They had been on twelve-hour notice for days, trying to be ready to shift the entire operation to Misawa’s computers as quickly and smoothly as possible.
She had planned the transfer carefully. All the data was being copied onto tapes, and two copies of each tape were being made. That would take most of the hour and fifty minutes they had. Twelve hours’ notice. That was a laugh.
She paused. In a way it was good. It would minimize the time that they were unable to operate. The Army had already started setting up a site at the airbase there, and thank heaven they used the same type of computer. An hour to the airport, another hour to load, and then it was about a two-hour flight to Misawa. Another hour to get to the base’s computers, and an hour to load the software and data. With luck, they would be back in business by breakfast. It would be a long night, though.
The trucks came early, with a mixed U.S. and Korean escort. In addition to the vehicles for the logistics center’s personnel, there were two more full of soldiers, and an armored car at the front. The lieutenant in charge loaded them as if the plane were waiting at Kimpo airport with its engines turning over.
They loaded in the cold dark, with no lights and apparently no organization. Anne and the other supervisors tried to keep their people together, but she wouldn’t be sure if they’d succeeded until they got to Kimpo airport. Finally a soldier half-threw her onto a truck. She felt like a side of meat going into a freezer.
It was dark in the back, and what little light there was disappeared when they lowered the canvas flap on the back. That caught her in midstride, and she would have fallen but for friendly hands catching her. Anne groped and half-stumbled her way to a seat, landing just as the truck started moving.
She followed the turns the truck made in her mind and tracked them until they turned right outside the main gate. All she could think of was how cold the seat was. It didn’t get any warmer.
There were frequent stops, and once, sirens. Finally her curiosity got the better of her and her seatmates. They loosened the rope tying the canvas top to the side of the truck body and raised it enough to peek through.
The crack was small, and they were moving so slowly that there was no rush of cold air. After being in the dark truck for so long, the blacked-out city looked almost light.
Anne saw buildings damaged by bombs or artillery. Once an entire row of shops was leveled, but even the lightest damage would have been the lead story on the evening news back home.
There had been little effort at cleanup. From the looks of the rubble, it had just been pushed out of the street. Some of it was still smoldering.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew was in effect. This had been ignored inside the busy Yongsan Army Base, but outside, it was strictly enforced.
Every major intersection had a checkpoint, and armed patrols walked the streets between them. Additionally, she sometimes saw weapons poking out of building windows. She knew that most of the post-1950s construction in Seoul had included features that would allow them to be used as bunkers. The city was being turned into one giant fortress.
In the almost total blackout, the city looked dead. Ten million people lived here, but the only signs of life were armed soldiers and occasional convoys like theirs.
They stopped at an intersection where some sort of roadblock had been set up. She couldn’t see the head of the column, but there was a sandbagged gun emplacement on the two corners she could see, and a barrier across each entrance to the intersection.
There were two Koreans dressed in civilian clothes standing at one of the corners. Both were men. They had their hands in the air, and they were being searched none too gently by a soldier while another covered them with an M16 rifle. The truck started up, and her last view was of the two men being knocked to the ground.
As they went down one street, movement caught her eye, and she saw soldiers at work outside a building. As Anne studied their movements, she realized they were wiring the foundation with explosives.
It took almost an hour to reach the airport, by which time Anne didn’t know if the truck was actually warming up or she was just going numb.
There was more security at the airport, including tanks and antiaircraft guns. They pulled up to the main terminal, gratefully unloading into its heated interior. Unsure of what to expect, Anne was startled to see a Korean Air Lines ticket agent waving her over.
The agent asked for identification from each member of the party, examining it closely before returning it. One person did not have a ID card, and Anne had to sign a temporary ID form, taking responsibility for her.
After the last staff member had been verified, Anne said, “How long will it be until our flight takes off?”
The agent replied, “We can’t tell, ma’am. Not until tomorrow morning, at least.”
There was a general commotion and several voices repeated Anne’s question. “But what about our orders? We’re on twelve-hour notice for immediate departure.…”
“Miss Larson, that means the Air Force wants you here twelve hours before scheduled flight time, just in case they get more sorties than they plan on. I’ve been here for four days, and I guarantee that barring miracles, you will not be on a plane before dawn tomorrow.”
She should have known. She knew how logistics worked. Try to have the cargo to be shipped present well before the scheduled flight time. So what if the cargo spent all night at an airport? All they could do was wait. She hadn’t even brought a book for the flight, just a manual to review upload procedures.
They filed past the security station. Metal detectors were, of course, being used, but instead of civilian guards, no-nonsense Korean soldiers with submachine guns watched everyone.
Once she was past the metal detector, Anne looked down the long corridor to the departure area. It was full of people, with rope barriers set up to control their movements. The logistics staff morosely took up their positions at the end of the line. It was going to be a long night.
It was impossible to sleep. About every half hour everybody had to move forward five feet, or some new group of evacuees appeared, asking questions and bemoaning their fate. Even if they could have settled down inside, the roar of jets outside was incredible. The concourse was glassed-in, so they could see the operations on the field.
Cargo planes landed constantly. Every three minutes a four-engined transport, either a C-130 or C-141, would roar in. After a while she noticed that there were occasionally longer gaps, after which a monstrous C-5 would lumber in. As one would clear the runway, another landed. On the parallel runway next to it, cargo aircraft took off.
Every half hour or so, a cargo aircraft would taxi up to their gate. She watched through the glass as troops or light equipment unloaded, while fuel trucks drove up and attached hoses to the aircraft. Evacuees would stream aboard, chivied by Air Force personnel. The ramp would go up, the hoses detach, and the plane would taxi away, headed for takeoff. Total elapsed time was fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on how fast the evacuees moved aboard.
As a logistics expert, Anne could appreciate the organization and timing involved. There were delays, of course. Twice mechanics had to be called to work on some part of an aircraft, but they had come on a run and had worked frantically to correct the fault. They’d succeeded though, and airplanes continued to land and take off.
She had almost dropped asleep once, when suddenly sirens went off all over the base. The few lights that were on went out, and she heard the roar of jet fighters. Nothing else happened, and after about ten minutes the lights came back on.