He read from the Koran—
“ ‘From Thee alone do we ask for help…
Guide us to the straight path,
The path of those whom you blessed.’ ”
General Rashood ended as he often did with undying praise of Allah. “ ‘I have turned my face only towards the Supreme Being who originated the skies and the earth…To You be the glory…Yours is the most auspicious name. You are exalted and none other than You is worthy of worship’ ”
They prayed silently for a few seconds and then returned to their tasks. Shakira reported to the Missile Director and checked once more the Scimitar’s preset guidance programs—“Zero-three-zero from blastoff to latitude 46.05N degrees. Then course change to zero-nine-zero to longitude 127W…Then course change to three-six-zero for 30 nautical miles…Then final course change to two-one-zero 15 miles to the precise position of the target.”
It was 0630 when General Rashood gave the order…“STAND BY TUBES ONE TO FOUR!”
Then, seconds later, “TUBE ONE LAUNCH!!”
And at long last, the 26-foot steel guided missile, driven in an army truck from the bowels of Kwanmo-bong last May, was on its way. Barracuda II shuddered gently as it blew out of the launcher, lanced up to the surface, and split the Pacific swells asunder, its engines igniting, the searing light of the fiery tail obscured by the fog.
It blasted upwards, crackling into the morning sky, adjusting course and leveling out at 200 meters above the surface. At 600 knots, the gas turbines kicked in, removing the giveaway trail in the sky, steady on its northeasterly course, its flawless precision a tribute to the craftsmen of Kwanmo-bong.
As they prepared to launch Tube Two, the senior command felt safe in the knowledge that the Koreans had sworn to make a true and faithful replica of the old Russian RADUGA, and that the Scimitar would match its performance in every way. The refined new rocket motor would be no problem, and the automatic rear wings would spread immediately when the missile was airborne.
At this very moment, the North Koreans were batting 1,000, and the cruise missile they had created was hurtling diagonally towards the distant northern shores of the American state of Oregon. It was 220 miles to its landfall, and it would cross the coastline in twenty-one minutes, by which time three other identical missiles, already under the control of the Barracuda’s launch sequencer, would be streaking line astern right behind it. Same course. Through the fog. Destination: the fractured, haunted north face of Mount St. Helens.
Missile One screamed in over the high, rugged coast, just north of Tillamook Head, at 1654. It thundered on across the 3,000-foot peak of Saddle Mountain, rising and falling with the contours of the earth. It passed Clatsop State Park and into Columbia County, making 600 knots as it crossed the wide river, then the state frontier, 20 miles downstream of the city of Portland.
This was high country, deep in the towering southern uplands of the Cascade Range. The Scimitar’s preset computer brain, reading the sonar altimeter, was working overtime dealing with the dramatically changing ground levels. But the Chinese technicians had served General Rashood well.
The big Mark-1 missile ripped across Interstate 5, and shrieked through the peaks of Cowlitz County, heading along the Kalama River Valley to the Swift Creek Dam, where it swerved north, right on schedule. By now, the mighty tower of Mount St. Helens was just a dozen miles to port, and the missile swept right past, still heading north. It flew swiftly over the great forests of the Cascades, and just after the little town of Gifford, it made its turn, wheeling left in a great semicircle.
The wilderness below was silent, but from the high peaks you might have heard the W-H-O-O-O-O-SHHHHHH! of disturbed air, as the Scimitar turned to the southwest. It held course two-one-zero, drawing a bead on the giant, unstable carbuncle, which grew on the floor of the volcano crater, near the pinnacle of the mountain.
It came in fast, gathering speed as it lost height, almost 700 knots as it cleaved through the morning air above the foothills of Mount Hughes, where the Green River rises, east of Coldwater Creek. Moments later, it hurtled into the skies high above the fog-shrouded blue waters of Spirit Lake.
It rocketed through the thick, damp mist and crossed the north shore, still making over 600 knots, and then angled up sharply to follow the steep slopes of Mount St. Helens. It scythed through the air, taking just under nine seconds to make the one-and-a-half-mile ascent to the summit, where it banked wickedly downwards, and hammered its way straight into the middle of the crater.
Programmed to detonate two seconds after impact, the missile’s sharp reinforced steel nose lasered into the crater’s unstable base of loose rock and ash, burying 15 feet below the surface before exploding with a booming impact. Rock and shale flew 100 feet into the air.
The Scimitar’s warhead sent cracks like lightning bolts deep into the crust of the earth, splitting open the already shifting strata, way down where the magma seethed and churned, ever seeking an outlet. By itself, the Scimitar could not have caused Mount St. Helens to erupt. But there were three more where that came from, and the great volcano, had it known, would have braced itself for the incoming man-made thunder.
As it was, a great belch of steam did shoot skywards, but local residents did not see the warning; not even those driving trucks through the morning mist along local routes 503, or 90, or south on 25 from Gifford. Even in clear conditions, it was not always easy to see the mountain peak from the tree-lined roads, and almost everyone had seen gouts of steam up there before, even the occasional fiery burst of ash.
Fifty-five seconds later, Missile Two hit, in exactly the same spot, 46.20N 122.18W. It drove deep into the brand-new hole, not 10 feet from Missile One. It slammed into the lava rubble, detonating with staggering force into a part of the mountain that was rotten to the core — a shifting, sliding heap of black fragmented rock debris.
The fury of the explosion, though muffled to traffic five miles away, was enough to send long fissures deep into the upper conduit of the lava chimney. White-hot magma now came seething up through the black shale, as yet only eking its way out of the relatively slender gaps, but moving steadily higher.
Less than a minute later, there was a breakthrough. Missile Three came screaming in with sufficient force to knock down three skyscrapers. More burning magma came searing up through the underground channels — not yet a blast but close. The lava began to spill into the crater; steam and fire burst into the foggy skies.
And then came Missile Four, arrowing straight down into the molten lava and exploding instantly, with the same force as the others, the same place, the same effect. The metal casing melted, but the warhead’s TNT did its work. It blew the crevice wide open, releasing a zillion cubic feet of compressed gases. At 0706 on Sunday morning, August 9, 2009, Mount St. Helens erupted with savage force for the second time in less than thirty years.
The explosion leveled thousands of Douglas fir trees within roughly a 12-mile half-circle to the north. The crater, which contained the unstable carbuncle, was already tilted that way, and when the eruption came, it exploded northwards, leaving the area behind it, to the south and west, more or less unharmed, except for a rainstorm of ash.