The Chinese officer swore under his breath. “You have no idea of the havoc it will cause if these crates are not delivered to China. My country is willing to go to war over these devices! Do you understand? What you are doing is tempting war between our countries. Do you want that for your brand-new little nation? Do you want to celebrate your first few weeks of existence with a Chinese invasion?
“Then do not return,” said the Korean. “Remain here in United Korea. You will be welcome.”
“That would save my life, I suppose,” the Chinese said, “but it would not preserve my honor or the honor of my family, would it?” He looked at the Korean officer’s field jacket and recognized the outlines of some of the patches and insignia that had been stripped from it. They fitted a North Korean People’s Army unit. This man had been a
“The flag I served under, the bureaucrats and government officials that I pledged to support and defend, starved my family and me for months,” the Korean officer answered bitterly. “Last year it cost the life of my youngest son. Every family I know, military or not, was hurt by what the Communist government was doing. When the opportunity came to bring the government down, I took it. I invoked the name of my dead son for strength. His strength supports me still. Now my family is being cared for — and now I would give my life for the new nation that saved them from certain death.
“Now step aside. Order your men to leave the contraband weapons right where they are and board your ships, and you may depart in peace. Otherwise, I will order all these vehicles and your ships destroyed. I will be happy to join my son in eternity. I am ready to die. Are you?”
About an hour later the march toward the transport ships resumed. It took several more hours to load the ships; then the last of the Chinese Army members boarded and the vessels unleashed thick clouds of smoke as their engines pushed them away from the Korean shore. Korean helicopters flitted overhead to escort them clear of their territorial waters.
Left behind on the wharf, to the stunned amazement of the onlookers, were thirty-seven gray steel coffins, off-loaded from the trucks. Each coffin was about six feet long, three feet square, and weighed well over eight hundred pounds… and each contained a thermonuclear warhead for a short-range Scud missile. Some were smaller North Korean — made ABD warheads, with approximately a ten-kiloton nuclear yield; a few were Chinese-made OKD warheads with anywhere from a forty-to a three-hundred-fifty-kiloton yield.
Once word spread about what was inside those coffins, the demonstrators who had thronged the roadsides quickly left the military port at Nampo. They never wanted to set foot there again.
Thank you for taking my call, Mr. President,” said Kevin Martindale, speaking on the secure videophone hookup. Out of view of the videophone camera, chief of staff and senior adviser Jerrod Hale scowled at the President’s courteous words. No President of the United States of America, he said in silent admonishment, should ever have to suck up to a foreign leader, however grave the situation. Vice President Whiting and National Security Adviser Freeman were also in the Oval Office, and out of camera view.
“I am pleased to take your call and I place myself at your complete disposal, sir,” responded United Republic of Korea President Kwon Ki-chae. The man looked more cheerful than Martindale ever remembered seeing him. Well, why shouldn’t he? His grand, daring scheme to reunite the Korean peninsula had worked unbelievably well.
“Mr. President, I have just received a briefing from my staff,” Martindale began. “We heard the news of the stockpile of nuclear warheads confiscated at Nampo. Congratulations, sir, for taking control of those devices without bloodshed. Any one of us here would have guessed that the Chinese would have fought to the death before relinquishing them.”
“I thank you for your kind words, Mr. President,” Kwon said. “We thank the gods of chance and of reason that bloodshed was avoided. But when you have nothing to lose except your freedom, acts of desperation are your only alternative. Unfortunately, my military analysts tell me that it is possible we only succeeded in confiscating a fraction of the warheads stored in Nampo and the First Army region. We fear many more were already smuggled out in the opening days of the transition.”
“I agree, Mr. President,” Martindale said. He paused for a moment, then went on: “Mr. President, the confiscated warheads are the reason for my call. My analysts tell me you have uncovered over sixty such weapons caches throughout North Korea in the past few days — and these are only weapons stores that
“That is true, Mr. President,” Kwon acknowledged. “Your intelligence information is quite accurate. We have unearthed”—he paused, checking his notes—”sixty-three weapons caches. It is also true that we did not know about these hidden weapons before the transition. Most appear to be weapons in maintenance status that Communist loyalists tried to hide. Thankfully, those who believe in peaceful reunification reported their existence and led our teams to them.”
“We do not have an accurate guess as to how many warheads or devices that represents,” President Martin-dale went on, “but if each cache was only half the size of yesterday’s Nampo discovery, that is over six hundred weapons of mass destruction discovered.”
“It is indeed shocking,” Kwon said, choosing not to confirm or deny Martindale’s estimate. “To think that all these years the Communists denied they stockpiled such weapons. We are indeed fortunate that the Communists never had a chance to employ them against us. It would have decimated our country ten times over.”
“The entire world is grateful for your courage, wisdom, and strength through this incredible ordeal, Mr. President,” Martindale said. He looked at Hale’s scowl and nodded, this time acknowledging that his civility might be a touch excessive. “Those weapons represented a substantial threat not just to Korea directly, but to the entire world. We believe, and I’m sure you’ll verify, that the Communists were selling those warheads, along with the delivery vehicles, around the world for hard currency. Their balance of payments certainly bears this out.” Kwon said nothing.
“Mr. President, I’ve spoken with representatives of the Chinese government,” Martindale went on. “They’re worried about what you intend to do with those warheads. The stockpiles must be enormous — while North Korea’s chemical and biological warfare capability was well documented, we now realize that their nuclear capability was equal to or even greater than what we ever anticipated.”
Still, Kwon said nothing. He stared directly at the camera, hands folded, a slight benign smile on his face, as if waiting for the punch line to a joke.
“President Kwon? Can you hear me, sir?
“Of course, Mr. President,” Kwon responded.
“I ask you, sir — what do you intend to do with the special weapons you have?”
At the Blue House in Seoul, United Republic of Korea, President Kwon sat with his national security advisers, all out of videoconference camera range: Defense Minister Kim Kun-mo, a retired Army general; Prime Minister Lee Kyong-sik; Foreign Affairs Minister Kang No-myong; Director for National Security Planning Lee Ung-pae; and Chief of the General Staff General An Ki-sok. Kwon looked at each of them, searching for some indication of what he should say to the President of the United States. Finally, he said, “Please forgive me, Mr. President. I must confer with my aides,” and put the videoconference call to Washington on hold without waiting for a response.
“So,” he said to his advisers. “The question has been asked, as we feared it would be. Your thoughts, please?”
“Do the Americans
“In case you have forgotten, General, the United States protected South Korea for two generations,” President Kwon retorted. “They spilled the blood of their children on our soil less than ten years after fighting a terrible world war that eventually defeated our Japanese oppressors. They risked nuclear devastation to keep South Korea free and democratic. I think they deserve to know.”
