42 was clear on her hull, and it was possible to pick out individual soldiers standing on her decks and at regular intervals along the quay.
'She's been damaged.' There were gashes in her deck, and the tripod mast behind the bridge was lying on its side. One boat alongside the bridge had been smashed, and snaggle-toothed gaps marred the sweep of the bridge windows.
'Yes, sir. She's taken fire from 23-mm cannons and heavy machine guns, as well as several direct hits from a 100-mm Naval gun.' The pointer moved to the tangle of piping and machinery between the flat heliport and the bridge. 'There is evidence of a fire in this area, probably from a ruptured diesel fuel tank.'
'Any sign of the crew?'
'No, sir,' Caldwell said. 'We've got to assume they were taken off the ship. But whether they're in P'yongyang or still in Wonsan we don't know.'
'We'd have heard if they were in P'yongyang,' Marlowe observed quietly. 'So far, all they're broadcasting is the bare bones… unprovoked American aggression, violation of their territorial waters, that sort of thing.'
The President looked sharply at Marlowe. 'How about it, Victor? Did we?'
'Did we what, sir?'
'Violate North Korean waters. It's happened before.' Pueblo, he knew, had entered North Korean waters several times before she was captured, though she'd been well outside the twelve-mile limit when she was boarded and taken.
'No, sir. Chimera was under strict orders to approach no closer than fifteen miles from the coast. She had good tracking locks on a pair of navigational satellites, and was where she was supposed to be.'
'You're certain?'
'Yes, Mr. President.' Marlowe used the pointer to touch the screen again at a different place, indicating a second, much larger cigar shape moored to a quay not far from the Chimera. 'Up here is our real problem. An unpleasant surprise, I'm afraid.'
'A North Korean warship?'
Marlowe shook his head. 'No, sir. She's Tallinn, a Soviet Kara-class guided-missile cruiser. Our last report on her was that she was leaving Vladivostok on her way east, probably to Petropaviosk. Evidently, she changed her mind and decided to stop in at Wonsan sometime yesterday afternoon.'
'Coincidence?'
'Maybe. Or else her skipper's taking an opportunity to get a close look at the electronics on board one of our AGIS,' Marlowe said. 'We're not certain how closely the North Koreans and the Russians are cooperating on such matters right now.'
The President stared at the Russian ship's sleek and menacing dagger shape for a long moment, then glanced up at one of the clocks mounted in a row along one wall of the room, the one showing Moscow time. A hot-line message had been composed and transmitted five hours earlier. It was eleven-thirty in the morning in the Kremlin now.
'If the Russians are getting in on this-' He stopped. 'Anything from Moscow?'
'No, sir,' Schellenberg replied. 'Nothing over the hot line so far but the usual ready code groups. I'd say they're still trying to decide which way to jump.'
'Anything more on the Ukraine?'
Marlowe shook his head. 'Nothing, Mr. President. Troop movements in L'vov and Chemovtsy. Bases put on full alert at Kiev, Kharkov, a dozen other places. But whether that has anything to do with Korea…' The DCI shrugged, allowing the sentence to hang unfinished in the air.
'And if the Russians get a close look at Chimera? Any special security threat there?'
'None that we wouldn't have anyway, Mr. President. SOP is to assume that all of Chimera's codes and secret material were compromised as soon as the ship was taken.'
'What's more serious is what might happen if you order an attack on Wonsan, Mr. President,' Hall said. He drummed his fingers against the polished tabletop, the nails clicking lightly. 'Can you imagine the problems if a stray bomb from an American aircraft caught that baby?'
'We'd warn them,' the President said. He was thinking of Reagan's warning to the Soviets minutes before F- 111s thundered over Libya in 1986. No military operation ever went off without a hitch, and with the world situation as unsettled as it was, it was vital that American and Soviet forces not come into direct confrontation, in Korea or anywhere else.
'Okay. So the question still is what to do about it.' He swept his gaze across the other people in the room. 'And what the Russians will think. Jim?'
The Secretary of State shook his head. 'That's still damned hard to say, Mr. President. The Soviets haven't been saying much of anything since the Irkutsk riots. Now, with things getting tight for them in the Ukraine… that's Russia's breadbasket, Mr. President. And the curtain is down again.'
'I know. I know.'
The curtain is down again. Meaning, of course, the Iron Curtain. When the Soviet Union's empire had begun to crumble, people had celebrated the Cold War's end, a new chance at world peace. Now, the social forces unleashed by perestroika and glasnost were threatening Mother Russia. Paradoxically, the collapse of Moscow's power structure meant a greater danger for the world than ever. If Russia lashed out in her death throes…
'It doesn't look good, Mr. President,' General Caldwell said, echoing the President's bleak thoughts. 'This whole affair could be a Russian ploy to unite their people in a common cause, to take their minds off shortages of bread and fuel.'
'I don't think we need to fantasize about some dark, deep-laid Soviet plan here,' Schellenberg said. 'They don't want an all-out war any more than we do.'
'But they are opportunists, Mr. Secretary,' Caldwell said.
'To be sure. They're certainly capable of using the situation to their own advantage. We're going to have to proceed very carefully indeed, measuring each step against how it might be perceived by the Kremlin. I, ah, have to say that the presence of a Soviet cruiser in Wonsan makes things a lot stickier, Mr. President. If you send in aircraft, the Russians might well perceive that as an attack against their assets in the region… or they might decide to help the Koreans.'
The CNO frowned. 'You're saying the Soviets would intervene in Korea?'
'It's a possibility,' Schellenberg said, nodding. 'It's also possible they're getting ready for something bigger.' He looked pointedly at the DCI. 'Our intelligence hasn't been exactly crystal clear on the point lately, has it? We don't know yet whether these troop movements in the Ukraine mean they're getting ready for more food riots or whether they're setting up to invade Eastern Europe.'
'This whole thing could blow right in our faces,' the President said. 'What is it the North Koreans are after, anyway? Vic, what does the CIA say?'
Marlowe crossed his arms. 'All we can offer at this point are guesses, Mr. President. Guess number one is that the leadership in P'yongyang is getting desperate. They see the breakup of the Soviet empire, the internal troubles in Russia and the People's Republic. Remember in Romania in '89? Kim and his cronies must feel pretty damned vulnerable right now, with all their big, powerful socialist neighbors either chucking communism or getting bogged down in their own problems — '
'So why provoke us?' Caldwell asked. 'I'd think that would just make things worse for them.'
'Desperation move, General. If North Korea can paint us as aggressors on Russia's doorstep, maybe they can wheedle a few billion rubles out of Moscow in aid. Maybe they figure that if we attack Wonsan, the Soviets will be drawn in on their side and they'll benefit-' Marlowe shrugged. 'And maybe the bastards are just gambling that we'll be so concerned about world opinion or Russian reaction that we'll back down. They'd perceive that as a real propaganda coup, a way to prove to the world that their brand of communism still works.'
'So we're damned if we attack them and damned if we don't,' the President said. He leaned back in his seat, fingers drumming on its arms.
'A diplomatic solution is still in our best interests, Mr. President,' the Secretary of State said stiffly. 'The international repercussions to a military response to the Korean crisis could-'
'Screw international repercussions!' Caldwell snapped. 'Damn it, Jim, this is no time for appeasement!'
'Mr. President!' Schellenberg insisted, ignoring the general. 'I have a meeting scheduled with the Chinese ambassador this afternoon. I have every reason to expect that we can open talks directly with the North Koreans
