Foxbat (28 page)

‘November Alpha, Cobra Leader. We’re heading back to Mother and leaving the
tactical frequency for our discrete. We’ll listen out on Guard.’

‘Cobra Leader, roger.’

‘Cobras and Vipers, stud six, go.’

In a few seconds, all four pilots had checked in on their private frequency.

‘Cobra Two from Leader. You
are
sure about this? We’re going to look like a bunch of real wimps if you’re wrong.’

‘I’m sure,’ Richter said, with a confidence that was only slightly
forced. ‘Nothing else makes sense, as far as I can see. We’ll check out the satellite imagery when we get back, but I’m betting there’ll be no sign of
fuel going into those No-dongs. They were just bait.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘Where are they now?’ Rodgers asked, as he walked back into the CIC. ‘Here,
sir. Just passing to the east of the DMZ. They’re now at high level, around thirty-five thousand feet and doing about three hundred and fifty miles an hour. It looks like they’re
just going home.’

‘Right. Where are the Prowlers and Hornets?’

The operator pointed out two sets of contacts, established in holding patterns well outside
North Korean radar coverage. ‘Do you want them recalled, sir?’

‘No, keep them out there. This isn’t over yet.’

With no small degree of satisfaction, the commanding officer looked around the missile
preparation area inside the tunnelled-out shelter. The three HY-2 cruise missiles, mounted on trailers that also held the firing control panels, were almost ready. Technicians swarmed over
them making last-minute checks, but all the flight and avionics systems – and, most important of all, the payload – had checked out and he was certain there’d be no delays
when the order to launch them was given.

And behind the three HY-2s were six Scud type B missiles, each topped by a warhead containing
fifty frangible bomblets full of sarin gas. The cluster was designed to be released some two thousand feet above the ground, ensuring that the nerve gas – lethal in doses as low as one
milligram for an average adult – would be dispersed over a reasonably wide area. Predicting the likely death toll had been no better than a guess because of the huge number of variables
in the equation,
but Pyongyang was hoping for between five hundred thousand and one million casualties.

So it would fall to the dedicated team at Chiha-ri to strike not only the first blow against
the capitalist lackeys in Seoul and their treacherous American friends, but also the second. For the commanding officer, it was more than just an honour: it was the culmination of his
life’s ambition.

Kim Yong-Su had one task left to perform, for his own protection. He started the tape
recorder running, then lifted the receiver of the red telephone and waited for the soft voice he knew so well.

‘Yes, Kim?’

‘Everything is ready. The commanding officer at Chiha-ri has assured me that the cruise
missiles are prepared. Pak Je-San’s Foxbat interceptors are fully fuelled and armed, and are waiting for take-off instructions. This is the last point at which we can stop “Golden
Dawn”. Do you still wish to proceed?’

The ‘Dear Leader’ hesitated for no more than a few seconds. ‘Yes,’ he
said. ‘You may issue the final orders.’

‘Very well.’

But before he used his other telephone to make the calls that would order the assault to begin,
Kim Yong-Su removed the cassette tape from the recorder, labelled it and then stored it away in his personal safe. Only then did he consult the paper in front of him and dial the first of the
numbers on the list.

Pak Je-San put down the telephone with a certain sense of relief. Save for the failure of
either the Americans or South Koreans to attack the dummy missiles prepared at the east coast bases, his plan had worked exactly as anticipated. So now it was time for the final
act.

He made three short telephone calls to the airfields at Kuupri, Nuchonri and Wonsan in turn,
then picked up the microphone and broadcast the order he’d been longing to give for the last six months.

Then he walked across to his office window and stared out. He couldn’t see into the
tunnelled-out shelters, but already he could hear the rumble as their armoured doors began to slide open, and a couple of minutes later the first of the Foxbats emerged, towed by a tractor.
Ten minutes later, the last of the aircraft was pulled onto the hardstanding, and five minutes after that the first MiG-25 roared down the runway and into the air.

And now all Pak Je-San could do was wait.

‘Cobra Lead, November Alpha on Guard. Request you chop back to tactical.’

‘Roger. Cobras, Vipers, stud four, go.’

As soon as all four aircraft had checked in, the AEW Sea King radar operator passed a hostile
contact report that was remarkably similar to his previous broadcast issued when the four Harriers had been approaching their targets on the east coast of the peninsula. He had detected
multiple contacts taking off from North Korean airfields. The difference this time was that only four air bases were involved, and all the aircraft were climbing to high level.

In all, the bagman reported that he was holding twenty-one contacts on his radar screen. What he
didn’t yet know was what those aircraft were intending to do.

Lieutenant Gennadi Malakov levelled his Foxbat at just under thirty-two thousand feet and
glanced to his right and slightly behind. His wingman was holding position about two hundred metres away, exactly where he expected him to be.

Malakov was a recruit from the Russian Air Force, lured to North Korea by the promise of
financial independence, though the chance to shoot down one – or, better still, several – American aircraft had encouraged his decision to become a mercenary.

He couldn’t see the rest of the formation under his command but he
knew they’d be behind and above him. The pilots had been briefed to fly as three groups of seven aircraft, separated by about one thousand feet of altitude, but until the
attack order came all twenty-one MiG-25s would operate as a single entity.

When in service with the Russian National Air Defence Force, the MiG-25 functioned as a
‘manned missile’. The interceptor was fitted with Vozdookh and Lazur radio equipment, and these were integrated with the MiG-25’s Polyot inertial navigation system. The
combined package allowed ground controllers to vector the aircraft to a target or patrol area automatically. Only when about to carry out the interception did the pilot switch on the massive
RP-25M Saphir radar – second only to the MiG-31’s Zaslon in terms of output power, and known in the West as Fox Fire.

In North Korean service, the same philosophy was followed but, lacking the appropriate
ground-based equipment, positive control had to be exercised by the radar stations using radio commands.

‘Zero Six formation, Chunghwa. Make your heading zero one zero, speed six hundred
kilometres an hour.’ The voice of the controller was clipped and precise.

‘Zero Six.’

The entire formation turned onto a northerly heading and reduced speed to conserve fuel. The
course they were following would take them almost as far north as the border with China before they made the turn towards the DMZ, but this was quite deliberate. Pyongyang had specially
instructed that the Foxbats were to remain over North Korea, and well north of the DMZ, until after the first attack had been launched. This was simply to ensure that the MiG-25s would be
well clear of the blast radius when the three nuclear devices exploded.

‘Captain, sir, JTIDS is showing multiple launches from four North Korean airfields.
Twenty . . . no, twenty-one contacts presently all heading north. This could be a first wave of bombers forming up to head across the DMZ.’

But in seconds the speed and rate of climb now being detected made it clear that the aircraft
had to be fighters.

‘Heading north makes no sense, so once they get high enough they’ll turn south.
Where are the British aircraft?’

‘Here, sir, over South Korea, due east of Ch’orwon. But won’t the Brits spot
them on their radar?’

‘No, mister, they won’t, because some fuck-wit decided the new Harrier would work
better without a radar. That means they’re blind up there. OK, contact the Hawkeye,’ Rodgers ordered. ‘Tell him to pull the Hornets out of their holding pattern and aim them
towards – wait one – aim them at Kangnung. Keep them clear of territorial waters until we know for sure the gooks are intending to cross the DMZ. Get the Prowlers moving in that
direction as well. And tell the Hawkeye to call the Harriers on Guard. Somebody needs to let them know what’s going on.’

Although he’d been expecting it, the sudden clatter of the teleprinter still took the
commanding officer by surprise, and he hurried across his office to read the printed characters.
At last
. The telephone on his desk
rang and he picked up the receiver. The caller didn’t identify himself, but there was no need.

‘You have received the order?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Implement it immediately.’

The CO left the office, almost running down the stairs, and crossed into the missile preparation
area. There, as he shouted orders, engines were started on three small but powerful tractors, and the HY-2 cruise missile trailers were towed out of the shelter to their pre-prepared
positions. Once in place, the trailers were jacked up, using the tractors’ hydraulic systems, to form rigid platforms for the impending launch. Then the towing vehicles were unhitched
and driven off.

The technicians were already waiting, and they plugged the power lines into shielded sockets
next to the firing positions. The target
coordinates had already been entered, so all that remained was to undertake a comprehensive systems check before the launch
itself. This took under five minutes per missile and, less than ten minutes after they’d been towed out of the shelter, all three HY-2s were ready to fire.

The technical crews cleared the pad and retreated to launch control – a concrete bunker
some one hundred metres distant – to carry out final communication checks with the cruise missiles. And then everything was ready.

The commanding officer glanced round the bunker, nodded his approval, and then uttered the
single word: ‘Launch.’

On the concrete pads, the liquid-fuelled engines ignited almost simultaneously and, with a roar
that seemed to shake the bunker, the three missiles leapt into the air, their paths diverging immediately.

‘Zero Six, Chunghwa. All missiles have been fired. Detonation in approximately six
minutes. Stand by to turn onto south.’

‘Zero Six.’

The North Korean plan was simple enough. The three HY-2s each carried a nuclear warhead, but
the weapons weren’t aimed at any strategic targets to the south of the DMZ. Instead, each cruise missile had been programmed to fly across the Demilitarized Zone at low level, thus
avoiding engagement, and perhaps even detection, by the Patriot batteries. Once well inside South Korea, the missiles would climb to high level where the warheads would detonate, hopefully
simultaneously.

Their separation would ensure that the electromagnetic pulse the explosions generated would
blanket the entire width of the Korean Peninsula along a line running east–west directly through Seoul. That, they hoped, would destroy every computer, radio, radar, communication
system, and anything else that contained a memory chip or printed circuit, throughout the northern half of South Korea. Due to the fall-out, the explosions would probably also kill a large
number of people, as might the blast itself, depending upon the altitude and yield of the devices, though nobody in Pyongyang cared about that.

But the North Koreans had a problem. In fact, they had two problems. The first was that cruise
missiles are designed to fly horizontally at low level and fairly fast, which was ideal for avoiding the Patriot batteries, but the optimum detonation point for an EMP weapon is as high as
possible. It’s been estimated that a high-yield device detonated over central North America at an altitude of about two hundred and fifty miles could affect every electrical circuit in
the continental United States. Yet the maximum height Pyongyang had calculated the HY-2 could reach with its heavy warhead was only about twenty thousand feet.

The second difficulty was the yield. The power of the EMP is proportional to the prompt
gamma-ray output, and in a fission explosion this equates to under four per cent of the total power of the device. This is substantially reduced by the high explosive used to initiate the
detonation sequence, which can absorb as much as eighty-five per cent of the prompt gamma-rays. So for a ten-kiloton device – about the maximum power the scientists at Yongbyon had
calculated their weapons would produce – the overall power of the EMP would be well below one per cent of the total yield. But that, they hoped, would still be enough.

The Foxbats were the insurance policy. They would hold north of the DMZ ready to take out any
aircraft that the Americans or the South Koreans managed to launch. Then, with the American Patriot batteries blinded, their radars burnt out, and the CFC emasculated, the third stage of Pak
Je-San’s plan would begin.

‘Missile launch! Right two o’clock range about twenty miles. Two . . . no, three
weapons.’ Roger Whittard’s voice was loud and excited.

‘My RAW’s not picking anything up,’ the Senior Pilot said, ‘but I see
them too.’

‘They’re not SAMs,’ Richter said. ‘They’re cruise missiles. This
looks like the opening salvo of North Korea’s invasion plan. The Patriots won’t be able to stop them, but maybe we can. Vipers, you take the one tracking south-west, which looks
like it’s heading towards Seoul – and we’ll handle the other pair. I’ll hit the easterly one, OK, Splot?’

‘Roger that.’

Richter hauled his Harrier round in a tight descending port turn and pointed the nose almost
straight down. Although the HY-2, like most cruise missiles, is subsonic, he knew he had a very limited window of opportunity to engage it. The missile was probably faster than his aircraft,
so he had to plan the intercept carefully, and bring his Harrier in right behind it so that the Sidewinder could lock on. Once he’d released the missile, the ‘winder would
certainly catch it: the weapon has a maximum speed of Mach 2.5.

The altimeter was unwinding at an alarming rate, the ground rushing towards him, but Richter
wasn’t looking at his instruments, or even the HUD. His whole attention was focused on the scene out of the right-hand side of his cockpit, where a tiny grey dart, trailing a plume of
smoke, was heading south-east at close to the speed of sound and very low. It looked to Richter as if it was less than five hundred feet above the ground, which wasn’t going to help him
any.

Intercepting it would be difficult, he knew. That was one worry. The other was the Patriot
batteries that studded the southern side of the DMZ. His Harrier was wearing a squawk issued by air traffic control at Seoul, but he couldn’t remember if the PAC-3 radar incorporated
SSR identification. If it didn’t, his aircraft might be interpreted as an incoming ballistic missile, and it would really piss him off if he himself got shot down by the American or
South Korean forces.

‘British aircraft over South Korea, this is Hawkeye callsign Alpha Three on Guard, do you
read?’

‘Alpha Three, Cobra Two, you’re loud and clear, but we’re a little busy right
now.’

‘You’re likely to get a lot busier, buddy. There are twenty-one interceptors heading
straight for you out of bandit country. We estimate they’ll be all over you in around ten minutes.’

‘Thanks . . . I think,’ Richter said. ‘Keep us posted, please, Alpha Three.
We’re chasing three cruise missiles right now.’

He risked a quick glance at the HUD. His Harrier was passing ten thousand feet in a
near-vertical dive. The Seersucker was in his two o’clock position at about three miles. It was time he stopped descent and turned to intercept. He was going to have to turn left,
allowing the missile
to fly underneath him, if he was to stand any chance of getting into a firing position. And the problem was that, as soon as he turned, he’d
lose sight of the missile. It really was a one-shot option.

Richter checked the position and speed of the HY-2, then his altitude, trying to do the
calculations in his head. Seven thousand feet. Six. Five and a half. He took one more glance at his target, another at the rocky terrain directly below him, then pushed the control column
over to the left and eased it back slightly. The g-force pinned him into the seat as the Harrier turned hard to port, its rate of descent slowing rapidly.

He pulled the GR9 level at two thousand feet, heading south-east, and looked all around him.
There was no sign of the cruise missile, but it had to be somewhere close by. He daren’t turn, because that would bleed off so much speed he’d never then catch it, and he
couldn’t slow down for exactly the same reason. He just had to hope that his turn had been accurate enough.

Then he saw it. Around a thousand feet below, passing on his left-hand side about a mile away
– and travelling much faster than Richter expected. He turned his Harrier gently to port, aiming for an intercept course, made sure the throttle was fully open, and pushed the control
column slightly forward.

He selected the Sidewinder on his port wing and immediately checked that the broken circle
appeared in his HUD. The HY-2 was on his left, in the eleven o’clock position, on a more or less constant bearing, so he knew his heading was good.

Without radar, he had to estimate the target’s range by eye alone, but he reckoned that he
was about half a mile behind it. And already he could hear the growl of the ‘winder as its infrared seeker began picking up the cruise missile’s exhaust plume.

Then the HY-2 pitched up and began climbing. Richter had expected the cruise missile to stay low
until it hit its target. The climb suggested something different, and after a moment he guessed what the North Koreans might have planned.

‘Flash. All callsigns, Cobra Two. My missile’s climbing. It’s possible these
could be air-burst nukes.’

‘Viper Two, this one’s doing the same.’

Richter pulled the control column back, starting the Harrier in a steep climb to follow the
Seersucker.

In the nose-cone of the HY-2, the radar altimeter recorded an altitude of two thousand metres,
and sent a signal to the simple computer – little more than a glorified timing device – that controlled the warhead. It immediately activated the pre-detonation circuit check. The
device was designed to explode when it reached a height of six thousand metres, an altitude it would attain in just over eleven seconds.