Foxbat (17 page)

Richter was escorted to a conference room located on the top floor of the National
Intelligence Service headquarters in southern Seoul. The white five-storey structure had a square central entrance hall, topped with a dome, but the bulk of the building consisted of two
curving arms of offices that embraced the approach road. As ‘spook central’ buildings go, it was more attractive than most.

‘Mr Richter.’ A short, stocky man stood up from his seat at the end of the long
table and walked towards him, extending his hand. ‘My name is Kang Jang-Ho, and I’m the deputy director of this facility. Bae Chang-Su, the director, will be here shortly.
You’ve had a long flight, I understand. Can I offer you some refreshment?’

Richter shook Kang’s hand. ‘Yes,’ he then replied, realizing that he felt
pretty hungry: even business-class meals on Aeroflot were not too appealing. ‘That would be very welcome.’

‘Coffee and sandwiches – something like that?’ Kang suggested, picked up a
telephone and held a brief conversation.

As he put the instrument down, another man entered the room, taller and slimmer and with a thin
moustache. From the way Kang straightened up, Richter guessed this must be the ‘autocratic’ Bae Chang-Su, as proved the case when the newcomer introduced himself.

They sat down at one end of the long table, equipped with chairs for over a dozen people, Bae
taking his seat at the end.

‘You have some information for us, I understand,’ he began.

Richter nodded and explained what he and Bykov had found out in Russia, and the assumed
destination of the missing MiG-25s. The South Koreans had already known some of it, but the probability that Foxbats had also been stolen from Algeria was news to them.

‘According to General Bykov, at least sixteen have gone missing from
Russian air bases, and we think maybe two from Aïn Oussera in Algeria, totalling a minimum of eighteen. Because of the fragmented state of the military in Russia, and
the possibility that somebody high up in the Defence Ministry is facilitating these thefts, there could be a lot more aircraft unaccounted for. My own guess is that there must now be at least
twenty MiG-25s north of the DMZ.’

Bae didn’t appear surprised by this. ‘What I can’t understand is why the North
Koreans would want these aircraft. All their combat planes are old and no match for ours, so I would expect them to go after more modern fighters.’

At that moment there was a knock on the door, and a young man entered carrying a tray of
refreshments. Richter waited until he’d left the room before responding.

‘According to my source in Moscow, the North Koreans may have picked on the MiG-25 because
it was specifically designed to intercept ICBMs in the terminal stage of their flight. More importantly, the Foxbat is about the only aircraft likely to be left flying after the first nuclear
explosion, because the EMP – the electromagnetic pulse – will fry the electronics of pretty much everything else, either in the air or on the ground.’

‘You’re suggesting the North Koreans intend to launch a nuclear attack?’ Bae
asked tightly.

‘I honestly don’t know,’ Richter replied, ‘but what concerns London is
exactly the point you’ve already made. Why would they choose the MiG-25 unless they had a very good reason? And its survivability after a nuclear exchange is about the only explanation
we’ve come up with. Our main concern is that, even if the West doesn’t resort to nuclear weapons, the North Koreans would, just to eliminate the opposition and give them immediate
control of the skies. They could keep their fighters and bombers secure in hardened shelters, detonate a nuke over the joint South Korean and American forces, then fly these Foxbats to
intercept any missiles the Americans launched. That would soon eliminate most of the opposition on land, and could give them air superiority because the only aircraft left flying would be
North Korean, allowing them to consolidate an advance towards Seoul.’

For a few moments neither Bae nor Kang responded, just stared across the table at each other
as Richter began another sandwich.

‘You don’t paint an attractive picture,’ Bae Chang-Su said eventually,
‘but it may interest you to know that, in our last discussion, Washington outlined a remarkably similar scenario.’

‘So what’s your government doing about it?’

‘I can’t be specific about our military response, because I don’t know
precisely what orders have been given, but you can assume our armed forces have escalated the alert state. The government has already made representations to Pyongyang, and we’ve sought
assistance from the Americans under the terms of Operation Plan 5027. Meanwhile, until our neighbours in the north make some kind of move, that’s about all we can do.’

The sound of an approaching helicopter became audible, and Bae glanced out of the window.
‘Excellent,’ he murmured. ‘Your taxi’s arrived on time, Mr Richter. London asked us to provide you with transportation as far as Kunsan, and I understand your Royal
Navy will be sending an aircraft to meet you there.’

Six minutes later Richter was gazing out through the side window of the Bell helicopter. Kunsan
Air Base lay about a hundred and twenty miles almost due south, and his flight would take a little over an hour.

Only forty-eight hours earlier he’d been climbing into the rear of the Antonov An-72
transport aircraft at Slavgorod North for the flight back to Moscow, and since then he seemed to have spent most of his time either busy on the phone or in the air. As the helicopter lifted
off, he stared at the white shape of the NIS headquarters receding below him, and wondered what the
next
forty-eight hours might
bring.

Seventy-five minutes after lifting off from Naegok-dong, the Bell touched down at Kunsan Air
Base. As the rotors slowed to a stop, the crewman slid the side door open but gestured to Richter to remain in his seat. A refuelling bowser was waiting to one side of the landing pad, and
beyond it Richter could see the familiar shape of a Royal Navy Merlin ASW helicopter ground-taxying slowly towards the Bell he was waiting in.

The crewman gave a thumbs-up, then gestured towards the open door. Richter picked up his two
bags and stepped out onto the discoloured concrete. He moved briskly away from the Bell before stopping beside the marshaller who was waiting for the Merlin, wands crossed below his waist.
The Merlin parked some twenty yards away, its nose dipping as the pilot applied the brakes.

The engines and spinning rotors of the Royal Navy helicopter combined to create a noise that was
deafening. Richter gestured to the marshaller that he was the passenger for this aircraft. The South Korean lifted one of his wands to attract the Merlin’s pilot’s attention and
pointed the other one at Richter, then waved for him to go forward.

Richter ducked involuntarily as he moved under the rotor disk, and headed for the open side
door. The aircrewman gave him a grin as he stepped into the rear compartment, and handed him a passenger helmet, based on that worn by British Army tank drivers. He then gestured to the
instructor’s seat on the mission console. Directly behind the aircrewman’s seat, it lies on the starboard side of the Merlin and faces aft.

The moment Richter secured his seatbelt, he heard the aircrewman
confirming that their passenger was on board. Moments later, the Merlin began moving forwards. This aircraft’s downwash is so powerful that it’s capable of wrecking
any smaller helicopter nearby, so it continued ground-taxying until it was well clear of the Bell.

A minute later, as the helicopter finally reached the taxiway, its engine note rose to a shrill
scream audible even through the muffling effect of the headset. The Merlin lifted straight up into the air, then adopted a nose-down attitude as it began climbing and accelerating, heading
west away from the airfield.

In minutes they were ‘feet-wet’ – over the sea – and established at five
hundred feet and, Richter guessed, travelling at around a hundred and twenty knots, a ground-speed of nearly one hundred and forty miles an hour.

‘How far to Mother?’ Richter asked.

‘About fifty miles,’ responded the pilot, Lieutenant Craig Howe.
‘We’ll be there in around thirty minutes. So you’re Royal Navy, I gather? No civilian would say “Mother”.’

‘Ex,’ Richter confirmed. ‘I used to fly Sea Harriers for the
Queen.’

‘Oh, God, not another fucking stovie,’ Howe muttered.

Richter merely grinned at that, leant back in the seat and closed his eyes.

General Winchester glanced around the Senior Battle Staff Area situated on the lowest level
of the Command Center. Each senior officer sat at a workstation console which provided him or her with access to state-of-the-art data management systems and integrated secure and non-secure
voice communication facilities. Video monitors located at each console displayed mission-critical information that allowed the proper control and management of the command’s missile and
aircraft assets.

Lower-ranking staff officers were working simultaneously in the Support Battle Staff Area on the
upper floor. These terminals differed
from those of the senior staff in displaying more detailed data, rather than the global picture necessary for overall
situation assessment.

The principal system used for storing and processing information is the Automated Command
Control System, which stores data regarding everything from the current and forecast weather to tactical information about force movements and submarine, aircraft and missile status and
availability.

Like the NORAD complex located inside Cheyenne Mountain, the USStratCom Command Center taps into
a number of different surveillance systems designed to detect the launch and subsequent trajectory of both ICBMs and SLBMs.

Data is simultaneously transmitted to USStratCom, NORAD, the NMCC in the Pentagon and the
Alternate National Military Command Center in Pennsylvania. At USStratCom, the data collected is fed into a high-speed computer for processing, and is then displayed on the Command
Center’s eight large wall screens at the same time as it’s shown on video monitors positioned in front of CINCSTRAT, the senior battle staff and the Warning Systems
Controller.

Data on the trajectory and predicted target area undergo a one-minute ‘confidence
rating’ check, and once it’s clear that the missile is real – that is, not resulting from some form of computer-induced glitch or bad data – CINCSTRAT can launch
additional aircraft for national survival and pass on advisory and preparatory information to his strategic assets. The order to retaliate with a strategic nuclear strike has to be issued by
the President himself, to be relayed then by USStratCom. CINCSTRAT alone cannot make that decision.

‘OK, everything looks fine from here.’ General Winchester returned his gaze to his
console, while speaking into his headset microphone. ‘Senior Controller, call the roll.’

For the third time that afternoon, Lieutenant-General Virgil Neuberger moved the trackball and
sent the cursor spinning across the screen. He selected ‘Strategic Assets’, clicked ‘OK’ and began to read the figures into the command group intercom.

‘Submarines, first. We have eleven SSBNs on patrol, with two more preparing to sail within
the next twelve hours – one from Kings Bay, Georgia, the other from Bangor, Washington. All have been passed coordinates
for their targets in North
Korea if this thing does turn to rat-shit. The other five SSBNs are in maintenance or deep refit, and so can’t be deployed within the time available.

‘Land-based missile forces are fully briefed and their alert status has been increased
from ninety minutes’ notice to sixty minutes’ for launch. Of the five hundred Minuteman Three missiles, only twenty-three have been reported as unserviceable. Eighteen of these
have minor software or other faults, which have been assessed as capable of rectification within six hours. Five have major faults, which would take over thirty hours to fix.’

‘That’s not a bad turnout,’ Winchester interrupted. ‘Where are those
missiles with major faults located?’

Neuberger paused for barely a second before replying. ‘One each at F E Warren and Minot,
and three at Malmstrom in Montana. Interestingly,’ he added, ‘the minor faults are similarly spread – three at F E Warren, five at Minot and the other ten at
Malmstrom.’

‘OK, we’ll make a note of that. It sounds like somebody at Malmstrom’s falling
down on the job, so maybe I’ll send a few no-notice inspection teams over to Montana once this party’s over. What about the bombers?’

‘Barksdale is reporting four per cent of their B-52s unserviceable, and Minot has three
per cent out of action. Whiteman reports only one B-2 unserviceable. On Guam, which is probably where our immediate response would originate if the North Koreans do decide to cross the line,
Andersen reports all aircraft serviceable.’

‘So, in summary, we’re in pretty good shape,’ Winchester concluded.
‘Let’s hope we don’t have to take this all the way to the wire.’

It had been, by any standards, an unusual voyage.

The two three-thousand-ton cargo ships – the
Kang San 5
was in company – had sailed from Wonsan over a month earlier. They’d each had their normal complement embarked, but both
were additionally crewed by ten soldiers, all under the command of a
chung-yong
, or
lieutenant-colonel, on the
Kang San 3
. All the military personnel had been armed, and the
ships’ captains had been visited at Wonsan by a senior government official and been instructed to obey their orders without question.

A week before the ships sailed, an armed convoy had appeared at the Wonsan dockyard and a large
crate had been loaded into the forward hold of the
Kang San 3
. The hold had then been locked, and a relay of soldiers posted on guard
outside.

The ships had headed south into the East China Sea, passed east of the island of Taiwan, and
continued south to Legaspi in the Philippines. They’d taken on maximum fuel and off-loaded most of their cargo of cement, embarked several hundred bales of cloth destined for merchants
in Papua New Guinea, and sailed again.

Their next port of call had been Lae, on the east coast of that island. Once the cloth had been
unloaded and they’d again filled their bunkers, the two ships had set off without embarking any fresh cargo. They’d steamed north-east through Micronesia, past the Marshall
Islands and on across the open expanse of the Pacific Ocean to Honolulu. After refuelling, they sailed again, heading east-north-east in the general direction of Los Angeles. They kept well
clear of all the main shipping routes, because that was the way the planners in Pyongyang wanted it.

When they reached a position about fifteen hundred nautical miles north-east of Hawaii, the
captain of the
Kang San 3
was handed a sealed envelope by the
chung-yong
.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, as he read the orders a second time.

‘You don’t have to, captain,’
chung-yong
Lee Kyung-Soon replied. ‘All you have to do is obey. Do you have any questions about your instructions?’

‘No, but—’

Lee shook his head. ‘Then we understand each other. Order your crew to prepare to abandon
ship immediately.’ Through the bridge window he pointed at the
Kang San 5
, a quarter of a mile off the starboard bow, which was
visibly slowing down in preparation to receive the crew of her sister ship. ‘I will join you myself once I’ve completed my final tasks on board.’

As the captain made a broadcast to alert the crew for action, Lee headed down the companionway
from the bridge and made his way to the forward hold. The two soldiers on guard outside saluted him as he approached, and unlocked the watertight steel door. Inside the hold, he headed across
to a wooden crate that was the only thing the cargo space now contained, loosened six turn-buckles that held one of its sides in place, and dropped the panel to the floor.

In the crate was a bulky spherical object trailing wires and cables, with a basic control panel
partially obscuring it, apparently inactive, since none of the lights was illuminated. On the floor of the crate were two large dry-cell batteries, terminals already connected, with a
series-fitted master-switch screwed to the side of the crate.

Lee reached inside and turned the switch. Immediately the control panel sprang to life, lights
illuminating and dials registering. He checked the instrumentation against a printed list clipped below the panel, then began running through a series of actions to ensure that all the
circuits were fully functional.

Satisfied that the instrumentation was registering correctly, he moved to the second and final
phase of his task. He turned his attention to a small alphanumeric keyboard located directly below a ten-inch TFT panel and fed in a six-digit code that he’d been instructed to memorize
at his last briefing in Pyongyang. The panel lit up and a menu appeared that Lee methodically worked his way down.

The penultimate item on the list was a communication check, and Lee simply selected
‘radio’ and checked that the built-in receiver was getting a signal from the
Kang San 5
, where the lieutenant had been
instructed to broadcast music on a specific frequency. The tiny speaker immediately began emitting sounds definitely not to Lee’s taste, but that didn’t matter.

He keyed the frequency he’d been instructed to use, and checked twice to ensure that
he’d got it right. That done, he made a final visual check of the entire apparatus before he turned away and walked out.

On deck, he opened his briefcase and extracted a satellite telephone and GPS receiver. He noted
the position the GPS was recording, then made a thirty-second telephone call, before making his way towards the waiting lifeboat.

Forty minutes later, the
Kang San 5
began a slow turn to the west, towards the distant Midway Islands, and began picking up speed, leaving her deserted sister ship now dead and silent, wallowing in the long swell.

The flight deck of the
Illustrious
was a scene of noisy, but clearly organized, chaos. Without ear defenders, the roar of jet engines was deafening, and Richter’s nostrils immediately filled with the unmistakable smell
of burning kerosene. Two Sea Harriers were waiting at the aft end of the deck, their Pegasus engines running, and both still with telebrief lines connected, so Richter guessed their pilots
were getting last-minute instructions from the Operations Room. On the deck in front of them, the Merlin that had served as his personal taxi was shutting down, rotors folding into the fully
aft position preparatory to the helicopter being towed over to the starboard side of the deck, close to the island, to clear the carrier’s runway for the Harriers. Meanwhile, right
forward, on zero spot just to the right of the ramp, another Merlin was waiting to lift off.

Waiting for him at the bulkhead door in the island – the steel structure containing the
bridge, Flyco and other offices on the starboard side of the deck – was a lieutenant wearing 3J rig, a dark blue ‘woolly-pully’ over a white shirt. He led Richter up to
Flyco, on the port side rear of the bridge. In fact, Richter knew the way blindfolded, as he’d spent around four years at sea on all three of the CVS carriers when he was a squadron
pilot, and on numerous occasions had been required to report to either Commander (Air) or Lieutenant Commander (Flying) and, during Sea Harrier operations, both officers were to be found in
Flyco.

‘Mr Richter, sir,’ the lieutenant announced, and a bulky man with a heavy beard,
sitting in the right-hand chair, swung round, the three rings on his shoulder epaulettes glinting in the sun. In front of him, the ship’s Lieutenant Commander (Flying) was sitting in
another black swivel chair, controlling flight-deck operations.

‘Welcome back, Spook,’ said Roger Black. ‘I wondered if the “Mr
Richter” we had been asked to collect from Kunsan would turn out to be you.’

Richter smiled and extended his hand. ‘Congratulations on your promotion, Blackie.’
When he’d last seen Black – during a spot of continuation training in the eastern Med that had turned into rather more than the routine two weeks – he’d been
Lieutenant Commander (Flying) on board the
Invincible
.

‘So what kind of trouble are we in this time?’ Black asked. ‘Whenever
you’re around, uncivilized things seem to happen. There were a few bodies lying about on Crete after you left the island, I understand.’

‘They weren’t
all
my
fault, Blackie, and this time
none
of it’s my fault.’

‘It seems you know this gentleman?’ a voice interrupted. Black stood up and Richter
turned round to face the captain, a tall, slim, fair-haired man with thin lips and a nose that even an ancient Roman might have considered excessively aquiline.

‘Yes, sir, we met on board the
Invincible
when I was Little F.’

‘Welcome aboard, Mr Richter. I’m Alexander Davidson.’ The captain extended his
hand. ‘I gather you’ve some information for us about what’s going on north of the border.’

Richter nodded, with a glance round Flyco before replying. As well as the three senior officers,
a naval airman was sitting waiting to execute Little F’s instructions and control the deck lights, and just beyond Flyco, on the left-hand side of the bridge wing, a lookout was
standing with binoculars hung around his neck. From past experience Richter knew that rumours spread on warships at almost the speed of light, and what he had to tell the captain now probably
shouldn’t be allowed too wide a distribution.

‘Could we perhaps adjourn to the Bridge Mess, Captain?’

Davidson raised his eyebrows slightly, but nodded. He walked back onto the bridge to inform the
Officer of the Watch where he’d be, then returned to Flyco and led the way down one deck. Richter and Black followed him into the Mess and the commander slid the door closed.

‘Well, Mr Richter?’

‘I probably don’t know a great deal more than you do because I’ve spent most
of the last two days in the air.’

‘Where were you two days ago?’ Black asked.

‘Pretty much in the middle of Russia at a place called Slavgorod North. I was with a GRU
general trying to find out who’d stolen about half a squadron of MiG-25 Foxbat interceptors from the Russian Air Force.’

‘And did you?’

‘I think so, yes. We believe Pyongyang coordinated the thefts and that the aircraft are
now somewhere in North Korea, probably sitting in hardened shelters close to the DMZ. We also think a theft of around fifty AA-6 Acrid air-to-air missiles from a depot in Dobric, Bulgaria,
was orchestrated by the same people. Bolt the Acrids to the under-wing pylons of the Foxbats and you’ve got a very potent weapon system.’

‘Agreed,’ Black observed, ‘but even if the North Koreans have, what, twenty
Foxbats loaded for bear, as the Americans would say, that’s still only a tiny number of aircraft in relation to their known air assets. I don’t see why the Foxbats would pose too
much of a threat, simply because of the aircraft the South Koreans can operate. So why are you here, and why is everyone so worked up about this business?’

‘I’m here,’ Richter said, ‘because this is where my boss wants me to be,
and I don’t have too much say in the matter. But the worry shared by SIS and the Americans is that possession of those Foxbats might encourage the North Koreans to escalate this into a
nuclear conflict. And the reason we think that is simple – EMP, electromagnetic pulse.’

Briefly, he explained the design of the MiG-25. Then Davidson asked him almost exactly the same
question as Bae Chang-Su had done in Seoul, and Richter gave him virtually the same answer.

‘Are you seriously suggesting the North Koreans will use nuclear weapons?’

‘I really don’t know, but it’s difficult to come up with any other valid
reason for them stealing the Foxbats. The aircraft is old – even obsolete – but it’s the only interceptor in the Korean Peninsula that could survive the EMP after a nuclear
detonation, and still function. And that’s what’s worrying both London and Washington.’