The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

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Park Ho, standing at the base of the inert launch pad, resting his hand on a piece of green canvas which covered the fin, looked skywards towards the heavy steel and lead doors which covered the top of the silo. Originally, the base had been designed to target the US military forces on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Park had also seen its potential as one of the key facilities for the long-range Taepodong-2 missile.

Among the trees, some buildings were visible, painted in a camouflage of green and brown. They were set apart from each other with good, sealed roads running between them. These were mainly administrative offices, staff quarters, an observation tower and a helipad. The key services of fuel storage, monitoring and tracking, assembly plant and test facility were all underground. They could withstand a direct hit from anything except a nuclear weapon.

Park stepped back as far as he could to get a better view. The rounded walls were made of steel, behind which was more concrete and finally the granite of the mountain into which the bunker was hewn. The circulated air had a dank, metallic smell to it. Hardened cables ran across the floor, through the side of the silo into a control room dug in several hundred metres away.

Right at the top, Park saw the lift jolt and begin its downward journey to collect him.

Had he acted and taken power earlier, the missile might have been ready earlier. His predecessor, obsessed with everything American, insisted on trying to develop three solid-fuel propelled stages powered by hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. But, knowing that the technology would remain beyond his nation for decades to come, Park had kept working on the less efficient liquid-fuelled engines powered by a mix of 20 per cent gasoline and 80 per cent kerosene.

His predecessor had insisted on testing. But the liquid fuel was so corrosive and toxic that after each test the engine would have to be stripped down and reassembled. Technically, with so many new components, it wouldn't even be the same engine. So each firing was a test firing. Park had developed missile delivery at its rawest. Against the psychology of the United States, he was sure it was lethal enough to win a war.

The lift was no more than a square platform, hauled up and down on cables and enclosed by a metal cage, whose door was kept closed with bent wire. Park stepped in alone, pulled on a pair of thin, rubber gloves and put on a hard helmet hanging on the side of the cage. As the lift ascended, Park followed the contours of the three stages of the missile. The first bulky stage rose up 16 metres. The second stage narrowed for 14 metres. The third stage was smaller and had been redesigned to take the small amount of solid fuel needed for the 100-second motor thrust. Nestling right at the top — 53 metres high — was the delivery capsule, where two technicians were working on installing the payload.

The lift stopped. Park unlatched the cage door but stayed inside it as he watched the two men position the final aluminium stays which would keep the weapon in place.

The potential of the missile as a weapon of delivery was awesome. Park thought back to his most vivid childhood memory — his first memory, because all those which preceded it became bland and forgettable. He was five years old. It was 15 March 1951 and all around him was devastation. No building was left standing except the railway station, as if the world had been ended by a cruel, dark cloud. Why he was there as American troops were advancing in Seoul, Park never found out. His mother, dazed and in panic, clutched his hand, and she dragged him towards the railway because she thought there might be trains to get them out.

But instead of finding trains, they came face to face with a column of American tanks. The GIs jumped down and separated Park from his mother. He was lifted up on to a man's shoulder and given a candy. He threw it to the ground and screamed to stay with his mother. But how would they know what he was saying? Why would they care? They had had their own feelings knocked out of them by the war. He watched his mother being dragged away. As she struggled, they tore her top, and soon she was exposed, flailing. They shouted in English. But he couldn't understand them. His mother broke free and began running. They caught her, hit her in the face and she fell. Then Park heard a phrase that he would never forget. 'Fucking useless whore.' And the GI who spoke it pulled out a pistol and shot her as she lay on the ground.

The soldier carrying Park said, 'Oh, shit. Come on, kid, let's get you somewhere better.'

The soldier had only taken a few steps when he crumpled silently, as if, while lowering Park gently to the ground, he had slipped and fallen. Park tumbled off his shoulders, ran and was whisked into the arms of the Chinese sniper who had fired the shot.

Back home, Park was brought up by his father, who spoke all the time about the glorious victory of the war. Park knew differently, and he set out to learn what had caused the terrible destruction of his country. He had listened and not argued. Once accepted by the elite, he had access to Western books and he studied international history, absorbing the nuances of politics and power balance. He emerged guided by a simple truth. With one intercontinental ballistic missile any nation, however small, could take on a superpower.

The nuclear research laboratories were set up at Yongbyon in the sixties, staffed by scientists trained in the Soviet Union. In the seventies, when Park became involved, they concentrated on refining and converting nuclear fuels. But it wasn't until 1982 that Park, aged only thirty-six, persuaded the Great Leader Kim Il-sung himself to begin building North Korea's own nuclear weapons and the missiles with which to deliver them.

Park pushed through the process of acquiring and reprocessing nuclear fuel. Nuclear reactors and reprocessing plants were built at Taechon and Yongbyon. When his government signed a deal with the United States to stop the nuclear programme in 1994, Park ignored it. He procured detonators from China and the guidance system from Russia. When the US ordered North Korea to dismantle its facilities, Park simply moved them. At that time, the United Nations weapons inspectors calculated that 24 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium had been extracted from spent fuel rods at Yongbyon. The real figure was triple that. The US estimated North Korea could make three nuclear warheads, using 8 kilograms per warhead. Park's plan was to use just 2 kilograms a warhead. With the five higher-quality tactical weapons flown in from Pakistan, Park would be able to make forty warheads. The size of the explosion was irrelevant. Park knew he could never destroy America or Japan. But he could paralyse them with the terror of a nuclear holocaust.

One of the engineers stood up from leaning into the delivery capsule. He saw Park and saluted. 'We'll be finished in a couple of minutes, comrade,' he said, tapping his colleague on his shoulder. The second man lifted his head abruptly and took off his goggles. His was a face without subservience. There was no awe or fear of Park. 'So, we've done it,' he said with a smile. 'We've damn well done it.'

'Indeed we have, my friend,' responded Park.

'I have some final checks to make on the guidance system. We are checking the prevailing winds in the target area. Apart from that, it's done.'

Kee Tae Shin was the first scientist Park had picked out and sent to the Soviet Union in the seventies. Both were young, forceful and idealistic. After the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, Park and Kee had urged his successor and son, Kim Jong-il, not to sign the deal with the United States. When Kim refused, Park, then a colonel, and Kee brought together sympathetic scientists and military officers in a highly secretive factional clique, ready to move if ever the new leadership came close to forging the sort of relationship with the United States that Eastern Europe and Russia had.

Park's faction had reaffirmed its commitment to the three founding concepts of the nation. There would be an eventual reunification of the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang would be the capital. Military force would be used to achieve it.

After the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Park sensed that the American searchlight would again fall in his direction. They would demand that North Korea abandon its nuclear and missile programme; that it reform its political and economic system; that it allow itself to be swamped by South Korean money. Just a few miles across the Chinese border were factories built by Hyundai, Daewoo, Lucky Gold Star and others, waiting to move in on the collapse of his nation. Park planned for them to rot.

His predecessor was a weak man. He watched CNN and Hollywood blockbusters, drank Jim Beam whisky and had bagels flown in from a bakery in Hong Kong. He passed secrets to the United Nations in order to win favour, and Park knew it might only be months before enough was known to destroy his programme by force.

It was then that Park contacted Qureshi, who gave him a simple solution. 'The Americans would have difficulty understanding nuclear conflict on one front,' Qureshi had argued. 'If they have two, they will withdraw. I would forfeit my life on it.' A year later, when they met briefly in Beijing, Qureshi said, 'When you are ready, let me know.'

Park did, and Qureshi put him in touch with Ahmed Memed. Park then wondered if he needed something else altogether, something that, without argument, would tip the balance towards indisputable victory. And even now, he wondered whether history would judge his decision as bold or rash.

Kee pushed back his hair to clear it of the straps and was about to slip the goggles down, when Park spoke again. 'You know, my friend, for more than five hundred years, from 1392 to 1910, Korea had the most stable system of government anywhere in the world. The Chosun dynasty taught us self-control, self-cultivation, benevolence, wisdom and propriety. We learned about loyalty to the ruler and to parents. We created a perfect world of strong and benevolent government. The Japanese invaders came, and we repelled them. Western missionaries arrived. We closed our doors to them. Everyone wanted to be in Korea, and we refused them. We became known as the Hermit Kingdom. We were the envy of many nations.'

Park stepped out on to the narrow platform encircling the head of the missile. Barely one foot above him was the sliding roof which if opened would let in a blaze of winter sunshine. Park raised his hand and ran his fingers down the wafer-thin gap dividing the two sides of the roof.

'But in the end we had a weak leader,' he continued, dropping his arm and letting his hand rest for a moment on the scientist's shoulders. 'He let in the Japanese. He trusted them. Our men were beaten. Our women were raped. We were not even allowed to speak our own language. It would have been better if we had fought and died than suffered such humiliation.'

Kee waited to see if his friend, now the new leader of the nation, had finished, or whether he would share more thoughts with him. Park touched the side of the missile head with his forefinger, gently, as if he was afraid of damaging it. 'Will it work?' he asked.

'It will work,' said the scientist confidently. 'But when, Park? When?' he added, using a familiar term of address.

'Very soon,' said Park.

'It will take four hours to load the fuel,' said Kee. 'After that we can be ready at any time.'