James Barrington - Foxbat

‘NORAD’s just reported another nuke, Walter, less than two minutes ago. This one was over South Korea.’

‘Oh, fuck.’

‘It was pretty low-yield, definitely under twenty kilotons, and seems to have been an air-burst. The delivery vehicle was one of the Seersuckers out of Chiha-ri. They fired three, but two didn’t detonate, and we don’t know why. Maybe some kind of defect, or perhaps the Patriots got them, but I’ve seen nothing from the CFC so far. But this,’ he finished, ‘is what’s scaring the shit out of me. These are straight from N-PIC, and that’s the launch pad at Chiha-ri. As soon as the Seersuckers had been fired, they drove out these TELs.

‘According to the analysts, they’re Scud missiles, probably type B, and there are six of them. The TELs aren’t the same as the old Russian MAZ 543 launch vehicles, but they’re very similar. They’re being prepped ready for launch, so if the nuke that’s just gone off was the first strike, these are probably the second. The technicians on the pads are all wearing NBCD suits, which means these Scuds are carrying biological or chemical weapons. My guess is that the nuke was designed to deliver an EMP, and these are the follow-up weapons now that the Patriots batteries have probably lost their radar systems.’

‘Aimed where? Seoul?’

‘Almost certainly, and we’ve got nothing in the area that can take them out. They could launch all six of these before we could target a cruise missile or prep an air raid.’

‘Fuck,’ Hicks said again. ‘Wait a minute – what about those British Harriers? The ones that were supposed to hit the east coast missile sites. Are they still airborne?’

‘No idea,’ Muldoon said, turning to leave. ‘I’ll go find out. The Hawkeye off the Enterprise was talking to them, I think.’

‘Richard,’ Hicks called to his colleague’s retreating figure, ‘if those aircraft are still in the area, don’t wait for official sanction. Just tell them to get in there and toast the base with whatever weapons they’ve got. We’ll sort out the legalities later.’

Cobra formation, over South Korea

Richter was looking north when the warhead of the third Seersucker cruise missile exploded, but snapped his head around to the left the moment he saw the flash. Even from a distance – and he guessed he was at least thirty miles from the detonation – he knew at once that it wasn’t just the fuel in the HY-2’s tanks exploding.

A confused babble of voices burst onto the radio as the AEW Sea King bagman and the American Hawkeye controller transmitted simultaneously, but Richter ignored them.

He was far enough away that he hoped the EMP wouldn’t have much, if any, effect on his avionics, but he still turned his Harrier away from the blast and opened the throttle to put a few more precious miles between his aircraft and the nuclear explosion. He remembered from his basic NBCD lectures that the intensity of a nuclear blast diminishes more or less with the square of the distance from ground zero, but he had no way of knowing the yield of the weapon, nor how powerful the blast wave was now likely to be.

Then it hit him what seemed like only seconds later.

‘Jesus H,’ Richter muttered, and then his sole concern was to try to stop his aircraft being blown out of the sky. The Harrier slammed sideways and downwards as the blast wave hit it, the wings losing lift immediately as the aircraft stalled, then spun out of control.

Despite the harness, the violent manoeuvre bounced Richter around in the cockpit, his flying helmet crashing into the back of the ejection seat. Buffeted and dazed, he reacted instinctively, removing his feet from the rudder pedals and pushing the control column forward. The spin stopped in less than two turns and, the moment he was sure he’d unstalled the wings, he pulled back to start regaining height.

As he climbed away he looked at his altimeter, realizing he’d lost over eight thousand feet. Then he swiftly checked everything else, but as far as he could tell the Harrier was undamaged.

‘Cobra Leader from Two. You still with me?’

‘Affirmative, just about. Break, break. Viper One, Cobra One.’ Nothing. ‘Viper Two, Cobra One. Radio check.’ Nothing.

‘I don’t think they’re still around,’ Richter said. ‘They were both chasing that cruise missile, and I guess their ‘winders hadn’t reached it when the warhead detonated. At best, their electrics are probably fried.’ He didn’t need to explain the worst-case scenario – that the two Harriers might have been caught within the fireball itself when the weapon detonated.

‘Cobra One, November Alpha. Request sitrep.’

‘Cobra One and Two are still flying but we’ve lost contact with both Vipers. We shot down two of the cruise missiles but the third detonated. It was a small nuclear air burst and it’s possible Vipers were caught in the blast.’

‘Roger. I’ll relay that to Mother. Intentions?’

‘Unless you’ve any better ideas, we’ll RTB.’

USS Enterprise , North Pacific Ocean

‘Flash signal, sir.’

Rodgers thanked the yeoman and scanned the text. Then he stood up and walked across the CIC to the officer who was controlling the E2-C AEW aircraft.

‘Where’s the Hawkeye?’

‘Here, sir.’

‘Right, tell him to call those British aircraft – on Guard if necessary – and pass this message.’ Rodgers took a ballpoint pen from his pocket and rapidly wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper. ‘Then tell him to send the Prowlers and Hornets directly to this position’ – he wrote down the geographical coordinates of the Chiha-ri base – ‘the Prowlers going in first to clear the path. They’re to render whatever assistance the British aircraft need. On my orders, they can engage any target, and respond to any attack against themselves or the Harriers with whatever force they feel is necessary. As from this moment, North Korea is a free-fire zone.’

Rodgers turned away and walked out of the CIC for a quick visit to the officers’ heads. The next few minutes were going to be very interesting, and he didn’t want to miss a moment of it.

Cobra formation, over South Korea

‘Cobra One, Alpha Three on Guard. Do you read?’

‘Loud and clear. Go ahead.’

‘I’ve a message for you from Langley, relayed by Starbase. Understand?’

‘Alpha Three, this is Cobra Two. Understood. Go ahead.’

‘Message reads: “Chiha-ri base at coordinates thirty-eight degrees thirty-eight decimal two five north; one two six degrees forty decimal forty-eight east preparing to launch six times Scud missile with chemical or biological warheads. Can you attack?” Message ends.’

‘That’s about fifty miles north of the DMZ, boss,’ Richter said, ‘and it’s what we came out to do in the first place.’

‘Agreed. And we owe these bastards for Charlie and Roger. Break. Alpha Three from Cobra One, that’s affirmative. Turning starboard now.’

Monday

Chiha-ri missile base, North Korea

The Scud B missile dates from 1962, and is an improved and enhanced version of the type A, itself essentially a scaled-down copy of the German V2. Designed from the first to be fully mobile, the Scud is normally fired from a purpose-designed Transporter-Erector-Launcher, a four-axle, eight-wheel road vehicle that tips the scales at thirty-seven tons when fully loaded. The tactic envisaged for the weapon was that it would be fired, and the TEL itself would then be driven some distance away, reloaded from a trailer carrying additional missiles, and launch a second Scud.