Battle Born

CHAPTER FOUR

Welcome, Madam Vice President, Admiral Allen, and our other distinguished guests,” the Korean Air Force officer began in excellent English. “It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Republic of Korea’s most advanced tactical air control facility on the opening day of the free world’s largest multinational air combat exercise.”

Vice President of the United States Ellen Christine Whiting bowed amidst a polite round of applause. Attending the briefing along with Vice President Whiting was Admiral William Allen, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, the officer in charge of all American military forces between North America and Australia. Accompanying them were a few aides and the chief of the Vice President’s Secret Service detail, Special Agent Corrie Law.

After walking around the facility and meeting a great number of the men and women working there, the distinguished visitors were led through the heavily guarded hallways and the massive vaultlike steel doors to the master command room itself. A thin, fit but older South Korean general officer stepped before them, bowed deeply, then began: “My name is Lieutenant General Park Yom, and I am chief of staff of the Republic of Korea Air Force. It is my very great pleasure to welcome you and conduct this tour of our newest and best command and control facility, a technological marvel and a true sign of friendship and cooperation between our nations in the defense of the free people of the Republic of Korea.

“We are in the Master Control and Reporting Center, which is the main joint American and South Korean military air traffic control center for South Korea. All military flights over the Korean peninsula are handled from this place. In case of war, this would serve as the main command and control center for military air operations. We are sixty feet underground, protected by a total of twenty feet of reinforced concrete, one foot of steel, three inches of Kevlar armor, and over thirty feet of earth. The center can withstand all but a direct nuclear hit. It is impervious to the effects of a nearby nuclear blast, and it can filter out massive quantities of biological and chemical warfare toxins. There is enough generator power for two weeks, enough emergency battery power for seven days, and enough air, water, fuel, and food to sustain two hundred occupants for two months.”

General Park motioned to the twelve large full-color digital displays on the wall behind him, covering a four-hundred-square-foot area. “We combine data from radar sites, airborne radars, and warships into a composite image of all air traffic covering over three million cubic miles of space, including over the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan, the northern East China Sea, the entire Korean peninsula, and parts of Japan, China, and Russia.”

Then the guests were seated in a small auditoriumlike area behind two rows of radar controllers at their consoles. “You are seated at the battle staff area,” General Park went on. “The senior controller and the deputy senior controller sit there, as well as assistants and communications officers. The senior controller’s position is rotated between American and Korean senior field-grade officers. On one side of the battle staff is the Tactical Control Operating Team section, which are the American Air Force officers in charge of American military flights, and on the other side is the Korean Air Combat Control Team, which is in charge of all Korean military flights.

“Behind you are the workstations for thirty staff officers, representing all the American and Korean military services, the United Nations Command, and many government and civilian defense-related agencies, who take reports from field commands and units and pass them to the senior controllers. Behind the staff area is the support staff area, including weather forecasters, security, communications technicians, and so forth. Above you is an observation room, which can be manned by myself or any other high-ranking officials and where directives can be passed down to the senior controller. We shall go up there in a moment to observe the opening battles of today’s exercises.”

Vice President Whiting nodded. A former Miss America runner-up, an attorney, a former state treasurer, and former governor of Delaware, the forty-eight-year-old mother of two was comfortable and knowledgeable in every aspect of government and public affairs — except what she thought of as the military stuff. President Martindale was the military freak. Her job was to formulate budget policies and communicate with the people, and she did both very well. Guns, bombs, and radar just confused and frustrated her. She relied on a thorough prebriefing and common sense when dealing with military men, who always thought the world revolved around them.

“Very impressive, General,” Whiting commented. “It is very similar to the military command centers in the United States, but yours is much more modern and up-to-date.”

“As the Republic of Korea has been in a state of war almost since our beginning, Madam Vice President,” General Park responded, “we keep this place and all of our control centers and reporting posts in a high state of readiness and modernization at all times. It is a heavy price we pay to maintain our freedom and sovereignty in the face of the Communist threat, but a price we gladly pay.”

“Of course,” the Vice President said. She had a way of disarming men’s hearts with a simple look or a special lilt of her voice, designed to completely captivate, deflate, or gain empathy from those she encountered. But it rarely worked with senior military officers. Empathy, like defeat, was not in their emotional or professional lexicon.

“Our twelve ground-controlled intercept officers monitor and control all military traffic throughout South Korea’s airspace,” General Park went on. “Each controller is responsible for a sector. There are seven major sectors, one through six plus the North Zone. All military aircraft flying within South Korea need a clearance from us before they can even start engines.”

“I notice that the airspace we see doesn’t extend all the way to the Demilitarized Zone,” Whiting pointed out. “There is also a blank area around Seoul itself. Why is that?”

“In addition to the air traffic sectors, there are separate Korean controllers that monitor and control all traffic within the capital airspace complex, the Korean Buffer Zone, and the Korean Tactical Zone,” General Park replied. “The Korean Tactical Zone, otherwise known as Prohibited Area 518, is the area north of the air traffic sectors to the Military Demarcation Line, and it is the area from which Korean air defense units will respond to any border incursions first. The Buffer Zone is a five-mile-wide strip of airspace south of the Military Demarcation Line that acts like a ‘warning track’ to aircraft operating near the DMZ. The capital airspace complex is two rings, ten and five miles radius, centered on the Blue House. Warning shots will be made on unidentified aircraft that enter the outer ring, and any aircraft not cleared to enter the inner ring will be attacked without further warning and shot down. Although American forces can enter these areas, they are under the control of separate Korean-only controllers.”

General Park noted the Vice President’s troubled expression. “It is a small but significant token of our national sovereignty, Madam Vice President,” he said. “We depend on the United States for so much of our security. Both Americans and Koreans, working side by side, handle all other military air traffic and command and control functions. But as a matter of national pride, we have insisted that control of the frontier between North and South be held strictly by us. The control center is at Taegu, with auxiliary centers at Seoul and Chongju. I will be happy to show it to you at any time.”

“Forgive me if I seemed a bit concerned, General,” Whiting said apologetically. “I don’t mean to suggest that the United States must and should be involved in every facet of Korean defense. But after seeing almost everything else relating to defense in this country so ‘joint,’ it seemed unusual to see a Korean-only command center. I’m sorry to be so… so bigoted.”

“Not at all, madam,” Park said. Somewhat embarrassed, Whiting thought she detected a look on Park’s face that seemed to say “Yes, you are bigoted,” but she thought it best to ignore it.

“Today’s exercise will involve mostly the Republic of Korea Air Force, with a few American and Japanese air defense units participating as well,” Park went on. “Our objective is to try to blunt a sneak attack by the North as they mount a massive incursion into South Korea. The attack will commence just after dawn along the flatlands of the Han River estuary, the coastline, the Uijongbu highway, and the Munsan highway south toward the capital.

“However, this will be a feint. At the same time, a second sneak attack will be mounted by a simulated North Korean strike force in the east, traveling down the coast highway toward Kangnung. Therefore, the success of our forces will depend on discipline. They must not be distracted by the initial, obvious attack toward the capital and must remain vigilant along the entire frontier for signs of enemy invasion.

“The air attacks will take place in target complexes set up here, in Restricted Area 79 southwest of Osan, Restricted Area 124 in the Yellow Sea, and in Restricted Areas 30 and 31 northwest of Kangnung,” Park went on. “Each of these target complexes is surrounded by a military operating area and an air combat maneuvering area that are set aside to allow simulated air-to-air attacks. The South Korean bombers will have to rely on their fighter protection to clear a path for them into the ranges. Although every bomber will be able to attack a target in the range — after all, this is a training exercise — the exercise scorekeepers will determine which sorties would have actually survived the enemy air defenses and made it to their targets.

“A probability-of-damage score will be computed for each attacker, and the individual and composite scores will be presented at the mass debrief session at the end of the day. These scores will be used to determine what the scenario will be for the next day. If our forces do well, the enemy may be forced to throw more firepower at us. If our forces do poorly, we may lose bases and equipment. Although this is just an exercise, we will make it as realistic as possible so we can get some authentic, true-to-life training out of it.”

Park pointed to one of the large digital screens with a small laser pointer. “Here are our air bases from which we will launch the air attacks in the west,” he said. “Seoul, Suwon, Chongju, and Kwangju will each launch a sizable fleet of F-16, F-4, and Hawk fighter-bombers, along with F-5 escort fighters, against the enemy forces in the west. Japan has deployed a number of its MiG-29 and F-15 fighters to Suwon and Seoul, and they will provide air cover for our bombers as well. They are far more capable than our F-5 fighters. The American forces are not participating in today’s battle.”

“May I ask why, General?” Vice President Whiting said.

“The scenario we devised is based on actual American force doctrine,” General Park said, his tone flat. “This doctrine states that American air forces may not act except to defend themselves or by direct order of the President of the United States, no matter what happens to South Korea. In this scenario, no American forces will be threatened. We assume Washington would take time, at least a day, perhaps two, to analyze and respond to the attack. So involvement of U.S. forces in the first day of the Communist offensive is never factored in.”

Whiting turned a shocked face to Admiral Allen, silently asking “Is this true?” Allen looked at his Vice President with a pained expression, then said, “I believe the decision to commit our forces would come much, much sooner than that. But the general is… technically correct.” He added quickly, “However, our on-scene commanders do have considerable latitude to—”

“Depending on how well his forces do, our on-scene commander may choose to commit forces from Kangnung, Taegu, Kunsan, and Ch’unch’on to the western front,” General Park interrupted, cutting off Allen’s strained effort at conciliation. “If he does, he will not be able to stop the real enemy offensive in the east. The commanders have not been apprised of this scenario — it will be a true test of their discipline, skill, and professionalism.”

“How many aircraft will you launch today, General?” Vice President Whiting asked.

“The Air Force will launch almost half of our fleet of bombers and fighters — over three hundred planes,” Park replied. “The Army will launch perhaps one-third of its helicopters, another one hundred aircraft. The Navy will launch several P-3 Orion and S-2 Tracker patrol planes and a few dozen helicopters.”

“I’d say that’s pretty amazing,” Admiral Allen commented. “Our biggest war games launch perhaps half that number of aircraft.”

“What do the North Koreans think about you launching so many warplanes all at once?” the Vice President asked. “Aren’t they alarmed?”

“Of course,” General Park replied with a sly smile. “They warn us every year that conducting these exercises is tantamount to a declaration of war. Weeks ago, they announced that they have mobilized their forces, called up their Reserves, and are prepared to fight to the death.”

“That sounds serious to me.”

“We do not completely ignore these threats,” Park said, “but they are only threats. We are prohibited by treaty from loading weapons on more than half our planes, and we have United Nations observers at every base who count how many planes are loaded and report that number to the Security Council. But it actually makes little difference to the Communists. In years past we have completely canceled these exercises, yet the North still threatens war and refuses to negotiate a lasting peace. We have decided that preparing for war, demonstrating our readiness, and providing realistic joint training are far more important than the fear of inciting the Communists.”

“Everything we do seems to incite North Korea,” Admiral Allen agreed. “Besides, almost all of South Korea’s military forces are geared up for Team Spirit. It would be a bad decision to go to war now.”

“We are always ‘geared up,’ as you say, Admiral,” General Park said somberly. “But your point is well taken. We are always prepared for a sneak attack by the Communists, but tactically speaking we think now would be a foolish time for them to do so.”

General Park turned to Whiting and added, “As you may have noticed, Madam Vice President, after our national anthem is played at reveille and at retreat, we also recite a prayer for peace. Some airmen drop to their knees on the tarmac as they pray. But they will then climb into their planes and be just as anxious and just as fervent in their desire to kill the enemy and defend their homeland. That is the struggle we live with every day.”

“I’ve noticed,” Whiting responded. She wondered why Park had mentioned that. “General Park, how do you feel about war with the North? Do you want the peninsula reunited? If so, are you willing to go to war to do it?”

Park Yom hesitated, obviously uncomfortable with the question. “Please excuse me, Madam Vice President,” he said, “but I am not permitted to speak openly about such matters.”

“Anything you tell me will be in the strictest confidence, I assure you,” Whiting said.

Park gave her a wry smile. “I know enough about politics and government, madam,” he said, “to know that nothing a general says to a foreign leader could be held in confidence. It is your job, your duty, to divulge such things.” Park was right, of course. If something happened, or if Martindale asked her, Whiting would recount the entire conversation word for word. But she tried again.

“General, I really want to know — will South Korea go to war?” Park remained stone-faced. “It’s vital that we work together to protect your country and deter any aggression, General,” she went on. “Unilateral action can only lead to disaster.”

“War is certainly not desirable, Madam Vice President,” Park said. “True warriors abhor war.” There was a long, very uncomfortable pause. Then: “Do not be concerned, Madam Vice President.” Whiting felt a chill go down her spine.

Admiral Allen motioned to the computer screens. “It looks like some launches have already taken place,” he said. They all turned to the screens. Several white lines began tracking northward across the digital maps from the southernmost South Korean bases — Kwangju, Kun-san, and Taegu. “I didn’t think the exercise was kicking off for another hour or so.”

At that moment, Secret Service Special Agent Corrie Law answered a secure cell phone call, then told the Vice President that a call was coming in from Washington. General Park escorted the Vice President, Admiral Allen, and the others upstairs to the staff observation area, a large room whose windows overlooked the command center below, and left them alone. Corrie Law stood guard inside; a plainclothes U.S. Marine Corps sergeant stood guard outside the door.

“Professor here and not secure,” the Vice President said into the phone. It was a secure cellular telephone, and they were in a room at least partly owned and operated by the United States, but Whiting harbored no confidence that the room was clear of listening devices.

“Hello, Professor. This is Paramedic.” It was Director of Central Intelligence Robert Plank. The White House Communications Center must be stuck on job names this month, Whiting thought. “Enjoying your trip?”

“You know how much I enjoy military technology and the ever-present scent of impending war,” Whiting replied sardonically. “What’s up?”

“I hate to put you on the spot like this,” Plank said, “but we’re picking up some unusual communications activity. I don’t mean for you to act as a trained analyst or anything, but is anything… out of the ordinary there?”

“You’re right — it is pretty tacky of you to ask me a question like that, knowing that I’m a guest of the South Korean government and standing in their own high-security command center,” Whiting said. “But to answer your question — no, I haven’t noticed anything unusual. What kind of activity?”

“It’s probably all related to the Team Spirit exercise,” Plank said, but she could hear worry in his voice. “Lots of coded communications traffic that our military guys couldn’t decode — if it was part of the exercise, I’d think we would be able to decipher that. But it’s what we’re not getting that’s just as interesting as what we’re getting.”

“Which is?”

“Which is nothing much from North Korea,” Plank said. “Every South Korean military base is jabbering away using a new code, lots of activity everywhere — including lots of activity from units not involved in Team Spirit — but nothing from the North. Usually, the activity between the two is the same — one starts talking, the other reports it, the other reports that report, the other makes new reports, and so on until it finally subsides. Now South Korea’s comm traffic has substantially increased, but the North is virtually silent. Only simple ‘ops-normal’ messages from their command centers. A few units belonging to First Corps on the move here and there, nothing big. Just unusually quiet.”

“Well, everything seems to be ‘ops-normal’ around here,” Whiting said, looking around the observation room and trying to make sense of all the data displayed on the large computer monitors. She shook her head and gave up. “Anything else, Paramedic?”

“Have you seen President Kwon yet?”

“I’m not scheduled to meet with him until later,” Whiting replied irritably. “He wanted to give a little pep talk to some of his troops before the big mass takeoff. General Park has been showing me around.”

“Can you let me know when President Kwon arrives?”

This was quite enough. “Listen, Paramedic, I’m not in the mood for playing spy for you today. Everything looks normal around here. I’ll tell you as soon as possible if I notice anything unusu—”

At that moment, the door to the staff observation room was flung open, and the U.S. Marine guard, stunned but apparently not badly hurt, was pushed inside. Several South Korean soldiers rushed in after him, M-16 rifles at the ready.

Why is that train stopped?” Colonel Cho Mun-san shouted. “Never mind, I don’t care why. I want it moved within the next ten minutes or I will get some soldiers in here who can. Now move!” But even more black smoke poured out from under the locomotive pulling Unit Twenty, and Colonel Cho renewed his furious tirade each time another officer crossed his path.

It was not the first time Captain Kong Hwan-li had ever seen a Nodong-1 missile up close, but it always thrilled him to be so close to his country’s ultimate weapon. Although the missile was still in its canister in rail-march configuration, Kong could sense its power.

Unlike the missile he had been trained on, the old ex-Soviet 8K14 Scud-B, the Nodong-1 was North Korea’s first truly accurate land-attack ballistic nuclear missile. The FROG series rockets were unguided spin-stabilized weapons; the Scud series used simple gyroscopes, little more than toys, to keep the missiles pointed at their targets. Neither missile had an accuracy better than a thousand meters, and most times they were lucky to have it hit within two or three miles.

Not so the Nodong-1. It had a true inertial navigation system, which used computer-controlled accelerometers to actually sense the motion of the earth to help improve its accuracy. In fact, the warhead of the Nodong-1 had a better stabilization and steering mechanism than the most modern Scud model. Although the Nodong was still a liquid-fueled rocket, like the Scud, it used less corrosive and more stable propellants and was easier to service in the field. The Nodong-1 was carried aboard a railcar, loosely disguised to look like a standard commercial cargo container. A single locomotive pulled the launch car, a reload car that carried two more missiles, a maintenance car, a command car, and a security car.

Captain Kong marveled at the Nodong’s simple yet elegant design. He had trained on the Nodong-1 back at Cheung-son, North Korea’s nuclear development and training base, before he got his new assignment to Fourth Artillery Division headquarters. North Korea was developing even more powerful rockets, like the Daepedong-2—a rocket that could hit targets in North America with a fifty-kiloton nuclear warhead — but the Nodong was currently their best deterrence against capitalist aggression.

Unfortunately, this particular unit was not performing well at all. All of the Nodong rail units were assembled inside a huge covered shelter, along with a number of decoy units that were sent out onto the commercial rail system all at once. But just as Unit Twenty had cleared the shelter, a brake booster system failed. Trains were not easy things to stop once they got started. It was deemed too dangerous to try to back the unit into the shelter if the brakes were inoperative, and it would take several minutes to get another locomotive hooked up. So this unit was now exposed to the world, available for any enemy reconnaissance or surveillance satellite passing overhead to get a good look.

In fact, it appeared that most of the missile units deployed over the past few hours had irritating minor problems, which really disturbed Kong. Normally, the men of Fourth Artillery Division were the best of the best. Over the past several months, however, the quality of their performance had markedly decreased. Of course, morale was already at an all-time low because of the poor economy. While the military usually got the best, far better than the civilian population, these days even the elite units were suffering. This meant morale was bound to suffer still more, even among the best-trained and most highly motivated troops. This was the absolutely worst possible time to suffer a malfunction like the one they were witnessing.

“Weaklings,” Kong muttered. A bunch of malcontent soldiers bellyaching about not being paid. The People’s Army provided the best the country could offer. Everyone had to make sacrifices. Didn’t they realize who was responsible for the shortages and poverty? The capitalists in South Korea were deliberately sucking the life out of the North, to weaken it enough to make an attack easier and less bloody. How could the People’s Army soldiers not want to do their part to save their homeland — to strike back at those who were responsible for their families’ pain and hardship?

At last another locomotive appeared outside the thick steel security gate. There were not enough rail sidings to move the malfunctioning locomotive out of the way, so Kong assumed the new one would simply be hooked up to the existing engine and go on its way. He pulled out his walkie-talkie and keyed the mike button. “Taepung, this is Seven,” Kong radioed, using Colonel Cho’s call sign. Taepung meant “typhoon.” “I request permission to go to Unit Twenty to inquire about the new engine. I shall report to you what I find.”

“Proceed,” Colonel Cho responded. “Ppalli. Report back to me in five minutes.”

“Ne, Taepung,” Kong replied, and hurried over to the command car to talk with the battery commander. But when he was just a few meters away from the command car, Kong slowed, then stopped. Something was wrong here. There were no guards on duty. Thirty security guards were assigned to each Nodong battery, and four of them were assigned to patrol outside the command car while it was stopped. What in blazes was going on here? He sped over to the entry hatch and, as he reached it, heard several gunshots from inside.

Kong pulled his walkie-talkie from its holster and shouted, “Gunshots! Gunshots! Inside the command car!”

Just then the heavy steel entry hatch to the command car swung open, and several security guards and technicians jumped outside. One of them was shouting gleefully, “Freedom! Freedom!”

“What are you men doing?” Kong yelled. “Why aren’t you on duty?”

One of the guards shouted at him, “Don’t try to stop us now, lackey!” raised a pistol, and fired at Kong. He flinched as he felt the bullet whiz by his left shoulder, spun around, and threw himself on the muddy ground. He reached for his holster, finally controlling his trembling fingers enough to lift the flap and pull out his Type 68 automatic pistol. But the soldiers were long gone by the time he raised the pistol to return fire. Or had he moved slowly on purpose, hoping the security guards would think the shot had wounded him and leave? He didn’t want to think he had been cowardly… no. He was alive, and that was the most important thing.

“Attention! Attention!” Kong radioed on the walkie-talkie. “There has been an attack on Unit Twenty’s command car! All security forces, seal off the area and allow no one to leave or enter! Taepung, Taepung, please report to the Unit Twenty command car!”

Pistol raised, Kong made his way to the command car. It was wide open and completely unguarded. Cautiously, he made his way inside. There was a small chamber inside the outer hatch, big enough for two or three men. This was the chemical/biological warfare air lock and decontamination chamber that would alternately spray a soldier with decontamination fluid and then blow his body with compressed air to remove traces of toxins or radioactive fallout. He was shocked to see that the inner hatch was open too. Even after what had just happened to him, all Kong could think about was how serious a breach of security and anticontamination procedures this was — both hatches open while…

He could smell it before he saw it in the gloom of the command module. It was the stench of violent death: the putrid smell of feces and urine, the coppery smell of fresh blood, all mixed with the acid smell of gunpowder. The battery commander, his deputy commander, his noncommissioned officer in charge, and the communications technician — all were dead, still in their seats, with bullet holes in the backs of their necks just under the edge of their helmets.

“What in the name of heaven?” Colonel Cho shouted, arriving breathlessly at the command car, a Type 64 Browning pistol in his hand.

“Traitors,” Captain Kong said. “Traitors to their uniform and their fatherland. The security troops appear to have turned against us. They slaughtered the battery commander and the command car crew.”

“In the name of Tangun, help us,” moaned Colonel Cho, invoking the name of the mythical warlord of ancient Korea.

Kong saw he was frozen in confusion and said, “Sir, we must establish contact with the rest of the division immediately.” He stooped down and retrieved large silver keys from around the commander’s and deputy commander’s necks. Thankfully, the traitors hadn’t thought to remove the missile launch keys from their victims. He gave one to Cho, who held it the way a child holds a fuzzy caterpillar for the first time — both scared and fascinated. “This uprising could have been organized throughout the command,” Kong warned. “We must make contact with as many missile batteries as possible and assess our operational status.”

“I… I do not know… We must contact headquarters…”

“There is no time!” Kong shouted. “Our first priority is to preserve our missile batteries from the enemy — especially if the enemy is within our own ranks. We must contact the division.”

Cho seemed utterly bewildered. Kong ignored him and started dragging bodies out of the command car, shoving Cho out of his way as he did so. The colonel did not protest. When he finished the bloody task, Kong went back to the battery commander’s seat and got on the scrambled command net: “To all Fourth Artillery Division batteries, to all Fourth Artillery Division batteries, this is Taepung.” Again, there was no protest from Cho when he heard Kong use his call sign. “We have been attacked by traitors and spies. All brigades, report status.”

It took little time for the reports to filter in because very few units responded. Kong estimated he did not hear from one-half to two-thirds of all companies. He was stunned. More than 180 missile batteries, representing one-sixth of the offensive and defensive might of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, were off the air.

Kong soon found out why. When he switched over to the division security net, which linked the security forces of all deployed missile units, he heard: “Now is the moment to rise against your oppressors, fellow Koreans! Brothers, strike now! Your comrades to the south are moving to join you in your struggle for freedom and unity, once and forever! The borders are open, comrades! There is no longer a Demilitarized Zone. Korea is free! Korea is one! Now strike! Rise up against any who oppose peace, freedom, and unity. Strike against any, no matter what uniform or title they wear, who continue to oppress and starve their own in the name of mindless ideology. Disable all weapons of mass destruction, carry your personal weapons for self-defense, and march on the capital and bring down the repressive outlaw regime once and for all! You are not alone! Hundreds of thousands of others throughout Korea are with you!”

Captain Kong Hwan-li was horrified. Capitalist propaganda — right on the division’s security network! He switched channels to Unit Twenty’s brigade command net and heard the identical broadcast. To his astonishment, the message, obviously on a continuous-loop broadcast, was being sent over several communications networks, both secure and nonsecure.

No… not a recorded message. Several times the message was interrupted by live broadcasts. Units he could identify, all within Fourth Division — even some officers whose voices he could recognize — were reporting that they had taken control of their companies or battalions and were disabling their weapons and moving toward Pyongyang. Hundreds — no, thousands—of soldiers were defecting. He heard no officers higher in rank than captain. Some of them bragged about killing Major this or Colonel that — battalion and brigade commanders. There was talk of moving on the capital…

Kong shut off the radio. This was impossible. It had to be the South, somehow broadcasting propaganda messages on the secure division comm net and persuading the soldiers to defect or to desert their units en masse! Kong refused to believe that the soldiers were acting of their own free will, or in the hope that they might actually unify the peninsula. There had to be some hidden signal in the broadcast altering the men’s minds, brainwashing them into actually killing a superior officer and leaving a nuclear or biochemical missile on the field.

“What is happening, Captain?” Cho asked, as if awakening from a deep slumber.

“The capitalists have somehow brainwashed our soldiers into believing the borders have been thrown wide open and they should kill all the commanders and storm the capital,” Kong replied. “I heard reports that several high-ranking division officers were killed or imprisoned by the traitors.”

To Kong’s surprise, the old colonel’s shoulders started to quiver. “We must get away,” he said, sounding on the verge of tears. “We… we should take a civilian vehicle and… No, we should take a military vehicle, go cross-country, try to make it to the Ministry of Defense or to First Corps headquarters. We will find help there.” In between sobs, Kong heard him mutter, “My name… my good name… what is to become of me?… my retirement…”

Kong was repelled. All the old fool could think about was his pension and his reputation — whether his name would be remembered, forgotten, revered, or defiled in the minds of future generations.

“It might be dangerous to go to Pyongyang, sir,” Kong said. It pained him to call this man “sir.” Instead of commander of a twenty-thousand-man ballistic missile division, Cho had turned into a trembling, fearful old man. “If the reports of traitors marching on the capital are true, we won’t make it. Our best bet is to try to head north, away from the capital, to Sinuiju or even Kanggye.” Sinuiju was the capital of the province of Pyongan Pukdo; it was right on the Chinese border, and there, Kong reasoned, they would find plenty of support and help from Communist Party supporters and the Chinese Army itself. Kanggye was the capital of Chagang Do province and the headquarters of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons facilities, probably the most secure and defensible base in North Korea. “If we can find an all-terrain vehicle, we can stay off the roads in case we encounter more deserters.”

“Very well, Captain,” Cho said. “Find us a suitable vehicle with fuel and weapons. And deal harshly with anyone who tries to stop you.”

Well, that was the first bit of backbone the old fart has shown in a long time. “Of course, sir,” he said. “But first, we must deactivate the missiles. Unit Twenty has one missile in its erector-launcher and one reload; Unit Seventeen is just a few kilometers away. It will be easy to—”

“No!” Cho shouted, his eyes spinning in fear. “We will leave right away!”

“Sir, we must deactivate the Nodong missiles,” Kong said. “If this is part of an invasion, we cannot let our live missiles fall into enemy hands. That would be a complete disaster!” He saw Cho was going to continue arguing, so he quickly added, “Sir, all I have to do is activate the missile’s thermal battery without processing a launch command. In just over five minutes, the battery will discharge, the missile’s onboard computer will be rendered useless, and no one will be able to launch it. The battery cannot be recharged — the missile must be completely dismantled to charge the battery. Impossible to do in the field. It is the fastest way to keep a live missile out of enemy hands, so it cannot readily be used against us.”

Cho still looked dazed. Deciding to act, Kong jumped off the deck of the command car to head for the launcher. He heard a weak “Wait, Hwan!” behind him — the first time that he could remember Colonel Cho using his given name — but kept moving. Gunshots cracked behind him. He hunched down automatically and dodged left toward the side of the command car for cover, then turned. The shots were coming from Colonel Cho — the idiot was shouting and firing at the sky! Kong couldn’t tell what he was yelling over the noise of the gunshots and the roar of fighter jets…

Fighter jets! Kong looked up to where Cho was blasting away just as a small, sleek, single-engine fighter roared overhead. To Kong’s shock, it was not a Chinese or Soviet-made fighter — it was an American-made F-16 fighter-bomber! It was low enough for Kong to see it was heavily laden with all sorts of external weapons; he could make out two large fuel tanks, two large missiles, racks of smaller gravity weapons, smaller missiles on the wings, jammer pods or datalink pods under the fuselage, and smaller missiles on the wingtips. Seconds later several more F-16s that looked similarly equipped streaked by a few miles farther east. The jets were flying no more than a few thousand feet above the ground — but well out of range of Colonel Cho’s futile pistol shots.

Of course, Kong knew exactly what they were — they were well briefed on South Korean military hardware: F-16C/Js, the capitalists’ newest and most formidable weapon system. Each one carried two antiradar missiles that would home in and destroy surface-to-air missile-tracking radars. They also carried cluster bombs to destroy the missile launchers or any other soft targets they might encounter. Once their air-to-ground weapons were expended, each F-16C/J could transform into an air superiority fighter, with its 20-millimeter cannon and two radar-guided and two heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. The fuel tanks gave the F-16 very good range and loiter time.

But what Kong found most disturbing in the sighting was that all the F-16s still had all of their antiradar missiles onboard. They were over a hundred miles north of the Demilitarized Zone — they had probably overflown the capital, Pyongyang! — yet they had not fired their antiradar missiles. How was it possible for all those enemy fighters to fly so deep into North Korea yet not have to fire one attack missile or drop a single bomb?

Then came several loud explosions in the distance. He’d jumped the gun — the F-16s were indeed attacking. Kong didn’t know what the target was, but it appeared to be on the main base itself, on the west side — possibly division headquarters. From the sound, they were using five-hundred-or thousand-pound bombs, not cluster munitions. It was almost certainly the headquarters building. Cut off the communications, and the division was instantly deaf, dumb, and blind. They could easily…

Wait. What if all communications weren’t yet cut off? Just because the division’s comm nets were being disrupted by the traitors didn’t mean the entire People’s Army defense network was shut down! There might still be a chance…

Kong ran back to the command car. He had tried all the division nets, trying to communicate with the brigades and battalions and assess the status of the division. He never tried “Fire Dragon.” Fire Dragon was the nationwide command channel direct to People’s Army headquarters in Pyongyang and rebroadcast throughout the country by extreme low-frequency transmitters that were immune to the electromagnetic pulse generated by nuclear explosions. Fire Dragon had one main purpose: to transmit the execution order for a nuclear, chemical, or biological warfare attack.

As he suspected, Fire Dragon was still on the air — and it was indeed in use. Kong heard a long string of letters and numbers. He pulled out a decoding book, listened, and waited. He must not start copying a coded message until he was sure he was copying from the beginning. When he heard the words “All units, all units, I say again…” he started copying. At the end of the long message, he pulled out the decoder documents, found the proper date-time group page, and began decoding.

As he suspected, it was an execution order. Pyongyang was ordering its forces to attack. The decoded message contained the launch order, a launch authenticator code for the computer — and a warhead fusing enable code. The order was simple: all units, all weapons, fire at will, reload, fire at will, reload, fire at will. He hurriedly rechecked his work, but he had done hundreds of launch decoding exercises and had never made a mistake with such a deadly, dreadful task.

Kong retrieved the commander’s checklist. He wiped out all awareness of the stench of death and the treason he had heard, and set to work. The panel was undamaged, and full power came on instantly.

Moments later Colonel Cho came running into the command car. “The missile! The missile!” he screeched. “The launcher has been raised! It appears to be in firing position!”

“It is in firing position, old man,” Kong said. With a shaky finger, he dialed in the launch authenticator code. It was immediately accepted, and the three-minute countdown commenced. He also immediately received a fault message, telling him the hatch to the command car was open — as a safety measure, the computer would not process a launch until the command car was secure. The countdown would continue, but if the command car wasn’t secure, no launch would take place, and after five minutes the missile would dud itself. “Come in and close the door, Colonel,” he ordered.

“What are you doing, Captain?”

“I am preparing to launch my missile,” Kong replied. “I have received a valid launch order. I intend to launch all of Unit Twenty’s missiles, then proceed to all of the units I can find and launch their weapons too.”

“I ordered you to find me a vehicle so we can escape to Kanggye,” Cho said. “Forget about firing the missile. That is not our responsibility.”

“Our nation is under attack, Colonel,” Kong shot back. “I have received a valid launch message, and I intend to carry it out. I need you in the deputy commander’s seat, Colonel. You must help me launch the missiles. Just do as I tell you and—”

“And I order you to stop this nonsense and find me a vehicle!”

In a fit of rage, Kong leaped out of his seat, grabbed Cho, punched him in the stomach, threw him into the deputy commander’s seat on the other side of the console, then closed and latched both hatches. Only momentarily did he feel a flash of regret and shame for striking or even touching a superior officer and an elder — acts that went against everything Koreans were taught from birth. But this nation’s survival and defense were more important than the whinings of a gutless old man.

“Colonel, you must — you will help me carry out the attack order,” Kong said. He inserted the commander’s and deputy commander’s launch keys into the locks, then pulled Cho up so his face was right next to the key switch. “When I give the word, you will turn the launch key. You must do it at the same instant as I do, within a fraction of a second, or the missile will dud itself.” After the countdown was initiated, as a security and safety measure the keys had to be turned within two seconds of T minus zero, and they had to turn simultaneously. Launch crews spend time every week practicing this procedure. It was very unlikely that this whimpering old man on the verge of a breakdown could do it properly.

Cho, half collapsed against his seat, sobbed like a child. “Do you understand, Colonel?” No response. Kong pulled out his sidearm and aimed it at Cho’s head. “Do it, Colonel, or I will put a bullet in your brain and end your miserable, cowardly life right now.”

“I can’t… I won’t do it,” a weeping Cho protested. “I want to get out of here. I want to go home…”

“Your home—our home — is being destroyed by the capitalists and their American puppet masters right now,” Kong shouted. “The only way to save our homeland is to stop the South, and the only way to stop them is with our missiles. Now put your hand on the key and turn it when I give you the signal!”

“No! No, I cannot—”

“I will kill you if you do not do as I say!” Kong burst out, the muzzle of the gun quivering. “Put your hand on that key!”

“Kill me!” Cho shouted. “Kill me! If I cannot go home, you may as well end my miserable life right now!”

Twenty seconds to go. Time was running out. Kong had only one thing left to try. “Sir, I neglected to tell you,” he said, his voice now calm and soothing. “Headquarters left a message for you. They are ready to award you a fine pension and recognize your value to the fatherland. They are going to retire you with full military honors, sir.”

“A… a pension?” Cho said weakly, finally turning toward Kong. “A full pension? Upon my retirement?” Color began returning to his face, and he straightened up in his seat. “I am to be awarded a pension and a full retirement?”

“With full military honors,” Kong said, “as befitting a commander so loyal and dedicated to the fatherland.” He motioned to the code book, with the decoded launch execution and weapon pre-arming codes in it. “This is the last order you will be given, Colonel. Your last official act. Do as I say, and the Glorious Leader himself will pin the Star of Honor on your chest. He has even authorized a passport and travel if you wish: Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Tripoli, even Havana.” Kong glanced up at the countdown clock — shit, less than ten seconds to go! “Ready, Colonel? Your last act before your retirement. Turn the key to the right when I tell you. I will say ‘Ready, ready, now’ as I bob my head, and when I say now, you turn the key. Do you—”

Suddenly, a tremendous series of explosions shook the command car, followed by the sound of a jet fighter screaming overhead. The string of bombs sounded as if a giant were running toward them, and then one of the giant’s boots kicked the command car. A five-hundred-pound bomb exploded just a few feet outside it, sending both men flying into the bulkhead from the impact. Cho screamed.

Kong picked himself off the deck and looked over just as Cho shouted, “Damn you all for condemning me to Gobscurity forever!”—and turned the launch key.

Kong’s hand shot out to his own key switch. It would not be simultaneous but… He turned the key. It worked! The missile launched! The roar of the Nodong-1 was a hundred times louder than the bomb that had just exploded outside. Kong checked the system readouts and was pleased — they showed a fully pre-armed warhead and a fully aligned heading and navigation system. The missile was alive and tracking perfectly. He had done it! He immediately hit the PRELOAD command switch, which automatically moved the transporter-erector-launcher assembly to its preload condition and also commanded the second Nodong missile to raise up to load position, then he hurried outside.

The Nodong missile was long gone by the time Kong made it outside the command car — all he could see was a trail of white, acid. It arced across the sky toward the southeast, so he knew it was on course. Then he checked the progress of the reload and knew he would be launching no more missiles. The nearby bomb explosions had damaged the car containing the reload missile; white and orange smoke — the missile’s fuel and oxidizer — was beginning to billow out. By the time the reload missile itself was visible, its corrosive fuel had all but leaked out. It would set itself on fire, perhaps even explode, in minutes. Unit Twenty was effectively dead. Nothing else to do but find another missile — or escape into friendly hands.

“We did it!” he heard behind him. Colonel Cho leaped off the steps of the command car and ran over to Kong. “We launched her! You and me, Captain! Our job is finished. We obeyed our orders and did as we were told, and now it’s time for our reward.”

“Yes, sir,” Kong said. “Time for your reward.” He pulled out his pistol and put two bullets into Colonel Cho’s chest, then one more into his brain after he hit the ground.

Special Agent Law’s mini-Uzi was in her hand in an instant, but before she could reach the Vice President or level her weapon, several South Korean special forces soldiers burst into the observation room. All of them carried M-16 rifles at port arms — at the ready, but not leveled or aimed at anyone. General Park was right behind them, standing in the middle of the doorway. He now had a sidearm strapped to his waist, but the weapon was not drawn. Law raised her weapon…

“Wait, Corrie,” Vice President Whiting shouted. “Don’t shoot!”

Everyone froze. Corrie Law could have easily mowed down every South Korean in the room — with the soldiers’ weapons visible, the threat was clear and present, but there was no way they could defend themselves in time. They could see the cold, dead look in Law’s eyes: no fear, no hesitation, no mercy. Her gun muzzle did not waver. If the Vice President gave the order, they knew she would open fire and put a three-round burst into each one of them before they had the chance to get into a firing stance.

“Put your weapons down on the floor now or I will fire,” Law shouted.

“What’s going on there, Ellen?” CIA Director Plank asked on the cell phone.

“Don’t, Corrie…”

“I said, put your weapons down!” Law repeated. She raised the Uzi so she could use the sights; the muzzle tracked every movement of her eyes as they caught the slightest motion of the soldiers. Law maneuvered herself between the soldiers and the Vice President, then positioned her back behind a console so no one could get a clear shot at her. Summoning the only bits of Korean she knew, she shouted, “Mit ppali! Down quickly!”

“What’s going on here, General?” the Vice President asked. She held the cell phone behind her back, pointed outward against the chance Plank might pick up the conversation. “Why do you have soldiers in here? Are we your prisoners?”

“No, Madam Vice President,” General Park replied. “You are our guests, and a witness.”

“Witness? Witness to what?”

“Close your telephone connection with Director Plank and I will tell you,” said a new voice. And Kwon Ki-chae, the president of South Korea, entered the room. He ordered the soldiers to lower their weapons and leave; General Park remained.

Vice President Whiting raised the still-active phone to her lips. “I’ll call you back, Bob.”

“What in hell’s going on there, Ellen?”

“President Kwon and General Park want to have an urgent parley with me, in private. I’ll call you back.” “Urgent parley” was a code phrase for “The situation here is tense; have help standing by.” She pushed a button on the phone, closed it, and slipped it into an inside jacket pocket.

General Park issued some instructions by radio in Korean and then turned to Whiting. “All wireless communications from this facility will be jammed now, Madam Vice President,” he said. “It is for our protection.” It was obvious he knew that the Vice President had activated a function on the phone that kept the line open and transmitted a locator signal.

“Jamming our locator signal could be considered a hostile action, General,” Whiting said evenly.

“Discussing activities inside our country’s most secret command and control facility with the Central Intelligence Agency could also be considered a hostile act,” General Park said. “As you Americans might say, that makes us even stephen.”

“Please be seated,” President Kwon said, motioning to a chair. He gave Park an order, and the Air Force general immediately unbuckled his holster and handed the weapon over to Special Agent Law. “I promise, we mean you no harm.”

Law immediately went over to the door and tried it, keeping both Kwon and Park covered with her mini-Uzi; it was locked. “So we are your prisoners,” Whiting said. “We can’t communicate, and we can’t leave.”

“You will be free to leave in a very short time,” President Kwon said. “But first I invite you to watch history in the making, unfolding right before your eyes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“May I?” Kwon asked, motioning to the large windows overlooking the command center to indicate to Law where he was going to move. He went over to the windows with Whiting. General Park took a seat behind the communications console. “The culmination of years of planning, a year of intense preparation, months of espionage and infiltration work, and hundreds of billions of won. The expense almost bankrupted us, especially with the financial downturn throughout Asia in recent years. We lost many fine men and women to the Communists, on both sides of the DMZ. We are about to witness the fruits of their sacrifice.”

“Mr. President, what’s going on?” Whiting asked. “What are you planning to do?”

General Park said something in Korean, and Kwon nodded with a broad smile and what sounded to her like a muttered prayer. “Our first units are approaching the coastline,” Kwon told Whiting. “The Eleventh Patrol Squadron out of Inchon has the honor of leading the attack. Their call sign is ‘Namu.’ The counterjammer aircraft will be inbound sixty seconds later. Their call sign is ‘Pokpo.’”

“Attack?” Admiral Allen exploded. “What attack? You mean the exercise attack?”

“The Eleventh is an S-2 Tracker maritime patrol unit, flying one of the slowest and most vulnerable planes in our inventory,” General Park said. “However, these planes have been modified as tactical jamming aircraft. They will shut down all of the Communists’ search radars between Haeju and Kaesong. They are being followed by F-16KCJ aircraft carrying HARM antiradar missiles. Any Communist radar that attempts to counter the jamming will be destroyed. A similar attack is commencing from the west toward Nampo and Pyongyang itself, from the east toward Hamhung and Hungnam, and from the south at Kimchaek and Ch’ongjin.”

“This is crazy! This is suicide!” Vice President Whiting exclaimed. “Won’t the North Koreans see those planes coming or see the jamming on their scopes and warn the rest of their defenses? They might start a retaliatory strike the second they notice all this happening. They might be starting an attack of their own at this very second!”

“In fact, Madam Vice President,” General Park said, “the Communists issued the first attack warning over fifteen minutes ago.”

“What?”

“It is virtually impossible to fly anywhere within two hundred miles of North Korea without some Communist radar site detecting you, whatever your altitude,” General Park said calmly. “The Communists start tracking our aircraft almost from the moment they are launched. When our planes were within ten minutes’ flying time of their airspace — the amount of time it takes the slowest North Korean fighter pilot to get off the ground — the early-warning radar sites issued a warning to all other air defense sites throughout North Korea. The warning was relayed to the Military Command and Coordination Facility at Sunan, near Pyongyang.”

“But if the North Koreans know you’re coming, why in heaven’s name are you doing this?”

“Because, Madam Vice President,” President Kwon replied, “the North Korean Central Command Facility issued instructions to all installations to continue to monitor the aircraft but to take no further action. They then issued an ‘ops-normal’ message to military headquarters in Pyongyang.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because, madam, it was a United Republic of Korea officer who issued those orders. Or, to be more precise, a North Korean patriot, working together with South Korean military assistance officers. The North Korean military command and control headquarters at Sunan, such as it is, belongs to North Korean patriots who desire nothing else but the reunification of the peninsula under a free, democratic government. They have decided to shut down the Communists’ military machine and allow us to assist them in destroying the most dangerous elements of it.”

At that moment a Klaxon went off in the observation room, and red revolving lights started blinking everywhere. On the public-address system they heard: “For Namu Two-Five, for Namu Two-Five, and for Pokpo Three-Eight, for Pokpo Three-Eight, this is Airedale, Hot Dog Hot Dog Hot Dog. Turn to heading one-five-zero immediately. Acknowledge.”

Both General Park and President Kwon started to chuckle. “I have always thought that was very amusing,” Kwon said. Whiting stared at him. Total chaos was breaking out in the command center, and these two men were laughing through it! “The code words you Americans invent for serious situations such as this are very comical. What a refreshing sense of humor you people have.”

“What is going on?”

“Perhaps you do not know what this Hot Dog message means?” Kwon was surprised. “How little you know of the things you have put in place in our country that we rely on every day for our lives and our freedom. The Hot Dog warning is issued whenever an aircraft violates the Buffer Zone. It is supposed to warn our aircraft of unintentional overflight. ‘Airedale’ is the senior American battle director, whom you met down below in the command center.

“The warning is actually issued quite frequently, usually due to radar anomalies, jamming or decoying by the Communists, or by accident — an overzealous pilot, a new pilot trying to find landmarks, or one who is distracted from his work. Many innocent causes. The North calls them all preludes to war and declarations of war and demands an apology and reparations. Such demands are ignored, of course.”

They heard the Hot Dog call repeated many times, with several more call signs. Then there was a commotion on the floor of the command center, and they saw South Korean soldiers enter and head for several of the American officers and technicians.

“What’s going on down there, President Kwon?” Ellen Whiting asked. “I demand to know.”

“The American officers in charge of protecting and directing air traffic in South Korea are obviously upset because they issued a command to the South Korean pilots heading toward North Korea, and our officers would do nothing to stop them,” General Park answered for Kwon. “They are being restrained before they can call for any American aircraft to scramble to try to stop them.”

“They’re hurting them, for God’s sake!” Law protested. There were at least three South Korean soldiers around each of the Americans, who were struggling to free themselves.

“Do not worry, Madam Vice President,” President Kwon said, reading Whiting’s thoughts. “As you can see, none of my soldiers down there are armed with anything more than batons. We have no intention of hurting any of your people. They are only trying to do their jobs.” A few scuffles broke out, but the Americans were quickly hustled out and replaced by Korean technicians. In a matter of minutes, the only Americans left were in the observation area.

A few moments later the Klaxon sounded again. This time they heard: “Jack Rabbit, Jack Rabbit, Jack Rabbit, this is Guardian on Guard. All aircraft evacuate P-518 immediately.” The controller then read off a date-time group and a coded authenticator.

“‘Jack Rabbit’ is the warning that a border violation has just occurred,” General Park explained. “‘Guardian’ is the call sign of the American Airborne Warning and Control System radar plane that monitors all air activity across the Korean peninsula. P-518 is the Tactical Zone, the area south of the DMZ where unidentified aircraft will be shot down without warning. The general officer aboard that aircraft is the fourth in command, behind the joint forces commander, the Korean tactical control director, and the American battle director. Since no warning of a border penetration was ever sent from this headquarters, it became Guardian’s responsibility to issue the warning. Obviously, we cannot do anything to stop those onboard your radar plane. The cat, as you Americans say, is out of the bag.”

Vice President Whiting watched in fascination. The computer screens now showed several tracks northbound across the DMZ, from the Yellow Sea all the way across the peninsula to the Sea of Japan. It was a coordinated launch of several dozen units, timed to perfection — they crossed either the DMZ or the coastline inbound to their targets at almost exactly the same instant. At the same time, several more tracks began moving northward from other South Korean bases.

“Mr. President, General Park, you must call a halt to this right away,” Admiral Allen said. “Sir, you cannot hope to stage this attack without a forceful and possibly disastrous retaliation from North Korea, China, or both. You cannot hope to cripple North Korea’s armed forces enough to prevent a counterattack. At last analysis, the North has stationed half a million troops within sixty miles of the DMZ. Your Air Force can’t possibly hope to stop them all.”

“Admiral, it is not our intention to completely destroy the Communists’ military forces,” President Kwon said. “As you so correctly point out, that would be a costly and dangerous operation. General, please explain to the Vice President and the admiral.”

General Park bowed to President Kwon, then turned to Whiting and Allen. “President Kwon rightfully stated that our intention should not be to reunite the peninsula and the Korean people by force, but to create the proper atmosphere, the proper conditions, for a revolution to take place in the North. The reason there has not been a people’s revolt against the oppressive, brutal Communist dictatorship is that members of the military who belong to the party are rewarded with the basics of life — food, clothing, shelter, and security — for brutalizing and repressing their own people.

“The organizations responsible for this brutality and repression are the forty Spetznaz units, comprised of special operations battalions and Naval Infiltration Squadrons. These units were designed to operate inside South Korea, but the internal security and counterintelligence organs within the Korean Communist Party use them for internal security, counterespionage, and intelligence-gathering inside North Korea itself. They are brutal and bloodthirsty mongrels whose task it is to seek out and destroy the enemy using whatever means possible. They have created an atmosphere of fear inside North Korea that has stifled free thought and free expression for almost three generations.”

General Park motioned to the large computer screens in the observation room, which were repeaters of the much larger presentation screens on the command center stage. “The active, reserve, and paramilitary forces of the Korean People’s Army total about seven million, or about one-third of the entire population,” he went on. “The army pervades every aspect of life inside North Korea. But of that massive number, only about one hundred thousand are party members or members of one of these elite terrorist units. Through our intelligence and infiltration methods, we have identified the top ten units and their locations — two naval infiltration groups, two special forces paratroop air wings, four Spetznaz battalions, and one terrorist infiltration training and operations battalion.

“In addition, we have targeted the headquarters and barracks of the Eighth and Ninth Special Corps. The Eighth Special Corps is President Kim Jong-il’s personal protection unit, and the Ninth Special Corps is the unit designated to hold and defend the streets of Pyongyang against rioters, insurrection, and invasion. As I said, a total of one hundred thousand troops. They are in twelve general target areas — two naval bases, two air bases, five army bases, and within the capital of North Korea itself. We have no illusion that we can kill all of them, of course, but we think this will create the spark that can bring down one of the planet’s last Communist dictatorships.”

“What about the other six million nine hundred thousand fighters?” Vice President Whiting asked incredulously. “You dismiss them because they’re not Communist Party members, but they’re still trained to fight and they’re indoctrinated in Communist ideology almost from birth. Are you just going to ignore them? What about North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction — their biological, chemical, and nuclear warheads? How can you plan such a limited attack as this and simply ignore the size and power of the forces that you haven’t decided to attack?”

“Because I trust my intelligence officers and the defectors who reported their findings and observations to me,” President Kwon said. “These patriots all told me the same thing, and it has been checked and crosschecked and triple-checked over many months: the North is desperate and is willing to do anything, even trigger World War Three in a nuclear holocaust, to break the cycle of poverty, starvation, and despair.

“From our sources, we estimated that ninety-five percent of the nation was suffering the effects of the corrupt, paranoid, power-mad regime. Ninety percent of the nation had not been paid in over three months, and seventy percent hadn’t been paid in over a year. Sixty percent of the nation had no electricity, running water, fuel oil, or sanitary facilities for three or more days a week, every week of the year. Unemployment was at fifty percent. And forty percent of the population, forty percent, ate less than one thousand calories of food a day. Infant mortality is twenty percent in the countryside, ten percent in the cities.

“We knew war could not be far behind. War could do many things for the Communist government. It would give the people someone to hate other than their own government. It could give them a reason to fight, a reason to live, or at least a reason to leave the squalor. It could force the West to send aid, even if they were defeated. At the very least, it promised a quick end to their suffering. A bullet between the eyes, a bomb dropped from far above, a cruise missile launched from hundreds of miles away — even the millisecond flash of a nuclear explosion and the briefest sensation of the heat of the fireball. All would be preferable, less painful, than staying at home watching your children die of cold and starvation.

“And if the North struck first, Madam Vice President, our findings told us that we would suffer the loss of Seoul and more than five million people. And there would still exist the possibility of a thermonuclear exchange that could end our nation and even our race. But if we struck first, and struck quickly, we might have a chance of cutting off the serpent’s head before its coils could reach out to us. With the internal security and enforcement apparatus of the party destroyed, perhaps the people could rise up and throw off their Communist slave masters once and for all.”

Vice President Whiting shook her head. “You are living a pipe dream, Mr. President,” she said, clearly upset. “You’re risking your life, your people’s lives and freedom, everything you’ve built and accomplished over the decades, for a fantasy, a fairy tale. The price of failure is almost too enormous to comprehend. You’re also risking the lives of thousands of American servicemen stationed here who know nothing of this folly of yours. You’re risking the peace and security of Asia, of the entire planet.”

“No one knows better than I what we risk, Madam Vice President!” Kwon retorted angrily. “But I and my government could not sit idly by and wait for the Communists to send their chemical terror and armies and tanks across the frontier. China would certainly follow in support of her little puppet. I would rather fight on our terms than on the North’s.”

“That sounds like something North Korea would say to justify an invasion of South Korea!” Admiral Allen said sardonically.

“The difference, Admiral, is that we do not seek the death and destruction of the North — we only seek to trigger the inevitable revolution that we feel must occur in Communist Korea. We recognize the stakes are high, but such a task is so important to our future, our peace, our survival, that we dare even the safety and security of Asia to bring it about.”

Kwon paused, looking hard at Whiting and Allen. “Frankly, madam, I am not sure whether our American allies would risk their own peace and freedom to save us. I think in order to avoid another nuclear confrontation, President Martindale would watch and wait until the North Korean forces were stretched too thin and the bulk of the Red Chinese Army was committed, and then decide whether or not to intervene. By then, my country would be ravaged. The entire peninsula, the whole Korean race, would be enslaved. We would again become the eternal battleground, a bone fought over by the Americans and the Chinese dogs of war.”

General Park spoke in a low voice to the president in Korean, and Kwon turned to the monitors. Special Agent Law whispered to the Vice President, “Ma’am, I think we can get out of here if we want to, but with all that’s going on…”

“This may be the safest place for us, after all,” Vice President Whiting said. “I agree.”

“But I wish we could contact Washington,” said Admiral Allen.

“We’ll do it right now,” Law said firmly. She went over to the director’s console and picked up a telephone. Someone responded in Korean. Law held the receiver up to President Kwon. “Tell the operator I want to be connected to the White House Communications Center immediately.”

“Mian hamnida. I am sorry, Special Agent,” Kwon said, “but I cannot allow any outside communications at this—”

Corrie Law raised her mini-Uzi, pointed it directly at the President’s face, and said, “Mr. President, you will never live to see whether or not your plan succeeds if you don’t order this operator to put the Vice President of the United States through to the White House in Washington, D.C., right now. I will not allow the Vice President to be treated like an insignificant nobody.”

Kwon was startled. He had never experienced a subordinate taking the initiative like this, especially without a command from a superior. But he nodded politely. “Mullonijyo. Chamkanman kidaryo chuseyo. Of course. Please wait a moment.” He took the receiver, gave a command in Korean, then handed the phone back to Vice President Whiting with a formal bow. “Please. But do not be long, madam. History will be made in the next few minutes.”

It took only moments and a few coded authentication phrases, and Whiting’s call was routed directly to the phone on the Oval Office desk. Courteously, President Kwon and General Park went over to the observation windows to allow her a modicum of privacy.

“Ellen, good to hear your voice,” President Martin-dale said, his voice filled with relief. “I just got the call from Bob Plank about your coded message. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Mr. President,” Whiting said. “I’m still in the Master Control and Reporting Center at Osan Air Base. I’m with Admiral Allen, General Park of the Korean Air Force, and President Kwon.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Mr. President, President Kwon has just informed me that he has initiated an invasion of North Korea.”

“What?”

“It’s under way right now,” Whiting went on. “President Kwon and General Park briefed me in detail. They have apparently infiltrated many North Korean command, control, and communications facilities to the point where they were able to shut down most of that country’s early-warning, air defense, and command networks. His planes are crossing the border as we speak. All of the planes he was going to use in the Team Spirit exercise are going to be used against the North.” Whiting’s voice broke for a moment. “Mr. President — Kevin — this is… frightening. I’m afraid. The war is on and we don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

“Ellen… Ellen, don’t worry,” Martindale said as calmly as he could. She knew what the President was just realizing: if the Chinese or North Koreans retaliated, that command center at Osan would probably be their primary target — and, faced with a massive invasion, it was very possible that either side could use chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. China had certainly showed its willingness to use nuclear weapons just two short years ago. “I’m calling in the entire staff right now,” the President said quickly. “We’ll all be right here with you from now on.”

“Do you want to talk with President Kwon or Admiral—”

“I don’t want to talk with anyone or do anything else but be with you on the phone, right here, right now,” Martindale told her. “Try to relax. Talk to me. What’s going on in there?”

“Nothing… I mean, Jesus, Kwon and Park are watching the computer screens and chatting like a couple of guys watching a baseball game on TV. I can see dozens of lines moving north across the border. Lots of them heading toward Pyongyang, but most going after a base just north of Seoul. I… I can’t believe how calm these little bastards are…” Ellen Whiting stopped, her eyes wide in surprise, then she bit down on her right index finger. “Oh God, Mr. President, did I just say what I thought I said?”

“Ellen, stop calling me ‘Mr. President’ for once, okay?” Martindale said. “The name’s Kevin, remember? And they sure as hell have given you a reason to call them some names, haven’t they? I think you deserve to call them any name you goddamn feel like calling them right now.”

“I… oh shit, oh shit…”

“Ellen, what is it?”

“I… dammit, my knees are knocking!” Whiting cried. She broke into laughter. “I can’t believe this! I’m so scared, I’m shivering so much, my knees are knocking! I always thought that was a figure of speech or a cartoon thing. I guess your knees really can knock if you’re frightened enough.” She paused for a moment, then asked, “Are you going to leave Washington, Kevin?”

“I’ll discuss that with Philip, Jerrod, and Admiral Balboa as soon as they get here.”

“It might be a good idea…”

“I told you, I’m staying right here,” Martindale said. He raised his voice so everyone else in the Oval Office could hear. “I’m giving a direct fucking order — I’m staying right here! End of discussion! Oh, good, Jerrod’s here already… Jerrod, the staff meets right here, in this office. I’m not putting this phone down until I know the Vice President is safe… I don’t care if we can transfer the call to Air Force One or the NAOC. I’m not putting it down.” Whiting knew that NAOC, pronounced “kneock,” was the National Airborne Operations Center, formerly known as the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, a heavily modified Boeing 747 that allowed the President to command and control American military forces all over the world — even launch ballistic missiles if necessary. In 1992 the NAOC had been placed on standby status at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska; but after the China nuclear conflict, another one was stationed on round-the-clock alert at Andrews Air Force Base, ready to evacuate the National Command Authority — the President, the secretary of defense, and other national defense officials — from Washington.

“Admiral, I want a company of marines on their way from Seoul or Inchon to retrieve the Vice President and get her out of Osan, and I want it now,” Whiting heard the President order. “Do it with the ROK’s cooperation, but you are authorized to use whatever means necessary to secure her and her party’s safety. Is that understood?” Whiting heard the most enthusiastic “Yes, sir!” she had ever heard from Admiral George Balboa. “You still there, Ellen?”

“You’re sending the marines in after me, Kevin?” she asked, managing to smile through the fear.

“Damn right I am.”

“I think that would be very dangerous, given all that’s going on…”

“It’s their job, Ellen. Let them do it. I know a couple of jarheads who would gladly take on the North and South Koreans just for a chance to grab onto you, haul you over their shoulders, and whisk you off to freedom.”

“Sounds very romantic.”

“And I thought you hated military guys.”

“I do. But I love heroes. Doesn’t matter what they’re wearing. Any uniform, any flag… or nothing at all.”

“Hey, you’re starting to sound like me,” the President said. “Laughing and making crude remarks in the face of… of…”

“Imminent nuclear annihilation?” the Vice President finished the sentence for him. There was a long pause, then a heavy sigh “Yeah,” she said, “I guess you are rubbing off on me a bit.”

“It’s about time,” the President said.

“Mr. Presi — Kevin,” Whiting said hesitantly. “I should tell you how I feel about you. I want to tell you, I have always…” Then she stopped.

“Ellen? Always what?”

“Something’s happening down in the command center,” the Vice President said nervously. “A lot of excitement. Yelling, screaming… I can’t tell what they’re saying, what’s happening… General Park, what’s going on? General…?“There was a long pause; then… “My God, no! Oh my God! Kevin! It’s happened! Kevin, we’re—”

And the line went dead.

The sleepy little coastal city of Kangnung, population 130,000, is the largest city and the main transportation hub on South Korea’s east coast, and culturally one of the most vital and important places in all of South Korea. The city is the home of one national treasure, twelve lesser treasures, and hundreds of artifacts, ancient sites, homes, and properties, some dating back three thousand years. It is the home of one of the nine sects of Silla Buddhism and also of several famous Confucian scholars.

The site of one of Kangnung’s three ancient Buddhist temples, Hansong-Sa, is only four kilometers from the city’s Central Market and just outside Kangnung Airport, on the coast south of Anmok Beach. Although there is now a modern temple there, it was the site of a two-thousand-year-old temple from which two marble seated Buddha statues were taken, both of which are priceless national treasures. One statue is on display in the Kangnung Municipal Museum; the other is in the National Museum in Seoul.

As important as the national treasures are to all Koreans, even more important now were the military units at Kangnung Airport, located between Han-song-Sa temple and the Sea of Japan. In case of war with the North, it was the duty of the Fifth Air Division of the Republic of Korea Air Force to protect South Korea’s rear flank, while most of the other air and ground forces would assist in the defense of the capital. Fifth Division had three air wings located at Kangnung: the Fifteenth Attack Wing, with almost a hundred American surplus A-37B Dragonfly light close-air support fighters stationed there; the Twenty-first Attack Wing, with forty-eight British-made Hawk Mk60 light fighter-bombers; and the Seventeenth Fighter Wing, with American-made F-5E/F Talon fighters.

Located just thirty miles south of the DMZ, Kangnung had an important role in protecting Seoul from an attack from the rear and preventing any Communist forces from gaining a foothold in the Taebaek Mountains. Some of the bloodiest battlefields of the Korean War had been just northwest of Kangnung — Old Baldy, the Punchbowl, and Heartbreak Ridge, among others. The Koreans and their American allies created a massive air fighting force at Kangnung to assure complete domination in this vitally important northeast region.

All that was about to disappear.

Of one hundred and fifty-one operational nuclear-armed Nodong-1 and-2 ballistic missiles in North Korea, only twelve launched that morning. The missiles had a maximum range of over twelve hundred nautical miles, but no missile flew farther than four hundred miles. All the missiles aimed at Seoul were intercepted by American Patriot PAC-3 antiballistic missile systems, as were the missiles aimed at the American air base at Kunsan. One warhead exploded just a few miles west of Inchon, causing massive damage to that vitally important port city.

One Nodong-1 missile missed its intended target by over two miles, but with a fifty-kiloton-yield warhead onboard, accuracy was not that important. The warhead exploded over the Central Market District of Kangnung, flattening everything within three miles and creating an immense fire storm that engulfed the entire vicinity as far south as Kwandong University and as far north as Kyongpo Lake. Everything above ground level at Kangnung Airport was either swept out to sea or exploded into a ball of flame, and its ashes blown out into the Sea of Japan.

The Nodong-1 missile fired from Unit Twenty near Sunan flew only one hundred and fifty miles, barely far enough to exhaust its first-stage fuel supply before ejecting its warhead. It, too, missed its intended target, in fact by several kilometers — but it hit the edge of the city of Suwon, twenty miles south of Seoul, destroying one of South Korea’s largest industrial complexes, the immense Samsung Electric group in the southeast section of the city. The bulk of the blast missed the Republic of Korea Air Force base south of the city, but the blast’s overpressure destroyed or damaged several other key companies and universities. The fifty-kiloton-yield nuclear warhead detonated twenty thousand feet in the air, digging a thirty-story-deep crater in the earth and instantly incinerating anything within three miles of ground zero. Almost fifteen thousand persons died in the fireball, most of them at work at the Samsung complex; another thirty thousand died in the fire storm and overpressure. Although air raid and attack sirens had been activated throughout South Korea, few had a chance to reach an underground shelter.

Although the blast was more than ten miles away, it felt like a direct hit to the occupants of the Master Control and Reporting Center at Osan Air Base, located south of Suwon. The entire structure shook and rolled as if in the grip of a magnitude-eight earthquake. The lights snapped off, replaced immediately by emergency battery-powered lights. Several of the large computer monitors down below the observation area shattered and imploded. Technicians leaped from their chairs and took cover under desks and tables as pieces of debris fell from the ceiling.

Vice President Whiting had never been in an earthquake before. It was chilling. The room vibrated back and forth, then rolled underneath her feet as if the floor were a mat of rubber floating on the ocean. The vibration lasted for fifteen or twenty seconds before and after the roll. Whiting was paralyzed with fear. Where could she go? What could she do? She was trapped in the grip of a force so powerful that she could not comprehend it. Her right ankle twisted under her body in the violent shaking, and she cried out.

Special Agent Corrie Law did the thinking for her. She pulled the Vice President under a desk, then blocked the open side with her body. But the observation room was solidly built, and little fell to the floor. The emergency lighting worked well. The large angled windows overlooking the master command room below wavered and buckled like soap bubbles, but they did not break and send glass shattering down.

In a minute or so, the shaking subsided. The air now smelled musty and very dry, as if filled with a thin misting of dust. Agent Law’s face showed deep concern as she looked at the Vice President coughing. “Are you all right, ma’am?” she shouted.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Whiting replied. She looked into Law’s worried eyes. “You’re shouting, Corrie. Take it easy. Help me up.”

“Sorry,” said Law in a lower voice. Her strong, wiry arms pulled the Vice President to her feet.

“That Marine Corps training kicks in when something like this happens, eh?” Whiting asked with a wry smile.

“I guess so,” Law replied sheepishly. “I was in an earthquake once, in Turkey. A whole building collapsed on top of us.” She looked around. “This place looks spotless compared to that.”

She and Whiting looked out over the battle staff and support staff operating areas. The place was in surprisingly good shape. The computers and consoles were dark, but they were surprised to see that the phones were still in use. As they watched, Korean technicians were busily rolling out huge mounted charts and large transparent greaseboards, setting up for monitoring the emergency the old-fashioned way, before computerized maps and real-time data feeds.

General Park came over to them. “Are you all right, Madam Vice President?” he asked. He looked unfazed himself, as if his command center got jolts like that every morning.

“We’re fine,” Whiting replied. “Where’s President Kwon?”

“Down there, I am sure,” Park replied, motioning toward the observation windows. Sure enough, they saw the president of the Republic of Korea, with two armed guards nearby, walking in front of the general staff positions, checking on them; it was clear he was exhorting them to find out what had happened. They saw the startled looks on the staff officers’ faces as they realized their president was standing before them, and how quickly they scrambled back into their seats and picked up their telephones.

“I suggest we go downstairs, Madam Vice President. Communications are limited right now, and we will be able to hear the information as it comes in.”

Officers and technicians had a second shock at the sight of the Vice President joining them in the battle staff area moments later. Seats were quickly found for them. Whiting had Admiral Allen on one side and President Kwon on the other, with Corrie Law behind her and one of the marine guards in front of her. General Park was crouched on the floor, wearing a headset and listening to his senior officers and controllers as they reported in to him. When the briefing concluded, he turned down the volume and stood up.

“Here is the information as we know right now, Mr. President, Madam Vice President,” he began. “The Republic of Korea was attacked with perhaps as many as a dozen thermonuclear devices and several dozen chemical or biological warfare weapons, and several hundred shorter-range high-explosive missiles.”

“My God,” Whiting murmured. But when she turned to look at President Kwon… she actually saw him smiling!

“I must further report,” Park went on, “that the Republic of Korea has suffered staggering losses. The city of Kangnung, a city of over one hundred thousand on the east coast of the peninsula, may have been completely destroyed. The city is the home of our largest air division guarding the capital from the east. The city of Suwon, just ten miles north of us, was hit by a single nuclear device. It was not a direct hit — the weapon exploded several miles to the east of the city, probably directly over the Samsung electronics manufacturing complex — but casualties are already estimated at over sixty thousand. Seoul was hit by three, possibly four, weapons dispersing unknown toxic substances. Inchon, Taejon, and Taegu were also hit by chemical or biological weapons. A single nuclear explosion was detected near Kunsan, thirty miles southwest of Taejon. Casualties are unknown at this time.”

Vice President Whiting looked at President Kwon and could not believe her eyes — the smile on his face had given way to sheer delight. “Excuse me, Mr. President,” she said. “I cannot understand what you’re so… so happy about. Your crazed stunt led to an attack that may have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians!”

“Believe me, Madam Vice President, I am not celebrating,” Kwon said. “But you must understand: the Communists had enough firepower on alert and ready to respond to kill every living thing in South Korea ten times over. If it is true and we were hit only with a few nuclear warheads out of possibly hundreds, or a few dozen chemical warheads out of literally thousands, it means our outreach program worked. The common man in the North, the conscripts, the everyday workingman and-woman, have decided to join us and throw off their Communist overlords. A few nuclear explosions, a few thousand martyred souls: this is a small price to pay when it could mean the end of Communist rule on the Korean peninsula and blessed reunification! A small price, indeed.”

We see it too, Mr. President,” President Kevin Martin-dale said. He was on a four-way conference call with three other international leaders: Minister of National Defense Chi Haotian of the People’s Republic of China, President Yevgeniy Maksimovich Primakov of the Russian Federation, and Prime Minister Kazumi Nagai of the Republic of Japan. All three world leaders called into the White House nearly simultaneously, and each call was taken immediately and merged without permission from any of them by the White House Communications Center.

“President Martindale, this is President Primakov,” came a translation. “I must have assurances that this is not a prelude to a full-scale attack against North Korea! I demand it! Respond, please!”

“I am telling you, Mr. President, and all of you: the United States has no idea what’s going on over Korea, and I promise you, we are in no way involved,” Martin-dale said. In the brief time since the four-way call was established, this had to be the second or third time he had made that statement. With Martindale in the Situation Room were Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain, National Security Adviser Philip Freeman, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral George Balboa, along with backup aides and interpreters. They had all quickly moved to the Situation Room, an ordinary-looking room in the basement of the White House, when the call from Vice President Whiting was cut off.

“No American forces are involved, none!” Martindale insisted yet again. “We have radar surveillance planes over the peninsula and one carrier battle group in the Yellow Sea, but except for normal patrols, we have no aircraft whatsoever involved in this situation! I repeat, we have none!

“Listen very carefully, please, all of you: this situation appears to be an outbreak of hostilities between North and South Korea only. Our sources indicate that South Korean warplanes crossed the Demilitarized Zone first, and that North Korean rocket and artillery forces retaliated.”

“Then you admit the South is the aggressor!” Chinese Defense Minister Chi exploded. “You admit that this hateful act was an attempt to destroy the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea! You admit that this act of treachery is the fault of no one but your own allies, the South Koreans!”

“Mr. Minister, I admit nothing — I’m saying that our observations agree with all the others that have been reported, that it appears that South Korea started the conflict by crossing the Military Demarcation Line first,” Martindale said.

“Our information also says that the South Korean air attacks used only nonnuclear air defense suppression weapons, not nuclear or bio-chem weapons,” Prime Minister Nagai interjected. “North Korea has responded with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons launched by medium-range ballistic missiles. Their response was clearly far out of proportion to the threat—”

“What did you expect — that the North Koreans would use flyswatters and harsh words to scare the South Koreans away?” Minister Chi retorted. “The South Korean aircraft overflew the capital with attack aircraft. The North’s response was completely justified.”

“And what will be China’s reaction to this conflict?” President Primakov asked, his intense, rapid-fire tone muted by the translator’s monotone. “Will China continue to bomb its neighbors, as you did two years ago? Will you now continue your moves against Taiwan and the Philippines?”

“And what of Japan, Mr. Minister?” Prime Minister Nagai asked. “Is this just a feint to cover an attack upon our homeland?”

“If provoked, yes, we will retaliate!” Minister Chi shouted in English. “If Russia or the United States tries to advance into North Korea or if any Chinese territory is threatened in any way, yes! Yes, we will fight with every weapon and every last man.”

“Hold on! Everyone, hold on!” President Martindale shouted. “It’s clear to me that none of us is involved in this conflict—”

“It is not so clear to us,” Minister Chi interjected.

“I am telling you, the United States is not involved in this!” Martindale said sharply. “We are not involved. This fight is between North and South Korea. If any of us gets too trigger-happy, we’re bound to touch off a world war.”

“I find it hard to believe, President Martindale, that you have several thousand troops stationed in South Korea, plus several thousand more taking part in a large air combat exercise there, and you knew nothing about this sneak attack against North Korea,” Chi Haotian said angrily. “Do you really expect us to believe that?”

“It’s the truth, Mr. Minister,” Martindale said. “American forces are in just as great danger as the civilians on both sides. Do you think I’d keep them in harm’s way if I knew such an attack was going to take place? Don’t you think I’d have at least launched my aircraft to give them a better chance to survive? You confirmed our own air defense radar observations: only South Korean planes are airborne and crossing the DMZ, not American planes. Few of my ground units are reporting to me now, but my airborne surveillance commander assures me that no American forces at all launched with the South Koreans. In fact, I have lost contact with my American commanders in South Korea — apparently, all the command centers are being manned only by Koreans now. All American commanders are off the air.”

He took a deep breath, fought to calm his voice, and said evenly, “Listen very carefully, President Primakov, Prime Minister Nagai, Minister Chi. The United States is not going to invade North Korea or anyone else. I promise you this. It is very important that we all remain calm, remain neutral, and not mobilize any of our forces in response to this conflict. This appears to me to be a Korean squabble. Let the Koreans handle it.”

There was silence on the line for a very long time. Martindale was about to say something to make sure it was still open and clear when he heard President Primakov’s voice and then the Russian translator: “What is the disposition of your strategic forces now, Mr. President?”

“American nuclear forces are on normal peacetime alert — that’s DEFCON Four,” Martindale replied. Actually, “normal” alert was DEFCON Five. But after the Chinese nuclear attacks against Taiwan — and the fact that no one officially knew who detonated the nuclear device under the aircraft carrier USS Independence in Yokosuka Harbor — the United States went back to DEFCON Four, which was the readiness state it had maintained during most of the Cold War.

A year later, however, in order to defuse the tense international situation, the United States unilaterally decided to remove all of its land-based intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles from their silos and put them in storage, and also remove the nuclear weapons delivery capability from all its combat aircraft. This effectively equalized the number of nuclear warheads among the major powers. Martindale had received much criticism at home for the move, but it did serve to calm the fear that a new Cold War was emerging. “The only nuclear-capable forces we have on alert at this moment are our sea-launched ballistic missile submarines — no land-based missiles, no aircraft,” President Martindale said. “Not even our stealth bombers. It’s the same force structure we’ve maintained for the last two years. I’ll tell you all again: the United States does not want war with anyone, of any kind, especially a nuclear war.”

“Then you must tell President Kwon to recall his air forces from North Korea and cease all hostilities,” Chinese Defense Minister Chi said. “The United States may not be directly involved, but such an attack could not have been possible without substantial assistance from the United States. It is therefore vital that the United States withdraws all such assistance and compels the South Koreans to withdraw their forces.”

“I can make that request, Mr. Minister,” Martindale said wearily, “but I’m telling you again, the United States is rendering no assistance to the South Koreans. None whatsoever. I’ve attempted to contact President Kwon but have been unsuccessful — no doubt communications have been disrupted by the North Korean nuclear detonations, and they’ll surely be down for quite some time. But you can monitor the status of American forces around the world, and you can see for yourself that we have not changed the readiness of any of our forces and have not activated the Reserves. I’m asking all of you to do the same.”

“Are you saying we should not defend ourselves?” Japanese Prime Minister Nagai asked angrily. “This we will never agree to, sir!”

“I’m not saying don’t defend yourselves — just don’t mobilize any counteroffensive or strategic units until all of us can analyze what’s happened on the Korean peninsula,” Martindale responded. “Don’t move any troops in response to a situation that does not exist.”

“And what of the American military forces in South Korea right now?” President Primakov asked. “You do not expect us to believe you will do nothing to protect them?”

Kevin Martindale took another deep breath, closed his eyes, let it out slowly, then said, “I promise all of you, I will not move one aircraft, not one vessel, not one soldier, not one weapon onto the Korean peninsula. The Washington carrier battle group will stay to help evacuate American personnel, including Vice President Whiting; they will launch aircraft and deploy their vessels for self-protection and humanitarian purposes only. I will do this as long as I detect no Chinese, Japanese, or Russian forces moving in any way toward the Korean peninsula. If I get evidence of any military movements, I’ll respond likewise. But until that happens, I will not move any more forces into Korea.”

“But what of the South Korean aircraft over North Korea?” Minister Chi retorted. “Will you not order their withdrawal?”

“Both countries, North and South Korea, have a responsibility to defend their homeland and pursue whatever military objectives they deem necessary,” Martindale replied. “I will try to contact President Kwon and President Kim. But these two divided nations have been spoiling for a fight for almost fifty years now. I think it’s about time we step aside and let the two of them duke it out.”

“What kind of logic is this?” Prime Minister Nagai shouted. “What if the North continues to bombard the South with nuclear warheads? What if they decide to launch missiles against Japan? Or to begin an even bigger barrage against the South? Will you not strike back? Will you not support your allies in South Korea or Japan?”

“Our forces in the region will try to protect our allies as best we can, Mr. Prime Minister,” Martindale responded. “It was your decision to remove all American military forces from your soil — we must now both deal with the consequences of that decision. But the only way to ensure that this conflict does not spread into a global thermonuclear war is if all outside countries stand aside, defend themselves, and let the battle in Korea go on. If the South is destroyed — well, they started the fight, and hopefully they can deal with the consequences.”

Martindale did not even bring up what might happen if the North lost the fight — the idea that North Korea’s three-to-one numerical advantage over the South would fail to protect them was inconceivable. South Korea’s military was supposed to be defensive only in both size and composition — it was almost laughable to imagine the South capable of more than knocking out a few key bases or weapons sites, then withdrawing to its own borders. It would have to preserve its forces, reorganize, and await the North’s counteroffensive, hoping the Americans would step in to back them up.

“You will not support your allies the South Koreans?” President Primakov asked incredulously. “If they beg and plead for your help in the face of a massive North Korean onslaught, will you not defend them?”

“I can’t say what we’ll do, Mr. President,” Martin-dale replied. “But the South Koreans have engineered this conflict without consulting us. It is an act of aggression that we do not encourage, support, or condone. I want to preserve the peace and stability of Asia. If it is in our best interests to act, we’ll act.”

It was a flimsy response, wishy-washy, and Kevin Martindale knew it. But there was no way to answer Primakov’s question without giving away more than he wanted to. He was trying not to provoke any of the superpowers while at the same time show that the United States still considered the region of vital American national interest. It was very possible that he failed to convince any of them of anything.

What was President Kwon Ki-chae thinking? Martindale wondered. Had he lost his mind, sending in a few fighter-bombers to destroy North Korea’s million-man army? He had to know he would have to absorb some punishment — he could not be so stupid as to believe he could destroy all of the North’s missile punch in one blitzkrieg air raid. If he was expecting the Americans to come to his aid no matter what, he was dead wrong to have assumed that.

“Brave but cautious words,” Russian President and former KGB chief Yevgeniy Primakov said finally, through his translator. “You ask for peace but give us a veiled threat at the same time. You are willing to sacrifice a few thousand soldiers, hoping you can prevent several hundred thousand Chinese soldiers from sweeping down into the Korean peninsula to help the North.”

“What are you saying, Mr. President?” Chinese Defense Minister Chi asked. “Are you saying that China is in any way supporting this war? We are not, sir! We have had no information whatsoever that the North was going to launch a nuclear attack, and we certainly did not provoke the South into sending in those fighter-bombers over Pyongyang! But if our comrades in North Korea request our assistance, we have an obligation to render any assistance we deem necessary.”

“Then you condemn all of us to nuclear war!” Prime Minister Nagai shouted. “Such a response will surely require an equal response from the Americans, which will trigger a response from the Russians, which will trigger a bigger response from the Americans. We must all pledge to stay out of the fighting on the Korean peninsula. No one must interfere.”

“This we cannot agree to,” Minister Chi responded. “I will convey this conversation to my government, but I will advise President Jiang to support our comrades in North Korea and abide by our treaties of mutual cooperation, friendship, and defense. If the North asks for our assistance, I will recommend that we extend all necessary support, including full military support. We shall consider an attack on North Korea by the South as an attack on the People’s Republic of China itself.” And Minister Chi hung up.

“Insane. This is truly insane,” came the voice of President Primakov’s translator. “I am afraid Russia has no choice but to prepare to respond to the threat before us, Mr. President. We no longer have a treaty of mutual aid and cooperation with North Korea, but my government would not look favorably upon any superpower invasion of the North. A Chinese mobilization and ground counteroffensive into North Korea is no great concern to us. But if China commits its air or missile forces in a way that threatens Russian bases or nationals, or if the United States chooses to engage China on the Korean peninsula, we must respond in kind.”

“And Japan would not look favorably upon any Russian mobilization of any kind,” Prime Minister Nagai said hotly. “Our forces may be small and insignificant compared to all others, but we will fight to the last man to preserve our homeland from the forces that now ravage the Korean peninsula. With or without America’s help, we will fight back.”

“I implore all of you, hold your anger and your military forces in check until we can analyze the outcome of the fight between the two Koreas—” But it was too late. Primakov and Nagai had also terminated their calls.

President Martindale set down his receiver, then leaned back in his seat, mentally and emotionally exhausted. He had laid everything on the table, he thought. He promised to do nothing. But he received no reciprocal promises in return. Quite the opposite: Chi Haotian was virtually promising he’d send in the Red Army to help North Korea. Any such move would trigger a response in Russia, just as it did in 1950 when North Korea invaded the South. What was next? he thought. And how soon before…?

“Mr. President, something’s happening,” Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain said. He was monitoring reports coming in from the Pentagon, which was receiving real-time radar and satellite data from American reconnaissance assets over Korea. “The border, the DMZ, it’s being crossed. Massive movement south along all sectors.”

“God,” said Martindale. It was happening, he thought grimly. The North Koreans were invading. Soon the South would retaliate; the Chinese Red Army would surge southward…