“Yes, sir!” Kong replied enthusiastically. “Sergeant!” he yelled to his communications chief. The noncommissioned officer ran in from the comm center, startled by the tone of the captain’s voice. “Issue a division-wide alert immediately, recall the battle staff and brigade commanders, and order all regiments to deploy immediately to… to L-1 positions.” The sergeant blanched, then nodded and turned back to the comm center. It was the order he always knew he would relay one day — and the order he had always dreaded.
An L-1 deployment was an attack-in-place directive. All of the division’s 240 FROG, Scud, and Nodong missiles were mobile to some extent. The FROG series and Scud missiles were road-mobile rockets, mounted on either wheeled or tracked vehicles; the Nodong-1 was a rail-mobile missile, resembling a standard railroad boxcar when in the road-march configuration. The missiles were designed to be deployed with Army units and dispersed throughout the countryside. Normally, they would be transferred from Fourth Division to whatever Army unit needed them, and that commander would deploy them and give the order to launch. In fact, one-third of Fourth Division’s weapons were already tasked to other infantry or mechanized brigades, mostly arrayed within fifty miles of the Demilitarized Zone, ready to move south and attack.
But in case of a sneak attack, Colonel Cho had plans in place for the missiles still at Sunan to quickly move to presurveyed launch points throughout the countryside, where in effect he became a field commander in charge of a massive array of firepower. The L-1 directive ordered all missile batteries to quickly march to preselected launch pads, anywhere from two to fifty miles away, set up, and prepare to launch. The wheeled FROG-7 rockets and Scud-B missiles could travel at highway speeds over most terrain, so they were dispersed farther away. The older FROG-5s on their tracks took much longer, so they were dispersed just a few miles, mostly inside the base. The nuclear Nodong ballistic missiles could take several hours to prepare to move, but they could be dispersed anywhere in the country. Mixing in with the regular commercial rail traffic would create a type of “shell game” to confuse the enemy and decrease the chance they could be destroyed by a sneak attack. The L-1 directive was a last-ditch effort that gave Cho’s valuable forces a chance to survive and perhaps even strike back at the enemy.
Captain Kong took his seat at the duty officer’s desk and retrieved the checklist book for the L-1 directive and for a division-level battle staff meeting. He worked swiftly and efficiently, a product of years of training and countless exercises, but his heart was jackhammering in his chest. He knew this was no exercise. Something or someone had cut off communications with the outside world, and his commander had just ordered his forces to get ready to attack.
It was what he was trained for. It was inevitable: the clash between good and evil where the world was destroyed but eventually made way for a new, peaceful world. The capitalist society to the south was corrupt, an American puppet. The Americans fostered the North-South split, fearing that a reunited Korea would not want anything to do with them. Peaceful reunification was theoretically possible, but the Americans wanted to use their weapons and military might because that’s what their corrupt government, propped up by money-hungry military industrialists, wanted. So as long as Americans were on Korean soil, war was inevitable. It was essential to force all foreigners off the sacred peninsula so reunification under communism could take place.
The winner, then, would be the first to strike. Now Fourth Artillery Division took one more step toward making that glorious honor theirs.
Kong opened the checklist book and began making the phone calls, activating the division recall roster and setting everything in motion. A few more calls, and it would roll forward on its own momentum, like a runaway locomotive. Finally, the war would be under way — and the North would strike first and win.
CHAPTER FOUR
Welcome, Madam Vice President, Admiral Allen, and our other distinguished guests,” the Korean Air Force officer began in excellent English. “It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Republic of Korea’s most advanced tactical air control facility on the opening day of the free world’s largest multinational air combat exercise.”
Vice President of the United States Ellen Christine Whiting bowed amidst a polite round of applause. Attending the briefing along with Vice President Whiting was Admiral William Allen, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, the officer in charge of all American military forces between North America and Australia. Accompanying them were a few aides and the chief of the Vice President’s Secret Service detail, Special Agent Corrie Law.
After walking around the facility and meeting a great number of the men and women working there, the distinguished visitors were led through the heavily guarded hallways and the massive vaultlike steel doors to the master command room itself. A thin, fit but older South Korean general officer stepped before them, bowed deeply, then began: “My name is Lieutenant General Park Yom, and I am chief of staff of the Republic of Korea Air Force. It is my very great pleasure to welcome you and conduct this tour of our newest and best command and control facility, a technological marvel and a true sign of friendship and cooperation between our nations in the defense of the free people of the Republic of Korea.
“We are in the Master Control and Reporting Center, which is the main joint American and South Korean military air traffic control center for South Korea. All military flights over the Korean peninsula are handled from this place. In case of war, this would serve as the main command and control center for military air operations. We are sixty feet underground, protected by a total of twenty feet of reinforced concrete, one foot of steel, three inches of Kevlar armor, and over thirty feet of earth. The center can withstand all but a direct nuclear hit. It is impervious to the effects of a nearby nuclear blast, and it can filter out massive quantities of biological and chemical warfare toxins. There is enough generator power for two weeks, enough emergency battery power for seven days, and enough air, water, fuel, and food to sustain two hundred occupants for two months.”
General Park motioned to the twelve large full-color digital displays on the wall behind him, covering a four-hundred-square-foot area. “We combine data from radar sites, airborne radars, and warships into a composite image of all air traffic covering over three million cubic miles of space, including over the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan, the northern East China Sea, the entire Korean peninsula, and parts of Japan, China, and Russia.”
Then the guests were seated in a small auditoriumlike area behind two rows of radar controllers at their consoles. “You are seated at the battle staff area,” General Park went on. “The senior controller and the deputy senior controller sit there, as well as assistants and communications officers. The senior controller’s position is rotated between American and Korean senior field-grade officers. On one side of the battle staff is the Tactical Control Operating Team section, which are the American Air Force officers in charge of American military flights, and on the other side is the Korean Air Combat Control Team, which is in charge of all Korean military flights.
“Behind you are the workstations for thirty staff officers, representing all the American and Korean military services, the United Nations Command, and many government and civilian defense-related agencies, who take reports from field commands and units and pass them to the senior controllers. Behind the staff area is the support staff area, including weather forecasters, security, communications technicians, and so forth. Above you is an observation room, which can be manned by myself or any other high-ranking officials and where directives can be passed down to the senior controller. We shall go up there in a moment to observe the opening battles of today’s exercises.”