Over the phone, Hood heard the keys of Stall's computer clicking. He looked at the countdown clock. He wanted to reach out and put his palms on the numbers, slow them down, give them more time to do this. Once again, to have come so far only to fail, for all those lives to have been wasted, was something you never found in the job description.
'Martha,' Hood said while Stoll worked, 'you'd better call Burkow at the White House. Brief him: the President may have to put in a call to Tokyo.'
'Oh, they're both going to love that,' Martha said as she walked to the door.
'I'll buzz you in your office when I have news,' Hood said.
Bob Herbert said, 'I have faith that somehow, the U.S. is going to end up getting blamed for everything that's happened today.'
'Today's not over,' Hood found himself pep-talking, refusing to allow himself to believe that the final gun had been fired.
Hood continued to watch the screen as the picture of the Nodongs was enlarged and enhanced. One of the missiles became larger by a factor of ten every five seconds.
'Damn, I'm good,' Stoll said. 'You see what we've got down there, Paul?'
'The Nodongs—'
'Yes, but this is the photograph I took when we came back on-line,' Stoll said.
Hood learned forward. 'You are brilliant, you son of a bitch.' He examined the screen and frowned.
'Shit!'
They could read three of the four numbers in the bottom row: one, nine, eight. Whoever had programmed the numbers was blocking the last one on the right.
'My guess is the last number's an eight,' Stoll said. 'That's been a recurring theme today.'
'Let's hope you're right,' Hood said as he got back on the phone to Rodgers.
'Mike, you've got to program the missiles as follows: one-nine-eight-eight on the bottom row, zero-zero- zero-zero in the middle row. Repeat—'
'Nineteen eighty-eight on bottom, four zips in the center. Stay on the line.'
'Don't worry,' Hood said under his breath. 'I'm not going anywhere.'
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
The foliage canopies were lying beside the missiles, which glistened like polished ivory in the young sun.
Rodgers climbed up to the control panel of the nearest Nodong and told Puckett to punch the two codes into the second, Colonel Ki-Soo into the third. A medic was following him, snarling with rage as he tried to bandage his hand on the run.
Rodgers hit one-nine-eight-eight, then stood there expectantly waiting for the middle row of numbers to light up.
They didn't.
'Nothing happened here, sir,' Puckett said.
'I know, soldier,' Rodgers said.
He didn't bother trying the numbers again. Not with four minutes twenty-five seconds on the countdown clock. He ran back to the tent.
'Paul,' he said, 'it didn't work. You sure about those numbers?'
'The one-nine-eight part,' he admitted. 'We're not sure about the last one.'
'Great,' Rodgers snarled as he bolted from the tent.
He thought as he ran back to the Nodong. Less than five minutes. Takes about five seconds for each goddamn number to click in. That doesn't leave much time.
'Private Puckett,' Rodgers yelled, 'start with nine-teen-eighty and—'
A soldier, festooned with medals, came running up to the Nodong on which Puckett was standing. He pushed the soldier off, where Rodgers couldn't see, whipped out his pistol, and fired once toward the ground. Then he turned and emptied several rounds into the keypad before Ki-Soo could order his men over. The North Koreans wrestled him to the ground, screaming.
Squires's voice crackled over the field radio. 'We heard that shot. What was it?'
Rodgers whipped it from the strap on his belt. 'Someone doesn't like us being here,' he said. 'Don't worry. They've got him.'
'Sure feels useless up here, sir,' Squires said.
Rodgers didn't answer; he understood. But he had bigger problems right now.
The medic left Ki-Soo's side and ran to Puckett. Fighting the urge to join him, Rodgers climbed up to the nearest Nodong and started punching in numbers.
One-nine-eight-zero.
Nothing.
One-nine-eight-one.
Nothing. Nothing until he reached one-nine-eight-nine. There was a beep, the middle row lit up, and he quickly changed the numbers to zero-zero-zero-zero. As he did so, the missile began to lower.
The top clock read two minutes two seconds. He ran to Puckett's missile. The keypad was shattered beyond repair, but at least Puckett was alive. The doctor had pulled away his shirt and was wiping blood from a shoulder wound.
'Colonel!' Rodgers said as he jumped off the missile. He put his hands against the side of the truck. 'We've got to push? push it over so it fires into the hills out there.' He pointed. 'Deserted— no one dies.'
Ki-Soo understood and ordered his men over. While the doctor dragged Puckett out of the way, fifteen men ran to one side of the missile and began pushing. Ki-Soo went around the truck and shot out the tires on that side. While the colonel's men pushed, Rodgers headed toward the last missile. There's still time, he told himself. We're going to do it- Behind him, he heard a metal stanchion groan as the weight of the missile shifted. Without stopping, he looked back as the entire truck-and-rocket assembly slanted, the missile sliding to one side of its gantrylike support— and the men shouting as smoke began to pour from the back, followed by a jet of yellow-orange flame. The Nodong had ignited as the truck went over.
That's impossible! Rodgers thought as he hit the dirt and covered his head. Tipping the truck over wouldn't cause the missile to launch.
Men ran in all directions from the spire of flame as the missile left the overturned truck and rocketed along the ground, ripping up tents, jeeps, and trees as it blazed across the terrain. It shot through everything in its path for nearly a half a mile before impacting against the side of a hill, sending a fireball over a thousand feet in the air and a searing shock wave back toward the base.
When he felt the rolling heat pass over him, Rodgers was up and running toward the last of the Nodongs.
He had a sick feeling as he ran— a sense that the South Korean officer was going to have the last laugh. They'd all assumed that the missiles had been programmed to launch at the same time.
But what if they hadn't? Why would they? He went from one to the other to the other. There might be minutes between each one. The first missile programmed had just gone off. The one he'd deprogrammed could have been the second one the South Korean programmed or it might have been the third. Which meant he might have just a minute or so, or- When Rodgers was just twenty yards from the No-dong, he saw the tail begin to smoke.
And then it hit him hard. The timers were set differently. Of course. Why wouldn't they be?
There wouldn't be time to scramble jets or fire air-to-air missiles, not with a missile capable of speeds of over two thousand miles an hour. And even Patriot missiles fired from Japan were chancy: what if the Nodong didn't pass near any of them?
'Colonel!' Rodgers shouted as he started running back toward Ki-Soo.
There was only one chance, and he suspected the officer was ahead of him. As the Nodong hissed on its
