The alert sirens had woken her an hour later.
At first she’d thought the high-pitched wail rising and falling above Seoul was something to do with Christmas, some Korean custom she had never heard of. But the sirens kept on and on — ending in a tremendous, rattling explosion that had knocked books off her shelves and lit up her bedroom window for an instant with an eerie, orangish light. Then she’d heard jets loud and close overhead. Tony had told her that aircraft were never allowed to fly over Seoul.
She’d still been sitting upright in bed half-asleep when the jet engine noises roaring all over the city were suddenly mingled with sharper cracking sounds. Shrapnel from antiaircraft shells bursting overhead had started pattering down on the street outside, sounding a lot like a hard, metallic rainstorm. And while her conscious mind sorted out all the obvious clues, Anne’s subconscious had already had her moving. Out of bed and into her clothes. She’d been fully dressed by the time she allowed herself to think the answer. They were at war.
Just thinking the word “war” made Anne’s stomach turn over. She shook off a mental picture of herself ripped apart by bombs. She thought about Tony trapped in a flaming cockpit, trying to get out … stop it. That wasn’t getting her anywhere. Anne rolled back to her keyboard, fingers punching up a new menu without conscious thought. Her mind drifted back again to the events of last night.
At least she hadn’t gone running out into the street in panic like a lot of her neighbors. Instead she’d sat by the telephone, trying to get through to the base general information number. Nothing. Every time she tried calling, the line was either dead or busy.
After nearly an hour of frantic dialing, Anne had given up and retreated to the apartment’s tiny kitchenette to consider her next move. The U.S. Armed Forces — Korea radio station was silent, off the air, and she couldn’t make out any details in the Korean language broadcasts spewing out of the government-owned stations. Without any solid information, one side of her mind had wanted very much to stay hidden in the apartment. But another side had argued that she would be needed at the Logistics Center and should report in for work.
She’d been right in the middle of this internal debate when the phone started ringing. Anne had grabbed for the receiver, started to speak, and then stopped in midword as she realized it was a computer-generated call relaying a taped message.
“This is the Eighth Army Information Center with an urgent message for all civilian contract personnel employed at the Yongsan base. At oh two hundred hours this A.M., North Korean forces commenced open hostilities with U.S. and South Korean troops stationed along the Demilitarized Zone.” Well, it’s official, she thought. The recording continued, “Accordingly, the base commander has declared a general alert and ordered all base employees to report to their respective work stations.
“However, civilian employees are cautioned to avoid using personal or public transportation. Special buses are being dispatched to pick you up at your place of residence. Wait for the bus dispatched to your location. All employees with dependents should bring those dependents with them. Make sure that you have the following items: your military ID card, passport, special medical information and prescriptions, and a minimum kit with spare clothing and portable personal valuables. Each person boarding a bus will be limited to one, repeat, one suitcase.” Anne had sat still while the taped message recycled and repeated.
For a moment after hanging up, she hadn’t known whether to be relieved now that she knew for sure what was going on or even more frightened. She’d finally shelved the question and started packing, figuring there’d be time enough later to sort out her feelings.
Beep. Anne pulled out of her reverie and glanced at the screen. Damn, she’d misentered a whole field of data. Start thinking, woman. She shook her head and started over again.
Now the bus ride, she thought, that had been frightening. She’d been picked up just before dawn by a green-painted Army bus escorted by a street sweeper to push shrapnel fragments aside and a jeep filled with M16-toting MPs. The trek to Yongsan had been an hour-long, circuitous crawl through Seoul’s streets. They’d stopped every so often to load on more of her coworkers and their families.
The capital’s boulevards had been strangely empty of the normal, morning rush-hour traffic. And Anne had seen fully equipped South Korean soldiers posted at every major intersection. Storefronts all along their route were still covered by roll-down metal shutters.
Their arrival at Yongsan’s main gate had only reinforced her uneasiness. MPs in bulky flak jackets had boarded the bus and scrutinized every passenger’s identification. Others stood on guard on the pavement outside, weapons at the ready. And she’d glimpsed still more troops hurriedly building sandbagged machine gun nests at intervals along the perimeter fence.
Anne shook her head slowly, remembering the blackened, torn, and gutted buildings, the debris-strewn streets, and the shattered windows she’d seen on the way from the gate into the Logistics Center. The place looked as if it had been hit dead center by a tornado.
It hadn’t taken long, though, for word of the North Korean commando strike to sweep through the crowds of newly arriving civilian workers. Rumor had magnified both the numbers and the casualties they’d caused.
As if the thought had been a premonition, she heard someone yell, “Commandos! There’s gook commandos outside!”
Oh, God. Anne hit the save button on her computer, jumped out of her chair, and ran to the window, along with the rest of the staff. Ed Cumber, one of her programmers, stood shaking, pointing outside at a truck parked in front of their building. Korean troops in full combat gear were jumping out the back and taking up positions along the street.
Anne started to back away from the window, then stopped and looked closer. There were American soldiers intermingled with the Koreans, talking calmly, sharing cigarettes with them.
She shook her head and looked disgustedly over at Cumber.
The tall, bleary-eyed programmer shrank a little under her gaze and tried to defend himself. “Well, I thought … I mean, they were jumping out of the truck, and they…”
“I don’t want to hear about it, Ed. Just because everybody else is panicking doesn’t mean we should,” she said sternly, aware that she’d jumped the gun just like all the rest.
Phones were ringing in the office while everybody stood and looked at the motionless Korean soldiers.
“Back to work!” They scattered.
Anne moved back to the computer terminal she’d taken over earlier that morning, but she altered course when she saw her secretary waving her over. Gloria was on the phone, listening intently and scribbling notes. “Right, right, uh huh, got it. Okay, I’ll pass the word.”
She hung up as Anne came over.
“It’s official, Anne. We’re supposed to prep for possible evacuation. They’re going to start sending all civilian contract workers to Japan sometime in the next forty-eight hours.”
Anne stood still for several seconds. Japan. She was going to get out of this mess. Then her mind whispered, But what about Tony?
CHAPTER 26
Evasion
Kevin Little had never been so cold.
At first the freezing Korean winter air had been a minor annoyance as he lay motionless, playing dead. But now it had become a sharp, stabbing pain — spreading slowly from the bayonet slash through his parka across his whole body. Each short, controlled breath he took moved the icy air farther up his back, sucking away warmth and leaching away his life.