WW III

“Melissa’s?” Davy asked, annoyed that Stacy knew ahead of him. Had probably read it, too.

“No,” answered Stacy. “Your dorm.”

“Haven’t been there yet,” answered David.

“Oh — reserves are being called up. Fort Lewis. Your name’s on the list.”

David felt a rush in his gut. “You sure?”

“Brentwood. D. — that’s you, old buddy. Hey — listen, I’m sorry about your brother.”

Damn Stacy — why the hell didn’t he give you the messages one at a time and in order, for God’s sake? David wanted to ask him what exactly he’d heard about the reserves but hesitated— Stacy thrived on the drama. “All right, so what did you hear?”

“You mean you haven’t heard?”

“Jesus Christ, Stacy — what’s going on?”

“It was hit. Pretty bad, looks like. CBS is running an in-depth report at seven.”

Sometimes David didn’t know whether Stacy was just plain dumb—”in-depth”—or was just too “gee whiz” to realize how insensitive he was to others. “In-depth!”—Christ. Some file footage probably with a cutesy lead-in: “Blaine’s shame.” Or how about “Bam in the Sea of Japan”—that would be par for the course these days. David’s anger was now turning to consternation and turmoil. The upgraded Hazard Perry-class frigate, as his father proudly told anyone who’d listen, was one of the world’s most sophisticated warships, its Phalanx radar-weapons system capable of tracking and destroying multiple targets simultaneously. How was it possible that the Blaine…

For a moment he thought his brother’s frigate might have been blindsided, one of the defense systems turned off as it had been on the Stark. David just as quickly dismissed the idea from his mind. Hell, that mistake on the Stark had been imprinted on the mind of every cadet out of Annapolis. His brother Ray had even made up some kind of sign about it, or so his dad had told them: “Don’t forget the Stark” or something. It was also clear now that Stacy hadn’t been trying to be a smart-ass with his “in-depth” pun and that he, David, had simply been overreacting. Then Stacy gave him a slip of paper, the number at Fort Lewis that all the college reservists were supposed to call. Was Stacy helping him or helping Stacy? Very considerate of him to have it all ready like this. Almost as if Stacy was in a hurry to see him off campus.

“I guess this is the downside,” commented Stacy as they approached the quad, cypress trees glistening with rain from the night before.

“Of what?” pressed David, trying to be civil despite the conflicting responsibilities and choices coming down on him: his Mom, Fort Lewis, Melissa — a possible extension might be granted from the army until fall term’s end — but how would it look, with his brother…

“Downside of the army paying your tuition,” Stacy explained enthusiastically. “You know, tit for tat.”

“Yeah,” said David, trying to hide the fact that Stacy was getting to him, if that’s what he was up to.

“You could get a deferment probably,” opined Stacy. “I know a guy in commerce. He’s a corker at writing out requests for deferment. He did it for a—”

“Corker?” asked David. The little shit was definitely trying to get to him.

“Sorry,” said Stacy with an air of Ivy League superiority, except that he was on the opposite side of the country. “Corker’s a British expression,” explained Stacy. “You know, means first-class. Top of the line. My roommate’s a Brit. I pick up things like that, I guess.”

“What things? Brits or the way they talk?”

“Way they talk, old boy. Don’t you know?”

Barf. Brentwood didn’t know which would be worse, putting up with this crap for another term or fighting gooks. Melissa had got after him one time for calling them that. As he reached his dorm, gladly saying good-bye, or “Toorooloo!” as Stacy had put it, David Brentwood knew there was only a slight chance he could apply for a deferment from the call-up of reserves. He started to get mad with his brothers, just as he had as a youngster, always having felt he had to “measure up” to them. What the hell had Ray been doing out there anyway? Daydreaming? Walking slowly up the cement stairs, the dark, shaded mouth of the dorm swallowing him like some leviathan of the deep, he recalled they’d said something on the radio about patrol boats having attacked the ship, but had they been Russian or North Korean? Or did they say South Korean? He was confused. Everything seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Because he had been summoned to report immediately to the Chungang Chongbo-bu— South Korea’s CIA — headquarters during the hours before Seoul’s fall, Chin Sung was unable to attend the funeral of Lee Sok Jo, his young colleague who had been with him as the students had rioted outside the Secret Gardens.

Chin had been ordered to proceed on what he was told would be the most important mission of his career. He was flown out of Seoul by one of the few remaining helicopters to Pusan and then to Tokyo. The Apache chopper ferrying him across the Sea of Japan barely made it, being mistaken for a split second by an F-15 out of Japan for a Soviet Mi-28 Havoc, the ROK pilot ferrying Chin frantically firing off packs of flares lest the heat-seeking missile be fired by the Americans by mistake.

From Pusan, Chin had flown to Tokyo. The immaculate khaki-uniformed and white-gloved Japanese police were out in force at Narita, the airport having become a target once again for the Japanese Red Guard terrorist faction, who, encouraged by North Korea’s bold move, were now issuing more than their usual weekly number of bomb threats.

The sight of the Japanese police was at once reassuring to Chin and disturbing. In his grandfather’s day the Japanese had been the ever-present enemy, not only from across the East Sea but as occupying troops whom it had taken Korea over thirty-five years to evict; their loyalty to the emperor and their legendary cleanliness and cruelty were inextricably linked in Chin’s mind to all the images of childhood hatred. But now, as allies of the United States, Japan and the ROK were in the same boat, one that, as South Korea’s ashen-faced president told Chin, was rapidly sinking, doomed if the Americans could not stop the NKA. Washington, he confided in Chin, as if Chin were hearing it for the first time, had lost all stomach for another fight in Asia. After the humiliation of Vietnam, said the ROK president, the American public simply would not tolerate another Asian “adventure. “

Ninety minutes after he had left the president and was en route to Pusan, Chin heard that Seoul had fallen. The shock of it caused him to walk about Narita’s crowded rotunda-shaped waiting tower all but oblivious to what was going on around him. No one seemed to be talking about it, most of the passengers Canadians, Americans, and Australians on stopovers out of Shanghai and Communist Hong Kong. Didn’t they realize what was happening? If Korea went, the Western world would not have a single foothold on mainland Asia.

Chin sat down, listening carefully to the public address system, worried he might have missed the first call for his flight to Europe. Everything was strange: the disinfectantlike odor of the waiting room, the buzz of tourists preoccupied, like him, with the TV arrival and departure monitors, the fresh fruit juice counters, the doll-like complexion of the young girls in white behind the counters — above all, the absence of familiar smells. Nothing was familiar, nothing reassuring.

“Heard about Seoul, mate?” he heard an Australian asking a friend. It reminded him of the old beer ads by Crocodile Dundee.

“Nah,” said the other Australian. “Last I heard, the Commies’d surrounded it.”

“Surrounded it? They’ve taken it, mate. Lock, stock, and barrel. Yanks threw in the towel — hour or so ago.”

“What? The whole shebang?”

“Not yet. Only Seoul so far. But it’s just a matter of time, I reckon.” The Australian made a joke about the South Koreans having four gears in their tanks, one forward, three for reverse. The other Aussie indicated Chin sitting near him, the Korean Airlines bag at his feet, its loop handle around one ankle.

“Sorry, mate,” said the Australian to Chin. “Me and my bloody big mouth. Just skylarkin’, sport.”

“Skylarking?” Chin had never heard the expression before, but it was an old joke, usually made by Americans