The barricades were down, and the police line was beginning to give. There were Combat Police on the ground now, lying curled up as demonstrators kicked them savagely. Others were being pulled into the crowd or shoved sprawling back into their ranks. The students sensed victory, and more and more of them fought their way forward through the press to get at the police. McLaren saw an officer stagger back, his face smashed by a thrown brick. The stupid bastard hadn’t had his visor down.
McLaren stepped out of the doorway. It was just about time to go. When the police broke and ran, it was going to be every uniform for itself.
But he stopped. The rear ranks of the Combat Police had unslung their rifles and were stepping forward — bringing them up and aiming over the crowd. And there was that damned lieutenant, getting ready to drop his hand to signal a volley like he was on some parade ground.
Then it happened. McLaren couldn’t see what caused it — a thrown rock or bottle, an accidental elbow in the side, or just plain gutless stupidity — but somebody’s M16 went off on full automatic, spraying twenty high-velocity rounds into the struggling crowd of protestors and Combat Policemen.
Everything seemed to slide into slow motion for a moment. Bodies were thrown everywhere inside the deadly arc described by the assault rifle’s bullets. A spectacled student’s face exploded as a round caught him in the right eye. A Combat Policeman fell to his knees and then onto his face — a widening, red stain welling from the bullet holes in his back. A pretty girl stared in horror at the place where her hand had been. Others staggered back or fell over to lie crumpled on the pavement.
Then things snapped back into focus. The people in the front of the crowd were screaming and trying to run — trying to force their way away from the carnage around them. But the thousands of protestors pouring north along Sejong Street couldn’t see or hear what had happened ahead, and they kept pressing forward — shoving the screaming men and women in front ahead of them.
Oh, shit, McLaren thought. That did it. The other young policemen had been staring in shock at the bloody tangle of bodies at their feet. But now, as the mob surged closer, they panicked. First one, and then the rest, started firing into the crowd at point-blank range.
Dozens of protestors were cut down in a matter of seconds — smashed to the pavement in a hail of automatic weapons fire. As they fell in writhing, blood-soaked heaps, the crowd finally began breaking, with hundreds, then thousands, of people screaming, turning, and trying to run.
But the Combat Police were now completely out of control. They began moving forward, still firing. And McLaren could see some of them fumbling for new magazines. Goddamnit, some of those bastards were even reloading!
Without thinking about it he left the doorway and started to run toward them. Maybe he could kick some sense into those frigging morons. But it was probably too late for that.
They were already chasing after the screaming crowds scattering back down Sejong Street. Some were still shooting, firing from the hip as they ran. Others contented themselves with clubbing any student within reach.
McLaren saw one trooper pause, aim, and send a long burst into a small group of pleading men and women cowering in front of a department store display window. They were thrown back in among the bullet-riddled mannequins.
He kept running down the street, but a muffled cry following a sharp groan brought him skidding to a stop. He turned. There, not ten feet away, was a crazy-eyed Combat Policeman trying to tear the TV camera out of the hands of the CNN cameraman he’d seen earlier. The soundman sat slumped against a car door, hands pressed to his face with blood running out between them.
That, by God, was too damned much. McLaren didn’t much care for most reporters, but these guys were Americans, after all. He charged in, pulled the riot trooper around by his combat webbing, and sent a right cross smashing into the man’s face. The Korean staggered back, and McLaren followed up with a left into his stomach. The trooper grunted and fell over gasping for air. McLaren felt himself grinning despite himself. Not bad for a man in his fifties.
He turned to the cameraman kneeling by his partner. “Can he walk?”
The reporter nodded. “Yeah. I think so. But we’re gonna have to help him along.” He slung his equipment across his back. Then, for the first time, he took a close look at McLaren. “Jesus, man. I don’t think I’ve ever been rescued by a real, live U.S. cavalryman before.” He stuck a hand out. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
McLaren shook hands. “No problem.” He bent down to take one of the dazed soundman’s arms. “Right now, though, I think it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.”
With the wounded man stumbling between them, they lurched up the street toward the American embassy. Behind them, McLaren could hear the rattle of automatic weapons still echoing throughout Seoul’s city center. It sounded like all hell was breaking loose back there. It might spread across all of South Korea. And if it did, he and his troops were going to get caught right in the middle.
CHAPTER 3
The Washington Waltz
The televisions are always on in a Congressional office.
“Good morning. I’m Amanda Hayes and this is a CNN special report — The Massacre in Seoul.”
Jeremy Mitchell looked up into the TV screen perched precariously on his bookcase. One hand reached for his tortoise-shell glasses while the other shoved the latest draft press release on National Frozen Food Week off his notepad. Without taking his eyes off the small screen, he waved the nearest intern over, a short, pudgy University of Michigan junior who was spending his fall semester learning the business of government while duplicating constituent mail for a congressman. Mitchell ignored the discontented frown on the kid’s face. Endless hours of gofer work — stapling, filing, duplicating — those were the dues you paid to get more meaningful work later on.
Mitchell had paid his own dues in full. Summers as an unpaid campaign volunteer. University terms spent crawling as an unpaid, overworked congressional intern. Two years after school as a poorly paid legislative correspondent, locked away for sixty-hour weeks drafting and redrafting answers to letters written by constituents. By then he’d seen how the system worked. You climbed over the still-warm bodies of those who’d thought they were your friends and coworkers. He’d used that knowledge to win a succession of promotions — first to handling domestic issues as a legislative assistant and later to committee staffer. A lot of people who’d trusted Jeremy Mitchell’s sincere smiles, open-featured good looks, twinkling blue eyes, and firm handshake had long since come to regret trusting first impressions.
Now, ten years and a pile of broken friendships later, he held the top-dog slot in any congressional office: he was the administrative assistant — the AA. And that meant he ran everything and everyone in the office, including the representative, if the man or woman was malleable enough.
Mitchell smiled thinly to himself. Ben Barnes was so malleable that he often reminded people of the Playdough little kids loved to squeeze and squash. He darted a glance at the intern impatiently waiting. “Phil, go get the congressman. He’s going to want to see this.”
The intern nodded grumpily and went, threading his way through the crowded maze of desks, cubicles, bookcases, filing cabinets, and stacks of newly printed newsletters that marked any House-side congressional office. Senators and their staffs usually had more room, but House members and their people worked under conditions that would have made a sweatshop seem spacious. A single suite of two rooms usually held twelve to fifteen harried staffers, their phones, files, and personal computers.