Foxbat

He studied the Zeus ‘frying pan’ display that surrounded the GR9’s HUD. A single line was showing in the ten o’clock position, meaning his aircraft was being intermittently irradiated by the lowest lobes of a North Korean surveillance radar somewhere on the coast to the southwest. That wasn’t a problem, but it was a definite attention-getter.

He checked the INGPS. They were seventeen miles from Mayang, their first target, and the coast of the Korean Peninsula was now clearly visible in front of them.

‘Two from One. Master arm on.’

Richter clicked his press-to-transmit button in acknowledgement, and made the switch, arming his weapon systems. Fifteen miles to go. The RAW, part of the Marconi Zeus ECM system, was now detecting numerous radar transmissions, but only from surveillance radars. No SAM fire-control radars or fighter sets yet but, if the Sea King bagman was right, that was going to change very soon.

And then Richter suddenly realized what had been bugging him ever since he’d seen those first satellite pictures of the North Korean missile sites. And he now deduced the probable reason for the sudden flurry of aircraft take-offs from the North Korean airfields.

‘All callsigns, Cobra Two. Abort! Abort! Abort! Vipers and Cobras abort. Haul off and reverse course. Cobras turn port, Vipers starboard. Opening heading south-east. Get the hell out of here, buster. Vipers acknowledge.’

And as he said the words Richter hauled his GR9 round in a tight turn to port.

‘Vipers, all copied. Reversing course.’

‘Cobra Two, Leader. What the fuck’s going on?’

Richter didn’t reply immediately, concentrating on getting his aircraft heading away from the hostile shore.

‘We’ve been sold a pup. It’s a trap. I suddenly realized what didn’t make sense. The North Korean military does almost everything underground. They’ve got the facilities to prepare their missiles in hardened shelters, so why are there four missile launch pads with No-dongs sitting on them, right out in the open and close to the coast, so they’re a really attractive target?’

‘To persuade us or the Americans to attack them?’

‘Exactly. And once we’d carried out the raid, and probably got our arses blown out of the sky in the process, Pyongyang would launch an attack across the DMZ and be able to claim they were acting in self-defence.’

Dick Long pulled alongside Richter’s Harrier as the two aircraft headed south-east at better than five hundred miles an hour. Before Long could reply, the AEW Sea King bagman broke in.

‘Cobra Two, November Alpha, all copied. Understand the hunt is off. Break, break. Vipers, Cobras right one o’clock range eight, similar heading. Call visual.’

‘Vipers visual with Cobras.’

‘So what now?’ Dick Long asked.

‘Right now,’ Richter said, ‘I don’t know. Let’s get south of the DMZ, just in case some of those aircraft November Alpha detected were Foxbats, out looking for an easy kill.’

Chapter Twenty

Monday

USS Enterprise, North Pacific Ocean

‘Sir, the Hawkeye reports multiple aircraft contacts launching from the southerly airfields in North Korea, principally Kuupri, Nuchonri, Orang, T’ae’tan, Toksan and Wonsan. Judging by their speed and rate of climb, they look like interceptors. And I’m – stand by. Sir, the four British fighters have turned back.’

Rodgers acknowledged the call and concentrated on the display in front of him, where the JTIDS was showing exactly that. Numerous new contacts were being displayed over the North Korean landmass, but Rodgers wasn’t interested in those – at least, not for the present. Instead, he focused on the Harriers. The southerly pair had turned hard to port, and the other two to starboard, and all were now heading away from the east coast of North Korea at a speed the computer calculated at around five hundred miles an hour, clearly aiming to link up into a formation of four in a matter of minutes.

‘What the hell happened?’ the captain murmured. Then, louder. ‘Did you detect any stand-off weapon release? Any sign that they’ve used long-range air-to-surface missiles?’

‘Nothing showing on JTIDS, sir. Stand by, just checking with Alpha Three.’ There was a short pause. ‘Negative from the Hawkeye, sir. No weapon release seen. It looks like they just changed their minds and decided to go back home.’

Mayang, North Korea

The tab-ryong was staring in disbelief at the radar screen beside his desk. The aircraft he’d been told would be trying to attack his site had suddenly turned around, and were already over twenty miles away, all without a shot being fired or a single surface-to-air missile launched. What could have gone wrong?

The colonel had prepared the missile site exactly as Pyongyang had ordered, with an old and battered No- dong, previously used for engine tests and other development work, mounted in the firing gantry, and with the fake warhead inside the nose-cone. He’d been instructed to take as long as he could to mount the warhead, to make sure the American spy satellites got at least one good picture of it.

He’d done all that, and he guessed that officers in charge of other missile bases on the east coast of North Korea had probably received similar orders. The American aircraft – he assumed they were American – had clearly been flying on an attack vector, but had broken off at almost exactly twelve miles range.

He suddenly remembered that twelve miles was the international limit of territorial waters. Had the Americans been trying to provoke a response, probing close to the coast and then breaking off just before infringing North Korean territory? He shook his head. No, he didn’t believe that. It was as if the pilots had suddenly been recalled, after being ordered to abort the raid.

Whatever the reason, he had to report this. And, he expected, the men in Pyongyang would not be happy with the news.

Cobra and Viper formation, Sea of Japan

‘Cobra Leader, November Alpha. No hostiles in pursuit. Most of them appear to be recovering to their bases.’

‘Roger that. Break. Cobra Two, Vipers, commence climb to thirty-five thousand feet.’

At low level the Harrier, like all high-performance jet aircraft, burned far more fuel than at altitude, where the engine worked much more efficiently. They’d dropped their external tanks less than ten minutes earlier, so conserving fuel wasn’t a priority but, as they seemed safe from pursuit, gaining height was a prudent move.

Pyongyang, North Korea

‘They must have noticed something,’ Pak Je-San insisted. ‘Something must have made those pilots realize it was a trap.’

‘Very probably,’ Kim Yong-Su agreed, ‘but exactly what happened is irrelevant. The fact remains that the fighters – and they were British, not American – turned away and didn’t continue their attack, which has put us in a very difficult position. We no longer have the justification we need to begin our operation against South Korea, and now we must decide what to do next.’

‘I would proceed as planned,’ Pak suggested. ‘Everything is in place.’

‘Fortunately, that is not your decision,’ Kim hissed. ‘I’m perfectly aware, as is the “Dear Leader”, that this was your plan, but we’ve both reminded you before that your involvement is now purely practical. We will decide all matters of strategy.’

Kim put down the phone and sat in silence for a few moments. But Pak was right: everything