Chyong studied his commander carefully. The older man looked inexpressibly weary. “Is there more news?”
Cho shrugged, barely lifting his shoulders. “Nothing. I’ve dispatched couriers to each of the division headquarters with word to send me more details. I’ve heard nothing from them.” He shook his head. “Since my security troops report that the countryside behind us is crawling with puppet government assassins, I suspect that my messengers have been intercepted.” He drew a hand across his throat.
“Perhaps.”
Cho looked down at his hands. “In any event, our course is clear. We must shift forces northward to meet this enemy thrust. The imperialists cannot be allowed to sever our line of communications. We must counterattack.”
He turned away from the sight of Taejon. “I shall need two of your best divisions, Chyong, and two more from the Fourth Corps. I’ll also need two of the three armored regiments supporting your attack.”
Chyong frowned. Cho’s requisitions would leave his corps a toothless tiger, incapable of capturing the city. And there were other problems that could not be ignored. “My forces are at your disposal, comrade. But my casualties have been very heavy. Even my best units are barely at half-strength.” He moved closer. “Worse yet, our supplies are extremely low — food, ammunition, fuel, everything. There may not be enough fuel to move my tanks far enough north to attack the imperialists.”
Cho’s lips thinned in anger. “I am aware of your supply problems, comrade. Intimately aware!” He took a breath, trying to relax. “Pyongyang has assured me that resupply columns are moving south at this moment. Your tanks will have their fuel. That I promise you.”
Chyong wished his leader sounded more confident that Pyongyang’s promises would be fulfilled.
Major Chon looked at the dark, undulating landscape flowing by five hundred feet beneath his plane. The moon had risen an hour ago, and it now threw just enough light to keep him out of trouble. He glanced quickly back over his shoulder and then forward again. The three other A-10s of his flight were still in position, following him at three hundred knots.
He smiled beneath his oxygen mask. Technically, A-10s weren’t night-capable aircraft, but the high command was throwing everything it had into this counteroffensive. Their orders were clear — to keep the pressure on the North Koreans around the clock. And if that meant that he and his men had to take unexpected risks, then Chon would see to it that those risks brought results on every mission.
Their prey this time was a North Korean supply convoy that had been spotted late in the afternoon by an RF-5A photoreconnaissance aircraft. Even though the NK trucks had been carefully camouflaged and concealed among some trees, their still-warm engines had shown up clearly on the recon plane’s infrared film. Intelligence believed the communists were moving only at night to try to avoid detection.
Chon’s flight had been readied immediately as part of the ongoing effort to interdict all supplies heading for the Taejon area.
“Phoenix Flight, this is Voodoo, over.” A quiet voice came through his headphones. There was his signal. Voodoo was an observation plane, an OV-10D Bronco. It had the low-light and thermal-imaging sensors that Chon’s attack aircraft lacked, and the slow-moving spotter had been launched at dusk, an hour before Chon’s jets. The radio contact meant his A-10s were approaching the most likely area now.
“Phoenix Flight, location Alpha X-ray four seven three seven, over.”
There wasn’t any need for the spotter plane to say what was at that location. Chon looked at the map taped to his knee and made some rapid calculations. The A-10’s avionics weren’t all that sophisticated, and a lot of the navigating was still done by the pilot.
“Roger, Voodoo, ETA three minutes.” Chon flashed his navigation lights twice to alert his subordinates and banked a little to the left. Once on course he stole a quick glance behind. The other A-10s were still with him.
He checked his armament panel, then glanced at the map. The terrain stayed hilly, with a highway winding around the highest elevations. The best approach route was across the road, moving from east to west, but they would have to do some fancy flying to avoid slamming into a hill at three hundred knots.
He clicked his mike. “Phoenix Flight, this is Lead. Standard attack from the east. Voodoo, our ETA is one minute.”
The spotter plane pilot came back on the air immediately. “Roger, Phoenix. Prepped for illumination on your call.”
Chon answered with two clicks and flashed his lights again. He broke hard left, knowing that his wingman, Captain Lee, would follow him. He looked right and saw the other pair moving away, off to the north.
There was the highway, a thin black line against an irregular gray-and-white landscape. “Voodoo, this is Phoenix Lead. Now, now, NOW!”
Chon kept his eyes on the surface of the road. Even so, the sudden bright, white light cast by the OV-10-dropped string of flares ruined his night vision. Their harsh, flickering illumination wasn’t easy to see by. He blinked, looking for patterns, regular shadows or shapes along the road.
There.
A row of boxy shadows, still moving in column down the road.
Chon’s thumb reached for the cannon trigger as his A-10 dropped lower toward the road.
The flares swaying down out of the sky could mean only one thing. Disaster.
“Get off the road! Disperse!” Major Roh In-Hak screamed into his radio, then leaned out of the truck cab. He waved his arms frantically, motioning the drivers behind him off to either side of the road. Most stared uncomprehendingly back.
It was too late. Roh heard a howling whine and looked back and up. Two dark, cruciform shapes were roaring down out of the sky — heading directly for him. Death on the wing.
The major panicked and threw himself out of the truck cab. He pinwheeled down a steep embankment and landed hard against the frozen earth of a rice-paddy dike. He lay motionless, gasping for air.
Roh looked up at his still-moving truck just as the first attacking aircraft fired. Its bulbous nose was illuminated by a blaze of light even brighter than the flares drifting overhead, and a stream of fire reached out and ripped into the earth near his truck. Then it leaped toward the vehicle as the pilot corrected his aim.
The North Korean major buried his face in the ground as the truck exploded, sending a searing sheet of orange-and-red flame just over his head. It had been carrying artillery ammunition destined for the heavy guns bombarding Taejon. He knew his driver was dead.
More explosions rocked the earth, lighting up the hills on either side of the narrow valley they were in. Roh stayed down as fragments whined all around, trying to shut out the awful sounds as screams blended with the roar of jet engines and the rippling thunder of high-velocity aircraft cannons.
The noise faded and then died away entirely. The enemy planes had finished their strafing runs.
Roh raised his head cautiously and then scrambled to his feet. He ran back toward the rest of the column to check the damage and was relieved by what he found. Only the first three trucks had been hit — all carrying ammunition or food. The supply convoy’s precious fuel tankers were still intact.
But they were trapped on this road. His vehicles couldn’t possibly escape over the rough countryside. And Roh knew the enemy pilots would be back to finish what they’d started. He went from truck to truck, banging on cab doors and screaming, “Deploy! Deploy! Troops take up positions in the trees! Get the antiaircraft vehicles operational!”
The column’s air defenses were pitiful. Every one of the People’s Army’s remaining mobile antiaircraft guns were stationed up at the front. As a result, all Roh had to defend his trucks with were a few locally manufactured guns, clumsy 37-millimeter weapons mounted precariously on flatbed trucks, and a sprinkling of shoulder-launched SA-7 SAMs carried by the convoy’s small infantry detachment. He knew it wouldn’t be enough.