by Ward Larsen
The wings bobbled left and right, and the pilot’s hands gyrated on the controls. The airplane touched down, bounced once, and came to rest in no more than two hundred feet.
The engine’s deep rumble went to a lower pitch, and the propeller began chewing up the highest vegetation like an overblown weed eater. After one great mechanical cough, the propeller fell still. Save for a chorus of squawking from the distant seabirds, the island was once again silent.
* * *
The sleek Citation X landed at Henderson Field on the height of midmorning, settling smoothly onto 7,800 feet of high-grade groomed concrete.
Located on Sand Island, in the Midway Atoll, the airfield’s lineage can be traced back to the Second World War. It is the island chain that lent its name to the pivotal naval battle of the war, when the tide in the Pacific turned—this only months after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
The symbolism was not lost on Slaton.
Yet when he looked out the tiny side window, what he saw didn’t strike him as anything legendary, let alone a battleground. It was an island like a hundred others he’d visited in recent years. He saw trees sprouting the coconuts Davy relished throwing into the sea, and the crushed coral sand along the shore that invariably found its way into his pants.
Slaton forced his musings away.
The jet came to rest outside a tiny terminal, the engines winding down wearily. When the boarding door opened, light streamed inside like a switch had been thrown. Sorensen led the way out, and Slaton was right behind her. The heat hit like a thermal wave. Standing on sun-bleached concrete, Slaton squinted against the sun. For the first time he missed the Ray-Bans he’d left behind on Sirius. He didn’t beat himself up over it—he’d departed Gibraltar expecting a Viennese winter and a gunsight. Not a mid-Pacific atoll and a nuclear bomb.
He and Sorensen walked side by side to an operations building that looked like a ’50s convenience store.
She said, “According to the pilots there’s a nice comm suite inside. They say the airfield is kept up pretty well so airliners flying across the Pacific can list it as a diversion airport—apparently that allows them to fly a more direct route between the continents and save fuel.”
“But there’s no regular commercial air service?”
“No. The airfield was closed to the public years ago. It’s only open to official business now, run by the Department of the Interior. We’re smack in the middle of a huge marine conservation area, and the Fish and Wildlife Service keeps a contingent here.”
Slaton looked out and saw a small marina in the distance. There were three center-console offshore boats, all displaying the Fish and Wildlife Service emblem. A pair of small dinghies had been dragged ashore on a nearby beach, their motors tilted up. On the island’s highest ground, a tiny neighborhood had sprouted, the architecture glaringly institutional. Every bit of real estate that wasn’t developed seemed populated by nesting birds—a variety of species, all of them big and ponderous.
They went inside the operations building and found a staff of one, a young woman with the unmistakable genes of a Pacific Islander. After showing an ID, Sorensen was given clearance to use the phones behind the counter.
Slaton was left standing by a window-unit air conditioner that sputtered like a miniature typhoon, the occasional chunk of ice flying out like hail. He approached the young woman and introduced himself, in loose terms, as an associate of Sorensen’s. She gave him a high-wattage smile, then responded with her name. Slaton could never have repeated it. He heard only countless vowels and a melodious cadence—a name like a song.
“Do normal cell phones work here?” he asked.
“You’re kidding, right?” she replied, her voice expectedly lyrical.
“Yeah … I guess we take these things for granted.”
“The satellite coverage is good. And I’ve got a ham radio in back. My husband is really into it. Operators all over the world try to reach him since we’re so remote—sort of a contest, I guess.”
Slaton’s next thought was hopelessly predictable. How can I use a ham radio to reach Christine?
It was patently absurd, of course, and a reminder of the perils of an over-focused mind. It was also hardly necessary. He knew perfectly well where his wife and son were, and knew they were unreachable. As much as he hated it, in that moment there was nothing he could do for his family. He could only wait for a chance.
With Sorensen on the phone, he began to wander the place. He paused near a map of the world that filled an entire wall. The map was at least fifteen feet across, encompassing the earth in a modified Mercator projection. At the center of the flattened globe, predictably, was Midway Atoll. There was a red pin on the island, and hanging from that was a piece of string colored in alternating red and white segments—each segment, according to a note in the corner, represented five hundred miles.
He stretched out the string until it touched North Korea. Three red, three white. Three thousand miles, more or less. Nearly all of it water.
“Is that your next stop?” The singsong voice from behind.
Slaton let the string drop from Pyongyang. “Unlikely. I imagine there’s not much demand for that route.”
“North Korea? Hardly. I think the secretary of state stopped here once on his way to negotiations.”
Slaton turned away from the map.
“Will you be staying overnight?” she asked.
“I don’t know—I’m only along for the ride.”
“Well if you do stay, let me know—I can show you a few things to do on the island. My cousin has some fishing gear and rents it out at a pretty reasonable price. One of the permanent-party ornithologists runs what’s left of the old dive shop.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m sure the diving and fishing are great, but it’s not really why we’re here.”
“So why are you here?”
“To get gas,” Slaton said without missing a beat.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much the story.”
The woman took that as her cue to go outside and check on the refueling. Soon after, Sorensen returned from the operations counter. Before Slaton could get out a word, she said, “There’s nothing new on your wife and son.”
It caught Slaton off guard.
“I figured you were about to ask,” she said, “so I thought we’d get that out of the way.”
“Okay, fine. Anything about nuclear bombs?”
“We still don’t know where the Colt ended up, but we’ve got to be in the right neighborhood—it’s only a matter of scouring every active airfield within a thousand miles. They must have stopped somewhere, at least to refuel.”
“Aren’t most of the islands around here U.S. possessions?”
“Most of them.”
“So if a Chinese transport lands on U.S. territory, carrying nuclear material … wouldn’t that get noticed?”
“One would hope. Trust me when I say we’re working on it. The good news is that we have time.”
“How do you figure?”
“Highly enriched uranium is good for building a crude nuke. But even if you have all the moving parts, it takes time to assemble a device and move it into position for an attack.”
“How long?”
“We know this material flew past the Marshall Islands yesterday. According to our analysts, we probably have a few days to figure out where it went. In the meantime—”
The jet’s captain rushed inside. “Flash message for you, Miss Sorensen! It’s highest priority!”
Sorensen hurried to the door, Slaton right behind her. In less than a minute a relayed message was displayed on her laptop. It had come from General Park, and was eighteen words in length:
ATTACK SET FOR SUNDAY 1400 LOCAL TIME
TARGET WILL BE MIDWAY ISLAND
DELIVERED BY FISHING BOAT NAMED ALBATROSS
Slaton looked at Sorensen. Neither spoke for a beat.
“We’re standing on ground zero,” she finally said.
Together they looked at the clock above the laptop’s screen, which had converted to Samoa Standard Time, and subtracted a day after crossing the international date line. It was Saturday, 10:38 a.m.
“Your analysts were a little off,” he said. “We’ve got just over twenty-four hours.”
SEVENTY
Unloading the bomb material from the Colt was surprisingly straightforward. Boutros and Sami dragged the heavy cask toward the cargo door and, with the help of the pilots, heaved until it was resting on the hard coral surface.
They’d been warned the container would weigh nearly three hundred pounds, and Park, or someone under his watch, had had the foresight to include a furniture dolly in the Colt’s cargo bay. Once the cask was on the ground, it was a simple matter to lever it onto the dolly. From there Rafiq and Sami wheeled it to the launch. When they were done, everyone paused to catch their breath. The only sound was the guttural chatter of nearby birds taking exception to the disturbance.
Rafiq pulled Boutros aside. “There is a problem,” he said.
“What?”
“The initiator was to be shipped in a separate container.”
Boutros had been so focused on their task, he hadn’t noticed. “It’s not on the airplane?”
Rafiq shook his head. “Perhaps something to do with the timetable being advanced.”
Boutros felt a terrible pull in his gut. “What does it mean?” he asked.
“It’s not that bad. As I told you before, the reaction builds with neutrons. The beryllium-polonium initiator serves to boost the weapon’s yield. Even without it, everything should still work.”
“But it will not be as powerful.”
“Enough to obliterate our new target.”
Boutros thought about it. “Yes, you are right—it doesn’t matter now.”
“And there is one advantage—Sami won’t have to handle the polonium.”
Boutros nodded, wondering how Sami would react. Would he be happy to not suffer in the final hours of his life? Or disappointed that he would not agonize in the name of Allah? The thought was interrupted when the airplane’s captain, who was still wearing his baseball cap, came toward them. He said, “Petrol,” and pointed to the jerry cans lined up next to the runway. As with Park, they were forced to revert to English for a common tongue.
Boutros gave the order, and Sami and Rafiq began hauling the cans to the airplane. “How long will you stay?” he asked the captain.
“Petrol,” the man said. “Then we go.”
Boutros saw the copilot standing by the airplane—he was unlatching a service door near the engine, a case of oil on the ground at his feet. Boutros didn’t bother to ask what their next destination would be—he doubted this airplane could reach North Korea without stopping, no matter how much fuel they took on. Even so, he was sure they would find their way back—like a homing pigeon returning to its loft.
Once the fuel had been transferred, Boutros again asked for the flight crew’s help. It took all five men to lift the leaden cask into the launch. They set it on an arrangement of stout wooden planks in the center of the boat—the last thing Boutros needed was to capsize and sink their prize in twenty feet of water. That done, the five exchanged goodbyes, an awkward series of nods and waves between men who shared no language or heritage or religion—indeed, no bond whatsoever but that of a shared enemy. The three Middle Easterners pushed their overburdened launch into deeper water, and Sami fired up the little outboard.
* * *
Forty-five minutes after it had arrived, the Colt was thundering across the weed-laden runway like a bison across a grassy plain. After an unusually short takeoff run, it wobbled into the sky, reminding Boutros very much of the ungainly birds around the island. From Albatross’ deck, he and his team watched the Colt rise.
“God’s work is now before us,” he said, wanting to refocus his men.
They were together on the working deck, and with the hatch to the main hold open, everyone looked down into a space designed for fishing nets. The heavy container had been lowered inside using the main davit and was sitting beside the weapon.
Boutros stole a glance at Sami and saw that he was smiling, giving an answer to his earlier question—he’d been told his martyrdom would not be as agonizing as expected.
“How long will the final portion of our journey take?” Rafiq asked.
“It is only fifty-seven miles,” Boutros replied. “We are right on schedule.” He looked east and saw a handful of distant thunderheads—unusual for this time of day, but no more than isolated cells.
“Prepare to pull anchor. Everyone stays on deck until we clear the reef. Once we’re under way, I’ll stay at the helm while the three of you finalize the assembly.”
Albatross easily cleared the outer reef, and was soon plowing through cobalt blue sea. With one left turn, Boutros settled the bow on an easterly course, toward a target whose name was synonymous with one of America’s greatest victories. He imagined that name would soon hold very different meaning to the world’s nearly two billion Muslims. Not that Boutros cared about any of them.
In that moment, only one name stuck in his head: that of his dear sister.
Irina.
A girl who suffered no longer.
* * *
Sorensen spent nearly an hour on the phone. She used the comm suite on the Citation, which was the most secure link, and when her series of calls finally ended she went out into blinding daylight.
She found Slaton under a palm tree fifty yards from the main building. He was scanning the harbor with a pair of binoculars borrowed from the operations building.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“A little reconnaissance never hurt. If this boat really is coming here, I figure I can give a local area brief to whatever units are coming to the party. But honestly, if I was making the call—I’d order an airstrike before that bomb gets anywhere near the island.”
“That’s one of the ideas circulating. As you can imagine, the president and National Security Council are deep in session. The prevailing thought is to try and intercept the boat at sea before the weapon can be armed. That would provide good hard evidence to use as we see fit, along with some hardware for our intel teams to study.”
“And maybe a few releasable photos to help topple Kwon Il-sun?”
“That’s not a priority—we won’t allow Midway to be put at risk.”
“What units are being called up?” he asked, putting the binoculars back on the harbor.
“Airborne radar is about to launch from Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. That’s fifteen hundred miles from here, so it will take a few hours for them to get on station. The carrier John C. Stennis is four hundred miles north with its battle group—they were on the way to a Southeast Asia deployment, but they’re being diverted. We don’t have any Delta or Seal Teams in Hawaii right now—the closest are in Guam—so two companies of Marines from the 3/3 in Kaneohe are gearing up to board a C-17. They should land here by nightfall. Inside eight hours, this is going to be the most heavily watched rock on earth.”
“I guess that about covers it then,” Slaton said, still scanning.
Sorensen looked out across the harbor and saw three boats moored in the lagoon. She felt a flutter of worry. “It couldn’t be any of those, could it?”
Slaton pulled down the binoculars. “Park said it was a fishing boat—are you telling me you don’t trust him? The head of North Korean intelligence?”
Sorensen frowned.
“Don’t worry—those boats have been here for days. Two operate regular supply deliveries. The third is a motorsailer owned by a South African couple—they’ve been here five days waiting for a part to be flown in for their engine.”
“You can tell all that just by looking?”
“No, I asked Lea-Lai … whatever her name is.”
Sorensen looked at the sea beyond. “We could fire up the Citation and start looking ourselves.”
“You
could. But I’ve done that kind of search before—it’s a really big ocean.”
She heaved a sigh. “It seems like we ought to be doing something.”
Slaton didn’t respond. He put the binoculars back in place and began sweeping the horizon.
* * *
Park sat stoically near a roaring fireplace, light from the flames flickering over the great stone hearth.
The American child had been enthralled by the fire—he’d apparently never seen one “inside a house.” He and his mother were now in the adjacent office, two guards at the door—civility was one thing, but guests they were not. Cots had been set up in the room, and Park knew they’d slept for a time, until the boy had awakened with a night terror and his mother had risen to comfort him. Now he heard them conversing in hushed voices. Being childless himself, Park vaguely recognized the tones. An unsettled boy. A mother trying to mask her fear. He increasingly believed he’d done the right thing in bringing them here. However events played out, they would prove useful bargaining chips.
Park meandered to the wet bar and poured two fingers of bourbon into a clear tumbler. He envisioned one of two outcomes in the next twenty-four hours. The most likely was that he would fly to Pyongyang and assume control of the country. He was in close touch with his coconspirators, and all were on alert. Ready to facilitate a sudden and tectonic shift amid the senior military leadership. If there were any hitches, the takeover could be made certain using the backup plan—this involving one discreetly delivered 9mm round. The key to it all was generating—in every sense of the word—a firestorm over the Pacific.
Park had run the political calculations a hundred times in his head. The Americans wanted new leadership in North Korea, as did most of the world. Nonetheless, allowances had to be made for the other eventuality. Which was why he had sequestered himself to these remote hills. And why the two Americans in his study were such great comfort. They were his insurance should something go wrong.
