"There. That's it," Vaughn calmly announced.
Three peaks, backdropped against further nunatuks. Tai leaned across Vaughn, her body tight against his as she looked up at the Xerox taped on the fuselage and then out again. She leaned forward and tapped Brothers on the shoulder. "There. We're pretty close on line."
Vaughn looked at their guide and asked, "What do you think, Logan?"
Logan nodded. "Close. You have to consider the fact that the photo was taken from the ground. We're up much higher than that.
"Brothers," he called out, "drop down and let's see how they look."
Brothers did that, and they circled down until they were barely a hundred feet above the ice. Then the pilot pointed the nose straight at the peaks, and all six of the plane's occupants stared ahead.
Tai was the first to break the silence. "That's it. Let's land."
"All right," Brothers said, looking over his shoulder. "Let me find a flat stretch. We don't want to be buckling our landing gear. It's a long walk back to Base."
Brothers flew along and then did a long loop to circle around again. And again. And again, all the time searching the ice-covered ground. Vaughn was almost certain they were in the right area. The three peaks matched, and the basin was surrounded on three sides by mountains. The bowl was about twelve miles long by thirty wide, open to the south. If they could land and get an azimuth on the peaks to exactly match the photo, he believed they could get very close to the Citadel. The passes revealed no sign of any structure, but that didn't surprise him. The ice and blown snow would have covered the above-surface portions of the Citadel long ago.
"All right," Brothers announced. "I've got a stretch that looks like it might work."
"'Might'?" Tai repeated.
Brothers ignored her. "Everyone make sure you're buckled up tight."
Brothers slowly pushed forward on the yoke and reduced throttle. The ice crept closer and closer to the plane as they descended.
"Let's hope there are no crevasses," the pilot said in a cheerful tone.
Then the skis touched and they were down-for the moment.
"Shit," Burke yelled as they became airborne again, bouncing over a small ridge and then slamming back down on the ice once more.
The plane was shuddering, and the right wing tipped down as that ski hit a divot in the ice. They turned right slightly, and then Brothers straightened them out. The plane gradually came to a halt.
"Well, that was fun," he said.
Vaughn looked over his shoulder. "Can you taxi closer to those three nunatuks until we get on the exact right azimuth from the photo?"
"I can do it," Brothers said, but he glanced back at Logan. "The question is: how stable is the ice here?"
Logan licked his lips. "Actually, the ice should be all right here. We're on a pretty solid base. You have to worry about crevasses when you're on a glacier, but we're above solid ground now. Should be all right."
"Let's do it," Vaughn ordered.
"To the right," Tai said. Brothers looked at her questioningly. "If you want to line them up, go to the right."
The pilot increased throttle and worked his pedals. The Cessna slithered along.
"Hold it," Tai called out after three minutes of moving very slowly. "What do you all think?"
Six sets of eyes peered to the north.
"Yes." Vaughn was the first to answer.
"Yes." Logan echoed him. The other three said nothing.
"Let's get skiing." Vaughn unbuckled. He slapped Logan on the shoulder. "Which do you want? North or south?"
Kaesong, North Korea
The headquarters for the North Korean Special Forces is located just twenty-five miles north of the famous border city, Panmunjom. This location puts it in close proximity to the demilitarized zone, where many of its unit's covert activities are conducted. Tonight, however, General Guk Yol, the army Chief of Staff and former commander of the Special Forces Branch, had his eyes focused on a map that had never been unfurled in his operations room before. The fact that his staff had even been able to find the map was quite an accomplishment on such short notice. It was only forty-five minutes since General Yol had been awakened by the duty officer and given Choegu's message from Manila.
Yol pointed a gnarled finger, broken many times in hand-to-hand combat training, at the map. "It is there, sir."
There were only two people in the world that General Yol had ever shown such deference to. One had been Kim Il Sung, the leader of North Korea for forty years. The other was the man who presently stood opposite him looking at the map-Kim's son, Kim Jong Il. "It is very far away."
"Yes, sir, but it is a golden opportunity. It gives us a lever that is the perfect solution to the problem that has kept us from implementing the Orange III plan."
Kim Jong, long the designated heir to Kim Il Sung, and now the ruler, rubbed the side of his face. The recent reduction of American forces in South Korea had left that threat a paper tiger. With the Americans embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were stretched perilously thin. Kim had no doubt his massive army-sixth largest in the world-could now overcome their enemies to the south. The problem was the real threat the Americans still held: their tactical nuclear weapons.
Korea is a land of mountains and narrow plains. It is along those narrow plains that any offensive movement has to advance. And tactical nuclear weapons were the ideal countermeasure to such movement. If that one factor could be removed, the entire balance of power in the peninsula would shift to the North's favor.
In late 1991 the United States had removed all tactical nuclear weapons from the peninsula itself in a gesture to force the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear weapon program. The gesture had been ignored for the simple reason that it was seen as an empty one. The Americans maintained more than enough tactical nuclear weapons on the planes, submarines, and cruise missiles of the Seventh Fleet to more than make up for the lack of land-based ones.
Orange III was the classified operations plans, known as OPLAN, for a northern invasion of South Korea. Unfortunately, Kim Jong Il rued, his father had never approved the implementation of the plan because of the high risk and cost potential if it failed-and fail it most likely would if the Americans used their nuclear weapons.
The fact that the North Koreans had their own small arsenal of nukes did not change that balance for two simple reasons. First, they only had limited abilities to project those weapons a few hundred kilometers into the south-they could never touch the United States itself to keep it from using the weapons. Second, tactical nuclear weapons favored the defender-not the attacker.
But now there was a window of opportunity. This new information could make Orange III a reality if it was used properly.
Kim looked up at his old friend. "I cannot believe that the American government has abandoned nuclear weapons in this place."
Yol smiled, showing stained teeth, the result of constantly smoking cigarettes. "Imperialists are like that, sir. Not only does one hand not know what the other is doing in the U.S. government, but fingers on the same hand are often in the dark as to the action of the other fingers."
"But the bombs-how could they have just been left there?"
"I don't know, sir. But it appears they are. Unguarded for the time being. We must seize the opportunity."
Kim was more cautious than his military commander. "Could it be a trap set by the Americans?"
Yol considered that very briefly. "I see no reason for the Americans to do that."
"But can we use these weapons even if we find them?"
"That, I do not know until we get our hands on them."
"And how can we do that?" Kim asked.
Yol turned to the map. "It is a long way," he admitted. "But we need not have to cover the entire distance."
Kim frowned. "Why not?"
Yol pulled down a larger scaled map that showed the entire Pacific region all the way down to Antarctica. "Because we have a team that could do the job right here." He tapped the map, indicating Indonesia. "If you will give me the permission, sir."