He paused. “Also, comrade, I must tell you, in strict secrecy, that even our socialist allies are not to be entirely trusted. Southern gold is making inroads in both Russia and China, and as they slide closer to the South, they lose the revolutionary spirit. We must move now, while they still have the will to support our cause.”
Kim stopped talking and let his words sink in. Then he leaned forward again and said, “Ride with me, Cho, and in six months’ time you will be a colonel general commanding the First Shock Army. Your future will be assured. You will be a hero of the fatherland.” The man’s dark eyes flashed. “Reject me and you will fall unnoticed in the mud.”
Cho stared into Kim’s eyes. Into the eyes of the sons of the Great Leader. Into the eyes of the heir to the man who had replaced God in North Korea. He had no choice. Wanted no choice. Lieutenant General Cho Hyun-Jae came to attention and saluted.
A thin-lipped smile spread slowly across Kim Jong-Il’s face. He had his general. Red Phoenix was underway.
CHAPTER 9
The Dead Zone
Captain Matuchek was obviously not in a good mood.
“Goddamnit, Little. Next time I ask you a question during a map exercise I don’t want a friggin’ military history lecture.”
Kevin nodded. And winced. Oh, Jesus, did his head hurt.
Matuchek carried on. “I wanted to know where you would have placed your machine gun teams to support an assault up Hill five seventy-two. I don’t give a flying frazzoo about limey Lord Wellington and his patented, Waterloo-style, rear-slope defense. Do you read me, mister?”
Kevin nodded again, cautiously, half-afraid that the top half of his brain would fall right out on his company commander’s desk. “Yes, sir. Loud and clear, sir.”
“Okay, consider yourself chewed out. I’ll take your word that it won’t happen again.” Matuchek rolled his chair back a few inches and opened a desk drawer. He pulled out a file folder and slid it across to Kevin. “Anyway, you won’t be participating in the next exercise. You and your platoon are rotating to Malibu West for a week, starting at oh four hundred hours tomorrow.”
Kevin picked up the folder. Malibu? What the hell?
Matuchek chuckled. “Don’t look so happy, Lieutenant. You aren’t going to see any bikini-clad surfer chicks up at Malibu West. That’s the name we use for Hill six forty.” He grinned a little wider. “You’ll be in scenic bunker accommodations along the DMZ, just a couple of klicks north of the lovely little village of Korangp’o.”
“Just us, sir? I mean, what about the rest of the company?” Kevin tried hard to keep his head perfectly still as he talked.
“Oh, we’ll be right behind you. In position along the MLR, the Main Line of Resistance. You’re pulling outpost duty, Lieutenant. You know, first to fight and first to fall.” Matuchek laced the fingers of his hands together on top of his desk and looked slightly smug. “I’ll expect to see your platoon on trucks heading out the camp gate at oh two hundred tomorrow. Sergeant Pierce will know what kind of equipment and supplies to take.”
At 0200? Two o’clock in the morning? Wonderful. A night road march and his first one at that. But two weeks with the 2nd Infantry Division had taught Kevin not to complain — at least not out loud. Matuchek was a good company commander, but he had a hair-trigger temper and it seemed that right now was not a good time to reveal any more gaps in his knowledge or experience.
Kevin hadn’t been able to get the hang of handling the captain yet. Everything that he did seemed to set Matuchek off. The man definitely wasn’t the nurturing type. One of the other platoon leaders had told him not to worry too much about it. There was a rumor going around that the captain and his wife back in the States were having “marital difficulties” and that was the real source of Matuchek’s discontent.
It was easy enough to believe that the rumor was the straight scoop. Korea was classed as a hardship post — no wives or families allowed. And any two people could grow far apart over twelve months. But understanding the reason for it didn’t make Kevin’s position as the focal point for Matuchek’s temper any easier.
“Okay, Little. That’s all for now. Study that folder. You’ll find a platoon deployment drawn up by the officer you replaced. Don’t bother to change it. He knew what he was doing. Dismissed.” Matuchek jerked a thumb toward his office door.
Kevin took the hint and left in search of his platoon sergeant.
Walking across the compound to find Sergeant Pierce was a chore. The ground wouldn’t stay still, it just kept rolling up and down, and the bright morning sun sent his shadow lurching ahead of him.
He frowned at no one in particular. Somehow he was going to have to find a way to get off Matuchek’s shit list. The trouble was he wasn’t quite sure just how to go about doing that.
Take the map exercise the grouchy bastard was pissed off about for example. Kevin and the other A Company platoon leaders had been simulating an attack to recapture an American defensive position along the DMZ during a hypothetical war. Moving little cardboard counters back and forth on a map to show deployments and assault formations. Kevin had been demonstrating how he would position his platoon’s infantry squads and weapons teams to support the attack when Matuchek had suddenly blown up and ripped him up one side and down the other. All because he’d made an offhand comment about how machine gun support wasn’t going to do much good because most of the “Aggressor” defense force would logically be dug in behind the hill — protected from direct line-of-sight support fire. It had made sense then. And it made sense now. But maybe he shouldn’t have tried to show off by pointing out that deploying on a reverse slope was a tactic going all the way back to Wellington’s beating the French at Waterloo. It had seemed like the right thing to say at the time.
Kevin shook his head slowly and then wished he hadn’t. The ground didn’t stop moving when his eyes did. He’d just have to keep his mouth shut about military history around the CO. Matuchek obviously wasn’t much of a scholar.
He’d also have to take it easy next time the other company officers invited him into town with them. Sirroci, Owens, and O’Farrell had called it his “initiation” to South Korea, and they must have hit every bar in Tongduch’on before lurching back to camp. He thought he could remember eating dinner in some tiny cafe, but he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d eaten. Judging from the raw, burning feeling in his stomach and throat, it must have been liberally laced with garlic and some really hot red peppers. Of course, from what he’d seen of Korean cuisine so far, that could describe just about anything.
With an effort he tried to stop concentrating on his hangover and to start thinking about just where his platoon sergeant might be closeted at this time in the morning.
Kevin found Sergeant Pierce in the platoon armory supervising a weapons-cleaning detail. Ten men in work fatigues were busy scrubbing away at every moving part of their rifles. It was one of those boring, routine, and absolutely necessary jobs that occupy most of a modern soldier’s time. To keep an M16 up and firing took a liberal amount of 10-weight sewing machine oil and a daily cleaning.
Kevin’s ROTC instructors had gone to great lengths to make sure that he knew that a jammed M16 could be just as fatal for its owner as a tank that wouldn’t run. That was something Sergeant Pierce obviously agreed with wholeheartedly, and he spent a lot of time making sure that 2nd Platoon’s weapons were clean and ready for action.