Into the Fire

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The dustup between the U.S. Air Force F-16Es and the North Korean corvette triggered the initial alarm bells to ring and ring persistently up and across multiple chains of command, from the Republic of Korea Navy (ROK Navy) command to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) to multiple U.S. military commands. Those alarm bells intensified when the reports of the hostile actions of the Najin-class frigates hit the intel feeds. For the United States’ allies in the area — the Japanese and especially the South Koreans — those alarm bells were on steroids. Commodore Park minced no words in alerting his ROK Navy chain of command, and the panic in the voice of their on-scene commander got the full attention of watch standers at the ROK Navy headquarters in Gyeryong, South Korea. From there, the reports rocketed up to the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Republic of Korea in Seoul.

General Kwon Oh-Sung, Chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived at his Seoul military headquarters and made a beeline for his chief of staff amid the growing chaos of their watch floor.

“Has the situation changed since you reached me at my home?”

“No, General. Navy headquarters is passing all reports from Commodore Park on scene up to us after they receive them. His ships are all steaming east at best speed.”

“What about the American ships? Are the North Korean frigates still threatening them?”

“We’re … we’re … not exactly sure. Commodore Park has been reporting on the status of his six-ship flotilla but hasn’t reported specifically on the Najin-class frigates since his initial report they were inbound towards the two American ships.”

Kwon considered this for a moment. He didn’t know Park personally; an ROK Navy captain was too far down in the food chain. But he did know his flag-officer counterparts in the ROK Navy. “Armchair admirals,” he called them when he was alone with his fellow ROK Army officers. With 160 ships, almost 100 aircraft, and over 75,000 personnel, the ROK Navy was sucking an enormous share of South Korea’s military budget away from the army and air force.

And for what? North Korea’s navy was little more than a joke in his mind. No, the threat from North Korea was the more than one million active and over seven million reserve and paramilitary forces under arms that could swarm across the border at any time. What was the ROK Navy going to do to blunt the assault across the DMZ? Hell, they couldn’t even protect their own ships. They let the North Koreans sink the ROK corvette Cheonan in their own home waters. General Kwon knew when the real fight came, the navy would be on the sidelines.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of Republic of Korea was modeled on the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, but General Kwon’s responsibilities set him apart from his American counterpart. The American chairman was charged with providing advice to the U.S. president and secretary of defense but had no operational control over U.S. military forces; Kwon had operational control over all military personnel of the ROK armed forces. In a crisis, he was in charge, and he had no intention of abdicating that responsibility or surrendering any of his authority.

Kwon turned to the officer manning the command console. “Colonel, contact our navy command center. Tell them I want all on-scene reports from Commodore Park piped directly to this command center, not forwarded by them. Understood?”

“Yes, General.”

“Contact General Jeong. Tell him to scramble a flight of KF-16D’s from Seosan Air Base. Then have him call me here immediately after that.”

“Yes, General. What orders do you want me to give them once they take off?”

Kwon was simmering. They were in the middle of a crisis and a full-bird colonel was asking a question a private should be able to answer.

“Look at a map!” Kwon shouted, startling everyone in the command center. “You know where our ships are. You know where the American ships are. You know where the North Korean frigates and corvettes are. Tell them to head north by northwest and await further instructions. I want our fighter jets over our ships, and I want them there now!”

As the watch team scrambled to carry out the chairman’s orders, radios crackled in the background and watch standers updated electronic status boards. General Kwon Oh-Sung had served well over three decades in South Korea’s military. Almost thirty-five years on hair-trigger alert. He had less than a year before his tour as chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff would end — and, with it, his military career. His legacy wouldn’t include standing idly by while his nation suffered another humiliation.

“Major,” he bellowed at the nearest watch stander.

“Sir!”

“I wish to speak with Admiral Cho immediately. Then I want you to arrange a conference call with my five operational commanders. Do it now!”

“Yes, general. And General Green is on the line holding for you.”

General Kwon paused for a moment. General Everett Green was the commander of all U.S. forces in Korea.

“Tell General Green I am busy. I will call him when I have a few minutes to spare.”

“Yes, General.”

Just over one hundred miles north of where General Kwon Oh-Sung was trying to take control of the situation he faced, General Lee Kwon Hui sat at his desk at North Korean military headquarters in Pyongyang and stewed. He had roughly dismissed his staff and told them he didn’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances. Now he just sat — and he worried.

He had recently returned to Pyongyang after his weeks-long negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. There, he and his delegation had received congratulations from North Korea’s political and military leadership for their successful arms-for-energy negotiations. Then, unexpectedly, he was granted a private audience with North Korea’s supreme leader, who had showered him with praise and given him a medal. That was all good — and well deserved, Lee thought — allowing himself a bit of self-congratulation. But as he rose to leave, the supreme leader’s parting words still rang in ears, “General Lee, you have done your job and now we must do ours. We will own the Korea Bay and the Yellow Sea. Fateful days are ahead.”

What fateful days? Pumping gas from the sea bottom for the next several decades? That was of no concern to a military man. What did concern him was what else was happening — events that were playing out in the dispatches that had crossed his desk and the rumors he was hearing from his military colleagues. The murder of Vice Marshal Sang Won-hong, deputy chief of the general staff, had started it all — but that was just the tip of the iceberg. There had been a dramatic series of firings and advancements in the North Korean military hierarchy over the past several months, and the top military leaders were all generals who had extreme enmity toward the West and especially the United States. Now there were massive troop movements and naval shifts that were puzzling and concerning. Own the Yellow Sea. What was that all about? Lee wasn’t senior enough to be party to any of the meetings and conversations that would explain all this — and he felt isolated and out of the loop. But he could change that. He knew whom to contact to find out what he wanted to know. His fingers flew over the keyboard of his secure computer. Once he had fired off several messages, he also had a phone call to make. For that call, he needed complete privacy.

Chase Williams had just returned to his office from briefing the president. He had presented Op-Center’s assessment regarding the developing situation in the Yellow Sea. The president was both cheered and frustrated: cheered because Williams was able to provide him with critical information his Geek Tank had generated, but frustrated because neither his intelligence nor military leaders could come up with the same information — at least not with the same fidelity or granularity.

Williams placed a call to Brian Dawson, who answered it on the second ring. “What’s cooking, boss?”

“How’s Kadena, Brian?”

“Oh, it’s a tropical garden spot, that’s for sure,” Dawson replied with only a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Any tasking for us for the situation with North Korea yet?”

“No, not yet. But I’m glad you all are downrange. The shooting’s started with North Korea, and it looks like we’re about to have a standoff at best — a shooting war at worst — at sea. I’ll keep you posted in real time, but right now it looks like the North’s hell-bent on attacking one of our ships — most likely USS Milwaukee—it’s a littoral combat ship — and maybe trying to capture the crew. We’re still trying to come up with the ‘why,’ and I’ve got Aaron and his team going full tilt. When I know more, you’ll know more.”

“Roger that, boss; we’re good here. Any other words of wisdom?”

“Yes, as I’ve advised you before, don’t let Hector talk you into a game of cribbage.”

As the line went dead, Dawson marveled at Williams’s ability not to be debilitated by a crisis.

But Chase Williams was not sanguine he had yet done enough. It troubled him, and troubled him deeply, that he didn’t know why North Korea was doing this — and why now. He wanted to know; no, he needed to know. He eased himself out of his chair and headed for the Geek Tank.