“What about the UN?” Virginia Clayton circled back to her initial comments.
“The Chinese are going to discuss the Korean situation and then table a proposal for a ceasefire and a withdrawal by both sides back to the pre-war borders, right?”
Virginia Clayton nodded her head. “That’s our best analysis, sir. Some of what the Chinese will be tabling has been leaked through Ambassadorial back channels. That seems to be the general direction their proposal will go in.”
“And what are the ramifications if we veto the proposal, or abstain?”
The National Security Advisor sat up suddenly. “For what purpose?” he kept the tone of his voice respectful even though the long days and nights had frayed his temper.
The President took a moment before answering.
“I want the Chinese and the Russians to sweat,” he said. “For years they have stifled every attempt we’ve made to bring Eastern European and Middle Eastern conflicts to peaceful resolutions. Now I want them to feel the squeeze.”
The National Security Advisor sounded equally alarmed. “Sir that could be dangerous. What America would be saying is that we are willing to stand on the sidelines and allow the war to continue… That’s not really in keeping with our nation’s principles… or in keeping with the discussion we’ve just had. Any hesitation on America’s behalf to support a peace initiative to end the war will be counter-productive to our aspirations in the region… and in the wider international community.”
“It would also send the wrong message to China,” Walter Ford’s voice became edged. “If they realize we are sending more warships into the region and then we refuse to support a UN resolution aimed to restore peace… they might think we’re going to take this one all the way.”
President Austin turned his expression into a regrettable wince, and then nodded his head. It was one of the man’s best qualities, his advisors would freely admit; he knew when to take good advice.
It hadn’t always been the case throughout America’s presidential history.
“Okay,” he conceded with a wry nod. There was a glint of mischief in his eyes. His gaze settled on Virginia Clayton. He pointed a finger at her.
“But I want you to lead our side during the debate,” the President insisted. “Push them before we support their initiative. Push them hard. If they aren’t squirming, then you haven’t done your job. Returning the Korean Peninsula to stability and putting an end to this war before it spreads is America’s priority… but let’s make the Chinese work up a sweat first.”
UNDERGROUND BUNKER
PYONGYANG
NORTH KOREA
When Defense Minister Choe was ordered back to the Supreme Leader’s office in the north wing of the underground bunker, he was surprised to see several officers from the Army already gathered. Amongst the group stood a frowning, but familiar face. The Minister came into the room quietly. The group of officers clustered around the desk parted for him. He acknowledged Hwung Pae-hae with a deferential bow. Hwung was the Director of the General Political Bureau – the second most powerful man in the country, directly responsible for the political control over the nation’s military. He was also the Dear Leader’s most trusted advisor and confidant. Kim Jong-un stood hunched over the maps that were draped across his desktop. He flicked an icy glance at his Defense Minister, and then continued.
“Finish reporting,” he snapped.
One of the officers cleared his throat and muttered tremulously, “The Imperialists have tanks at the outskirts of Wonsan on the east coast. We have news of fierce resistance to the enemy’s thrust, but our units are conceding ground before overwhelming heavy weapons, Great Leader. My staff in the city report many thousands of the hated Imperialists litter the road from the south… but we cannot hold them without fresh reserves. We need more artillery to be concentrated on their exposed flank. Their advance leaves their lines of supply and communication exposed.”
Kim Jong-un said nothing. The officer snapped to stiff attention and lowered his eyes submissively. Kim drew his belligerent stare towards the next officer – a heavy-set middle-aged man with fleshy jowls and a scarred face. The man’s voice was coarse as gravel. He traced lines across the map with his finger towards where Pyongyang was marked, and then fanned his fingers out like a magician performing a difficult trick. “They come at us like this, Great Leader,” the officer said. “Multiple assaults with heavy air support from aircraft and attack helicopters. Our fighters are out-classed, and our pilots cannot compete with the advanced technology the Americans have sold the lackey Imperialists. The air belongs to the enemy, and every time I try to gather my armor for a counter offensive, we are attacked and vulnerable. My men… they fight like the devil. They die to honor you, Great Leader… but we need to drive the enemy fighters from the sky before I can come to terms with their ground forces.”
Kim looked blankly around the rest of the faces before him. Finally, Director Hwung began softly.
“Dear Leader, the enemy attack to our west has split into two prongs; one that presses along the coastline and the other that drives at our heart. They are pushing towards Chunghwa.”
Hwung was aged in his sixties, dressed in full uniform. His eyes through the thick lenses of his spectacles were steady, deeply set within a fine spider web of wrinkles and sagging pouches of skin.
“The enemy’s drive toward Chunghwa will be crushed,” Kim Jong-un announced to the room with superior smugness. “I saw the threat that the enemy posed a full day before it has happened, and gave orders for General Tai to stop the advance. By now his men and armor will be engaging the Imperialists and driving them back towards the border.”
There was an awkward, heavy silence. Two of the officers standing to the side of the table flicked wide-eyed, uncertain glances at each other. Kim, who missed nothing, focused his attention on them.
“You disagree?” the dictator asked with ice-like malice.
One of the officers seemed to physically cringe. There were beads of sweat on his upper lip and blistered across his brow. “Dear Leader,” the man swayed on his feet. “General Tai…” he couldn’t finish. There were fearful tears of shame in the man’s eyes.
“The General could not engage the enemy, Dear Leader,” the second officer whispered meekly. “His columns were attacked by enemy air-to-ground fighter jets and destroyed this morning. The counter-attack was broken. The General was killed in the fighting.”
For a long moment Kim stared at the face of the man, his mouth pressed into a thin bloodless line. He clawed the glasses from off his face and dropped into the chair behind his desk. His hands were shaking, the look in his eyes hollow and haunted.
“Everyone leave the room,” he said softly, “except for the Minister and the Director.”
There was an awkward shuffle of feet. The officers fled from the room. The Defense Minister glanced furtively at the face of Director Hwung. The man’s expression was grave. He was breathing hard, his eyes fixed on the floor between his polished shoes. Choe Pu-sik felt his stomach slide in a sickening lurch. For long minutes the young dictator said nothing. His temper simmered, his body quivering with a paroxysm of suppressed rage. He looked crumpled, disheveled. He pounded his fist on the table and the Minister jumped with fear and fright.
“I gave General Tai an order!” Kim Jong-un screamed. “It was an order to be obeyed. How dare he defy me!” He stared ferociously at the two men standing across the desk, but they both had their heads lowered. It seemed to incense him further. His temper broke like a thunderstorm. He swept the maps to the floor and got to his feet. The ground beneath him seemed to teeter. Kim Jong-un scraped his trembling hands through his hair and reeled away to the corner of the room. “Lies,” he said suddenly as if struck by an instant of realization. “The military has been lying to me. The officers, the Captains, the Majors… and my Generals.” He let the last word hang ominously in the air, dangling like an executioner’s blade about to fall. “You all deceived me!
”
“Dear Leader…” Director Hwung began bravely.
“No!” Kim would not be mollified. He stabbed at the air with the blade of his hand, punctuating each word. “Cowards and liars. All of them. Everyone around me. Heinous traitors under the spell of the Imperialists and the Americans. I have been defied and betrayed!” His eyes were enormous, seeming to bulge from their sockets. He kicked the chair over and there was a white froth of spittle at the corner of his lips. He panted raggedly, glaring balefully at the two men, seeming to dare them with his silence to speak.
Director Hwung and Minister Choe said nothing.
“You are all unworthy of my brilliance,” the young dictator said finally. The anger seemed to have gone from him, replaced by the crushing despair of imminent defeat. He sagged against the edge of the desk. “Your failures hang around my neck like a heavy stone,” he muttered. “The treachery of the Army has brought shame to the people, the nation… and there is only one way left that the Motherland can be made forever glorious.”
The two senior men shot each other worrisome glances. Kim bunched his fist and waved it in their faces. “I want the ‘Songun’ weapon prepared to be fired at Seoul!”
Despite himself, the Minister for Defense gasped at the monstrous suggestion. “Great Leader!” Choe knew what the ‘Songun’ weapon was – an abominable biological contagion that would sweep across the world, infecting the entire planet’s population with a frenzy-like madness. He had thought the testing of virus strains had been abandoned. He had seen no reports that such a weapon had been made operational. The shock drained the blood from his face and sent an insidious chill down his spine.
“Do as your Leader commands,” Kim hissed through clenched, snarling teeth. “If I am to die, then the whole world shall be engulfed in the flames of disease. With the end of North Korea also comes the end of mankind.”
Minister Choe blinked. There was insanity in the young dictator’s eyes; the madness of an unhinged mind. The Minister’s senses were scattered and reeling. He forced his features to relax, although there was a nervous tick that tugged insistently at his cheek. “It will take twenty-four hours,” he said in a soft breathless whisper.
Kim Jong-un narrowed his eyes and inspected the Minister’s face suspiciously, searching for any sign of betrayal. Choe felt himself withering under the scrutiny.
“Very well,” Kim relented. “But not a minute longer.” Then he glanced at Director Hwung and addressed the man directly. “See that everything is prepared… and ensure that the Imperialist invaders do not reach Pyongyang before the weapon is fired. I do not care about the costs – slow them with the dead bodies of our recruits, if you must.”
The Director nodded with the discipline of a soldier given his orders.
“It will be your deaths if you fail me,” Kim thrust a threatening finger in their faces – and then he said not a word more.
Quietly, the Director and the Minister retreated from the room. Outside the heavy steel door stood an armed guard. He was a fresh-faced soldier, drawn stiffly at attention. There was confusion in his expression. He had heard the Great Leader’s agony and outrage. The young soldier’s eyes glanced sideways at the two senior men as if seeking some reassurance, some certainty. They ignored him. Instead they looked at each other for a silent second and an unspoken message passed between them. Then they each went in opposite directions down long concrete corridors, both men worried for the fate of their nation, and for their own survival.
UN SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER
NEW YORK
Secretary of State, Virginia Clayton, drew her eyes away from the massive mural that dominated the high-ceilinged chamber of the Security Council and focused her attention on the sheath of hand-written notes before her. She drew a settling breath. She felt like she was waiting in the wings, about to go on stage… and in a way, she was. She was sitting in the seat vacated by the American ambassador, and somehow she felt like the eyes of everyone assembled were surreptitiously fixed upon her.
Which was also correct.
In the seats behind her she could hear the whispers of her advisors. Then she felt a supportive hand on her shoulder and she turned to see the American Ambassador’s smiling face pressed close to hers.
“Never thought I’d see the day where China were the ones tabling a resolution on North Korea, Virginia.” Roy Basheer was a tall, good-looking man doused in expensive aftershave. He shook his head with incredulity. “The Chinese have been Pyongyang’s most ardent patron and protector since before I even joined the diplomatic service.”
Virginia’s eyes sparkled with a glint of mischief, and for a split-second her carefully cultivated public persona slipped an inch.
“Roy, it’s only because the bastards are worried,” she said. “Kim is losing the war and the Chinese are in a panic.”
The Ambassador gave a mirthless little nod. “I hope you give ‘em hell!”
The assembled diplomats from the Security Council’s fifteen representative nations were all somberly dressed, serious-faced middle-aged men. They spoke with their support staff in a hushed buzz of murmurs, none of it intelligible and much of it in foreign languages. Finally the acting President leaned close to his microphone, and speaking in French, announced the session commenced. He was the Council’s representative from Senegal, fulfilling the commitment that each member country should assume the role of presiding over Security Council meetings on a rotating monthly basis. He caught the attention of the Chinese Ambassador and cleared his throat.
“The Council’s representative for the People’s Republic of China wishes to speak,” the President of the Council announced. “Please proceed, sir.”
The Chinese Ambassador was a man in his sixties with the kind of poise and officious manner that only comes from years in government service. Within the diplomatic community he was known for his attention to detail, his perfect manners… and his small vanities, such as regularly dying his hair black. He was immaculately dressed, his fringe swept across his high brow, his eyes behind the glasses alert and intelligent. He was the image of distinguished conservatism – a testimony to how cleverly the Chinese had worked to become established and accepted in the highest echelons of the international community since becoming a permanent UN member at the end of the Second World War.
“Mr. Secretary-General, fellow members of the Security Council. We gather here at a time of grave international crisis. The Korean Peninsula is embroiled in a war of appalling proportions, and the losses to women and children civilians – the innocent victims of such wars – grows with every passing moment that the shelling continues. This tragedy of conflict cannot be tolerated, and to that end, the People’s Republic of China wishes to table the following Security Council resolution…”
Virginia Clayton listened with attention. The Chinese Ambassador was impressive. He spoke in Mandarin even though she knew he was fluent in English. It was a point of pride that the Chinese never spoke in English at an official UN meeting. There were six official UN languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Russian with each word simultaneously interpreted for the benefit of the other members around the distinctive horseshoe shaped table. An American advisor who was sitting behind her, plucked discreetly at her elbow.
“The Chinese are serious about this,” it was a whispered man’s voice she didn’t immediately recognize. “And they want to be sure we get the message in the strongest possible terms.”
Virginia listened then gave a slow nod of her head. The Chinese Ambassador was staring fixedly at her from across the room, reciting the preamble of the resolution from memory.
There was a shuffle of papers and the text was passed to each of the ambassadors. Virginia scanned the document. It was as she had suspected; a proposal that fighting between the North and South Koreans cease immediately and that both sides return to their pre-war borders. It further proposed the deployment of an armed UN peacekeeping force – including a large number of Chinese troop
s wearing the blue beret – once a sustained ceasefire across the region could be verified. She passed the draft document behind her to an advisor.
When the representative for China had finished speaking, he sat back in his chair and carefully removed his glasses. He rubbed at his eyes and looked sadly to the President of the Council as though the tragic loss of life had been an emotional burden to him personally. It was a fine moment of understated theatrics.
“Are there matters arising from the proposed Chinese resolution to be debated in this chamber before voting?”
Eyes moved around the room. As far as resolutions go, it was one of the least contentious. Publicly at least, every nation was opposed to war…
Virginia Clayton made a small gesture to the council president to get the man’s attention.
“The delegate of the United States would like to make an explanation of vote before the vote,” the President dutifully announced her with a hint of curiosity in his voice.
Normally such resolutions presented to the Security Council have undergone intense negotiation before they ever reach the floor of the chamber. Talks begin at the political expert level, leaving the most sensitive details of discussion for the Ambassadors to settle. Generally, once a resolution is presented to the council members, the speeches that make the evening news feeds are little more than part of the procedural completion of the process.
This was different.
“Mr. President, my fellow council members. Whilst in principle the United States of America is wholly supportive of an immediate ceasefire between the communist regime of North Korea and the South Korean democracy, we take note that the resolution proposed by the delegate for China contains no specifics as to the make-up of any intervention force under the auspices of the United Nations, other than to offer an undisclosed contingency of Chinese troops.” Virginia paused for a moment and made a point to measure the reactions from around the room. Of the five permanent UN Security Council members, the delegates from France and the United Kingdom were listening attentively. The Russian delegate affected a bored, bemused expression, while directly across the room, the Chinese Ambassador made a hasty snatch at his headphones to hear the interpretation. His eyes lifted, listening, and then narrowed to slitted blades. One of the man’s aids was out of his chair, leaning over the Chinese Ambassador’s shoulder, scratching hasty notes while Virginia Clayton continued speaking, apparently unfazed.
Dead Storm: The Global Zombie Apocalypse Page 3
