James Barrington - Foxbat

Muldoon gathered up the photographs and replaced them in the red ‘Top Secret’ folder on the table.

‘So what do we do about it?’ Hicks asked, obviously a rhetorical question. ‘This is a hell of a case to build on just a couple of satellite images that could easily be interpreted more than one way.’

‘I don’t know, Walter. I don’t know if the N-PIC analysts are right and, if they are, I don’t know what we should do about it. But whatever response is appropriate, the Agency certainly won’t be involved. This must now be a purely military matter, so I’d suggest going back to the Joint Chiefs through the DNI and passing the buck to them.’

HMS Illustrious , Yellow Sea

The Admiralty’s intention in sending Illustrious into the Yellow Sea had been to try to intimidate the North Koreans into not doing anything stupid, like crossing the DMZ, though just how successful one small carrier and a handful of aircraft would be was obviously a matter of opinion. Richter personally didn’t think a nation possessing about the fourth-largest military machine in the world would take much notice, but nobody was ever going to ask his opinion.

His CAP sortie had been entirely uneventful, ninety minutes spent cruising at high level in bright sunshine, and had served really only to reacquaint him with the Harrier. But throughout the sortie he had remained supremely aware that, for the second time in his life, having been involved in the Falklands War as a Harrier pilot on board the Invin cible , he was flying a fully-armed jet fighter in a potentially, if not actually, hostile environment.

Back on board, he changed and showered, had a meal in the Wardroom, and then went to bed. He was back in the flying programme in less than six hours, so was determined to snatch what sleep he could, when he could.

Pyongyang, North Korea

Kim Yong-Su sat in front of the computer monitor in his office and checked the operational readiness database.

Thirty minutes after he’d been given the order to execute ‘Golden Dawn’, he’d instructed all the units under his control to report their readiness, and he’d received confirmation from the last airfield, Haeju, just a few minutes before. As far as he knew, everything was now fully prepared for the operation but, as a precaution against incompetence or over-enthusiasm, or even treachery, at a lower level, he’d carefully recorded the name and rank of each officer who’d reported his unit ready in the database, together with the date-time group when that report was made. He’d also tape-recorded each telephone call, and placed every signal in his office safe. If heads rolled after this, Kim Yong-Su was determined that his wouldn’t be among them.

He checked the listings yet again, making absolutely sure he’d missed nothing and that the North Korean war machine was in all respects ready for immediate combat, then he picked up the red telephone on the corner of his desk. Of all the instruments in his office, that was the one least used. It connected directly to the private office of the ‘Dear Leader’ himself.

Kim had no need to dial a number or press a button. Within five seconds a familiar voice spoke in his ear. ‘Yes, Comrade Kim?’

‘We are ready,’ he said simply.

Sunday

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

It was the first time Richard Muldoon had ever been inside the White House. Walter Hicks, on the other hand, was very familiar with the security and routine. His meeting with the DNI had been brief, and his discussion with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff even briefer. Inside two hours, he and Muldoon had been sitting in the back of an unmarked Agency car heading for Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Oval Office wasn’t designed for discussions involving a large number of participants, so only seven people had assembled there. The President and the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence were in attendance, as well as Hicks and Muldoon themselves.

‘How certain are you of this?’ the President demanded as his opening gambit.

‘Right now, we’re not certain of anything, Mr President. The photo interpreters at N-PIC believe the latest images show four nuclear weapon transport vehicles, and they’ve traced one of these back to the vicinity of the nuclear plant at Yongbyon. That proves a truck probably adapted to carry a nuclear warhead was driven to a missile launch site, but it doesn’t prove the truck was ever at Yongbyon, nor that there was ever a missile warhead in it. It’s inevitable that there are always gaps in our satellite surveillance programme, but one picture shot at Mayang does apparently show a warhead attached to the top of the No-dong located on the pad.’

‘And what’s your take on this, Don?’

General Donald Sterling shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Mr President. I don’t doubt that the North Koreans are up to something, but I still find the idea of them threatening a first strike against Japan difficult to believe. And it wouldn’t necessarily work anyway, since we’ve positioned Patriot PAC-3 missiles at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, and those should be able to take out most incoming weapons.’

‘“Most” isn’t “all”, General,’ Walter Hicks pointed out.

‘Agreed, though they’d probably take account of eighty to ninety per cent of any first strike. But my feeling is that a threat against Japan seems altogether too complex and convoluted. The North Koreans aren’t interested in Japan: they want to grab control of the southern part of the peninsula. So why don’t they just go ahead and invade?’

‘Two reasons, General,’ Muldoon broke in sharply. ‘First, they know the contents of Oplan 5027 just as well as we do. They know that if they just mount up and head south, they’ll easily smash through the DMZ and the defences behind it, and maybe even take Seoul. But they also know that we’ll land reinforcements within a couple of weeks, and do our best to push them right back where they came from. And that then our intention will be to take Pyongyang and occupy their nation. That’s indisputable, so if they do want to invade South Korea, and get to stay on there, they’re going to have to be clever and sneaky about it.

‘That’s the first reason. The second is that if they do target Japan with nuclear weapons, the Japanese will scream so loudly under threat that we’ll have no option but to back off, to save them from worse. The moment we do that, there’s nothing at all to stop North Korea taking the South, and the missile threat will remain even after they’ve occupied the entire peninsula. If this plan comes off, we could lose South Korea and Japan without a shot being fired in anger, and without being able to do a single thing about it.’

‘Of course we can do something about it,’ Sterling snapped. He wasn’t used to being lectured by a civilian – far less a civilian who worked for the fucking CIA – in front of the President of the United States of America. ‘We could take out their missile sites, right now.’

‘With what, General?’ Hicks asked. ‘If I recall correctly, the diplomatic moves that we tried earlier didn’t get us anywhere, and the only definite response from Pyongyang was that if they were attacked either by the US or the South Koreans, they would consider it an act of war and respond accordingly. If you send in a strike force from south of the DMZ, or use our own silo-based missiles or bombers, that’s most definitely an act of war against North Korea.