Free Red Phoenix Burning by Larry Bond Page A

the younger officer still seemed calm, almost unnaturally so.
    “Yes, Captain?” Tae asked, forcing himself to match his aide’s wooden expression.
    “Terrible news, sir,” Ryeon replied. “The Supreme Leader is dead.”
    Tae stood motionless for a moment. They had done it. Even though this was what they had hoped for, the reality was almost overwhelming. That callow young fool, Kim Jong-un, and his vicious followers were dead—wiped off the board with one violent move.
    But Ryeon was not finished. “Ohk Yeong-sik has announced that he is taking command.”
    That was bad news indeed. As chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Okh was one of Kim’s most loyal supporters. And he was a logical candidate to fill Kim’s shoes, at least as an interim leader. But Okh was not the General Staff’s man.
    Yang stared at Tae and his aide. “The Supreme Leader is dead? This is confirmed?”
    Ryeon nodded.
    “Then what shall we do?” the deputy division commander asked brokenly. To Tae’s astonishment, tears were running down the other man’s cheeks. Still reeling from the execution of his former commander, and then the outbreak of serious fighting, it was clear that the death of Kim Jong-un, by declaration and law the source of everything good in North Korea, had shaken Yang to his core.
    “Do?” Tae snapped. He stepped closer to Yang. “We fight, Comrade Major General!”
    He turned away, facing the other officers of the divisional staff. “Ohk Yeong-sik was on Vice Marshal Koh’s list of conspirators. He and those who support him are enemies of the state. Is that clear?”
    Slowly, they nodded. Blood had already been spilled. And whether or not they believed that Tae was telling them the truth, it was too late to go back. Besides, they were all too aware that their new commander’s special forces bodyguards were stationed at key points around the headquarters.
    Tae looked back at Yang, who was still standing there glassy-eyed and blank-faced. “Snap out of it!” he growled. “Pyongyang is in the hands of those who murdered the Supreme Leader! It is our duty to reclaim the capital and exterminate the traitors!”
    He raised his voice. “Put artillery fire on every enemy position blocking our advance to the bridge. Hammer those bastards for five minutes. I want the 162nd Regiment to attack as soon as the barrage lifts! This is a general assault. I do not want anything held back. Not a man. Not a gun. Not a shell!”
    Galvanized by his stream of orders, the 33rd Division’s staff swung into action.
    From here on, this was going to be a straight fight, Tae realized, and a hard one. True, they were disorganized. But so was the enemy. There was no turning back. So be it, he decided grimly. When opponents are evenly matched, it is the strength of their minds that guarantees victory. Then he smiled thinly. That was a quote from the late and unlamented Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.
    17 August 2015
    CIA Headquarters
    Langley, Virginia
    Chris Sawyer loved hunting for scattered bits of information and fitting them into a recognizable pattern. The intellectual challenge had drawn him to intelligence work. He was providing real answers to people who made very important decisions.
    But every job had its downside. The decision-makers needed their eight a.m. briefing, which meant the briefers needed input from the different intelligence agencies by six, which was why the CIA Joint Crisis Team was meeting at five o’clock in the morning. Even with the long summer days, sunrise was a ways off.
    The news of Kim’s death and fighting in the capital, and of multiple “pretenders to the throne,” had put Washington’s national security organizations on a near-war footing. In addition to Sawyer and the rest of the North Korean section, the crisis team, run by Chris’s boss, had pulled in people from all over CIA, including the proliferation shop and the China and Russian desks. There was even an economist.
    Jeff