Tom Clancy's Op-center_ Op-center Part 36

Wednesday, 7:35 P.M., Op-Center

"Bad news, Paul," Stephen Viens said over the phone from the NRO. "It looks to me like one of the Nodongs got away from them."

"When?"

"Seconds ago. We saw it light up-- we're waiting for the next pictures."

"Is Hephaestus watching?" Hood asked.

"Yes. We'll let you know where she's headed."

"I'll stay on the line," Hood said, and put the secure line on speaker. He looked at Darrell McCaskey and Bob Herbert, who were both in his office.

"What is it, chief?" Herbert asked.

"One Nodong was launched," he said, "headed for j.a.pan. Bob, find out if there's an AWACS in the area and tell the Pentagon they'd better scramble fighters out of Osaka."

"They'll never intercept it," Herbert said. "That's like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Georgia."

"I know," Hood said, "but we have to try. Coming right at it, they may get lucky. Darrell, NRO will pick up the missile's heat signature on the Hephaestus satellite. We'll get the trajectory so that at least we can give the flyboys a general vicinity to look." He fell silent for a moment. All the lives, he thought. The President will have to be told at once so he can telephone the j.a.panese Prime Minister. "Maybe we'll be able to give the people on the ground a few minutes to seek cover," Hood said. "At least that's something."

"Right," McCaskey said.

Hood was about to phone the White House on his second line when Viens stopped him short.

"Paul-- we've got something else on the screen now."

"What?"

"Flashes," Viens said. "More than I've seen since Baghdad on the first night of Desert Storm."

"What kind?" Hood asked.

"I'm not sure-- we're waiting for the next picture. But this is un-freaking-believable!"

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR.

Wednesday, 9:36 A.M., the Diamond Mountains

Perched behind his field gla.s.ses, Lt. Col. Squires watched as the Nodong rose and the antiaircraft guns opened fire.

His initial thought was that an aerial attack was underway, and his first impulse was to disburse the men and attack the gun positions. But why would they be firing the sh.e.l.ls into one another? For incoming aircraft, they'd turn them in the direction from which the radar said the planes were coming. Then he saw the guns actually lower as they fired, and he understood.

The clip-fed 37mm sh.e.l.ls zipped skyward from all sides of the perimeter, two guns on each side, setting up a s.h.i.+eld of explosive fire roughly one thousand feet over the Nodong site. Radar-guided sh.e.l.ls were colliding one into the other, replaced by new sh.e.l.ls every half-second.

The North Koreans were erecting a barrier, trying to shoot down their own missile. The Nodong was speeding up-- one hundred, two hundred feet up and accelerating, rising toward the cross fire. The sh.e.l.ls st.i.tched the morning sky as the barrels continued to descend, their loud "pops" sounding like firecrackers tossed into a barrel. The image reminded Squires of a trick candle burning down, the explosions getting lower as the rocket rose.

Only two or three seconds had pa.s.sed since the Nodong was launched, but the missile was already just instants away from the flas.h.i.+ng, sparking barrier. There was no guarantee that the antiaircraft fire could stop it, and there was always the chance that the bursts would only cripple it or knock it off course, send it hurtling down or toward villages in the North or South.

Fire rained down on the Nodong site, like the burning hail of the Bible, setting tents and vehicles afire. Squires hoped that Rodgers and the men were okay-- and that if the missile did explode, the conflagration didn't take the men on the ground with it.

How many times had his heart beat since the Nodong took off? Just a few, he told himself. Now it felt like it had stopped as the nose of the missile rose into the ceiling of flak.

It was like a dream, a slow-motion h.e.l.l of flame and metal as the sh.e.l.ls crashed into the missile from top to bottom, kicking it from side to side like an ambushed hood in a gangster movie. The bursting sounds were replaced by a heavy drone of pock-pock-pocks each time a sh.e.l.l connected.

In an instant, the flak worked its way from top to middle to the fiery bottom of the missile, and then everything in front of Squires went from blue to red as the sky exploded.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE.

Wednesday, 9:37 A.M., the Diamond Mountains

Rodgers had listened to the sh.e.l.ls exploding, heard pieces of flak sizzle earthward around him. Though he knew that the face of the Medusa was not far behind, he had to see, had to know for sure what was happening, and so he lifted his arms from around his head and squinted skyward to watch.

The fury and spectacle of what he saw took his breath away.

Of all the historians and philosophers and playwrights he had studied and could quote from memory, only one figure, an attorney, came to mind as he witnessed the spectacle of the missile rising into the wall of popping sh.e.l.ls.

"and the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air"

The brash Nodong tried to push its way through the wall of explosives and was ripped and blasted, exploding with a fury that made it seem just feet away and not a quarter of a mile.

Rodgers covered his head again, the heat of the blast searing the hairs on the back of his hands and wrists, the sweat on his back going from cool to hot in an instant. He pressed his second and third fingers to his ears to block out the sound of the blast that came a moment later, slamming down so hard that his chest literally felt like a drum.

Then the flaming debris from the destroyed Nodong came pouring from the skies, some in coin sized fragments, others in chunks the size of plates. They crashed and thudded around him as he tucked himself tightly against and partly under the destroyed jeep, screaming and jerking hard as a thumbnail-sized piece landed on his s.h.i.+n, burning through his pant leg.

Moments later there was silence, heavy and deep, followed by the sounds of men stirring and calling to one another.

Rodgers's bones creaked and popped as he extricated himself from the jeep, leaned back on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, and looked up at the sky. Save for fast-dissipating wisps of dark smoke, it was clear.

Rodgers rose, saw that Ki-Soo was all right, that most of his men were shaken, a few bloodied, but were also unhurt.

The American saluted the Colonel, and now it was Shakespeare who seemed appropriate: "For never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it."

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX.

Wednesday, 9:50 A.M., the Diamond Mountains

When Rodgers was able to make Ki-Soo understand that they had a team in the hills, the Colonel sent a truck up to collect the men. Most of the Americans were edgy as they arrived in the camp, but Squires was glad to see Rodgers and Puckett was happy to see his radio. The Lieutenant Colonel left it with him as the North Korean medic saw to his shoulder wound.

"Glad you held your fire," Rodgers said as he took a drink from Squires's canteen. "I was afraid you might try snapshooting the men on the guns."

"I might've," Squires said, "if they hadn't been firing all the guns at once. Took a second, but I figured out what they were doing."

Puckett was the one who answered when Hood called from Op-Center. Rodgers and Squires had been standing off by a jeep, with Moore's covered body in the back; when the call came through, Rodgers rushed over, followed by Squires.

"Yes, sir," said Puckett. "The General is right here."

He handed the headphones to Rodgers.

"Morning, Paul."

"Good evening, Mike. You guys pulled off a miracle there. Congratulations."

Rodgers was silent for a moment. "It cost us, Paul."

"I know but I don't want you second-guessing anything you did," Hood said. "We lost some good people today, but that's the lousy price of the business we're in."

"I know that," Rodgers said. "But that isn't what you tell yourself when you put your head on the pillow at night. I'll be replaying this for a good long time."

"Just make sure you factor in the lives you saved. The other soldier Charlie said was wounded--"

"Puckett. Shoulder wound, but he'll be fine. Listen, I gather that Colonel Ki-Soo wants to escort us to the pickup point so we'll be leaving here soon."

"It seems a little strange," Hood said, "this sudden detente."

"Only a little," Rodgers replied. "Robert Louis Stevenson once advised his readers to try the manners of different nations firsthand before forming an opinion about them. I've always felt he had something there."

"Something you'd never sell to Congress, the White House, or any other seat of government on the planet," Hood pointed out.

"True," Rodgers said. "Which is why Stevenson also wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I guess he didn't think human nature could change either. Paul, I'll contact you when we're heading back from j.a.pan. I want to hear what the President has to say about all this."

Hood snickered. "Me too, Paul."

After asking Hood to check with Martha Mackall on a specific word, Rodgers and his men climbed into two of the four trucks that were to take them and Ki-Soo's party into the hills.

As they drove, Rodgers had his hand on the small staplerlike device he'd showed Squires earlier. Every two hundred yards or so, he pushed a small plunger on the back, and then released it.

"That's the EEC locator, isn't it, sir?" Squires asked.

Rodgers nodded.

"What are you doing?"

"Blowing them up," he said. "Trust is nice," said Rodgers, "but caution is good too."

Squires agreed as the open-top truck rumbled through the uneven terrain.

The Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk flew into the Diamond Mountains as scheduled, the pilot expressing surprise when Squires told him to fly right in and land.

"No ladders, no quick turnaround?" he asked.

"No," Squires said, "set her down. We're leaving like proper gentlemen."

The eleven-seater landed on schedule, the M-60 machineguns ominously silent on the sides. While the men boarded, Rodgers and Ki-Soo made their farewells while Squires looked on.

Ki-Soo made a short speech to the American officers, the words foreign but the meaning clear: he was thanking them for all that they'd done to protect the integrity of his homeland.

When he was finished, Rodgers bowed and said, "An-nyong-hi ka-s.h.i.+p-s.h.i.+o."

Ki-Soo seemed surprised and delighted, and said in response, "Annyong ha-simni-ka."

The two men saluted one another, Ki-Soo holding his bandaged hand stiffly at his side, after which the Americans turned and left. As they boarded the helicopter, Squires checked on Puckett, who was lying on a stretcher on the floor. Then he sat heavily beside Rodgers.

"What did you two just say, anyway?" Squires asked.

"When I was on with Paul, I had him ask Martha Mackall how to say, 'Good-bye and may your home be well' in Korean."