Red Phoenix Burning

Chapter 13 — Precipice

The United States had never had diplomatic relations with North Korea, but the country did have a seat at the United Nations. The diplomatic mission that supported the DPRK representative to the United Nations was located in Manhattan, on East Forty-Fourth Street, near the East River. In the past, it had sometimes served as an informal, unofficial link between the two countries.

There was no sign marking the location of the DPRK mission, just a steel door at street level in a pale brick office building. Credit unions, restaurants, hotels, and other diplomatic missions crowded against it and each other in the commercial district.

Lieutenant Joe Vitale led the Emergency Service Unit for Lower Manhattan, and he hoped adrenaline could substitute for sleep, at least for another fifteen minutes. It had been a busy night. Federal agencies had piled onto his operation like he was giving away toasters — State, FBI, Homeland Security, even the CIA. The New York City Police Department was used to interagency operations, but it all took time. If he’d had his choice, they would have done this last night.

It had to happen quickly. He was in the lead van, with two more behind. As his convoy turned onto East Forty-Third, units blocked the incoming lanes off First and Second Avenues. Another unit was already covering the building’s parking garage.

A few startled pedestrians watched his assault team boil out of the van, but uniforms coming out of the second vehicle shooed them down the street, toward the corners, and made sure nobody else entered the area.

His team wired a charge to the door in moments, then waited impatiently for the “all clear” from the uniformed officers. Joe took that moment to check the big picture. His people were properly set, the investigators were standing by in the third van — well, okay, they were trying to watch, leaning out the side windows, but they were far enough back.

His headset radio buzzed with static for a moment, and the sergeant reported. “Clear, Joe.”

Vitale gave the command and plastic explosive along the hinge edge of the door detonated, sending the door clattering inside. It was made of steel, and they didn’t have time for half measures. The lieutenant was second in line, maybe twenty feet from the door, and even with the lead man holding a ballistic blanket, Vitale could feel the pressure wave ripple over him. The noise and blast reminded him of a flash-bang, but they were well back and tight against the wall.

They went in at a run, down a short corridor to a second steel door, just as stout as the first, and locked. They’d been expecting this, and Vitale called, “Breacher up!” then stepped back to let the man work. In fact, he kept right on backing up as the demo expert prepared the charge. Passing the word on his headset, he stepped outside, but stopped just past the entrance. The corridor would channel the blast. He’d be safe around the corner.

His demo expert was by definition the last man out of the corridor, but Joe still took one last look down the hall before pulling his head back and signaling again. This time the blast was not as bad, although hearing protection could only do so much.

The second door led into a large office complex. Joe found himself standing in a reception area, facing an empty desk. The walls were decorated with the North Korean flag, and photos of the three Kims were mixed with colorful shots of laughing children in traditional Korean clothing. The room was filled with a light gray haze that stung his eyes. There was nobody in sight.

His assault team was already pouring through the door. They knew the basic layout of the mission, based on the builder’s records, and Vitale stepped back and tried to be the big picture guy while the other six team members broke left and right.

Less than a minute later, he heard “Got one. Bringing him out” over the headset radio. Two team members emerged from the left-hand corridor almost dragging a handcuffed Korean, in his mid-fifties. Vitale didn’t even have to use the photo guide they’d assembled.

“Ambassador Soon Yeo-rim, I presume?”

Soon had not come willingly, and his rumpled appearance was not improved by his expression. Bright red with outrage, he shouted, “This is a diplomatic mission. The UN—”

Vitale tried to suppress a broad smile, almost succeeding. “The UN voted yesterday to disestablish the North Korean seat in the assembly. I’m sorry if you didn’t know, but according to the UN Secretariat, you haven’t been answering your phones for several days.”

The ambassador hardly listened. “You have no right to arrest me! I have diplomatic immunity!”

“You’re not under arrest, Ambassador. Since the US has no diplomatic relations with your country, and the reason for your presence no longer exists, you and your staff have been declared persona non grata. You’re in protective custody until we can return you all to North Korea, if there’s any of it left.”

His headset earpiece crackled. “Lieutenant, we’ve got some more. Two people, shredding documents.”

“Have them join us,” Vitale ordered cheerfully, then continued addressing Soon. “We also received word from a credible source that there might be illegal materials here, possibly including drugs or counterfeit currency. I have a warrant that allows us to search this establishment for evidence, including documents regarding such activity. There’s also the matter of over one hundred twenty thousand dollars in unpaid parking tickets.”

Two more Koreans appeared, a man and woman in their late thirties. Using the photo guide they’d prepared, Vitale identified them as one of the cultural attachés and his wife. Although handcuffed, they walked in under their own power, in time to hear the last part of Vitale’s speech. Their expressions shifted from worried to terrified, especially when they saw how furious Ambassador Soon was.

“Please, we wish to defect!” the woman said. Her husband, looking downcast, simply nodded agreement.

Soon looked like he wanted to say something to them, but by now had gained control of his anger. He was still furious, but remained silent.

General Tae Seok-won watched through binoculars from a spot near the edge of the park. Two people had shown up. Jeup Do-bin was thin, even for a North Korean, and his lined face made him looked over sixty, although he was probably younger. His hair was only lightly threaded with silver. Jeup had been a deputy intelligence minister under the Kim regime, but had joined the party faction early on. Tae knew he’d become one of their most effective military commanders.

The other party faction representative was a woman, Lee Su-mi. General Tae knew of her. She headed the Pyongyang “Workers’ Union,” which had little overt power as a labor union, but massive influence throughout the party bureaucracy. She was younger than Jeup, perhaps forty, and had a broad, almost square face. It didn’t look like she smiled a lot.

The fact that Tae faced two people instead of one meant that the party faction was divided, unable to agree on a single leader or a single policy. It would make his task twice as hard.

General Tae had waited in his vehicle, a conspicuously unarmed and open-topped GAZ jeep, until the party representatives had entered the plaza. There had been no agreement on how they would arrive, or who would come. Or even that they would arrive unarmed. Tae wore his sidearm. The others, although in civilian clothes, had plenty of places they could conceal a pistol. Lee Su-mi wore a hanbok, the high-waisted flowing traditional Korean dress that Kim had decreed women should wear, and she could hide a grenade launcher under that.

Lee walked a little in front, so she must be the nominal leader, but either Jeup wouldn’t acknowledge her lead, or the faction didn’t trust her negotiating skills. Tae could accept that. Trust was in especially short supply these days.

When the two were about the same distance from the pavilion as the spot where Tae’s jeep was parked, he stepped out and motioned to his aide. The vehicle roared off, and Tae went to meet them, reaching the first steps almost the same instant they did.

Taedongmun Park lay on the north and west side of the Taedong River. Technically, it was party faction territory, and Tae had chosen the area for the meeting based partly on that point. He wanted the meeting, and was willing to come to them.

He’d chosen a pavilion near the water, originally meant to shade dignitaries during public events, including water displays. Without any walls or interior structures, it was completely open. He was sure there would be observers from the party faction watching for any sign of treachery, just like the men he had on his side of the river.

The pavilion had sustained some damage. The colorful tile floor was littered with rubble, and he’d noticed scorch marks on the steps. But while there might be a few holes in the roof, the structure was sound.

The general stepped gratefully into the shade and walked toward the center, stopping a few meters away from the other two. “Thank you for meeting with me,” Tae began in a polite tone.

“Get on with it,” Lee said harshly. “You asked for a cease-fire. You asked for us to meet here with only an hour’s notice. What is so urgent?”

Tae refused to be irritated. “Do you have somewhere else you need to be, Lee-dongmu?” Tae used one of the words that translated as “comrade.” Under the Kims’ rule, they had replaced most of the other terms and honorifics Koreans traditionally had used. This particular word implied equal or lower social standing.

“Stop wasting my time!” Lee insisted. She looked at the opposite riverbank, as if she was checking for snipers. They were there, of course, but she’d never spot them.

“Don’t worry. The cease-fire will last for at least another hour,” Tae replied, “and hopefully longer than that. The Chinese have crossed the border in strength.”

“My grandmother knows that,” Lee replied coldly, “and she’s been dead for twenty years. Did you know the Southerners have crossed the border?”

Tae bit back his immediate reply, and forced himself to ignore the insult. Stay on topic. “Then why are we fighting each other? Foreign forces have invaded our country, and we are making their job easier.”

Lee looked as if the last thing she wanted to do was to join forces, but Jeup Do-bin spoke for the first time, asking, “What do you propose?” Lee shot her colleague a sharp look, but remained silent.

“Complete integration of both forces. Existing commanders retain in place up through battalion level. Brigade and higher commands distributed equally to both sides. I command, with one of your people as my deputy. One of your people can also have command of the unified artillery. We ration the supply—”

“And you have support of the rest of the General Staff?” Lee interrupted.

“I am the senior officer of what remains of the General Staff.”

“Your ranks have thinned somewhat,” Jeup remarked.

“But we are still more numerous than you.”

“We occupy most of the Kim faction’s territory now.”

“After we destroyed their leadership with our rocket attack,” Tae responded. He didn’t need to mention that the rockets had been armed with nerve gas. It was a gentle reminder that he’d done it once. He’d let them wonder if he could do it again.

Lee scowled and asked, “Why should you have command of the combined forces?”

Tae smiled, and almost laughed. “Because I’m a professional soldier. Because you allowed survivors of the Kim leadership to escape to the north while your troops were looting their headquarters.” He saw their surprised expressions and nodded. “We have many sources of information.”

“You think you would do a better job?”

“I already am,” Tae replied forcefully. “I’m looking at the overall situation, and I understand that if we immediately join our forces and reorient our defenses, we may be able to hold off the South Koreans, come to terms with them, and then present the Chinese with a unified force. Hopefully, the Chinese army will then withdraw without a fight.”

“Work with the Southerners?” Jeup asked, astounded. “That’s completely unacceptable.”

Lee Su-mi vigorously nodded her complete agreement. “It’s treason!”

“Against who?” The general looked at them, suddenly unsure of their grip on reality. He took a few steps, pacing back and forth, and finally turned back to face them. “What would you do?”

Lee looked over to her negotiating partner, and Juep explained. “Our military staff has discussed the problem, and we are not opposed to a nonaggression pact with the General Staff. We then meet the Chinese threat to the north, while you hold off the southern invasion. We turn the city into a fortress, and make them pay for every meter with a hundred enemy soldiers. Faced with unacceptable casualties, the invaders will come to terms.”

“That isn’t a plan,” Tae retorted. “It’s wishful thinking. And to what end? Do you think the Southerners will let us restore our country? The Kim dynasty is shattered. The entire mechanism of government has been torn apart, and can never be restored.

“And with which of us will they negotiate?” Tae continued, his tone sharper. “The Southerners will be here first. I’ll be fighting long before you will. They will wear me down until my troops simply can’t fight back. Do you expect us to fight while you sit and watch?”

Lee asked, “What price would you sell our country for, to gain the South’s cooperation against the Chinese?” Her expression indicated that she thought just discussing the idea was treason.

“What terms would I ask for from the Southerners?” Tae asked as if considering it for the first time. “We place ourselves under their military authority. They supply us with munitions, food, and fuel. They provide air cover during our operations against the Chinese.” He shrugged. “Some of their artillery wouldn’t hurt. We agree to set up a caretaker government under martial law in that part of the country we still control. With a nonaggression pact, of course.”

“Martial law?” Lee spat angrily. “You mean a military junta with you in charge. You’d be nothing more than a puppet for the South, just as the South is a tool of the Americans.”

Tae felt as if he was dealing with a two-year-old. “That is what’s possible, whatever labels you want to use.” Almost pleading, he argued, “Face reality. Now that China has intervened, the Americans will join the Southerners, intent on first wiping us out, then pushing back the Chinese. The entire country will become a battlefield, and we will just be part of the rubble.

“A negotiated settlement with the South gives us at least some control over our fate. We have a little time before the two sides meet and engulf us. Let’s join forces and get the best deal we can, while we still can.”

Jeup looked to Lee, and Tae could see her calculating, weighing risks and payoffs, but only for half a moment. Remarking almost casually, “This is pointless,” she turned and walked back the way she’d come. After she’d taken a few steps, Jeup followed, with one last glance at the general.

Sighing, Tae stood, watching the two leave, wondering what words would have changed her mind, or if it was even possible. Now he had to…

The two had reached the edge of the pavilion, and Lee made a quick cutting gesture with her right hand, at waist level. Tae threw himself sideways, toward a pillar, but most importantly leaving the space he’d previously occupied. He saw a heavy-caliber bullet strike the floor where he had been standing, and heard a deep crack from a second round passing much too close to his head.

Tae dodged again, this time running full tilt, heading out, changing direction every five steps or so. There were at least two shooters, and…

Something struck his back, just below the left shoulder blade, hard. The vest absorbed most of it, but the pain of the blow warned he was moving too slowly. The general had reached the edge of the steps that led out of the pavilion. Out there, without the partial cover of the pillars, he’d be an easy target. They might be able to get a head shot.

At the edge of the steps, at a dead run, Tae launched himself into the air, hoping the only direction the snipers weren’t expecting him to go was up. Below and ahead, the ground sloped down to the water, and as he came down, he tucked in, like his parachute instructor had taught him so long ago.

He landed with a roll. Timing it almost correctly, he stumbled a little as he stood, but kept moving toward the river. He saw another bullet strike the ground nearby, as if he needed any more incentive. Then he heard a different sound, almost a howl, from above him.

Stretched full length, Tae hit the water. The weight of the vest seemed to triple and pulled him down, but he wanted to get away from the surface. The bottom sloped gently, and he turned sharply right to parallel the river’s bank.

He’d barely had time to inhale before going under, and had begun to push up, intending to take a breath, when the water above him turned to froth and rapid-fire booms echoed in his ears. The water carried dozens of concussions to him, although thankfully with reduced intensity.

Tae stayed down until death above the surface was a better choice than drowning. He was in water shallow enough to kneel, and he brought his head out. With his helmet still on, he hoped he looked like a turtle. He gratefully gulped air and looked around.

The last salvoes had evidently landed, because although the air still echoed with explosions, there was no sound of incoming shells. Bitter, choking smoke filled his nose and mouth. It was impossible to see anything from his position, but that was understandable.

He’d had every piece of artillery in his force zeroed in on that pavilion and the area around it. Mortars, the 122s, his three remaining 152s, and of course the multiple rocket launchers had all been organized to deliver a time-on target barrage if Tae gave the signal. It turned out the signal had been him dodging and running.

He heard the sound of an engine, and turned to see his troops on the far bank starting a motor in a small boat.

Snipers were for sissies.

Tony Christopher was hurrying, but he still got to the conference room late. More properly, the general had already started, which made him late no matter when he arrived. “My apologies, sir,” Tony said as he took a chair next to Lieutenant General Randall Carter, commander of the Seventh Air Force.

“That’s okay, Tony. I only called you nine minutes ago.” Besides the general, Kevin could see other members of the Seventh’s staff in the room.

The conference room’s lights were lowered, and Carter and his staff were facing a large flat-screen display on one wall. It showed the middle part of the Korean Peninsula, with Seoul near the bottom edge. It was filled with tactical symbols, but Tony didn’t get a chance to sort them out.

As Tony took his seat, General Carter ordered, “Ben, start it over again,” and the briefer nodded. The image froze and flickered as the different symbols shifted position. “Watch the upper right corner,” Carter suggested.

The briefer, an officer on the Seventh’s operations staff, explained, “This is taken straight from their Air and Missile Defense Cell. The Koreans use feeds from our stuff as well as their own sensors, so we share the fused image. We’re running at one-to-one time,” the briefer said, pointing to the upper right corner of the window.

Tony noted that the recording’s start time was only twenty-one minutes ago. A small white square appeared in North Korean territory, north of Pyongyang, then quickly changed to a red diamond. “One of the missile warning satellites picked it up first, then cued everyone else. The Koreans had Aegis ships on both sides, we had an E-3 Sentry here,”—he pointed to a spot just off the North Korean coast—”as well as land-based warning radars belonging to both countries south of the DMZ — I mean the thirty-eighth parallel,” he corrected. The infamous Demilitarized Zone was definitely militarized now, with the Korean army streaming northward through it. Originally the buffer between North and South Korea, the term no longer held any meaning.

“None of the Aegis ships were able to engage. The geometry wasn’t even close.” The red diamond moved rapidly, compared to the tracks of friendly aircraft on the display. A label appeared, reading “Scud,” which was a liquid-fueled ballistic missile, one of the most numerous in the DPRK inventory. It was carried and fired from a mobile launcher. A number below the label showed its speed. The value almost shimmered as it rapidly changed, steadily increasing. The missile was still in its boost phase.

A curved line appeared, perhaps thirty seconds after launch, leading from the missile symbol to an oval that included Seoul and its western suburbs.

“This is when the South Koreans hit the sirens. Seoul has been holding drills every day since the crisis started, but they only had two minutes between the alarm and calculated impact.”

Other lines came up from locations in the south and joined at the symbol, changing colors. “The ROKs had two batteries in position to engage. White means they’re tracking, yellow means they have a firing solution, and red means they’re engaging.”

Missile symbols moved along the lines toward the diamond, a pair from each battery. They seemed to crawl, and Tony urged them on, as if this wasn’t a recording.

The ellipse around Seoul had grown for a while, then shrunk and shifted as the missile’s motor burned out and it began to arc over the top of its trajectory. The oval’s center crept slowly north and west, away from the center of the city.

Then the plot fell apart. The red diamond disappeared, and several new contacts clustered near the place, shifting back and forth from white to red. The lines connecting the interceptor missiles to their original target had disappeared, then reappeared, with lines connecting each interceptor to different targets. They shifted from one to another, but never steadied up.

“Decoys?” Tony muttered to himself, as the interceptors and their target merged and disappeared from the display.

The briefer reported, “South Korea is still using the PAC-2, while we have the upgraded PAC-3, but we still might have missed, even if our people had been in position to shoot. Nobody thought the DPRK had decoys on any of their stuff, let alone an old missile like the Scud. The Missile Defense Cell will begin analyzing the engagement immediately, of course, but as bad as the threat was before, it just got a little worse.”

General Carter asked, “What news from the impact site?”

“It’s too soon. Many of the first responders are still en route. It obviously wasn’t a nuclear weapon, and there are no reports of gas or other chemicals, yet. But even if it was a conventional warhead, that’s almost a metric ton of explosives. Although with the decoys, the warhead is probably a little smaller, say three-quarters of a ton. That’ll still make a hell of a divot.”

The briefer pointed to a spot northwest of the city center. “It landed in a suburb called Goyang. They may have been aiming at Gimpo Airport, to the south, but if that’s the case, they’re really bad shots, because that’s way outside the missile’s CEP. In any case, although Goyang is a suburb, it’s heavily built up, filled with high-rise apartments.”

As the lights came back up, General Carter observed, “Ever since the Chinese crossed the border, Washington’s been in a tailspin, while we waited for the other shoe to drop.”

The general held up a hard copy message. “I was just handed this, and people, the boot has hit the floor. This is a flash precedence message to all PACOM units authorizing us to enter former North Korean territory, in coordination with our ROK allies, and assist them in eliminating DPRK military resistance. Priority is any WMD sites, but any KPA target is fair game.”

Then he added, “Of course, this is Washington. They gave us no guidance on what to do about the Chinese, so standard self-defense rules apply. I’ll go back up the chain and ask for more clarity on the rules of engagement, but for the moment I’m interpreting ‘self-defense’ to include Chinese attacks on South Korean forces.”

He stood up and the rest of the staff rose as well. “Let’s go help our friends take back their country.”

Kevin Little was too fascinated by the landscape to pay any attention to his stomach. He was thankful that the last few minutes had been over relatively flat terrain, although the pilots probably felt terribly exposed. This entire area had supposedly been taken by South Korean troops, but they weren’t taking any chances.

And it had been a fight. Any flat land in the North was either settled or farmed, and Kevin could see plumes of smoke coming up from different points in the middle distance. Cultivated fields had been torn up by vehicles and craters from bombs or shells.

Closer in, he could pick out individual buildings and other structures that had been damaged or outright flattened. Only a few were still burning, so every column of smoke really meant ten or twenty buildings destroyed.

He could tell that a lot of it had been by airpower. According to his South Korean counterpart, the ROKs had adopted a blitzkrieg style of warfare, with planes smashing any organized resistance with a blizzard of ordnance. Helicopter gunships then supported the advancing ground troops, quickly overrunning the still-recovering resistance.

Or the ROK scouts would accept their surrender. That was happening a lot lately. Soldiers without a government don’t fight well. Occasionally, the ROK forces had even been contacted by radio before they reached an area, with terms for a peaceful surrender discussed. Sometimes, it worked out.

Historians would describe the ROK advance across the thirty-eighth parallel the same way they talked about Patton’s charge into France in 1944, or Desert Storm in 1991, with many of the same problems. Without enemy resistance, transport capacity becomes the limit to movement.

As they flew north, Tony saw every road choked with vehicles, moving north or south. The DPRK’s flimsy road network was operating well past capacity. If he’d had to drive to his destination, a distance of perhaps seventy or eighty miles, it likely would have taken days.

“Colonel,” the pilot announced, “ten klicks.” Kevin acknowledged the report and looked forward at a line of low hills. Of course, the Surion helicopter was much lower, and Kevin remembered to keep his eyes outside as the floor of the helicopter surged under him.

The machine climbed slightly to follow a two-lane road that led more or less north through the hills, and Kevin looked out at the heavily wooded hillsides and the bustling traffic below. The vehicles were almost entirely ROK Army, but he could see occasional civilian North Korean cars and trucks, as well as a lot of people on foot.

Cruise speed for a Surion helicopter was well over a hundred miles an hour, and the aircraft burst out from the gap into a wide valley. Over his headset Kevin heard the copilot request clearance and landing instructions, and just moments later they were slowing.

Of course, they didn’t have to descend very far to land, and Kevin unbuckled while the crew chief slid open the side door and hopped to the ground. He came to attention and saluted as Kevin stepped out, as did a lieutenant waiting with a jeep near the pad.

The officer seemed to straighten still further as Little approached. “Lieutenant Bin Jae-moo, sir, Second Battalion, Ghost Brigade. The colonel is at the forward observation post,” he reported, pointing to the top of the ridge.

Kevin returned the salute and climbed into the jeep. Bin started it with a roar and headed for a dirt track that climbed sharply. Raw earth and freshly cut brush showed where it had been made passable. To his credit, the young lieutenant did not try to set any speed records, or impress Kevin with his driving skills.

“Colonel Rhee says you two served together in the last war,” Bin ventured.

“We were together for most of it,” Kevin confirmed.

He was reluctant to say more, but the lieutenant pressed him. “The colonel says you saved his life.”

“We saved each other’s lives,” Kevin responded. “More than once.” The lieutenant was curious, and would have happily listened to any war story Kevin told, but the colonel needed to focus on the now.

Kevin had been having flashbacks of the fighting since he’d arrived in Korea. The crisis, then meeting Rhee after so long, had brought all the memories rushing back, both good and bad. He didn’t fight his recollections, but he didn’t encourage them, either.

This was still Korea, but a very different war. And this time he wasn’t some junior officer, trying to run a platoon or a company. Kevin felt the weight of his rank. Any mistakes he made now would impose a far greater penalty on others instead of himself.

Bin followed the trail up for almost ten minutes, and while the area was supposed to be secure, Kevin kept his carbine close by. Dense woods came right up to the edge of the road, and could have hidden anyone or anything.

The Korean lieutenant parked the jeep below the crest of the ridge, and readied his own weapon before leading Kevin into the trees. The still air was filled with green light filtering through the leaves. Quietly threading their way past denser clumps of brush and fallen branches, they reached the ridgeline quickly, then descended the other side.

Rhee’s observation post was a horizontal crease on the northern side of the hill, about twenty meters below the crest. It had been improved and hidden so well that Kevin was only meters from the spot before he could tell where the natural vegetation ended and the camouflage began. He had to step in and down. They’d deepened the fold until the forward edge of the dugout was chest-high.

Kevin Little’s old comrade was busy observing the terrain with a set of tripod-mounted artillery scopes, dictating, while an enlisted man took notes. Another soldier operated a tripod-mounted video camera with a long lens pointed at the city, while another tripod held a laser rangefinder, ready for use. Behind them was a rack for their rifles, probably taken from a personnel carrier, and a map table. In the corner, two soldier-technicians were working on a complex communications center.

The ridgeline they were perched on was the last high ground between the ROK forces and Pyongyang. The North Korean capital straddled the Taedong River, which twisted and snaked across a wide plain. Built-up areas were intermixed with cultivated fields right up to the city limits. Pyongyang itself still had a dramatic skyline, although Kevin knew at least a few of the taller buildings had collapsed from damage, or been deliberately brought down.

Smoke enclosed the city in a dirty gray dome, fed by countless fires. Certainly nobody had tried to actually put any of them out, and Kevin could see whole blocks blackened, and others still burning, charred clusters adding to the overall haze.

Lieutenant Bin handed Kevin a pair of binoculars, but the city limits were at least ten kilometers away. The magnified image gave him a little more detail, but the heat haze and smoke prevented him from seeing much. He spotted a burning tank in a crossroads near the outskirts, and what were probably entrenchments in some open ground. It was too far to see if the trenches were occupied.

That made Kevin think of Rhee’s more powerful binoculars. He lowered the glasses and turned to see Rhee watching him, smiling broadly. The Korean colonel was happy, almost euphoric.

“In at the finish? That’s great!” Rhee offered his hand and they shook hands warmly. “Welcome to the end of the Kim regime, Colonel Little!”

Rhee pointed out toward the plain. “I’ve got eight teams spread out around the southern edge of the city, observing and reporting. They’ve encountered a few armed deserters, but all the organized military forces are inside the city.

“And they’re still fighting each other!” Rhee grabbed Kevin’s shoulder in excitement. “All the observers report small-arms and artillery fire continuing inside the city.”

“When will you take the city?” Kevin didn’t even use the word “attempt” in his question. Success was a foregone conclusion.

Rhee frowned. “Tomorrow morning, maybe ten hundred by the time everyone regroups and reloads, but I don’t think we should wait. We should go now!”

“Do you have the troops?” Kevin was more than surprised. He hadn’t seen any camps or staging areas on his flight north.

Rhee nodded, still smiling. “Units are already moving through this ridgeline to jumping-off positions for tomorrow’s attack. Others are coming in from the open ground to our west. We have the lead elements of several battalions of mechanized infantry already in position; the rest of each unit is moving up. I say ‘don’t stop.’ Just keep moving forward.”

“Without a plan?” Kevin asked. They couldn’t have had the time needed to develop a proper operations plan, especially to take a city. Urban fighting could destroy an army. Buildings, especially ruined ones, made excellent fortifications. Just ask the Germans about Stalingrad.

“We divide the city into sectors using the street map. I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but I memorized the layout of this place years ago.” He pointed toward Pyongyang. “In my mind, I’ve spent as much time there as I have in Seoul.

“We can have the troops in each sector deal with their own opposition, with helicopter gunships in support. They drive straight for the city center. I’ve already picked sector commanders, and as new units arrive, we use them as reinforcements, or send them into one of the empty sectors, always in strength. My teams have identified landing zones all over the outskirts of the city. We can bring in infantry units by helicopter right up to the edge of the battle.

“And the US Air Force is in the fight now!” Rhee continued happily. “Combined with our own aircraft, we don’t have to wait for artillery. I know US Army gunships are flying north. They’ll be able to add their firepower soon as well.”

Rhee gestured toward the city. “Look at them. They’re disorganized, and we know they’re understrength and badly supplied. Do you still think we should wait?”

“What are you waiting for, then?” Kevin asked.

“I submitted my plan to General Kwon earlier today. He’s taking it to headquarters right now, and he’s pretty persuasive.”

“Exactly what is the range of a Hwaseong-5 missile?” President Wen asked the defense minister. China’s Central Military Commission had quickly gathered for an urgent meeting after hearing the news about the missile attack on Seoul.

Defense Minister Yu’s response was qualified. “It’s a copy of the old Soviet R-17. The Americans call it the Scud B, and Second Bureau’s always assumed the range was similar, about three hundred kilometers. But if the North Koreans have added decoys…”

“Still, that barely crosses our border, if it was fired from the same position as they did today.” The PLAAF commander was dismissive. “And it was a conventional warhead.”

“This time,” the defense minister countered. “One scenario the intelligence people have suggested was that this was a ‘live test.’ The DPRK has never fired a ballistic missile operationally. Previous missile firings were always carefully planned and rehearsed for weeks ahead of time. They were more for propaganda than training. Now that they’ve done it once in real-world conditions, they’ll go back and correct any problems before firing missiles with nuclear or chemical warheads.”

That got their attention. The defense minister pressed his point. “And it’s not about just the old R-17. That’s relatively short-ranged. Their Nodong reaches over a thousand kilometers and can hit Beijing. The Musudan has a range four times that, and can reach almost every place in China except the westernmost parts of Xinjiang and Tibet. The Taepodong goes even further, to Tibet and India.

“I wouldn’t waste a long-range missile on a test. They were able to pick Seoul because it was within range. And they missed. I imagine they’re working to fix that problem.”

“Do we have any idea how many missiles or what types the North Koreans have left?” the air force commander asked.

The defense minister started to answer, but the navy commander interjected, “More importantly, who controls the nuclear warheads? Have the South Koreans captured any?”

President Wen cut in. “If they’d captured any, and especially if they thought they’d found all of them, we would have heard about it. The South Koreans would be thumping their chests and shouting the news.”

Yu pressed a key on the controller. A map of Korea appeared. An irregular red line crossed the peninsula, and the map was dotted with symbols. “The line shows the farthest we know that South Korean units have advanced. It’s safe to assume that these sites behind that line have been captured and examined.” He used a light pointer to highlight different installations in the area north of Pyongyang.

“The capital is the ROK’s current goal, and is certainly a major objective, but three-quarters of the country lies north of that, with dozens of sites that haven’t been touched. The circles mark known chemical weapons locations, the triangles nuclear sites. The Second Bureau says the confidence level of these locations is moderate to high.” The minister smiled. “But the head of the Second Bureau also took pains to remind me of the obvious fact that any of these weapons could be moved, so his confidence level is perhaps not as high as it once was.”

The defense minister put the controller down and turned to face Wen. “This is why, Comrade Chairman, fifty kilometers across the border is not nearly enough! We have a responsibility to remove the threat these weapons pose to China. We have the forces already in position, and now we have starting points across the Yalu.”

“We’ve seen exactly one missile launched, and it was aimed at Seoul,” the navy commander insisted.

“Can you promise that they will all be aimed at Seoul?” the defense minister retorted. “Until a few hours ago, a ballistic missile attack was only a possibility. Now it is a reality, and what’s left as a possibility? In this chaos, there is no guarantee that whoever controls those weapons, and we have no idea who they are,” he added, “will not lash out in many directions, including ours. Is our trust of North Korea strong enough to accept that risk?”

Nobody had an answer for that. President Wen surveyed the group, but whether afraid to speak, or out of ideas, they were silent. Then he looked over at the army commander. He knew the general well. In his younger years, Wen had been a political commissar in the ground forces and they had served together several times. “General Shu, you’ve been silent. Your troops would be making the advance. I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

Shu didn’t answer right away, but after a moment, he shrugged and said, “I fervently hope the chance of some North Korean faction firing any kind of missile toward us is small, but right now, the risk is as high as it’s ever going to be. I’ve been trying to imagine our fate in the eyes of the nation if we let something as horrible as that occur.”

The army general let that sink in, then added, “And if the land we occupy now will be used as a bargaining chip later, then I’d like as big a chip as possible.”

Wen didn’t ask for a show of hands. He ordered the defense minister, “The fifty-kilometer limitation is removed. Advance as far into DPRK territory as necessary to ensure the safety of our citizens.”