Rhee nodded and then looked squarely into Kevin’s eyes. He held out a hand and spoke more softly. “I would like you to know, Lieutenant Little, that it has been an honor serving with you.”
Numbly, Kevin shook hands and watched as the South Korean bounded down the stairs to assemble his troops.
Kevin thumbed the transmit button. “Kilo November Seven Two, this is Echo Five Six. I have a priority smoke mission. Coordinates Yankee Delta three eight seven one nine zero. Over.”
The artillery officer’s voice crackled back over the speaker. “Understood, Echo Five Six.”
There was a five-second pause, and the voice came back on the radio. “Shot, out.”
Kevin craned his neck to get a better angle on the silent apartment building less than thirty meters away. He felt naked, completely exposed to any NK sniper watching for a target. Seconds ticked away. C’mon, c’mon, where’s the arty?
A single shell screamed down out of the sky and burst on the street, spewing gray smoke in all directions. Kevin yanked his head back around the corner. “November Seven Two! On target! Fire for effect!”
More shells rained down around the North Korean — held building, and he watched the smoke screen rising, billowing above the rooftops.
“Go! Go! Go! Move out!” Rhee’s shouted commands brought the men of the assault force to their feet. With the South Korean in the lead, they ran forward and disappeared into the gray mist.
Suddenly the lower edge of the mist winked red in a dozen places as the North Koreans fired. Hundreds of bullets cracked down the street at supersonic speed, shattering brick, chewing up concrete, and puncturing flesh. High-pitched screams echoed above the chattering machine guns and assault rifles.
Kevin sat motionless, instantly aware that the attack had failed. The smoke screen hadn’t been worth a damn. The NKs were too well sited. They’d positioned their weapons to cover every possible approach. The bastards didn’t need to actually see anyone coming. All they had to do was pull their triggers, confident that every bullet fired was going into a carefully calculated kill zone. The zone Rhee and his men had just entered.
Damn it. He couldn’t stand just hearing it. He had to see it. Kevin rolled out onto the street, flat on his stomach below the stream of bullets snapping past low overhead. The screams were dwindling now, fading into low sobs and moans. The North Korean fusillade fell away as well, shrinking to a spattering of single shots and small bursts.
Something scraped on the pavement ahead of him, and Kevin lifted his head to look. Two men came out of the smoke, crawling, dragging a third man behind them. A fourth staggered blindly after them, weaponless, his hands clutching at a spreading red stain on his stomach. The first two crept past him and Kevin’s stomach lurched. The man being dragged was Rhee. He waited for other survivors to follow, but there weren’t any.
He inched back into cover and sat up, staring deliberately away from the already blood-soaked patch of pavement where Echo’s medics were working frantically on the wounded. On Rhee. He closed his eyes, not wanting to think or feel anything. Not anything. This wasn’t his fault.
But it was his fault and he knew it. Twelve men had gone down that street. In the blink of an eye, eight had been killed or mortally wounded. He should have anticipated the disaster. Planned for it. Avoided it. Instead he’d hoped for a miracle and it hadn’t come. Well, Rhee had paid the price for his mistake.
“Hey, L-T?” It was Montoya. “Kilo November wants to know if they should keep firing. What should I tell them?”
“Tell them…” Kevin gagged, fighting not to throw up. “Tell them to knock it off. It’s over.”
“No.” A hoarse, pain-filled voice protested.
He opened his eyes. Rhee had pushed himself up off the pavement despite the medic’s best efforts to make him lie still. The South Korean was a horrifying sight, shot at least twice in the chest. Kevin could see blood still welling from one of his wounds.
“You must not… abandon… the attack,” Rhee gasped out, struggling for breath. One of his lungs must have collapsed. “Take them, Lieutenant… kill the bastards for us.” He fell back, completely spent.
Kevin crawled over to where the South Korean lay sprawled. His friend’s eyes were closed, but he was still breathing, if only in short, panting gasps. The medic pulled a syringe out of his kit and jabbed it into Rhee’s arm. Kevin grabbed the man’s arm. “Will he make it?”
“Jeez, L-T, I don’t know.” The medic winced as Kevin’s fingers tightened involuntarily. “He needs evac right away, though. All I can do is try to keep him breathing for a while.”
“Oh, Christ.” They couldn’t evacuate any of the wounded, not while North Korean fire blocked every route to the rear. Either he took that building or Rhee would die, almost certainly with most of Bravo Company and a lot more of his own men. But that damned apartment building was too heavily defended. It couldn’t be taken, not without more firepower than Echo Company had. He’d need a tank to blast the place open.
A tank. Kevin felt the seeds of a plan growing in his mind. It was what he should have done the first time out. He couldn’t get a tank, but maybe he already had the next-best thing. He pushed himself upright and gripped his M16. They weren’t finished. Not by a long shot. “Montoya!”
“Yes, L-T?”
“Tell McIntyre I want a fire team in one of those houses next to the objective. They’re to lay down a suppressive fire on my order. Then get Geary on the horn and tell him I want Reese and his squad here ASAP. And have ’em bring a LAW for every man in the squad. Clear?”
Montoya nodded vigorously and started whispering into his set.
Kevin turned away and went back to sit by Rhee.
Sohn rubbed his watering eyes, thankful that the American smoke screen had at last drifted away. He smiled at the carnage visible on the street outside. The smoke had been an inconvenience, but it hadn’t prevented his troops from cutting the imperialist assault to pieces. He counted the bodies and laughed out loud in triumph. At least eight enemy dead! And not a man of his even slightly wounded. These Americans might know how to defend, but they were pathetic on the attack.
A nearby explosion wiped the smile off his face. Another attack so soon? He heard more shells bursting in rapid succession.
“Comrade Lieutenant!” Sergeant Yi skidded into the room. “Another smoke screen. This time to the north!”
A machine gun chattered nearby, followed by the softer rattle of American M16s. The Yankees had shifted their axis of attack.
Sohn brushed past Yi on his way out the door. “Pull half the men to the north! And join me there!”
He ran down the hall, unslinging his AK as he ran.
Kevin heard the firing from McIntyre’s diversionary attack, took a deep breath, and released it in a yelclass="underline" “Now! Hit the fuckers!”
Half a dozen LAWs flashed from concealed positions on both sides of the street, reaching for the barricaded windows of the North Korean-held apartment building. They exploded on target, bursting in brief showers of orange flame.
Now. Kevin lunged outside onto the street and raced toward the apartment building. He heard men running behind him and heard them yelling. A wild rebel yell rising in pitch and volume, bouncing off the high, concrete walls all around. He fired from the hip, felt the M16 bounce in his hands, and saw sparks fly around one of the shattered, smoking windows.
Suddenly he realized that he was yelling with all the rest.
In! He hurled himself headfirst through the empty window and rolled to a stop in a tangle of gear. A North Korean writhed in agony in one corner of the small room, bleeding from half a dozen splinter wounds. One hand clutched a rifle. Kevin shot him and reloaded.