James Barrington - Foxbat

‘Agreed,’ Black observed, ‘but even if the North Koreans have, what, twenty Foxbats loaded for bear, as the Americans would say, that’s still only a tiny number of aircraft in relation to their known air assets. I don’t see why the Foxbats would pose too much of a threat, simply because of the aircraft the South Koreans can operate. So why are you here, and why is everyone so worked up about this business?’

‘I’m here,’ Richter said, ‘because this is where my boss wants me to be, and I don’t have too much say in the matter. But the worry shared by SIS and the Americans is that possession of those Foxbats might encourage the North Koreans to escalate this into a nuclear conflict. And the reason we think that is simple – EMP, electromagnetic pulse.’

Briefly, he explained the design of the MiG-25. Then Davidson asked him almost exactly the same question as Bae Chang-Su had done in Seoul, and Richter gave him virtually the same answer.

‘Are you seriously suggesting the North Koreans will use nuclear weapons?’

‘I really don’t know, but it’s difficult to come up with any other valid reason for them stealing the Foxbats. The aircraft is old – even obsolete – but it’s the only interceptor in the Korean Peninsula that could survive the EMP after a nuclear detonation, and still function. And that’s what’s worrying both London and Washington.’

Ok’pyong missile base, North Korea

The Taep’o-dong 2 missile sitting on the launch pad at Ok’pyong had taken the North Koreans almost a year to prepare.

Like its predecessor, the Taep’o-dong 1, its first two stages were liquid-fuelled, but the third stage was powered by a solid-fuel motor. That also contained the payload, and designing that was what had taken the most time. The device sitting at the top of the forty-six-metre-high ballistic missile was special in every way, and designed for a single purpose. As far as the North Korean scientists were aware, it was the first, and quite probably the last, such ‘warhead’ ever constructed.

Alongside the launch pad a servicing gantry had been erected, and white-coated technicians swarmed over it, checking that everything was properly secured and ready for the launch. The final procedure, before the countdown began, was to load the fuel tanks of the first two stages, and for that manoeuvre everybody left the pad apart from the fire crews and a mere handful of other essential personnel.

Four hours later, the Taep’o-dong 2 sat ready. The pad was now deserted apart from the armed guards posted to ensure nobody approached it, and the countdown began in a blast-proof concrete bunker half a mile from the site.

T’ae’tan Air Base, North Korea

Pak Je-San gazed around the hangar with some small satisfaction. The maintainers had by now got two of the unserviceable Foxbats into flying condition, which was a better result than he’d secretly hoped. He now had seven MiG-25s operational here at T’ae’tan and twenty-two in total, including the aircraft he’d dispersed to the other three airfields.

Even better news was that the forty-eight R-40T missiles his agents had stolen from Dobric had arrived the previous day at the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran, and would be flown from there direct to T’ae’tan. They were scheduled to arrive within hours, before being distributed to the other airfields. That would give them a combined arsenal of over one hundred and sixty missiles and that, Pak Je-San felt confident, was more than enough. If they then ran out of munitions, the war would already be lost.

Oval Office, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC

‘Not exactly a surprise, then?’

‘No, Mr President,’ agreed the Secretary of Defense, walking across the Oval Office and placing a sheaf of papers on the supreme commander’s mahogany desk. He’d just flown back from an emergency session of the United Nations’ Security Council in New York. The President had known the Secretary of Defense for years and trusted his judgement more than almost anyone else in his own administration.

‘What did they say, exactly?’

‘Just what the CIA expected. That all the manoeuvres the NKs are currently carrying out are part of this exercise they claim to be running.’

The President leant back in his seat and steepled his fingers, then abruptly sat forward again. ‘Are we reading more into this than we should? Could it really be just a routine exercise?’

The Secretary of Defense shook his head decisively. ‘I suppose there’s about a one per cent chance that we’re mistaken, but I believe the evidence is unambiguous. North Korea is gearing up for a push south across the DMZ.’

‘I’ve been briefed by the Joint Chiefs already, but what’s your take on this? If the Agency is right, what can we do to stop them? Do we have enough forces in South Korea to counter an outright invasion?’

The Secretary of Defense shook his head. ‘There’s no way of stopping a North Korean advance, because they outnumber the South in armour, battlefield artillery and also men. That’s always been acknowledged as a virtual certainty. What they lack is support and supply chains in depth, so they could certainly get their forces some way into South Korea, but they wouldn’t be able to sustain their advance or consolidate their positions, and eventually we’d be able to push them back across the DMZ. The one-liner here is that the North Koreans can start a war, but they can’t finish one.’

‘I don’t want them to start a war. We’ve got enough problems in the Middle East as it is.’

‘If they did cross the DMZ it would give us the excuse we need to take out the leadership in Pyongyang.’

The President shook his head. ‘I know, but the timing’s not right and we’re stretched thinly enough as it is. Right, let’s review the evidence that the North Koreans are planning something.’

‘I do believe it’s convincing, Mr President. The satellite imagery shows definite manoeuvres by their troops, and the Eighth Army is now operating several Shadow 200 unmanned aerial vehicles over the DMZ. They fly at between ten and fourteen thousand feet and they’re pretty much invisible at that altitude. They’ve now been redeployed to cover areas further north and the data they’ve collected support the satellite pictures. We’ve also flown them over the nuclear plant at Yongbyon and other sensitive sites, and we’ve been using Guardrail Common Sensor systems close to the DMZ.’

‘Guardrail?’

‘It’s an airborne communications and signals intelligence system – COMINT and SIGINT – developed by the NSA, and it’s recorded a marked increase in radio and signal traffic in the area. Now, none of this conclusively proves that the North Koreans are planning an invasion, but collectively it certainly suggests they’re planning something .

‘As you know, sir, we’ve normally no direct contact with Pyongyang, so we’ve used the strongest diplomatic language we could at the UN, and told them we’d retaliate if any of their troops moved across the DMZ. We just got a bunch of blank stares from the delegation and a repeat of the It’s all an exercise bullshit. They said if their troops did cross into or through the DMZ it would only be because of navigation errors in the heat of the exercise, and therefore they urged that no retaliation be considered.’

‘Great,’ the President muttered. ‘So now they want us to sit back and do nothing while they head straight for Seoul. Well, we’re not going to do that. You clearly told them we’d be prepared to use all our military assets, including missiles, to defend our allies?’

‘Yes, and they insisted it was just an exercise. And then warned that any attack by us or South Korea would be vigorously repulsed.’