“I understand. But they must come to a stop.”
“So, you are negotiating a cease-fire? Is that all?”
“No.” He shook his head.
“I thought as much.” She turned to look at his diplomatic team, listening along the wall. “I am told that many of the weapons launched towards the South may not have been North Korean in origin. I have heard rumors that China has attacked American military positions in Asia today. Although it is hard to know what the truth is, with all this confusion.”
“The fog of war can be very confusing.”
She hummed in agreement.
Jinshan placed his fingers together, hands resting on the table before him. “Madame Ambassador, here is my offer. A cease-fire with North Korea. And a treaty with China. We have, as you have been informed, begun our attack on American forces in the area. My time with you here is limited. But the people of South Korea are friends to the Chinese. We wish to maintain peace. I understand that you have agreements with the Americans. But their presence in the region has become untenable.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Has it?”
“And it would be advantageous for you to align yourselves with us now. We can stop the fighting on the Korean peninsula. But there are tens of thousands of US troops and their families there. We do not want any Korean-based military units to attack Chinese interests. That includes the Americans. So — we have a few potential solutions. Either the Americans agree to leave immediately, or they are made to stop military operations from Korea. If the latter is the option, it does not matter to us whether the South Korean military enforces this new policy or whether the Chinese military does it. But my guess is that you would prefer that Chinese military forces were not deployed on Korean soil?”
The woman’s eyes stared at Jinshan’s own. “I understand what you are asking. And I will relay the message. But the Americans have a saying, Mr. Jinshan.”
“And what is that?”
She rose. “Don’t hold your breath.”
Jinshan frowned as she left the building. In truth, he hadn’t counted much on South Korea being cooperative. But soon enough, that wouldn’t matter. The Korean strategic landscape was about to change dramatically.
The Chinese Type 094 ballistic missile submarine had been preparing for their launch for the past twelve hours. When the time finally came, it ejected two JL-2 missiles from its vertical launch tubes. Each missile was over thirty feet in height. Their booster rockets fired soon after they broke the surface of the deep blue ocean. The missiles had almost identical paths, their trajectories taking them over North Korea before they broke into a total of six independent reentry vehicles, each one carrying its own ninety-kiloton warheads. Hiroshima was sixteen kilotons.
The target each MIRV was aimed at had been chosen based on two factors: the likelihood that the US military would pick it, and the desire to minimize potential radioactive fallout on Chinese territory.
In six brilliant flashes of light, China attacked North Korea with nuclear weapons. The weapons had been programmed to detonate near ground level. At each target, all people and buildings in the immediate vicinity were vaporized, the bursts leaving craters almost two hundred meters in diameter. Thick mushroom clouds of radioactive ash and dust bloomed up over forty thousand feet into the air, and the winds pushed them east to spread their slow rain of poison.
Three of the targets were military bases with clusters of North Korea’s most capable weaponry. The other three nuclear detonations were decapitation attempts. Locations where the Great Leader was thought to be. Because, Jinshan decided, that’s what America would do. Fortified military bunkers, deep underground. One of them was a correct guess. That particular bunker location turned out to be ten meters above the bottom of the nuclear crater, when all was said and done.
Six locations in North Korea were now uninhabitable radioactive wastelands. Giant burning pockmarks on the earth. The surrounding populations to these detonation sites that hadn’t already been killed in the initial attack would suffer radiation sickness and dramatically increased rates of cancer.
But Jinshan’s ruse could now go on.
His cyber warriors and intelligence operatives around the world began information campaigns that spread the word.
The United States was responsible.
The only country to have ever used nuclear weapons in a war had done so again. America should be considered a pariah state. Jinshan would call upon all nations around the world to stand with China and against the US, or stand clear.
33
Lieutenant Lin and his team had become more familiar with how to navigate the US over the past week. At first, they had remained in hiding, at a remote Ministry of State Security safe house in America’s heartland. There were a dozen teams like his, each now hidden throughout the United States. Most of the teams had just recently entered the country, having finished their specialized mortar training in the mountains of China.
Each team had an MSS agent who helped them to manage their affairs. The MSS agents were the babysitters, Lin knew. There to ensure that none of his men did anything that got them noticed. No phone calls, no computers, no communications. No walking out in town with a submachine gun slung over their shoulder. Phones weren’t even allowed on the premises of the safe houses. Inconspicuous vehicles were used — aged pickup trucks, mostly. Just like they had trained with.
Lin’s team received two sets of orders. The first was to PRESTAGE. To head to their attack point and prepare for orders to execute. The drive to New Jersey took his team twelve hours. Every time they passed a police car, the hair on the back of Lin’s neck stood up. But they finally reached the house near the outskirts of Trenton, New Jersey, and he was confident that they would be ready.
The MSS operative showed him the cache in the garage, and Lieutenant Lin was impressed. He didn’t ask how they were able to get military weaponry of this size and lethality into the United States. It didn’t matter now.
When the EXECUTE order came that night, a familiar rush of adrenaline filled his veins. The order contained a specific time, only hours away. A wave of excitement shot through his men. Then everyone flipped a switch and moved with deliberate, controlled motions. They had been well trained, and they would conduct themselves with professionalism.
Two of them — the mortar experts — loaded up the equipment in to the pickup truck, which was backed into the three-car garage. The mortars were heavy, as were the cases of mortar rounds. The deadly cargo weighed the heavy-duty vehicles down enough that he worried it might attract attention. But that was what the rest of their weapons were for. Light machine guns with modern scopes, and two heavy machine guns with tripods that were now mounted to the pickup trucks.
It was late at night when they arrived on the empty road just north of McGuire Air Force Base. The air was still, everything calm and quiet. No sign of trouble. Lin’s special forces team quickly unloaded the mortars and set up a defensive perimeter around them, waiting for police or base security, whoever came first.
“Range?” one of the mortar men asked.
One of them was looking through binoculars, a laser range finder fixed to the top.
“Seven hundred meters to the first target. Seven fifty to the second. Eight hundred to the third.”
“Wait until we take out the first three, then give me updates on the others.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
The night air was cool, the beginning of spring not yet taking the bite away from winter’s spell. Streetlights buzzed overhead, their yellow light flickering onto the pavement. Lin shoved earplugs into each ear, and the world went dull. He whistled to one of his men who had a silenced machine gun, pointing at the streetlights. The man nodded and fired several times, knocking out the nearest three lights, leaving them in the shadows.