Also by James Barrington
OVERKILL
PANDEMIC
Acknowledgements
A substantial part of this novel is set on board Her Majesty’s Ship
I’d also like to thank Lieutenant Commander Paul Tremelling, Royal Navy, for his invaluable and expert guidance on modern Harrier operations and weapons – the GR9 is a far cry from the old FA2 version.
Finally, I must thank my good friend and wonderful agent, Luigi Bonomi, for his continued enthusiasm and encouragement, Peter Lavery for his exhaustive and talented editing, and all the rest of the team at Macmillan.
And, as ever, Sally.
Author’s Note
EMP and the MiG-25 Foxbat
The existence of the electromagnetic pulse caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon was not suspected by the American scientific community until 9 July 1962, as a direct result of a classified experiment called Starfish Prime, itself part of a series of tests code-named Operation Dominic. Utilizing a Thor launch vehicle carrying a W49 warhead, this was a high-yield – 1.4 megatons – nuclear test conducted at an altitude of around 250 miles over the Pacific Ocean, which had significant, and previously unsuspected, secondary effects.
Some one thousand miles distant in Hawaii, power lines fused; televisions, radios and other electrical equipment burnt out; and hundreds of street lamps failed. On other Pacific islands, microwave links were destroyed, cutting telephone connections. Only when this damage was analysed did American scientists realize the potential damage that a high-altitude nuclear blast could cause to an advanced and technology-dependent society.
The Russians, in contrast, had known about this effect for at least seven years, following their detonation on 22 November 1955 of a 1.6-megaton thermonuclear device code-named RDS-37, and possibly as early as 1953 when they exploded the comparatively low-yield (400 kilotons) Joe 4 weapon.
What is almost certain is that knowledge of the destructive effects of the EMP guided the design of the MiG- 25 Foxbat interceptor’s avionics. The Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau’s use of valve technology in this cutting-edge fighter, rather than readily available solid-state electronics, only makes sense in this context.
It is also a fact that there were no existing or planned Western aircraft that could fly at anything like the speed the Foxbat could achieve: one was clocked on radar in the early 1970s by the Israelis at Mach 3.2. Despite this, the MiG-25’s Machmeter was red-lined at Mach 2.5 and, according to Viktor Belenko, if the aircraft’s speed exceeded Mach 2.8 there was a danger the engines would accelerate out of control. This was at least in part because the Tumansky R-15B-300 afterburning turbojets had originally been designed for use in a single-engined and single-use Mach 2+ reconnaissance drone, the Tupolev Tu-123 Yastreb or Hawk.
The Russians have never publicly admitted that the MiG-25 was actually intended to intercept ICBMs, but several unofficial sources have claimed that this was the case.
Camp 22
This is one of about a dozen concentration and slave-labour camps in North Korea, which together hold around 200,000 prisoners. Located near Haengyong in North Hamgyong Province and close to the borders with China and Russia, Camp 22 is the largest, and its description in this novel is accurate.
The ‘crimes’ most of these prisoners have committed would not be considered offences in any other nation. Many are there because they, or one of their relatives, are believed to be critical of the ruling regime or, equally dangerous to Pyongyang, are Christians or support Christianity. And Kim Jong-Il is absolutely determined to stamp out the ‘bad blood’ that causes citizens of his country to entertain such heretical notions: as a matter of course, three entire generations of the criminal’s family will be seized and sent to the North Korean gulag for any such infraction.
Documentary evidence exists that condemned prisoners are transported to Camp 22 by the Pyongyang regime specifically to be used in human experimentation into the effects of poisonous gases and liquids.
These ‘experiments’ range from detailed observations of the effects of newly developed substances in the gas chamber to rough-and-ready executions carried out in the most casual manner. In one reported case, some fifty women were selected at random and fed cabbage leaves laced with an unidentified poison that resulted in them vomiting blood and suffering agonizing deaths within about twenty minutes. In other instances, entire families were gassed simultaneously, the parents desperately trying to protect their children as the lethal concoction began its work.
The gas chamber itself is roughly three metres square and two metres high and primarily made of glass. This allows the ‘doctors’ and ‘scientists’ outside, who film the proceedings and take notes, to have a clear view of the experiments. In this novel I have made one small change in my description: I have described the observation as being made from the side of the gas chamber, whereas the process is normally watched from above, through the glass roof.
Camp 22 holds upwards of 50,000 prisoners. Those who aren’t put in the gas chamber, or tortured to death for the pleasure of the guards, are forced to work on the land or in the nearby Chungbong coal mine. Many there die from their regular beatings or simply through exhaustion because of the appalling conditions.
Women as well as men are sent to this concentration camp and, inevitably, some give birth whilst they are incarcerated. Caring for infants is not a part of the remit of Camp 22, and it has been reliably reported that the guards are instructed to kill all new-born children by stamping on their heads and necks.
Life is hard in the ‘Hermit Kingdom’, but death is harder still.
Glossary
203 Slang term for the American Colt M16A2 5.56mm assault rifle fitted with a 203 grenade launcher clipped under the barrel. This is the preferred weapon of the SAS, whose troopers refuse to use the clumsy and unreliable SA-80, the standard British Army rifle
