General Park issued some instructions by radio in Korean and then turned to Whiting. “All wireless communications from this facility will be jammed now, Madam Vice President,” he said. “It is for our protection.” It was obvious he knew that the Vice President had activated a function on the phone that kept the line open and transmitted a locator signal.
“Jamming our locator signal could be considered a hostile action, General,” Whiting said evenly.
“Discussing activities inside our country’s most secret command and control facility with the Central Intelligence Agency could also be considered a hostile act,” General Park said. “As you Americans might say, that makes us even stephen.”
“Please be seated,” President Kwon said, motioning to a chair. He gave Park an order, and the Air Force general immediately unbuckled his holster and handed the weapon over to Special Agent Law. “I promise, we mean you no harm.”
Law immediately went over to the door and tried it, keeping both Kwon and Park covered with her mini-Uzi; it was locked. “So we are your prisoners,” Whiting said. “We can’t communicate, and we can’t leave.”
“You will be free to leave in a very short time,” President Kwon said. “But first I invite you to watch history in the making, unfolding right before your eyes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“May I?” Kwon asked, motioning to the large windows overlooking the command center to indicate to Law where he was going to move. He went over to the windows with Whiting. General Park took a seat behind the communications console. “The culmination of years of planning, a year of intense preparation, months of espionage and infiltration work, and hundreds of billions of won. The expense almost bankrupted us, especially with the financial downturn throughout Asia in recent years. We lost many fine men and women to the Communists, on both sides of the DMZ. We are about to witness the fruits of their sacrifice.”
“Mr. President, what’s going on?” Whiting asked. “What are you planning to do?”
General Park said something in Korean, and Kwon nodded with a broad smile and what sounded to her like a muttered prayer. “Our first units are approaching the coastline,” Kwon told Whiting. “The Eleventh Patrol Squadron out of Inchon has the honor of leading the attack. Their call sign is ‘Namu.’ The counterjammer aircraft will be inbound sixty seconds later. Their call sign is ‘Pokpo.’”
“Attack?” Admiral Allen exploded. “What attack? You mean the exercise attack?”
“The Eleventh is an S-2 Tracker maritime patrol unit, flying one of the slowest and most vulnerable planes in our inventory,” General Park said. “However, these planes have been modified as tactical jamming aircraft. They will shut down all of the Communists’ search radars between Haeju and Kaesong. They are being followed by F-16KCJ aircraft carrying HARM antiradar missiles. Any Communist radar that attempts to counter the jamming will be destroyed. A similar attack is commencing from the west toward Nampo and Pyongyang itself, from the east toward Hamhung and Hungnam, and from the south at Kimchaek and Ch’ongjin.”
“This is crazy! This is suicide!” Vice President Whiting exclaimed. “Won’t the North Koreans see those planes coming or see the jamming on their scopes and warn the rest of their defenses? They might start a retaliatory strike the second they notice all this happening. They might be starting an attack of their own at this very second!”
“In fact, Madam Vice President,” General Park said, “the Communists issued the first attack warning over fifteen minutes ago.”
“What?”
“It is virtually impossible to fly anywhere within two hundred miles of North Korea without some Communist radar site detecting you, whatever your altitude,” General Park said calmly. “The Communists start tracking our aircraft almost from the moment they are launched. When our planes were within ten minutes’ flying time of their airspace — the amount of time it takes the slowest North Korean fighter pilot to get off the ground — the early-warning radar sites issued a warning to all other air defense sites throughout North Korea. The warning was relayed to the Military Command and Coordination Facility at Sunan, near Pyongyang.”
“But if the North Koreans know you’re coming, why in heaven’s name are you doing this?”
“Because, Madam Vice President,” President Kwon replied, “the North Korean Central Command Facility issued instructions to all installations to continue to monitor the aircraft but to take no further action. They then issued an ‘ops-normal’ message to military headquarters in Pyongyang.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because, madam, it was a United Republic of Korea officer who issued those orders. Or, to be more precise, a North Korean patriot, working together with South Korean military assistance officers. The North Korean military command and control headquarters at Sunan, such as it is, belongs to North Korean patriots who desire nothing else but the reunification of the peninsula under a free, democratic government. They have decided to shut down the Communists’ military machine and allow us to assist them in destroying the most dangerous elements of it.”
At that moment a Klaxon went off in the observation room, and red revolving lights started blinking everywhere. On the public-address system they heard: “For Namu Two-Five, for Namu Two-Five, and for Pokpo Three-Eight, for Pokpo Three-Eight, this is Airedale, Hot Dog Hot Dog Hot Dog. Turn to heading one-five-zero immediately. Acknowledge.”
Both General Park and President Kwon started to chuckle. “I have always thought that was very amusing,” Kwon said. Whiting stared at him. Total chaos was breaking out in the command center, and these two men were laughing through it! “The code words you Americans invent for serious situations such as this are very comical. What a refreshing sense of humor you people have.”
“What is going on?”
“Perhaps you do not know what this Hot Dog message means?” Kwon was surprised. “How little you know of the things you have put in place in our country that we rely on every day for our lives and our freedom. The Hot Dog warning is issued whenever an aircraft violates the Buffer Zone. It is supposed to warn our aircraft of unintentional overflight. ‘Airedale’ is the senior American battle director, whom you met down below in the command center.
“The warning is actually issued quite frequently, usually due to radar anomalies, jamming or decoying by the Communists, or by accident — an overzealous pilot, a new pilot trying to find landmarks, or one who is distracted from his work. Many innocent causes. The North calls them all preludes to war and declarations of war and demands an apology and reparations. Such demands are ignored, of course.”
They heard the Hot Dog call repeated many times, with several more call signs. Then there was a commotion on the floor of the command center, and they saw South Korean soldiers enter and head for several of the American officers and technicians.
“What’s going on down there, President Kwon?” Ellen Whiting asked. “I demand to know.”
“The American officers in charge of protecting and directing air traffic in South Korea are obviously upset because they issued a command to the South Korean pilots heading toward North Korea, and our officers would do nothing to stop them,” General Park answered for Kwon. “They are being restrained before they can call for any American aircraft to scramble to try to stop them.”
“They’re hurting them, for God’s sake!” Law protested. There were at least three South Korean soldiers around each of the Americans, who were struggling to free themselves.