by Jack Mars
Swann nodded. “All right. Easy enough.”
“I also want your eyes on me when I’m in country.”
Swann took a breath, held it, exhaled. “Not as easy.”
“Why?”
Swann shrugged. “Any drone I might use, even a high altitude one, is liable to get shot down and alert them to something unusual going on. Satellites won’t necessarily give you the detail you’re looking for, and are subject to being blocked by weather patterns. Also, they move fast, and I would need to hop from one to the next. If the Koreans are good enough, they might spot me doing that.”
Swann always had too much information. Too many mitigating factors. Too much to think about. “Is it doable?” Luke said.
“Sure, it’s doable, but…”
“Then do it. Don’t tell me about all the difficulties. You’ll be sitting at a desk. People are going to be shooting at me, but I’m not telling you how tricky that is. See what I mean?”
Swann raised his hands. “Okay, Luke. I’m just trying to keep you alive.”
Luke nodded. “I appreciate that.” He turned to Park.
“Park, do you have someone inside North Korea, someone reliable who can meet a drop team and drive them into the capital? Preferably inside a truck of some kind?”
Park sat there, silent for a long time, shaking his head over and over.
Finally, Park sighed. He nodded. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll need a squad of paratroopers, commandos, the best your country has.”
Park had given up trying to derail the idea. “Ghost Brigade is still the best,” he said, his pride showing. “I can get you a dozen men who all train together. High altitude jumps, extractions, hostage resolution.”
“This will be a hostage resolution in reverse,” Ed said.
Luke shook his head. “Too many men. We won’t be able to slip in unnoticed with a team that size. And we won’t be able to move. Get me your five best, and I’ll round out the group to six. Five men who are ready to die, please.”
“Make it four,” Ed said.
Luke looked at him. Ed was still lounging there, his big feet on the desk. He was built like a brick wall. He was fearless, athletic, and immensely strong. He was highly skilled in all the arts—weapons, fighting, demolition, skydiving, you name it. But he didn’t fit the suit on this mission.
“Ed, we’re dropping into North Korea. You’re hardly going to blend in up there.”
Ed smiled. “And you will, white man?”
Luke shook his head. “You don’t speak Korean. You won’t be able to communicate with your own team. You won’t be able to make demands of our opponents or give orders to any prisoners we take. If you get separated, or the team gets destroyed, you won’t be able to speak to civilians while you try to escape.”
Ed’s smile broadened. “I speak with my guns,” he said. After a second, he held up his big fists. “And I speak with these. You need me, man. There’s no way you can go in there without me. You know it, and I know, so let’s not waste time arguing about it.”
Luke turned back to Park.
“Give me your four best men. We’ll go in with a squad of six.”
“I’ll get you three men,” Park said.
Luke stared at Park. Park was not obese, he was not really even overweight, but he clearly had let himself go in recent years. His lines were not sharp—he was not living the lifestyle of a special operator. To look at Park, and then at Ed, was to look at two different species of animal. As a result, Luke dreaded the next words out of Park’s mouth:
“I’m coming with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
2:45 a.m.
The Situation Room, United States Naval Observatory – Washington, DC
“Communications are dropping everywhere,” an analyst said. “We’ve lost contact with Alaska missile defense.”
“Central Command in Florida is still reporting,” another voice said. “Predator drone program is becoming non-responsive. One by one, we are going blind across the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and the southern Arabian peninsula.”
A female voice: “Santee Cooper power grid throughout South Carolina and northern Georgia is down.”
“Fort Benning is non-responsive as of thirty seconds ago.”
One entire wall of the Situation Room was dominated by a line of young analysts and aides at laptops and on telephones, touching base with command centers across the country, reporting a litany of failed and failing networks.
It was all very exciting to hear. But Susan didn’t see how it was helping matters. They needed a response, not a scorecard of disaster. Everywhere in the room, people were tapping information into tablets and laptops, and talking on telephones. Systems were still working here. For now, the security firewall had kept this place functioning, even if everywhere else was falling apart. But let’s not waste that functionality writing the postmortem.
“Kurt,” she called over the din of voices.
Kurt Kimball was at the front, in his customary place, talking with an aide. If he had seemed tired before, he seemed very awake now. The alarming implications of what was happening had snapped him out of his stupor. Even so, he didn’t seem to notice Susan or hear her.
“Kurt,” she said again, louder this time.
“KURT!”
He stopped. Everyone stopped. All eyes were on her.
“Can you please call a meeting to order here?”
“Of course.”
Kurt clapped his hands, twice. The sound was loud. “Okay, people. Here’s what I want. I want this room cleared of all but decision-makers. Aides, analysts, continue to gather information, but be nearby, prepared to implement policy at a moment’s notice. Thank you. We will overcome this. So let’s move.”
The young people began to file out. Susan looked around the room. Haley Lawrence was still here, as was General Walters from the Pentagon. Kat Lopez was here, giving instructions to a couple of aides as they were leaving. A half a dozen others were here. It was good.
Susan took a deep breath. She slid into her chair. “Kurt, give me the quick and dirty.”
“Our software people are calling it a denial-of-service cyber attack, the largest and fastest moving they’ve ever seen. It started sometime in the last ten or twenty minutes, and may be unrelated to our losing communications with Europe and Asia.”
“Unrelated?” she said.
Kurt made a gesture with his hands, almost as though he was throwing sand into the air. He seemed unaware of it. Between facial tics and bizarre and sudden movements, Kurt seemed to be losing control of his body.
“Unrelated is a strong word,” he said. “Of course they’re related. But they are likely separate, coordinated attacks. The overseas phone and internet cables were probably cut manually by saboteurs. What we’re facing right now is an out of control piece of malware which is rapidly infecting information systems across the country.”
”Did we make it?” Susan said.
“Did we make what?”
“The malware.”
Kurt looked around the room. “I’m under the impression that this is a cyber attack by a foreign country, most likely China. I believe it’s in retaliation for what they see as an incursion by the USS Lewiston, and our refusal to…”
“Come off it, Kurt,” General Walters said. “It’s part of a pattern of unchecked aggression from them. First the dam, then the subway, now this. We’re getting hammered, and no one has even fired a shot.”
“Can I put forward a theory?” Susan said.
“Of course,” Kurt said. “This is your show.”
“I was speaking to Agent Luke Stone just before the phone lines to Asia went down.”
“Is Agent Stone in Asia?”
“Yes. He’s in South Korea. He told me he believes these attacks are being carried out by the North Koreans. He said that one of our intelligence agencies has developed what he called a kill switch, which could take out information systems across the country. A
nd he said that the North Korean hackers had found it.”
“Susan, with all due respect,” General Walters said, “is this the same Agent Stone who believed a Chinese cult was behind the attacks? The same man who engineered a prison break within the past twenty-four hours?”
“He never said it was the cult,” she corrected. “He just offered it up as one of many potential leads.”
Walters shook his head.
“He doesn’t have much credibility left, does he?”
“Kurt?” Susan said.
“I like Agent Stone,” Kurt said. “But I’ve studied North Korea for years. They are bristling with weaponry, certainly, but at the cost of all else. They are a low-tech society, decades behind most of the world. Their basic infrastructure—roads, trains, air transport—is all failing or in serious disrepair. They are subject to repeated crop failures, which keep their population struggling to maintain sufficient calorie and vitamin intake. Hacking into American intelligence networks to release a doomsday virus, or activate a kill switch that we ourselves created? I don’t know about that. It seems well beyond their capabilities.”
“Wouldn’t we know if we had created a kill switch?” Haley Lawrence said. It was the first time he had spoken.
Kurt smiled. Haley was clearly new here. “Not necessarily. The left hand doesn’t always know what the right hand is doing.”
“It’s a fantasy,” the general said. “Luke Stone is out of his mind. We need to deal with the reality in front of us. Our missile defenses are going down. We don’t know when we’ll get them back up again. That’s fine. We can go to old-school radio contact with our bases throughout the world. Hell, we can use hand-crank or solar radios if we need to. Our ships and planes are independent of domestic communications networks. We have conventional missiles ready to launch from sites in the Philippines and Japan. We can put bombers in the air whenever and wherever we want. We can give China the spanking they well deserve, and will never forget, and I suggest we do that, starting this minute.”
“Kurt?” Susan said.
He nodded. “The general has a point.”
“Haley?”
“We’ve been hit by them repeatedly,” he said. “And we haven’t even offered token resistance yet. I would say a show of force is in order.”
They were talking about war, possibly the start of World War Three.
“Okay,” she said. “How do we begin?”
The general leaned back in his chair. The aide to his left slipped a single sheet of paper in front of him. “All along, I’ve been saying hit their container ships. But after this? I say we strike right in the heart of the Chinese mainland. Somewhere away from the major cities, but close enough to show them we mean business.”
The general picked up the piece of paper and referred to it for a moment. “We’ve studied this eventuality for years, and we have contingency plans ready to go. There are targets immediately available to us, which we can reach with conventional missile systems, and which puts none of our own personnel at risk. I’m talking about a menu of options that include food and coal stockpiles, military bases, and research facilities, just to name a few. We can also take out power stations and water supplies. We can see how they like drinking out of the toilet.”
As the general spoke, Haley Lawrence looked at Susan. He didn’t seem angry. There was no fire in his eyes. Instead, he seemed relaxed, like a man choosing what was appetizing from the general’s buffet.
“Haley?” Susan said.
“I like what the general is offering, Susan. So here’s my recommendation. Go for the jugular. A knockout punch. Pick a city or region, and knock out its supply of clean water.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
8:07 p.m. Korea Time (7:07 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
The Skies Above the Sea of Japan – Near the North Korean Coast
Ed Newsam breathed pure oxygen through a mask affixed to his face.
He sat alone on a bench inside the plane. His giant combat pack was belted to the front of him, his legs spread out around it. He had a submachine gun belted to one side of him. It was a Korean Daewoo K7, a cheaper knockoff of the Heckler and Koch MP-5 that Ed had always loved so well. He had a stack of loaded thirty-round magazines for the gun, stuffed in various pockets of his jumpsuit.
Strapped to his other side was his favorite weapon—the M79 grenade launcher. He had a dozen grenades for it. If the world was his canvas, the M79 was his paintbrush. There were also handguns mounted to his waist, and tiny .25 caliber pocket pistols taped to each one of his calves. He was strapped with guns, just how he liked it.
The jump door was open. He guessed they were at altitude now, between 25,000 and 27,000 feet. It was cold in here, despite the special polypropylene jumpsuit that covered him nearly head to toe. Outside the door, he could see the last of the day’s sunlight fading far to the west.
Luke came by and squatted in front of him.
“Ed,” Luke said from inside his own oxygen mask. Ed could barely see his face. “These guys can’t speak to you, so I’m going to serve as your jump master. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, let’s run your checklist.” Luke took out a small piece of paper and held it in his thick gloved hands.
“Altimeter?” Luke said.
Ed patted the fat watch on his wrist, tapped a button on it, and got the reading: 26,738.
“Check.”
“Automatic parachute activation device.”
“Check.”
“Parachute.”
Ed touched the parachute on his back. “Check.”
“Knife?”
“Check.”
“Helmet.”
Ed tapped himself on his hard, molded-plastic head. “Check.”
Luke went through the list, thorough as always. Water, bailout oxygen, combat pack, gloves, freefall boots. It was all here.
“How’s your breathing?” Luke said.
“Feels good.”
“Dizzy, any nausea or tingling sensations?”
“No, man. I’m good.”
“This is a HAHO jump. High altitude, high opening. You comfortable with that?”
“You know I am.”
“When we jump, as soon as we’re clear of the plane, we’re going to pull cords immediately. They can’t bring this thing into North Korean airspace, so we’re out over the ocean, as you know. Note that we are far out over the ocean. Note that it is deep water, and you don’t want to be in it. We’re going to steer due west, horizontal as we can, for thirty-five miles. No lights, no sound. No radio contact. We’re just playing follow the leader. It’s going to be dark out there, so stay sharp. I’ve got a landing site picked out in Mount Kumgang National Park. Should be far enough away from any prying eyes. Park knows the way, and that’s where we pick up our ride. Got it?”
Ed nodded. “Got it.”
Luke looked at him closely. “Last chance to back out. Last chance to tell me you’ve never done one of these.”
“Luke, you were Seventy-Fifth Rangers before you joined Delta Force. You boys used to fall out of helicopters for a living. But before I was Delta, I was Eighty-Second Airborne. I can do this thing in my sleep.”
Luke patted him on the helmet and smiled. “All right, brother. You’re good to go. But stay awake for it, if you don’t mind. I’ll see you on the ground.”
Several more minutes passed. Soon, on a signal Ed didn’t understand, the men began to stand and waddle like penguins toward the open doorway, their big combat packs strapped between their legs. Ed was last in line. Before him, each of the men waddled to the line, paused for a second, then jumped. No hesitation. They just went.
Ed always hesitated, or felt that he did. Maybe every man did. Maybe it just wasn’t visible to others. When he reached the open door, there was nothing but darkness and open space, and wind. He couldn’t see anything out there. It was all hope. He wanted it to be smooth, like the others had done. But there was that moment, that split secon
d, when his entire body, his entire being, rebelled against it.
On the threshold, that’s when the doubts came to him, and the fears.
He had two young daughters, and he had been estranged from their mother for years. He could see them, four-year-old Serenity and five-year-old Diana, close enough in age to look like twins, with brightly colored plastic barrettes in their hair, beautiful like their mother. He sent money like clockwork, but the girls were growing up without him in their lives. And he could die. He took on missions, like this one, where the chances of dying were probably higher than the chances of living.
Maybe, if he survived this, he would just walk away. Walk away and watch his daughters grow from little girls to young women.
In the night sky, the others were falling far ahead of him. He had to go NOW. He had lost his momentum, so he pushed hard with his legs.
He was out.
He fell away, and the plane was gone in an instant. For a few seconds, all of life was falling, a rushing sensation, upside down, wind against his face. When the chute opened, it opened for real. He was jerked back violently, the jolt like a car crash, one he knew he’d be feeling for days.
Then he was riding in the darkness. Far to the south, the bright lights of Seoul lit up the night. The lights marched right up to the straight line of the DMZ, where everything went black. Far, far to the west, there was still the tiniest sliver of sunlight, disappearing any second.
Now, Ed didn’t think about what they were planning to do. He stopped thinking about his past life or his future. He didn’t think about how cold he was. He didn’t consciously control his chute—the control was in muscle memory.
All he did was stare out at the dark coming in around him, and think:
Beautiful.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
