But, he reflected, the Americans were different. Their entire culture was different. And this was why they would ultimately lose the battle over the long term. They believed in compassion and mercy — when in war, there should be none.
The way Ho saw it though, he was out of options — if he sounded the alarm, he might succeed in the prisoners being kept where they were, and the possible capture of the American commandos. But the valley — and the weapon alongside it — would still be razed from existence. The camp guards might escape, but perhaps not. And if Ho survived the bombing, he was unlikely to survive a debriefing back in Pyongyang.
And this was why he had jumped at the commando’s offer — if he led in the two Chinese officers, got them inside the camp, and then gave certain orders, he would be extracted from the valley alongside the rest of the American troops.
He understood that he would face lengthy interrogations by US intelligence, but he was too experienced to believe in the propaganda spread by his own government; far from being tortured and killed, he would be regarded as a valuable defector, and be granted permission to live life freely after he had been bled dry of information. Certainly more freely than he had ever been allowed to live in the People’s Republic.
He would miss his wife and children of course, but he would be alive.
Alive and free.
And in the end, there was no choice at all — he merely barked his commands at the sentries, who opened the gates immediately to allow full access to the prison compound for him and the two Chinese agents who accompanied him.
Navarone breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the three men pass through the inner gates.
He hadn’t known whether the major would go through with the charade or not — a part of him was terrified that Ho would just start shouting and ruin the whole thing — but he was delighted when it looked like he would do exactly what he had promised.
Navarone knew the man had been left with few options — his plan was in tatters, the camp was going to be obliterated anyway, and at least by agreeing to follow Navarone’s demands, he was left with the possibility of survival.
He smiled as the major spoke to the two guards at the sentry post, barking orders at them; and breathed a second sigh of relief as they both turned to follow Ho and Liu further into the compound, leaving Xie Wei to man the side gate.
Navarone checked on the rest of his men, making sure they were all ready. He had snipers ready to take out the soldiers in the four corner guard towers, as well as other elements still working their evil magic over on the eastern side of the compound.
Downstairs, he also had six men disguised — as best as they could manage — as North Korean soldiers, waiting to be let into the camp by Xie Wei.
Navarone’s plan was for Major Ho to order a prisoner roll call, to bring everyone back to the huge central square. His snipers would then take out the guard towers, his men — having worked their way inside, near to other guards — would take out as many soldiers as they could, and Ho and Liu would shepherd the prisoners out of the camp through the gate manned by Xie, while Navarone’s snipers and machine gunners provided covering fire from the secondary compound.
With a large part of the guard force distracted by the activity east of the camp, Navarone hoped it would be possible for the prisoners to escape into the forested hills surrounding the valley before the bunker buster bombs were dropped by the B2s and the whole area was reduced to ashes.
Navarone’s concentration was broken by the electronic beeping of his field radio.
He picked up the handset. ‘Rattlesnake,’ he answered with the group’s operational call sign.
‘Rattlesnake, this is Command, over,’ the urgent voice of Ike Treyborne came back. ‘Please confirm that you are out of area.’
‘Negative, Command,’ Navarone said. ‘We are evacuating the area to minimize collateral damage, over.’
‘Those weren’t your orders Rattlesnake,’ Treyborne shot back, angry. ‘You need to leave the area immediately, is that understood? Cobra element is en route, ETA one hour. Please confirm, over.’
Navarone’s blood went cold in his veins. One hour? He’d calculated he had at least six hours left; long enough to free the prisoners and be long gone before the B2s arrived. ‘One hour?’ he asked in disbelief. ‘We thought six, Command. What happened?’
‘Cobra element was staged ahead, Rattlesnake, two pieces based at Whisky Papa, over.’
Despite the highly encrypted digital radio, Treyborne still used code words, never willing to trust technology. Navarone knew that Whisky Papa was the Western Pacific, and Treyborne was referring specifically to the US military base at Guam, which combined the Joint Region Marianas naval installation with Andersen Air Force Base.
Navarone’s pulse raced. Guam was only two thousand miles away from North Korea; just three hours of flight time.
‘Authorization for Cobra element has been given, Rattlesnake, do you copy? Element is already en route to your destination. You need to evacuate immediately, I repeat, immediately, do you copy? Over.’
‘Yes sir,’ Navarone answered in a shaky voice as he peered out of the window of the laboratory, saw the prisoners begin to congregate in the square.
Thousands of them.
‘I will evacuate immediately, sir,’ he said. ‘Over and out.’
He replaced the handset and breathed in deeply, exhaled slowly.
An hour would have to be enough.
3
‘So what do we know?’ dos Santos asked.
‘Okay,’ Olsen said, ‘again I can’t go into the specifics of where this intel came from, but I think we’ve got a good idea of who’s behind it. I know time is of the essence, but I’ll start at the beginning, to give you all the information.
‘We have reason to believe that Arabian Islamic Jihad is now in possession of the weapon which was heading for Pakistan. We don’t know how — perhaps due to the North Koreans’ own efforts to find Islamic proxies, maybe information flowed both ways over the years — but it transpires that the terrorists learnt of the weapon’s existence and realized how useful it could be if a real terrorist organization got their hands on it.
‘Now,’ Olsen continued, ‘they couldn’t very well just waltz right in to North Korea and steal it. And so — with what we assume must have been full foreknowledge of the RGB operation — they waited until the weapon was en route to Pakistan. Knowing the transport ship would pass through Indonesian waters, the AIJ then asked their contacts in Jemaah Islamiyah to arrange the hijacking of the Fu Yu Shan.
‘Jemaah Islamiyah then subcontracted the job to the pirate group Liang Kebangkitan, who performed the actual hijack. Arief Suprapto — the pirate leader — and his gang were allowed to keep the ship, the crew and the cargo, except for a single crate — the crate from North Korea, which was put on board at Dalian.
‘This crate found its way — via private jet — to Saudi Arabia. It’s yet to be confirmed, but it seems that funding for the AIJ has come in the most part from money unknowingly siphoned off from Saudi National Oil profits by its Vice President of Finance, Investment and Development, Abdullah al-Zayani.
‘Through al-Zayani, we’ve identified a possible candidate for the leader of Arabian Islamic Jihad. We’re just awaiting confirmation of this.’
Richards could feel all eyes in the room turning to him, their glare knowing, judging, accusing. But when he looked around, he realized he had been imagining it; all eyes were still locked on General Olsen.