Dmz this is the future o.., p.26
DMZ: This is the Future of War (Future War Book 7), page 26
“I demand to negotiate with the attackers!” Shin demanded. “I can’t believe they want me dead. I would be much more valuable alive.”
Ri could no longer contain his ire. He stepped forward, grabbed the man by the arm and shoved him roughly toward the door, then propelled him down the corridor with a hand in his back. “You may not believe anyone would want to kill you, Mr. President, but I can.”
As he reached the room at the end of the corridor he pushed the man inside … and then stopped. A sickly sweet smell permeated the air; like the odor of a marker pen?
“Gas!” he yelled. “They are flooding the basement with gas!” A sick feeling rose in his gut, and not because of the smell, but because of a remembered conversation with the South Korean, Goh, during scenario planning. “Should we take NBC suits?” Ri had asked. “In case of a chemical attack?”
Goh had scoffed. “We are going to be at the Peace Dam site for less than an hour, total. The only people who know about the site at this point are in this room. You seriously think anyone could plan or deliver a nuclear, biological or chemical warfare attack on that site in the tiny window of time we will give them?”
Ri had stiffened, taking offense at the man’s tone, but staying polite. “For the protectees then. One suit each. I insist.”
Goh had waved a hand at him and looked away, as though the conversation was tedious. “For the protectees. If you insist. But US-made MOPP suits, not Russian, Chinese and definitely not North Korean.”
The insult had been only one of many, with Ri and Yun counting small victories when they won them. The suits for the protectees had been stored in … where? In the …
Ri recognized his brain was beginning to fog. Toxic nerve gas? Wouldn’t nerve gas work differently? Quicker? He leaned against the door into the TV studio room and saw shocked faces looking back at him. What was he doing again?
MOPP suits. Yes. Box under the desk. He zombie-walked to the desk and pulled out the box, lifted out one of the heavy MOPP suits and dumped it on the desk. “This, put it…”
The South Korean President moved first, grabbing the suit off the table, tearing the suit’s plastic bag open and pulling it out. Ri tried pulling the second suit out but another soldier was beside him and took it from him, handing it to Madam Kim.
He suddenly realized he was lying on the cool floor, watching as she removed her jacket and shoes and stepped into the suit, awkwardly trying to pull it up over her waist, the soldier beside her too afraid to touch her to help. An overwhelming sadness filled him. He had failed again. A list of failures. A litany. A flood.
He felt a gray wave wash over him and then recede. If this was death, he deserved it. No, he welcomed it.
Goh looked at his watch and then at his entry team, in cover, well back from the steel door. They had already placed explosive on the door and were ready to breach. Propofol gas was not flammable – they’d tested that as well.
Goh checked comms one last time, checked his watch and then gave the ‘go’ signal. He turned his back. There was a sharp report and then shouting as the breach team moved to the door, ready to ram it open if needed, but it had blown into the stairwell and they were already moving down. There was no return fire coming at them from the doorway below; the door was still locked, and a second shaped charge was placed on it. The team retreated to the top of the stairs and Goh turned his back again as the second charge blew.
More shouting, the breach team barreling down the stairs, flash bang grenades now, thrown around the corner into the corridor beyond. Each man had memorized exactly the layout of the basement and as they stepped inside, each had a dedicated role to perform.
Goh waited upstairs. He heard the cough of a suppressed weapon at least once, a report of a target down, which made him frown. They were not out to slaughter the defenders wholesale. He wanted the protectees alive, and that meant the less shooting the better. Then he started hearing the reports he was waiting to hear, as his team declared room after room quickly ‘clear’.
“Captain Goh, Entry Team leader, basement is secure. Protectees are in our care.”
In our care. They’d agreed on that phrase, in case the record of the operation was ever reviewed. Goh wanted his every word and action to indicate that his only intention, throughout every moment of the day’s action, had been to secure the safety of his President.
With ill-concealed alacrity, he took the stairs down two at a time and entered the basement. One dead North Korean agent at the bottom of the stairwell. Another in a doorway. Several more in side rooms, unconscious or dazed, being rolled onto their sides so they didn’t choke, while they were disarmed and their hands and legs were plasticuffed.
He walked quickly toward the makeshift TV studio.
The stubborn fool, Ri, was lying under a desk. Dismissively, Goh rolled him onto his side with the toe of his boot so that the man wouldn’t choke on his own tongue. One of Goh’s men ripped the hood off a MOPP-suited figure and the room filled with the smell of vomit.
“Medic! He’s choking!” his man called out urgently and a medic came from behind Goh and started clearing the airway of the MOPP-suited South Korean President. Goh had half a mind to order him to let the man suffocate on his own vomit, but as tempting as that might be, his orders were to secure the South Korean President for trial later. For treason. Every political assassination needed a patsy, especially when it was a Peace Agreement that was being killed off.
The second MOPP-suited figure was slumped on the desk, hand around a pistol. He raised his eyebrows. So, Madam Kim had planned to go out fighting? Once again, his North Korean cousins impressed him.
Her head covering was torn off and the only smell this time was perfume and cigarettes.
“Remove it completely,” he said.
He was not surprised the MOPP suits had not protected their wearers. After all, he had ensured their air filters were disabled.
When she was freed of the suit and laid on the floor, she looked like someone recently deceased being prepared for burial. Her skin was pale, her breathing shallow.
Goh knelt beside her, searching her pockets, and then found what he was looking for. The small thumb-drive-sized device that would send the nuclear launch order and authorization codes.
Turning it on, he wet her thumb by wiping it across her lip and applied it to the DNA reader on the base of the device. The display window beeped to life, ready for her to input her pass-phrase by voice. But the pass-phrase was held in only one place. In the head of the woman on the floor.
Goh weighed the small device in the palm of his hand. So tiny, so powerful and, right now, so useless. But it would not remain so.
Gesturing to a man hovering in the doorway to come forward, he held up the launch trigger. The laptop in the man’s hand contained the software ‘back door’ their North Korean co-conspirators had provided to them to unlock the launch codes. The man took the device and connected it to his computer then ran the back door code which inserted a new passphrase. With a disappointingly anonymous beep, the code finished running. Satisfied, the man handed the laptop to Goh.
Leaving the device connected to the laptop, Goh opened a communication link. Who or what was at the other end of the link, he had no idea, and did not need to know. He hit a key to upload the launch codes. Sequence uplinked, the communication app reported.
Now he had only to radio his collaborators in the North and arrange an evacuation. A magnificent calm descended over Goh.
He had accomplished his mission! All other objectives today were secondary. Securing the two protectees and the nuclear button device, extracting himself and his men, loading the dead, wounded or hogtied combatants into helicopter transports for removal to the North, even the very question of whether he lived or died … none of these mattered now.
He had played his part in restoring sanity and order to the world and if he died today, he would happily take that thought to the grave.
Captain Se-heon Dokgo, Korean People’s Navy Submarine Force, had also woken the previous night, prepared for the coming day to be his last.
And it had nearly ended before it had even begun. Ringed by the sonar from hostile ships and aircraft, he had sent his Gorae spiraling toward the bottom of the Yellow Sea.
Not a man in the command center had said a word, even as the hull creaked and they approached their do-not-exceed depth. But they were a magnificent bloody crew, and the Gorae was a magnificent bloody boat. Had they not just proven it, slipping out from under the sonar net the enemy had thrown over their heads?
They were still searching, he could hear that. Both north and northeast of him. Which made Se-heon smile, because he had shown why his Fatherland trusted him with its most potent weapon, not trying to head away from the last known position of the American ship’s sonar, but toward it.
The Americans would never expect such a bold move, especially from a rule-bound North Korean strategic submarine Captain whose primary duty was usually to preserve the strike capability of his submarine and avoid unnecessary risk at all costs.
Usually. But not today.
The second communication window was about to open and he was about to take the second big risk of this patrol, bringing his boat to communication depth again. He gave the orders.
“Communication depth. On course two-zero-zero, speed ahead slow. Sonar plot unchanged, no new contacts,” Dokgo’s XO announced a short time later.
“Ahead slow. Raise satellite antenna,” Se-heon ordered.
The Gorae did not have the ability to communicate with shore by launching a buoy on a tether from safer depths. It had to get its antenna to within twenty feet of the surface, which was in any case their launch depth, so receiving an order and being in position to launch went hand in hand.
He watched the face of his comms officer as the man opened a channel. Not to Fleet Command, but to the dedicated frequency they had been given for this patrol only.
The man’s face changed instantly. He placed a hand against the bulkhead to steady himself. “Comrade Captain! Data package received, sending to your console.” He turned, shock on his face and pupils wide. “We have launch authorization!”
Dokgo’s heart raced, but he tried to show outward calm. Turning to his console he read the message.
>Attack order is confirmed. Run sequence to arm warheads.
A simple key combination on his console interrogated the code that had just been downloaded. If a nuclear attack had been authorized, the code would arm the warheads. If not, he would still carry out the attack as ordered, but the nuclear warheads would not arm and the missiles would only deliver kinetic energy toward the destruction of the target.
>Code valid. Nuclear launch authorized. Target coordinates follow. Confirm target Y/N.
Dokgo read the longitude and latitude and compared them to his mission orders. Sangeo Shoal.
Trying to steady his hand so the crew would not see it shaking, he hit a single key. “Y.”
>Target confirmed. Missiles armed, prelaunch initiated.
Above their heads, a metallic rumble and the sound of rushing water suddenly filled the silence of the control room. Their two nuclear ballistic missiles were stored upright in the conning tower or ‘sail’ of the Gorae, and right now the launch tube covers were opening to admit seawater for pressurization. Gripping his console in both hands, Dokgo looked straight ahead. “Officer of the deck, dive to missile launch depth, prepare to hover. Call to battle stations … missile.” He took a deep breath. “This is not a drill.”
Protocol demanded his executive officer repeat the launch readiness order. He did so without hesitation. Supreme Leader Kim would have expected nothing less.
“Sonar on the Sea Hunter reports transient noises!” one of the Cody’s watch officers reported to Lomax. “Contact. Bearing 350 degrees, range nine. Designating Sierra two.”
“Order Sea Hunter to active sonar search,” Lomax said. Nine miles out. That contact from before had not run away from them, it had run toward them? They had landed and reloaded their Defiant helo and it was currently part of the search effort nearly twenty miles north. “Report the contact to Bougainville. Order air ops to bring our Defiant back, lock that contact and prepare to drop on it,” he said.
“Missile launch!” the watch officer called out. “Position Sierra two Multiples! Sonar classification … ballistic. Radar confirms. Ballistic missile launches, tracking west-southwest.”
Mother. Of. God.
“Captain, comms, flash message to Bougainville. Ballistic missile launch detected. Send them the radar data.” Lomax stepped forward, looking ahead of the Cody. Rising from the sea nine miles away he saw two white contrails. They appeared to rise almost vertically, then began extending toward him, thousands of feet overhead. In a moment they had risen out of view.
Cody could find and try to kill the boat that had fired them, but about the missiles he could do nothing except watch their thick contrails dissipate in the breeze.
Seconds had flashed past, and still Keys Ban was alive. He’d pushed his machine down until its belly was scraping the water of the narrow river. Flown under the curtain of flak, fragments of white hot metal peppering his canopy and fuselage.
Last and sharpest turn. Five more seconds, Keys. He flicked a switch on his flight stick to arm his 5,000 lb. GBU-28 ‘bunker buster’ bomb. There was no time to lase the target to help aim the bomb, he had to toss it in GPS-guided mode and let it aim itself at the entrance to the bunker.
The last three times Keys had flown the simulation of this attack, he’d gotten only one strike on target, and that had been the best result in the entire South Korea AF 11th fighter wing. But his best simulation run had been his last, so Keys figured he had momentum on his side, right?
Now. Rounding the last bend in the river before the facility, he chopped his throttle back, rolled his machine onto a wingtip, hauled it into a tight left-hand turn and then rolled level before pointing his nose 20 degrees into the sky and hitting the bomb release trigger.
His speed bled away, the bomb coming off the hardpoint on his centerline and curving down toward the bunker entrance.
Keys couldn’t see if it was on target, he was already slamming his throttle forward again, trying to drop his nose and gain airspeed when…
…when the curtain of flak caught him and violently shredded Keys Ban and the photograph on his instrument panel into a thousand tumbling pieces.
The 5,000 lb. GBU-28 bunker buster didn’t need Keys Ban to stay alive for it to steer on its target. Locked onto the GPS coordinates for the bunker entrance, released by Keys from the right approach angle and altitude, the heavy bomb lobbed into the air and fell right into the mouth of the 40-foot-wide entrance to the nuclear bunker. Its hard-target-penetrating warhead smashed through the heavy concrete and iron thermobaric blast-proof doors and buried itself twenty feet under the rock and earth inside the entrance to the bunker, right between the rail tracks that were used to move the heavy weapons in and out of the bunker.
Then it detonated.
To those working inside and around the bunker, it felt like one of their nuclear weapons had accidentally detonated. The ground shook for several seconds – first with the force of the explosion, and then with the violence of the tunnel collapse that followed. Inside five minutes, the main entrance to North Korea’s nuclear storage facility had been sealed behind a hundred feet of fallen rock, leaving the smaller emergency personnel exit to the south as the only way in or out of the facility.
The North Korean Sub-Launched Ballistic Missiles headed for Sangeo Shoal were armed with two nuclear weapons, and utilized Russian-designed multiple re-entry vehicle warheads to defeat anti-missile systems.
As they began curving down from the edge of the stratosphere they aimed themselves at the center of the island below, not much larger than a city block, with a small port at which the task force had moored.
It was no longer there.
USS Bougainville with its 65 officers and 994 enlisted sailors had been the last to leave as it had been launching aircraft on their anti-submarine mission against the Gorae. It was currently ten miles south-southwest of the small island. The other ships in the task force – the South Korean amphibious assault ship ROKS Marado, and US expeditionary fast transport (EPF) ship the USS Point Loma – had already moved out to sea and were maneuvering into position around the Bougainville for the passage south.
The only ship still moored at Sangeo Shoal was North Korea’s newest and most advanced warship, the low-profile stealth corvette, KPN Nampo. Interred at the outbreak of hostilities by their soon-to-be US and South Korean ‘allies’, its indignant officers had been returned to their ship just before Bougainville had weighed anchor. Their priority on getting back aboard their ship had been to get a better idea of the military-political situation across the DMZ, and clear orders about how they were expected to respond. Only now were they preparing to get their ship underway. Aboard the Nampo were 12 officers and 80 crew.
Although warned of the incoming missiles by Cody, and though Bougainville picked them up almost immediately on radar, none of the ships in the task force had high-altitude missile interception capabilities. Having calculated that the target of the attack was Sangeo Shoal, where the North Korean ship was still moored, all they could do was warn the Nampo and wait for the missiles to get within interception range of their medium- and short-range anti-air defenses.
By which time the North Korean missiles would be traveling at nearly 20 times the speed of sound.
As they arrowed down toward Sangeo Shoal, the two missiles deliberately broke apart, each separating into four separate warheads. The release of the multiple re-entry vehicles caused one of the missiles to become unstable and it scattered its re-entry vehicles wildly. They continued toward the earth, but would strike nowhere near their target. The other four released smoothly and held their pattern. Three were dummy kinetic warheads, only one was nuclear.
