Ancients

15

After a personal phone call from the president of the United States and an hour and a half of arguing, the Italian government finally granted permission for the most important aspect of Operation Morning Thunder to over-fly Italian airspace. The president dropped certain names of people connected with the Juliai Coalition who happened to be members of the Italian parliament--names supplied by Martha and Carmichael. Fearing a repeat of what had happened in Germany and Japan, Italy became very cooperative.

The ten aircraft in question, hidden secretly at Aviano for a full day after having been flown in during the hours of total darkness, ten F-22A Raptors, America's fifth-generation fighters of the newly activated 525th Fighter Squadron, would play a pivotal role in the opening minutes of the attack. Meanwhile, the big surprise would come from the American air base at Diego Garcia, where two B-2 Spirit stealth bombers would be the first of America's warplanes to lift off.

As the fighters were made ready in Italy, the pair of B-2s were already rolling down the darkened runway at Diego Garcia.

Marine Corps General Pete Hamilton was on the flag bridge when the captain of the Iwo handed him a cup of coffee.

"We just received word that the first element of Morning Thunder cleared the runway at 0345 hours," the captain said.

General Hamilton sipped his coffee and looked out at the calm Mediterranean. He did not respond at first, only nodded. He knew that if their ploy didn't work, the landing force would not only have to deal with a stiff land defense, they would have to dodge an attack from the air.

"Thank you, Captain." He placed his coffee on the arm of the large chair. "Signal Nassau, Casper the Friendly Ghost has levitated."

"Aye, sir. Should we also signal Backdoor that Morning Thunder is off the ground?"

"If Colonel Collins started out on time and they're where they should be, he and my marines won't be able to receive you." He looked at the captain and shook his head. "Backdoor is on its own. No message."

The captain saw that the general was off in his own world, worrying over the time-worn problems of how to kill your fellow man without losing too many of your own, or of your enemy. The captain knew that very few men in the violent history of the world had ever found out how to do that.

The third piece of the surprise was the Cheyenne. The Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine had entered the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar three hours before and had run at flank speed until she reached her initial point. The captain of the Cheyenne, Peter Burgess, had received his orders the night before and was baffled as to why his boat was ordered to the relatively quiet Mediterranean when the world was getting ready to tear itself apart on the other side of the planet. Then he read the coded orders and his anger became an uneasy self-rebuke. The Cheyenne was ordered to launch all twelve of her Tomahawk cruise missiles at the island of Crete at exactly 0600. All twelve Tomahawks would be air-burst HE (high explosive) shots.

As he brought the Cheyenne up to periscope depth, he knew that whatever enemy was at those coordinates when the cruise missiles arrived was in for a major hurt.

"XO, open doors on vertical tubes one through twelve and spool up the birds."

The second element of Operation Backdoor was cooling its heels. For the past thirty minutes they had been at a standstill, since Everett had called Jack and told him that they had a major blockage of the passage and would have to blow an ancient magma flow from the tiled roadway.

While they waited, Sarah took pictures of the tunnel and its ornate wonders that depicted Atlantis in mosaic relief throughout the gateway. There were scenes of teachers instructing the young. Some depicted great battles fought with barbaric people; most brutal of all were the scenes showing the barbarity toward the lesser people of the world.

"Looks like these people were a little harsh on their neighbors," Mendenhall said as he saw the mosaic of slaves as they went about harsh work in the fields and buildings of Atlantis.

"It was a different world for those people. To be as advanced as they were, they had to have existed for at least ten or fifteen thousand years. As for their obvious brutality ..." Sarah remembered that Mendenhall always looked at such things this from a base point of view. Either you were good or you were bad. There was never, ever anything in between.

"What do you suppose those are?" Collins asked, coming up from behind.

Sarah saw where he was pointing. She walked over to Collins, bent down, and placed her hand over one of many crystals about two feet in diameter placed into the tiled walls about five feet up from the cobbled floor.

"They look like lights," Collins ventured.

"Hey, the colonel is brighter than I thought," Sarah quipped.

Collins looked at her expressionlessly.

Sarah cleared her throat and then took out a small hammer and chipped away at the clay tile around the crystal. She finally managed to pop it free and held it in her hands.

"See, it's been beveled into this shape--very efficient for amplifying light. It would have taken very little electricity to ignite this filament here." She probed a small copper wire attached to a larger one running through the tiled wall.

"Electricity again?" Jack asked.

"Yes. These people were as active as ConEd."

"If they were so smart, how come they didn't have a train running down here?"

Sarah didn't answer Jack's question because she was thinking. Suddenly she pushed the light crystal into his hands and then ran to the back of one of the two-ton trucks and removed a spare battery from the back. She relieved Jack of the crystal and ripped free the thicker copper line, part of which was so old that it crumbled in her hand. She laid the crystal aside, opened up her battery-operated flashlight, and emptied the batteries out, then unscrewed the lens cap. She easily popped free the two small wires and then attached them to the copper line that ran chainlike to the other crystals embedded in the walls. Then she kneeled by the battery and hesitated. She split the flashlight wires farther apart until each end could reach a battery post and then she attached them.

Jack was amazed when the crystals in line lit up like a row of Christmas lights until they disappeared down the long tunnel.

"Uh, did someone trip the house alarm?" Everett asked over the radio.

Jack smiled and raised his radio. "Advance one, that's a negative. We had one of our electricians just throw a breaker switch," Collins answered, just as they heard and felt a rumble from below.

"Understood. Get your team moving. We just cleared the road down here, continuing on."

Jack clicked his radio twice and ordered everyone to the vehicles. Then he looked at Sarah with his left brow raised.

"Think you're pretty smart, don't you?"

She batted her eyelashes, smiled, and then moved off.

Jack shook his head and ran to his vehicle. He raised his radio. "Captain, we have to push it. Things are going to start going boom pretty soon."

"You think this is a waste of time?" Tomlinson asked Caretaker without turning around to face him.

They watched the engineers clearing the last of the debris from the entrance to the Empirium Chamber.

"I have no comment one way or the other, sir."

"Then why don't you go eat some cheese and drink a glass of wine with the others?"

"I have no taste for such things."

"Mr. Tomlinson, we are through the outer wall of the Empirium Chamber," the lead engineer said as he removed his hard hat and wiped sweat from his brow. "We have four men inside setting up some klieg lighting; we still may have a very unstable situation in there. In addition, we may have found another extensive cave system under the building. My echo-sound people tell me it goes down at least a mile and a quarter."

Tomlinson looked from the engineer to the set of twenty-foot-tall bronze doors that had bowed when the Empirium had collapsed. He could wait no longer. He ducked his head and entered the fifteen-thousand-year-old structure.

"Is he crazy? I told him it may be unstable," the engineer said to Caretaker as he approached the Empirium.

Caretaker's face was neutral as he looked into the blackness beyond the doorway. He had been watching Tomlinson closely ever since he had demolished his home in Chicago. The signs were small and had not been noticed by the others, but he had seen a change in the usually unflappable Tomlinson. When he spoke, his eyes moved too quickly from person to person, as if he was waiting for the first sign of disagreement from them. Caretaker believed that the pressure was mounting for the new Coalition leader. This seemingly obsessive desire to enter the old seat of the Atlantean government was just the latest. He smiled and looked at the engineer.

"Unstable may be the operative word," he said to himself as he followed Tomlinson inside.

The large lights cast eerie shadows on the broken columns and marble that lay crushed beneath most of the collapsed ceiling. A few of his archaeologists and paleontologists started filtering in to look at this marvel of history.

Tomlinson had to smirk when Caretaker ran one of his hands across an overturned marble table and grimaced at the millennia of dust.

"I always said you could never trust a man that didn't like getting dirty once in a while."

Caretaker did not bother to look at Tomlinson. "Is that what you say? Well, here is what I say: I believe you should be working on finalizing this last assault of yours and not out sightseeing."

"Can't you feel it? Where else but here could the power of this civilization be governed but the Great Empirium of Atlantis?"

"If we don't use the Wave soon, this just may be the only place you are allowed to govern."

Tomlinson knew that Caretaker was right. With his new feeling of rejuvenation, he looked around one last time at the Empirium Chamber, not noticing the skeletal form at his feet or the broken marble tile that hid the secret entrance to the underground world beneath.

Fifteen thousand years of leakage had formed long stalactites that hung from the high ceiling, each dripping with water that found a way in through course rock and magma from the Mediterranean, two miles above their heads.

Sarah and the other scientists back at Group had been right: in the three hours they had been in the great tunnel, Carl and his SEAL teams had come across numerous parts of the outer islands--the three great rings that had guarded the capital. There were large and small pieces of great columns, bathhouses, petrified trees, and roadways, all interspersed with giant deposits of ancient molten rock that made the landscape they had come across look like vast lakes of rippling water. The upheaval and death throes of this civilization had been of such violence that Everett could only imagine.

The inefficient lights provided them with horrific views of the cataclysm. Skeletal remains were everywhere, half buried or crushed by the very island they had lived on. It was as if the place had folded up and over the capital, and then the whole mass had sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

"Captain, you have to see this," the SEAL lieutenant said as he approached. "This operation is done."

Carl quickly saw the reason for his dire comment. Standing in front of them, blocking their way, were the entire outer edges of the city of Atlantis rising four hundred feet into the air. Their way was blocked.

The president was watching the C-SPAN coverage of the special UN meeting. He watched the Russian ambassador to the United Nations present their case.

As photos of the aircraft parts from the downed Boeing 777 were shown from an easel, he was reminded of the Cuban missile crisis, only this time it was the Russians who had the sympathy of the body politic. The president winced at the way his government had been set up.

"Our pull-back didn't convince anyone. All it did was corner our men into a tighter situation than before. Now we have a million refugees on the roads south from Seoul, clogging up reinforcements, and at the first sign of an offensive move, which I am compelled to order, the Chinese will rush across the border just like in 1947."

"We have to invite the Russians and Chinese in," Niles said, looking at the president.

"What?"

"Our KH-11 is over the Med; when we hit Crete, we have to get the Russians and Chinese to watch what's going on."

"What makes you think they don't have a spy bird over right now and just don't care what we're doing?"

"Because if they did, they would know our evidence is linked to what's going on. They're smart enough to see what is happening if it's right there before their eyes. Mr. President, if the Russians and Chinese really wanted to believe Kim or the evidence they have, they wouldn't wait, they would have hit us already. They want to believe us."

The president snapped off the television.

"You know what's happening better than anyone. If I can get you into a room with the Russian and Chinese delegations and get a live feed to you, can you convince them? I mean really convince them?"

Niles removed his glasses and shook his head. "I can sure as hell try."

Jack looked at the mountain of rubble before him strewn with giant boulders, parts of the island and most of a city or small village comprising its bulk. As he examined the wall before him, he even saw three of four ancient wooden ships.

"Before you ask, Jack, we don't have enough explosive for a quarter of that thickness," Everett said as he joined him at the blockage.

Collins looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes until the attack commenced. That meant that his element would not be able to relieve any of the pressure on the marines at the front door.

"I'm at a loss," Jack finally said.

Sarah was staring at the massive roadblock. She examined the rubble that lined the tunnel from top to bottom, where most of one section of the island had crashed through the crust and into the bedrock of the seafloor. She then noticed one of the giant stalactites that hung from a massive broken column. She tilted her head as she watched the runoff of seawater from above as it added to the mineral deposit.

"I know that look. It says either you have to go to the bathroom or you have a serious thought," Mendenhall said.

"Smart-ass," she answered as she continued to watch the runoff above her. Her eyes went to the roadway and then followed the water as it disappeared somewhere ahead. "Come on, funny man."

Mendenhall followed Sarah until they came to the inside wall of the tunnel. Sarah bent over, then went to her knees as she ran her hand over the broken cobblestone of the roadway thirty feet from the start of the blockage.

"These were a highly advanced people," she said.

"Yeah, advanced enough to blow their continent to hell."

"These tunnels were designed to run under the Med. What would they have to have installed to control the leaking? I mean, no matter what, if you tunnel under a body of water, you are going to have leaks. Just look at the Chunnel; the French and the British have major flood control built in."

"Yeah, but I don't get what you're driving at."

"Jack!" she stood and called out.

Collins saw Sarah thirty feet away and he and Everett trotted over.

"Make it quick, Lieutenant. In case you hadn't noticed, we have a major problem here."

"I think I'm aware of that. Carl, we have shape charges, correct?"

"No, but we have the training to create some conical charges, or directional explosions if that's what you need."

"Can we blow straight down?"

"Easy; but why would we want to?" he asked.

"I want to because I have faith in the engineering of the Ancients," she answered, looking from face to face of the men standing around her. "What does every major city, every highway, have that controls water runoff?"

Jack smiled and Carl slapped his forehead.

"A sewer! These smart bastards had to control the leakage you have whenever you tunnel under a body of water. Jack, we go through the sewers! We don't go through but under the blockage!"

Everett slapped the SEAL lieutenant on the shoulder and got him moving to bring up the explosives they would need.

"I guess we'll have to thank the Atlantis Department of Water and Power," Mendenhall said.

"Not bad, shorty, not bad at all," Jack said to Sarah.

The two B-2 stealth bombers made a wide turn to the south after their five-hour flight from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Their part of the mission would look as if the opening phases of the attack had originated in Aviano, Italy, a vital, imperative deceit.

"Casper One Actual to Casper Two, thirty seconds to launch point."

"Casper Two, copy, starting the music at five, four, three, two, one, bomb-bay doors opening on automatic."

Their bom-bay doors of the two giant aircraft, which resembled bats, opened to reveal a darkened interior. The automatic carriage that held each of the twelve Tomahawk cruise missiles started turning like a rolling lottery drum. At the bottom of each cycle, a BGM-109 Tomahawk Special radar-manipulation weapon fell free. As each engine ignited, the stubby wings and tailfin popped free of the outer body. A split second later, a strong signal started to pulse through the dark sky ahead of them. In all, twenty-four weapons shot through the thin air on a course for Crete.

"Casper One to Thunder One Actual, Heckle and Jeckle flight is now airborne. Casper One and Two, RTB at this time, good luck, Thunder One."

Marine General Pete Hamilton received the message from the lead B-2 and watched the night sky around the Iwo. The ship was coming to life in the early-morning hours. Tilt-rotor craft abovedecks along with sixteen Seahawk helicopters were spooling up their engines and the marine assault force was in the process of loading.

Belowdecks, the sea-assault force was loading onto the Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC). This would be a lightning strike. The LCAC was loaded with four fully manned armored assault vehicles, while the four M1 Abrams tanks would be deployed from the USS Nassau.

The general looked from his wristwatch to the captain of the Iwo.

"Order Cheyenne to attack," he said far more calmly than he felt.

One hundred feet below the surface of the Mediterranean, Captain Burgess received the extremely low-frequency message (ELF) from the Iwo.

"Weapons officer, you have permission to launch vertical tubes one through twelve, empty 'em out. Diving officer, after launch, take us down to four hundred feet, heading two-three-zero at six knots."

Flying at wave-top level, the flight of ten F-22A Raptors from Aviano, Italy, screamed over the Mediterranean at Mach 1.5. The internal weapons bay of each stealth fighter was full of air-to-ground munitions.

Tomlinson was personally overseeing the placement of the Atlantean Key. He was so excited that he could barely contain his feelings. He even looked kindly upon Caretaker and the other Coalition members as they watched the final parts being calibrated. His smile faded when he was handed a topside report.

"Twenty-four? I guess we don't rate any higher than that with all the trouble in the world. We were right: the Americans are spread too thin to adequately deal with us."

"What is it, Mr. Tomlinson?" Dame Lilith asked.

"It seems we have become a nuisance to our American president after all. Radar has picked up a force of twenty-four fighters inbound from Aviano. They're not even bothering to hide their presence."

"I see. And your plan for this is--"

Tomlinson looked at Caretaker and smiled. "To destroy them, what else." He turned away and raised his radio to his mouth, the whole time watching Professor Engvall install the Key. "Commander, defend the island; defend it vigorously, please."

Above, former Soviet Air Force General Igor Uvilinski lowered his radio and looked at the radarscope one more time.

"The SAMs will strike first and then our Migs will take care of any American that makes it out alive," he said, raising his field glasses to the camo netting three hundred yards away. "All air-defense units lock on to inbound targets and fire at will."

Around the center of the island, twenty-five SAM batteries fired, as each of their missiles locked on to an incoming warplane.

A hundred miles south, following the exhaust trails of the SAMs as they streaked through the sky to meet the foolish American pilots who so brazenly thought they could attack Crete without a fight, the lead flight of twenty Coalition MIG 31s based out of Libya saw the first of the antiair-craft missiles take out the first five targets. The lead pilot smiled under his mask. At this rate they would not have much to clean up.

As the flight leader watched the fighters break through the SAM screen, he became curious as to why they were not taking evasive maneuvers to avoid further contact--a decision that was very brave of them, but also very foolish.

"Lead, I have a visual on the targets. They are not American fighter aircraft--they are cruise missiles!"

The leader heard the call. He had been duped into believing that the cruise missiles were a fighter flight. As he thought this, he heard his missile-threat warning system go off with a piercing screech. He looked at his radar but it was clear. Where is this threat coming from? he asked himself.

At a hundred miles away from Crete, the flight of ten F-22A Raptors popped up from the ground clutter of the sea and fired off twenty AMRAMM missiles, then went low again and continued to streak toward Crete.

Before the lead pilot of the flight of MIGs knew exactly who and what was attacking them, AMRAMM missiles started to slam into the engines, wings, and fuselages of his squadron. The Americans had somehow enticed his men to attack what they thought was a poorly disguised flight of fighters, having their cruise missiles emit a high frequency "ghosting" as if they were manned aircraft, radar signature and all.

The pilot's next thought never made it to the formation of a question in his mind as the lock-on tone became even more insistent just as he finally saw the telltale radar-guided AMRAMM. The flight leader's MIG came apart exactly one minute after the attack had begun; after ten years of training and payment to an air force consisting of very well-paid mercenaries, the Coalition fighter squadron had ceased to exist.

As the MIG wreckage struck the sea below, a new and even more amazing sight graced the Mediterranean as twelve water slugs breached the surface one right after the other as the Tomahawk cruise missiles of the USS Cheyenne flew to a hundred feet before leveling off. The stubby wings, air intake, and rear stabilizers popped free as the missiles started their runs for the SAM sites that had been tracked by the Cheyenne when they launched against the decoy cruise missiles, their target being the Coalition air defenses.

The defensive SAM sites started tracking new targets. These were not giving off false radar bounces and they were anything but incoming aircraft. The commander of the SAMs knew that they were under missile attack. However, before he could give the order to target the Tomahawks coming from the Cheyenne, his radar commander called in ten new targets to the east of Crete and coming on at Mach 1.9--more than twice the speed of sound. The Coalition general knew that the Americans had outsmarted him. To split his remaining SAMs among the two incoming sets of targets was to guarantee that half of the bogeys would get through.

"Sir, the incoming targets to the east are intermittent, not a strong bounce-back. I suspect another trick," his radar officer reported.

Yes, the Americans made the mistake of showing their hand earlier, he thought. Obviously, the targets that had swung around to the east for the attack were nothing more than the same type of missile that radiated like a fighter signature. They hoped to fool them into firing on them again.

"Once too many times to the well," the commander said. "Target only the western bogeys, ignore the eastern threat."

As he watched, SAM after SAM lifted off its launch rails and streaked into the sky headed west. Almost immediately, the general started receiving reports that the incoming targets were being struck without evasive maneuvering. The general raised his field glasses and looked to the lightening western sky. He saw a sky burst as something went down in flames.

"How many targets have been destroyed?"

"Six--there are six still incoming!"

The general closed his eyes and lowered his glasses for a moment. He then brought them back up and looked into the eastern sky and saw, in nightmarelike slowness, that the aircraft he thought had been decoy missiles were actually fighters. The first of the ten F-22A Raptors, acting as a Wild Weasel antiradar attack plane, launched its missiles. He lowered his glasses again before the nine other, started launching their long-range ordnance. Right at that moment, the remaining six cruise missiles he had mistaken for manned aircraft screamed overhead and then air-burst over the SAM batteries. Then the first antiradiation Snake Eye struck the radar and command bunker.

The population of Crete, around 650,000 people, awoke to the tremendous explosions at the center of their island. The cruise-missile airbursts were an added bonus for the American commander. He actually did not think any of them would get through to their targets. The downward pressure of the warhead explosions drove the batteries into a crumpled heap along with the crews who operated them.

The ten F-22A Raptors tore over the island and fired on anything that moved. Either the Coalition troops were running around dazed or they made their way to the giant opening of the excavation.

The sound of helicopters came with the first rays of the sun. V-22 Ospreys and U.S. Marine hovercraft were making a run unopposed to the beaches of Crete.

The Second Battalion, First Marine Expeditionary Force (recon) was starting the land-assault portion of Operation Morning Thunder.

The special conference room had been set up at a moment's notice. The American ambassador had finally talked the delegations from Russia and China into attending, along with any military attaches they chose to bring.

As the live feed from one of the KH-11 satellites continued to show real-time visuals, the room remained silent as a tomb. The destruction in the opening moments of the attack stunned the gathered attaches and diplomats.

Five minutes later, Space Command reported that the Blackbird was drifting out of visual range of the battle and could not maintain the live feed.

"What you have just witnessed was an attack by Coalition forces on military units of the United States. A force you did not believe existed, a group that has made the United States look guilty at every turn in this very murderous game they are playing. Moreover, what is worse is the fact that we have intelligence that states they are going to strike your homelands within the hour. Earthquakes designed to destroy your way of life and take away any offensive military capabilities you have. They are going to make China and Russia so weak they will no longer be a threat to their long-range plans of dominating your societies."

The Russian ambassador silently stood and then looked back at the large screen on which he had just watched many people die. Then he nodded at Compton and left the room with his military attache close behind.

The Chinese delegation sat for a moment. The ten men did not exchange words; they only looked at Niles, gauging his words and watching for the moment when a lie would be detected in the American's face. Slowly, the ambassador rose to his feet, followed by his entourage.

"If you will excuse us, we have much to absorb and much more to discuss with Beijing. Thank you for our inclusion in this briefing."

Compton watched them leave and then harshly pushed a chair out of his way as he grabbed his coat. Their honesty seemed that it would only delay the inevitable.

The president would have to defend those boys in Korea, and Niles knew that this would mean the world would then go to war.

An hour later, Compton was sitting with the president and the National Security Council in the subbasement of the White House.

Niles thought it ironic that the two parties most involved in the conflict were both buried below ground and waiting for things to play out above. He also knew that the Coalition would not be content to wait things out--they were going to strike; and it looked as if Jack and his team wouldn't get to them in time to stop the Wave from unleashing its devastating effects.

On the large monitors placed at the four corners of the room, Marine Corps General Pete Hamilton was seen on a live feed from the USS Iwo Jima.

"Yes, Mr. President, the second assault wave is ashore. We have curtailed the Sea Harrier and Raptor strikes on the island for lack of viable targets. The civilian population has cooperated thus far, and I am using two companies of marines to safeguard the indigenous personnel. That will make the tunnel-assault force light, but we'll have to do it with what we have on hand."

Every man in the room had been impressed with how the plan had unfolded thus far, but the real nut remained to be cracked.

"Any report from Operation Backdoor?" Niles asked from his seat away from the table.

"None. Since we have had no contact, as operational field commander, I must assume they have not reached their objective, dictating that we attack the front door with everything we have."

Niles lowered his head in thought. Only he knew that Collins had never failed at a mission he'd set out to complete.

"Thank you, General. We had one last go at the Russians and Chinese and it looks like they'll have none of what we're selling. So, good luck and Godspeed," the president said as he ordered the satellite feed terminated.

"What's the latest from Korea, General Caulfield?"

"Still just the one spearhead has crossed the border. We have learned that the commanding general has finally crossed with them and is leading the assault. We have a mixed bag of intelligence, some saying that this general," Caulfield looked down at his notes, "Ton Shi Quang, is acting alone and against orders from Pyongyang. Other intel says he is acting directly on Kim Jong Il's orders. In any case, his spearhead will meet up with the Second Infantry Division's armored forces ten miles north of Seoul. Satellite imagery has given us a grim picture of what's to come. The North could cross with thirty-five divisions at any time."

"We all know I cannot let the South Korean government fall. The painful truth of the matter is that we are a prisoner of our own past. We would betray those that have died there in hot war and cold. Either we stop them any way that we can, or have those boys will be overrun."

The faces around the room could not bring themselves to look at one another. Niles stood in frustration and paced.

"Admiral Fuqua, do we have a capable sub in the area?"

Fuqua stood up and looked from Caulfield to the president.

"Yes, sir, USS Pasadena."

"She is carrying special ordnance onboard?"

"Yes, sir, she is."

"She is to stand by for orders." He looked at Niles and then back at his military advisers. "But first, I want every fighter from Japan, the carrier groups, and Korea in the air. Before I commit to a nuclear option, I want to hit them conventionally with everything we have. Simultaneous with the air strike, I want the Second ID to advance to meet the spearhead. Make up the orders. I want them on my desk confirming a nuclear-strike alert."

"Yes, Mr. President."

Niles closed his eyes. The words nuclear strike were out in the open.

Jack Collins was their last hope for peace.

Major General Ton Shi Quang had just received the orders he had forced his Great Leader into giving him: "Attack with all offensive forces under your command."

The Coalition's bold plan for North Korea was finally becoming a reality and was going to pay off far better than they had ever thought. Now he would order his army forward to crush Seoul and he would be far away by the time the Americans were forced to do what he knew they had to do. Long before the mushroom clouds started to spread along the border, he would be a thousand miles away.

"Order the armored spearheads to advance at all possible speed; they will now be supported by the whole of the People's Army and air forces. Also inform my helicopter pilot I will be touring the advance from the air."

After his aide left to give the order, the general looked around and was content. He nodded as he looked at the sand table once more as the small models of tank forces from both sides were very nearly converged.

"Too bad; I believe we would have had a fighting chance this time around," he said to himself as he pulled on his gloves and walked away from the People's Army forever.