Up ahead he saw a target. It appeared to be a multi-story structure that was fully lit. The reason the target stuck out so well was because it was the only thing down there that had any lights. And this was a big target. A big bright target. Obviously something very important to the North Koreans. Most probably a military installation of some type.
Nolan flipped a switch and armed the new Joint Air-to-Ground Missile called LOCO. If the North Koreans thought that the old Hellfire missile was nasty, then the LOCO would truly rock their world.
From five miles out, Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan pointed a laser beam at the brightly lit military complex and yelled, “This is for my brother,” as he pulled the trigger.
Wonsan, North Korea
Victor Kornev was as close to a panic as he had ever been.
He had pushed the UAZ, the goat, just as fast as the light-weight vehicle could go. He never in a million years thought he would be grateful to see the ugly city of Wonsan come into view. But he was. The Wonsan highway was the frickin yellow brick road and he longed to be in the safety of OZ up ahead.
Kornev turned off the highway on to the road that led to Kaeson-dong. If he remembered correctly, the square in Kaeson-dong led to the Dongmyong Hotel. Even though he hated the place, he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. The Minister of State Security for North Korea, Kim Won Dong, was his connection with his cargo plane to get out of North Korea. From the explosion he had experienced as he was driving away from the warehouse, and then the massive explosion when the warehouse had been vaporized; Kornev had to assume the Minister had been fried to a crisp.
Kornev reached the circle in Kaeson-dong, drove around it twice until he found the road that led to Pongchun-dong. He yanked the wheel to the right and saw some sort of light ahead of him on the horizon.
Once he had checked into the smelly Dongmyong Hotel, he could then call in a favor from an influential friend and find a safe way out of the country. He sure wished he knew who was trying to kill him. It wouldn’t help him now, but at least he could plan his next move based on a factor other than fear.
There it was. Up ahead. The wretched Dongmyong Hotel. And it would appear that his luck was changing. For maybe the first time in a month, the hotel had electricity. That meant a working elevator and a shower and a…
The blast was so intense that Kornev felt his face blister and his ears rupture. He slammed on the goat’s breaks, but his eyes were closed. When the car went into a skid, Kornev was helpless to do anything but hang on to the steering wheel and ride it out. The car slid sideways, flipped into a ditch and ejected Kornev fifteen feet into the thick muck.
Kornev lay in the ditch, dazed, face down, unmoving until his senses came back to life and told him that he was drowning. Pulling his face from the muddy water, coughing and spitting out black mud, Kornev raised his head from the ooze and looked up. What he saw amazed him. The Dongmyong Hotel had been turned into fiery rubble.
Any man in Victor’s current condition might consider himself ill-fated to be shot in the hand, almost assassinated, ejected from a car, burnt, temporarily deafened and now face down in a ditch in North Korea. But on the contrary, Victor understood that if he had arrived a few minutes earlier, he would have been checking into that hotel at the same instant it had been obliterated. Kornev was a very lucky man and he knew it. Someone was on his side. Not God, but someone else that he believed in and they believed in him. But somewhere along the way he had also made a formidable enemy; a person or persons that were so powerful that they had the resources to blow up an entire hotel in North Korea in order to kill him.
Now all he had to figure out was who.
Washington, D.C. ― The White House Situation Room
“I would like you to precisely define what you mean by a rogue pilot,” the President asked General Ford.
Just moments ago she had been happy. The mission had been successful and Hail had done what he said he could do. No messy loose ends. No political fallout. Everything had been peachy. And then the General had come over and told her something about a “rogue pilot”. In her line of work, a “rogue” anything was bad news. The word “rogue” could even be used in place of a profanity. So when the General had said, “rogue pilot” the President connected that with the fact that this person was flying one of the most destructive planes in the American arsenal. The situation did not sound positive and therefore the President’s mood was not optimistic.
“He is a very good pilot. Loyal. Great combat record. He’s been decorated,” the General explained.
“So what’s the problem?” the President asked. Her tone was abrasive and the General suspected it was going to get worse after his next sentence.
“The pilot has not responded to our order to return to base and he is continuing to fly into North Korea.”
The President was dumbfounded. She didn’t even know how to respond.
The General filled in the silence.
“I’m sure it’s just some sort of communications issue. Maybe the North Korean’s are jamming our radio transmissions. I’m sure after the pilot has a look at the blown up warehouse, he will put on the afterburner and return to the carrier.”
The President’s face looked pale. Moments ago, Joanna Weston had been flushed with pride. Now a wave of abject horror washed over her. She made a quick calculation of how many days she might have left in office if this mission got much worse. But the mission mess up was out of her hands. It was now in the hands of a crazy rogue pilot, as was her career.
President Weston turned and watched the big screen as the warehouse continue to burn. Another bright spot flashed on the screen a little way away from the big bright spot. It may have been another explosion. Or possibly another communications issue.
Sea of Japan ― on the cargo ship Hail Nucleus
The entire ship hummed.
To Kara, it sounded like a hundred electric shavers being run at the same time.
“What’s that sound?” she asked Hail.
“It’s the railgun being charged.”
Hail hesitated and then added, “To be more accurate, it’s the capacitors for the railgun that are being charged.”
That meant nothing to Kara. But she did understand that the ship’s big gun was being loaded and brought online. How it worked, she didn’t care.
Hail had brought up a map on his personal screen. A real-time plot of the jets showed they had just passed over Wonsan and were heading out to sea. He moved the image up to the big screen so the crew could see it as well. The good news was the F-35 had made it to sea without being cut off by the North Korean J-20s. The bad news was they were right on his tail.
Dallas Stone was still conferenced into the mission center speakers.
“Are the J-20s in range?” Hail asked.
Dallas responded “Yes they are and the railgun is at full capacity and ready to fire.”
“Do we have a smart projectile programmed to the J-20 profile?”
“It’s been programed and is ready to go.”
Hail thought that the smart projectiles should work. But other than testing the new depleted uranium projectiles on his own drones, they had never fired them at anything as fast as a Chengdu J-20. Unlike their dumb projectile brothers, the smart projectile had a computer that took over the guidance once the shell was within striking range. Fins on the nose and the tail of the heavy piece of metal would be deployed and manipulated by the computer to its final target. At these speeds, Hail was concerned that the projectile guidance software might get confused and take out the F-35 by mistake.