by Jeff Nesbit
But the torpedo did not hit the Kang Nam. It came close, then hit a mine depot right beside it. A massive explosion erupted in all directions. It was obvious, to anyone watching, that the torpedo had hit not one but several mines, all closely clustered.
The explosions struck the Kang Nam broadside, immediately tearing a gigantic hole in its side. A few seconds later, as the weapons cargo aboard the freighter started to catch fire, there were additional explosions aboard the Kang Nam. And, shortly after that, the North Korean freighter began to sink slowly into the murky waters of the Strait.
54
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA
The worldwide news media reports of the sinking of the Kang Nam were conflicting. Those controlled by the West quickly claimed that the North Korean freighter ran into mines planted by Iran. But Iran, just as quickly, cited eyewitness accounts of a torpedo that had come from the direction of the USS McCain, sinking the Kang Nam from the massive mine explosions.
Based on the reports from both Truxton and Bingham, the White House quickly issued a statement that the United States had not been complicit in any fashion with the sinking of the Kang Nam. The U.S. had done everything in its power to safely shepherd the freighter into port, it said. The U.S. had not fired the torpedo, but it stopped short of accusing another nation of firing the shot that led to the sinking.
None of this mattered to the leaders of the North Korean military establishment. They expected the Americans to lie about their role in sinking the freighter. It was an act of war, and North Korea must respond. They pressed the Dear Leader, Pak Jong Il, for an immediate, retaliatory response.
The Korean People’s Army and the national defense commission were unanimous in their recommendations at the emergency meeting in Pyongyang. They’d quickly converted the Dear Leader’s youngest son and successor, Pak Jong Un, to their position. The act demanded an immediate response, and Pak Jong Un had been swayed to their thinking and recommendations.
Of course, for Pak Jong Un, this was a defining moment in his young political life. He desperately needed the military leadership behind him in order to succeed his father. Without their support, he would never survive the transition to power. So he quickly and loudly proclaimed his support for their position in the small leadership meeting.
But there was a slight problem. The Dear Leader, who’d seen much in his many years as the absolute leader of the most secretive military state in the world, wasn’t convinced that the Americans were responsible for the sinking of the Kang Nam.
He’d been in power for a very long time and understood why leaders took actions. North Korea’s own initial intelligence reports made it clear that the American Navy had made it known they intended to shadow the Kang Nam to port—and nothing more.
Granted, it did appear as if the American ship was responsible for the action. But Pak Jong Il was demanding more proof before he would authorize the drastic response the military establishment was attempting to foist on him.
As the long meeting dragged on, it became quite clear to North Korea’s military leaders that they were losing the debate. Pak Jong Il was going to decide against direct action and opt for a diplomatic effort to determine the truth of what had really happened south of Bandar Abbas.
Shortly after the meeting, several of the military leaders decided it was long past time for the transition in power within North Korea. This was a defining moment for North Korea’s military establishment as well. If it showed weakness toward the U.S. now, it would never recover.
North Korea had always pledged “total war” against the U.S. if attacked, and to do nothing would place its nuclear facilities—and its place in the international arena—in permanent decline. Some sort of appropriate response was mandatory, they believed.
The leaders met privately with Pak Jong Un following the meeting. They reminded Pak that some percentage of all receipts from military-run commercial ventures went directly into his father’s personal bank account. That would disappear immediately if the military cut him—and the son—off for any reason. But there would also be much more severe consequences if his father chose to go against the military establishment’s wishes on this.
The young, impetuous leader listened for several minutes, then quickly agreed to speak with his father. He would deliver their ultimatum. Either North Korea responded, forcefully, with a literal shot across the bow—or the transition to power within North Korea would begin immediately, whether Pak Jong Il was ready for it or not.
55
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
It had been a very long three days for DJ. He’d gotten almost no sleep. He was fairly certain he was starting to develop an ulcer. He was popping antacid like it was candy. He’d worn out the carpet between his office and Anshel Gould’s in the West Wing. The confrontation with Iran was sapping everyone’s energy and well-being.
And it was about to get worse. Satellite pictures had just confirmed that a missile launch pad erected at Musadan-ri on North Korea’s northeast coastline—just south of Camp 16—had just gone live and hot. North Korea had often bluffed that they intended to launch their longest-range ICBM, the Taepodong-2, toward Hawaii.
No one in the Pentagon, or elsewhere, took the threat seriously. North Korea had tested its long-range ICBMs twice, and both had been spectacular failures. At most, the Taepodong-2 could fly four thousand miles. Hawaii was another five hundred miles beyond that range.
There was simply no credible intelligence anywhere to suggest that North Korea had the wherewithal to actually fire an ICBM with the range to reach American territories. And even if one had the range, it had never shown the ability to keep the missile together and on-target. Finally, even if it reached Hawaii, it would have a very tiny nuclear payload, or none at all.
But that still didn’t mean the White House and Pentagon could ignore the North Korean threat, or the action that was now underway on their ICBM launch site at Musadan-ri. The Pentagon had already deployed anti-missile interceptors and sea-based tracking radar between Hawaii and North Korea. It was prepared to shoot a single missile out of the sky long before it ever reached Hawaii, should it come to that.
But Dr. Gould had sent a cryptic note to DJ that there was more behind the threat looming at Musadan-ri, one that had just surfaced. He asked to meet with DJ, Susan Wright, and a few others briefly to talk it through before he met with the president.
Anshel had an uncanny knack of bringing discrete groups of senior White House aides together around specific issues that, he knew, they cared about deeply. It was one of the many tricks that Anshel employed to keep people and groups distinctly loyal to him. They felt special—indebted to him—because he chose to include them in certain areas they were passionate about.
DJ made the quick walk to Dr. Gould’s office. He knew every patch of carpet, every turn, by heart now. He could make the trip there in his sleep, or with a blindfold on. But he’d never seen Dr. Gould so tense when he joined Dr. Wright and the others in his office.
“I don’t need to tell all of you here that we need this problem with the Kang Nam and North Korea like a hole in the head,” Anshel said when they’d all pushed their chairs close to his desk. “To make a bad situation even worse, Ethan Lee—our ambassador in Tokyo—has learned that Japan’s prime minister is about to give a major foreign policy speech that will move it away from the U.S and more closely aligned with China. That will seriously complicate any action we take against North Korea.
“With Russia’s move into Georgia and Azerbaijan, Iran’s actions in the Strait, and Israel’s continuing paranoia that forces are coalescing around them on three or four fronts, the last thing we need is a new conflict with North Korea. But that’s what we have.”
“But North Korea’s ICBM threat is a joke,” DJ said. “Everyone knows that—”
Dr. Gould held up a hand. The room grew silent. “Yes, but that’s not the problem any longer.” He held up a piece of paper. From his seat, DJ cou
ld see that it appeared to be an e-mail or text of some sort. He and the others waited for Dr. Gould to brief them.
“This is a transcript of a text sent from one of North Korea’s political camps,” Anshel continued. “We believe it to be from a credible source, someone most likely in a position to know what they’re talking about. It says, quite bluntly, that the North Koreans have successfully built a cesium nuclear device based on old technology known in the 1960s. It appears to be a fission-fusion-fission device.”
Susan Wright gasped. Unlike the others in the room, she knew what the possibilities were with such a device. And, if true, it presented a truly horrific threat to the planet itself—especially in the hands of a nation that might actually think of itself on a suicide mission. The contamination from detonating such a device could do harm to half the planet, for some time.
“But they have no ability to deliver such a weapon,” Dr. Wright said. “None whatsoever. It simply isn’t possible. They can barely keep their ICBMs stable at launch. It could never handle such a weapon as an actual payload.”
Anshel didn’t respond right away. “The intelligence says the device isn’t a payload,” he said finally. “It’s in a fixed location, in a nuclear test facility near Camp 16 and the Russian and Chinese borders, and it’s quite large. It is also now armed. Pak Jong Il recently visited the site to look at the final preparations himself.”
Susan Wright closed her eyes for a moment and offered a silent prayer. The old nuclear science literature had always talked about the possibility of such a doomsday device, but the United States, Russia, China, and others had long ago abandoned efforts to create such a weapon.
There was no need. Superpowers had invested in nuclear miniaturization, targeted missiles, and payload technology. They’d moved well beyond the world of mutually assured destruction that had once framed armed conflict between superpowers.
But new superpowers were emerging in a very chaotic, dangerous world, and others were willing to take enormous risks to achieve nuclear parity. It made sense that North Korea would attempt to build such a weapon while it refined its ability to launch missiles and deliver nuclear payloads that way.
At a minimum, such a device almost assured that neither the United States nor South Korea would ever consider attacking North Korea. And, perhaps that was their rationale for building such an insane weapon in the first place.
“We’re absolutely certain that the intelligence is credible, and that this is possible?” DJ asked.
“It’s credible, and the intel says the information comes from a nuclear scientist who worked on the project,” Anshel said. “We have no way to verify its accuracy, but if it’s possible, then we have to take it seriously.”
“Which means we have to be careful not to escalate anything with North Korea in the next twenty-four hours, even as we explain the Kang Nam incident,” Susan offered.
“I would say that’s an understatement,” Anshel said.
56
MUSADAN-RI, NORTH KOREA
The Taepodong-2 missile that was now fully vertical on the launch pad looked impressive. The North Korean military had a film crew capturing the event. Even if the missile flew just a short distance before disappearing into the Sea of Japan, the KPA leadership had ordered that the footage of the launch be made available immediately.
If nothing else, North Korea would show resolve in the face of the American act of war with the Kang Nam. While those charged with the ICBM missile launch at Musadan-ri had no way of knowing it, the KPA’s gambit with Pak Jong Un had been successful. He’d convinced his father to act, though it hadn’t been easy.
The son, however, did not know of the cesium doomsday device. It was the most closely guarded military secret in a country of military secrets. Only a select few who’d worked on the project knew of its existence. It was there in the event that other things went horribly wrong. It was North Korea’s final, dead-hand move against an aggressor that entered its territory.
Had Pak Jong Un known of the device’s existence, he might not have pressed his father to do as the KPA was demanding. Had he known that North Korea possessed a weapon capable of poisoning half the planet, he might have chosen a different course. But he didn’t know—which was precisely what the KPA wished. They let the son know only so much and not any more.
Pak Jong Un’s father, of course, was another matter entirely. But since his stroke, he was virtually incapable of confronting the KPA leadership on any level.
When the Taepodong-2 missile finally lifted off the launch pad, the workers let loose with a loud cheer. They all watched on their video monitors as the missile headed out over the water.
None of them believed the missile would ever make it even remotely near any of the islands that made up Hawaii. Still, it was thrilling to think that it could make it there. That possibility changed everything.
So when, by some miracle, the missile made it through its booster phases and was still flying after three thousand miles, the workers and leadership responsible for the mission all started to collectively hold their breaths.
There was no payload on the missile, of course. But that hardly mattered. The KPA wanted to send a large, unmistakable message to Washington. Every second the Taepodong-2 remained in the air, the louder that message became.
And then, in the literal blink of an eye, it was over. Somewhere over the water—at least one thousand miles from any possible target—the American tracking and anti-missile system deployed around the islands did its job. It took the missile down without any fanfare.
But the KPA and national defense commission leaders who’d sanctioned the launch didn’t care. They’d achieved everything they wanted.
Now they were prepared to take the next step with the U.S., if they had to. They gave Pak Jong Il his instructions, then sat beside him as he placed calls to the leaders of Russia, China, and Japan.
57
FOGGY BOTTOM
WASHINGTON, DC
Kim Su Yeong stared straight ahead in her windowless cubicle. She was doing her best not to cry. But the unclassified report from the American embassy in Seoul broke her heart. She stared hard at the pictures to keep herself from growing too emotional. It helped, a little.
Su had been careful to mask her inquiry. She’d placed a dozen names in her unclassified request to a branch chief at the embassy. She knew the State Department tried to track political prisoners in the North Korean prison camps—the ones North Korea adamantly maintained did not exist—and she had hoped they had some information on the fate of Kim Grace’s children.
Su had asked for a family history for each of the names in the report—where the children, fathers, mothers, grandparents, etc., were for each of the dozen names she’d submitted. Su had known that the request was a big one and would make some poor analyst’s life miserable for a few days. But she didn’t care. It was something that had to be done.
Su had done her best to liven her cubicle up in one of State’s many warrens at Foggy Bottom. She’d plastered three walls with color pictures of mountains, rivers, and beautiful vistas—many of them photos of the Korean Peninsula from the one visit she’d managed to arrange for herself as part of a diplomatic mission to South Korea.
There weren’t many perks working for the Korean desk at State, but she could at least make official requests. She’d used everything she could muster for the request around Kim Grace’s children. She’d come right to the edge of classified requests. She was certain of that, but part of her didn’t care. She felt obligated to the woman in Camp 16 who shared her very common last name, for some unexplained reason.
Kim Su Yeong loved her job at State. It was everything she could have hoped for as a first job in DC. She had more than enough authority for someone so young. She had plenty to keep her busy. She was able to go out for dinner with friends a couple of nights a week, and her loft apartment that she shared with three other female friends was always brimming with activity.
Su always mana
ged a bright, cheerful smile for her coworkers. She was friendly and outgoing, more than happy to join coworkers and friends alike for activities after hours in Washington, or for congressional softball matches on the Mall.
Yet she did not date. Her friends constantly teased her about her globe-trotting boyfriend who was never around. They were always trying to set her up. But Su was happy with her relationship to Nash. She knew that, at some point, their lives would make sense in one location, and they would be married. She was certain of this, though she never talked about it much with her friends.
Su had a deep, quiet, abiding, Christian faith. It was part of nearly every thought and action of her working and personal life, yet her friends rarely, if ever, heard her speak of it. Su was one of those Christians who believed that a human being is known by what they do and who they are—not by the pretty words they speak or the pious deeds they describe as a sign for others to observe.
Su heard the still, small voice clearly in almost everything she did. And it was that voice that always reassured her that there would be a time and a place for her marriage to Nash. They both had work to do first.
She and Nash had never really talked about it, but she knew that they both wanted to have children together. She could imagine herself as a mother some day, with young children running around her in a modest home somewhere in DC. She imagined that future together with Nash quite often, at odd moments of the day.
Su also liked to curl up with a good book—or, occasionally, with one of the 150 books she’d already downloaded to her Kindle that she never quite managed to get to—when others weren’t around. It was one of her very favorite activities.