by Tom Clancy
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Tuesday, 8:40 A.M., East of Midway Island
Just over an hour before, in the skies over Hawaii, the thundering C-141A was refueled by a KC-135 tanker. It was good now for another four thousand miles, more than enough to make it to Osaka. And with the strong tail wind they were picking up in the South Pacific, Captain Harryhausen informed Lt. Col. Squires that they'd be reaching Japan up to an hour ahead of schedule; at roughly five A.M. Squires checked with the navigator: the sun wouldn't be rising in eastern North Korea until a few minutes after six. With any luck, they would be on the ground in the Diamond Mountains by then.
Mike Rodgers was sitting with his arms crossed and his eyes shut, thinking dreamily about any number of things. Disconnected bits of the past, of friends no longer with him, mingled with pictures of what the Diamond Mountains might be like. He thought about Op-Center, wondered what was going on, wished he were cracking the whip but glad to be in the field.
By design, everything drifted in and out of his mind like clouds. He had learned that the best way to remember complex plans fast was to read them two or three times, let them float on top of his memory, then review them once again a couple of hours later. That technique, which he learned from an actor friend, burned the material into the brain for a few days, after which it evaporated. Rodgers liked it because it didn't take up much time and it didn't monopolize brain cells forever. He hated the fact that he could still remember useless information from exams he'd crammed for in junior high school, that Frances Folsom Cleveland, widow of President Grover Cleveland, was the first First Lady to remarry, and that the unseaworthy sister ship of the Mayflower was called the Speedwell.
Best of all, floating the game plans Squires had reviewed with him gave Rodgers time to kick back on long flights, to compose himself for the mission- "General!"
— and take the occasional call from Paul Hood. Rodgers sat up and removed his earplugs. "Yes, Private Puckett."
"Mr. Hood, sir."
"Thank you, Private."
Puckett sat the radio on the bench beside Rodgers and returned to his seat. Rodgers slipped on the earphones as Lt. Col. Squires stirred from his nap.
"Rodgers, here."
"Mike, there are new developments. The North Koreans shot at one of our spy planes, killing a recon officer, and the President hit back by destroying the enemy plane on the ground."
"Good work, Mr. President!"
"Mike, we're not really in his camp on that one."
Rodgers's teeth closed tightly. "Oh?"
"We believe that the DPRK was set up," Hood said, "that a South Korean officer was behind this morning's bombing."
"Did he shoot our officer too?"
"No, Mike, but we were deep in North Korea."
"Then the procedure is to force the plane down without firing," Rodgers said. "They didn't do that, did they, the pricks?"
"They did not, and we'll debate this some other time. We're at Defcon 3, and we believe things are going to get hotter. If they do, we can get to all the fixed Nodongs by air. But it will be up to you to take care of the mobile units."
"At my own discretion?"
"Are you in command or Lt. Col. Squires?"
"He is. But we think alike. At our discretion, then?"
"There may not be time to clear your actions with the Pentagon, and the President doesn't want to know anything about it. Yes, Mike. If it looks like the missiles are going to be launched, you take them out. Quite frankly, Mike, we've got a little egg on our faces here. We've been pushing peace, but the strike against the airstrip in Sariwon is going to go over really big. I need something with a little gunpowder in it."
"Message received, Paul."
It was indeed. Once again, a politician in trouble wanted a military strike to blast his constituents— in this case the President— back onto his side. He was being tough on Hood; he really did like the man, as a fourth in poker or next to him at a Redskins game. But Rodgers was a charter member of the George Patton School of Diplomacy: kick their ass first, then negotiate with your foot on their neck. And he remained convinced that Op-Center would be more effective, respected, and feared if it stuffed its intelligence into a.45 Magnum instead of a Peer-2030 computer.
"I don't have to tell you to watch yourself," Hood said, "and good luck. If anything happens, no one can help you."
"We know. I'll tell the men you wished them well."
Rodgers signed off and Puckett was up in a flash to collect the radio.
Squires fished out an earplug. "Anything, sir?"
"Plenty." Rodgers reached under the seat and pulled out his grip, plunked it in his lap. "We may get to use our swords before the boss makes them rust."
"Sir?"
"Henry Ward Beecher. You know what he said about anxiety?"
"No, sir. Not offhand."
"He said, 'It's not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy. Worry is rust upon the blade.' Paul worries too much, Charlie, but he told me that if a Nodong so much as raises its pointy little head, we're free to do more than just assess the situation for Op-Center."
"Sweet," Squires said.
Rodgers unzipped the bag. "Which is why it's time I showed you how to use these babies." He removed two spheres a half inch in diameter, one lawn-green, the other dull gray. "The EBCs. I've got twenty in here, half of them green, the other half gray. Each one has a range of a mile."
"That's great," Squires said, "but what do they do?"
"Just what the bread crumbs were supposed to do in 'Hansel and Gretel.'" He handed the orbs to Squires, reached back into the bag, and withdrew a device the size and shape of a small stapler. He opened it at the hinge: there was a tiny liquid crystal display on top and four buttons underneath, one green, one gray, one red, one yellow. There was an earplug attached to the side of the device and Rodgers removed it. He touched the red button and an arrow appeared, pointing to Squires and beeping loudly. "Move the balls up," Rodgers said.
Squires did, and the arrow followed him.
"If you move farther away, the beeping will grow fainter. Matt Stoll worked these up for me. Simple, but brilliant. As you make your initial incursion through an area, you put the balls down— green in a wooded region, gray in rocky terrain. When you have to make your way back, you just switch on the tracker, put the earplug in so the enemy doesn't hear the tones, and follow it from ball to ball."
"Like connect the dots," Squires said.
"You got it. With these things and our night-vision goggles, we can move like a goddamn mountain lion."
"Electronic bread crumbs" — Squires laughed, handing them back to Rodgers— " 'Hansel and Gretel.' This isn't a business for grown-ups, sir, is it?"
"Children love to fight and rarely think about death. They're the perfect soldiers."
"Who said that?"
Rodgers smiled. "I did, Charlie. I did."
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Wednesday, 5:20 A.M., the DMZ
Gregory Donald learned of the attack on Sariwon an hour before, after completing another surveillance sweep for Op-Center, and he still couldn't believe it. General Schneider had been wakened and told, and had passed the word to him: with relish that Donald found repugnant.
Another person had died, a life had been ended so that the President of the United States could look tough. Donald wondered if Lawrence would have been as willing to take a life if the airman had been standing three feet away, staring at him along the barrel of a gun.
Of course he wouldn't. A civilized person could not.
What was it, then, that made that same civilized person kill for a jolt in the polls, or to make a point? Lawrence would argue, as had presidents in the past, that casualties like these prevent greater losses in the future. But Donald maintained that dialogue prevented more losses still, if only one side or the other wasn't afraid of looking weak or conciliatory.
He looked into the distance, at the conference building straddling the borders, each side
brightly lit and guarded to prevent anyone from trying to sneak through. The flags of the North and South hung limply at the end of their surreally tall flagpoles, the South's most recently capped with a spire instead of a ball to make it five inches taller than the North's. For now. No doubt a six-inch spire had been ordered and was on the way. At which point the South would put a taller one on top. Or maybe a weather vane or radio antenna. The possibilities were absurd and endless.
All of their problems could be solved within those four walls, if only the participants wanted them to be. Soonji had once given a speech on that subject to a meeting of Koreans and Blacks in New York in 1992, when tensions between the groups were at their peak.
"Think of it as a chain letter," she'd said. "If only one person from each side wants peace, and can convince another person on their side to want it, and those two can convince two more people, and those four, four more, we will have the beginning we need."
A beginning not an end. Not more blood spilled and more resources squandered, not more hate branded into the psyche of a new generation.
Donald began walking away from the border, away from the compound. He turned his eyes toward the stars.
He was suddenly very tired, overwhelmed by hurt and a deep sense of despair and doubt. Maybe Schneider was correct. Maybe the North Koreans would use him and he'd do more harm than good trying to bring about "Peace in our time."
He stopped, sat down hard, and lay back, his head on a patch of grass. Soonji would have encouraged him to go ahead with this. She was an optimist, not a realist, but she had accomplished most of what she set out to do.
"I'm a pragmatist," he said, tears in his eyes, "and I always have been. You know that, Soon." He searched the skies for a familiar constellation, for a hint of order. There was only a jumble of stars. "If I back down from what I believe, then either I've lived a lie or I'll be living one from now on. I don't think I've been wrong, so I have to go ahead. Help me, Soonji. Give me some of your confidence."
A warm breeze drifted over him, and Donald shut his eyes. She would never come to him again of course, but he could still go to her, if not in life, then in sleep. And as he lay in the dark, in the silence, lingering between wakefulness and dream, he no longer felt unsure or afraid or alone.
* * *
Two miles to the west, and a few feet underground, the last drum of death was inching its way to the north, carrying sleep of a different kind
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Tuesday, 4:00 P.M., Op-Center
"What's the weather outside?" Hood asked as he walked into Matt Stall's office.
Stoll hit Shift/F8, then 3, then 2. "Sunny, seventy-eight degrees, wind from the southwest." When he was finished, he returned to the keyboard, inputting instructions, waiting, then inputting more.
"How's it coming, Matty?"
"I've got the system cleaned out, except for the satellites. I should have those back in about ninety minutes."
"Why so long? Don't you just write a program to erase it?"
"Not in this case. There are pieces of virus in every photo file we have from the region, going back to the 1970s. They've been lifting images from everywhere. We've got a Ken Burns history of North Korean hardware in today's satellite pictures. And it's seamless. I want to meet the guy who wrote this before we shoot him."
"Can't promise you that." Hood rubbed his eyes. "Have you taken a break today?"
"Yeah, sure. Have you?"
"This is it."
"A working break. Stretch the legs. See if I'm screwing up again."
"Matty, no one blamed you for what happened—"
"Except me. Shit, I used to laugh at Shakespeare or whoever it was said that 'For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost ' business. Well, he was right. I missed the nail and the kingdom came tumbling down. Can I ask you a question, though?"
"Shoot."
"Were you a little happy when the computers went banzai, or was it my imagination?"
"It wasn't your imagination. I wasn't happy, I was—"
"Smug. Sorry, Paul, but that's how it struck me."
"Maybe. I feel like we've all gotten into this speed trap, everything moving faster because it can. When communications were slower and reconnaissance took time, people had time to think and cool down before they blasted hell out of each other."
"But they did it anyway. Fort Sumter would have happened with or without Dan Rather and Steve Jobs. I just think you like being a daddy, and these babies don't need us till they run the family car into a ditch."
Before Hood could protest— and when he thought about it later he was glad he didn't, because Stoll had a point— Bob Herbert paged him. He used Mart's phone and punched Herbert's number.
"Hood here."
"Bad news, Chief. We found out what Major Lee was up to today, at least part of the day."
"More terrorism?"
"Looks that way. He took four quarter-drums of poison gas— tabun— from the Hazardous Materials Vault at the army base in Seoul. All very legal, the paperwork in order. It says he's taking it up to the DMZ."
"When was this?"
"About three hours after the explosion."
"So he would have had enough time to set the blast, get to the base, and head north, assuming that's his real destination. And somewhere along the way he decided to waylay Kim Hwan."
"Sounds about right."
Hood looked at his watch. "If he did go north, he's been there at least seven hours."
"But doing what? Tabun is a pretty heavy gas. Somebody'd notice if he was hauling a missile around, and he'd need a crop duster to use it on troops."
"Then there's the question of which troops. He could use it on ours to send Lawrence into a frenzy, or use it on the North Koreans to push them over the edge. Bob, I'm not going to go to the President with this. Call General Schneider at the DMZ. Wake him if you have to, and tell him about Lee. Ask him to find Donald as well, and have him call me."
"What are you going to tell Greg?"
"To radio General Hong-koo and tell him we've got a nut on the loose."
Herbert's gasp was audible over the phone. "Tell North Korea that the South Koreans are behind all this? Chief, the President'll have you shot deader'n Ike Clanton."
"If I'm wrong, I'll load the gun myself."
"What about the press? The Dee-Perks'll smear it everywhere."
"I'll talk to Ann about that. She'll have something ready to go. Besides, world opinion may slow the President down long enough for us to prove our case."
"Or get our asses royally kicked."
"Lives are worth that. Just do it, Bob. We're short on time."
Hood hung up.
"I know," said Stoll without looking up, "my fingers are flying as fast as possible. Just find out what kind of truck Lee was driving: I'll get your satellites back as soon as possible."
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Wednesday, 6:30 A.M., the DMZ
In his long career of crawling through tunnels, Lee had never decided which was preferable: the rank, damp tunnels that filled your lungs with musk that stayed for weeks, and tickled your face with roots, or the dry, airless tunnels like this one, which filled your nose and eyes with sand and left your mouth painfully dry.
This is worse, he told himself. You can get used to a smell, but not to thirst.
At least his labors were nearly at an end. They were in the last section of tunnel with the last of the drums: in just a few minutes they would reach the niche they'd dug on the other side. He would help Yoo up with the drums, and then the rest was up to the Private, carrying them closer to the target and putting them in place before sunup. Yoo had already brought his tools through; they had studied the course through the hills and shadows several nights before, and there was no way anyone could see him.
While Yoo worked, Lee would go back and take care of Mr. Gregory Donald before he could meet with Hong-koo. It was so typical of an American. Those who weren't empire builders were self-righteous meddl
ers. He hated them for that, and for having stopped short of victory in the war. When they finished helping him destroy the government of Pyongyang, he would work on expelling them at long last from his country.
His country. Not Harry Truman's or Michael Lawrence's, not General Norbom's or General Schneider's. The personality and industry of his people had been kept down and perverted for too many years, and it would stop now.
Despite the pads he wore. Lee's knees were rubbed raw by the crawling and chafing, and his eyepatch was soaked with sweat, his good eye burning. But he could barely keep from rushing through these final yards and minutes as the time of the second and third events neared, the moment they'd been planning since he first approached Colonel Sun with his idea two years before.
He continued to creep forward, balancing himself on his left hand, rolling the drum with his right, his shoulders hunched. His good eye shifted slowly from side to side as he moved ahead, watching the walls of the tunnel. And then the yards were a few feet, and the minutes were seconds, and they stood the drum upright with its three companions.
Yoo took a rolled rope ladder from the niche they had dug, and with his back to the wall of the narrow passageway, he shinned to the top. Attaching the ladder to a rock, he lowered it down and they began bringing the drums up.
* * *
Major Lee moved back through the tunnel on all fours. Sometimes his knees didn't even touch down as he kicked off with the balls of his feet, his legs going past his elbows as he raced ahead. He pulled the flashlight from his shoulder and doused it as he neared the passageway on the southern side, then sprang onto the hemp line. He scurried up, hand over hand, then paused just below the rim.
There was no one around. Pulling himself through, Major Lee patted his left pocket, made sure the switchblade was still there, then ran into the night.