by Jack Mars
9:05 p.m. Korea Time (8:05 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
An Underground Bunker – Near Chongjin, North Korea
The order would come tonight.
Deep underground, in their tiny living quarters, the four men knew it now. The rumors had been circulating for weeks, but now they knew it was real. A young courier had reached them just moments ago, climbing down the long metal stairwell to their position. He gave them a packet of orders without comment.
The packet said to prepare for radio contact. The contact was not a drill. It was not a hoax. It was not a mistake. Everything had been prepared in advance. The timing was perfect. When the orders came by radio, sometime in the next hours, initiate your launch sequence.
The men were nervous, but upbeat. The Supreme Leader was finally going to war against the Americans, and their vicious stooges, the Japanese. There were two nuclear missiles controlled from this bunker. One, a twenty-megaton device, was a long-range missile targeted to the city of Portland, Oregon. The other, a ten-megaton medium-range missile, was targeted to the outlying suburbs of Tokyo. Both would wreak havoc on their target zones, raining death and destruction upon their enemies.
The men tried not to think about the consequences of their actions. They tried not to consider the many children who would die in the attack, innocent even if their parents were not. They tried not to think about their own families, or how well this bunker would withstand the storm of bombs likely to come in response. They tried not to notice they had less than a week’s worth of food and water rations on hand.
Although these many things were hard to ignore, as each man looked at his comrades he knew: the time had come to be brave. The missiles were targeted and armed. When the order arrived to launch, they would be patriots, and they would answer the call.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
8:15 a.m.
The Situation Room, United States Naval Observatory – Washington, DC
“Susan?” someone said.
“Susan.”
She had been lost in thought. She rarely thought of her childhood in suburban Ohio. Her father had died when she was in the sixth grade. Her mother, without the man she loved, became a shell of herself. Depressed, a drinker, and chronically unemployed. In the middle of the tenth grade, Susan, who was already modeling locally, decided to light out for the territories. The territories, in this case, being New York City.
The memory in question was of a time when she was very young. There had been a snowstorm, and her father was pulling her along on a Flexible Flyer sled. She was laughing because it was so much fun.
“Susan, please.”
She looked up. It was Kurt Kimball, staring at her. Man, she was tired. She didn’t remember ever being this tired.
“Susan, the electricity grid serving Greater Los Angeles has gone down. There are early reports of looting and fires. It will get worse as the day goes on. Hospital staff are manually pumping the hearts and lungs of people on life support.”
“Okay,” Susan said.
“The general has a report for you.”
She turned to General Walters. His eyes were narrow and eager. Susan, in contrast, felt numb.
The general held a single piece of paper in front of him. The general always seemed to be holding a piece of paper—one that controlled the fate of countless people. “Susan, we have missiles locked onto the reservoirs serving the city of Shanghai on the central east coast, as well as the city of Guangzhou, formerly known as Canton, which is in the south. We can commence firing whenever you’re ready.”
“Haley?” Susan said.
“I’ve reviewed the targets the general has put on the table, and I agree that they are excellent options, given the circumstances.”
“What happens when they start shooting back?” Susan said.
“Obviously, the hope is that they come to their senses.”
“And if they don’t?”
The general conferred with an aide to his left. The aide handed him a second piece of paper. The general scanned the page, then spoke:
“In the event a shooting war breaks out, we have an immediate list of nearly one hundred targets, which include military, research, as well as civilian infrastructure. Hitting these should bring much of Chinese domestic commerce, and many day-to-day activities, to a standstill. If they persist after that, we have an additional list of six hundred targets. Hitting that list will set Chinese society back to a pre-modern era, from which it will likely take decades to emerge. When it comes to that list, all of the options we choose will include a mixed use of land and sea-based conventional and nuclear weapons.”
“You’re describing a nuclear war, General.”
“Limited in scope, however. So limited that I don’t think it could really be considered a nuclear war, at least not in the way the public imagines one.”
“Cost in lives?” Susan said.
The general shook his head. “Impossible to guess. I don’t see that as our problem. All we’re doing at this moment is hitting a few reservoirs and some water tunnels. The rest is up to them.”
“They’ll hit us back,” Susan said.
“They might. If they do, I assure you they will be very, very sorry.”
Susan looked around the room. Faces stared back at her, pinched, confused, anxious faces. The general thought he was offering clear-eyed leadership. It was possible he was offering the Apocalypse instead.
“We will destroy them, Susan,” he said. “Utterly, totally, completely.”
Susan was so tired, for some reason she focused on his mouth while he spoke. To Susan’s eyes, the general’s teeth resembled the razor-sharp teeth of a shark.
CHAPTER FORTY
9:30 p.m. Korea Time (8:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Rungrado 1st of May Stadium – Pyongyang, North Korea
It was the largest stadium in the world.
Except for photos Trudy had shown him before he left, and maps Swann had downloaded for him, Luke didn’t have much idea what the stadium looked like. He did know that it had numerous arches, and was open to the air. Beyond that, he didn’t have much.
After the six commandos reached their landing site on a hillside in Mount Kumgang National Park, they had been met by an old Soviet-style military truck driven by two stern-faced young women. Park Jae-kyu had spoken with the women briefly, then the men had all climbed into the back.
They rumbled over rutted and pitted roads, the men hidden in the gloom behind crates and what seemed to be large iron radiators. The Koreans sat on the floor, leaning against their packs. A few of them took out energy bars and small bottles of water and had a snack. There wasn’t much talking.
What little was done, was done in whispers.
“The stadium is very large,” Park told Luke. “We will come in from underneath it. A military parking garage. We may have to secure that area. If so, we must do it as quietly as possible. Sometimes, during the Arirang games, there is absolute silence. It will be bad if that happens when there is shooting going on.”
“What will the games look like?” Luke said.
“Impossible to describe. You must see it for yourself.”
“Where will Kim’s box be?”
“Second tier,” Park said. “High, but not at the top of the stadium. It will be hardened, difficult to penetrate. I hope so. The glass in front will be bulletproof, possibly so thick that it’s impossible to shoot through. So thick that it warps the vision of people behind it.”
“How does he watch the games in that case?”
Park shrugged. “I don’t think he cares. I think we ignore the glass. We may be able to blow the entry doors with C4. If not, this is going to be a short trip.”
Luke knew the whole story—they had gone over it before leaving on the plane. Park was going over it again, probably just to work off nerves. Luke also knew, from Trudy’s research, that they would be unlikely to catch Kim coming or going from the games. The North Koreans employed body doubles and entire
decoy entourages, sometimes a bewildering array of them. Three or four different motorcades would leave the stadium at the end of the night—making it a long shot that six men would pick the right one.
In any event, they couldn’t wait until the games were over. They had to take Kim while he was in his viewing box. And they had to hope it was really him.
Luke’s eyes were getting used to the gloom. He looked at Park again, the man’s forty-year-old belly protruding over his waistband. Park looked like what he had become—a desk jockey, and a man who ran spies. Not a spy himself, and definitely not a commando. Luke worked constantly to keep himself fit. And often enough, he felt it starting to slip away. Park’s fitness had slipped away some time ago. Now it was off, running away down the block.
“Park,” he said. “Are you really up for this?”
“I did the jump, Stone. Didn’t I?”
Luke had to admit Park had done fine. He had guided them perfectly to the landing site, even in pitch darkness. But jumping from a plane, even a jump as strenuous as one from high altitude, was one thing. Facing a shootout, possible hand-to-hand combat, and acquiring a target in a fast-moving, unpredictable environment—that was another thing entirely.
“I don’t want to worry about you out there,” Stone said. “And I’m not going to carry you. Every man has to pull his weight.”
“Stone, do you know I was the best paratrooper in South Korea at one time?”
Luke shrugged. “I don’t doubt that. But it’s not true anymore. And these kids you picked for us are fifteen years younger than you. If there’s any chance you’re going to put them in jeopardy when the truck pulls in, I want you to walk away. You’ve been in country before. I’m sure you’ll make it back home. We can manage with five.”
Park’s bright eyes flashed anger. In a long ago time, Luke’s words would have been grounds for a sparring session. “Stone, I want you to understand something. This is my country. All of it. These are my people. Not just the people from the South, but the people from the North as well. It’s my job to free them. It’s my job to reunite them. We are one nation, and rebuilding it has been my life’s work. You think I’ve gotten old and fat. You think I can’t fight anymore. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter. This place, tonight, is my destiny.”
One of the young commandos hissed something urgently in Korean. Park instantly shut his mouth. He put a finger to his lips to quiet Luke.
Outside, the truck entered a lighted area. None of the men spoke. None of them even moved. The truck idled at some kind of checkpoint. A man’s voice spoke. A few words were passed between the female driver and the man. Luke couldn’t make out what was said.
After a moment, the truck rolled on again, much slower now. A few minutes later, it rolled to a stop.
Up front in the cab, one of the women said something loud enough for them to hear.
The men began to gather their packs and their weapons.
“Okay,” Park said. “We’ve arrived.”
* * *
They were in a vast underground chamber. About a hundred military trucks were parked down here, and hundreds of old buses. Luke didn’t see any cars. The women had parked the truck in a far corner of the chamber, in the shadows, among the rusted hulks of vehicles that hadn’t been used in a long time.
Luke and Ed were the last men to climb out, after Park let them know the coast was clear. In the yellow light of the dim overhead lamps, Luke looked at the military women who had driven them here. They were young and pretty, but also thin and severe. They looked very nervous.
One of them looked at Luke. She gestured at him and Ed.
“You have made a mistake,” she said. “You will die here.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “We do this a lot. We’ve never died before.”
“Our people are dying,” she said simply.
The women turned and walked away from the truck. Within a minute, they had disappeared entirely. Behind the truck, the three young commandos were gearing up, checking weapons, and discarding unnecessary items. The uniforms they wore marked them as North Korean soldiers.
Above his head, Luke could hear music blasting, and at times, people cheering.
“I need to get upstairs,” he said to Park. “I have a satellite phone. If I can get some open air, I’ll see if I can pick up Swann.”
“The women left you both these,” Park said. He held out black uniforms and helmets with visors. “They are riot police uniforms. Before we left the South, I asked the women to provide these if they could, and somehow they managed it. I don’t know where they got them. The smoked visors will buy you a few extra seconds before people see you are not Korean.”
Ed and Luke changed into the uniforms quickly. They almost fit. Ed’s uniform wasn’t broad enough, and Luke’s was too short. They looked at each other and laughed.
“Oh, man,” Ed said. “I feel like the Incredible Hulk in this thing.”
“You are the Incredible Hulk,” Luke said.
Luke’s heart was beating very fast. His mind raced.
Calm, he told himself. Calm.
A few hundred yards away was an old stairwell. Two of the commandos went to it and disappeared up the stairs to the stadium, to scope out their position relative to Kim’s skybox. Several moments later, they were back. Their eyes were wide and frightened. They spoke rapidly to Park.
“They say we are very close,” Park said. “From that stairwell, Kim’s box is no more than another hundred meters. They say it is impossible to reach it. More than a hundred armed guards stand between the stairwell and the entryway, with barricades erected behind them. They say it is the same story on the other side.”
“Luke, I got an M79,” Ed said. “If these boys can snake me around to the side, I’ll take down a chunk of those guards with just a couple shots. Should create a panic, depending on how disciplined they are. I might be able to take that glass partition out too, or maybe the doorway.”
“It will have to happen fast,” Park said. “Once a disturbance occurs, his close guards will rush to get him out the secret emergency exit.”
“If it’s secret, how do you know about it?” Luke said.
“I know it exists. I don’t know where it goes. We have struggled with this for years. Intelligence in North Korea is a black hole.”
“How’s the crowd?” Luke said.
Park said something to the two men.
“Keun,” one of them said.
Luke knew the word. It meant “Big.”
He turned to Ed. “I like it. Just go easy on civilians, all right?”
Ed shrugged, didn’t commit to that idea one way or the other.
“Ed?”
Ed nearly laughed. “You’re crazy, man. You know that? You put me in these impossible situations every single time, and then you tell me to take it easy on people. I don’t get off on icing noncombatants. I don’t. But geez… you know? Sometimes people get in the way.”
“I know it,” Luke said. “And when they do, let’s try not to kill them.”
Ed shook his head. “Okay, Luke. I’ll mow down the soldiers for you. At the same time, I’ll hand out ice cream cones to the kids, and flowers to the ladies.”
“Sounds good,” Luke said. “In that case, let’s rock this.”
He turned to Park. “Can one of your men get Ed a clean shot? He can clear out a lot of that trouble for us.”
Park barked something to one of the men. The guy gestured at Ed, and off they went through the dim, cavernous parking lot. “Five minutes, Ed,” Luke said. “Watch for my signal. I’ll fire a flare where I need a path cleared.”
Ed didn’t turn around.
“How many hits you need?”
“Two. And then run like hell.”
Ed raised a hand in response.
Luke looked at Park. “Okay. Let’s go.”
* * *
For a moment, Luke entertained the idea that he was invisible. He stood near the top of the stairwell, ga
zing out from his helmet visor at the Arirang Festival. The thing was so majestic, why would anyone look at him? More than that, in a country that had this, why was everything else so horribly wrong?
The stadium was dark. Down on the field, hundreds of ballet dancers flowed through precision movements, all of them in synch with the others, all of them seemingly lit up in green, and then red, and then gold, from within their own costumes.
Suddenly, there was a flash, and across the stadium from him, in the crowd, the gigantic image of an old man in an army uniform appeared, pointing his arm toward the sky. A second later, the image instantly morphed into a lake surrounded by snow-capped crags, the same one Trudy showed him tattooed on the back of Li Quiangguo.
It took Luke a few seconds to realize how they were projecting those images onto the crowd. They weren’t projecting them at all. Thousands of people were holding up placards, together creating one image, then flipping them to instantly create the second image.
A muscular man with a sledgehammer appeared, driving a railroad spike. A symbol of the workers, of course. Then suddenly, fighter planes streaking across the sky.
Meanwhile, on the floor of the stadium, the dancers had turned into winged blue and white butterflies.
It was amazing.
“I told you it was impossible to describe,” Park said. “You have to see it for yourself.”
Luke shook his head clear of it. This wasn’t the time for distractions.
“How long has it been?” he said.
Park nodded. “Just about five minutes.”
Luke shook his head. “Well, I hate to spoil the show, but…”
He glanced over at the guards. They were tall, thin, stern-faced young men. They blocked a wide stairway that rose to what must be Kim’s private viewing box. From the outside, the box was like a cement bunker or machine gun nest. The double doors to the box were closed.
“This has to happen fast,” Luke said.
