Peter Sasgen
Red Shark
Praise
Peter Sasgen captures the sights and
sounds of submarine adventure!
Be sure to read his riveting novel
War Plan Red
“A knuckle-biting voyage. Gripping and razor-sharp!”
— Joe Buff, best-selling author of
Seas of Crisis and Straits of Power
“[A] realistic background of international diplomacy, reactor sirens, and sub-versus-sub combat, with all the dark uncertainties and deathly risks.”
— Michael DiMercurio
And don’t miss his nonfiction account
of a legendary wartime submarine and
its relentless sailors
Red Scorpion
The War Patrols of the USS Rasher
“A fine adventure story and well told. Sasgen has added another worthy chapter to the history of a too-long ‘silent service.’ ”
— Submarine Review
“Detailed… thoroughly researched…. Sasgen has cut to the quick.”
— Associated Press
Also by Peter Sasgen
War Plan Red
Red Scorpion: The War Patrols of the USS Rasher
Dedication
To Pete and Chuck
Epigraph
The U.S. imperialists are trying to provoke a war against the DPRK. Since the U.S. has made this clear by its reckless saber-rattling, the North is compelled to increase its military deterrent to defend against a U.S. preemptive nuclear attack and armed invasion against it.
Notwithstanding the current peace agreement, the question is not if North Korea will self-destruct, but how it will self-destruct, by implosion or explosion, and when.
I do not believe that the current U.S. president, his predecessor, or any future president, would or will launch a preemptive war against any country, even one wishing to do us harm.
Prologue
South Korean special envoy Nak-chung Paik emerged from the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations on East 45th Street and entered an armored Mercedes-Benz. The doors thunked shut and the car drove off with its NYPD escort. At Second Avenue the motorcade turned onto East 44th Street. Up ahead Paik saw the United Nations building, the edge of its eastern facade turned gold by sunrise.
Paik wiped damp palms on the leather seat cushions. The reunification of a divided people and the ending of the threat of nuclear war on the peninsula turned on the meeting about to take place under the aegis of the secretary-general of the UN. Paik knew that his North Korean counterpart, envoy Kil-won Sim, was a tough negotiator and had prepared accordingly. Still, he feared making a fatal mistake that would scuttle the talks and doom the agreed-to exchange of representatives to Seoul and Pyongyang. Though Paik felt the weight of years of faltering negotiations bearing on his shoulders, he took comfort in the fact that the meeting was simply an opportunity to explore possibilities.
The motorcade slowed. In the middle of the block, a red, white, and blue FedEx truck had sideswiped a cab. Both drivers were out of their vehicles, arguing, while the police tried to open a narrow lane past the accident blocking the street. Sidewalks were filled with determined-looking pedestrians heading to work. Those who had stopped to gawk at the crumpled sheet metal now gawked at the approaching motorcade with its flashing red and white lights.
Two blocks away on East 42nd Street, North Korean envoy Kil-won Sim sat stuck in traffic near his hotel. His Mercedes-Benz and NYPD escorts had run afoul of a yellow Hertz truck that had stalled backing into a parking space and was now snarling traffic. The truck’s engine cover was propped open, and the driver, perched on a tire, was bent double, apparently troubleshooting the balky diesel engine.
Sim looked back and saw that his car was hemmed in by one of the police escorts, a fleet of honking cabs, and more delivery vans. Pedestrians jaywalking around the stalled truck added to the chaos. A police officer got out of the escort vehicle heading up the motorcade and waved to Sim’s driver.
New York frightened Sim. It was too big, unruly, and dangerous. It was not at all like Pyongyang, with its rigid system of controls. New Yorkers were too carefree and too self-absorbed. Like America. He hated America’s arrogance and power, its unfettered freedoms, but most of all he hated America for its military might and for meddling in North Korea’s affairs. He would speak at length about this, to impress upon the UN delegates that, regardless of what agreements were signed, North Korea would remain forever independent from South Korea.
Sim’s Mercedes, guided by the police officer, inched forward around the Hertz truck onto the sidewalk, while another officer, bawling into a handheld radio, called for a tow truck.
Sim recalled how shocked he’d been to learn that Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s Dear Leader, had crumpled to U.S. demands to halt production of nuclear weapons. Kim’s decision had not only roiled the leadership of the People’s Armed Forces but was also said to have caused a violent confrontation between Kim and Marshal Kim Gwan Jin, first deputy minister of the People’s Armed Forces. Jin had for years opposed any accommodation with the United States or South Korea. Now the unthinkable was the new reality in Pyongyang. Rumors had circulated too that after the confrontation, two senior military officers had been executed — shot dead by the Dear Leader himself — as a warning to Jin and any other officers who might oppose Kim’s policies. Who knew what was true and what was not, thought Sim. All he knew for sure was that he faced a difficult meeting at the UN. It was said that his counterpart from South Korea, Nak-chung Paik, was a tough negotiator.
The Mercedes slowly crawled onto the sidewalk to get around the stalled yellow Hertz truck. As the car inched by, Sim looked up at the driver working on the truck’s engine and was astonished to discover that he was a young Korean. For a moment their gazes met and held; just long enough for Sim to feel the full icy measure of the man’s contempt; until a thousand pounds of Semtex packed inside the Hertz truck exploded, ending Sim’s last living thought.
Over on East 44th Street, South Korean envoy Nak-chung Paik heard and felt a tremendous thunderclap rock Midtown Manhattan. Air pressure rose sharply inside the armored Mercedes, and Paik felt it hard against his eardrums. The stuttering boom made pedestrians bolt for cover, while others froze in their tracks. A policeman went into a crouch, hand on his holstered pistol. Another officer standing beside the FedEx truck was waving wildly at Paik’s driver and shouting, “Move it! Move it!”
Paik suddenly felt a strange sensation. He looked down and saw that his body had been cut in half by a piece of jagged armored steel that a split second earlier had been part of the Mercedes’ rear door. Paik, horrified, yet fascinated, watched his dissected body disgorge its vile contents over the leather seat cushions at the same time that he felt a wave of scorching heat from exploding Semtex, which tore apart the red, white, and blue FedEx truck, the Mercedes-Benz, the terrified pedestrians, and the waving, shouting policeman.