‘We will be there in seconds,’ said the Russian. ‘Now shut up!’
‘All right, keep your hair on! Wish I could…’
The co-pilot shouted a warning to Petrov, who forced the plane into a hard descending turn. The approaching missile took on terrifying dimensionality as it rolled out of sight beyond the window. Eddie clutched Nina to him—
A bright flash from outside — and the Antonov was thrown sideways as if kicked by an angry god, its hull echoing to the clamour of a thousand burning hailstones. The SA-2 had detonated as it streaked past, its warhead almost two hundred kilograms of high explosive surrounded by a jacket of frangible steel that turned instantly into a cloud of supersonic shrapnel. The explosion was followed a split second later by a deafening bang of disintegrating metal as a chunk of the starboard fuselage tore away, taking a huge bite out of the aircraft’s side.
Alarms screamed as the cockpit’s occupants regained their senses. Petrov battled with the controls, dragging the enormous plane out of its roll towards earth. A bank of warning lights lit up in a terrifying grid of red. ‘We’ve lost both starboard engines!’ he cried, still struggling with the yoke as the co-pilot triggered the crippled engines’ fire extinguishers. ‘The rudder is damaged, we can’t turn well!’
Another horrified warning in Russian from the co-pilot. Another two blazing lines were being etched into the sky—
More fiery flashes from the ground — but these came from ahead, lancing from a flattened hilltop a few miles away. ‘Oh my God!’ Nina yelled. ‘They’re everywhere!’
‘We’re over the DMZ!’ said the pilot, pushing the Antonov into another desperate evasive turn. ‘Those are coming from South Korea!’
‘Great, now everyone’s shooting at us!’ Eddie held Nina more tightly, watching as another pair of missiles rushed at them —
And shot past.
All heads whipped around in surprise to track them. A second later, two more brilliant flashes lit the sky, followed by thunderous detonations. ‘They… they shot down the other rockets,’ said the co-pilot, stunned.
‘Must have been Patriots,’ Eddie realised. Both Koreas relied on armaments from their most powerful allies to defend their sides of the border; the difference was that the south had the latest technology from the United States rather than decades-old Soviet weapons. The Antonov had either had the good fortune to cross the DMZ within range of a battery of Patriot interceptors, or — equally likely — South Korea had more of the missiles deployed along the 160-mile dividing line than it let on.
‘Okay, so they just saved us,’ said Nina. ‘Now what?’
The answer came as a new voice crackled through the pilot’s headphones. Eddie hurriedly re-donned his own set to listen. The language was English, and the accent American. ‘Unknown aircraft, unknown aircraft. You have illegally entered South Korean airspace. Identify yourself, or turn back across the DMZ. You will not be allowed to proceed any further unless you identify yourself. If you do not, we will shoot you down.’
Petrov exchanged worried looks with his crew before answering. ‘We are a civilian freight aircraft — I repeat, we have civilians aboard. Do not shoot, do not shoot.’
No reply. Eddie pulled off his headphones and handed them to Nina. ‘You should talk to ’em.’
‘Why me?’ she asked.
‘Because you’re American, and you’re always telling me I can’t do the accent!’
She donned the headset. ‘Hello, can you hear me? This is Dr Nina Wilde, working for the United Nations. We’ve uncovered a plot by North Korea to export nuclear weapons, which is why they’re trying to kill us! Please respond.’
Still no answer. Petrov glanced back at her with an expression that suggested that desperation had just driven ingenuity. ‘Tell them we helped you steal the bombs! We knew nothing about them; the North Koreans told us they were… farm equipment! Yes, farm equipment.’
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, before trying again. ‘I repeat, this is Dr Nina Wilde from the United Nations. We have—’
‘I say again, unknown aircraft,’ the American cut in. ‘Identify yourself immediately. We will shoot you down if you do not respond.’
‘Hello, hello? I’m responding! Can you hear me?’ There was no reply. ‘Oh crap!’ said Nina. ‘We can hear them, but they can’t hear us!’
One of the crew made a hurried check of his instrument panel. ‘Transmitter is out!’ he reported. ‘Electric systems, many kaput!’
The pilot made another attempt to get through, with no success. The voice on the radio returned. ‘We have you in sight and are approaching from your eight o’clock. We will attempt visual communication. This is your last chance. If you do not respond, we will kill you.’ The threat was delivered with stony calm.
Petrov turned to look back. ‘I see two jets!’
Eddie forced himself upright. ‘What are you doing?’ Nina asked, seeing his obvious pain.
‘I’ll talk to ’em.’
‘How? The radio’s broken! And also, why you?’
‘I know how to talk to flyboys.’ He addressed the crew. ‘I need a torch, a flashlight — something I can use for Morse code.’
‘The Americans do not use Morse any more,’ Petrov protested.
‘Then let’s hope these guys are old school! Come on, get me a light, quick!’
A pair of F-16 Fighting Falcons, part of the massive US military contingent dedicated to protecting the South Korean border, closed on the lumbering Antonov. One held back, fixing the freighter in its sights, while the second drew alongside to attempt communication with its pilots. Information had been passed on from the ground that the aircraft had been under SAM fire before crossing the DMZ, but that didn’t mean it would get a free pass. North Korea was notoriously sneaky, the lead pilot mused, and faking an attack to get its forces into South Korean airspace under the pretence of a defection was exactly the kind of thing they would do…
A light flashed from the rearmost window of the Antonov’s darkened cockpit. ‘They’re signalling,’ the pilot reported. ‘Looks like Morse code.’ That made sense: the An-124 was a Russian plane. While the USAF had phased out Morse from standard usage decades ago, other countries still used it.
‘Can you tell what they’re saying?’ asked his wingman.
‘Yeah, hold on…’ The code might no longer have been part of air force training, but many pilots still knew it; he had taught himself in childhood after a diet of movies and TV shows where messages were silently flicked between ships and planes, entranced by the idea of sending secret messages to his friends. His memory was rusty, but he pieced this one together word by word. ‘American… on board… do… not… shoot… you… dickhe— Hey!’
‘Did they just insult you?’
‘Yeah!’ He was affronted — but also oddly intrigued. North Korean insults tended to be much more florid. Maybe there really was an American aboard. He let the message continue. ‘Working for usint… huh? Usintel… oh, US intel! Have stolen NK illegal weapons… three…’ He fell silent in shock as he translated the series of flashes into words.
‘What?’ said his wingman. ‘What did they say?’
‘He says they, uh… they have three nuclear warheads aboard, and do we want them?’
Thirty minutes later, Eddie and Nina were on the ground at Osan airbase south of Seoul — though the landing had been as stressful as the rest of the flight.
Shepherded by more US and South Korean fighters, all primed to blast the Antonov out of the sky if it deviated in the slightest from its assigned course, the battle-scarred aircraft made a hard and terrifying touchdown on its damaged landing gear, the strut to which the TEL had been lassoed collapsing and tearing away. With only two engines providing reverse thrust, it almost overshot the end of the runway, the twin nose wheels stopping just yards from the mud beyond the concrete. It was immediately swarmed by military vehicles, dozens of troops training their weapons upon the plane as its occupants were ordered by loudhailer to disembark and surrender.