Dirt and torn grass spurted from the spot he’d just abandoned.
He kept moving, scrabbling down the hill, seeking cover in the taller grass and clumps of brush. Twenty meters down, he stopped and risked a quick check of his surroundings.
Above him, the hilltop glowed red and orange in the light from the burning building. To his right, he could make out Miller’s Humvee and the two trucks parked beneath the trees. Shadowy, camouflaged figures flickered into motion, darting across the road in ones and twos and spreading out across the slope. Good, he thought. Lieutenant Kim was on the ball. He was already deploying his platoon for action.
Kevin glanced to his left, eyeing the thick forest that marked the winding trace of the Sachon River. There, on the slightly higher ground rising beyond the trees, he could just make out two pairs of headlights bucketing up and down along the rutted, potholed road that led to the Bridge of No Return. Some of the would-be defectors who had triggered this murderous attack were still alive, and still trying to escape to the South.
His resolve hardened. If Pyongyang wanted those people dead badly enough to risk reigniting the war, then it was his duty to try his damnedest to bring them across the line alive. But he wasn’t going to be able to do that on his own. It was time to get back in the fight.
He groped for his radio. It was gone, probably ripped away by the blast or torn off during his scramble down the hill. Swell. He really hoped that Lieutenant Kim’s men weren’t trigger-happy.
Slowly, carefully, Kevin got to his feet, making sure that his empty hands were clearly visible. He saw a South Korean soldier swing toward him, sighting down his rifle. He froze.
“Colonel Little?” a voice hissed.
“That’s me.”
Lieutenant Kim materialized out of the darkness. “Where is Colonel Miller?”
“He’s dead, Lieutenant,” Kevin said flatly. “Hit by a KPA sniper after they blew Checkpoint Three to hell.”
The young South Korean officer stiffened. For a moment, he was silent. Then he asked, “What are your orders, sir?”
“First, radio Major Lee and report the situation here,” Kevin said, thinking fast. With Miller’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Sobong, busy managing the evacuation of the civilians from Daesong-dong, Lee would have to assume operational control over the rest of the battalion. “Then you defend this position with two of your squads and your machine gun teams. Watch your flanks. Under no circumstances will you cross the demarcation line.”
“And if we see the enemy?” the young officer asked carefully.
“Then you shoot them, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir,” Kim nodded tightly. “And what about my third squad, Colonel?”
“I’m taking it,” Kevin told him. He nodded downhill toward the darkened blur that was the Bridge of No Return. “We’ve got company coming, and I plan to meet them personally.”
“I understand, sir.”
“There’s just one more thing, Lieutenant,” Kevin said as the other man turned away to begin relaying orders to his men.
“Colonel?” the Korean asked, puzzled.
“I need a rifle.”
Swearing under his breath, Kevin slid downhill, bulling his way through the overgrown tangle of underbrush and low-hanging tree branches by brute force. He could hear Sergeant Jeong and his eight men crashing through the woods behind him.
This kind of stunt was just plain nuts, and he knew it.
Running full-tilt through these patches of forest at night was just begging to be ambushed by the KPA. And he would have fried any junior officer who pulled this kind of dumb-ass maneuver in a peacetime exercise. But there wasn’t time for anything clever, or slow, or even safe. They had to get to the bridge before those defectors reached it.
Kevin broke out into the open at the bottom of the hill and dropped to one knee, breathing hard. Jeong and the others went to ground behind him, rifles pointed to the west.
They were at the edge of the road leading to the bridge. About sixty meters ahead, he could make out the rectangular shape of the old UN checkpoint. Sited at the east end of the span, it had been abandoned years ago as too dangerous a post.
KPA Post Seven was at the west end of the bridge. It was a bigger, more solidly built structure than the deserted UN checkpoint. If those people trying to escape the North were lucky, the bribes or fake orders they were relying on would have cleared Post Seven. Somehow, though, Kevin wasn’t willing to bet that they were that lucky.
He could hear engine noises now. Those last two cars must be getting pretty close. He glanced back at Jeong. The South Korean noncom looked young for his rank, but he seemed perfectly calm. “Follow me, Sergeant. You take the south side. I’ll take the north.”
Jeong nodded.
Suddenly, the staccato chatter of a heavy machine gun drowned out the sound of the approaching cars.
Whummp.
Beyond the river, to the north of their current position, a wavering orange glow marked the wreck of another fleeing car. That damned North Korean BTR-60 was still on the hunt.
They were out of time.
“Let’s go!” Kevin pushed himself to his feet and out onto the empty road. Boots pounded on the pavement behind him as the South Korean soldiers followed at a fast trot. The eight riflemen split up smoothly, with four tucking in behind him and four behind Sergeant Jeong to his left.
Forty meters. Twenty meters. Ten. Kevin’s pulse was speeding up, accelerating steadily with every footfall. The bridge loomed up out of the darkness, hemmed in on either side by tall trees.
They passed the empty UN checkpoint and threaded through the rusting, blue-painted bollards placed to close off the bridge to vehicles. Off at the other end, a flat-roofed building, KPA Post Seven, came into view, visible only because it was lighter-colored than the surrounding trees.
God help us now, Kevin thought, as they crossed onto the span, moving toward the almost undetectable border between South and North Korea. Toward what might be the line between relative peace and all-out war. The air was still, without even a breath of wind, and almost unbearably humid. Despite that, and despite the weight of his armor, rifle, and other gear, he felt cold, chilled to the bone.
Lights flickered at the other end of the bridge. That last car was almost here. It sped up. They were close. Very close.
Shit! No! There were shapes moving in that KPA guard post. It was manned. A sudden blaze of light flared as one of the North Korean soldiers inside tripped the searchlights — revealing a black Mercedes sedan slewing to a stop about fifty meters away.
And then its windshield shattered, smashed by shots from the building. More rounds lashed the sedan’s right side, puncturing metal, fiberglass, and plastic. Screams echoed above the rattle of automatic weapons fire.
A door flew open on the other side of the Mercedes and a dark-haired Korean man in a business suit scrambled out. He turned, reaching back inside the car, and then spun away in a spray of blood and shattered bone — hit by several bullets at the same time.
“Damn it!” Kevin snarled. He raised his voice. “Sergeant Jeong. Kill those bastards.”
Kevin dropped to one knee, raised his own M4, and peered through the sight. He aimed at a North Korean soldier firing an assault rifle and squeezed the trigger, holding the rifle steady as it kicked back against his shoulder. And again. And again.
Hit at least twice, the enemy soldier slumped forward, dead or dying.
One of the South Koreans from just off to his left fired a grenade launcher with a muffled thump.
The grenade went off inside the KPA guard post in a blinding burst of white light. A North Korean staggered outside, bleeding from a dozen places where shrapnel must have caught him. But he still clutched his rifle.