Red Phoenix by Larry Bond Read Free Book Online Page B

was probably too late for that.
    They were already chasing after the screaming crowds scattering back down Sejong Street. Some were still shooting, firing from the hip as they ran. Others contented themselves with clubbing any student within reach.
    McLaren saw one trooper pause, aim, and send a long burst into a small group of pleading men and women cowering in front of a department store display window. They were thrown back in among the bullet-riddled mannequins.
    He kept running down the street, but a muffled cry following a sharp groan brought him skidding to a stop. He turned. There, not ten feet away, was a crazy-eyed Combat Policeman trying to tear the TV camera out of the hands of the CNN cameraman he’d seen earlier. The soundman sat slumped against a car door, hands pressed to his face with blood running out between them.
    That, by God, was too damned much. McLaren didn’t much care for most reporters, but these guys were Americans, after all. He charged in, pulled the riot trooper around by his combat webbing, and sent a right cross smashing into the man’s face. The Korean staggered back, and McLarenfollowed up with a left into his stomach. The trooper grunted and fell over gasping for air. McLaren felt himself grinning despite himself. Not bad for a man in his fifties.
    He turned to the cameraman kneeling by his partner. “Can he walk?”
    The reporter nodded. “Yeah. I think so. But we’re gonna have to help him along.” He slung his equipment across his back. Then, for the first time, he took a close look at McLaren. “Jesus, man. I don’t think I’ve ever been rescued by a real, live U.S. cavalryman before.” He stuck a hand out. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
    McLaren shook hands. “No problem.” He bent down to take one of the dazed soundman’s arms. “Right now, though, I think it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.”
    With the wounded man stumbling between them, they lurched up the street toward the American embassy. Behind them, McLaren could hear the rattle of automatic weapons still echoing throughout Seoul’s city center. It sounded like all hell was breaking loose back there. It might spread across all of South Korea. And if it did, he and his troops were going to get caught right in the middle.

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CHAPTER
3
    The Washington Waltz

    SEPTEMBER 8—CAPITOL HILL, WASHINGTON, D.C.

    The televisions are always on in a Congressional office.
    “Good morning. I’m Amanda Hayes and this is a CNN special report — The Massacre in Seoul.”
    Jeremy Mitchell looked up into the TV screen perched precariously on his bookcase. One hand reached for his tortoise-shell glasses while the other shoved the latest draft press release on National Frozen Food Week off his notepad. Without taking his eyes off the small screen, he waved the nearest intern over, a short, pudgy University of Michigan junior who was spending his fall semester learning the business of government while duplicating constituent mail for a congressman. Mitchell ignored the discontented frown on the kid’s face. Endless hours of gofer work—stapling, filing, duplicating—those were the dues you paid to get more meaningful work later on.
    Mitchell had paid his own dues in full. Summers as an unpaid campaign volunteer. University terms spent crawling as an unpaid, overworked congressional intern. Two years after school as a poorly paid legislative correspondent, locked away for sixty-hour weeks drafting and redrafting answers to letters written by constituents. By then he’d seen how the system worked. You climbed over the still-warm bodies of those who’d thought they were your friends and coworkers. He’d used that knowledge to win a succession of promotions—first to handling domestic issues as a legislative assistant and later to committee staffer. A lot of people who’d trusted Jeremy Mitchell’s sincere smiles, open-featured good looks, twinkling blue eyes, and firm handshake had long since come to regret