James Barrington - Foxbat

‘The last point to remember is probably the most important: North Korea expects to fight a war. South Korea is seen as enemy territory, but is also regarded as merely a client state of America, and therefore of little real importance. America itself is and always has been North Korea’s main enemy, so their leadership believes that the war will ultimately be a contest between these two countries. Pyongyang does not expect China or Russia or anyone else to intercede on its behalf, or to offer any kind of assistance, and all its preparations are directed towards a fight to the death between them and us. If we attempt to invade them, Pyongyang will respond with all the forces at its disposal, including whatever weapons of mass destruction its scientists have been able to fabricate. It will do its very best to destroy the United States and kill as many of our citizens as possible. That is their leader’s philosophy, and that ’s what really scares me.’

‘You’ve done a pretty good job of scaring me too,’ the President said. ‘So what response do you suggest?’

‘As you know, Mr President, we’re committed to developing a defence shield between the two Koreas, and we’ve allocated an eleven-billion-dollar budget to achieve that. The problem is that we’ve done almost nothing so far. We’ve withdrawn a lot of our troops from the area immediately south of the DMZ simply to reduce possible tension. And we’re also in the process of upgrading the Patriot missile systems we’ve positioned there from PAC-2 to PAC-3, but that’s about all.

‘What we can’t now do is reinforce our troops there very quickly, because of the logistics involved. This situation has blown up really quickly. The Joint Chiefs anticipate it will take a minimum of a week to assemble the men and supplies we’d need, and probably another week to ship them to the peninsula. If the invasion starts within the next few days, South Korea simply won’t have the ability to stop the advancing troops. The South can slow them up, but ultimately the North will just roll over the defenders.

‘The other problem is that right now we don’t have any surface assets that close. The Enterprise Carrier Battle Group is currently in the North Pacific, and they’ve been ordered to head towards Korea, but we’re still talking days before they get within striking distance.

‘The only options we’d then have would be to hit the attacking forces with bombs from our aircraft at Andersen on Guam, or use ICBMs from here in the States, or our boomers – missile-carrying nuclear submarines – but they wouldn’t be able to stop a ground assault.’

‘Why not?’

‘Numbers, Mr President, numbers. As I’ve said, the North Koreans can field over a million front-line troops and almost five million reservists. Unless we carpet-bombed or nuked the entire front, we’d have no hope of stopping them, and anyway tactics like that are considered politically unacceptable in the current international climate. If we did get involved, we’d be expected to use smart munitions and carry out precision attacks. Using those tactics against the sort of forces the North Koreans can field would be like a mosquito biting an elephant.’

‘So what’s your own recommendation?’

‘From what I witnessed at the United Nations, diplomacy isn’t going to work here. I think we should carry on with what we’re doing already. We prep Andersen and get the bombers moving, fly them towards the Korean Peninsula but hold them clear of territorial waters, just to let Pyongyang know we’ve got the capability to strike if they do launch an invasion. That’s one threat. Against the possibility of North Korea escalating this to a nuclear conflict, keep the ICBMs and the boomers at a high alert state, so that we can respond real fast if we have to.’

‘The missiles are holding at Alert Sixty now.’

‘It’s your decision, Mr President, but I suggest bringing them to Alert Thirty fairly soon, and I’ll make sure Pyongyang knows that we’ve done so. It may not stop them, but it’ll sure as hell make them stop and think.’

Saturday

Ok’pyong missile base, North Korea

They stopped the countdown at launch minus eight minutes, awaiting the executive order from Pyongyang that would either see the missile launched or force them to begin the complex process of reversing the actions they’d taken so far. Just under fifteen minutes later, the secure teleprinter spat out half a dozen lines of text, and almost immediately afterwards the direct line from Pyongyang rang. Two minutes after that, once the commanding officer was satisfied with the authenticity of the orders he’d been given, the countdown resumed.

A little after four-fifteen that afternoon, local time, those missile control staff who weren’t manning consoles watched through six-inch-thick armoured glass as an explosion of flames and smoke enveloped the pad. The first stage of the Taep’o-dong ignited with a roar that could be heard miles away, and the bunker shook and vibrated. Slowly, so slowly that it seemed it must fall back to earth, the pointed nose of the missile rose above the conflagration and accelerated steadily into the clear blue sky.

There was a smattering of applause once it became clear that the first stage was performing faultlessly, but the most critical part of the flight was still to come.

HMS Illustrious , Yellow Sea

‘Flash, flash, flash. Homer, Whisky Charlie with flash traffic. Missile launch detected from the east coast of North Korea in the vicinity of Ok’pyong at sixteen seventeen local time, zero one seventeen Zulu. Stand by for initial trajectory estimate.’

‘Whisky Charlie, roger.’

The lieutenant manning the Homer position immediately selected the group line.

‘All positions, Homer. Flash traffic from AEW Sea King Whisky Charlie. Missile launch reported from the vicinity of Ok’pyong, waiting for initial trajectory data.’

There was a moment of dead silence while everyone who had access to a radar screen stared at it, watching the combined ship’s radar and data-linked picture.

‘Flash. Homer, Whisky Charlie. Missile trajectory looks like southeast. No immediate threat.’

On the Operations Room displays, the return was now beginning to open to the south-east. Then it seemed as if everyone started talking at once, before the Group Warfare Officer silenced them and made a broadcast on all group lines and the ship’s main broadcast system.

‘Action stations. Action stations. Air raid warning red. I say again. Action stations. Air raid warning red.’

Then he switched off the broadcast and opened the line to Flyco. ‘Flyco, GWO. What’s the circuit and deck state?’

‘One Merlin on deck, turning and burning. Two Harriers in the range. One Merlin on recovery about half a mile astern. No scheduled movements apart from the Merlin turn-round.’

‘Roger, expedite the recovery and call the moment he’s secured. Shut down the other Merlin and clear all personnel off the deck as soon as possible.’

The GWO went back to the group line and ship’s broadcast. ‘All positions, GWO. Secure all external hatches and openings. Assume Damage Control and NBCD State One. Break. Homer, GWO. What’s the endurance of our airborne assets?’ In the background could be heard the muffled slamming of watertight doors being closed. Although the opening trajectory of the missile was away from the ship’s position, it could always be turned around or, worse, it might just be the first launch of a salvo.

‘Already checked. The two Harriers are twenty-eight minutes to start of recovery, the AEW Sea King and the two Merlins can stay up for a couple of hours.’