His aide kept a straight face with difficulty. Everyone in close proximity to the general knew that McLaren was playing fast and loose with the congressional mandate to pull out of South Korea. But nobody would admit to knowing that.
“Okay, Doug. I called you in here because I’ve got a little something I want you to do for me. And it’s gotta be done ASAP and on the sly.”
Hansen wondered what the general’s “little something” would entail this time. The last one had taken several straight twenty-four-hour shifts, a lot of computer time, and gallons of coffee to come up with. But that was the price you paid for working close to someone with stars on his shoulders. There was an old Army joke that if God told you to do one thing and your commanding general told you to do another, you’d better hope God was forgiving because the general certainly wouldn’t be.
“I want you to visit every one of our major commands up near the DMZ. Talk to the COs for me and tell them I want to know first thing, and I mean first thing, whenever a South Korean unit makes a troop move that I haven’t personally authorized.”
“Yes, sir.” Hansen was puzzled and didn’t bother to try to hide it.
“And I don’t want any of our Korean liaison officers hearing about this, okay? This is between you, me, and the people I’m sending you to talk to. Clear?”
“Clear, sir.” But Hansen’s voice made it obvious that it wasn’t at all clear.
McLaren decided to brief him more fully. The U.S. Army had never been big on unquestioning obedience. “Relax, Doug. There’s a method to my madness.”
McLaren got up from behind his desk and crossed the room to the window. “What I’m worried about is this. With all the shit flying in Seoul and the other cities, I’m convinced that it’s only a matter of time before the government tries to bring regular troops in to crush the rioters.”
He swung round to face Hansen. “Now, we can’t afford to let that happen. For a variety of reasons I don’t want to wake up one morning and read about another Seoul massacre, especially not one committed by troops nominally under my command. So I want to know what the government’s up to before anything like that happens.”
Hansen nodded his understanding.
“Okay, then. Now I don’t want our South Korean officers to know I’ve tightened our reporting procedures because my relations with the government and the General Staff are damned tenuous at best. If they hear we’re ‘spying’ on them, it’d piss them off even more. And that’s something I really don’t need at this stage.”
McLaren finished. “All right, Captain, you have your orders. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay, dismissed. And good luck.”
Hansen saluted, wheeled, and left to hit the road. He had a lot of ground to cover in the next several days.
McLaren watched the door close behind his aide and turned back to stare out the window again. He had a feeling that there was something ugly out there just waiting to pounce. Something worse than the endless rioting he’d already seen. But what the hell was it?
CHAPTER 17
Operation Purify
As his armored personnel carrier clattered around a gentle curve, General Chang stood high in an open hatch to look back along the road. The hundreds of APCs, trucks, and tanks carrying three battalions of his division stretched behind him in a rumbling, four-kilometer-long column, their dimmed headlights casting dancing shadows across ice-covered rice paddies beside the highway.
He glanced at his watch and then over to the right at the dark, narrow band that marked the Imjin River. They were on schedule, just minutes away from the small town of Sonu. From there a short drive would take the column to the Main Supply Route, Highway 1. Once on the MSR, they would be just forty kilometers from the outskirts of Seoul — a distance he planned to cover in less than three hours.
Chang dropped back down into the APC’s red-lit interior. He wormed his way past the radioman and flak-vested bodyguards to a small, hinged table covered with maps showing their route to the capital. His aide had just penciled in a small dot to show the regiment’s position. They were almost up to the next security checkpoint.
Without looking up from the map Chang reached out and took the papers his aide offered. He thumbed through them, smiling slightly. So far at least, Hahn’s forged movement orders had held up beautifully. Then his smile disappeared. The papers were damp. Chang glanced at his aide and frowned as he saw that the man was sweating like a pig, with dark stains discoloring his tunic collar and underarms. It was warm inside the crowded APC, but not that warm. Was the man afraid? Chang’s nostrils wrinkled in disgust and he turned away toward the front of the troop compartment. He had no time for cowards now.
The general climbed back up through the hatch to let the cold night air flow over him. Within four hours his troops would be fanning out across Seoul. And an hour after that, he, Chang Jae-Kyu, the son of a rice farmer, would be the new president of the Republic of Korea.
Chang smiled at the thought. Yes, he would be the president. And he would do precisely what had to be done to restore order to his nation’s troubled cities. Many of the rebellious students and workers would die, but their deaths would bring countless others to their senses. Then, with calm restored, he and his fellow officers would reform society — bolstering the sense of discipline, self-restraint, and respect for authority that had characterized Korea for countless generations.
He had no doubt that the foreign traders would return once all that had been accomplished. But they would trade on his terms, without arrogant demands that Korea surrender its sovereign right to govern itself as it pleased. Chang shook his head, cutting off that train of thought. It was pleasant to contemplate, but first he and his three thousand troops had more immediate work to do — work that would certainly require speed and determination, and work that might well require gunfire, grenades, bayonets, and blood.
Chang straightened as the APC came over a small rise a few hundred yards from Sonu. He could see barricades, and sandbagged machine gun nests blocking the road ahead. They’d reached the next security checkpoint.
He leaned down in through the hatch and signaled the driver to stop. His radioman was already ordering the rest of the regimental column to halt. Chang swung himself down off the APC and dropped lightly onto the road. He pulled his phony travel orders out of his pocket and strode resolutely forward to speak with the Special Forces lieutenant commanding the roadblock.
The phone rang, jerking McLaren awake and upright in bed with a muttered curse. He’d been up late checking over plans for the next scheduled military exercise. He fumbled on the nightstand for the phone.
“McLaren.”
“Sorry to wake you, General.” It was Doug Hansen. “But I’m afraid we have a situation developing.”
McLaren looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was past two A.M. “Go on.”
He could hear Hansen suppressing a yawn. “I just got a call from one of our battalion COs up near the Z. One of his observation posts has reported seeing South Korean troops leaving their base and heading south. The Twelfth Mechanized Infantry Regiment. They’re part of the 4th Infantry Division, commanded by a General Chang. And that’s not an authorized movement, General.”
McLaren threw the covers aside and swung out of bed, reaching for his pants. “How long ago did they leave, Doug?”
“About two hours ago. It took some time for the report to get passed through channels.” Hansen’s voice was apologetic.