ICBMs? I’m thinking that might suggest North Korea is preparing to get involved in a nuclear exchange, and they’ve acquired those MiGs as a last-ditch defence against nuclear retaliation.’
‘But against who?’ Simpson was openly sceptical. ‘The South Koreans don’t have any nukes, and I really don’t see even those idiots at Pyongyang trying to take on either China or Russia. And, no matter what missiles they use, most of America is well out of range.’
‘Agreed, but if the North Koreans invaded the South, the American cavalry would have to come galloping to the rescue – and
‘Don’t be flippant, Richter. I don’t believe the Yanks would initiate a nuclear exchange. They’d rely on conventional forces.’
‘I know,’ Richter agreed. ‘But suppose the South Korean forces get pushed back further down the peninsula by an initial advance from the north. That’s always been acknowledged as a possibility because of the sheer size of the DPRK armed forces. Oplan 5027 – that’s the basic warplan the American and South Korean combined forces would follow to counter an invasion – admits that, if the North Koreans use blitzkrieg tactics, they could overwhelm the Southerners’ defences.
‘But conventional wisdom suggests that even if the NKs managed to advance a long way into the South, they haven’t got the resources available to consolidate any territory they’d capture. The Americans would send reinforcements and those, combined with the South Korean forces, would push the invaders back to the north of the DMZ.’
Richter paused for a few moments, still working things out. ‘But what if the North Koreans have a different agenda? What if, once they’ve established themselves in the South, they threaten to nuke any US reinforcements being shipped in, or any build-up of local forces that might oppose them? That would cause a stalemate, and if the Americans couldn’t send back-up forces to South Korea safely, they’d be left with only two options. They could simply abandon South Korea, which isn’t really an option at all. Or they’d need to escalate the conflict with surgical nuclear strikes on North Korea’s army, its airfields, or even Pyongyang itself. So
‘I still don’t believe the Americans would resort to the use of nuclear weapons – but you do make a persuasive case, Richter.’
‘A lot depends on what the Yanks have got in the area already. I’ve no clue about US force dispositions, but you should be able to find that out from Washington. If the nearest American carrier battle group is off the Korean Peninsula, I don’t think there’d be a problem. If it’s parked in Pearl Harbor, there might be.’
‘I’ll check, and get the wheels turning across the pond.’
‘What do you want me to do? Come back to London?’
Simpson didn’t respond for a few moments. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘It might be useful to have you there on the scene, so to speak. Get yourself out to Seoul and make your number with the National Intelligence Service people. I’ll… Wait.’
The phone was put down in Hammersmith and Richter heard a faint swishing sound that was probably a mouse rolling over its mat and then a few clicks as Simpson pressed buttons. Then he heard a muttered curse and what sounded like an exceptionally angry click. Richter’s superior had been a late and very reluctant convert to computers, and so there had been a PC terminal in his office for only about three months. He still wasn’t very good with it.
‘Here it is,’ Simpson said, picking up the phone again. ‘The man in charge is named Bae Chang-Su. I’ve never met him, but by reputation he’s something of a martinet – even worse than me. I thought I’d save
‘Right.’ Richter ended the call and walked over to where Viktor Bykov was waiting for him beside a dark blue car, flicking through copies of the movement orders. In the distance, he could hear the sound of the Coaler’s engines spooling up.
Richard Muldoon sat down at the conference table and opened a red folder. ‘Our second rescheduled Keyhole bird has taken some more pictures,’ he began, and passed a sheaf of photographs across the table to Walter Hicks.
‘Talk me through them, Richard.’
‘N-PIC have sent over a dozen pictures, fully annotated. There are five aircraft on the taxiway, heading for the end of the runway, presumably preparing to leave T’ae’tan for some other base. From the paint jobs and markings we’ve confirmed that these aren’t the same ones we saw in the first set of images, so that means the DPRK has at least ten of these aircraft.’
‘Right,’ Hicks said, scanning the pictures. ‘And how many could they have in total?’
‘Frankly, we’ve no idea, as we don’t know the size of the new hangars they built at T’ae’tan. If they excavated deep enough into the hillside, each could hold maybe ten or fifteen aircraft the size of a Foxbat, but it’s a flexible feast. They’ve still got some F-5 fighters there at the airfield, and they’re parked in hangars as well. So the numbers could range from the ten we already know about up to maybe forty or fifty maximum.’
‘Any way we can refine that?’
‘Not unless they happen to move more of the aircraft while one of our birds is overhead. We’ve no assets on the ground that I know of, and I don’t think flying a reconnaissance aircraft over North Korea would be too smart an idea. Even if we pulled a U-2 and flew that, I doubt we’d gather any useful data. The hangar doors are probably kept closed except when they’re manoeuvring aircraft, and even if they were open there’s a limit to what we’d be able to see because of the overhang of the hillside.’
Hicks pulled out a pack of small cigars and put them on the table beside him. ‘What about sending in a Predator?’ he asked.
‘The same arguments, really. Unless we had one flying right past the hangar doors just when they opened them, the same limitations would apply. The Eighth Army already has several Shadow UAVs operating over the Demilitarized Zone. They’re pure reconnaissance drones, and their main task is monitoring North Korean activity close to the DMZ. They’ve overflown nuclear sites and airfields, but only occasionally, and as far as I know they’ve never detected anything particularly useful. It’s also worth stating the obvious, that if we
‘Yeah, I see what you mean. So the short version is that we know the DPRK has a minimum of ten Foxbats, and maybe as many as fifty, but we still don’t know
‘Yes.’ Muldoon nodded. ‘There’s a road convoy of eight trucks leaving T’ae’tan, all about three tons. They look like standard army lorries. Obviously we can’t be certain what they’re carrying, but we can guess because N- PIC knows exactly where they’re heading.’
‘How come?’ Hicks asked, selecting a cigar and carefully lighting it.
‘Two subsequent Keyhole passes showed the same vehicles heading for Nuchonri. If the North Koreans are planning some kind of action against the South, dispersal of those Foxbats to several different airfields makes sense. In which case, logic suggests the trucks are probably carrying spares and munitions for the same aircraft.’
Hicks stared down at the images for a minute or so, drawing slowly on his cigar, then he gathered the photographs together and passed them back across the table.
‘Forget the hard evidence. What’s your gut feeling about this, Richard? What do you think the North Koreans are planning?’
‘I really don’t know, but I don’t like it. I don’t, too, like the fact that they’ve got hold of an unknown number of Foxbats, and I particularly don’t like knowing that they managed to sneak them into the country without being detected – by us or by anyone else. But I think what worries me most is the truck convoy. That suggests T’ae’tan might have been used as the base for training and so on, but now the assets are being dispersed because the North Koreans are almost ready to launch whatever plan they’ve been hatching.’
Hicks nodded slowly, stood up and walked across to his desk. He picked up the internal phone and ordered
