James Barrington - Foxbat

‘You’re not keen on the idea?’ Simpson stated the obvious.

‘No, not at all.’

‘Well I like it. The tricky bit’s going to be selling it to the Navy, but if it’s packaged right they might just go for it.’

‘I cannot support this proposal, and you should be aware that I will have to put my objection in writing if you elect to proceed.’

‘Objection noted. Now get out of here and organize me a car and driver. Then pre-warn Northwood that we’ll want a conference with CINCFLEET staff as soon as we arrive.’

‘Are you expecting me to accompany you?’

‘Certainly not. You’d only depress everyone. So you can hold the fort here. I’ll take whichever wheel I can raise at Legoland.’

The sniff as the ID stood up and headed for the door was more eloquent than anything he could have verbalized. Simpson stared after his retreating back for a moment, wondering if it would be worth while trying to find someone more amenable to replace him, then picked up the scrambled phone and dialled Vauxhall Cross.

Office of Commander-In-Chief Fleet (CINCFLEET), Northwood, Middlesex

‘The admiral is extremely busy, gentlemen. As you’ll appreciate, the crisis on the Korean Peninsula is occupying most of his time, and I very much doubt if he’ll be able to see you.’ The captain was clearly unimpressed by these two men – a senior Secret Intelligence Service officer, and the head of an outfit he’d never even heard of – demanding to see the Commander-In-Chief Fleet.

But Richard Simpson was not a man used to having obstacles thrown in his way. ‘Listen to me, Captain, I hold a rank equivalent to an Air Vice Marshal and my colleague here is slightly more senior than that. We have information for your admiral that could significantly affect the outcome of the Korean crisis, and that he will definitely want to hear. If we don’t get to see him within the next fifteen minutes, I’ll be making two calls tomorrow morning and by the end of the week you’ll be down at the Job Centre – that’s if the admiral himself doesn’t fire you first. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly… sir.’ The captain appeared unfazed, and the second word came as an obvious afterthought. ‘But I still doubt if the admiral will find time to see you. However, it’s his decision, not mine, so I’ll convey the substance of your message to him.’

‘Nice going, Richard,’ Nicholas Ashton remarked as the captain left the room. ‘Nothing like issuing a blatant threat or two to ensure we get all the willing cooperation we need.’

Ashton was P4 at SIS – his full title was Head of the Middle East Controllerate of the Directorate of Requirements and Production – and he was the most senior officer Simpson had been able to rustle up at such short notice.

‘Threats usually work, in my experience.’ Simpson smiled nastily. ‘You’ll notice that at least he’s now gone to ask.’

Five minutes later the captain returned and beckoned to them. ‘If you’ll follow me, please.’

He led them down several flights of stairs, descending well below ground-level into the semi-hardened operational headquarters, and finally pulled open a heavy steel door. The room beyond was vast, rising at least three storeys high, and expansive enough to accommodate over fifty people working at separate consoles arranged in rows. On the wall facing them was a huge screen currently displaying the Korean Peninsula in considerable detail, dotted with red marks indicating DPRK troop concentrations, airfields and missile sites. On the screen beside it, a larger-scale display showed the entire action area with Allied force dispositions. At first glance, this was noticeably less impressive, the principal symbols indicating the two halves of the Illustrious group in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan respectively, and the Enterprise Carrier Battle Group still some distance out in the North Pacific.

Several senior Naval officers stood looking up at the screens. The captain led the way over to them, and made the necessary introductions.

‘I understand you have some information relevant to the present crisis?’ the admiral inquired.

‘Not entirely,’ Simpson replied first. Though, as the Head of an SIS Controllerate, Ashton was technically his senior, this was Simpson’s ball and he fully intended to run with it. ‘We have exactly the same information, but I know something about it that you don’t.’

‘I don’t have time for riddles, Mr Simpson, so tell me what’s on your mind.’

‘You’ve had a request from Washington about undertaking a possible first strike against North Korean missile facilities? A strike, in fact, using the Harriers from Illustrious ?’ Simpson opened a notebook and read out a date-time group.

‘Yes,’ the admiral replied, ‘we’ve received that signal, but I’m not sure the Americans entirely grasp the magnitude of what they’re asking from us.’

‘Actually, I think they have grasped it, and SIS believes such action might be the best response to whatever nasty little plan Pyongyang has cooked up.’ The admiral opened his mouth to reply, but Simpson didn’t give him the chance. ‘As we see it, there are exactly two choices here. If we sit back and do nothing, and just wait for the North Koreans to push their way south across the DMZ, or launch a nuclear attack on Japan or whatever else they intend to do, we’ll be forced to react after the event. If the Americans are right, the North Koreans’ attempted nuclear blackmail might well work because, even if South Korea is occupied by the DPRK and Japan simultaneously held hostage, that’s still a far better outcome than the probable alternative, meaning an exchange of nuclear weapons that would leave a million corpses rotting in Seoul and probably twice that number in Tokyo.

‘The ace in the hole that Pyongyang holds is their possession of nuclear weapons, but they can’t have that many so they’ve got to use them intelligently, hence their probable plan to strike at Japan. If they merely fired them into South Korea, the American Patriot batteries would hopefully take them out, and then the US war machine would roll the invading forces back across the DMZ, all the way to Pyongyang, which would be a military disaster for the North. So I think Washington is right in its thinking.

‘The only ploy that makes sense is that North Korea should threaten an American client state, which describes Japan fairly accurately, and hope that by doing so it will keep the Yanks off the playing field. The second string to their bow involves their recent demonstration in the Pacific that clearly shows they have missiles able to reach mainland America. Pyongyang may be confident that those two threats will be enough to stop the US getting involved any further. Then they can cross the border in the reasonable certainty that the South Korean armed forces will offer them little or no resistance, simply because the government in Seoul will realize that the Americans won’t be coming to bail them out.’

‘You appear to be remarkably well informed, Mr Simpson.’

‘I am, Admiral, because that’s my job. Now, if we can eliminate the nuclear threat, taking out the No-dong missiles, Pyongyang’s going to have to rethink all this. If they can’t threaten Japan, they have one less lever to use in persuading the Americans not to interfere. And there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what happened out there in the Pacific. The CIA isn’t convinced that missile was actually carrying the weapon. Instead, they think the nuclear device was positioned on the ship the North Koreans allegedly used as a target, and that it was in fact detonated using either a timer or a radio signal. In short, they reckon it was a bluff that now the US might just call.