Dragon Strike: The Millennium War

SIX

President Kim telephoned James Bradlay, who said immediately that he was happy for South Korea to commit its own military forces to the war with the North. Bradlay had a far larger crisis on his hands and was thankful that South Korea would handle its own problems. The United States, however, would provide the technology and advisers and it was they who primed and guided the first launch of the McDonnell Douglas Sea Slam surface-to-surface missiles from the three South Korean Ulsan class frigates Chung-ju, Che-ju, and Masan. All the South Korean naval officers had done extensive training and exercises with the American navy for such an operation. The missiles had never before been used with such pinpoint accuracy, skimming over the sea then the rugged terrain around the Demilitarized Zone and finally cutting in to fly straight into the underground bunkers which hid the military machine threatening Seoul.

American and South Korean troops abandoned the DMZ, drawing back from their unprotected positions in Panmunjon and right along the demarcation line. The watchtowers and the truce village were unmanned. The huts where demarcation disputes had been negotiated over the years were empty. The most heavily fortified front line in the world went on the highest alert. A skeleton defence force of men and women from the US Second Infantry Division was deployed at Camp Greaves, the closest position to the DMZ. Each wore the motto of their unit on the uniform, saying "in front of them all".

The first South Korean missile smashed into a rockface just metres from a tunnel entrance. Another flew straight over the hilltop and skidded into a field without exploding. The third, however, was successful and slammed into a row of concealed tanks. The explosion, made more powerful in the confined space, ignited both fuel and ammunition supplies. The tanks closest to the entrance were crippled. The mangled armour blocked the exit so those behind were rendered useless. Over the next forty-five minutes computer-guided missiles negotiated their paths inside many of the hidden places. Others missed and exploded harmlessly in the countryside around, but the attack had the desired result of forcing the North Koreans to show their hand: as their equipment was threatened, they moved it out into the open so it could be used more effectively. The roads around the border suddenly filled with armour, artillery, and supply vehicles. More vehicles appeared on the Kim Il-Sung highway, which ran all the way from Pyongyang to Panmunjon and was built to take both fighter aircraft and tanks. As the data was processed through the South Korean surveillance system squadron after squadron of F-16s, F-5s, and F-4s screamed across runways throughout the south, became airborne, and headed north to the Demilitarized Zone. The pilots' orders were to destroy everything they saw above ground.

President Kim knew he had taken one of the riskiest decisions in modern military history. In the face of almost certain destruction, the North would have no choice but to launch a land and missile offensive on Seoul, and that attack had to be stopped. Yet if his defence planners had misjudged, it could be only a matter of hours before a North Korean tank was on the streets of Seoul. Already, enemy aircraft had penetrated the airspace. A mixture of advanced tactical warplanes, MiG-23s and MiG-29s, together with the mainstay fighter wing of MiG-19s andMiG-21s, flew towards the Southern capital. Most were engaged by South Korean aircraft and it quickly became clear that with its bad maintenance and poor training schedules the North Korean Air Force would soon be beaten. Plane after plane was shot down by surface-to-air missiles and the air-to-air missiles carried by the South Korean interceptors, but among such a wave of thirty or forty aircraft several made it to Seoul. They had no specific targets and they unleashed their bombs and rockets into civilian areas. Then some turned their aircraft towards the ground in suicide dives, each one careening into a highrise building and exploding into a devastating fireball. Thousands died. In the 63 Building, built like two hands in prayer, more than 500 people died, many trapped in stairwells and lifts which had shut down as the air raid began. Sirens wailed and millions sought refuge in the subways and basements of their buildings. The hospitals overflowed with victims. The rescue services, which for decades had been prepared for this moment, were immediately overstretched, with hundreds being left to die in the streets and buildings abandoned to burn unchecked.

Icy winds of the past week had swept away the layers of pollution which hung over Beijing for most of the winter. The sun broke through the cold and cast a glitter over Tiananmen Square. The roads around it were closed off to the public and bedecked with bright red bunting. Schoolchildren, packed ten deep, lined the pavements, each holding the national flag and raising it high above their head on the command from their cheerleader. Loudspeakers, attached to lamp-posts, broadcast the national anthem and Chinese songs of liberation from its past of foreign control. Communist Party officials had been summoned to Beijing from every province. They watched events from the steps of the Great Hall of the People to the west and from outside the Museums of Chinese Revolution and History to the east. Camera crews from China Central Television roamed freely around the square. Throughout the morning, the national network showed films about China's suffering during the occupation by foreign forces. The British were criticized for the nineteenth-century Opium Wars and for seizing Hong Kong. The Americans stood condemned for their support for the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in the 1940s and his rebel armies which had taken Taiwan. Film of the Korean War in the 1950s told how Chinese troops defeated British, American, and other imperialist forces. Speckled black and white footage showed slaughtered troops and survivors, emaciated, cold, and dejected. The Japanese were described as guilty people for all millennia. They had treated their fellow Asians with more humiliation and suffering than any Western power. Japanese soldiers were shown massacring Chinese civilians in summary executions, beheadings, and beatings. One Chinese peasant was tied to a lamp-post, his head hanging down. Japanese soldiers skinned him until he died from shock and loss of blood.

During the horrific scene, the CCTV commentator said: `Never again will the Chinese people become slaves to foreign forces. Even if they have to eat the roots of trees and live in caves, because of the hatred of China by the world, they will remain free and proud. Long live President and Party Secretary Wang Feng.'

Military vehicles rolled slowly in from the west. A line of main battle tanks led them. Then came towed artillery, multiple-rocket launchers, self-propelled guns, mortars, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank guided weapons, and air-defence weapons. A ceremonial procession followed, during which pictures of submarines, aircraft, and naval warships were shown on huge screens mounted all over the square. A display of missiles ended the parade. The CSS-4 or East Wind 5 was the first to rumble into the Square. It had been unveiled in 1981, with its range of 15,000 kilometres and single re-entry vehicle 5 megaton warhead. The smaller submarine-launched CSS-N-3 or JL1 with its range of up to 3,000 kilometres and 2 megaton warhead moved in behind it. There were several others, well known to defence attache´s. But the last weapon in the parade was the pride of Chinese military power. It took its place just south of the flag podium. Shown live throughout the world, the missile was immediately recognized as the weapon which could hit the continental United States and anywhere in Europe. This was the solid-fuel-powered East Wind 32. Its range was 12,000 kilometres. Its accuracy had been honed with a new technical guidance system provided by a team of Russian scientists. It carried a lighter warhead, and, most dangerously, it was fired, not from a silo, but from a mobile launch vehicle. The East Wind 32 would be almost impossible to find through satellite reconnaissance until it was fired. During the day it could hide. During the night it could be deployed to its firing position. Mobile missiles with nuclear warheads had haunted the Pentagon during the nineties, because of the failure to track down and destroy Iraq's Scud missiles during the Gulf War. They had been concealed under bridges, in shelters, or parked in heavily populated civilian areas which the enemy could not bomb without international condemnation. Today, China wasn't keeping secret its missile capability. It was taunting the world's most powerful nation. China calculated that just one explosion on American soil would be enough to deter the United States from getting involved in a nuclear war with China. America had never before experienced conflict at home.

The warhead of the East Wind 32, its colours of red and silver sparkling in the winter sun, pointed directly north towards the Gate of Heavenly Peace where President Wang Feng, flanked by generals, had climbed to the rostrum to address the Chinese people. Wang had chosen a moment and place embedded with historical significance. This is where Chinese emperors had handed down edicts over the centuries and where Mao Zedong had declared the founding of Communist China in 1949. The view over the exhibits of Chinese military power was richly symbolic, the architecture of Chinese Communism, the Great Hall of the People, the Monument to the People's Heroes right through to Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall, where the body still lay embalmed. When Wang spoke, he chose not his own words, but those delivered by Mao Zedong in 1949.

`Our work will go down in the history of mankind, demonstrating that the Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up. The Chinese have always been a great, courageous, and industrious nation; it is only in modern times that they have fallen behind. From now on our nation will belong to the community of the peace-loving and the freedom-loving nations of the world and work courageously and industriously to foster its own civilization and well-being and at the same time to promote world peace and freedom.

`Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up. Our revolution has won the sympathy and acclaim of the peoples of all countries. We have friends all over the world. The era in which the Chinese people were regarded as uncivilized is now ended. We shall emerge in the world as a nation with an advanced culture. We shall be strong and feared. The Chinese people are no longer slaves.'

The Party controlled the cheers and waving of flags. But that made the response even more awesome. China had been down this road before. And each time it had ended in death, bloodshed, chaos, and the fragmentation of the ruling dynasty.

The Xinhua (New China) News Agency statement on China's changing military policy was characteristically vague. It said the State Council had reassessed the communique 16 October 1964, the day China carried out its first nuclear test. It then listed seven principles, the first and most important being that at no time would China be the first to use nuclear weapons. The statement said: `The reassessment has become necessary because of recent moves by foreign forces to invade the motherland.

`In a Western imperialist conspiracy, the brave officers and men of the People's Liberation Army are being slaughtered by foreign powers intent on the containment of China. This happened in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century many Chinese lived as the slaves to Japanese, American, British, and French colonial powers. We will never be slaves again. It is the duty of the Chinese people to protect the motherland with any weapons they might have. China is a poor nation. But it can and will defend itself. As Mao Zedong said: "No matter what country, no matter what missiles, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs… we must surpass them."'

When the Xinhua statement flashed across the screens of dealers in Tokyo their immediate, reflex response was to sell the yen. The prospect of a nuclear exchange between China and the US and the likelihood that Japan would also be a target was more than the Japanese currency could endure. It dropped to.60 and stabilized. But soon it dawned on financial market operatives that the threat of nuclear annihilation altered the calculus of financial markets. Foreign exchange turnover in Tokyo on a good day exceeded $20 billion. But as the morning wore on activity in the market became sporadic. Huge bursts of activity punctured long periods of virtually no trading. The client of Damian Phillips was sitting on nearly $260 million. Ahead of Xin-hua's announcement he had risked interception by foreign intelligence agencies and telephoned Phillips in Hong Kong. He spoke two words and hung up: `Buy Japan.' The Nikkei Index was in free fall when First China began selective buying of blue-chip Japanese stocks. The index had fallen 5.5 per cent the previous day. It had opened another 5 per cent lower at 34,056 and fell further as the morning progressed. Phillips had had his orders. First China, acting through Nomura, bought selectively but in size. It picked up 3 per cent of Nippon Oil, 1 per cent of Toyota, a 4 per cent stake in Matsushita, and a smaller, undisclosed, stake in Sony. Phillips had taken General Zhao at his word and did not feel constrained to use just the trading profits for the currency dealings to buy Japanese equities; he also dipped into the $1 billion and more profits First China had made on oil trading.

209 American servicemen died when the Chinese navy penetrated the defences of the USS Harry S. Truman carrier group and sank the guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin. The ship was first hit by three surface-to-surface Sunburn missiles fired from the Liu Huaqing, which was 100 kilometres north-east of the Paracel Islands. She was less than twelve hours out of base. Then two of her 533mm torpedoes ripped through the crippled ship's hull, causing explosions and fires. Attack aircraft scrambled from the USS Harry S. Truman, and within minutes their air-to-surface missiles and laser-guided bombs were unleashed upon the Chinese frigate. But like over Woody Island the day before, the Americans were up against Soviet Cold War technology. The first wave of missiles and bombs was seduced away from the ship by decoy chaff launchers. Three Hornets were shot down by surface-to-air missiles. The crew failed to eject. Two Tomcats were also hit. One returned safely to the carrier. The other crashed into the sea and the pilot was picked up. As the escort vessels moved in towards the Oscar Austin to rescue survivors, an undetected Romeo submarine fired two straight-running torpedoes at the oiler USS Willamette. Only one torpedo hit and the damage was contained. Ten of the 135 crew died. Twenty were injured. Like the Ming which attacked the USS Peleliu, the Romeo headed into the rescue area, where the commander knew he would be safe from attack. Three hours later the attack submarine the USS Cheyenne, trailing the Liu Huaqing from behind and remaining undetected, fired three wire-guided Mk48 torpedoes. All hit the frigate, sinking her. The Romeo which attacked the USS Willamette escaped.

The President's light supper, which had been arranged to brief senators, broke up early when the Xinhua dispatch came through. Bradlay called in Weinstein, the National Security Adviser, Collins, the Defense Secretary, Kuhnert, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Gillchrest, the Secretary of State. The problem put forward by the President was whether the Allies should now attack mainland Chinese military bases, particularly those known to hold nuclear weapons. Kuhnert quoted the time-honoured nuclear adage: `Use them, or lose them.' He said if the Chinese were now only bluffing they would be motivated to open up their nuclear arsenal if it were under threat. He believed that within the next twelve hours the Allied forces would have secured the South China Sea and China would have lost any aspirations of power projection. To bomb the mainland would rub their noses in it and make them a more dangerous animal to deal with in the future. The Secretary of State noted the political problems facing Britain in deciding whether or not to attack the Argentine mainland during the Falklands War in 1982.

`We would lose the support of the ethnic Chinese community around the world,' he said. `The South-East Asian nations which are now neutral might turn against us. It would be more an act of symbolism than of military practicality. We might hit a handful of warheads, but there are others they could launch. And there's bound to be allegations accompanied by television pictures of civilian casualties. Indeed, there would be civilian casualties.' He said that America's policy objective was to safeguard the trade routes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and to protect the lives of American citizens. That was being done. Vietnam's objective was to protect its territory from further air and naval strikes, which gave it justification for air strikes on mainland bases. They were already being helped by Western intelligence. Perhaps, if military planners believed further mainland attacks were necessary, they should be carried out by the Japanese in their new role as a military regional power.

NSA Weinstein said that the main Chinese nuclear threat came from mobile launchers which could be transported by road or rail. They could be moved at night and hidden during the day. He had brought a folder containing two sets of 8 10 colour photographs taken along the rail track between Shenyang and Harbin in northern China. The ability of America's eyes in the sky to spy on the world below was nothing short of astonishing, and it astounded the President every time such photographs were placed before him. They had been gathered by Big Bird satellites orbiting only about 180 to 290 kilometres above the Earth. Because of their miniaturized rocketry they were highly manoeuvrable. The satellites were fitted with image-forming systems with multiple arrays of tiny electro-optical detectors. Each detector produced an electrical signal proportional to the amount of light falling on it. When put together, the information collected by the thousands of detectors mounted on the satellite produced an image of the terrain below. The resolution was extraordinary. It was so good that individuals could be identified. Moreover the satellites were programmed to transmit only pictures that they had been instructed to notice, such as missile silos, submarines, military aircraft. If the analyst who was viewing the pictures on his computer screen wanted to take a closer look at some unusual terrestrial phenomenon, the satellite responded. After Big Bird's onboard computer digitized the photographic data it was transmitted to a relay satellite in geosynchronous orbit and in constant view of its ground-receiving station at the National Security Agency, outside Washington.

The first set of photographs the President viewed that evening had been taken at 0848 Beijing standard time, the second fifteen minutes later at 0903, and the others at further fifteen-minute intervals. They showed a series of railway cars, carrying container-like boxes, except far longer and clearly not made of metal, because on one the front end looked torn with a missile head pointing out.

`These are mobile launchers, Mr President,' said Marty Weinstein. `They are being moved outside of their usual exercise pattern. Liaoning is the base for unit 80301 of the Second Artillery, the regiment which handles China's ballistic missile programme. We believe the train is heading towards Harbin. But we lost it after dark. The weather didn't help.'

`Can they launch from this?' asked Bradlay.

`If they fired enough, one would work. But there's something else. In May 1995 the Second Artillery finished building a network of modern missile-launching positions which now covers the whole country. It took them fifteen years to do it and they call it the Great Wall Project because of its role in defending Chinese territory.' The NSA opened another folder. `These are truck-launched missiles being moved out of the Second Artillery's base in Huangshan in Anhui Province. Unit 80302.' He shuffled through to another set of photographs. `Here's more truck-launched missiles coming from Unit 80303 in Kunming in Yunnan. They are almost certainly being targeted on Vietnam. And look at this. Unit 80306 at Xining in the north-west desert area where it's more difficult to hide. No forests or built-up areas. This launch site is in the open and look at the elevation. These could go any minute and they're aimed at Western Europe. The ones in Anhui could hit Japan. In Liaoning they could hit Japan or continental America.'

`We can't afford a nuclear attack,' said the President.

`That is why they've raised the stakes,' said Secretary of State Gillchrest. `They know our thinking.'

Weinstein continued: `The Chinese also have a sea-launch capability. But we have sunk the Xia which was heading towards the Eastern Pacific. The Russian-built Kilo class submarine has sea-launched cruise missile capability. That would be good up to 2,500 kilometres. Tests have been carried out on the updated Xia class submarine with a JL2 ICBM with a range of 8,000 kilometres. We have no intelligence that the submarine is anywhere but in port. Tests have been inconclusive. We believe it's not even ready for use.'

`Do they know we know?' the President asked.

`The first question we ask in intelligence, sir, is why are we discovering this. In Xining, definitely, they have ensured we know what they are doing. Or they wouldn't have brought them out in daylight. The Chinese always announce their intentions, Mr President. They're telling us they might nuke us any time.'

The President turned to Kuhnert: `Arnold, if you were going to hit their nuclear arsenal, how would you do it?'

`The main targets would be the Second Artillery units in the north at Shenyang, Harbin, and Yanbian. Simply because of range, that is where the launch would probably take place. I would like to also target the Nanjing, Guangzhou, and Chengdu military regions. To do it effectively would need a lot of firepower. The attacks would have to be simultaneous and even then it would impossible to guarantee the destruction of China's military arsenal. The only possible way to deter them from using nuclear weapons, Mr President, would be to carry out a nuclear strike on China first. But frankly, knowing a bit about Chinese military thinking, I don't think it would work. I believe the military mindset right now is that they would see their whole country wiped out before being defeated by the United States.'

Seoul was engulfed in smoke and raging fires. President Kim took a call on his direct line from Jamie Song.

`We have put an end to it', said the Chinese Foreign Minister, speaking in English. `Xinhua will be putting out a statement within the hour, saying that Kim Jong-Il and his close associates are on an official visit to China. We sent our own special forces units into Pyongyang to bring him out. There was fighting at the airport and our first aircraft was destroyed. But several army units have now come over to our side. Troops around the Presidential Palace have been neutralized. Kim Jong-Il is in the city of Yanji, across the border, under close guard. There'll be a statement from Pyongyang announcing the formation of a new government, but that might not be for some hours.'

`What about the current offensive?' interjected the President.

`I have no idea if the guys taking up the reins in Pyongyang have the power to call off the attack. On that one, you're on your own. And one other thing: once the truce is secured, we want the Americans out within a month.'

The first North Korean T-62 tank circled through the Demilitarized Zone as if the driver was in a manic frenzy, before crashing through one of the truce huts and heading straight for the South Korean military positions. Allied troops stopped it with an anti-tank missile. Then the North Korean artillery opened up with a ferocious barrage. Four Americans died from one shell explosion in Camp Greaves. Six were wounded. Five American helicopters, two giving covering fire with rockets and heavy machine-guns, came in to take out the dead, wounded, and survivors. Camp Greaves was empty when four North Korean T-62s broke down the perimeter fence. North Korean artillery was being destroyed by guided bombs and missiles fired from aircraft, warships, and land positions. The highway running north to Pyongyang was littered with the burnt-out wrecks of armoured vehicles. Fires raged below ground in the tunnels and caverns. But, unlike Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard in the Gulf War ten years earlier, it took far more to cripple the North Korean military machine.

Tens of thousand of troops poured south. Some emerged running across fields. At first, as they crossed the line, they were mown down with machine-guns or blown up by mines. Others came out in company strength through dozens of tunnels which had been dug over the years but not used. Hovercrafts with platoon-size units sped down at 40 knots landing men wherever they could find suitable landfall. Antonov troop-carrying planes dropped paratroopers. Hundreds were shot as they came down. Planes filled with men were blown out of the skies. By early afternoon, when the North Korean land offensive was at its height, it appeared that Fort Boniface would have to be abandoned. One North Korean commando unit penetrated the outer bunkers and there was hand-to-hand fighting on the sand-bagged defences. But the Americans put up a protective cordon of helicopter firepower around the base and soon the sheer devastating force of the South Korean and American counterattack put a stop to the first wave of enemy advance.

Skirmishes were continuing when Radio Pyongyang announced a change of government in the North. It broadcast a command for a ceasefire and within an hour of the news being known a Chinese military Boeing 737, met by escorting South Korean F-16 fighters on the Northern border, headed for Pyongyang. The troops advancing on the South fell into disarray. Soon it became clear they were without commanders and over the following hours many of those caught in forward positions changed from being the enemy to peasant refugees seeking sanctuary under UN protection.

At a military airbase near Pyongyang, Chinese and South Korean officials stepped off the aircraft to be met by their North Korean military hosts. A temporary treaty, brokered by China, was signed in a run-down and unheated building which later became as famous as the buildings around Panmunjon. Photographs showed the participants muffled up in military greatcoats as they put their signatures to the document.

It stated that the Korean Peninsula would be reunited under a formula of one country, two systems. The demarcation line along the 38th Parallel would remain in place to ensure that South Korea was not flooded with refugees. There would be two separate currencies. But the border would be open for trade and investment and in a gradual process the two societies and governments would be completely integrated. Monuments to the Great Leader Kim Il-Sung would remain intact, as would his Juche philosophy. The few monuments to Kim Jong-Il would be removed. Kim Jong-Il himself would remain under indefinite house arrest in Yanji. Once the Dragonstrike crisis was over, joint military celebrations of the unification would be held in both Pyongyang and Seoul. The last clause of the treaty specified that all foreign troops would be asked to leave the peninsula once a genuine peace had been restored.

As soon as the American military Boeing 707 entered Chinese airspace, it was intercepted by four Shenyang J-6C Farmer air-combat fighter aircraft. These ageing warplanes were copied from the Soviet MiG-19s with a design which dated back to the 1960s. They would be no match for the American Tomcats in action over the South China Sea. As American, British, and Chinese lives were being lost at war, the Chinese fighter pilots followed the Boeing in and stayed with it for the safe landing at Beijing's Capital international airport. This was the only foreign airliner there. All civilian aircraft had left China within the past forty-eight hours. China's own civilian air fleet was either grounded or being used for troop transport. Even during the flight, first from Seattle to Tokyo and then on to Beijing, Reece Overhalt had never imagined that the passenger terminal in Beijing could so quickly be transformed into a military installation. Camouflage had been taken off anti-aircraft positions in the dusty fields around the runway. Rows of Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer-C all-weather ground-attack and interdiction aircraft together with the Shenyang J-6Cs were parked where just a week ago United Airlines and British Airways Boeing 747s would have been. Two Air China Boeing 747s were at air bridges at one of the main terminal buildings where Overhalt's plane came to a stop. As he disembarked, hundreds of Chinese troops were milling around, waiting to board for their deployment on the Vietnamese border.

United States Embassy officials met Overhalt near the circular central information desk. On the way down the wide corridor to the Arrivals Hall, he saw the officers in meetings in the First-class Lounge. There was an echoing sound of army boots and weapons, of a country going to war. The Immigration and Customs desks were unmanned. Crews of armoured personnel carriers stood vigil where hotel cars and taxis had been only a week earlier. There were military checkpoints on both sides of the airport expressway into Beijing. The Embassy's Lincoln Continental slowed at each one and was let through. A squadron of Chinese fighter aircraft took off and screamed overhead to go to war against Japan in the Yellow and East China Seas.

The British and Commonwealth task force led by HMS Ark Royal was having to defend itself, mainly from China's guerrilla-style submarine warfare. The Ark Royal and her escort vessels were caught in a network of Romeo and Ming submarines patrolling the Spratly Islands in boxed-off areas. Each submarine commander was under orders to attack any vessel which came into his zone of control. The diesel-electric submarines waited very quietly for the targets to approach them. The Ark Royal's captain wrote in his diary that it was like being on a jungle patrol where the enemy was hidden in the undergrowth and a sniper could attack at any time.

`I was reminded of films about guerrilla jungle warfare. The only difference is that we were in the open sea, with blue skies and a clear horizon. It was frighteningly empty, but we knew the enemy was in the waters beneath us. We were aware it wouldn't mind losing three or ten vessels to our one. Our opponents were Mao's barefoot submariners. We were NATO's digital navy. We found some of them. But mostly they hid like snipers, mocking our technology. It was only when we detected the streak of the torpedo that we knew we were under attack. And by then, it was often too late. When it was over I felt obliged, as a naval officer, to salute their courage and daring.'

The first ship to be attacked was HMS Liverpool. A torpedo exploded 3 metres under the hull. The blast destroyed the engine room, killing twenty-three men. Then there was a direct hit astern. Another five men died with the initial impact. Seventeen more were dead by the time the ship sank. Half an hour later the crew of the attack submarine HMS Triumph avoided a salvo of three Chinese torpedoes. The commander at first speeded up, then turned away and slowed down. His decisions were partly based on guesswork that the Chinese torpedoes would be of the same type that had sunk the USS Peleliu and would not change course with countermeasures. Minutes later he was given a firing solution for the Romeo which was destroyed with one Spearfish wire-guided torpedo. Merlin helicopters from the Ark Royal hit another submarine using sonobuoys and a Stingray torpedo. HMAS Rankin, the Australian Collins class submarine, was the only vessel able to play the Chinese submarines at their own game. By adopting the Chinese tactics and waiting silently, sometimes on the bottom, the Collins commander was able to pick off two more of the enemy, giving him the highest hit rate of any submariner since the Second World War. He returned to the Darwin Naval Base a hero.

There was no official announcement from the White House, Pentagon, or State Department, but within an hour of the satellite photographs arriving on the President's desk, CNN broke the story of an imminent nuclear strike. The network, which had been running rolling news, abandoned even the existing schedules. Rival networks followed and soon every channel was a mix of analysts' comment and live contributions from correspondents across America. The impact was chilling. Discussions swiftly moved from the threat of China, to the threat within the United States itself. Speculation began on the ability of the security forces to keep control, and then shifted to the impact on the medical system, communications, transport, and banking.

`Are you telling us that if a nuclear bomb hits America, the government infrastructure will be unable to handle it?' asked one anchor.

`I am telling you,' replied the commentator, `that people had better make sure they have money, enough food in the cupboard, a full tank of gas, an up-to-date first-aid kit and the view that no one will look after their families except themselves.'

No one was sure what sparked the riots, but that was the most likely broadcast. The first looting officially linked to Operation Dragonstrike was on a delicatessen in Hollywood. One witness said she thought it was a drive-by shooting and took cover in an alleyway two blocks from the shop. The attackers shot down the ground-to-ceiling window with automatic weapons and a pump-action rifle. Then they backed a station wagon onto the pavement and loaded the food into the back. They sped off, firing their weapons into the air. Police logged the time as 1917. By midnight, hospitals, gas stations, and supermarkets throughout the country were being ransacked.

Mr Jiang Hua, the Chinese Ambassador, was a man of great dignity and never tired of reminding people of it. He swept into the Oval Office, apologized for being held up in traffic, and mentioned nothing about being called to the White House at such a late hour. His composure remained unruffled even when the President, abandoning diplomatic courtesy, confronted him. `What in God's name does your government think it is doing?' he began. He threw the folder containing the photographic intelligence on the coffee table before the Ambassador.

Everyone in the room was standing. The Ambassador remained silent for almost half a minute, then replied: `I have no idea what you are talking about, Mr President.'

The President gave a blunt response. `Don't play dumb, Ambassador. These photographs show Chinese missiles being prepared for a strike on the United States.'

The Ambassador shuffled his feet. `I have been instructed to inform you that the government of China is prepared for every eventuality. May I point out that the United States has brazenly supported the splittist activities of rebellious groups acting against the Chinese people? You have sold sophisticated weapons to our enemies and given sanctuary to those trying to overthrow our government. Therefore it is necessary, resolutely and forcefully necessary, to hit back at these rude acts of interference, subversion, and extortion by the American hegemonists. The officers and men of all ground, naval, and air units are ready to take orders from Comrade Wang Feng and the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.'

`Mr Ambassador, I suggest you go back to your Embassy and tell President Wang to stand those missiles down. On the first sign of a launch, we will obliterate China.'

The commander of the Vanguard class strategic missile submarine HMS Vengeance received his orders to prepare for a nuclear launch from an extra-low-frequency radio message which penetrated the ice cap under which he was patrolling. Any target in the northern hemisphere was in range from these waters around the North Pole, where Soviet and NATO submarines used to gather in a crowded cat and mouse game during the Cold War. HMS Vengeance operated with the luxury of knowing that no Chinese submarine was there now. They had no ability to go under the ice and the submariners had no substantive cold-water training. HMS Vengeance was being guarded by the Trafalgar class attack submarine HMS Trenchant, whose sonar operators had been keeping watch on a Russian Typhoon class strategic missile submarine and an Akula class attack submarine. The Akula followed HMS Vengeance as it moved to prepare for the launch. In the control room, the computer automatically still listed Russian vessels as hostile.

Within an hour the commander had found the polynya or clear water surrounded by ice through which he could launch the Trident 11 (D5) missiles. Every action he took was verified with his Weapons Engineer: they held separate keys which would initiate the launch. Each missile had a three-stage solid-fuel rocket and carried eight MIRVs with 100 kiloton warheads. The launch could be detected by Chinese satellites fifteen seconds before it happened, with an increased swell and generation of white water around the submerged submarine as the torpedo chamber doors opened. At four seconds to launch the sea would begin heaving violently. Then a rumbling sound would begin as if there was a huge thunderclap. All around, the sea would turn into a turbulent pitch and roll, and in a mixture of spray, fire, and froth the missile would rise out of the sea and turn towards its target 5,000 kilometres away.

The first missile was programmed to hit Desired Ground Zero One in Beijing. During the Cold War, DGZ-1, the precise spot where the first nuclear warhead would explode, was Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square. In China, DGZ-1 was the mausoleum of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square at the coordinates of 116g 23 35 East (longitude) and 39g 53 58 North (latitude). In the same salvo the south section of Zhongnanhai would be destroyed at 116g 22 40 North (longitude), and 39g 54 25 East (latitude); and the Party's secret grain supply on Tiancun Lu, west Beijing, 116g 14 50 North (longitude) and 39g 55 45 East (latitude).

The target coordinates had been programmed into the missile computers in code. Not even the men who pressed the launch buttons knew where they were heading.

To keep the Russian submarine at a safe distance, the commander of HMS Trenchant made clear the British presence by cycling his main vents and blowing out his sewage tanks. The Akula commander replied by sending out a ripple transmission through his Shark Gill sonar. Russia was watching but not interfering. Close to the surface, HMS Vengeance trailed a very-low-frequency wire. The crew waited for orders to fire.

Signals from every available strategic recce and intelligence satellite were drawn into the US Space Command Center. Sensors were monitored in the NAVSTAR nuclear detonation detection system satellites. Data from ballistic-missile early-warning systems at Thule in Greenland and Fylingdales Moor in the United Kingdom was watched second by second. Radar crews were put on high alert in stations in Turkey, Italy, Diego Garcia, and across the United States. The special Pave Paws phased-array radar in Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, and California tracked objects more than 5,000 kilometres away. Other detection and tracking radars were in operation on Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific, British Ascension Island in the Atlantic, Antigua in the Caribbean, and at the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Like HMS Vengeance, commanders of the American strategic missile submarines of the Ohio class USS Nebraska and USS Louisiana in the northern and southern Pacific and the USS Rhode Island under the polar ice cap were given orders to prepare for a Trident launch. In Turkey, Italy, Guam, and Japan, American B2 Stealth bombers were being fitted with guided nuclear bombs. In the two American carrier groups, Tomahawk cruise missiles, mostly with 200 kiloton warheads, were being prepared for firing. In the deserts of central America, technicians made ready the Peacekeeper and Minuteman III intercontinental missiles in their 25 metre deep concrete and steel silos, capped with retractable steel covers. The silos were at least 6 kilometres apart to minimize the damage of a direct hit. The regional control centre was 18 kilometres away and the crew of the National Emergency Air-Borne Command Post patrolled the skies in case it had to take over. Both the Minutemen and Peacekeepers carried 331 kiloton W-78 nuclear warheads and could hit targets nearly 12,000 kilometres away. The Peacekeeper, with ten individual warheads and a computer system which could make two million simultaneous calculations a second, had taken over from the Minuteman as the ICBM programme's first-line defence. As America and Europe braced for a nuclear war with China, missiles were programmed to hit the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Chengdu, Harbin, and Shenyang. Guangdong was not targeted because of possible fallout onto Hong Kong. Xiamen and Fuzhou escaped because of their proximity to Taiwan. The North Sea Fleet headquarters at Qingdao, the East Sea Fleet at Ningbo, and the South Sea Fleet at Zhanjiang were to be destroyed together with the air and submarine bases on Hainan Island. Other specific targets were the naval academies at Dalian and Qingdao, the Engineering College at Wuhan, and the Nanjing Naval Staff College.

The aim of the strike was to destroy the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party.

Japanese television channels illustrated the tests with colourful graphics. Clusters of people gathered around the windows of television shops on their way back from work. The huge screens in the airport and bus and underground stations showed the firing of four medium-range ballistic missiles from Okinawa and four Chinese made Tomahawk-style terrain-following cruise missiles from the Kongou class destroyers Myoko and Kirishima which were 1,000 kilometres further south in the South China Sea. Two cruise and two ballistic missiles landed 3 kilometres off the Chinese coast at Tianjin, the port city only 120 kilometres from Beijing. Another ballistic missile hit the sea just outside the southern naval base of Zhanjiang and the fourth fell at the mouth of the Yangtse River near Shanghai. A cruise missile landed off the coast near the Yulin airbase on Hainan Island and the final one was targeted on waters around Xiamen, the thriving port city across the straits from Taiwan. None carried warheads. Television commentators aided by more graphics explained how the missile tests coupled with the nuclear explosion confirmed that Japan was now a global military power. The sheer numbers of warheads Japan was able to fire against the enemy meant that some would get through and there would be no protection. People all over Japan celebrated through the day. There was no criticism of the tests by Western powers.

The engine of the Ambassador's Lincoln Continental was running, with the heater warming the interior for Reece Overhalt on his journey to the Foreign Ministry. But the driver walked to the wrought-iron gate to confirm that the noise he was hearing from the narrow tree-lined Xiu Shui Street in Beijing's diplomatic district was a demonstration of students. He had seen nothing like this in China since the Cultural Revolution thirty years earlier. For many of the locally employed Embassy staff, who came out to the Embassy compound to watch, the chanting revived horrific memories of the Maoist-controlled violence which killed so many of their friends and relatives. The compound of lawns and tall green maple and fir trees began to fill up with people, both Americans and Chinese standing side by side in silence as the marchers came closer. The building itself was protected by concrete anti-missile and grenade barricades. The Marine Sergeant posted extra men inside the gate. A small queue of people lining up to get into the Embassy dispersed. Foreign shoppers from the nearby markets hurried away.

The leaders of the demonstration were from Beijing People's University, the spiritual home of the Chinese Communist Party. They had spread out throughout the Jianguomennei area, sealing off roads leading to many of the main embassies. Many wore red bandannas. Others were dressed in blue Maoist suits. Some kept their Western-style jeans. They laid bicycles down as blockades. Students began running, many shaking their fists and screaming as if in a frenzy. Shoulder high, they carried effigies of the Western and Japanese leaders, some made of plaster, some of cardboard and plywood. Outside the American Embassy they doused the plaster effigy of James Bradlay with petrol and set it alight. They stretched the American flag between stepladders until it was taut, then slashed it with knives before lighting it. One student, dressed like Uncle Sam in Stars and Stripes, was pulled forward. They hung a sign around his neck which read: `I am a traitor to the people.' They put a cylindrical dunce's cap on his head, then knelt him down just feet away from the Marine guard on the gate. They pushed his head forward, pulled his arms up behind his back, then pretended to kick, slap, and taunt him. The Embassy compound was now surrounded. One by one students stepped out in front of the crowd to denounce America. There were similar displays of Chinese wrath outside the other embassies which had opposed Operation Dragonstrike. Just a few hundred metres away, the British Embassy and Ambassador's residence were sealed off. Firecrackers were thrown over the gates. On the fringes of the diplomatic area, which adjoined the main tourist district of Beijing, armed and uniformed troops from the Central Guard Regiment were on patrol, ensuring that no one interfered. The Xinhua (New China) News Agency called it a `spontaneous outpouring of anger'.

Reece Overhalt was already half an hour late for his meeting with Jamie Song when he got through on the telephone. The Foreign Minister was careful in his explanation. The only hint that the demonstration was out of his control came when he said: `The timing is unfortunate for our business discussions.'

Overhalt was familiar with Chinese nuances. But he had already decided to play the part of the Western cultural idiot. He believed bluntness was the most effective way to send a message via the Ministry of State Security's telephone tapping agents. `Jamie, we've got submarines with firing solutions ready to go. If we so much as see a tweak of launch preparation from your missiles, you, I, and those students are going to get fried.'

`They won't do it with you here, Reece.'

`Like hell they won't, Jamie. And there are a lot of people in the Pentagon who think we should have done it a damn sight earlier.'

Japanese houses and low-rise apartment buildings were made to fall over. A history of constant earthquakes conditioned the Japanese people to view their housing as essentially temporary structures. It was a mindset reinforced by Imperial ritual. To the south of Tokyo, on the Ise Peninsula, were the Great Shrines at Ise. These commemorated the founding of the Imperial line in the mists of time, and were maintained by Shinto priests. Since ad 478 they had torn down and rebuilt the shrines every twenty years. Sometimes a massive earthquake destroyed everything as in 1923, or the Kobe earthquake of 1995 which devastated that port city, but most of the time people's houses and apartments were buffeted and jolted by an almost continuous series of small and large tremors. Their buildings were therefore lightweight wooden frames and a ferro-concrete surround — and made to flex with the movement of the earth. If the earthquake was strong and they fell over they were comparatively cheap to replace. Light, flexible structures were well suited to surviving low-level earthquakes but were about the worst shelters to use in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. This was not so much because they collapsed in the face of the huge pressures and winds generated by a nuclear explosion: those near the epicentre and for many kilometres beyond were flattened. The lightweight construction of Tokyo's houses and apartments meant that the ones which survived a nuclear attack — the ones at the periphery of the explosion — provided so little protection from the effects of radioactive fallout as to be virtually useless. Gamma radiation passed unimpeded through the roofs and walls of the houses.

The best piece of advice the authorities had given the people was to own a fire extinguisher. Given the materials used in the construction of the Tokyo housing stock, fires were likely in the event of an attack. For survivors of an attack the first two or three days after are a critical time. During this period it is best to stay indoors, because radioactive fallout is at its most lethal immediately after a nuclear explosion. Food, water, and bedding supplies were centralized. A ward could feed up to 300,000 for a day or two; it had 51,000 blankets, 51,000 straw mats, 2,300 portable toilets, and, in underground emergency reservoirs, it had 52,700 metric tons of fresh water. But the surviving population was meant to make its way to designated safety areas where the local government would distribute food and medical aid.

The street that ran past the entrance to Monzennaka-cho on the Tozai line of the Tokyo underground was like any in Tokyo. Next door to Chozushi sushi shop, just four doors from the entrance to the station, is a Japanese sweetshop; next to it a cheap coffee shop, and then Mr Donuts, a popular chain outlet catering to commuters, schoolgirls, and local mums and their children. With a dozen tables and a counter that seats a dozen, Mr Donuts is crowded with as many as a hundred patrons at a time. In the front, two girls bag takeout doughnuts for customers as fast as they can. The store is a virtual madhouse at most hours of the day. The west entrance-exit to the subway is just outside Mr Donuts' door, bounded on the far side by an eat-as-you-stand soba and tempura shop. A woman sits in a tiny news-stand located between the two doors at each end of the soba-tempura shop. Around the corner is the local police koban, sandwiched next to a shoe shop. Then comes Kentucky Fried Chicken, another soba shop, a barber's, a pub, and McDonald's.

It was cold and grey but the teikiya, or outdoor market, was in full swing. Twice a month, the street vendors converge on Mon-naka, setting up their booths on the broad footpath that stretches from the Mitsubishi Bank east for several blocks past the Tomioka Hachiman shrine. The first booth usually sells Brother sewing machines, with a hawker proclaiming the wonders of home sewing. Down the line there are booths selling hard rock sweets, dumplings with octopus in them (takoyaki), round monaka full of sweet bean paste, fried noodles, underwear apparently targeted at women over sixty, plastic toys and masks, wind chimes, barbecued chicken (yakitori), pottery, pirated tapes and CDs, potted plants, and cut flowers. These vendors turn up on the 22nd of each month, and when they do, the elderly residents come out to browse. Bent backs and canes are the mode of the day, and it can be a nerve-racking task to walk that side of the street. The confusion and congestion is compounded by store owners putting their own pavement booths out, competing with the teikiya.

The broadcasts started soon after 3 p.m. There were 111 public address loudspeakers in Koto ward, and three of them ran the length of the teikiya. Simultaneously the loudspeakers switched from the somewhat irritating low-level muzak that they usually emitted to the calm voice of a woman telling everyone to go home. That was all. Over and over again in a very calm voice she said everyone must go home and all businesses should close: there was an emergency. People stopped and just looked at each other. An old woman began to weep. In the sushi-ya the owner switched the television channel to NHK, the national broadcaster. A grave young woman said that China was threatening Japan with a nuclear strike. People should listen to their local officials and do what they were told.

Just before the public broadcasts began, the chief of Koto's Ward Disaster Preparation Committee had sent a message to local volunteers via the ward's additional network of 533 PA speakers situated in the homes of volunteers. He called them up to take the initiative in helping their neighbours. `If they ask why, tell them that China has threatened to bomb us.' The emergency always talked about and prepared for was an earthquake. 1 September, the day of the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923 that devastated Tokyo, was set aside for the good citizens of Koto, indeed Japan, to practise what to do after a big earthquake. On 6 August 1945 the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; three days later it was Nagasaki's turn. But there was not a 6 August day set aside to practise what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. The Japanese government did not have a plan as such for dealing with the bomb. The only disaster Koto was even partially equipped to deal with was an earthquake: local officials had to harness earthquake emergency procedures using the ward-wide PA system.

Koto had a problem with the emergency that gripped it that Thursday afternoon and it did not know quite what to do.

The County Emergency Centre for Kent (pop. 1, 500,000) is located in the basement under the canteen for the county offices on Sandling Road in central Maidstone. It is an unprepossessing accumulation of rooms that was adapted during the Cold War. But given the crisis that was to unfold many had cause to give thanks for that. The centre was designed primarily to protect its inhabitants from the worst effects of radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Only 1 per cent of the radiation at street level could penetrate the bunker, or so its designers hoped. Structurally, however, the facility itself could only withstand the excessive atmospheric pressures created by a nuclear explosion of 1 lb per square inch (p.s.i.). A 1 megaton Chinese bomb would create an overpressure of 126 p.s.i. 0.5 nautical miles from the point of detonation. Implicitly, the designers of the bunker had therefore assumed that if Maidstone itself were a target then to preserve a local government presence was pointless when all the population was destroyed. Indeed, at just over a mile from point of detonation, a 1 megaton bomb produces an overpressure of 10 p.s.i. overpressure powerful enough to uproot all trees, destroy all houses, and shred most high-rise buildings. It was just such a bomb that a Xinhua report had said would be launched at the south-east of England.

The emergency centre had been designed to support forty-eight people for a month. It had an oil-fired generator to provide electricity, a tank of fresh water, food stores, accommodation for sixteen to sleep at any one time, and a warren of rooms crammed full of telephones — their cords hanging from points in the ceiling — arranged on long tables. The telephone was part of a network maintained by the government and was quite separate from the civilian telephone network owned and operated by British Telecom. In one room of the bunker was a green box, about the size of a refrigerator. Manufactured by Rainford Secure Systems of St Helens, near Liverpool, this was the telephone switching gear and it was meant to be impervious to the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The equipment would have to be sturdy because a 1 megaton nuclear weapon exploding at ground level generated 100,000,000,000 joules of energy. A fraction of a joule was enough to damage most modern electronic equipment; 1 joule was enough to render a telephone, or hospital life-support system, useless. Such widespread and indiscriminate damage to all electrical and electronic equipment could be expected within a radius of 10 to 20 kilometres from the point of impact of the Chinese bomb. The Kent local government's ability to communicate with the Cabinet Office Emergency Committee in London would depend crucially on just how good Rainford Secure Systems' shielding of the telephone switch gear really was.

By the time senior officials from the county council and the emergency services had been summoned to the emergency centre — just after 9 a.m. — they all knew why they were there. Since 7 a.m. the BBC and its commercial competitors had been broadcasting news of the Chinese threat. Although it would not be until 10 a.m. that the BBC began broadcasting its `What to do in the event of a nuclear attack' television and radio programmes, many Kent citizens had decided the threat was all too real and had begun to flee the south-east. The roads had become congested, especially main motorways — the M20 to Folkestone and Dover, and the M2 to Ramsgate and Dover — and the faster A roads leading north to the M25 orbital motorway that circled London and provided access to Gatwick and Heathrow airports. Chokepoints, such as the entrance to the Channel Tunnel at Folkestone, and the entrances to cross-Channel ferries at Ramsgate, Dover, and Folkestone were also very crowded with people fleeing. One of the first decisions the Emergency Committee had to take was whether to permit large-scale self-evacuation (and the attendant chaos on the roads that might bring) or attempt to keep the civilian population in their homes. One of the advantages of the timing of the warning was that most bread winners had not gone to work, so families were not dispersed. But to an extent the actions of people had pre-empted the discussion: self-evacuation was already taking place, and there was a spirited discussion between the police and the county council. The representative of the Chief Constable for Kent said he was sure his officers could control the situation and keep the roads clear for emergency use. The County Emergency Planning Officer disagreed. As the county was unable to guarantee personal safety the police should not hinder anyone's attempt to leave, rather they should ensure the roads were kept open. In addition, in the absence of emergency powers being enacted, while the police might close roads and maintain public order the legality of their restricting movement was judged extremely dubious. The county should, however, use local radio to send the message that people were likely to be safer in a properly constructed shelter in their houses than in a car if a bomb was detonated. The County Chief Executive came down on the side of his County Emergency Planning Officer and it was decided that the Chief Executive and the County Emergency Planning Officer would make themselves available for radio interviews after the meeting to explain the benefits of staying put.

Although many thousands had taken to their cars and were driving north to the M25 motorway or to the coast in the hope of getting to France, many more people had either made the decision to stay or did not possess the means to leave. In the latter category were the homeless and elderly. Here it was decided that social services should immediately set out to determine who were at risk; to identify their whereabouts; and, in the case of the homeless, remove them to an appropriate residential establishment.

The subject no one really wanted to discuss but every one knew had to be discussed came towards the end of the meeting: health. Governments did not plan expenditure on the basis of the sort of medical facilities a country of sixty million people would need to survive a nuclear attack. Kent would have to make do with what it had. One of the consequences of civilian nuclear disasters is a rise in thyroid cancer. This occurs because radioactive iodine produced by a nuclear accident lodges in the thyroid glands of affected workers. One way of preventing thyroid cancer is to administer potassium iodate. This lodges in the thyroid and crowds out the radioactive isotopes which then pass through the body. Stocks of potassium iodate were at the Dungeness nuclear power plant on Kent's south coast, beyond the Romney Marshes, but they were hardly adequate for a county-wide emergency. Hospitals had been alerted and were instituting their own emergency procedures. But only one, the Royal Marsden Hospital at Sutton in Surrey, was geared up for nuclear accidents. It offered a procedure known as `pulmonary lavage', whereby a patient who had breathed in radioactive particles was put on an alternative oxygenated blood supply while he had his lungs irrigated. Pulmonary lavage was, however, a complicated and time-consuming process, and Royal Marsden could accommodate only a fraction of the expected casualties from the Chinese bomb.

Eric Wallace, father of two, looked out of his sitting room window on to St John's Road. It was usually a busy road to the north it offered access to Tonbridge and Sevenoaks, to the south Lewes and East Grinstead but on that Thursday morning it was bumper-to-bumper both ways. Wallace had talked things over with his wife, Cathy, and they had decided to stay put. `If it's going to hit us direct then it doesn't matter where we are,' he said. He also thought that of all the places in the south-east Tunbridge Wells was about as unlikely a target as you could get… and London by far the more likely. In any event he was taking no chances.

The television had been turned on and tuned to BBC 1 since Wallace heard on his clock radio that south-east England might be the target for a Chinese nuclear attack. The calm voice of the announcer explained that the greatest threat to life was from gamma radiation. Some houses impede the progress of gamma radiation better than others. Caravans are next to useless as they stop virtually no radiation at all. A lot of modern houses are not much better. The best dwelling to be holed up in during a nuclear attack is in the basement of a three-storey block of flats. The announcer said that a Home Office study pointed out that the occupants of such a cellar or basement would receive one three-hundredth of the external gamma radiation. In general, cellars or basements are the best place to hide because they are furthest away from the roof, which lets in a lot of radiation, and because the ground is a good shield against radiation. Eric Wallace and his family, however, lived in a two storey mock-Tudor house without a cellar. On the ground, with only the windows blocked, more than 80 per cent of gamma radiation would pass through the house, without some protection.

Soon after he and his wife had decided to remain in their house Cathy set out for the shops in Tunbridge Wells. She was in charge of getting the family's survival kit together. She set off down St John's Road towards the town centre. The roads were packed with cars. The cars were packed with people and possessions. She passed car after car. None overtook her. She got to Grosvenor Road but Tesco's was closed. A crowd milled around its entrance. She continued on. She always shopped at Tesco's; it was the closest and they knew her.

Grosvenor Road became Mount Pleasant Road just at the point where Calverley Road met both. Calverley Road was a pedestrian mall and a short way down was Marks & Spencer. It was open, but an angry crowd was milling around the entrance like a swarm of agitated bees. Five policemen were attempting to restrain one group of people who had claimed that another had jumped the queue. Cathy spoke to one of the policemen who told her that Safeway's, down by the mainline railway station, was open, so she made for that. As she passed the Town Hall, a thirties structure of studied ugliness that dominated Mount Pleasant Road, she saw a Transit van full of vagrants being unloaded and taken into the town hall. Safeway's was as crowded and rowdy as the other supermarkets. Cathy queued and said little. All she knew was that she had a list to get, and then get back home although the prospect of a twenty-minute walk carrying what she had to carry scared the living daylights out of her. Eric had told her that they needed enough food for four for fourteen days. Since 10 a.m. the BBC had been broadcasting advice about what to buy. The government's advice was to stock up on sugar, jams, and other sweet foods, cereals, biscuits, meats, vegetables, fruit, and fruit juices. She also had to get batteries for the portable radio, pain killers, adhesive dressings, bandages, disinfectant, three buckets (with lids), and bin liners.

When she got home it looked as though a bomb had hit. Eric had removed doors and filled rubbish-bin liners with soil from the garden. He'd also painted the glass in the windows white and moved pieces of furniture in front of them.

The main ground floor room in the Wallaces' house ran the full depth of the house. The room was divided in two by sliding doors and they used the front half as their sitting room and the back half for dining. Behind the dining area was a kitchen and behind that a garden. Mr Wallace made his family's internal shelter in the dining room. Along the wall the room shared with the kitchen he propped four doors which he had removed from rooms upstairs. These were arranged in a `lean-to' and secured on the floor by a batten running its length. According to the film which had been running continuously on the BBC since 10 a.m., the next thing to do was insulate the lean-to. This was most effectively done by filling rubbish sacks full of earth and placing them over it. He also stacked sacks of earth on the kitchen side of the wall the lean-to was using. In all, he managed to fill and stack more than fifty sacks of earth by lunchtime. The entrance to the lean-to posed a problem until he uncovered two old tea chests. He filled each with earth. He put planks of wood over the top of the chests and on the planks stacked more bags of earth. There wasn't much left of the garden after he finished.

With the shelter built Mr Wallace set about securing the room housing it. He closed the double doors, both of which were solid timber. The dining room had only one window. He painted its panes white — this might deflect the flash, although they would likely break if the bomb went off in Kent itself — and then set about bagging the window. After he'd done that he moved a cupboard to cover the bags. The last thing he did, before the period of waiting began, was to construct a makeshift lavatory. The BBC advice was to remove the seat from a dining chair and place a bucket, lined with a rubbish bin liner, underneath it. The three buckets with lids that Cathy had bought now had a use.

The Wallaces then began their wait. They sat outside their shelter, watching the BBC. They figured that once the TV went off they'd have time to get in the shelter.