make out their faces, then realized they were wearing masks, or goggles. Those had to be infrared goggles, designed to give the wearer vision in low light. Or no light.

He looked forward and was rewarded with the breathtaking view of the hilly landscape only fifty feet below him rushing by at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

The instrument panel was twice as complex as his fighter’s. He recognized a terrain-following radar display, a thermal-imaging TV picture, and computerized map display. It looked more like the bridge of Star Trek’s Enterprise.

He firmly believed they needed it. A hill loomed up in front of them, and the craft neatly banked without changing altitude or losing speed. In mid-maneuver the pilot reached around to shake Tony’s hand. “Glad to see you, Major.” He waved at the panel and the view out the windscreen. “Sorry this isn’t as exciting as one of your ships, sir.”

Tony forced his voice to remain calm. “That’s all right. How much more of this before we climb to cruising altitude?”

“We’ll stay at this height all the way back. The avionics can handle this easily, and we don’t like even our own side to see too much of our operations. Another hour and a half and you’ll be back at your squadron.”

The flight back was the hardest part of his trip.