Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

  No one spoke in response to the President’s question. The Director of Central Intelligence shook his head slightly but remained silent. No one else moved. None of them wanted to be the one to confirm the NSA’s bad news.

  Dr. Kinnowitz finally answered the President’s question.

  "No, sir. There's no other way. We have to know for sure that the North Koreans have the weapons before we can do anything about them.”

  “Why don’t we just go public with it? Demand they allow U.N. inspectors in?”

  “You know the answer to that, sir. They’ll just deny it and accuse us of looking for an excuse to invade their territory. Now, if you will allow Admiral Donnegan to continue with the brief, you will see that what we are proposing is the only option we have available to us."

  President Brown nodded and sat back in his chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he turned to where the tall black Naval officer stood.

  Admiral Tom Donnegan aimed his laser pointer at a large map of North Korea and eastern Siberia. The tiny red dot rested squarely on the port city of Najin.

  "Mister President, as we discussed earlier, we believe that two Russian nuclear weapons were smuggled into the DPRK naval base at Najin aboard a tramp steamer. The weapons are both old Soviet-era nuclear torpedoes that have the NATO designation of ‘Type 53-65.’ They each have a twenty-kiloton yield. As a torpedo, they have a range of twenty thousand yards. They require a Russian 53-centimeter torpedo tube and a Felix-Artika variant fire control system. It makes a real nasty anti-submarine or anti-carrier weapon."

  "Do the North Koreans have a submarine that can shoot this thing?" Brown asked.

  The admiral was ready for this line of questioning. He didn't miss a beat.

  "They have several old Whiskey- and Foxtrot-class boats that the Soviets gave to them back in the fifties. They have 53-centimeter tubes all right, but they don't have the Felix-Artika fire control systems. They could be fired with a portable test set if they weren't too concerned with accuracy, though. The safety interlocks are crude and pretty easy to circumvent. But we don't see how they could deploy the torpedoes. All of their boats are rusting alongside the pier. None have been underway in two decades so…"

  "Damn! I don't understand,” President Brown interrupted again. “Why steal a nuclear torpedo if you don’t have any way of using it?"

  "Mr. President, that has us confused, too,” Donnegan answered. “Even if they pulled the warhead off the torpedo body, it's still a big hunk of metal. The bastard weighs over a ton. It's not something the Koreans could set on top of a missile or that a suicide bomber could strap on and carry into some disco in Tel Aviv. That's a piece of the puzzle we don't have a good answer for. But remember this. The Koreans know why they stole them and we have to assume it wasn’t to keep themselves warm in the winter. Whatever their use is going to be, it won't be good news for us or anyone else in the world."

  Dr. Kinnowitz moved over to stand next to Admiral Donnegan.

  "Whether or not we know the purpose of the weapons doesn't really affect the decision to verify their existence and to destroy them if we can," he added.

  President Brown nodded thoughtfully. His brow was creased in deep furrows as he tried to absorb all this bad news. He waved his hand for Admiral Donnegan to continue.

  "We are reasonably certain that the weapons didn't stay in Najin very long. There doesn't look to be a facility there to handle them and we’ve seen no unusual activity. But we have satellite imagery of trucks hauling what could be weapons on the coast highway south of town. Unfortunately, we are not completely positive of the trucks' destination. We had a gap in coverage during that time period. The trucks were gone when we regained coverage. They could not have gotten to the next town. Not enough time for that. So the weapons have to be somewhere along this stretch of road.” The red dot of the pointer danced along an isolated section of the highway that snaked along the coastline. “We think we know of three possible locations where they could be."

  Donnegan next moved his laser pointer in turn to three spots on the topographic map of the area.

  "These three points are all new construction facilities in relatively rugged country. Each would be the perfect place for hiding an important secret. There are copies of imagery from the latest Keyhole satellite pass in your folders." Donnegan pointed toward the thin, black notebooks on the table in front of each person in the room. The words "Top Secret, Special Compartmented Information" were stamped across the front of each notebook in two-inch-tall red letters. "As you can see, there is nothing to single out any one of the sites. We will need to check them all out."

  President Brown opened his notebook and stared intently at the 8x10 images. He closed the cover again and looked up.

  "Hell, since the experts can't differentiate anything, there’s no reason for me to think I can. Okay, Admiral, what is the plan?"

  "Mr. President, we put a small SEAL team ashore that deploys simultaneously to each site. They carry self-defense weapons and some very sensitive monitoring equipment. With luck, they should be able to detect the presence of those 53-65s without needing to actually see them or lay their hands on them. Once they have found the weapons, they send the location back to the command and control team in Yokosuka. The target coordinates are sent to the submarine for a Tomahawk strike. The SEAL team stays in position to verify destruction and then they are extracted by the sub. The area has no civilian population so collateral damage will be minimal. The only people at risk are the garrison that is likely guarding the site. Oh, and our SEALs, of course. Any questions?"

  The room was deathly silent. Each man was contemplating the import of what they were being asked to consider. Placing troops on the ground in a foreign country. Shooting missiles into that country and blowing things up. So many things could go wrong.

  President Brown rose and looked to his right and then to his left. He spent a few seconds looking into the face of each man. These were his most trusted advisors. He knew any one of them would not hesitate to raise a howl if he had qualms. No one spoke.

  The President turned and looked at Donnegan and Kinnowitz.

  "You are certain of the intelligence we have? You are positive we need to do this? There’s no other way we can find out for sure where these bastards have hidden those weapons?"

  Donnegan answered smartly, "Yes, sir."

  "There's no other alternative?"

  "This is the best one we have."

  President Brown straightened before he spoke again. There was a note of finality in his voice.

  "Carry out the mission. Put together whatever resources you need. You have to get those nukes before they use them." He paused for a second and then added, "And gentlemen, don't try to micro-manage this from Langley or the Pentagon. Get someone you trust to take charge on scene and let him do his job."

  Yes, sir!” both men said in unison.

  With that, the President turned and left the room.

  Jim Ward carefully pinned his midshipman collar devices to his new, blue coveralls. This was great! His first poopie suit, just like the one his dad wore. And tomorrow the City of Corpus Christi was getting underway for a torpedo shooting exercise. The young man reveled in all the "firsts" he was experiencing his first day on a submarine.

  There was barely room for him to stand in the narrow passageway between the bunks in the berthing space. He figured he was fortunate. He had the top bunk. He could easily lift the mattress pad to get to the thin, flat locker pan underneath. The guy with the bottom bunk had to sit on the steel deck to reach his stuff.

  The living area was minimal. Eleven men had to share a space smaller than his bedroom back in Norfolk. The overhead and bulkheads were a maze of wires and pipes running in all different directions. The only nod to privacy was the thin, blue curtain that he could pull closed around his bunk.

  He checked his watch. He had better hurry up. The boat’s executive officer had told him to be in the wardroom at 1530 to discuss his training sch
edule for the next couple of months. It would be intense. A couple of months were not a whole lot of time to learn to be a submarine officer and to qualify to wear the coveted silver dolphins that confirmed he was “qualified in submarines.”

  Jim Ward was already picturing himself in the fall, back at Annapolis, strutting around with submarine dolphins proudly displayed on his chest. It would be a lot of work, learning the how and why of all of the complex systems a nuclear submarine carried, just like the enlisted crewmembers were required to do. And then to learn to control the big boat as her Diving Officer. If he could do all that, then he would truly be justified in saying that he was a submariner.

  Ward stepped into the blue coveralls and zipped them up. He grabbed his khaki belt, made sure his TLD was attached to it, and cinched it around his waist. The corpsman, Doc Valdez, had issued him his thermoluminescent dosimeter during check-in. It came with a stern warning that he was never to be without it and must never, ever, lose it. The Navy had to continually monitor the radiation to which everyone onboard was exposed. The TLD was a neat little device, shaped like a tiny black bullet with a belt clip. It recorded any neutron or gamma radiation that a submariner might encounter.

  Ward stepped out of the eleven-man bunkroom and hurried across the passageway to the wardroom. He found the XO, Lieutenant Commander Bryan Hilliker, seated at the wardroom table. Somehow, Hilliker always seemed to look harried and overworked. His wrinkled uniform did little to hide the growing paunch around his middle. Outside the wardroom, he wore a ship's ball cap to cover his bald spot. The ever-present cup of coffee sat within easy reach. Books and papers surrounded him. The wardroom provided Hilliker with an alternate workspace when his tiny stateroom wasn't adequate. Besides, there was no place for the rest of the officers to escape. They were always within range for the XO to grab them for the thousands of little jobs he had to dole out.

  Hilliker waved him over and Ward eased himself into one of the chairs across the broad Naugahyde-covered table from the XO. Just as he settled down, someone else knocked at the door. A man in a khaki uniform stepped nervously inside and stood at attention. The voice quavered and cracked a bit as the man spoke.

  "Midshipman first class Neil Campbell reporting."

  The voice carried more than a hint of a midwestern twang.

  Campbell was about Ward's age and height. He looked a bit stockier and sported a shock of blonde hair the color of corn shucks. Hilliker smiled and waved Campbell to the seat beside Ward.

  "Mr. Ward, Mr. Campbell just reported aboard today. He's from Ohio State. It should be interesting seeing which one of you qualifies first. Naval Academy against a real college education."

  The two young men smiled warily at each other. The rivalry between Naval Academy types and officers who came out of Naval Reserve Officer Training programs at the top civilian schools was obviously still alive and well.

  Hilliker handed each man a thick notebook.

  "Here's your qualification card. It'll be your constant companion for the next couple of months. By the time you have filled it out, you'll know more about the City of Corpus Christi than the people who built her in the first place. You will report your progress to me every week. Get behind and I'll put you on the ‘dink’ list. Then we'll arrange a little extra time for you to study, like instead of movies and sleep. Ain't gonna have to tell the Captain my middies were too delinquent to qualify."

  Campbell looked up.

  "XO, I’ve got a question. Why does everyone call this boat the City of Corpus Christi? No one calls the Cincinnati the City of Cincinnati."

  Hilliker yawned and scratched his stubbly chin as if he was pondering whether or not to answer the officer-to-be’s question.

  "OK, a little history lesson for you two ‘non-quals.’ All the Los Angeles-class boats except for the Hyman G. Rickover were named after cities…San Francisco, Houston, Buffalo. When the powers that be decided we needed another Texas city, there was a major hullabaloo about naming a warship after the body of Christ. That's what Corpus Christi means in Spanish. The politicians decided that City of Corpus Christi was a good compromise. Mouthful, isn't it?"

  Hilliker took a sip of his coffee before going on.

  "Now, in addition to qualifying, you will be acting as assistant division officers. That gives you a chance to learn that part of the job as well. Mr. Ward will have Reactor Controls Division and Mr. Campbell will have Auxiliary Division. The Engineer is back in the engine room. He'll introduce you to your men. Understood."

  Both young men nodded. Hilliker yawned again.

  "Now, if you two non-quals will get out of my face, I got work to do."

  Tom Kincaid had lost all semblance of patience by now. He and Benito Luna had already spent the better part of a month in this flea-infested apartment. Most of that time had been passed staring out the flyspecked window at the rusting hulk of the Dawn Flower. There still wasn't a sign of any activity anywhere around the freighter.

  The informant had been so damned sure. He had sworn that this old hulk was a vital link in the drug smuggling pipeline into the United States. If it was, it must be the slowest smuggling vessel in the history of the trade.

  Kincaid could almost imagine Sui Kia Shun, sitting up high in his regal mountain hideaway, laughing his ass off at him and Luna, wasting away here on this wild goose chase. Well, there wasn't much more they could do here. Just chalk it up to experience and move on. It was past time for him to head back to San Diego and the Joint Drug Interdiction Agency command center. There were other far more productive places that demanded his attention.

  "Benito," Kincaid grumbled. "I believe it is time to pack it in. Let's get a flight back to Manila and then I'll head home from there."

  Luna pulled himself up from the rumpled bed where he had been napping. He started to protest. After all, the informant was his. It didn't look good for him to pull the boss all the way across the Pacific for a hot tip, only to come up dry. The only activity worth noting since their arrival had been Colonel Ortega's attack on Sabul u Nurizam in the marketplace. That, of course, had been of little interest to Kincaid, Luna or the JDIA. That was internal to the Philippines and not their concern. Still, Luna was a lawman and something about the attempted assassination didn't seem right to him. He just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

  Kincaid stopped him before he could object to their leaving.

  "It happens sometimes. You should know that. They can't all be winners. We’ll just have to go back to square one."

  "Sure, boss," Luna said with a grunt. He shrugged and added, "I'll go down and get us a car. If I don't ever see this room again, it'll be too soon."

  He reached for the doorknob. Before he could grab it, the door suddenly crashed open, the latch shattering into a thousand pieces and wood splintering all over him. Four armed and uniformed men dashed through the opening, their weapons out and pointed toward the two agents inside the room. Neither Kincaid nor Luna had time to react. Experienced operators or not, they were taken totally by surprise. The intruders grabbed them, spun them around, and roughly flung them face down onto the floor. Before either man could even protest, they had been handcuffed and once again pulled to their feet.

  That’s when they saw the new face in the room. Colonel Manuel Ortega, Benito Luna's old mentor. The chief of the Mindanao NBI grinned evilly when he spoke.

  "Benito, my old friend. Too bad that we should meet this way. I am afraid that you and Mr. Kincaid are under arrest."

  "Arrest!” Luna protested. “What the hell? You cannot arrest us. We are JDIA."

  "I am fully aware of who you claim to be, my friend, but I have reason to believe that you and your American friend are plotting a threat to the security of the Philippines." Ortega was almost laughing. "You are going to the fortress in Zamboanga. There we will get to the bottom of your plot. By the time we finish our investigation and file charges, you will both be old men." Ortega waved toward his men. "Bring them."

  The officers carr
ied Luna and Kincaid out the door and down the street. When they were out of earshot, Manuel Ortega pulled a cell phone from his pocket and punched a speed-dial number. When the call was answered, he spoke quietly.

  "Please tell Master Sui that we have arrested the JDIA agents. They will not be any bother to him anymore."

  10

  The rain hammered down on the metal roof while booming thunder reverberated down the valley like cannon shot. Colonel Kuang il Chung peered out into the seemingly impenetrable blackness of the North Korean night.

  Perfect! The American spy satellites would be blinded by the bad weather. It was time to move.

  He made a small wave with his hand. Twenty men trotted out of the shed, pulling a cart behind them like so many draft horses. The first of the Russian torpedoes lay on the cart, concealed beneath a tarp for some protection. The group turned left and headed up the mountain with their load behind them, following a narrow, muddy, almost indistinguishable path that climbed steeply up the precipitous slope. Fifty more men trotted along behind the cart. They would relieve the draft animals when they inevitably fell, exhausted from the effort. The herd of men was soon lost in the driving rain.

  Higher up on the mountain the trail would become too narrow, even for the two-wheeled cart. There they would shift to a sledge and employ ropes and pulleys to move the torpedo. The men would cart the massive weapon over the high pass by brute force if necessary.

  Raw manpower. It was a typical North Korean answer to a difficult problem.

  General Kim Dai-jang had ordered Chung to deliver the torpedoes back to Najin once the real warheads had been replaced with the fake ones. When they were back in Najin, it would be an easy arrangement to ship them on to Sabul u Nurizam and his Abu Sayuff rebels.

  The only hitch was the ever-present American spy satellites. They would surely see the increased activity if they used trucks for transporting the weapons along the coastal highway. Too much truck activity from one remote location would pique the Americans’ interest in what was happening here. That might lead them to look farther, to learn of the missing Russian torpedoes.