James Barrington - Foxbat

‘What’s your take on this, Richard?’

‘I don’t think we need too much analysis here, Walter,’ Muldoon replied, spreading a selection of photographs across the table. ‘Starting from the west side of the Korean Peninsula, we’ve got the 815th Mechanized Corps moving south-east from Kobuldong towards the DMZ. The 820th Armoured Corps is doing the same from Songwŏlni, and over to the east the 9th Mechanized Corps is heading south from Kosan.

‘At all the southern airfields there are clear indications of increased activity, loads of aircraft parked on hardstandings with fuel bowsers and armament trolleys alongside them. The southerly missile bases are also very active, and so are those on the east coast – Hochon, No-dong, Mayang and Ok’pyong in particular.

‘The North Koreans have made us aware of a scheduled no-notice exercise.’ Muldoon opened a folder and extracted a single sheet of paper. ‘It’s called “Silver Spring” and it’s the usual scenario: faced with an unprovoked assault from the capitalist lackeys in Seoul, the brave North Korean forces will fight to the last man to repel the evil invaders.

‘Two things worry me about this, though. First, the DPRK forces usually busy themselves conducting paper exercises, not real-world stuff. Second, while all these troop movements could be entirely innocent, if they are planning an invasion, deployment of these forces is just what you’d expect. My concern is that what we’re looking at now is the implementation of a secret movement order from Pyongyang, under the cover of this “Silver Spring” exercise, and that when the moment’s right they’ll head south across the border, catching everyone wrong-footed. In that case, we’re watching the DPRK transitioning to war – and there are no prizes for guessing which country will be under attack.’

‘There’s no chance that they really are just conducting an exercise?’

‘I wouldn’t put any money on it. Don’t forget the Foxbats. N-PIC have identified the munitions on the trolleys beside them as R-40 air-to-air missiles – AA-6 Acrids – and probably the T variant. They’re loading the ’bats with warshots, and that means they expect to use them.’

‘OK,’ Hicks said, ‘I’ll take this evidence to the DNI and see if he still thinks the North Koreans are just undertaking a service upgrade. I already checked with the Pentagon about our force dispositions, and we’ve nothing local to the Korean Peninsula. Our closest maritime support – that’s the Enterprise Carrier Battle Group – is about three days away in the north Pacific Ocean. We’ve got a couple of frigates off Busan in South Korea, and a hunter-killer submarine about a thousand miles south of the peninsula.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Yup, that’s all. The only other Western naval asset anywhere close is the British Royal Navy’s carrier Illustrious , heading for home. It’s currently off the south-east coast of Japan, en route from Tokyo to Manila. The ship has seven Harriers on board, plus there are three other warships – frigates, I think – and four supply ships in company.’

Muldoon laughed briefly. ‘Seven Harriers? The North Koreans have got, what, eight hundred plus combat aircraft? I know every little helps, but that’s just ridiculous.’

‘Yes, I know. The DNI won’t be able to ignore these,’ he tapped the photographs, ‘so, exercise or no exercise, the Joint Chiefs will at the very least hike the DEFCON state. There’s not a hell of a lot more we can do here at Langley, but my guess is the White House will kick the military into gear. They’ll get the Enterprise moving as fast as possible, and warm up the B-52s and the Minutemen. They’ll try and talk to the North Koreans as well, but at present we don’t have any direct diplomatic contact with Pyongyang, and I doubt if a few stern words from our current National Security Adviser would cut much ice with them anyway.’

Muldoon nodded. ‘I can’t argue with any of that, but one thing bothers me – apart from the US getting dragged into yet another shooting war. Pyongyang knows our commitment to South Korea, and their leaders must realize that we’ll oppose them once they cross the DMZ. OK, they may have timed this action so that we don’t have any naval forces in the immediate area, but they sure as hell know we’d send some real fast. Every analysis I’ve seen confirms that the North Koreans can start a war, but they don’t have the resources to win one, or even consolidate any territorial gains they might make. So why are they doing this?’

‘Maybe their “divine leader” is a lot more stupid than anyone’s giving him credit for.’

‘Maybe… or maybe he’s a lot smarter than we thought, and he’s discovered a wrinkle that he thinks might make this work. And there’s something else. We had a request from the British SIS yesterday, asking for our present force dispositions relative to the Korean Peninsula. I told you they’ve got this man in Russia looking into the missing Foxbats and according to their source the MiG-25 was built specifically to counter incoming ICBMs. Maybe Pyongyang has stolen the aircraft to defend the country against any retaliation from us using missiles. And the Foxbats wouldn’t have any trouble carving up our B-52s as well.’

‘Shit,’ Hicks muttered.

‘That’s about the size of it,’ Muldoon agreed. ‘If I’m right, it’s a real high-risk strategy, but just because it’s high-risk doesn’t mean it won’t work.’

National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, Washington, DC

Walter Hicks gazed around him as he walked into the NMCC at the Pentagon. It was pretty much as he remembered it from the last time he’d been there, another occasion on which America was confronted with a nuclear exchange, only then the threat had been much closer to home.

The National Military Command Center is a suite of offices situated on the third floor of the Pentagon. One office processes the raw data, making it a very noisy environment because of the rows of clattering telex machines that print reports and information from sources around the world. A battery of clocks shows a selection of world time zones, and there’s a permanent map display to indicate the location of America’s strategic assets and the principal troop dispositions of all other major national armed forces. The Emergency Conference Room is next door, and by comparison extremely quiet.

The ECR comprises two different levels. The Battle Staff, the NMCC’s duty officers, sit on either side of the ‘leg’ of a huge T-shaped table and collate data. Positioned along the bar of the ‘T’ are four Emergency Action officers, each at a specialized console equipped with an awesome array of communication links allowing them to contact American forces almost anywhere in the world.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, essentially the American President’s War Cabinet, have seats on a raised platform above and to the left of the Battle Staff table. Opposite them are six huge colour television screens that can display maps of any part of the world, plus charts, plans, surveillance photographs, troop concentration data and other types of graphic or text that might help to clarify a particular situation.

The NMCC forms part of a single vast command structure that includes the White House Situation Room and the hardened facilities at Cheyenne Mountain; at Offutt, the location of the Underground Complex; and at Raven Rock. All these sites are linked by telephones, faxes, telex machines, radios, computers and high-speed secure data links. The briefing would be delivered in the Pentagon, but the duty staff at the other sites would also be able to hear every word that was said.

Walter Hicks listened with a sense of déjà vu as the Senior Duty Battle Staff Officer introduced him. It wasn’t the first time he’d briefed the Joint Chiefs but, unlike on the previous occasion, the substance of this briefing would be largely conjecture. He began almost every sentence with a qualifier – ‘We think’; ‘Analysis suggests’; ‘It is possible’ and so on – and he didn’t like resorting to that at all. The Joint Chiefs didn’t like it either, and said so, repeatedly.