The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

6

'The North Koreans say it was an accident,' said Newman.

'I don't give a damn what they say,' retorted West. 'They've killed Americans.' West was on his feet, pacing the Oval Office and finding it too small. 'What the hell were they doing flying a missile so close to Tokyo? Because if you tell me it was deliberate, this time next week there won't be any North Korea left.'

Newman grimaced. 'Someone had to tell you what they said,' she said, standing up. 'As Secretary of State, that job falls to me. If you want to hear the rest of it, I'll continue. If you don't, I'll shut up.'

West reached for the window behind his desk, pressed his forehead against a chilled pane, tapped his fingers on the glass and listened.

At forty-two, Newman was one of the youngest secretaries of state ever. She could even have passed for ten years younger, with plenty of brown hair, cut back to just below the ears. She wore a fringe that managed to hide her high forehead and a pair of steel-rimmed glasses that made her poker-playing eyes even more difficult to read. She kept her own counsel, yet spoke her mind forcefully when called upon.

West had first noticed her when she was a new, young entry to the House of Representatives. He had been in the Senate. Fifteen years on, she was divorced, from a Washington lawyer who had swapped her for a younger blonde lobbyist at precisely the time when Newman's career started outpacing his.

With West a widower, the press was full of rumours about a relationship with Newman. They liked each other, but just occasionally, like now, when nerves were raw, he was both startled and impressed by the way she held her ground.

'No, Mary, don't shut up,' said West, softly. 'You're doing what someone has to do.' His back was to the room and his eyes concentrated on the snow on the White House lawn. West gave himself a few seconds, while he disciplined the anger that had chased him to the Oval Office. Since Valerie's death, he had found his temper becoming shorter. Through the glass, speckled around the fresh snow, was the distorted reflection of CNN. The volume was down but the images of grieving relatives, smouldering aircraft hangars, coffins draped in the Stars and Stripes, commentators profiting from hindsight and the non-stop whirl of 24-hour news gnawed against him when he needed clarity of thought.

'Turn that damn thing off,' he ordered, and it was John Kozerski, the White House Chief of Staff, who tried to shut down the television with a remote. But it was broken, or the batteries were flat. Whatever the reason, West didn't care. He turned in from the window, walked across the room and pulled the plug out of the socket.

'Sorry, Mary. Yes, please,' he said, indicating for Newman to sit back down on the sofa. He took the armchair at the end of the coffee table where a map of Asia lay open. 'Wrap up what you were saying.'

'They have asked us to give them time to carry out their own internal investigation,' said Newman, settling back into the sofa. 'They refer us to our own shooting down of an Iranian airliner by mistake from the USS Vincennes in 1988 resulting in the deaths of 290 innocent passengers. They handed over a list of other American mistakes, including the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 and atrocities against Iraqi civilians—'

The President held up his hand. 'Enough. I follow their train of thought, and knowing your politics, Mary, I don't expect you sympathize any more than I do.'

'No, sir,' said Newman simply.

On the sofa, across the coffee table, was the Defense Secretary, Chris Pierce, sitting forward, his elbows on his knees with a file of papers open in front of him. West had brought Pierce to the Pentagon because of his extraordinary war record which began in Vietnam and ended in Iraq. Highly intelligent and with years of experience as a battlefield leader, when Pierce spoke he did so with both deliberate simplicity and assertive body language to reinforce his point. In full flow, he sometimes reminded Newman of a nightclub bouncer.

The thick-set Tom Patton, Secretary for Homeland Security and former governor of Oregon, was at the other end of the table. John Kozerski, Chief of Staff, sat back down on an upright chair next to the phones on the Oval Office desk. Peter Brock was next to Newman on the sofa.

West addressed Newman again: 'Mary, do we have any American nationals in North Korea?'

'Two aid workers,' said Newman. 'One with Oxfam, a Peter Bennett from Chicago. And one from Save the Children Fund. She's actually half Swedish and half American, a dual passport holder, Agneta Carlsson. It's not the easiest place for Americans to work.'

West pulled his chair forward to get closer to the map on the coffee table. He put his spectacles on and jabbed his finger on the name Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, on the west of the Korean peninsula which hung off northern China like a pig's knuckle.

'Where's Scott?' asked West, referring to Scott Cartwright, his Trade Secretary.

'In Argentina, sir,' said Kozerski.

'Then you fill in, Mary. Do we buy from or sell to these sons of bitches?'

'Negative, Mr President,' said Newman. 'It's banned under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Together with Cuba, North Korea is the only place left on it. We have deals on nuclear power which go back to 1994. There's been an impasse pretty much since 2003. But as far as the impact on trade, it's not an issue.'

'Tom, do they have any terrorist cells in the US?'

'Not that we know of,' said the Secretary for Homeland Security. 'They haven't been involved in a terrorist operation since the eighties, when they blew up the South Korean cabinet.'

'In Seoul?'

'In Burma. They were on an official visit.'

West whistled through his teeth. 'That's one hell of a thing to do.' He brushed the map flat and shifted it on the table to show the massive blue of the Pacific Ocean. 'Chris, these nuclear weapons they have. Do they work? And can they strike us with them?'

'They might,' said the Defense Secretary.

'Might?' snapped the President. 'Is that the best you can do?

Pierce took a breath. 'In the nineties, we know they extracted 60 pounds of plutonium from the nuclear programme. That's enough for five 20-kiloton nukes. They restarted it in 2003. We think they might have ten operational nuclear warheads for silo-based missiles and two smaller ones that could be transported by boat or aircraft — the bomb in the briefcase scenario. They have maybe fifty Taepodong-2 missiles of the type that was used against Yokata, and many more shorter-range missiles, most of which could hit Japan and, of course, South Korea. They've been working on an even longer-range version of the Taepodong-2, which they want to get to our western coastline. But we doubt that's functioning.'

'So they could nuke us?' said West.

'I believe they could nuke us in Japan, but not here in the US.'

'Then what are they playing at?'

'Mr President,' intervened Peter Brock. 'We've had time to discuss this with other governments in the region. The overwhelming view is that North Korea is in more crisis over this than we are. They claim the missile guidance system was faulty, and no way was the base to be targeted. In fact, the missile carried no warhead at all. They warn that if we take action against North Korea, we could provoke a backlash similar to the reaction of a wounded tiger. Leave her be and she'll die. Taunt her, and she'll kill.'

'What does Japan say?' pressed West.

'Nervous, clearly,' said Newman. 'But looking at the bigger picture.'

'And China?'

'Both Russia and China say they have some low-level human intelligence that there has been a power struggle,' said Brock. 'Truck drivers coming out across the northern border. Air Koryo pilots landing in Beijing. That sort of thing. So if it was intentional, it could have been a rash act of a coup d'etat.'

'Chris,' said West, 'if the threat was real, what could we do about it?'

The Defense Secretary had direct responsibility for the lives of American service personnel. He was faced with the grim reality that if the missile had been carrying a nuclear warhead, 14,000 of them — not just fifty-eight — might now be dead or injured, as well as thousands of Japanese. He answered the President pensively.

'North Korea has a big, motivated army willing to take casualties. A worst-case scenario is war again just like it was in the fifties. We've been skirmishing in the Middle East for years, but if the Korean peninsula flares up—' Pierce shrugged. 'I don't think any of us will have known anything like it.'

The President stood up and stretched his arms behind his back. 'Then the line is that there's been a national tragedy at Yokata and we're investigating. The grief is too fresh and the issues too serious for the United States to take injudicious action.'

'John,' he continued, looking over to his Chief of Staff. 'Get me a list of where the families come from. If there's one predominant state, get me the governor, the senators and community representatives on the phone as soon as possible.

'Mary, let me know if there's any reason for me to go out there. Right now, I can't see it. Make the strongest protests, bring in the UN, all that kind of crap. Demand an end to their missile programme. Chris, get as many American citizens off the bases as you can without it being noticed. Send them shopping in Tokyo, or on holiday with their families. Increase air patrols around North Korea. Get our ships out to sea. I don't want any goddamn repeat of Pearl Harbor.'

'It'll only be a fraction, Mr President,' said the Defense Secretary.

'Well, make it as big a fraction as you can.'

He turned to Newman again. 'Mary, get hold of Scott in Buenos Aires and tell him to put the muscle on whichever government or companies are trading with North Korea. I want those operations shut down at a moment's notice if those sons of bitches so much as sneeze against us again. That goes for South Korea as well, and any of those European Union governments that go soft on dictators to fatten their bank accounts.'

West's eyes were on Peter Brock, but then flickered to the end of the table, where Kozerski, telephone pressed to his ear, was beckoning him. 'Yes, John?' said West.

'Stuart Nolan is calling from Downing Street. He wants to speak urgently,' said Kozerski, his finger poised to transfer the call to the phone next to the President.

'I'll take it,' said West, turning back to Brock. 'And Pete, work on the Chinese and Russians. Since our agencies haven't a clue, tell them I want to know what in the hell's going on in that country.'