"How do we know it wasn't a North Korean mole working in the South?" Burkow asked.
"We don't, Mr. President," said Hood. He was listening on the secure phone while the President and Steve Burkow studied the document. "But why would the leaders in Pyongyang want to tinker with our satellites, make it look like they were preparing for war. They can move troops in the field, so why go through all this trouble?"
"To make us look like the aggressors," Burkow said.
"No, Steve. Paul's absolutely right. This doesn't smell like the work of the government. The DPRK isn't this subtle. It's a faction, and it could well be from either the North or South."
"Thank you," Hood said with obvious relief.
His E-mail indicator beeped. Bugs would never interrupt Hood when he was on the phone with the President, so he sent a message crawling across the computer monitor. Since the message was sent to the TV screen directly, not through the computer itself, the President wouldn't see it.
Hood's stomach tightened as he read the short memo:
From KCIA Director Yung-Hoon: Kim Hwan stabbed by assassin. In surgery. DPRK spy escaped. Assailant dead. Checking identity now.
Hood put his face in his hand. Some head of the Korean Task Force he was turning out to be. Knowing everything that happened after the fact, knowing that some person or group very desperately wanted a war, and having no idea who the perpetrators were. He suddenly understood from where Orly got his bedside manner. He wasn't being inconsiderate to the patient: he was frustrated by an enemy that he couldn't get a handle on.
He memoed Bugs to stay on top of the situation, to pass the message on to Herbert and McCaskey, and to thank Yung-Hoon. He also requested that the KCIA Director let him know the moment they had any information on the assassin or on Hwan's condition.
" but, as I told you before, Paul," the President was saying, "we've gone beyond that now. It doesn't matter who started this phase of the confrontation: the fact is, we're in the middle of it."
Hood brought himself back into the conversation.
"There's no question about that," Burkow said. "Quite frankly, I'd go to the first strike scenario in the military options paper. Paul, you feel that would work—"
"Hell, yes. Christ, the Defense Secretary's plan would be a juggernaut! From what we're hearing, the North is expecting another Desert Storm, with a softening-up period. A half-million troops moving into the North, air strikes against communications centers, missiles dropping on every airstrip and military base in the nation— sure, Steve. It would work. We'd only lose three thousand troops, tops. Why settle this peacefully when we can lose soldiers and overrun a country that'll be a financial drain on the South for the next forty to sixty years?"
"Enough of that," the President said. "In light of the new information, I'll instruct the Ambassador to make inquiries about a diplomatic solution."
"Inquiries?" Hood's nonsecure phone rang. He looked at the readout: it was from the hospital. "Mr. President, I have to take this call. Would you excuse me?"
"Yes. Paul, I want the ass of the person who let this software through."
"Fine, Mr. President. But if you take his, mine comes with it."
The son of a bitch, Hood thought as he hung up the secure phone. Everything's got to be a big gesture. You're in, you're out, we're at war, I've made peace. He wished Lawrence would take up a hobby. A person lives any job twenty-four hours a day, their sense of proportion is bound to get screwed up.
Hood picked up the open line. "Sharon— how is he?"
"Much better," she said. "It was like a dam breaking: all of a sudden, he took a deep breath and the wheezing stopped. The doctor says his lungs are working twenty percent better now— he's going to be all right, Paul."
Sharon's voice was relaxed, light, for the first time that day. He heard the girl in her, and he was glad to have her back.
Darrell McCaskey and Bob Herbert stopped just outside the door. Hood motioned them in.
"Shar, I love you both—"
"I know. You've got to go."
"I do," said Hood. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You did all right today. Have I thanked you for stopping by before?"
"I think so."
"If I didn't, thanks," Sharon said. "I love you."
"Kisses to Alex."
Sharon hung up and Hood lay the receiver gently in its cradle. "My son's okay and my wife's not mad at me," he said, looking from one man to the other. "If you've got bad news, now's the time to give it."
McCaskey stepped forward. ' That Recon Officer who was killed, Judy Margolin? Seems one of her last photos was a shot of the oncoming MiGs."
"Someone leak them to the press?"
"Worse," said McCaskey. "The computer guys at the Pentagon were able to read the numbers on the plane. They did a search through all the recent reconnaissance photos to find out where it's based."
"God, no—"
"Yes," said Herbert. "The President just authorized the Air Force to go in after it."
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Sariwon, North Korea, was located 150 miles west from the Sea of Japan, fifty miles east of the Yellow Sea, and fifty miles due south from Pyongyang.
The air base in Sariwon was the first line of defense against an air or missile strike from South Korea. It's one of the oldest bases in the country, having been built in 1952 during the war and being upgraded only as technology from China or the Soviet Union was made available. That wasn't as often as Pyongyang would have liked: it had always been the fear of North Korea's allies that eventual reunification with the South would give the West access to up-to-date military hardware and technology, so the North was always kept several steps behind Moscow and Beijing.
Sariwon had radar that was effective up to fifty miles, and able to read objects at least twenty feet in diameter. That gave them the capability of picking up virtually any aircraft headed their way. In drills, an attack from the west didn't give the base time to scramble their fighters, though even an assault from Mach 1 fighters gave them time to man the antiaircraft guns.
An aircraft's radar cross section— or RCS— read larger from the sides than from the front. Bombers like the old B-52s had a very high RCS value, up to one thousand square meters, which made them easy to spot and target. Even the F-4 Phantom II and F-15 Eagle were easy to spot, at RCS readings of one hundred for the Phantom and twenty-five for the Eagle. On the opposite end of the scale was the B-2 Advanced Technology bomber, with an RCS profile of one millionth of a square meter— roughly that of a hummingbird.
The Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk had an RCS of.01. Its profile was reduced by its unique "cut diamond" architecture, which used thousands of flat surfaces, angled so as not to share a common reflective angle with other surfaces. The RCS was further cut by the material used in the plane's construction. Only ten percent of the airframe's weight was metaclass="underline" the rest was reinforced carbon fiber that absorbed and dissipated radar energy as well as the F-117A's infrared reading, and Fibaloy, an outer-skin plastic filled with bubbles and glass fibers that also reduced the RCS reading.
The black aircraft was fifty-six feet long, sixteen feet high, and had a wingspan of forty feet. Operational since October 1983, the F-117A was assigned to the 4450th Tactical Group at Nellis AFB, Nevada; the Team One Furtim Vigilans unit— "Covert Vigilantes" — was permanently based at "the Mellon Strip" there, located in the northwest section of the Nellis Test Range. Since Desert Storm, however, planes from the unit had been much on the move. Its wings folded, the F-117A could be tucked into the body of a C-5A transport, which was the only way it could be moved long distances undetected, since the refueling receptacle would be picked up by radar if used in-flight.