Op-Center o-1

by Tom Clancy

  Wednesday, 2:35 A.M., the Diamond Mountains

  The Nodong missiles were modified North Korean Scuds.

  The construction was virtually identical, one stage with a payload of up to two hundred pounds and a range of five hundred miles. With a payload of seventy-five pounds of high explosives, the Nodong could fly nearly six hundred miles. It was accurate within a half-mile radius of its target.

  Like the Scuds, the Nodongs could be launched from fixed sites or mobile launchers. Silo launchers made it possible to launch multiple strikes within an hour, but were highly vulnerable to enemy retaliation. Mobile launchers could only carry one missile and had to be brought to hidden stockpiles for reloading.

  Both the fixed and mobile launchers were operated by a one-key system, once the launch coordinates were programmed into the computer. Turning the key began a two-minute countdown, during which time the launch command could only be stopped with both the key and a cancellation code. The code was known only to the officer in charge. In the event that he was unable to give it, the second in command had to get the code from Pyongyang.

  The Nodong was a relatively unsophisticated system as missiles went. But it was effective in its purpose, which was to keep Seoul honest with the threat of sudden destruction from the skies. Even with Patriot missiles in place, the danger was still very real: designed to track and strike at the missile itself, the Patriot often left the warhead intact, allowing it to fall and explode somewhere in the target zone.

  Colonel Ki-Soo was the ranking officer at the site in the Diamond Mountains, and when the guard post radioed ahead to tell him of the arrival of Colonel Sun, he was taken by surprise. Resting in his tent, which was situated at the foot of a steep hill, the bald, oval-faced officer rose and greeted the jeep as it arrived. Sun handed him his orders without being asked, and Ki-Soo retired to his blackout tent.

  When the tent flap was secure, he switched on the lantern, withdrew the papers from the leather pouch, and unfolded the single sheet:

  Office of the High Command

  Pyongyang, June 15, 4:30 P.M.

  From: Colonel Dho Oko

  To: Colonel Kim Ki-Soo

  Colonel Lee Sun has been dispatched by General Pil of Intelligence Operations to oversee the security of the missiles under your command. He will not interfere with your operation unless it directly affects the security of the site.

  Affixed to the bottom of the document were the seals of the General of the Armed Forces and of General Pil.

  Ki-Soo carefully folded the document and replaced it in the pouch. It was authentic, but something didn't seem right about it. Sun had come with two agents— one man to guard each missile, which was sensible enough. Yet something wasn't right.

  He looked at the field phone and thought about calling headquarters. Boots crunched on the gravel outside. Ki-Soo doused the lantern and pulled the flap aside: Colonel Sun was standing in the dark, facing the tent. His hands were clasped behind his back and his body was rigid.

  "Is everything all right?"

  "It appears to be," said Ki-Soo, "though I'm curious about one thing."

  "What is that?" Sun asked.

  "Generally, orders such as these mention the number of men in the party. Yours do not."

  "But they do. They mention me."

  Ki-Soo looked at the other man, who was standing beside the jeep. He pointed with his thumb. "And this one?"

  "Not an agent," Sun said. "Our department is hard-pressed right now. This man was sent to accompany me through the hills. He will remain to bring me back. That is his only function."

  "I see," said Ki-Soo. He handed the folder to Sun. "Make yourself comfortable in my tent. If you'd like, I can have food brought over."

  "Thank you, no," said Sun. "I'd prefer to tour the perimeter, see where we might be vulnerable. I'll let you know if there's anything I need."

  Ki-Soo nodded as Sun returned to the jeep and took a hooded flashlight from a toolbox in the back. Then he set out with his men, away from the camp and across the small field to where the missiles sat.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Wednesday, 2:45 A.M., the DMZ

  Koh's warning reached Lee just after he'd finished tucking the cans of tabun into a niche in the tunnel. He went up from the tunnel to receive the call, then climbed back down the hemp line.

  So Gregory Donald would be meeting with General Hong-koo in just a few hours. That must not be. It would attract sympathy for the North and might even convince some world leaders of their innocence. Phases two and three of the operation must go ahead while tension was at a peak.

  Donald would have to die. Soon.

  Lee briefed Private Yoo, the soldier who had remained with him. The other man had returned to the base with the truck; if it wasn't back when it was supposed to be, General Norbom might institute a search.

  They would move the gas through to the North, as planned, but once there Yoo would have to place it alone while Lee took care of Donald. Yoo understood and accepted the task gratefully and promised that all would go as planned. Lee expected nothing less from any member of his team; each of whom had been trained to complete the mission if anything happened to a comrade.

  Crouching in the dark, the men began working on a job they had run through countless times on paper.

  The tunnels had been dug by the North Koreans, and formed a complex network over a mile from north to south and a quarter mile east to west. While Military Intelligence knew about them and made occasional attempts to close them down, the North Koreans were like ants: when one entrance was shut, another was opened. When a tunnel was flooded or gassed, another was opened. The entire region was shelled on occasion, but while that collapsed large sections of the tunnel the North Koreans simply dug new sections, deeper.

  Lee and his men had recently opened this connecting tunnel of their own, ostensibly to spy on the North. While the nine-yard vertical passageway was nearly four feet in diameter the tunnel itself was narrower, just under three feet, identical to the North Korean tunnels; this trunk linked up with the main Northern tunnel just ten yards from the border.

  To get the four quarter-size drums of tabun down, one man had gone to the bottom of the passageway while the other lowered the drums in a sling and Lee kept watch. The drums were tucked into a niche they'd dug on the far side of the passageway, away from the tunnel; otherwise, there wouldn't have been room for them and the men. Now it would be necessary for Yoo to move backward through the tunnel, guiding each drum in turn while Lee rolled them ahead. The drums would just fit. sideways, and where the tunnel wasn't wide enough, it would be necessary to shift them lengthwise and gently push them through.

  Lee had calculated that each round-trip through the maze would take seventy-five minutes. That wouldn't leave him much time to get back to Donald, but it would have to do; he didn't dare stop to do it now, lest he get caught and fail to complete his mission here.

  Major Lee took the small flashlight from the pocket of his uniform, turned it on, and clipped it to the strap on his shoulder. Yoo backed a short distance into the tunnel while Lee gently took the first drum from the niche and walked it on end to the entrance. Getting on his hands and knees, he began rolling the drum after Yoo, who checked the tunnel for sharp outcroppings they may have missed on their earlier sweeps

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Wednesday, 2:55 A.M., Seoul

  The KCIA car screeched to a stop in front of the casualty entrance at the National University Hospital on Yulgongno. She left the car running and ran through the automatic doors demanding help for a wounded man. Two doctors hurried into the drizzle, one toward Hwan, the other to the figure in front.

  "He's dead!" Kim yelled to the second medic. "Help this man!"

  The physician opened the door anyway and felt for a pulse, then climbed half into the car to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In the backseat, the doctor carefully but quickly removed the belt and socks from Hwan's wound. Hwan had been pale and semiconscious when
they arrived, but he was fully awake as two paramedics came racing out with a stretcher and lifted him on.

  Hwan's hand shot out, clutching at the air. "Kim!"

  "I'm here," she said, running over and catching his hand, then holding it as they wheeled him toward the doors.

  "See to other "

  "I know," she said. "I'll take care of it." Letting go of his hand, she watched as they took him inside, then walked back toward the car where the doctor had given up trying to revive the assassin and was examining his gunshot wounds. He motioned toward the hospital door.

  "What happened, miss?"

  "It was awful," Kim said. "Mr. Hwan and I were driving to our cottage in Yanguu Village when we stopped to help this man. It appeared he'd had a scooter accident. The man stabbed Mr. Hwan, who shot him."

  "You don't know why?"

  She shook her head.

  "Would you come inside, miss? You'll have to give us information about the wounded man, and the police will want to speak with you."

  "Of course," she said as a stretcher was wheeled out. "Just let me park the car."

  Two orderlies removed the body from the car, placed it on the stretcher, and covered it with a sheet. When they were gone, Kim slid behind the wheel and headed toward the parking lot. As she pulled into a spot, she picked up the phone and pressed the red button on the receiver. The desk officer at the KCIA answered.

  "I'm calling on Kim Hwan's car phone," Kim said. "He was wounded by an assassin and is at the National University Hospital. The man who wounded him is dead. He's also at the hospital. Mr. Hwan believes that this man was involved with the bombers who attacked the Palace, and that you check his fingerprints to find out who he is."

  Kim hung up and ignored the phone when it rang. Looking around the parking lot, she saw a car she knew: a Toyota Tercel. Taking her radio from the backseat, she put it on the floor, turned it on, and angled it so the light of the dial shined under the dashboard. Finding the ignition wires where her instructors had once told her they'd be, she knotted them together, started the car, and drove off, headed north.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Tuesday 1:10 P.M., Op-Center

  As Hood arrived in Matt Stoll's office, the Operations Support Officer was just finishing up his work. There was a big smile on his round, full face, and a look of triumph in his eyes.

  "Paul, this was pure, wonderful genius." he said. "I set up all kinds of safeguards and diagnostics and checks and double checks to make sure incoming software wasn't tainted, and they got it past me anyway."

  "Who did, and how?"

  "The South Koreans. Or at least someone with access to their software. Here it is, in diskette SK 17."

  Hood bent over the screen and watched as a series of numbers and characters flashed on and off.

  "What am I looking at?"

  "All the stuff that was dumped into our computer system from this one diskette. I'm flushing it out— told the computer to read the original program and take it out in its entirety."

  "But how did it get in?"

  "It was hidden in a routine personnel update. That's the kind of file that can be thick or thin, and you wouldn't think to check on it. Not like a file on, say, agents based in the Mascarene Islands. If that one suddenly came in big as the deficit, you'd notice."

  "So the virus was hidden in that file—"

  "Right. And it was triggered to dump a new satellite program into our system exactly when it did. A program that scanned the Library, morphed it with incoming pictures, and created false images— the kind the saboteurs wanted us to see."

  "How did it get to the NRO?"

  "The virus attacked our phone line into them. It's secure from the outside but not from the inside. We'll have to do something about that."

  "But I still don't understand what triggered the virus."

  Stoll's big smile grew even bigger. "That's the genius of what they did. Look at this." He pulled over a laptop and booted the diskette, after carefully, almost reverently popping it from the disk drive. The title screen appeared and Stoll held a hand toward it.

  Hood read everything on the screen. "South Korea diskette number seventeen, filed by him, checked by her, okayed by a general, and sent by military courier five weeks ago. What does that tell you?"

  "Nothing. Read the very bottom."

  Hood looked. He had to move in a little to read the fine print. "Copyright 1988 by Angiras Software. What's unusual about that?"

  "All government agencies write their own software. It's not like WordPerfect where there's something to copyright. But our computers sometimes do get software with copyright notices on them, and I told the system to ignore that."

  Hood began to understand. "This one triggered the virus?"

  "No. This one triggered the shutdown that allowed the virus to enter undetected. That date— 1988? It's a date but it's also a clock. Or rather, a tiny program buried in the date got its hooks into our clock and shut it down. For exactly nineteen point eight-seconds."

  Hood nodded. "Good work, Matty."

  "Shitty work, Paul. We see notices like that on programs and they don't even register on the brain. They certainly didn't on mine, and someone in South Korea took advantage of that."

  "Who, though?"

  "The date may help us there. I checked our files. One of the highlights of 1988 was when radical students demanding reunification clashed with the police. The government put the movement down, hard. Someone who's either for or against unification may have picked that date as a symbol. You know— the same way the Riddler always used to leave clues for Batman out of some kind of twisted vanity."

  Hood grinned. "I'd leave the Batman part out of my official report if I were you. But this is the extra push we may need to convince the President the South Koreans are behind this."

  "Exactly."

  "You really came through on this one. Send that title page to my computer and we'll see what Lawrence has to say now."

  * * *

  "How do we know it wasn't a North Korean mole working in the South?" Burkow asked.

  "We don't, Mr. President," said Hood. He was listening on the secure phone while the President and Steve Burkow studied the document. "But why would the leaders in Pyongyang want to tinker with our satellites, make it look like they were preparing for war. They can move troops in the field, so why go through all this trouble?"

  "To make us look like the aggressors," Burkow said.

  "No, Steve. Paul's absolutely right. This doesn't smell like the work of the government. The DPRK isn't this subtle. It's a faction, and it could well be from either the North or South."

  "Thank you," Hood said with obvious relief.

  His E-mail indicator beeped. Bugs would never interrupt Hood when he was on the phone with the President, so he sent a message crawling across the computer monitor. Since the message was sent to the TV screen directly, not through the computer itself, the President wouldn't see it.

  Hood's stomach tightened as he read the short memo:

  From KCIA Director Yung-Hoon: Kim Hwan stabbed by assassin. In surgery. DPRK spy escaped. Assailant dead. Checking identity now.

  Hood put his face in his hand. Some head of the Korean Task Force he was turning out to be. Knowing everything that happened after the fact, knowing that some person or group very desperately wanted a war, and having no idea who the perpetrators were. He suddenly understood from where Orly got his bedside manner. He wasn't being inconsiderate to the patient: he was frustrated by an enemy that he couldn't get a handle on.

  He memoed Bugs to stay on top of the situation, to pass the message on to Herbert and McCaskey, and to thank Yung-Hoon. He also requested that the KCIA Director let him know the moment they had any information on the assassin or on Hwan's condition.

  " but, as I told you before, Paul," the President was saying, "we've gone beyond that now. It doesn't matter who started this phase of the confrontation: the fact is, we're in the middle of it."

  Hood
brought himself back into the conversation.

  "There's no question about that," Burkow said. "Quite frankly, I'd go to the first strike scenario in the military options paper. Paul, you feel that would work—"

  "Hell, yes. Christ, the Defense Secretary's plan would be a juggernaut! From what we're hearing, the North is expecting another Desert Storm, with a softening-up period. A half-million troops moving into the North, air strikes against communications centers, missiles dropping on every airstrip and military base in the nation— sure, Steve. It would work. We'd only lose three thousand troops, tops. Why settle this peacefully when we can lose soldiers and overrun a country that'll be a financial drain on the South for the next forty to sixty years?"

  "Enough of that," the President said. "In light of the new information, I'll instruct the Ambassador to make inquiries about a diplomatic solution."

  "Inquiries?" Hood's nonsecure phone rang. He looked at the readout: it was from the hospital. "Mr. President, I have to take this call. Would you excuse me?"

  "Yes. Paul, I want the ass of the person who let this software through."

  "Fine, Mr. President. But if you take his, mine comes with it."

  The son of a bitch, Hood thought as he hung up the secure phone. Everything's got to be a big gesture. You're in, you're out, we're at war, I've made peace. He wished Lawrence would take up a hobby. A person lives any job twenty-four hours a day, their sense of proportion is bound to get screwed up.

  Hood picked up the open line. "Sharon— how is he?"

  "Much better," she said. "It was like a dam breaking: all of a sudden, he took a deep breath and the wheezing stopped. The doctor says his lungs are working twenty percent better now— he's going to be all right, Paul."

  Sharon's voice was relaxed, light, for the first time that day. He heard the girl in her, and he was glad to have her back.

  Darrell McCaskey and Bob Herbert stopped just outside the door. Hood motioned them in.