Red Phoenix (10 page)

Donaldson looked down at him. “And that’s where you’re a lucky man, Lieutenant. Your platoon sergeant, Sergeant Pierce, is a fine soldier—one of the best. He’s a combat vet. Did two tours in Nam. So you listen up real close when Sergeant Pierce ‘suggests’ something. It just may save your platoon in a shooting situation. May even save your life, too.”

The major stood. “Okay, Lieutenant. I’ve jawed at you enough.” He looked at his watch. “It’s eleven twenty-five hours now. Your troops won’t get back from the firing range till fifteen hundred. So get some lunch, study those records, and then go over and get acquainted with your men. Any questions?”

Kevin did, but this didn’t seem like the right time to ask about transfer application procedures. He shook his head, stuffed the platoon personnel files under his arm, and saluted.

Donaldson returned his salute lazily and turned to some of the paperwork piled up on his desk. But as Kevin headed for the door, Donaldson’s voice stopped him. “One more thing, Lieutenant. Forget most of the crap they drummed into you in ROTC.” He pronounced it “Rot-see.” “It ain’t going to help you worth a damn in dealing with real soldiers.”

2nd PLATOON BARRACKS—CAMP HOWZE

Excluding the commanding officer, a full-strength U.S. “leg” infantry rifle platoon contained forty-five men, and all forty-five of them were lined up and waiting for Kevin Little when he came in the door of the whitewashed building housing the 2nd Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment.

“Attention!” A loud, bull-like roar brought the troops up straight and nearly gave Kevin a case of premature cardiac arrest. He’d hoped to come in quietly and talk to the platoon sergeant before officially assuming command. Scratch Plan A. Too bad he didn’t have any Plan B.

A big man wearing sergeant’s stripes stepped out of the ranks and saluted him. “Welcome to Second Platoon, sir. I’m Sergeant Harry Pierce.” Pierce was even taller than Kevin and probably outweighed him by at least fifty pounds—all of it in muscle. He wore his graying hair in a crew cut so short it was almost invisible.

Kevin knew he couldn’t just stand there gaping like some kind of idiot. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Sergeant. Ah …” Cripes, now what was he supposed to do, make a speech or something?”

Pierce cut in. “Would you care to inspect the platoon, sir?” His tone made it clear that this was one of those “suggestions” that Donaldson had talked about, and Kevin felt grateful. The sergeant seemed to be doing his best to keep him from looking too stupid.

Kevin nodded, trying to act as if taking over a platoon was just an everyday occurrence for him. “Yes, Sergeant. I certainly would.” Jeez, that sounded pretty pompous. Well, he’d just have to drive on.

Pierce led him along the row of soldiers lined up by their bunks. Names and faces flashed by Kevin so fast that he knew he’d never remember more than a tenth of them. PFC Donnelly, 1st Squad Leader Corporal Kostowitz, PFC Simpson, his radioman, Corporal Jones, Weapons Squad Leader Corporal Ramos, and on and on.

The equipment he saw looked in pretty good shape, although Kevin knew he’d have had trouble telling the difference between a really well-cared for weapon and one that had just been “prettied-up” for inspection. But Sergeant Pierce obviously knew his business, and he hadn’t taken any names—so everything must have been A-okay.

There was just one thing left out of the inspection, and when they reached the end of the line, Kevin turned to Pierce. “I’d like to take a look at the APCs, too, Sergeant. I assume they’re parked over at the motor pool?”

Kevin heard a muffled chuckle, or maybe it was just a cough, from somewhere in his new platoon. He reddened. Now what?

Pierce flashed a warning glance into the ranks and kept his voice low. “We
don’t have any armored personnel carriers, Lieutenant. The battalions in the Second and Third Brigades here in Korea are pure foot soldiers. We’ve got trucks to get us up to the Z and back again. But anywhere else we want to go, we walk—just like the old days.”

Oh, shit. He should have remembered that from the briefing paper they’d given him back in the States. It had just slipped out of his brain somewhere along the way.

“Right. I suppose that’s because we’ll be fighting from bunkers and the other fortifications up at the DMZ—if it ever comes to that.” Jesus, that sounded professorial as all hell.

Pierce eyed him calmly. “Yes, sir. That’s about the size of it. Plus the fact that mechanized stuff doesn’t do too well plowing through rice paddies or trying to climb the bastard-steep hills they’ve got around here.”

Kevin nodded as if Pierce was just confirming everything he’d known all along. He had the uncomfortable feeling, though, that he hadn’t fooled anyone—and certainly not the platoon sergeant.

He’d better get out of here before he said anything else that was laughably ignorant. He clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, Sergeant, the platoon looks fine. Carry on with today’s schedule. See me in my quarters after chow tonight, and we’ll go over the plans for the rest of this week. Okay?”

Pierce saluted. “Yes, sir.” The sergeant wheeled to face the troops still standing in ranks. “All right, you heard the lieutenant. You know what you’re supposed to be doing. Now, move.” The troops broke ranks—the polished image of unity and order vanishing in a split second, changing instead into a milling crowd of individuals who just happened to be wearing the same clothes.

Kevin looked around him, trying hard to conceal his uncertainty. He wasn’t ready for this. By rights he should be sitting at a desk on a base near some little German village, evaluating the latest intelligence reports coming in from across the Iron Curtain. Korea hadn’t been in his plans at all.

Damn it, it just wasn’t fair. He’d joined the ROTC to help pay for college and to see the world. But not to wind up making an ass out of himself in front of a bunch of tough, professional soldiers. And he had a sinking feeling that was precisely what he was doing so far.

Pierce’s deep voice broke into Kevin’s thoughts. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. It isn’t really as difficult as it might seem. You’ve got a good group of troops here. I’ve worked ’em hard and they’re ready for just about anything.” Kevin nodded. The men of his new command might be ready. But he sure as hell wasn’t.

______________
CHAPTER
7

Reports

SEPTEMBER 19—WASHINGTON, D.C.

Cigarette smoke fogged the small, wood-paneled conference room, and Blake Fowler, his eyes watering, wondered why so many people in the intelligence community still smoked. Was it nerves or just the desire to look tough?

He could barely make out the wall clock through the haze. It was just after five in the evening. Outside the Old Executive Office Building’s Victorian walls and gables, Washington’s streets were filling up as tens of thousands of career government workers headed home—fighting their way through traffic that seemed to get worse with every passing day. Fowler laughed inwardly. At least this job kept him from sitting behind the wheel of an immobile car.

He looked around the crowded conference table. Almost everyone in the Korean Interagency Working Group had arrived. First, Mike Dolan from the CIA, a middling-tall, pug-nosed Boston Irishman with hair as black as night and an infectious devil-may-care grin. Fowler had always thought Dolan looked more like a middleweight boxer than a spy, and he had the feeling that was how the CIA agent wanted it. In contrast, plump, smooth-featured, pipe-smoking Alan Voorhees looked exactly like what he was, an academic turned Department of Commerce bureaucrat—complete with stylish Adam Smith tie and expensive leather briefcase.

Voorhees was deep in conversation with a tall, ramrod-straight black man who would never be mistaken for a mere bureaucrat. Even in a pin-striped, double-breasted suit, Brigadier General Dennis Scott looked as though he belonged in uniform. Fowler knew the Defense Intelligence Agency representative was nearing fifty, but only the gray speckled through his hair provided the slightest clue to his age. Scott still left younger opponents gasping for air on the squash courts near his Falls Church home.

Waspish little Carleton Pickering of the National Security Agency was barely visible beyond the general. Pickering’s keen eyes, thick, bushy eyebrows, and fussy, precise voice had been a Washington intelligence community fixture for years. The tiny, fox-faced analyst had an uncanny ability to turn the tiniest fragments of raw intelligence into a polished and plausible picture of enemy intentions, activities, and capabilities.

The door suddenly slammed shut behind the Pentagon’s representative, a bluff, hearty Navy captain named Ted Carlson. He swaggered to the corner coat rack, shrugged off his damp overcoat, and then whipped off his plastic-covered uniform cap. Water droplets cascaded from the cap onto the carpet. Carlson grinned at his startled colleagues and took an empty chair near Fowler.

One man wasn’t there. Tolliver, the prep school kid from the State Department, was late again—as usual. Fowler had called State to find out where he was, only to be told by Tolliver’s secretary that he was in another meeting and that she wasn’t sure when, or even if, he could get there. Well, Tolliver could play catch-up on his own time.

Fowler rapped gently on the table, breaking through a hum of quiet shoptalk. “We’ve got a fair amount of material to cover this evening, gentlemen. So let’s get the show on the road. I, for one, would like to get home before midnight.”

General Scott smiled. “Not going to wait for our little friend from Foggy Bottom?” He didn’t seem too upset by the prospect.

Pickering leaned forward, a slight smile on his narrow face. “I don’t think Tolliver is likely to get here anytime soon. I hear the Secretary’s given him a new job—he’s working on the American desk these days.”

Fowler and the others chuckled softly. It was an old joke but just true enough to stay funny. State Department “desks” were charged with keeping track of the issues and interests of particular countries. And the other agencies and departments with foreign policy responsibilities often wished that State had a similar organization to protect American interests—interests they sometimes felt were overlooked by the striped-pants diplomats in Foggy Bottom.

As the laughter died down, Fowler looked over at the CIA’s representative on the Working Group. “Mike, why don’t you kick things off tonight.” When they’d first assembled the group, he’d asked Dolan to keep them up to speed on current events behind the scenes in Seoul. It had been a natural assignment. All the men sitting around the table had some measure of expertise in Asian political and military affairs, but the CIA had the best collection of sources in the region.

Dolan stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray. “Yeah, okay.” He pushed the ashtray away. “I got a telex from our people just before I came here tonight.”

“Things are still fairly quiet in the streets. But that won’t last long. NSP says the students are planning more demonstrations. And our people over there confirm that. The government’s tried making police sweeps of Seoul National University, but the leaders they need to grab have all gone underground.” Dolan handed the multipage telex he’d summarized over to Fowler.

“What about the official report they promised on the massacre?” Voorhees looked as though he really believed it might solve their Korean problem.

Dolan snorted. “Our sources say it’s going to be released tomorrow. But it sure as hell isn’t going to improve the situation.”

He waved a hand toward Fowler. “You called that one right, Blake. It looks like they’re going to try to blame some lowly police officer for the order to fire. And he very conveniently got himself killed in the riot.”

Grim laughter from the other members of the Working Group interrupted him.

“And just in case no one buys that, they’re going to announce the simultaneous resignation of the Home Affairs minister. Apparently, he’s been chosen to play the part of the sacrificial lamb.”

General Scott cleared his throat. “Goddamnit, that’s not going to settle anything. I’ve met the man’s deputy and he’s even more of a hard case than his boss. The bastard’s probably the one who really gave the police orders to meet that demonstration with force.”

Dolan nodded. “You’ve got it right, Denny. What’s more, the students and opposition leaders know that as well as we do—probably better. The trouble is, nothing short of a complete government surrender will satisfy them now. And the government isn’t going to hang out the white flags anytime soon.”

Fowler and the others around the table knew what that meant. More demonstrations, more riots, and probably, more blood in South Korea’s streets.

Fowler sighed. “Okay, all of that makes our analysis of the Barnes bill even more important. Legislative Affairs still says the bill won’t make it to the floor, but it’s already getting more press attention than they’d predicted.”

He looked down at his notes. “Plus, I just got word this afternoon that the House Foreign Affairs Committee is planning to mark it up tomorrow morning.”

The others sat up a little more sharply. A bill markup was the action stage for a congressional committee. Hearings weren’t really important—markups were where the real work got done.

“Jesus, they’re moving pretty damned fast, aren’t they?” Captain Carlson sounded worried.

“C’mon, Ted. You know what the Foreign Affairs Committee’s like. If those guys bent any more to the left, they’d fall right over on their asses.”

Scott’s contemptuous assessment won agreeing murmurs from around the table.

The general continued, “And everybody knows that Barnes and that son-of-a-bitch Dugan are like that.” He held up two crossed fingers to represent the Trade subcommittee chairman and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Fowler and the others nodded. Barnes and Dugan were both from the same wing of their political party, and they’d been allies for years. They could be expected to trade favors. And the same could be expected from their counterparts in the Senate. Fortunately, though, the bill still had to run the gauntlet of the Armed Services committees on both sides of the Hill—and those committees, though less conservative than in past years, still leaned more to the right than the left.

Which was nice to know, but it didn’t move them any closer to putting out a single, consistent administration policy paper on the legislation.

Fowler tapped his typed agenda. “Okay, next item. The trade sanctions provisions our friend Mr. Barnes has in his bill. We’ve already agreed on language spelling out just what they would do to importers and exporters in this country. The key question is, will the sanctions work?” He glanced around the table.

Voorhees took the pipe out of his mouth. “You mean, will they force the South Korean government to reform?” The Commerce Department representative sat back further in his chair. “No. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I just don’t see it. The Koreans are too proud. Giving in to Barnes would seem as bad to them as surrendering in a war.”

Dolan backed him up—something that was probably a first. “Hell, the South Koreans are even more stubborn than the fucking South Africans. They aren’t going to do diddly damned all just because the U.S. Congress threatens them.”

Fowler stared down at his notes as the discussion rose and fell around him. Everything he’d seen during his year of postgraduate work in Seoul and everything the other Working Group members said tended to confirm Dolan’s offhanded assessment. And that raised an ugly scenario. If the Barnes bill somehow made it through the congressional gauntlet, the South Koreans wouldn’t meekly buckle under before its threatened sanctions went into place. They’d try to tough it out—at a potentially catastrophic cost to their own economy.

Over the last several years the South Koreans had run up a forty-plus billion dollar foreign debt to modernize their country. They’d produced an economic miracle with the money—building superhighways, ultramodern factories, universities, all the infrastructure of a powerful industrial state. But it was an economic miracle that rested on a single, somewhat shaky base: exports. Back in 1984 fully a third of South Korea’s gross national product
had come from its sales overseas. To pay its foreign debts, South Korea had to run large trade surpluses with the rest of the world in each and every year.

If the Barnes trade sanctions went into effect, South Korea would lose most, if not all, of its single largest market almost overnight. And Fowler knew that the Europeans and Japanese would probably be close behind the United States in imposing protectionist tariffs on Korean products. They faced the same kinds of domestic political pressure groups as the U.S. Congress, and they’d already shown an even greater willingness to surrender to them.

And unlike South Africa, Iran, or Libya, where trade sanctions had failed miserably, South Korea didn’t produce any irreplaceable products. Its companies had prospered by being able to manufacture cars, computers, and ships more cheaply than their competitors. But nobody’s economy would collapse without access to Samsung TVs or Hyundai cars.

Fowler frowned. The economic risks for South Korea were clear. What would happen to a country whose whole economy rested on exports if the rest of the world suddenly turned off the cash flow? Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be anything good.

He flipped to the next page of his notes, taking a discreet look at his watch while he did it. These meetings went pretty smoothly without having to listen to interminable speeches from the State Department’s Tolliver. Maybe he could have Katie “forget” to notify Tolliver about the next session. It was a tempting thought and he knew he’d have to work hard to resist it.

He studied the other men around the table. “We’ve all seen Ted’s paper analyzing the provisions in the Barnes bill that would force us to withdraw American troops from South Korea. He argues that the timetables for withdrawal would be difficult, if not impossible, to meet. Anyone have any questions or comments?”

The others shook their heads, but Carlson wanted to supplement his earlier written report. “Don’t forget that it’d be godawful expensive, too. You’re talking about shipping three squadrons of fighters, six artillery battalions, SAM batteries, helicopters, and a whole damned infantry division all the way across the Pacific.”

Scott whistled. “Son of a bitch. That’d tie up a pretty big percentage of our strategic sea- and airlift assets.”

Carlson nodded. “I’ve got my staff running studies now. We should have some hard numbers in a couple of days or so.”

Fowler scribbled a reminder to himself to follow up on that. “Okay. So we’d have trouble implementing the withdrawal provisions on time and they’d cost an arm and a leg. Plus, providing the ships and planes to move our troops would eat into our ability to respond quickly to crises in other parts of the world.”

He looked up. “Is that a fair summary?”

Mike Dolan answered for everyone. “Heap big white man from NSC speakum truth.” The others around the conference table laughed.

Fowler grinned. Trust Dolan to keep him from getting too comfortable in the chairman’s chair. He put his pen down. “That’s settled then. But do my Indian brothers have anything to say about the military effects of pulling the Great White Father’s soldiers out of Korea?”

That sobered them up.

General Scott spoke up first. “It’d be a damned big mistake—no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“I don’t see it, Denny.” Voorhees shook his head. “We’ve got, what, maybe forty thousand men over there. Okay, that sounds like a lot. But the South Koreans have more than six hundred thousand troops. They don’t need us to keep the peace anymore.”

“Bullshit.” Scott obviously didn’t believe in mincing his words. “Sure the South Korean military is tough. Hell, they’re very tough. But those bastards on the other side of the DMZ are just as tough and they stay put for one damned good reason.” Scott held up a single finger. “Because the last time they tried invading, we kicked their butts all the way back across the thirty-eighth parallel.”

Blake agreed with the general, but knew that he’d skipped over a few things—like the fact that it had taken three years of hard fighting and more than fifty thousand American dead to win the uneasy truce along the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Voorhees looked unconvinced.

Dolan broke in. “Look, Alan, the trouble is that the military threat South Korea faces has been growing dramatically over the last few years. There’s a lot going on up there in Pyongyang that we need to be worried about.”