by Jeff Nesbit
His opening remarks to them were short and direct. “Countrymen,” he said as he stood before the assembly, “I know all of us hoped and prayed that such a day would never arrive. But it has arrived.
“Thankfully, our missile defense shield saved major parts of our cities from devastation.
“But the missiles were many. They came from the north, from the east, and from the south. We are now fighting a war on many fronts. Our enemies conspired to deal a fatal blow to our nation, but they have failed. And, now, my friends, they will pay a dear price. What we must decide here, tonight, is the nature of that price. Whatever we decide, we must make it very clear to our enemies that they will never again succeed in efforts to destroy our people. Never again.”
Following his address, Navon sat and listened as leaders of the Knesset spoke their minds in succession. The session was closed to the press, so the opinions were candid. Key leaders from both the IDF and the Mossad sat near Navon, taking the Knesset’s temperature. They were prepared to act quickly, in whatever fashion the political leadership chose.
The talks were angry, passionate, and defiant. But all of them turned, at the end, to one common enemy. The Knesset was now of one mind. Iran must be confronted, once and for all. And they were prepared to use first-strike nuclear weapons to settle things, if necessary. And if that, in turn, led to a much wider confrontation on a global basis, then so be it.
Israel now maintained an arsenal of nearly four hundred nuclear weapons. They could be delivered as cruise missiles from their Dolphin submarines; from their F-117s and modified F-16 fighters; from their recently completed Jericho 3 ICBM system; and even from fifty thousand feet over Tehran from the IAI Eietan, their unmanned surveillance vehicle.
The IDF left the Knesset meeting to draw up plans to deliver some of that arsenal. It would take something just short of a miracle to keep the IAF planes and missiles out of the skies over Tehran.
60
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA
Pak Jong Il took his time with the bowl of ramen noodles his kitchen staff had graciously prepared for him. He had much to consider, and he was glad of the chance to work through various scenarios in the privacy of his study in his presidential palace apartment.
This particular study was his favorite. It was full of pictures taken during hunting parties in the mountainous regions throughout North Korea. Many of the pictures featured endangered or threatened species killed during those trips with military advisors who’d served him well.
Pak allowed advisors to bring certain endangered species back to North Korea in order for the animals to be hunted or filmed in cage fights. In nearly all of the pictures, his advisors were grinning from ear to ear with the Dear Leader, a fresh kill in the foreground.
Pak had achieved wealth and power far beyond anything his own father had amassed. He’d ruled North Korea with an iron fist for so long that it had become second nature to give an order and expect it to be carried out immediately.
He’d survived a withering stroke, and at least two military coup attempts that the world knew nothing of. But he’d also grown wiser about the ways of the world as he’d remained in power.
In fact, Pak no longer believed the fiction that the United States and South Korea would invade North Korea some day. Pak was a realist. He was only able to spend half a billion dollars on the military each year. South Korea spent forty or fifty times that amount. And the United States spent one thousand times that. The combined might of both militaries dwarfed his.
Yet neither had ever given any sort of indication that they actually meant to move north of the Demilitarized Zone. The U.S. threat was a fantasy designed to keep the North Korean people in line, nothing more. Pak knew that but never spoke of it, even in private.
Until now. The KPA’s foolish, strong-arm move to save face by firing a Taepodong-2 missile at an enemy 4,500 miles away had achieved just one thing—it had awakened a sleeping giant in the United States. Even now, reports were coming in that the United States was serious in its efforts to mass troops at the DMZ. It was preparing for some sort of a massive military action into North Korea.
Meanwhile, both Russia and China were sending serious troop levels toward his country at the northern end of North Korea. But those troops were massing to deal with the nuclear testing facility, Pak knew. Intelligence reports were screaming loudly about the cesium device they’d built and armed near Camp 16. News about the device had made it out of North Korea somehow.
Almost overnight, North Korea’s “dead hand” had been forced. The combination of the Taepodong-2 launch and the news that North Korea possessed a massive doomsday nuclear device of some sort had sent not one, but three, world superpowers to North Korea’s doorstep.
Pak Jong Il, though, was far from panicked. He’d always been able to deal directly with American presidents, and this time would be no different. If need be, he was prepared to give up quite a lot to force the U.S. military forces to back down—including, even, their nuclear arsenal.
And he was also fully prepared to tell both the Russians and Chinese that he would disarm the cesium device if they would agree to pull their troops back from North Korea’s northern border. He would give up whatever he needed to in order to keep any of these troops from actually entering his country. This was his plan for staying in power, and he was supremely confident in his ability.
Pak knew that, once any of the armies entered, they would make short work of the North Korean military’s outgunned, under-fed, and dispirited troops. The fiction of North Korea’s military might was much, much greater than its fact. He was prepared to give up whatever was necessary to keep any of these troops from entering.
There were nine nations in the world with nuclear weapons. And, yes, North Korea was one of them. But their conventional military capabilities were almost laughable compared to their enemies. Pak Jong Il did not want to retreat to the mountains in the north, his hand on the cesium device trigger. He wanted to hand a legacy of power and wealth to his youngest son—not annihilate his country in a direct, suicidal confrontation with a military superpower.
If Pak had one failing, though, it was the trust he’d placed in the KPA generals who’d surrounded him for years. He’d grown close to them. They did exactly as he commanded. They’d made him rich beyond his wildest dreams as they’d deposited a percentage of all the commercial ventures they ran directly into his own personal bank account.
He’d confided his strategic diplomacy plans to two of those generals closest to him. Both men had been at his side for twenty years and more. They were his closest advisors and his most trusted confidants. They were like brothers to Pak.
The two military advisors had tried, quite forcefully, to dissuade him from appeasing the Americans by agreeing to dismantle nuclear devices and arsenals. They told Pak that North Korea’s military leadership was united in its belief that North Korea must show strength at this most critical time to the enemies at their door. They could not show weakness, as Pak was proposing.
Pak Jong Il had been quite insistent, though. The generals had eventually grown quiet and compliant. They promised Pak that they would do as he commanded. They left his study to begin drawing up lists of nuclear weapons, stockpiles, and arsenals that Pak could use as bargaining chips in the coming hours.
Pak was confident that, even now, he could succeed. He’d never failed. He’d always gotten exactly what he wanted. There was nothing that had ever exceeded his grasp. Nothing.
So it was with mild surprise that Pak realized he’d been poisoned. They’d placed the drug in his bowl of ramen noodles. Pak was resigned to his fate as the tendrils of the poison spread through the neurons of his brain and caused him to slip into a coma.
The last thing he saw as he slipped away to his death was one of his favorite pictures, nicely displayed in an ornate frame on a nearby wall—a picture of a freshly killed Siberian tiger between the two military advisors who’d just left his study. The irony was lost on Pak Jong
Il.
61
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
“So I guess this would be a really good time to get those direct, bilateral talks started in Iran and North Korea, wouldn’t it? The ones we haven’t been able to make any progress on in, oh, say, the last twenty years?” the president said.
Only Anshel and DJ knew Adom Camara was joking. They’d been with the president on so many occasions, through so many tense situations, that they could tell when he was serious—and when he wasn’t.
Camara liked to defuse extraordinarily tense situations with laughter, humor, and, occasionally, talk about how poorly his fantasy football team had done the past Sunday or the latest Redskins football coach about to be hired or fired. It took the edge off and gave people a chance to breathe and focus.
A third world war was about to begin? Two of the nine nuclear countries in the world were threatening to use first-strike nuclear weapons in the next twenty-four hours? Russia had invaded two of the former states in the old Soviet Union? Fine. We’ll get to all of them.
Camara, by design, made everything look easy. He wanted those around him during moments such as this to believe—really believe—that everything would be just fine. Don’t worry; it’ll be all right. Every glance, every word, every subtle change of demeanor told those around him that he could deal with the situation—and that they could too.
Nearly two dozen senior administration officials—with specialties ranging from Iran, Israel, and North Korea, to nuclear science and emergency response—had gathered in the Oval Office at the president’s request at the end of a very long day of chaos. Arrayed around the room on the chairs and couches, most sat forward nervously at the edge of their seats. Most were experts in their respective fields.
The only outlier was Kim Su Yeong, the young State Department aide who wore a temporary White House badge that read Su Kim—the name she went by in most places in the United States. Su had been told she was there because of her father, her back-channel connection to North Korea and, through Nash, to the opposition leaders in Iran.
Su would shortly learn a final, important reason that she’d been invited, based on very recent intelligence known only to Camara, Anshel, the NSC, a small group of NSA officials, and the chairman and vice chair of the joint chiefs.
It struck Su as strange that no one, in all these years, had ever managed to move bilateral discussions between the United States and both of those rogue nations—Iran and North Korea—into reality. Why not just take Air Force One to Pyongyang, or to Tehran? But who was she to second-guess years of diplomacy? She was just a kid, after all, with no real experience in foreign affairs.
The group had been carefully selected by both the president and Dr. Gould. Camara had an uncanny knack of knowing who worked for him—even within the bowels of his administration. He knew, somehow, which assistant secretary of this or that was knowledgeable in a certain area.
He had a thorough grasp of the capabilities of nearly every senior political appointee who’d come to Washington to work for him. It was, at times, a little unnerving to those who worked for him at the White House. The guy was just smart—easily the smartest president ever elected.
Unlike the other aides who’d chosen seats strategically throughout the Oval Office, Anshel preferred to stand off to one side. DJ joined him and casually leaned up against the wall adjacent to the carefully concealed door that opened inwards to a private bathroom.
Other than Anshel and DJ, though, none of the others really knew the president’s frame of mind. Was he worried? Was the crisis too big for any one human being—even the commander in chief of the most powerful nation the world had yet seen—to manage? Could Camara handle a crisis with two nuclear powers, in different parts of the world, at the same time?
Anshel and DJ knew the president was up to the task. If anyone could handle situations at this level—in a place so high that the lack of oxygen caused most people to grow disoriented and dysfunctional—it was Adom Camara. Time and again, he’d shown the ability to navigate and think clearly while others were gasping for air.
One of the reasons DJ loved talking sports with the president was that there was an easy analogy, and a common language, between sports and politics at this level. Only a quarterback playing in the Super Bowl—with billions watching—could understand that sort of pressure and deliver a pinpoint pass to the back of the end zone in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter.
And only the president of the United States could understand what it was like to go before the eyes of the world and assure them that everything would be fine—not to panic, that all would be well. Camara possessed that rare ability. Few had it, and fewer still survived the brutal gauntlet that anyone had to run in order to sit at the desk in this office.
“Okay, let’s get down to it,” Camara continued once everyone was settled. “I was only half-joking. We need to get serious about direct talks with Tehran and Pyongyang.”
Camara turned to Susan Wright, who’d also been invited—to her simultaneous delight and consternation. “Dr. Wright, perhaps you can quickly update everyone about your discussions with General Zhubin, the head of the IRGC? That’s the closest we’ve come to any sort of direct, bilateral discussions with those in power in Iran in some time.”
Susan coughed nervously, then recounted her discussion with Zhubin quickly. She emphasized that the U.S. had, in fact, met his demand to condemn Israel. They’d also met Iran halfway by not entering the Strait of Hormuz yet. But the other points—like a real plan for a free, Arab state that would satisfy Iran and Egypt alike—seemed unrealistic.
Even as Susan talked, though, it was hard not to despair. Her conversation with General Zhubin seemed like a distant memory, given the taqiyya terrorist actions Iran had clearly ordered their proxies to take in DC, Boston, and New York. The American Congress, like Israel’s Knesset, was calling for blood, and quickly.
“So will General Zhubin take your call, Dr. Wright?” the president asked when she’d finished.
“Honestly, Mr. President, I have no idea,” Susan answered. “I can try.”
Camara nodded. “Thank you.” He turned to look directly at someone sitting at the back of the room. “There’s someone here—Su Kim, from State—who can tell us about discussions that have taken place off the books with Iran’s opposition leaders. Su, can you tell us about Nash Lee’s talks with Ehsan and Razavi in Iran?”
Anshel leaned forward. “For those who don’t know the back story,” he said quickly, “Nash Lee is the young CEO of Village Health Corps, which also runs mVillage. He’s been engaged, privately, in back-channel discussions with a leading centrist cleric, Ahura Ehsan, and Reza Razavi, the opposition leader under house arrest.”
Su was startled. She’d assumed that she’d simply sit here, listen, and answer questions in private, later. She wanted no part of a discussion where so much hung in the balance.
But she was also not afraid. She may have been young, but she and Nash were alike in their willingness to speak forthrightly when called on. That trait, in fact, was what defined their generation.
Like Susan, she told her story quickly and efficiently. Nash had communicated with Ehsan that morning, which was evening in Tehran. Su was able to report that Ehsan was set to meet privately with Shahidi first thing in the morning in Tehran.
“What is Ehsan asking Shahidi to do?” the president asked.
“To talk to the United States, mostly,” Su answered.
“Good,” Camara said. “So, between Ehsan and Zhubin, perhaps we can see some movement. We need a chance to meet, face to face. We’ll need it quickly, before Israel acts.”
“Which is imminent,” Anshel added.
The president looked back at the group. “However, we may have a more immediate problem, as hard as that is to believe,” he said somberly. “North Korea may, in fact, present a more difficult problem in the short term.”
“Greater than an Israeli retaliation wi
th nuclear weapons in Tehran?” asked DJ.
“Yes, I believe so—for our own American troops, in the Korean Peninsula, and for millions of people in South Korea, Japan, and even parts of India, China, and Russia,” the president answered. “Some of you may have heard public reports by now of a cesium doomsday device that has been built and armed in the mountains of North Korea, south of Camp 16 and not very far from the launch site at Musadan-ri.”
He cocked his head toward Su again. “We have Su, and Nash, to thank for that knowledge. They received a report from Camp 16 through mVillage. We’ve since been able to verify the information. This knowledge is largely why the Chinese and Russians have begun to evacuate major population centers near that region, while sending in troops at the same time. That, combined with the need for us to respond to the Taepodong-2 launch, has forced us to push troops into the DMZ.”
Camara paused, as if unsure how this group could handle the news he was about to give, or the risks he was calculating. “But what the world does not yet know,” the president said, “is that the situation in North Korea has just changed dramatically. Pak Jong Il—the leader we had assumed was in control and that we would be dealing with in the next few hours—has been murdered. At this point, we simply do not know who is controlling North Korea—or what their intentions are with their nuclear arsenal.”
The room was deathly silent. Camara was right—this was worse, even, than the situation between Israel and Iran. The United States had always been able to maneuver with Pak. Now, with Pak gone, all bets were off. The future was impossible to predict.
“How?” asked DJ.
“We don’t know, exactly,” the president said. “We believe it was poison. We have a human asset in the presidential palaces—well below the areas directly serving Pak, but in a place to hear news such as this. It happened late in the evening, in Pyongyang. We don’t know yet whether there will be an announcement—”