WW III wi-1

by Ian Slater

  Driving back to Northwestern, anxious about whether or not Ray had been injured or killed, he heard a Pentagon “spokesperson” come on the radio informing the press that “at this point in time we cannot categorically say whether the missile was fired by another vessel or a plane.” The woman droned on with more “points in time” instead of “presently,” and it all added up to the Pentagon wasn’t sure what the hell had happened. David watched the long, black sub, now no more than the size of a small branch, floating out on the clean and vibrant blue, taking what he could from its deceptive serenity. As much as he’d feared the sea, he also felt a strange communion with it at times, an attraction of opposites. David thought of his mother, pained at the thought of her pain, on the other side of the country, and it plunged him into a dilemma. Should he go back that evening to be with his folks? His father, of course, would never admit it: “Not for me, son, you understand. But it’d do wonders for your mom. Thrown her for a loop, David.” Well, Dad, Mom. She handles loops pretty well. Why don’t you just say, “Davy, I need you”?

  Or should he wait a few days first until the Pentagon knew for sure what had happened, who was hurt? Driving over the Seattle overpass, David thought of how Melissa would be waiting for him now, full of sympathy and feminine comfort. God, he could play it to the hilt if he wanted, stoic expression, the Brentwood tradition. Just as quickly he was ashamed of even thinking of using it to his advantage. As he thought of her, he felt himself getting hard. Was it normal? His brother thousands of miles away, the Blaine and Ray in God knows what shape, and here his kid brother at home was so damned horny that the mere thought of having a woman could override his concern for his brother.

  David could see her now. She was slipping off her jeans but nothing else — yet parading for him in the semidarkness of his room. He could feel her hand cupping him, squeezing, bringing him to her in one long, even pull…

  A light changed to red and he hit the brakes. Next to him a big Mack semitruck shuddered, its raw power barely held in check. The driver, chewing gum, looked down at him, shaking his head.

  * * *

  When David got to her dorm, it was four in the afternoon. There was a note for him folded and taped to the doorknob. “Davy — it’s dreadful. I just heard. Be back from seminar five-thirty. Wait for me. Love you, Lissa.”

  He went down to the dorm’s lounge room and wandered over to the pop machine before flicking on the TV.

  “Dave!”

  He turned around to see it was Stacy — only guy he knew who wore a bow tie to class. He had a short neck, too — looked ridiculous. And loaded with library books for effect.

  “You get the message?” asked Stacy.

  “Melissa’s?” Davy asked, annoyed that Stacy knew ahead of him. Had probably read it, too.

  “No,” answered Stacy. “Your dorm.”

  “Haven’t been there yet,” answered David.

  “Oh — reserves are being called up. Fort Lewis. Your name’s on the list.”

  David felt a rush in his gut. “You sure?”

  “Brentwood. D. — that’s you, old buddy. Hey — listen, I’m sorry about your brother.”

  Damn Stacy — why the hell didn’t he give you the messages one at a time and in order, for God’s sake? David wanted to ask him what exactly he’d heard about the reserves but hesitated— Stacy thrived on the drama. “All right, so what did you hear?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard?”

  “Jesus Christ, Stacy — what’s going on?”

  “It was hit. Pretty bad, looks like. CBS is running an in-depth report at seven.”

  Sometimes David didn’t know whether Stacy was just plain dumb—”in-depth”—or was just too “gee whiz” to realize how insensitive he was to others. “In-depth!”—Christ. Some file footage probably with a cutesy lead-in: “Blaine’s shame.” Or how about “Bam in the Sea of Japan”—that would be par for the course these days. David’s anger was now turning to consternation and turmoil. The upgraded Hazard Perry-class frigate, as his father proudly told anyone who’d listen, was one of the world’s most sophisticated warships, its Phalanx radar-weapons system capable of tracking and destroying multiple targets simultaneously. How was it possible that the Blaine…

  For a moment he thought his brother’s frigate might have been blindsided, one of the defense systems turned off as it had been on the Stark. David just as quickly dismissed the idea from his mind. Hell, that mistake on the Stark had been imprinted on the mind of every cadet out of Annapolis. His brother Ray had even made up some kind of sign about it, or so his dad had told them: “Don’t forget the Stark” or something. It was also clear now that Stacy hadn’t been trying to be a smart-ass with his “in-depth” pun and that he, David, had simply been overreacting. Then Stacy gave him a slip of paper, the number at Fort Lewis that all the college reservists were supposed to call. Was Stacy helping him or helping Stacy? Very considerate of him to have it all ready like this. Almost as if Stacy was in a hurry to see him off campus.

  “I guess this is the downside,” commented Stacy as they approached the quad, cypress trees glistening with rain from the night before.

  “Of what?” pressed David, trying to be civil despite the conflicting responsibilities and choices coming down on him: his Mom, Fort Lewis, Melissa — a possible extension might be granted from the army until fall term’s end — but how would it look, with his brother…

  “Downside of the army paying your tuition,” Stacy explained enthusiastically. “You know, tit for tat.”

  “Yeah,” said David, trying to hide the fact that Stacy was getting to him, if that’s what he was up to.

  “You could get a deferment probably,” opined Stacy. “I know a guy in commerce. He’s a corker at writing out requests for deferment. He did it for a—”

  “Corker?” asked David. The little shit was definitely trying to get to him.

  “Sorry,” said Stacy with an air of Ivy League superiority, except that he was on the opposite side of the country. “Corker’s a British expression,” explained Stacy. “You know, means first-class. Top of the line. My roommate’s a Brit. I pick up things like that, I guess.”

  “What things? Brits or the way they talk?”

  “Way they talk, old boy. Don’t you know?”

  Barf. Brentwood didn’t know which would be worse, putting up with this crap for another term or fighting gooks. Melissa had got after him one time for calling them that. As he reached his dorm, gladly saying good-bye, or “Toorooloo!” as Stacy had put it, David Brentwood knew there was only a slight chance he could apply for a deferment from the call-up of reserves. He started to get mad with his brothers, just as he had as a youngster, always having felt he had to “measure up” to them. What the hell had Ray been doing out there anyway? Daydreaming? Walking slowly up the cement stairs, the dark, shaded mouth of the dorm swallowing him like some leviathan of the deep, he recalled they’d said something on the radio about patrol boats having attacked the ship, but had they been Russian or North Korean? Or did they say South Korean? He was confused. Everything seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Because he had been summoned to report immediately to the Chungang Chongbo-bu—South Korea’s CIA — headquarters during the hours before Seoul’s fall, Chin Sung was unable to attend the funeral of Lee Sok Jo, his young colleague who had been with him as the students had rioted outside the Secret Gardens.

  Chin had been ordered to proceed on what he was told would be the most important mission of his career. He was flown out of Seoul by one of the few remaining helicopters to Pusan and then to Tokyo. The Apache chopper ferrying him across the Sea of Japan barely made it, being mistaken for a split second by an F-15 out of Japan for a Soviet Mi-28 Havoc, the ROK pilot ferrying Chin frantically firing off packs of flares lest the heat-seeking missile be fired by the Americans by mistake.

  From Pusan, Chin had flown to Tokyo. The immaculate khaki-uniformed and white-gloved J
apanese police were out in force at Narita, the airport having become a target once again for the Japanese Red Guard terrorist faction, who, encouraged by North Korea’s bold move, were now issuing more than their usual weekly number of bomb threats.

  The sight of the Japanese police was at once reassuring to Chin and disturbing. In his grandfather’s day the Japanese had been the ever-present enemy, not only from across the East Sea but as occupying troops whom it had taken Korea over thirty-five years to evict; their loyalty to the emperor and their legendary cleanliness and cruelty were inextricably linked in Chin’s mind to all the images of childhood hatred. But now, as allies of the United States, Japan and the ROK were in the same boat, one that, as South Korea’s ashen-faced president told Chin, was rapidly sinking, doomed if the Americans could not stop the NKA. Washington, he confided in Chin, as if Chin were hearing it for the first time, had lost all stomach for another fight in Asia. After the humiliation of Vietnam, said the ROK president, the American public simply would not tolerate another Asian “adventure. “

  Ninety minutes after he had left the president and was en route to Pusan, Chin heard that Seoul had fallen. The shock of it caused him to walk about Narita’s crowded rotunda-shaped waiting tower all but oblivious to what was going on around him. No one seemed to be talking about it, most of the passengers Canadians, Americans, and Australians on stopovers out of Shanghai and Communist Hong Kong. Didn’t they realize what was happening? If Korea went, the Western world would not have a single foothold on mainland Asia.

  Chin sat down, listening carefully to the public address system, worried he might have missed the first call for his flight to Europe. Everything was strange: the disinfectantlike odor of the waiting room, the buzz of tourists preoccupied, like him, with the TV arrival and departure monitors, the fresh fruit juice counters, the doll-like complexion of the young girls in white behind the counters — above all, the absence of familiar smells. Nothing was familiar, nothing reassuring.

  “Heard about Seoul, mate?” he heard an Australian asking a friend. It reminded him of the old beer ads by Crocodile Dundee.

  “Nah,” said the other Australian. “Last I heard, the Commies’d surrounded it.”

  “Surrounded it? They’ve taken it, mate. Lock, stock, and barrel. Yanks threw in the towel — hour or so ago.”

  “What? The whole shebang?”

  “Not yet. Only Seoul so far. But it’s just a matter of time, I reckon.” The Australian made a joke about the South Koreans having four gears in their tanks, one forward, three for reverse. The other Aussie indicated Chin sitting near him, the Korean Airlines bag at his feet, its loop handle around one ankle.

  “Sorry, mate,” said the Australian to Chin. “Me and my bloody big mouth. Just skylarkin’, sport.”

  “Skylarking?” Chin had never heard the expression before, but it was an old joke, usually made by Americans about the ROK. It hurt. And though the two Australians had no way of knowing it, in Chin’s mind their comments had confirmed the necessity of his mission. Even if the U.S. reserves from Japan arrived, they were not battle-tried. They might not even be able to land their convoy if blocked or otherwise engaged by the Soviet Eastern Fleet steaming south, or if they were attacked by one of the NKA’s diesel submarines. President Rah had been right — if the Republic of Korea was to be saved from communism, from utter defeat, drastic actions were called for.

  The announcement came over the PA for the Lufthansa flight to West Berlin. It was surprisingly clear-voiced, unencumbered by the usual hollow echoes of most other airports he’d been in, and Chin took it as a good sign.

  Aboard the plane Chin waited till takeoff, watching the passengers watching the cabin attendants watching the video of what to do in an emergency. He knew what to do — it was getting there that would be the problem. They had a safe house in Kreuzberg, three miles south of the old Reichstag and two miles southeast of the Church of Reconciliation. Reconciliation. Normally it would have elicited a wry comment from him to Lee Sok Jo. But Lee Sok Jo was dead, and besides, Chin was too tired.

  Before the movie, in which a gray-haired Tom Cruise was playing a dignified old general, forced out of office for opposition to a new space-decked beam weapon, Chin went to the toilet and unbuttoned his shirt, taking a sheaf of deutsch marks from the money belt. They didn’t want him to use any traveler’s checks, and signatures that either the West or East German intelligence services could trace. One of the deutsch marks had been torn in half; the meet in Berlin would take place only when the other half of the bank note was received by Chin. The fact that the note had been hastily torn, ripped rather than neatly cut with scissors, was only a minor detail and made do difference to Chin, but the tear spoke volumes in terms of the urgency with which the operation had been set in place. It was, thought Chin, as if the person in the Chungang Chongbo-bu who had torn the deutsch mark had done it with trembling hands.

  When he returned to his seat, Chin sat back and tried to watch the movie. People were laughing, but Chin couldn’t hear it properly, the earphones crackling. Besides, his sinuses were acting up again. He pulled out his Dristan bottle and took a sniff. At thirty-five thousand feet the sinuses cleared, but he knew from his previous trips abroad that the trouble would start as soon as they began to descend, the pain like a red-hot needle being pushed through the bone directly above the bridge of your nose.

  The thing that worried him most was that the success of the NKA’s special forces sabotage meant that the NKA network had been extensive and well trained, so that it was naive for him to think that Pusan, a major gateway to the West, had not been carefully watched by NKA operatives. The question was, had they had time to make him and/or follow him onto the same flight?

  He looked around. The plane seemed full, and they would have had to bump someone or buy out someone else’s ticket to get space on such short notice. Of course, it wasn’t essential that they start at this end; they could merely fax instructions through to Berlin and follow him out from Tempelhof. If it was someone on the plane, it would be someone, Chin thought, very much like him, no luggage to declare so as not to be delayed in customs. They’d be carrying an overnight bag — maybe a camera. Touristy-looking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Colonel Douglas Freeman dreamed of war. The thought of commanding vast armies on a European front as battle moved back and forth across the surface of the earth so filled his imagination, the scenes of glory that visited him so powerful, that at times he couldn’t sleep. Then, walking quietly down to the main floor of his house, or rather the army’s house, which overlooked Monterey Beach, he would stare out into the darkness of the sea, beyond the line of fluorescent waves, at once convinced that his destiny was nowhere near fulfilled yet anxious as to what form it might take and when. In his basement den, TV earpiece in so as not to disturb his wife, Doreen, sleeping above, Freeman would replay the videos of all the wars; from the reconstructed sites of the Peloponnesian War to videos of Victory at Sea, the Great War, the long-lost battles of Indochina, and the most recently released footage from Britain’s war office of the Communist insurgency in Malaysia and the Falklands War. Everyone else who Freeman knew in the Armored Corps was busily writing tanks off, the debacle of the M-Is in the Uijongbu corridor supporting them. But Freeman believed the problem was not the team but the tactics. They were still fighting World War II; that was the trouble. The hardest thing, he knew, as did Guderian, Liddell Hart, and Patton, was to get a man to change his habit. Simple things — ask someone who loves coffee to drink water, a smoker to quit, to move anyone out of a mode that, for all its inconveniences and ill side effects, he’s grown familiar with, and you might as well talk to a rock. And after forty forget it. Freeman knew colonels no older than he was at fifty-five who, finding themselves in a crowded field for promotion, had simply stopped trying, accepting that colonel was as far as they’d go. Freeman wanted to “break out.”