"Then what in Sam Hill is going on down here!"
No one knew. But the tanks rolled and overhead, Korean F-18s roared up from Onsan air base.
"I do not like the looks of this," said General Winfield Scott Hornworks in possibly the mother of all understatements.
Sergeant Mark Murdock had Truck duty again. He hated Truck duty. But in his unit everyone took his turn behind the wheel of what could only be called "the Truck."
It was a deuce and a half. Parked smack in the middle of the Bridge of No Return, bridging North and South Korea. It was kept perpetually running, the brakes on, ready to be popped into gear. The Truck's ass end was backed up to the barrier bisecting the bridge that said Military Demarcation Line. On the other side was North Korea. The most dangerous regime on the face of the earth.
If the alarm sounded, it was Murdock's job to slam the Truck into reverse and bottle up the main bridge through which a North Korean invasion would surely come. As everyone knew it would come.
It was not inevitable. And in the past year it seemed some weeks a hell of a lot less likely than anytime in the past forty years. But in that same time frame, Sergeant Murdock knew, the two Koreas had been closer to total war than at any time since 1953.
And it was Sergeant Murdock's unhappy, frequent duty to be the man designated to hold the bridge against a million ferocious invaders.
When he heard the clanking of tanks, his blood froze. His hand going to the stick shift, he waited for the alert siren.
No siren roared. The clanking of tanks grew. There had to be hundreds of them. The ugly sound reverberated off the surrounding mountains and filled Murdock's fear-shrunk brain.
Eyes going to the rearview mirror, he searched the impenetrable darkness of the Hermit Kingdom. There should be lights. Some sign. "Jesus Christ, where's the siren? What do I do?"
He wanted to bolt the Truck. He wanted to sound the alarm himself if those UN idiots wouldn't. But he knew he would be shot for dereliction of duty, because his first duty was to block the bridge.
Blocking the way was the same as kissing his ass goodbye, he knew. The bridge was a narrow thing of iron, vaguely rustic, and once he plugged it with the Truck, he was stuck. The doors wouldn't open. He would be the first ground casualty of what was estimated to be two million war dead.
On the other band, if somebody didn't sound the fucking alarm, all his buddies would join him in Hell.
In the end he made the smart choice. When the sound he imagined to be T-55 and T-62 battle tanks filled the night, Murdock got out of the Truck.
Just in time.
The first tanks clanked up and, without much pause, climbed the vibrating Truck hood. The drab steel caved, breaking the engine block and making the front tires pop like overstressed balloons.
The grinding cacophony of steel treads mangling a two-and-a-half-ton truck was almost unendurable.
Hunkered in the darkness, Sergeant Mark Murdock propped his upper body by his elbows and protected his ears with his cupped hands.
His eyes were as round as saucers in the night as he watched the ROK tanks with their tiger insignia one by one take their turn flattening the Truck as they rolled in single column over the Bridge of No Return___
And all he could think of was the certain response from Pyongyang. If they had the bomb, it would soon be screaming Seoul way perched atop a Rodong or Nodong I missile—however they pronounced the damn thing.
Since the earliest days of the land of Korea, Pyongyang was. From the days of Ancient Chosun, when it was called Asadal and was established as the first Korean capital, through the Three Kingdoms period to the present day, Pyongyang endured. Invaded many times, subject to foreign occupation and bombed virtually flat during the Korean War, it had been rebuilt each time, greater than before.
Pyongyang was a special city. People didn't go hungry in Pyongyang, no matter the famines that prowled the countryside. There were great streets in Pyongyang, which sparkled because few drove automobiles. The buildings reared up gray and strong, and as long as no one walked the floors too heavily, the concrete remained solid.
In the farthest corner of this special city was a tall concrete building, eighteen stories high, but extending fourteen stories into the bedrock of Pyongyang. On the lowermost floor, in the farthest corner, behind doors of steel that no bombs could reach, a North Korean general listened to what had happened at the Thirty-eighth Parallel.
A colonel gave him the report. His name was Nekep. A few people knew him. The general's name was Toksa. Pullyang Toksa. Everyone in Pyongyang knew of him, but few had seen him. He alone reported to the premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea personally. He did this every day. Pullyang Toksa told the Supreme Leader what was going on in the world.
In Pyongyang one judged one's importance by how deep one's office was, a remnant from the days when, American bombs fell all over the north. Colonel Nekep had never been this deep, and Pullyang Toksa had never asked questions before. But this time he personally had ordered the colonel from the Ministry of Intelligence to tell him everything.
"The Master of Sinanju has been seen in Beijing, General," said Colonel Nekep.
"He will not work for Beijing," said General Toksa.
"He is in Beijing."
"The mandarins in Beijing will not meet his terms, for their gold sits in their fists too tightly." He shook his head firmly. "No, the Master of Sinanju will next come here, and when he does he will gladly work for us."
"But we have not such gold as he will demand."
"No. But we have better. For the Americans in their insanity have communicated a threat to us. They have dared to target the Pearl of the Orient with a nuclear missile."
Colonel Nekep paled to the hue of a steamed bun. "They are mad."
"Whatever they are, they have delivered the House of Sinanju back to its historical home." General Toksa looked up. "Dismissed, and say nothing of this to anyone—or you will be sent to the countryside to dig grubs for your meal."
The message for the Supreme Leader, premier of the DPRK, did not reach him. It stopped at the cold stone desk of Pullyang Toksa, who sat like a squat toad, his narrow eyes showing nothing but an abiding darkness.
With such a powerful card in hand, the proper moment, like a helpful ace, would reveal itself.
Chapter Forty-three
The first dull thud barely penetrated the deep underground bunker that was the headquarters of II Corps, and so did not awaken General Oh Nambul of the Inmungun, or Korean People's Army.
The second was no louder, but the repetition caused him to roll over. The third brought him snuffling and snorting out of his sleep in the windowless command bunker north of the Thirty-eighth Parallel.
His head came off the threadbare pillow, and his ears still rang with a sound he didn't consciously perceive.
A rumble caused him to throw back his coarse army blanket, but he realized it was only his stomach grumbling.
The next thud came plainly to his ears, and he jumped into his cracked boots and clawed on his web belt with its Makarov pistol.
It sounded like artillery fire. But as General Oh fought to become fit for battle, he felt no shaking in the concrete walls protecting him, nor did the dirt floor under his boots jump as it would under a rocket barrage.
"What is that sound?" he grumbled.
An orderly met him as he crawled out of the bunker.
"Report! "he barked.
"They are deploying the ROK drops, General Oh."
General Oh frowned with all of his face. ROK drops were the great concrete barriers that were kept poised over the remaining bridges and roads still linking North and South for ceremonial and prisoner-exchange purposes. In the event of a Northern attack, they were to be pushed off their perches with explosive charges, pry and crowbars, completely blocking all northern attack avenues.
"Are we invading the South?" he said in the stupid tone of a man who hadn't quite awoken from sleep.