The general tore off the NKA soldiers’ dog tags, at the same time trying to apply pressure on where the knife had cut him on the left arm.
The Tomcats were again too good for the MiGs, the American jets’ fly-by-wire technology far superior to the Russian- and Chinese-made controls when it came to using circuits instead of ailerons. And while the monsoon was abating, the rain was still so heavy that flying by instrumentation alone put the Americans still further ahead, the final toll in this sortie, four Tomcats lost to fifteen MiGs. And what Freeman had expected to be the worst of it, the fighting withdrawal, went far better than expected. Ironically, his decision to attack in the monsoon, when flying by instrument was the only way, had been the best decision about the use of an air force since the world war had begun. Within hours its implications were revolutionizing NATO strategy, giving new hope to the exhausted and outnumbered NATO pilots in the European theater that the bad weather of winter might promise to give them a decided edge against the Soviet and Warsaw Pact planes.
Success on the ground at Pyongyang, where Freeman’s chopper had been the last to leave, was not due solely to the Tomcats’ superb ability to keep the MiGs off the Chinooks, but was largely due to the three remaining Apache helos, which, rearmed from three supply Chinooks and lighter because of the jettisoned extra fuel pods they had had coming in, rose from the square like angry gnats and attacked the NKA armored column approaching from Nampo, able to come down directly above the tanks’ turret tops, the latter being the most vulnerable armored section of any battle tank. The Hellfire missiles set the first six PT-76s afire, the bigger, heavier tanks, including most of the captured American M-60s, having already been sent south days before for Kim’s final push on the Yosu perimeter.
Even so, when Freeman returned to the Saipan, he was a disappointed man. The little pudgy official with the glasses, interrogated aboard the LPH, was not the “runt” after all but a senior official with the NKA’s ministry of supply, merely working late at Mansudae Hall.
“Where the hell is he then?” thundered Freeman, drained and tired.
“They say he’s well outside the city in a bunker,” Al Banks informed the general. “Apparently, first radar alert they had, or rather when our Prowlers started scrambling, they got him out.”
“By God,” Freeman said disgustedly, “he’s a goddamned coward as well.”
“General, sir, you did a magnificent job. Washington expected us to take sixty — eighty — percent casualties. We got out with less than fourteen percent.”
“Well, Al,” said the general, who kept moving around in the sick bay, the SB attendant trying to clean the deep knife wound, “fourteen percent is two hundred and eighty men, Al. And not to get that Commie bastard is a — it’s—”
“General,” interjected Banks, his relief at getting back alive infusing him with the same excitement as it had the media types now filing their stories via the fleet communications center aboard the Salt Lake City south of them, “we, you, got into the North Korean capital — in the worst weather imaginable — shook the hell out of them, and came out. General, our boys in the Yosu perimeter are counterattacking like you wouldn’t believe.”
The general started to simmer down. “The other two attacks on Taegu and Taejon — how are they doing?”
“Proceeding as planned, General — knocking the hell out of their supply line, and the NKA air force has shot its wad. Salt Lake City tells us our attack sucked up most of the MiGs from the south away from the perimeter. Our reinforcements are unloading at Pusan now.”
“Well,” said the general grumpily, but clearly bolstered by the news, “that was worth it. But it sticks in my craw that we never got that turd.” His arm was still, the sick bay attendant working fast, but there was a lot of dirt in the wound and grease around it, and the attendant was wondering whether he should remind the general or not about the importance of cleaning a wound, in combat or anywhere else, as quickly as possible. He decided to take the plunge.
“Sir, you should get a tetanus booster.”
“What — oh, all right, son. If you say so.”
The general turned to Banks again, who was looking a bit out of it, thrown off balance by the LPH’s sharp turn and a long roll that sent the medic’s kidney dish clanking on the steel deck. “You’d better sit down, Al.”
“I’ll be okay, General. Sorry, I forgot what we were—”
“That other bozo in the Mao suit. Who’s he?”
“Ministry of supply’s secretary — or so he says. We could run it through the Pentagon computer link if you like?”
“No. Waste of time.”
“The dog tags you got, General. Both NKA officers. One a lieutenant. The other was a Major Rhee. Intelligence. He—”
“Yes — the son of a bitch tried to kill me. Sneaky bastard. Well, that young marine — Brentwood — and I. We put pay to that. Damn knife wound.” The general held his arm up. “Looks like I’ve been in a whorehouse brawl.”
“Well, General, you did better with that major than you think.”
Banks turned to the ROK captain, who had been sitting quietly by the sick bay’s centrifuge. “That right, Dae?” asked Banks.
The ROK captain turned to Freeman. “Sir, the major was from General Kim’s personal staff. Intelligence. We found these on him—” The ROK officer handed Freeman a bunch of creased papers, a lot of Korean characters on them that the general didn’t understand but recognized as the outline of military areas V and VII. It was the Yosu-Pusan perimeter. The ROK officer leaned forward, pointing to various Korean markings outside the perimeter on the Nam River, which flowed down from Taegu, breaching the perimeter at Chinju fifteen miles north of Sachon. “Disposition of U.S.-ROK forces, General.” He pointed next to the cluster of Korean characters above the arc of the perimeter. Next to each character were rectangles and squares of NKA troop and all battery dispositions. “Kim’s strategy for his attack on Yosu, day after next, General.”
“What!”
“Don’t worry, sir,” Banks quickly interjected. “We had the information coded and SAT-bounced to Pusan HQ, Washington, and Tokyo before your chopper and the last Tomcats crossed the coast.”
“Hot damn!” said Freeman. “We didn’t do so bad after all, Al.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, General.”
“Dumb bastards. Should’ve burned ‘em,” said Freeman.
“We didn’t give them much time, General,” responded Banks, sharing the general’s excitement. “We were in and out of Crap City under two hours.”
“Seemed like two days,” confessed Freeman.
“Most of the men feel the same, sir.”
Suddenly Freeman fell silent. “We get all our dead out?”
“No, sir. Airborne over at the airfield took the worst of it. It was the howitzers that the NKA were really after — thought it was a major breakthrough from the South. They wanted Rick Menzies’ big guns.”
“Rick get out?”
“No, sir. He was spiking the guns last I heard, but that’s only hearsay — until we get confirmation from his two IC. LPH got a bit overcrowded here with everybody coming in. Some of the choppers went on to the carrier.”
“We don’t need to get it straight from anyone,” said Freeman. “He was a pro to the core.” The general winced as the medic touched his arm with the alcohol, then, seeing what it was, only cotton batting, looked embarrassed. “Talking of pros, I want that Brentwood boy and that other man—” The general tried to remember his name. “Boy from Brooklyn—”
“We’ll trace him, sir.”
The general was still avoiding the sight of the tetanus needle. “Owe my life to that Brentwood. Make a note of it, AL Silver Star.”
“Happy to, sir.” The general grimaced as the cold steel pushed into his arm and he felt the antitetanus serum injected into him. “Al — our photographers. Did they get out?”
“Four of the six, General.”
Freeman nodded. “They get pictures of us all over Crap City?”
Banks was so tired that for a second he thought Freeman meant pictures somehow being spread all over Pyongyang like propaganda leaflets.
“They get shots of us?” pressed the general, the first time the ROK officer had seen anything like apprehensiveness, even fear, in the general’s eyes.
“Oh, yes, General,” answered Banks. “Two of them were up on the People’s Study House. Top floor. Infrared shots mostly, around the square and of the howitzers firing. I think they got most of it, far as I know.”
“You haven’t seen any yet?” asked the general.
“No, sir. I—”
“By God, Al. We’ve got to get those pictures stateside right away. The President’ll want to see them. American people need to know—”
Banks began to tell him that the news of the American raid via SAT signals was already burning the wires hot to half a dozen news agencies throughout the world. “It’ll be headline news all around the world, General.”
“Pictures, Al. Goddamn it — we need to get the pictures out. Know what the Chinese say. Picture is worth a thousand words.”
“I’ll check it out, sir.”
“Do it now.”
“Yes, General,” said Banks wearily, getting up and feeling a little light-headed, making toward the sick bay door. “I’ll get right onto it.”
“Al-”
Banks turned slowly, trying not to look as fatigued as he felt. “Yes, General?”
“Al. There’s only one son of a bitch in this world with a bigger ego than that runt!”
Banks looked puzzled.
“Me,” the general said, and winked.