At that close range, the RPG barely got started before it hit the tank and exploded with a roar. The big NK tank shuddered, a cloud of smoke drifted upward, then the lumbering metal monster pivoted toward the sergeant. The track on his side had come off and the other track kept turning the rig in a circle. Then it stopped.
The tank was now heading in the wrong direction. The ambush patrol lay quietly in the ditch. The turret of the tank popped open, and a moment later a head and shoulders came out. Four M-16 rifles blasted off three-round bursts and the commander of Tank 22 slumped in the hatch, half his head blown off by the rounds. For a moment, nothing happened, then the body vanished inside the tank.
Before Sergeant Crawford's men could move, they heard another explosion to the right. Then the rest of his patrol came running down the ditch and slid in beside the sergeant.
"We killed a tank, just like you did. Blew his fucking tread halfway back to Scotland."
"Where to now, Sarge," the corporal asked.
"Damned if I know. Most of the tanks are past us. We haven't heard much from the American tanks." Crawford was about ready to move when a machine gun opened up, digging up dirt beside their ditch. They hugged the bottom of the depression, and the tank machine gunner looked elsewhere for targets.
Somebody groaned. The medic crawled over.
'"Casualties, Sarge. We've got two dead and one wounded. We should be getting to the rear." Sergeant Crawford nodded. "Oh, hell, yes, but just where is the rear, and where are the North Koreans'? What the hell we going to do when the infantry that's sure to follow these tanks comes running through here?"
"In the dark we have a chance," Whitworth said. "We've got to leave our dead and run like hell to the south. That way we'll have a chance."
The rest of the ambush patrol that had killed two North Korean tanks turned south and began to jog. The American lines had to be down there somewhere.
Major Donovan Kitts heard the enemy tanks before he saw them. It was just as he had envisioned it in all the practice alerts and war games they had played. But this was no game.
"I have four tanks breaking through the DMZ," Kitts said on the radio. "Fire at will."
Kitts buttoned up his lid and checked with the gunner. Just as he did, the 105 gun went off with a roar. The gunner had his eyes fast on the scope of the M-21 solid-state analog ballistic computer and the AN/VVG-2 ruby laser range finder to direct the next round. Kitts knew his counterpart across the line had sixteen tanks, but all of his were probably charging across the line right now. Sixteen against eight. Not pretty odds.
Then the battle was on. His gun scored the first direct hit, blasting the tank across the line into a flaming, exploding mass of heavy metal. He lost two of his tanks in the next three minutes and called the rest off, racing to the rear as near to their thirty-mph speed limit as they could go. They twisted and turned and hid behind a small rise and got away, but by then they were five miles into South Korea.
That was when Major Kitts remembered his guests for the night.
"Oh, damn, the Vice President and those Congressmen are still back at the underground headquarters. Holy shit!" He tried to contact somebody with his long-range radio, but all he got in return was static.
Vice President Wilson Chambers jolted awake when the first artillery round exploded fifty feet from him in a tank revetment area. He had heard enough artillery to recognize it even there in the underground. He sat up on the Army cot and shook his head. Another round slammed in and exploded farther away. He pulled on his pants and shoes.
"Everyone up, we're under attack," he bellowed. They had put the visitors in a room that was farthest away from the access tunnel upward. Some of the other men in the room didn't believe him until the next artillery round landed close enough to make dirt drift down from the ceiling.
"Damn close. Get dressed. See if we can find some weapons. If this is the damn North Koreans' push across the DMZ, we're in deep trouble here, people."
Before the men could get dressed, three others from another room rushed in. They had dressed. All twelve of the delegation were accounted for.
"What's happening?" a Congressman from Oregon asked.
Just then another round hit, caving in the tunnel that led out of the room.
They were trapped.
The men finished dressing, and the Vice President scowled.
"Gentlemen, there's no rush. We aren't going anywhere. That has to be the North Koreans out there attacking the tank battalion, which means they are driving south in an all-out invasion just as the general threatened to do yesterday."
"So where does that leave us?" one of the Secret Service men asked.
"In deep shit," somebody cracked, and they all laughed.
"He's right," Congressman Anderson, Republican from Indiana, said. "If the North has attacked, this is one of the first units that would be overrun, which means right now we're behind the enemy's lines. When they find us, we all say we're Congressmen. We don't even hint that our Vice President is here. We're all Congressmen and we demand to be released at once."
There were some murmurs of approval. The Secret Service men agreed. Then Vice President Chambers took the floor.
"I think the Congressman is right. I was a representative from Ohio. I can play that part. So we're all members of our government and we demand to be released at once."
"Now, we settle in to wait, or do we try to dig out?" one of the younger Secret Service men asked. "Anybody got a shovel?"
The blasted end of the access tunnel wasn't as bad as it looked. There were some timbers down, but the concrete walls were intact.
After an hour of digging with their hands and some boards, they could see daylight on the other side.
"Hey, out there," one man yelled. "Help us, we're trapped in here."
They heard some shouts, and then a jabbering in Korean. None of them understood a word of it. They all smiled when they heard someone on the other side of the blockage begin to dig it out with a shovel. Now it was just a matter of time.
Lieutenant General Richard F. Reynolds shook off the hand on his shoulder. It wasn't even light outside yet.
"General. General, sir, the telephone."
"What? What the hell?"
"It's the telephone, sir. Camp Bonifas has been attacked and overrun by the North Koreans."
General Reynolds came awake at once. "No shit?"
"True, sir. The phone." The sergeant handed his commanding general the phone and retreated.
"Yes, General Reynolds here. Who is this?"
"Lieutenant Hardiman, sir. I'm on a cell phone trying to hide from a full-thrust attack by the North Koreans. They've done it, sir. Blasted across the DMV about 0430. They must be eight, ten miles to the south by now. I don't know how much longer I can hide. I'll move south as soon as I can. Bonifas is ruined. Artillery blasted it for half an hour, knocking out communications, flattening most of the buildings. The tank battalion took a lot of hits too. Some of them got away to the south with six or seven of their tanks."
"Thanks, Hardiman. You take care of yourself and stay hidden until dark, then work south. Be careful."
The general hung up. He dressed and rushed to his office. Three of his staff were there taking reports. They established a line on the big wall map. The North Koreans had launched a massive attack along a thirty-mile front with Panmunjom at the center. His troops and those of the South Koreans had taken large losses. One enemy tank column had penetrated five miles through the center, but had been blunted and stopped. North infantry units all along the line were running into increased resistance from the Southern forces.