THE KOREAN INTERCEPT
By Stephen Mertz
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Copyright 2012 / Stephen Mertz
Copy edited by: Anita Lorene Smith
Cover design by: David Dodd
LICENSE NOTES
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Meet the Author
Stephen Mertz has traveled the world as a soldier, adventurer, and writer. His novels have been widely translated and have sold millions of copies worldwide. He currently lives in the American Southwest, and is always at work on a new novel.
Book List
Novels:
Blood Red Sun
Devil Creek
Night Wind
The Castro Directive
The Korean Intercept
M.I.A. Hunter Series:
M.I.A. Hunter
M.I.A. Hunter: Cambodian Hellhole
M.I.A. Hunter: Exodus from Hell
M.I.A. Hunter: Blood Storm
M.I.A. Hunter: Escape from Nicaragua
M.I.A. Hunter: Invasion U.S.S.R.
M.I.A. Hunter: Crossfire Kill
M.I.A. Hunter: Desert Death Raid
M.I.A. Hunter: L.A. Gang War
M.I.A. Hunter: Back to 'Nam
M.I.A. Hunter: Heavy Fire
M.I.A. Hunter: China Strike
DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
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THE KOREAN INTERCEPT
PROLOGUE
The near future, 107 miles above the earth
With no external point of reference to mark its dimensions and speed, the space shuttle Liberty looked like a gently coasting bird of flawless white caught between the stars of frigid dark space overhead and the mottled white and azure curved horizon of the earth below. In fact, the 100,000-ton, 122-foot orbiter was descending at a rate of more than 17,000 miles per hour, twenty-five times the speed of sound. Traveling west to east, the sleek, winged vessel lost some of its gleam as the sun dipped beyond the horizon and the earth below grew dark, though not as black as the endless vista of space. Liberty was one of six workhorses of the NASA shuttle program and had flown twelve previous missions. The crew on this flight was composed mostly of electrical and aerospace engineers who had worked on and were to deploy, at 430 miles in space, the defense system satellite carried in the orbiter's payload cargo area. After deploying the satellite, Liberty had been scheduled to remain in orbit for five days in order to repair and service other defense and communications satellites. But it was not to be. The mission had been aborted within fifteen minutes of liftoff.
On Liberty's flight deck, a cockpit-like cabin filled with control panels, Commander Ron Scott tried to ignore the quivers of foreboding that had been nagging at his subconscious ever since Houston had ordered the abort. That wasn't all ground control had ordered. They had also instructed him to activate the shuttle's Stealth radar avoidance system and to maintain radio silence throughout the return trip.
Scott was a seventeen-year veteran of the space program. He was six-foot-one and sturdily built, forty-six years old. This was his third mission into space and his first as flight commander. Since his days as a Gulf War combat pilot, he had logged 65,000 hours of flying in forty-five types of airplanes, but nothing matched the thrill of handling Liberty. Not that he'd had much of an opportunity this time out.
Shuttle Flight 72-L had pushed off the launch pad and cleared the tower at Cape Canaveral into a cloudless blue Florida sky on schedule. Two minutes and five seconds later, moving at a speed of 2,000 miles per hour, separation from the solid rocket booster was reported to Mission Control. At an altitude of eighty miles, the computers had given the command for the main engines to shut down and the spent big orange-red fuel tank had separated and plunged back to earth to splash down harmlessly in a remote corner of the Pacific. Scott had then taken over manual control to position the shuttle for the first of a series of insertion burns intended to eventually position Liberty into its assigned orbit. The computer was to control forty-five minutes of coasting prior to a second firing of the Orbital Maneuvering System rockets, but before that could happen, the order to abort and black out communications was received and verified. After reprogramming the computers for reentry, there was little left for Scott to do except try to ignore that troubling sense of foreboding.
Fifteen minutes after reprogramming the computers, he and his copilot, Kathleen Daniels (known to one and all as Kate), sat monitoring the systems indicators and screens in the center of the main panel, when they experienced a slight but sudden lurch as the OMS secondary engines burned for another forty seconds, dramatically slowing the shuttle's speed.
Scott's frustration surfaced with a curse. "Now what the hell? That deorbit burn is twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Don't tell me we've got a computer error on our hands."
"Maybe that's why Houston is bringing us home," Kate said. She tapped a computer keyboard to call up details of the problem. "Negative," she reported. "All three navigation and guidance computers agree."
Scott was married and he loved his wife, but he wasn't blind and he knew that if his Lucy had been the jealous type—which, happily, she wasn't—she'd have been plenty jealous with a looker like Kate along as his copilot for five days in space. Kate looked younger than her thirty-six years. Shoulder-length chestnut hair framed a high-cheekboned magazine model's face highlighted by intelligent brown eyes, full lips and a determined jawline. The bagginess of her light blue coverall flight suit did nothing to conceal a full, firm figure that could have belonged to a magazine model of the centerfold variety. And yet there was nothing flirtatious or provocative about Kate. She was a total professional.
"I'm going to the backup." Scott punched a request for navigation data from the backup computer, then shook his head in bewilderment when the monitors registered identical information. "Something stinks," he grumbled. "We've deviated way off our approach course. Even the backup shows us coming down . . . jeez, we're not over Australia, we're somewhere over Africa! Our approach is supposed to bring us in over Hawaii. At this rate, we'll be hitting the atmosphere somewhere over the Mediterranean."
Kate stared intently at the systems indicators. "I don't understand."
"That makes two of us. And us told to come in under radio silence." Scott looked out his side window. The sight below of the night-shrouded half of the earth only deepened his sense of foreboding. "Something must have gone to hell in a handbasket down there, like World War III. Or someone in Houston is smoking something funny."
"Radar and navigation indicators say we'll be touching down in northern Japan. Why would Houston be diverting us there?"
"I don't know. Let's just sit tight and follow orders for the time being, but we'll stand by to take over manual control."
The disappointment that welled within Kate became an ache that she hoped did not show. Her first mission into space and it was over before it began, and this could be the only chance she would get. There was no shortage of astronauts in the program and many, most, spent their whole careers on standby, waiting for a chance that never came. Yesterday, the first scheduled liftoff was cancelled at T-minus-three seconds when a heat sensor mistakenly signaled
that one of Liberty's three main engines was overheating. That had actually been reassuring after the initial letdown, because it had demonstrated that NASA was not about to send them up unless everything was perfect. It was impossible not to remember Challenger, not to be acutely aware that you were sitting atop a monster, totally at the mercy of the vehicle. The solid rocket boosters were filled with 1.1 billion pounds of solid fuel. The external fuel tank contained 529,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Six seconds before liftoff, those highly explosive fuels flowed through seventeen-inch aluminum fuel lines into the shuttle's main tank and, once ignited, the fuel burned until it was used up. No, it was impossible to forget the space shuttles Columbia and Challenger. Then, this morning, less than ninety minutes ago, when the countdown was not interrupted and Liberty had been catapulted into that cloudless Florida sky on 2.9 million pounds of thrust, Kate had experienced a kind of transcendent soaring of the spirit beyond any sensation she had ever known.
And now—this.
Beside her, Scott was advising the other crewmembers across the intercom of the change in plans. Any indication of overt concern or any other emotion was masked behind his professional cool. There were grumbled complaints and protestations from Leo Smith, Al Murphy, Terri Schmidt and Bob Paxton, who rode in the living quarters just forward of the payload bay, but with their frustrations vented, all six of Liberty's crew lapsed into silence.
Kate took no comfort, as she usually did, in the magnificent drone of the shuttle in flight. She told herself that there had to be some explainable reason behind what was happening and that Houston Control would reveal it to them in due course.
Twenty minutes later, they entered the earth's atmosphere. As the atmosphere grew denser, its resistance provided braking action for the spacecraft, generating incredible surface friction, heating the leading edges of the orbiter, turning the shuttle's underbelly a vivid orange. The thrusters lost their effectiveness and the rudder and the elevons began clutching the heavier air. The computers controlled the entire flight.
Scott and Kate did not speak until Scott could take no more of it. He thumped the armrest of his chair with a balled fist, his eyes glued to the digital altimeter as it ran backward.
"This is nuts. Totally, absolutely nuts. We're not even going to make it to Japan at this rate of descent; I don't care what navigation and radar say. Something is all wrong. According to the computers, we're already over Manchuria, for crying out loud."
Kate was closely following their descent trajectory on a computer screen. "Altitude twenty-two miles, nine minutes from touchdown."
"We're going down inside China or North Korea if we're lucky, the Sea of Japan if we're not so lucky," Scott said.
"The hell with orders." He activated the radio downlink. "Houston Control, this is Liberty. Come in, Houston. This is an emergency. I repeat: come in, Houston." The airwaves crackled with nothing but static. He tried hailing Mission Control three more times in rapid succession. Nothing. Then he told Kate, "We're going to full auto."
Her eyes remained steady on the indicator screens. "It doesn't make sense."
"Oh yes, it does. We've been snookered. Houston didn't abort this mission and reprogram the computers, and they didn't order us to Stealth."
"Then who did? What's going on?"
"What's going on is that someone faked that transmission. Someone is bringing us in."
Kate looked at the darkness outside. "Bringing us in? But that's incredible. Can it be done?"
Scott nodded, his expression grim. "It's being done. It's the only answer that makes any sense. All systems are consistent; they just seem to have a mind of their own. And with Stealth activated, Houston doesn't have us on their radar. No one does." He flicked control switches as he spoke. "Figures. No systems response whatsoever. We have no manual control."
"Altitude is forty-four thousand feet. Speed one thousand one hundred."
"That puts us on a descent rate of ten thousand feet per minute," Scott noted, his tone neutral with professional objectivity. "That's a glide slope seven times steeper than a commercial airliner, with no idea where we're touching down."
"But, Ron . . . with the Stealth activated—" She allowed the sentence to taper off.
"Right." He nodded. "Whoever's bringing us down can't pick us up on their radar, either. And that gives me an idea that might be the only chance we've got."
"Care to share it with me?"
He gave her a tight grin. "Whoever they are, they overrode the Houston program in our computers. But they can only bring us down so far. Then they'll have to give me back manual control at least for the landing. That gives us a very small window."
"To do what?"
"Let's find out."
Liberty covered seven miles, dropping 13,000 feet, during the next eighty seconds.
At 11,300 feet, traveling at a speed of 410 miles per hour, the middle systems screen indicated that the digital autopilot was disengaged, meaning that control of the shuttle was returned to the pilot. Gripping the hand controller, Scott commenced manually steering the vessel. The shuttle continued eating up its glide slope. He carefully moved the hand controller forward to put Liberty into its first of four necessary braking S-turn maneuvers.
Kate read out airspeed and altitude so that he could focus his attention on flying. "Speed three hundred ten. Altitude fourteen hundred."
Outside the windows, the reflection of their landing lights could be seen off a rugged, rocky terrain.
"There it is," Scott said. "Looks like we're expected."
A lighted runway less than two miles away came rushing up at them out of the dark, glimmering parallel lines of silver surrounded by impenetrable blackness like a carefully set pair of diamond necklaces placed side by side on black velvet. There were lighted structures adjacent to the landing strip. Kate's peripheral vision registered an oversized satellite dish and military helicopter gunships, but she had too many other things on her mind to pay them much attention right now.
Scott waited until the last possible moment before activating a switch that deployed the landing gear. Kate's voice continued to briskly relay their rapidly descending speed and altitude.
The runway was practically below them now, a shade to starboard. Scott eased the land controller slightly to the right, applying the right rudder while cutting back his air brake slightly. This was the critical moment. Whoever had brought them down into this dark corner of the world would be monitoring their radio transmissions during this brief window of time when he had full control of the shuttle. Scott glanced at the altitude/vertical velocity indicator on the headup display as the runway rushed up to meet them. When the main gear was five feet from the runway, at a speed of 200 miles per hour, with the runway lights rushing by so fast that they were twin silver lines to either side of the craft, with the whistling thunder of Liberty's powerful engine enveloping them, he did three things simultaneously. He shoved the control stick forward. He punched up the International Distress Frequency. And he barked into his headset microphone as the shuttle's powerful engine's whistling keened to a higher pitch, the craft picking up in speed and altitude.
"This is U.S. space shuttle Liberty. Mayday. Mayday. This is Liberty. Mayday. We are going down. Repeat, this is Liberty. Exact location unknown but we are going down. Repeat. This is Liberty. Mayday. Mayday."
By this time the runway was rapidly falling away behind them when, at an altitude of 1,000 feet, the radio went dead. The monitor screens and the cabin lighting system went dark.
"That's it," Scott said. A hint of drained weariness tinged his voice for the first time, the first crack in his mask of professionalism. "They've shut us down again. We don't have power." He spoke across the radio to the crew below in the living quarters, who had been monitoring his and Kate's conversation via the transceivers in their helmets. "Okay, everybody. Buckle up and brace yourselves."
There came several responses of "Yes, Commander." Then the shuttle Liberty became silent
, the engine noise replaced by an eerie, breathy sound as the shuttle's forward momentum carried it into a freefall glide. There was only the terrible sensation of downward plummeting into black nothingness.
Kate asked, "Do you think anyone picked up our signal?"
Scott vainly struggled with controls that would not respond. "If we survive this crash, that's our only hope," was all he had time to say.
Chapter One
Hamgyong Province, North Korea
His name was Ahn Chong.
He was sixty-seven years old. The village of Hongsan, his home, was on the eastern slope of Mount Paekdu, which rose above the surrounding mountain ranges like a towering warlord encircled by humbled subjects. North Korea is almost completely covered by north-south mountains separated by narrow valleys. Except for the time in his youth when he had been a soldier, this region of the frontier separating North Korea and China was all of the world Ahn Chong had ever known. His was a life of hardship as unchanging as the mountains.
His frayed woolen jacket offered scant protection against the bone-piercing chill of a night wind. His face could have been centuries old: leathery and wrinkled, with dark, intent eyes. One kilometer to the west, the others of his village were asleep. The wind rattling the thatched roof of his hut had drawn him from a fitful sleep of dreams of when he and Mai were young. He had risen from the straw pallet they had shared and, as usual, donned his short jacket, the baggy trousers and straw hat. He had crept away from the hamlet of mud-walled farmers' huts and made his way across the cooperative's stony fields where potatoes and cabbage, turnips, lettuce and beets barely matured during the short growing season. The ground was frosted over and crunched beneath the rubber soles of his sandals.
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