by Jack Mars
“Very fast,” Park said.
The two commandos with them gazed anxiously at the guards, then back at the festival. At the guards, then the festival. The guards…
Luke didn’t like it. “If we hang around here much longer, we’re going to draw attention to ourselves.”
“Yes.”
“Are you and your men ready?” Luke said.
“Yes.”
Luke glanced at Park. Park stared at Luke. They both laughed. “Well, old buddy,” Luke said. “If one of us doesn’t make it, and one of us does, I guess we’ll connect again on the other side.”
“Of course,” Park said.
Luke ducked down into the stairwell and took out his flare gun. He was going to get one shot at this, so it better be a good one. He loaded the flare and counted slowly to ten, imagining Ed growing impatient on the other side of the stadium.
Okay, this was it. Luke popped up and fired.
The white flare arced low across the sky and landed in the midst of the guards ten feet in front of the barricades. Luke ducked down again, as did Park’s men. Air expelled from Luke like from a punctured tire. That was a good shot. He couldn’t have asked for much better. Now it was on Ed. He had better hurry.
No one in the crowd had responded to the flare. They probably thought it was part of the show. But the guards? That would be a different story. Park glanced through a crack in the cement top of the stairwell.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “Here they come.”
From far off to the right, nearly on the other side of the stadium, Luke saw a brief flash. In his imagination, he could almost hear the hollow sound of the M79, a sound that was all out of proportion to the type of havoc that weapon could wreak.
Doonk.
A trail fizzled across the sky. Luke didn’t see the grenade itself.
“Down!” he shouted.
A second later: Kaa-POW!
The metal stairwell shook from the explosion.
“Wait,” Luke said, his hand on the back of the young commando ahead of him. “One more.”
The crowd started to scream. It was dawning on them that this wasn’t part of the show. Suddenly, the music stopped. In a moment, it would be chaos.
Luke watched another trail fizzle.
He crouched again.
BOOOM! This time, with no competing sounds, it was an eruption.
“GO!” Luke shouted. “GO! GO! GO!”
He popped up, the MP-5 out ahead of him. He balanced it on the cement entry to the stairwell and opened fire. The guards had been blown into a wide circle. A few were getting up. He fired the submachine gun, mowing them back down again.
Then he was out and running.
Park and his men were out in front. Luke ran to catch up. Everywhere in the stadium, the crowd surged, desperate to get away from the attack. He couldn’t think about that now.
Up ahead, Park leapt the fallen barricades and climbed the short flight of wide steps to the double doors. He squatted. One of his commandos was there half a second later. Park put his hand out. The commando placed a C4 charge in his hand. Park stuck it to the door, then held his hand out again. The commando gave him another, and Park placed that one. He lit the fuses, then stood to duck away.
Suddenly there was a barrage of machine gun fire from Luke’s left. He hit the ground, but the bullets weren’t meant for him. As he watched, Park and the young commando did a crazy dance as the bullets pierced them.
“Ah,” Luke said. “Oh, God.”
He rolled onto his right shoulder, found the shooter fifty feet away, and blew him down with a double burst from the MP-5.
He looked back at Park. Park stumbled a step, then another. He didn’t seem to know where he was. He gazed up at the sky. His commando was dead on the ground behind him.
“Park!” Luke screamed. “Get out of there!”
The C4 blew. The first charge, then an instant later, the second.
The light from it was blinding, the sound deafening. Luke ducked and covered his helmeted head with his arms. When he looked up again, the doors were gone and the doorway itself was on fire.
There was no sign of Park at all.
The MP-5 was empty. Luke chucked it and pulled both his handguns. He jumped up and ran screaming toward the doorway. From the corner of his eye, he saw motion to his right and behind him. He glanced, and the other young commando was still with him, running for the door. He still had his machine gun.
They pounded up the steps and blasted through the flaming doorway.
The skybox was crowded with men. Someone had pulled open a trapdoor from the floor. People pushed and shoved to get through it. A couple of bodyguards were trying to knock people out of the way, so that a small fat man in a tan suit could go through.
Luke fired both guns at once, killing the two men.
The young commando ripped up the bottleneck at the top of the trapdoor. Five bodies fell in different directions. Then the young man went over, kicked the bodies out of the way, slammed the door closed, and locked it.
And then, as the smoke settled, a small man emerged, standing there, frozen, facing him.
Luke could hardly believe it. There, before him, he held the Supreme Leader of North Korea in his gun sights.
“Nan dangsin eul jug-il geos-ida!” Luke shouted at him.
He had forgotten that he even knew that one. It meant I will kill you.
The commando had Kim in his sights now, too.
Kim stared impassively at the young commando. The Supreme Leader hadn’t tried to move, or speak, or do anything. He didn’t seem surprised that his entire bodyguard had just been wiped out, or even concerned.
Luke took stock. They had captured the man they came to see, but it was only a start. With no way out, the question became: How to hold him? The doors were blown open, leaving them exposed, and the military units were moving closer, facing the skybox, and taking up firing positions.
The North Koreans were gathering themselves for the counter attack. That was about to become a bigger problem.
Luke crouched below the window, out of the line of fire.
He took a second to think. Then it came to him. He still had the satellite phone. He glanced up at the open roof of the stadium.
Swann.
He pulled the phone out of his vest. It was worth a try. He glanced at the readout. He had a signal. That was good. Swann had rigged this so that a single touch would make the call. Luke pressed the green button. A moment later, the phone started to beep.
The call picked up. “Swann,” came the voice.
Luke almost dropped to the floor in relief.
“Swann, it’s Luke.”
“Hey, Luke, how’s it going in there?”
“Uh, we’re in trouble, Swann. We’ve got Kim, but Park is dead and the team is split up. I don’t have Ed with me. I’m trapped in the skybox.”
“You’ve got bigger trouble than that,” Swann said.
“Yeah? What is it?”
“I’ve got the stadium on satellite. People are streaming out by the thousands. But I’ve got about ten military convoys incoming, complete with troop transports and tanks.”
Luke didn’t have time to think about that. They weren’t about to fire tank shells in here, not with Kim at gunpoint. “All right,” he said. “I need you to find me a way out of here. Tunnels under the stadium, maybe. There’s a trapdoor here. I don’t know where it goes. But maybe there’s a chance…”
Luke stared at the phone. It had dropped the call. Swann was gone.
From outside, someone strafed the open doorway with machine gun fire. The cinderblock wall crumbled into a thousand pieces. Luke hit the deck. So did the young South Korean. Lying on the ground, Luke covered the doorway with his gun. Cement dust hung in the air. Luke could taste it on his tongue. A North Korean darted by just outside. Luke fired.
Missed.
He reached for the satellite phone again, just feet away. He snatched it, but it didn’t feel the same as before. It had been
hit. A third of its plastic casing was just gone—blown away. He pressed buttons, hoping for a read out. Nothing. The phone was junk. There was no other way to call out of here.
A tear gas canister bounced in through the doorway, trailing smoke. The young South Korean caught it one-handed, in mid-bounce, and tossed it back out again.
Luke heard a noise then, one so totally out of place with the surroundings, he couldn’t immediately identify it. A moment passed before it resolved into something he could remember. It was the sound of laughter.
From the floor, he glanced up at Kim. The man could barely suppress his delight. The machine gun fire hadn’t made him duck. He hadn’t moved at all. He had one small hand covering his mouth, like a giggling little girl might do.
“Luke, you said? Luke Stone, is it? I thought it was you. I recognized you from your picture. I’m a fan of yours, did you know? Oh yes, ever since the U.S. government crisis. You were profiled on the television. The super spy, Luke Stone, who saved the Vice President and the American Republic. You’re a famous man, Luke. You should have your own show.”
Now Kim shook his head. He seemed sad. “But you should never grovel on the ground like this. It’s unseemly for a man of your caliber.”
Luke stared at Kim. The little man spoke perfect English. Gunfights and slaughter didn’t bother him. He didn’t even seem to notice it. Now he raised his arms in an expansive gesture, as if indicating lush green hillsides and rocky coastline, rather than a shattered, smoky, bloody skybox in a stadium overcome with panic.
“Welcome to my country, Luke Stone. It will be an honor to have you die here.”
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
8:57 a.m.
United States Naval Observatory – Washington, DC
“Susan, we have to act. The only thing these people know is force.”
“General Walters,” Susan said. “I call you by your title as a sign of respect. I wish you would do the same for me.”
Walters stared at her.
The Situation Room was silent. Susan took a deep breath. All the men in this room seemed ready for war, and she was hesitating. She was being the indecisive woman again, the one who couldn’t even pick her own cabinet members, the one whose husband cheated on her with other men. The entire communications infrastructure of the country was collapsing, and she couldn’t decide what to do. It was pathetic, right?
She was so tired.
“I don’t want to go to war,” she said. “I don’t want to be responsible for the deaths of thousands, or tens of thousands, or even millions of people.”
“Susan…” It was General Walters again.
Now Susan just stared at him.
Up at the front, an aide was whispering to Kurt Kimball.
“Susan, we have an incoming call,” Kurt said. “Apparently, it’s urgent. The man insists on speaking with you. He broke through a security firewall to call here.”
“Who is it?” Susan said.
“His name is Mark Swann. He’s one of the agents we gave to Luke Stone when Stone came back on board. He works as an analyst for the NSA.”
Susan nodded. “Yes, I remember him. I know who he is.”
Susan couldn’t imagine what Swann might want, or how it could be helpful at this point. He was overreaching his authority to call her directly. She wouldn’t normally take this call unless she had invited it herself. But speaking to him might just buy her a few minutes of time, and a chance to clear her head.
“Put him on speakerphone.”
Kurt gave a hand signal to an aide. The aide reached for the black conference call device on the long table. He pressed a couple of buttons on it.
“Call coming through,” he said.
“Hello?” a male voice said. “Where have I reached?”
“This is President Susan Hopkins.” Susan almost couldn’t believe it. Things had reached the point where random people could call in during the middle of national security meetings. She rolled her eyes at the people in the room.
“This is Special Agent Mark Swann with the United States National Security Agency.”
“Yes, Swann. We know who you are. What can we help you with?”
“I’ve just hung up with Luke Stone. Our call got cut off, and I can’t reach him again. He’s in North Korea with a team of South Korean commandos, trying to kidnap Kim Song-Il. He believes, and I agree with him, that Kim plans to launch a nuclear war against the United States tonight.”
“Stone is in…” Kurt Kimball began, eyes wide with shock.
“Yes, North Korea. And he has captured Kim.”
Susan felt her heart plummet. What animal had she unleashed out of the bag? And how many crises could she withstand at once?
She stared at the others and they all stared back at her. They looked equally dumfounded. Even the general, for all his poise, looked off kilter for the first time.
Kim. Held hostage by Luke Stone. In North Korea. It was too crazy to be true. And yet, even crazier, knowing Luke, somehow it all seemed perfectly normal to her.
“He’s trapped and surrounded,” Swann rushed on. “He has no way out. He needs you.”
Susan cleared her throat.
“Swann,” Susan said, “why would we want to help Stone? If he’s causing an international incident, then how does he…”
“It was the North Koreans all along,” Swann said. “The Chinese had nothing to do with it. They set them up. Kim’s preparing to launch nuclear missiles against the west coast and Japan. He was testing us. All those cyber attacks were just a dry run. Now he’s figured it out. He’s insane, and his country is starving. Do you think China wants a nuclear war with the United States? I don’t think so.”
Susan stared at the phone. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same thing. The magnitude of what Swann was saying, and the likely truth of it, hit her for the first time.
She glanced around the Situation Room. What were the rest of them thinking?
“Hello?” Swann said. “You still there?”
“We’re here,” Susan said.
“Luke needs help. He and Ed Newsam are in a bad situation. They’re trapped inside the Rungrado Stadium in Pyongyang. The place is surrounded by North Korean troops, with more pouring in. We’ve got thirty thousand American troops here in the south, and loads of military hardware. I think you should send someone over the border to rescue them. I don’t see how they come out alive otherwise. They are totally surrounded. And Kim, I’m sure, still has his fingers on the button somehow.”
“We will take that under advisement,” Kurt Kimball finally said.
“Well,” Swann said. “Don’t for too long…”
Kurt made a gesture like a hand cutting across his throat. An instant later, the call went away.
Everyone in the room turned to her.
“I want the President of China on the phone,” she said.
The general shook his head. “It’s too late for talking,” he said.
“I agree,” Haley Lawrence chimed in.
She knew how it sounded. Nothing in this room had changed. All the momentum was still for war. And calling the President of China looked like weakness.
“Direct communications have been knocked out,” Kurt said.
Susan shrugged. “Swann just called here. He did it. However you can patch another call through to Asia, just do it. Satellite phone, tin cans tied with a string, walkie-talkies. I won’t mind.”
“Susan.” The general glared at her. “You can’t do this. You are making America look weak.”
“If you don’t like it, General,” she snapped back, raising her voice for the first time, “I will accept your resignation now. I am President of the United States. I will do whatever the hell I wish.”
* * *
“The line is open,” an aide said. “We can put you on anytime.”
Susan nodded.
General Walters sat there, arms crossed, fuming, as Susan picked up the white telephone on the table in front of her. A good old
-fashioned landline, the last refuge when everything else failed.
“The President of the United States is on the line,” a male voice said.
“The President of the People’s Republic of China is on the line,” came the reply.
“Hello?” Susan said.
“Hello? This is Xi Wengbo.”
“Mr. President.”
“Madam President, to what do I owe this honor?”
“Sir,” Susan said, “I think we have a lot to talk about.”
“We are aware of the very many fighter and bomber sorties you are flying,” Xi said. “Many of them are dangerously close to our territory. We are showing the most restraint we can, but I admit, we are disappointed that this is your response to recent troubles. We hope that there will be no incidents of violence.”
“We are under cyber attack again,” Susan said. “Our entire information infrastructure, including much of our electric power, has shut down or is shutting down. This has put us in a very violent mood.”
The Chinese President sighed. “I assure you it is not us. We seek friendship, coupled with respect, and nothing more.”
“I believe you,” Susan said.
There was a long pause.
“You believe me?” Xi said. “So…” Xi began, apparently confused.
“I believe you don’t want war,” she said. “We don’t, either. But we may not be able to avoid it. The North Koreans are behind the cyber attacks. They are trying to take down our defenses in preparation for a missile attack. We believe Kim Song-Il is going to launch nuclear missiles at us at any time. As you know, if he does that, we will have no choice but to respond with overwhelming force. China will be in the fallout zone, and we cannot guarantee that some of the missiles themselves will not hit your territory by mistake.”
“Please wait a minute,” Xi said. “What proof of this is there?”
“Sir, I suggest you just take my word for it.”
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
10:17 p.m. Korea Time (9:17 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Rungrado 1st of May Stadium – Pyongyang, North Korea
