He got the words out fast, before he could change his mind. “I’d be honored. As long as you promise to come get us quick.”
“Understood. You have my word on that.” This time Hansell was the first to salute. “Thank you, Colonel.”
FOUR HOURS LATER, and Bosarelli and Major Jim Keough, his flight engineer, were at 22,000 feet, flying slowly east-southeast over the Pacific, giving Keough time to arm the fuses that would turn the C-130 into a sixty- five-ton bomb.
What they were planning wasn’t so different from what Mohamed Atta had done on September 11, Bosarelli thought. Though there was one very big difference.
Instead of its usual load of Humvees, Bosarelli’s C-130 carried twenty GBU-29 bombs, upgraded versions of the old MK-82. Each of the bombs held its standard load, 150 pounds of high explosive. They were scattered among forty-gallon drums that held roughly equal amounts of gasoline, benzene, and polystyrene plastic — the basic ingredients of napalm.
Officially, the United States had destroyed all its napalm bombs by 2001. The increasing lethality of conventional bombs eliminated the need for napalm, a jellied gasoline that burned as hot as 5,000 degrees. The stuff had been a public relations nightmare since Vietnam, when an Associated Press photographer had caught on camera the agony of a nine-year-old girl overtaken by a napalm bomb.
But though the premixed bombs were gone, the Air Force still stockpiled the raw ingredients necessary to make napalm. Despite napalm’s terrible reputation, there was nothing magical about it. The polystyrene simply made it a lot stickier than ordinary gasoline, so it was hard to scrape off. Once it touched something — an enemy soldier’s uniform, a little girl’s face — it burned until it was gone. Even more important for this mission, it burned much more slowly than gasoline.
KEOUGH STEPPED INTO THE COCKPIT. “Good to go.”
Bosarelli swung the C-130 to the right, tracing a long slow semicircle over the Pacific until they were heading west, back toward South Korea. It was just after 3:00 A.M. locally—3:00 P.M. in Washington — and the civilian flights into Seoul had ended for the night. The only other planes within thirty miles were friend-lies. Without being too obvious about it, the Air Force had put Bosarelli’s plane inside a bubble of fighter jets. Four F-16s were running interference along the North Korean border, with four more to the west, over the Yellow Sea, though they were being careful to give plenty of room to the Chinese jets patrolling to their west.
Meanwhile, the South Korean navy had been asked to send every ship it had into the Yellow Sea. A flotilla of cutters and frigates had fanned out from Incheon, heading west toward the Shandong Peninsula. Every boat was carrying loudspeakers, and at least one American military observer. But the boats had been absolutely prohibited from coming within eighty miles of the peninsula’s tip. At the same time, every available rescue helicopter, both South Korean and American, had been prepped for takeoff, though none was in the air as yet.
Back in the C-130, Bosarelli permitted himself a brief look through the wispy clouds at the sleeping countries below. The difference was literally white and black. South Korea glowed prosperously; North Korea lay in darkness. Somehow the view reassured Bosarelli. He might never know the point of this mission. But he believed, had to believe, that he was fighting for the right side.
AT LANGLEY, EXLEY AND SHAFER were getting hourly updates. So far, the mission was on track — though so far, nothing had really happened. Exley still couldn’t quite believe the president had agreed to her proposal.
After the confrontation with Duto, the meeting in the White House had been oddly anticlimactic. They’d helicoptered onto the White House lawn and been ushered straight into the Oval Office, where the president and the national security adviser were waiting. Exley had again recounted her conversation with Wells, and told them of her plan to rescue him.
Then Duto had made plain what he thought.
“Not to sugarcoat this, sir. There’s almost no chance of success. If it weren’t for what Ms. Exley and Mr. Wells did in New York, I wouldn’t even have bothered you with it.”
The president murmured something to his national security adviser, who nodded. Exley didn’t like either of them, but she had to admire their composure. She couldn’t tell what they thought of the idea.
The president turned to Duto. “If it doesn’t work? What’s our downside?”
“Well, sir, given the current tensions, the ultimate downside is that the Chinese could view it as an act of war.”
“That’s possible,” Shafer said. “But it won’t be on Chinese territory.”
“Sir,” Duto said.
“It won’t be on Chinese territory,
“Because tonight I’m going to have to stand up and tell the American people”—Exley winced privately as she heard the words; she hated when politicians talked about the American people—“I’m going to tell the people what we’re going to do about this attack. And you all know the pressure we’re under to come back hard.”
“Sir. Nothing about this locks you into further action. All your options are still open. I agree it’s a long shot, but if the odds are even one percent—”
At that, the president nodded. “All right. Get me a finding”—the official written authorization needed for this kind of black operation. “I’ll sign it.”
“Sir—” Duto said.
“Director Duto. Your objections are noted. For the record. But let’s try not to go to war if we can help it. We’ve all learned a few things since 2003.”
NOW EVERYTHING WAS IN PLACE, or so they’d been told. They didn’t have much time. The sun would rise over the Yellow Sea in barely three hours, and Exley and Shafer knew that if Wells wasn’t in friendly hands by then, he probably wouldn’t make it. The Chinese didn’t have great night-vision equipment — it was one area where they were still a couple of generations behind the United States — but by tomorrow morning, they would have covered the Yellow Sea with their navy. Any civilian boat still on the water would be searched from stem to stern, or simply blown to bits.
Left unsaid was the fact that the plan depended on Wells getting off the mainland in time. If he was still stuck in Beijing, then all they were doing was wasting a planeful of gasoline — and putting a couple of brave pilots at risk.
Shafer’s phone rang. He picked up, listened for a moment. “Good,” he said, and hung up. “Still on track. Our boats are nearing the exclusion zone. They’re projecting another hour or so.”
“I wish the sun would just stop,” Exley said. “Let it stay afternoon here, night over there, until we find him.”
“Do you—” Shafer stopped, cleared his throat. Exley waited.
Finally she couldn’t wait anymore. “What?”
“You wish you were there, Jennifer? With him? I mean, knowing the odds right now…” Shafer trailed off. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
Exley smiled, a thin, sad smile. Let Shafer wonder. She didn’t plan to satisfy his curiosity. But she knew the answer: Yes. In an instant.
37
THE WAVES WERE LOW AND FLAT and the boat skimmed over them without too much trouble. Still, Wells felt his ribs rattle every time the sea caught the boat sideways. He sat on the front bench gripping the wood so hard that his hands felt welded to it. There was probably a better way to hold on, but he didn’t know it.
