Darke Mission

by Scott Caladon

  “Thank you all for coming here today. You’ve read the report produced by the NGA officers, who are here to elucidate and answer any questions. What I want to know is, is it real? If it is, what do we do about it?”

  Lieutenant McAllister was based in Honolulu and he was regarded as the Pacific Fleet’s expert on submarines. He was in his mid-forties with longish, dark hair and an educated east coast accent. “Look,” he began. “The report is detailed, thorough and on the face of it accurate. However, we have been monitoring Russian subs for countless years. Not only do we know where they are, we’ve virtually got the names and addresses of all their crew.”

  This opening little anecdote generated a modicum of mirth among half the attendees; Reynolds, Eagles and O’Neill being the abstainers.

  McAllister continued. “The satellite images aren’t perfectly clear and the fact that there may be a covering over whatever vessel is there makes it more difficult to be sure what’s underneath. Also, the Haeju naval yard on the west coast is equipped for primarily the servicing and repair of merchant vessels; this could easily be a cargo ship undergoing repairs.” With that Lieutenant McAllister paused for a sip of water. Associate Director Adams turned to the NGA team and motioned with his eyes that a response may be in order.

  Carolyn Reynolds piped up. “With all due respect Sir,” she started. Dannielle Eagles grimaced because she knew what was coming next, maybe not in content, but in attitude. All due respect wasn’t a trio of words that was regular in her friend’s vocabulary. “The satellite images, which have been checked and rechecked by many of our colleagues at the NGA show a vessel that is over 550ft long. Yes, that could be consistent with a small merchant or cargo ship, but the beam is around 44ft. That’s about one quarter the length of an average container ship’s beam or one third of any merchant vessel that’s ever been at the Haeju naval yard,” stated Carolyn with authority. “It’s not a ship, gentlemen. It’s a sub and its dimensions are virtually identical as far as we can tell to a Borei class Russian Navy submarine.” Now it was Carolyn’s turn to drink some water. She was enjoying hers a lot more than McAllister was enjoying his.

  Tim Thornton was a serious looking man in his mid-thirties. He had a thin face, light brown hair, a full beard with a hint of ginger in it and a kind of perma-tan which made him look healthy, albeit a little orange. “As far as you can tell Officer Reynolds, is the submarine carrying weapons?” Thornton knew enough about satellite imagery to know that shots taken from space could not give enough detail to determine whether there were missiles or torpedoes on board. He fully expected a don’t know response and that would be the first hint of indecisiveness from the NGA officers.

  “No, it’s not weaponised as of the date of our satellite image, three days ago,” responded Carolyn.

  “How can you tell?” asked Thornton. “Satellite images—”

  “Can’t go that deep,” finished Carolyn. “No they can’t Mr Thornton, but after the initial image we dug a little deeper and modelled a 3-D seismic cube, as petroleum geologists do when investigating the dimensions of oil wells. The unladen, un-crewed displacement of a Borei class sub is just over 14,700 long tons if surfaced. Our analysis was consistent with that with a +/- 1% margin of error. If the sub was weaponised it would have at least five Bulava RSM-56 ballistic missiles on board. That would have taken the estimated displacement of the submarine outside of our estimated +/- 1% margin of error with a 98% probability. No Sir,” Carolyn concluded, “this Borei is not weaponised… at the moment.”

  After that, there were no more questions regarding the content or accuracy of Reynolds’ and Eagles’ report. They had delivered well, answered any questions that had been forthcoming with precision and authority. The general agreement now in the meeting room was that North Korea had a nuclear powered Borei submarine at its Haeju naval base on the west coast of the mainland. Unanswered questions like how it got there, how was it paid for, what was Russia’s involvement, could wait for a later date. The only questions that mattered right this minute were what were Pyongyang’s intentions and what was the United States going to do about them?

  From the perspective of the American government and its people, in fact, the same perspective for much of the civilised world, North Korea was a secretive society with a crazy man as leader. It was easy enough to dismiss Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s supreme leader, as no more than a sabre rattler extraordinaire but, in the first half of 2013 his sabre rattling was extremely loud and clear. The People’s Democratic Republic withdrew from a non-aggression agreement with their southern neighbours, the North Korean army moved its Musudan missiles to their east coast, where they could threaten Japan and America’s Pacific military bases. Vast military rallies were ever more frequent and the thirty-one year old glorious leader himself was photographed brandishing guns and stirring up his troops to a frenzy. Who knew what was coming next?

  What was a known known as opposed to a known unknown, was that if North Korea’s recently acquired nuclear submarine became weaponised, the missiles did have the range and destructive capability to take out much of America’s eastern seaboard, with millions of lives lost and a degree of contamination that might not dissipate for twenty years.

  The remainder of the meeting that morning principally involved brainstorming as to military options for destroying the Borei. An air attack was entirely possible, but that would be highly visible and could trigger a North Korean response to attack the South, Japan or most likely the Pacific Coast of the United States.

  There was some discussion, mainly between McAllister and Thornton about undertaking a Navy SEALs operation. SEALs Teams 1, 5 and 7 had worldwide capabilities and were all headquartered in Coronado, California. Commander O’Neill kept his peace bar to confirm that these teams were indeed HQ’d in California. This discussion went on for about twenty minutes. Reynolds and Eagles didn’t have much to offer. While they had been trained in paramilitary skills and hand to hand combat they certainly didn’t have the need to put these skills to the test at the NGA, and they had no knowledge of the ins and outs of first strike options.

  Lieutenant McAllister, clearly keen to make an impact on the meeting after his initial feeble effort at suggesting the sub may be some type of skinny merchant vessel, broke up the side chats by announcing, “We could destroy the sub. Our SEALs teams have the capability.”

  Associate Director Adams scanned the room for further comment. Thornton nodded his approval, Reynolds and Eagles shrugged and Commander O’Neill sat there as inscrutably as he had done from the start. John Adams, though, wasn’t going to let him get away with this oriental ploy any longer.

  “Commander O’Neill, do you have a view?” enquired Adams.

  “Sir,” began Mark O’Neill. “The SEALs certainly do have the expertise, the capability and the commitment to carry out such a mission. Without having yet studied the layout of the geography near Haeju, a squad of five to ten could evade the North Korean radar systems, be dropped off a couple of miles off the coast in a rubber raiding craft, attach timed explosives to the hull of the sub and then get out,” he detailed. As Mark O’Neill paused, McAllister and Thornton were all ears and clearly relishing the prospect. Associate Director Adams had a neutral expression but his ears were still alert.

  “There are at least two problems though,” resumed O’Neill.

  “They are?” interjected McAllister.

  “Well, one of the arguments against destroying the sub is that it is highly visible. Everyone would know it was us. Friends would applaud us, foes berate us and, as you discussed, said action could trigger a devastating response from the North Koreans. When President Reagan ordered the air strike on Libya in 1986, or even when we eliminated bin Laden, we didn’t care if the world knew; hell we wanted them to know. Mess with the United States and pay the penalty. However, Libya was in no shape to mount any significant retaliatory actions and a leaderless al-Qaeda would take years to even begin to pose the same widespread threat again.” />
  McAllister’s face revealed that he was in the process of racking up zero for two. Tim Thornton was less expressive, but ever so slightly shifted his chair an inch or so away from the Lieutenant.

  “The second problem,” continued O’Neill, “is time. The satellite images before us are now three days old. Who is to say in that time the Borei hasn’t been weaponised? After this meeting any conclusions or recommendations will find their way up the hierarchical tree, eventually to the President himself. At best, that journey and any final decision by the President will take another four or five days. Who’s to say that the sub won’t be packing ballistic missiles by then? My point is, even if we are successful in destroying the sub, we’ll set off a nuclear explosion and an even more powerful one if it has SBLMs on board. This will cause devastation to their west coast. While we may not lose any sleep over that, the Pyongyang government would have time at least to launch their land based missiles at Seoul, Tokyo and maybe even us.”

  John Adams was getting that sinking feeling. He had to report the findings of this meeting to Fred Goss, the Director of Central Intelligence and he, in turn, to Garrison Putnam, the Director of National Intelligence, before it reached the National Security Council and the President. John Adams was so not coming out of this meeting with a feisty, colourful report, but one devoid of feasible recommendations. After a few seconds, which seemed like hours in brain time, Adams asked, “Well Commander O’Neill, you’ve been successful, I feel, in dismantling the appeal of our strike options. Do you have any brilliant ideas as to what to do with this submarine?”

  O’Neill looked Adams straight in the eye and without a hint of hesitation responded. “We could always steal it, Sir.”

  * * *

  Haeju is one of the Korean People’s Navy’s (KPN) largest bases on the west coast of Kim Jong-un’s empire. The city is located in the South Hwanghae Province and is 100km south of the capital Pyongyang. The overall population is close to 400,000, around one-eighth of whom either work directly in the naval base or in factories which support its daily activities. The average high temperatures at this time of year are 15 – 20 degrees Celsius with 2 – 3 inches of rain. The city is only 60km north of the Demarcation line with South Korea. It is not very mountainous, with the largest one, Mountain Suyang topping out at just under 950 metres. Ben Nevis, in Scotland, is the UK’s highest mountain at 1,345 metres.

  Commodore Woo-Jin Park has had the responsibility of managing the Haeju naval base for four years. The KPN was widely regarded as a green water navy, indicating that its tasks were mainly that of coastal defence rather than anything more adventurous. The KPN fleet is split into east and west coast squadrons but sheer geography and the limited range of most of the navy’s fleet meant that were there to be a sea battle with the South, the two squadrons could not support each other. As a young man, Woo-Jin Park served aboard one of the navy’s frigates and more recently a Romeo class submarine. He was promoted from Captain to Commodore in the early 2000s and in 2010 made officer in charge of the Haeju base.

  Park was a man of short stature, thick black hair of medium length for a serving officer and wore metallic framed spectacles, silver in colour and round in shape. He took his job seriously, even to the extent that his marriage had broken down as a result of his total commitment to the cause. His marriage had been more or less arranged anyway, so, deep down, he wasn’t that bothered. He had no children of his own, and though he was a decent uncle to his sister’s children, his babies were right here at the Haeju naval base.

  Today he was a proud man. Vice Admiral Goh, his commanding officer, had explained to him that a new submarine was to be docked at Haeju. Goh made it clear that this was of the utmost importance. He told Woo-Jin Park that Haeju had been selected for its excellent repair and servicing facilities. In part this was true but it had also been selected because it was less obvious as a submarine dock than several of the east coast bases. Goh also told Park that a specific repair and enhancement programme was to be carried out on the submarine. Goh omitted to tell Park that it was also to be weaponised. That piece of information was on a need to know basis and Park didn’t need to know just yet.

  Woo-Jin Park looked out of his office window down at the submarine. He knew exactly what it was. He had been a competent submariner and he kept up his interest in these submersibles as the years went by. The one he was looking at, well not exactly looking at since there was a rubberised roof covering its length and obstructing his view, was a Russian Borei class nuclear submarine. The KPN’s pride and joy, to that point, had been several Sang-O II class subs but this was altogether a different kettle of fish. This was a great white. This was king of the ocean. This was the submarine of superpowers, well one superpower anyway. Commodore Park was not a stupid man. He knew that if this submarine needed to be repaired or serviced then, if it belonged to the Russian Navy, it would be having all that seen to in a Russian naval shipyard. By dint of logic it must now be a vessel of the Korean People’s Navy.

  True, the great leader’s missives were all about waging war with the South and striking at the heart of the evil empire, the United States of America. Any strike, however, on these two, pre-emptive or reactive, would surely be from land based missiles. The KPN was a coastal defence operation and would have little to do other than that. No, unless this Borei class submarine was weaponised, and to his knowledge and inspection it was not, this submarine must just be berthed here as a favour to the Russians, as a pit stop on its way somewhere else. Just as that thought crystallised in Commodore Park’s mind, three long and modified KAMAZ 5460 trucks pulled into the yard.

  * * *

  Two days had passed since the meeting at Langley. Commander Mark O’Neill was back at his headquarters in Coronado, San Diego, California. Associate Director Adams had been true to his word and had fast tracked the Borei report and recommendations through the CIA hierarchy and the Department of Defense’s chain of command. The President had initially baulked at the idea but came to understand that O’Neill’s recommendation was the best one; or at least the one with least potential loss of human lives and political downside, both factors high up on the President’s priority list. It was clear that an air strike was too risky as the ensuing chain of events could put the United States and North Korea, or what was left of them, at war. This was especially true if the submarine at the heart of the matter was weaponised, a known unknown currently being investigated by the two NGA officers whose report started this particular scramble.

  Any other form of destruction of the submarine would also likely leave fingerprints as to the perpetrators. Although the US naval and other military forces could perhaps disguise the make and type of the explosives used, there would almost certainly be giveaways as to their manufacture and source. If any US military personnel were killed or captured they would not necessarily be easy to identify or extract information from. In the end, though, they probably would give up what they knew and the trail of blame would lead directly to Washington. So, for the Commander in Chief, destroying the North Korean’s recently acquired nuclear submarine was not an option. Leaving it in peace was not an option either. On the scale of clear and present danger, a nuclear submarine that could fire deadly ballistic missiles at the USA in the hands of America’s craziest and most unpredictable enemy, was highly visible and catastrophically dangerous.

  A mission to steal the submarine had merits. First, if it failed then the loss of human life was probably contained to the SEAL team undertaking the mission and a few hapless North Koreans. While regrettable, that was manageable as far as the White House was concerned. Media coverage would be more of a pain, and the North Korean propaganda and sabre-rattling machine would have a field day or even week. The probability of a nuclear missile launch by Pyongyang would be under 20%, however, according to the war games statisticians at the DoD. Stealing an enemy’s submarine may not be optimal but in the real world, proliferated by second best solutions, this seemed to be the one to go for. />
  Secondly, stealing the sub at least gave the US the opportunity of plausible deniability. While the North Koreans would clearly initially suspect the South, America or Japan, in that order, they did seem to be a bit careless with their submarines. In early April 2013, two North Korean submarines went missing off the coast near Hwanghae Province. Admittedly, they were small submersibles of 130 tons and a ten man crew, and admittedly they may just have been winding up the South Koreans. The White House, however, thought that this episode was evidence enough of careless submarine management to allow the US at least a feasible ‘it wasn’t us’ story that would fly on American TV channels, the nation’s websites and among the global twitterati community.

  So there it was. Operation Philidor Defence was a go. Mark O’Neill preferred Operation North Wind as the mission’s title. Boreas meant North Wind in Russian and that was why the Borei class submarines were so named. However the military’s mission computer had randomly selected Philidor Defence. His task now was to put together his team for the mission.

  Mark O’Neill was quite young to be a commander, twenty-seven years old and looking a little younger. He had joined the Marines at eighteen after high school but had requested a transfer after the accidental death of one of his best friends at Marine training camp. He knew the SEALs training programme would be even tougher but he just had to get out of the atmosphere surrounding his friend’s death. SEAL training is rigorous and punishing. The drop-out rate is over 90% and, in total, training can take up to five years, no less than two, before a Navy SEAL is ready for his first deployment. Mark O’Neill took two and a half years to complete his training. He was truly physically and mentally exhausted after that but now he was the lean, mean fighting machine that his country needed.