“This is Homeplate. If you find nothing more, extend, Hunter Leader. Over.”
“You heard the man, Hunters. Let’s do it. Same pattern, work a hundred miles north, south each half and out to three hundred. Move it. Over.”
In San Francisco veterans of the Gulf War quickly labeled the missile hits as being made by Scuds, the missiles used extensively in the Gulf War by Iraq. They had a payload of 434 pounds of TNT, which would make a nice bang, but nothing like the longer-range missiles with much larger payloads that most nations in the world had available.
San Francisco went into a state of shock. Public services kept working remarkably well. Hospitals and clinics were overloaded with the wounded. Every man in the police force was called to duty, and protection was put around the mayor, City Hall, and all federal buildings in the city. As the day wore on, the first panic passed and the shock began to wear off. In the blast-effect areas, neighbors were helping neighbors who hadn’t even known their names before.
In San Diego, Commander Masciareli received a message directly from the CNO to put Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven on standby alert. They were not to leave the base until released. There would be a CH-46 fully fueled on standby. It would have machine guns mounted in both side doors. The two gunners and pilots would be on standby at North Island Naval Air Station until further notice. Canzoneri was on an emergency leave due to a death in the family in San Diego. He was recalled, and the platoon was at full strength. Murdock and DeWitt continued with their light workouts and training schedule for the platoon.
“This alert could last for days,” DeWitt said. “We can’t just sit around and wait for the phone to ring.”
At six P.M. the President made a statement to the nation and the world, decrying the atrocity of the sneak missile attack and vowing that the perpetrators would be found and severely punished.
The entire West Coast military establishment and all federal offices had gone on stage-three alert an hour after the attack. Navy and Air Force planes flew search missions along the entire coast, interconnecting to be sure every inch of the coastal Pacific was covered. All federal buildings had total security, with armed guards on each door and two photo IDs needed to enter.
Patrol planes out of San Diego reported six freighters en route, some incoming, some outgoing. The Panamanian freighter first sighted had continued its northerly course.
For the first time in memory, the SEALs posted guards along the six-mile strip of the Pacific Ocean connecting Coronado and the base with Imperial Beach to the south. The men walked two-hour tours, were off four hours, and on for another two hours. They would be on duty for twenty-four hours, and then a new guard would take over. The sentries all carried M-4A1 rifles with full magazines of live ammunition.
The individual SEALs reacted to the full alert in various fashions. Ed DeWitt and Paul Jefferson held a marathon chess series. At the end of the first day, Jefferson was ahead five games to three. Jaybird and Howard went to work on sit-ups and pull-ups, challenging each other who could do the most. Howard won, and they moved on to push-ups. Jaybird won with 214.
Murdock kept in close touch with Commander Masciareli, his boss, but no request had come for their services.
The day after the bombing, San Francisco settled down and continued to clean up the debris and repair the damage. The final death count was 132. No nation or organization had claimed responsibility for the missile attack.
Military specialists were searching for pieces of the missiles. They already had several hundred fragments that would be analyzed to find out exactly what type they were, the source, the type and make, and who those particular missiles had been sold to.
Portland International Airport
Portland, Oregon
United World Flight 434 rolled along the taxi strip, waited its turn, then swung onto the main runway and gunned the big jet engines. The three-jet aircraft leaped ahead, rapidly gaining speed, and lifted off on schedule heading toward the end of the runway with the waters of the Columbia River just ahead.
Before he was fifty feet off the ground and well before the end of the runway, Pilot Jan Jenkins saw a curious trail of smoke come from below and ahead of the big jet. The former F-14 Navy combat pilot had seen them before, and it made him scream. “Missile incoming,” he bellowed, and the copilot snapped her head around just as the smoke trail and the aircraft met. The explosion ripped into the left wing, igniting the full fuel tank in a huge ball of fire as the big jet slowly slewed to the left and dove into the Columbia River before the pilot could pull the throttles back. The furious splash the jet created sprayed water two hundred feet in every direction. The silver bird hung on the slowly flowing Columbia for a moment, then slid beneath the water before anyone could escape. Moments later there was only a roiling splotch on the serene Columbia’s surface before that faded and there was no sign of United World Flight 434 out of Portland, bound for San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Portland broke the news first with a network bulletin about a plane crash. The network didn’t interrupt normal programming, but put it on their sheets, and it would play on the first network newscast.
An hour after the crash, TV-7 in Portland received an envelope with a videotape. It came by a bicycle messenger who vanished quickly. It went to the desk of Rolland Hemphil, the news editor, who let it sit on his desk for twenty minutes before he screened it. Then he pushed it into his player and sat in front of his monitor. Less than a minute into the tape he began screaming for a reporter.
He played the short tape, rewound it, and had twenty curious staffers watching as he played it again.
The tape started with a shot over the shoulder of a man in a baseball cap. Then it went in close on a shoulder-mounted rocket-propelled grenade. It showed the man lifting the weapon to his shoulder. The camera panned up and it viewed an airliner starting its takeoff on the familiar Portland Airport runway. The camera followed the plane, then pulled back to include both the plane and the gunman. When the plane was a hundred feet away and not fifty feet off the concrete, the gunman fired.
The video plainly showed the shot and the smoke trail as the rocket jolted upward directly into the path of the jetliner and exploded on the left wing. The resulting blast ignited the jet fuel in the left wing tank and a huge ball of fire blossomed. The jet screamed overhead.
The camera panned with it. The plane gained altitude for another ten seconds, then turned to the left, where the burning wing couldn’t provide lift, and then the jet passenger liner quickly crashed into the Columbia River.
Hemphil pulled the tape out and gave it to an editor. “Get this ready to broadcast. I’m calling the network right now.” Two minutes later Hemphil had the go-ahead and a local announcer broke into network broadcasting.
“This is a special news bulletin. A terrorist has just shot down a scheduled airliner taking off from the Portland, Oregon, International Airport. The terrorists took this unedited tape and sent it to our office. There is no indication who these men are, or even their nationality. We warn you that this is graphic and young children shouldn’t be allowed to view it. Here is the videotape just as we received it.”
The network ran the tape exactly as it had come into the station. When it was over, the announcer went back on. “We repeat, the jetliner went down into the Columbia River and it is doubtful if there are any survivors. We have learned from the airport that the plane was United World Flight 434 bound for San Francisco and Los Angeles. We will have a list of the passengers, but the names will not be made public. The airport reports that there were one hundred forty-eight passengers on the plane and a crew of nine. There has been no indication who the gunmen were who shot down the plane. Nothing on the videotape indicated this. There has been no public notice claiming the terrorist act. We return you now to your regularly scheduled programming.”
9
Pacific Ocean
Off Point Arguello, California
Susie Jamison relaxed in the chaise longue on t
he promenade deck of the Princess Royal, one of the new limited-sized luxury cruise ships on its maiden voyage heading around the world. She was Dutch-registered and crewed by a majority of Filipinos and Italians. She carried only 1200 passengers, and every cabin was in the luxury class. The staterooms were fifty percent larger than anything else on the water, and with amenities found only in the highest-priced spas and five-star hotels.
The Princess Royal had sailed only the day before out of San Diego, and was working her way up the coast. Then she would stop in Seattle for a two-day port call. From there she would ply the inland passage to Alaska, making stops at Ketchikan, Sitka, Skagway, and Juneau along the way. When she was in port at Seward, there would be three days of excursions through Anchorage to see even more of Alaska. The Princess Royal was in no rush in making her way around the world.
Susie Jamison and her husband Allegro were on their first world cruise, and she was determined to make the best of it. Susie had married her husband when he was stationed in Korea well after the Korean War, and had come to the States with him and watched him get in on the floor of the computer-chip world and quickly surge to the top of the industry. His company had expanded again and again. Just before the big financial shakedown of the computer industry in late 2000, he had sold out for over twelve billion dollars.
Allegro, known to the world as Chip Al, was celebrated for having had the insight to know which way the market and the chip industry would be going. Not so, Al would tell anyone who would listen. His wife had wanted him to quit working and do some traveling. She’d said they had too much money already. She’d wanted to go back to Korea and look up some of her family whom she hadn’t seen in thirty years. She’d wanted him to sell, so he’d sold.
Now he had money in a hundred different industries. He had become such a widespread player in the international market that he lost less than three percent during the bust of 2001, when some firms skidded by sixty percent.
Susie was a small woman, slender, with light brown skin and definite Korean features. Her three children looked more like their blond father, but they had the slightly tipped Oriental eyes, giving them an exotic look that fascinated photographers. The two girls were both models, and her son had taken to the chip industry, and now had a large chip firm of his own that he had spun off from one of his father’s firms.
That morning Susie had been the first to go to the spa, where she was in the middle of a facial to be followed by a full body mud bath. She luxuriated in the attention and the consideration the staff gave to each of the passengers.
Al sat in the salon, pumping gold Sacajawea dollars into the slot machine. The big ship sailed along at sixteen knots, not in a rush to get anywhere. Al looked out the broad window, and saw a school of more than a hundred small Pacific dolphins skipping through the water, the whole pack moving close to the big ship, then angling away, satisfying their curiosity and giving the passengers a seldom-seen sight.
Al tired of the machine. Slots were fun only if you could win, and these were set so tight they squealed when they paid out ten dollars. He went to the fantail, bought a bucket of golf balls, and set up on the driving turf. It was real grass, and would have to be resodded every six weeks. He set up the first ball. The balls were real. He took out a power driver with the slightly larger head, and slammed a dozen straight down the ship’s wake. On a good solid course that was a little dry, the drives would carry at least 260 feet. Not bad for a guy in his early sixties.
He switched to a five iron, and drove four straight and true, then pretended he had to slice around a tree in the edge of the course to get to the pin behind a short dogleg. The slices were tougher to control. At last he gave up and sent the last ball in the bucket straight and true. One of his small goals was to play golf in every nation in the world.
* * *
Ten miles behind the luxury liner and two miles seaward, a Panamanian freighter picked up speed and slashed through the water at twenty-four knots. On board, her skipper looked at the radar report of the location of the luxury liner and smiled. He wore the uniform of a captain in the North Korean Navy, and he watched his crack Navy crew at work in the ship’s combat control center. The ship had not changed from its camouflage as a freighter. Before long the main antennas would be lifted from their bent-down positions. The radars would be raised and the fake wooden sides of the “freighter” would be pushed overboard to reveal the North Korean Navy Frigate Najin 531. It had fired all nine of the Scud missiles it had mounted on board. Now it had only its six SSM-1 missiles left in the tubes and ready to fire. But they were defensive hardware for homing on enemy ships with a range up to twenty-five miles.
It had two one-hundred-millimeter guns with a range of eight miles, and four fifty-seven-millimeter guns that would reach out two and a half miles. Scattered around the deck were sixteen quad- .50-caliber machine guns for close-in work.
Captain Kim Seng Ho was thirty-seven years old, young to be a full captain, and eager to get his stars. He had volunteered for this raid, even though he knew it could well be a suicide mission. He’d decided that he never would surrender. He would fight until every man on board was killed and he would go down with his ship. His name would live in Korean history for centuries, showing honor and bravery and the ability to slap a powerful enemy in the face and then fight to the death.
“How far now from the big ship?” he asked his radar man from his position on the bridge.
“Eight miles and closing. We should be within range a little under an hour.”
“Sound general quarters. Prepare for the attack. Have the boarding party ready with ropes and grappling hooks to go up the side of the liner if we need to.”
Captain Kim watched ahead as they came up on the luxury liner. His major mission was accomplished. He had started the attack on the hated America. His orders after that were a bit unclear. In essence they said he was to “return to home port at the first opportunity when all pursuit has ended.” His senior admiral had bowed deeply when he gave the orders. Both knew that there would be no return. His craft would be discovered and it would be blown out of the water by American missiles. So he was on his own. If he captured the American cruise ship, and put all his men on board, the United States would not be able to attack her. He would have three thousand hostages. Perhaps he could sail the cruise ship all the way to North Korea. Perhaps. It was the only chance he saw. The camouflage of his ship as a merchantman had worked well. That phase was over. He was surprised he had not been discovered before now.
“Sir, we are within range of our guns,” the radar man said.
“Continue on course. We want to come within five hundred meters of her. Then we will fire.”
He would use the 57mm guns. He decided eight rounds into the cabin areas would be sufficient to bring the big ship to a standstill. He didn’t want to harm her sailing ability.
“Stand by on the 57mm weapons,” Captain Kim said in the public speaker system. “You will have the honor of firing two rounds each into the cabin areas. Space your shots along the entire length of the big ship. Fire on my command.”
The captain watched as the big white ship came into view, and then soon they were closing on her. He felt his heart racing, his eyes widening as he watched the luxury liner Royal Princess continue to steam along at a leisurely sixteen knots.
“Range one thousand meters, Captain,” the radar officer said.
“Stand by.”
The huge white ship seemed to grow in size as they came closer.
“Range five hundred meters, Captain.”
“All four guns two rounds each. Fire.”
He heard the immediate reports as his weapons fired. He had out his big binoculars watching the white ship. The first round hit near the bow about halfway up the side and exploded with a muffled roar. Then, in rapid succession, the seven other rounds slammed into the side of the big ship. She cut power at once and coasted through the azure sea, letting the sixteen knots of forward motion reduce slowly
until she was dead in the water.
The North Korean Navy Frigate Najin 531 had pushed most of the shielding and camouflage overboard, and now cruised up close to the Royal Princess. Captain Kim used a bullhorn from the bridge wing and called to the liner.
“Captain of the Royal Princess, you are to consider yourself captured by the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea Naval Forces. You will not resist our boarding party. You will treat your wounded and keep all activities on as normal a course as possible. We are coming alongside and will put a boarding party in the water. Open your dockside hatch so my men may board. Any resistance will be treated with the utmost severity. If you hear and understand my orders, respond through an amplified horn.”
Moments later the men on the frigate heard a reply.
“We hear you and for the moment will allow you to board if you guarantee the safety of the rest of my passengers and crew. We are in a turmoil from your savage attack. Already we have found twelve passengers and four crewmen dead. We don’t understand your sudden and vicious attack.”
Captain Kim signaled, and four small boats pulled away from his frigate and angled toward the dockside hatch that had just opened on the port side of the big ship. It was barely three feet off the Pacific swells. He smiled as sixty men came off the small boats and surged into the big pleasure craft. He would join the men shortly. His XO would be in command of the frigate and would complete the conversion from freighter to man-of-war.
He wasn’t exactly sure what he would do next. The frigate would shadow the big boat, staying within two hundred meters of it as a form of protection. He was sure that the ship’s radio had sent out a Mayday call for help as soon as the first round hit. By now the U.S. military would have figured out where the missiles came from and would have aircraft on the way. He moved his ship closer to the big liner, nudging up to within fifty yards of her side. Then he transferred to the luxury cruise ship and went directly to see the captain.
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