Op-Center

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The Nodong missile site was just eighty miles as the crow flies, but the trip was slowed by deeply rutted dirt roads and foliage that crept across them as quickly as the North Koreans could clear it away. After nearly three hours of bumping and lurching, Colonel Sun and his aide Kong finally reached their destination.

Sun ordered Kong to stop the car as they came to the top of the hill that overlooked the valley where the mobile Nodongs were kept. He rose slowly and stood in the jeep, gazing down at the three trucks, which were arranged in a triangular formation. The long missiles were lying flat on the backs of the trucks, beneath tents of foliage erected to conceal them from above. In the dull light of the low gibbous moon, he could see pieces of the missiles' white skin peeping through the leaves.

"It's a thrilling sight," Sun said.

"I can hardly believe we've made it."

"Oh, we have," Sun said. He savored the view a moment longer. "And seeing them in flight will be even more thrilling."

It seemed so incredible: after a year of furtive contacts with the North, of working closely with Major Lee, with Captain Bock and his computer expert Private Koh, and even with the enemy himself, a second Korean War was about to become a reality. Privately, Sun and Lee both hoped that it would do more than mark a permanent end to reunification talks: they hoped that it would mark a full-scale U.S. commitment to their cause, and the destruction of the North as a military force. If reunification came then, it would not be a result of compromise but of strength.

"Drive on," Sun said as he sat back down.

The jeep rattled down the mountain road toward the nearest artillery emplacement. There were two ZSU-23-4 quad SPAAG antiaircraft tanks looking out over the Nodong site, a soldier perched in the large, square steel turret with its four water-cooled 23mm cannons elevated at their maximum eighty-five-degree angle. Each had a range of 450 kilometers. Sun knew that six other tanks were positioned around the site, their large gun-dish radar antenna over the turret rear able to pick out planes day or night.

A sentry stopped the jeep. After carefully reviewing the Colonel's orders by flashlight, he respectfully asked him to kill his headlights before continuing. The guard saluted the officer and the jeep picked its way down the hill— blind, Sun knew, for their own protection. There might be enemy spies in the hills, and a colonel would be a prize for a sniper.

And that would be a pity, he thought, to be killed by one of his own countrymen. Because this Colonel was just hours away from doing more for South Korea than any soldier in its history.