"Correct."
Now Kim was surprised. "You mean these bombs are unguarded?"
Min nodded. "Yes. Our objective is to seize those weapons along with their arming codes and instructions. And to leave no trace of our presence there."
"How will we do that and what will we do with the weapons? I thought our government already had nuclear weapons?"
"We are not going back home with the weapons." Min shook his head. "The rest is not for you to know yet, my friend. You will be told when it is time. Suffice it to say that if we are successful, Orange III will be implemented, and it will succeed."
Min leaned back in his seat as his executive officer moved away. Although this whole plan was jury-rigged on short notice, there was quite a bit of precedent for the entire operation. The primary wartime mission of the North Korean Special Forces was to seize or destroy U.S. nuclear weapons. Min had helped draw up plans for direct action missions against overseas targets, including U.S. 7th Fleet bases in Japan and the Philippines, and even Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
North Korea had never been particularly shy about striking at their enemies outside their own borders, and the Special Forces had been involved in every action. In 1968 thirty-one Special Forces soldiers had infiltrated across the DMZ and made their way down to Seoul to raid the Blue House, home of the South Korean president. The mission failed, with twenty-eight men killed, two missing, and only one captured.
Shortly after that attack, on January 23, 1968, KPA Special Forces men in high speed attack craft seized the USS Pueblo. Later that year a large SF force of almost a hundred men conducted landings on the coast of South Korea in an attempt to raise the populace against the government. It failed, but such failures didn't daunt the North Korean government.
In 1969 a U.S. electronic warfare aircraft was shot down by North Korea, killing all thirty-one U.S. service members on board.
As security stiffened in South Korea over the decade of the 1970s, North Korea moved its attentions overseas, ignoring international reactions. In 1983 three PKA Special Forces officers planted a bomb in Rangoon in an attempt to kill the visiting South Korean president. That mission also failed.
Later in 1983 four North Korean merchant ships infiltrated the Gulf of California to conduct monitoring operations against the United States mainland. One of the ships was seized by the Mexican authorities, but that didn't prevent the North Koreans from continuing such operations.
Min knew that history, and he also knew more than the average North Korean about the changes that had been sweeping the world in the past decade. Spending time overseas, even in remote Indonesia, he had been exposed to more information than those in the tightly controlled society in his homeland ever received. The breakup of the Soviet Union had never been acknowledged by Pyongyang, except in cryptically worded exhortations to the people telling them they were the last true bastion of communism in the world. In fact, Min truly believed he was part of the last line in the war against western imperialism. He believed that if this mission succeeded, he would strike a blow greater than any of his Special Forces predecessors. That was enough for him.
Antarctica
Tai knew there was no way she would be able to sleep. "There is one thing I think we have to do," she said.
"What?" Vaughn asked. They paused as the door to the mess hall opened and Logan walked in. He grabbed a cup of coffee. "Mind if I join you?"
Tai glanced at Vaughn, then shrugged. "All right."
"Didn't plan on sitting on top of a couple of nukes," Logan said. "This is a messuck. You two figured out what's next?"
"We're working on it," Vaughn said.
Tai put down her coffee mug. "We need to make sure these bombs can't be used. We need to destroy the PAL codes."
"How do you propose we do that?" Vaughn asked.
"We blow up the safe that holds them."
Vaughn shook his head. "Destroying the codes doesn't do enough. Besides, the codes in the safe might not be the only ones. Someone else, somewhere, probably has a copy. Probably buried deep in some classified file cabinet. But there is a way to neutralize the bombs. Or at least keep them from being activated."
"How?" Tai asked.
"I told you that those two newer bombs have a six-digit PAL code that allows limited tries followed by lockout. I can enter two wrong codes and cause both bombs to go into lockout. That will mean that they can't be exploded."
"Bullshit!" They both looked at Logan in surprise. "How do we know you don't already have the codes and will arm the bombs with the correct six digits instead of the wrong ones?"
"Why would I do that?" Vaughn asked.
"I don't fucking know!" Logan turned to Tai. "Listen to me. What's to stop Vaughn from arming the bomb with a time delay? Then he kills us or just holds us at gun point and leaves, taking Brothers with him. If one of those goes off, all evidence of this base will be gone."
"I know Vaughn better than I know you," Tai said to Logan. "I trust him."
Safe House, Pine Barrens, New Jersey
The old man looked up as the door opened and two men walked in. The short one carried a briefcase, the taller one carried nothing. Knowing he would never get their real names, the old man immediately labeled them the Short Man and the Tall Man. The Short Man placed the briefcase on the desk, and they both stared at the old man.
Finally, he could take it no longer. "What do you want?"
Not a word had been said to him since he'd been picked up on the beach, flown to Otis Air Force Base, cross-loaded onto a military jet to Fort Dix, then driven to this house in the middle of nowhere.
The taller one, whom the man had correctly guessed was in charge, spoke. "We need information, Colonel Whitaker."
"I'm retired."
Silence reigned.
"What information?" Whitaker finally asked.
"We need information on an operation you were involved with. An operation we have no record of."
The Short Man flicked open the locks on the briefcase.
Whitaker frowned as he searched his memory. "That was a long time ago."
"The Citadel?" the Tall Man asked.
Whitaker felt his stomach flip.
The Short Man lifted the lid on the briefcase. Then he turned it so Whitaker could see the contents. Various hypodermic needles were arrayed in the padding on the top, and serum vials were secured in the bottom. The Tall Man gestured at the contents with a wave of his hand.
"The art of interrogation has progressed to much more sophisticated levels than what you dealt with when you were on active duty. We're less crude and much more effective.
"You know, of course, that everyone talks eventually." The Tall Man reached in and pulled out a needle, holding it up to the light. "With these sophisticated drugs, that eventually comes much faster. Unfortunately, the side effects, particularly for a man of your advanced years, cannot always be controlled." He put the needle down. "Why is it that there are no records of the Citadel?"
Whitaker considered his options. "What do I get out of this?"
The Tall Man shrugged. "It depends on what you tell us."
Whitaker sighed. He knew what the Tall Man had said was true-he would talk sooner or later. He'd been on the other side of this table too many times not to know that. Jesus, to have it all come to this because of that stupid base! He talked.
"I was the ops supervisor for the construction of the Citadel in 1947 in Antarctica. It was a group of buildings-twelve, to be exact-that were buried under the ice. The sections-"
The Tall Man interrupted. "What we want to know is who was behind the op and why."
"I worked directly for Sidney Souers."
"Who?" the Tall Man asked.
"The first director of Central Intelligence," Whitaker explained.
The Short Man had pulled out a PDA, punching information into it. He held it out now in front of the Tall Man, who read it and nodded. "Souers was a founding member of Majestic-12, wasn't he?"
"Yes."
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The two men exchanged glances. "How did Souers give you this assignment?"
"Personal briefing." Whitaker sighed. "It was an unofficially sanctioned mission-no paper trail and denial if uncovered. Souers brought me back to Washington from Japan, where I was doing work trying to track down some of their scientists. When I got to D.C., Souers told me he had a mission that could be very profitable to both of us and had the President's blessing."
"Who was Souers working for?"
Whitaker shrugged. "I don't know."
"Souers never told you who the place was for or even what it was designed for?"
"It was easy to see what it was designed for," Whitaker said. "It was a survival shelter. As far as the who goes, it had to be somebody that had quite a bit of money and resources, along with leverage with the White House."
"Tell us about Lansale," the Tall Man said.
"Who?"
The Tall Man looked at him dispassionately. He turned to his partner. "I'll be back in an hour. Prep him."
"Wait a second!" Whitaker shouted as the Short Man pulled out a vial of clear liquid and picked up the nearby needle. "I'm telling you everything. You said if I cooperated that wouldn't be necessary."
"I said it depended. You just told us you did freelance work while at the ISA. You broke the rules, and now we're going to find out what other rules you might have broken in your career."
The Short Man approached with the needle.
Antarctica
They'd managed to clear not only the west tunnel of ice, but also the entryway into the west ice storage area. That room was as large as the eastern one, but there was no ramp at the end. It was also stocked with supplies and food. Then, using the diagram in the instructor binder, they turned their attention to trying to find the site of the inert nuclear reactor.
Now, Tai was lying behind Logan and Vaughn in the power access tunnel. The tunnel was made of corrugated steel tubing approximately three feet in diameter. They'd been digging here by hand for two hours already. It was slow work because as they removed ice, they had to drag it back out on a blanket the length of the tunnel, where Tai would take it and dispose of it along the south ice wall.
She thought it might have been easier to go up to the surface, try to use the sonar to find the reactor, and then try to dig out its access shaft. But then the weather would have been a problem. She'd gone up to the main surface shaft not long ago with Vaughn and Logan and taken a look outside. As Brothers had said, visibility was close to zero as the wind lashed the countryside with a wall of white. Ten feet from the doorway a person would be lost, and only find their way back with a large degree of luck. It was hard to believe the latest radio message from McMurdo that the intensity of the storm was actually lessening.
Looking into the blowing snow, feeling the icy talons of cold ripping at her clothes through the open door and thinking about the frozen body lying at the foot of the stairs, Tai recalled something she'd read during her two-hour guard shift: the fate of Captain Lawrence Oates, a member of Scott's ill-fated 1911-1912 South Pole expedition. Scott's party had arrived at the South Pole after man-hauling their sleds most of the way, only to discover a tent and note that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had left behind, proving that Amundsen had beaten him there by a month.
On their return trip, running out of food and in the middle of a blizzard, Oates, suffering from severe frostbite, walked out of the party's campsite into the blowing snow and disappeared, sacrificing himself so the party could continue on more quickly. His noble gesture was all for naught, though, as the rest of Scott's party died only eleven miles from a supply depot. Their bodies were discovered eight months later, along with Scott's journal, which told the sad tale.
"I've got an opening," Vaughn said, snapping Tai out of her ice-bound reverie. He was poking his shovel ahead, through the ice. Then he and Logan scratched away, widening the opening. The tunnel continued for another ten feet before angling off to the right.
"Let's see what we have," Vaughn said as he led the way.
The environmentalist followed, and Tai crawled along behind them on her hands and knees, her Gore-Tex pants sliding on the steel. Fifty more feet and they reached a thick hatch. Vaughn turned the wheel and the door slowly opened. Another two hundred feet. Then another hatch. They squeezed out of the second one and could finally stand. A small, shielded room opened out onto the reactor's core. Radiation warning signs were plastered all over the walls. Tai looked through the thick glass at the slots where the rods were to be inserted in the reactor core itself. In front of the glass was a small control panel with a few seats.
Logan shook his head. "Unbelievable. They really thought something as poorly constructed as this could work. No wonder the one at McMurdo had to be taken apart."
"You have to remember this was put in a long time ago," Vaughn reminded him.
"Hell, even twenty or thirty years ago someone should have had more common sense." Logan ran his hands over the thick glass separating them from the core. "Why are people so stupid?"
"So we have nukes and a nuclear power plant," Tai said. "But we're still not any closer to the Organization."
Vaughn peered once more through the thick glass at the inert core of the reactor. "You know, we might not be any closer, but it might be closer to us."
"What do you mean?" Tai asked.
Vaughn looked at Logan. "You once accused me of trying to take out Brothers. But I know I didn't do that. And I think whoever did only did it to try and slow us down a little bit, not stop us. Because sabotaging the plane would have worked much better. And the only reason to slow us down is if someone is behind us."
"We know Fatima and the Abu Sayif-" Tai began, then paused as she considered what he was saying. "You think the Organization will come here?"
Vaughn shrugged. "Sooner or later. I don't think our trip down here escaped scrutiny."
"What do we do, then?" Tai asked.
"Depends on who shows up," Vaughn said.
Airspace, Antarctica
Min watched as Sergeant Chong finished securing the steel cable that would hold their static lines to the roof of the aircraft, just in front of the aft passenger door. Min had never parachuted out of an IL-18 before, but he knew it had been done. This type of aircraft was not specifically designed for paratrooper operations, but the team was doing what it was best at: improvising.
Min looked out a small porthole at the ocean dotted with icebergs far below. They were flying at the plane's maximum altitude. Looking forward as best he could, he made out a dark line indicating the storm blanketing the continent ahead. The report they'd intercepted from McMurdo Station indicated the severity of the weather, but also that the storm should be gradually lessening in intensity. Jumping into high winds was never a good idea, a factor those who had come up with this brilliant idea had obviously not taken into account.
Min checked his watch. They were less than an hour and a half from the target. "Time to rig!" he yelled to his team.
Splitting into buddy teams, the nine men who would be jumping began to put on their parachutes, Sergeant Chong helping the odd man. Min threw his main parachute on his back and buckled the leg and chest straps, securing it to his body and making sure it was cinched down tight. The reserve was hooked onto the front. Rucksacks were clipped on below the reserve, and automatic weapons tied down on top of the reserves.
After Sergeant Chong, acting as jumpmaster, inspected all the men, they took their seats, each man lost in his own thoughts, contemplating the jump and the mission ahead. Min pulled the OPLAN out of his carry-on bag and checked the numbers in the communication section. With those in mind, he waddled his way up the center of the cargo bay to the cockpit.
Antarctica
The wind had actually diminished, although it was still kicking along with gusts up to thirty-five miles an hour. Visibility was increasing to almost fifty feet at times. The slight break in the storm could last for minutes or hours.
Below the surfa
ce, in the base, Tai, Vaughn, and Logan were crawling back from the reactor access tunnel. Burke, Smithers, and Brothers were sleeping, so there was no one in the communications room to notice when the small red light on the transponder flickered, then turned green.
CHAPTER 11
Airspace, Antarctica
Sergeant Chong was wearing a headset that allowed him to communicate with Captain Hyun in the cockpit. Chong stood next to the rear passenger door, his hands on the opening handle. A rope was wrapped about his waist, securing him to the inside of the plane. The plane itself, buffeted by winds, was bobbing and weaving. Up front the pilots were flying blind, eyes glued to the transponder needle and praying a mountainside didn't suddenly appear out of the swirling clouds.
"One minute out, sir!" he yelled to Major Min.
Min turned and looked over his shoulder at the men. "Remove the coverings on your canopy releases," he ordered. The jumpers popped the metal covering on each shoulder. These metal pieces protected the small steel cable loops that controlled the connection of the harness to the parachute risers; pulling the loops would release the risers, separating the jumper from his parachute. Doing this in the air would result in death, but Min had a reason for taking this dangerous step prior to exiting the aircraft.
He shuffled a little closer to the door, his parachute and rucksack doubling his weight. "Open the door," he ordered Chong. "Activate trackers," he called back to the rest of the team. Then Min reached down and activated the small transponder/receiver strapped to his right forearm.
Chong twisted the handle on the door. It swung in with a freezing swoosh. They'd depressurized a half hour ago and were now flying in the middle of the storm and still descending. They were at an estimated altitude of 1,500 feet above the ground.
Snow swirled in the open door, along with bone-chilling cold. Min didn't even bother taking a look-he knew he wouldn't be able to see a few feet, never mind the ground. The plan was to jump as soon as Hyun relayed that the needle focusing on the transponder swung from forward to rear, indicating they'd flown over the beacon.
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