Tom Clancy's Op-center_ Op-center Part 15

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

Tuesday, 8:55 A.M., Op-Center

Bob Herbert stewed as he rolled his wheelchair into his office. His mouth was locked in a frown, his teeth clenched, his thin eyebrows pinched in the center. He was angry in part because Stoll had been tactless enough to say what he did, but also because, in his heart, Herbert knew that he was right. They were no different, the glitch in software Matt wrote and the breakdown in security he'd helped to organize-- they were all part of the same SNAFU scheme of things. You couldn't avoid it, however hard you tried.

Liz Gordon was right too. Rodgers had once quoted Benjamin Franklin, the gist of which was that we must all hang together or we'll all hang separately. Op-Center had to run that way, and it was difficult. Unlike the military or NASA or any organization where the people were of a vaguely similar background or orientation, Op-Center was a potpourri of talent, education, experience-- and idiosyncrasies. It was wrong and, worse, counterproductive to expect Stoll to act like anyone but Matthew Stoll.

You're going to give yourself a stroke- Herbert slid behind his desk and locked the wheels. Without lifting up the receiver, he punched in the name of the U.S. military base in Seoul. The main number and direct lines came up on a rectangular screen below the keypad. Herbert scrolled through them with the* b.u.t.ton, stopped at General Norbom's office, lifted the receiver, and punched # to enter it. He tried to think of what he could say to Gregory Donald, since he had lost his own wife Yvonne, a fellow CIA agent, in the Beirut blast. But words were not his forte. Only intelligence and bitterness.

Herbert wished he could relax, just a little, but it wasn't possible. It had been nearly a decade and a half since the blast. The sense of all he'd lost haunted him, every day, though he had gotten used to the wheelchair and to being a single father to a sixteen-year-old girl. What didn't diminish with time, what was as wrenchingly vivid today as it was in 1983, was the sheer chance of it all. If Yvonne hadn't popped in to tell him a joke she'd heard on a Tonight Show tape, she would be alive today. If he hadn't gotten her that Neil Diamond tape, and Diamond hadn't been on that night, and she had never asked her sister to record it- It was enough to make his heart sink and his head spin each time he thought about it. Liz Gordon had told him it was best not to, of course, but that didn't help. He kept going back to that moment when he stood in the music store, asking for anything by the singer who did the song about the heart-light General Norbom's orderly answered the phone and informed Herbert that Donald had accompanied his wife's body to the Emba.s.sy to see to her return to the U.S. Herbert brought up Libby Hall's number and entered it.

G.o.d, how she loved that dopey song. As many times as he'd tried to interest his wife in Hank Williams and Roger Miller and Johnny Horton, she kept going back to Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow and Engelbert.

Hall's secretary answered and put Herbert through to Donald.

"Bob," he said, "it's good to hear from you."

Donald's voice sounded stronger than he'd expected. "How are you, Greg?"

"Like Job."

"I've been there, friend. I know what you're going through."

"Thanks. Do you know anything more about what happened? They're working hard at KCIA but coming up short."

"We've, uh, got a bit of a situation here ourselves, Greg. Seems our computers have been violated. We can't be sure of the data we're getting, including the pictures from our satellites."

"It sounds like someone did their homework for today."

"They did indeed. Now we know what your situation is, and with G.o.d himself holdin' the Bible I swear I'll understand if you say no. But the chief wants to know if you'd consider going to the DMZ and eyeballing the situation up there firsthand. The President's put him in charge of the Korea Task Force, and he needs reliable people on the scene."

There was a brief silence, after which Donald replied, "Bob, if you'll arrange the necessary clearances through General Schneider, I'll be available to go north in about two hours. Will that be acceptable?"

"I'm sure it will," said Herbert, "and I'll see to the clearances and a chopper. Good luck, Greg, and G.o.d bless."

"And G.o.d bless you," said Donald.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

Tuesday, 11:07 P.M., the DMZ

The Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea was thirty-five miles north of Seoul and one hundred miles south of Pyongyang. It was established concurrent with the truce of July 27, 1953, and since that time, soldiers from both sides have watched their counterparts with fear and suspicion. At the present time a total of one million soldiers were stationed on either side, most of them housed in modern, air-conditioned barracks. These were arranged in rows and covered nearly two hundred acres, beginning less than three hundred yards from either side of the border.

The zone was demarcated from northeast to southwest by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence on both sides, with another three feet of barbed wire running along the top. Between them was an area nearly twenty feet across from coast to coast-- the DMZ itself. Soldiers armed with high-powered rifles and German shepherds patrolled the outer perimeter of both sides. There was only one way through the DMZ, a narrow roadway that was wide enough for just one vehicle to pa.s.s; until Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang in 1994, no individual had ever crossed from this region to the capital of North Korea. The only direct contact between both sides occurred in a one-story structure that resembled the barracks. There was a single door on each side, two guards beside that door, and a flagpole to the left of the guards; inside was a long conference table that, like the structure itself, neatly straddled the border between North and South. On those rare occasions when meetings were held, the representatives from the North remained on their side of the room, the representatives from the South on theirs.

Well east of the last of the barracks on the South Korean side of the DMZ was scrubland spotted with low-lying hills and occasional thickets. The military held maneuvers beyond the hills; though difficult to see from the north, the sounds of tanks and artillery fire, especially during nighttime activity, could be alarming.

One of the thickets, nearly twenty yards across, grew over a rocky depression nearly a half mile from the DMZ. It was a mined area that Captain Ohn Bock personally checked at least twice a day. There, just seven weeks before, ROK forces had quietly built a tunnel four feet in diameter: unknown to the North Koreans, it allowed the South to keep an eye on activity in the network of tunnels that the enemy had excavated under the DMZ. The South Korean tunnel didn't actually connect with the North Korean tunnel; audio devices and motion detectors had been poked through the tunnel walls to keep track of spies being smuggled into the South from an exit hidden beneath rock and shrubs a quarter mile farther south. These operatives were then followed, their ident.i.ties reported to both Military Intelligence and the KCIA.

As planned, Captain Bock had arranged his evening trip to the tunnel to coincide with the arrival of his childhood friend Major Kim Lee. The Captain and an aide drove up shortly after Lee arrived. They were already unloading the chemical drums. Bock saluted his superior.

"I was happy to get your call," Bock said. "This has been a great day for you."

"It's not yet over."

"I've heard bodies were discovered on the ferry and that the seaplane pilot returned on time. Colonel Sun's operation, too, appears to be going as planned."

In the two years that he'd known him, and in the year that this operation had been in the planning stage, Bock had never once seen the stoic Major show any emotion. But that was especially true now. Whereas another man might be expected to show relief at what had been accomplished, or antic.i.p.ation over what was still to come-- Bock himself was more anxious as the hour grew closer-- Lee seemed almost supernaturally calm. His sonorous voice was soft, his movements unhurried, his manner slightly more reserved than normal. And he was the man going into the hole, not Bock.

"You've taken care of the tunnel watch for tonight?"

"Yes, sir. My man Koh is on the monitors. He's my computer genius. He'll make sure the surveillance equipment registers nothing until you've returned."

"Excellent. We're still planning to move at 0800 hours."

"I'll be waiting here for you."

With a smart salute, the Captain turned, climbed into his jeep, and returned to his post and to his job reviewing reports from along the DMZ and shuffling them off to Seoul. If all went well, after tonight he would be reviewing troops and not papers as they prepared to fend off an attack from the North.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.

Tuesday, 9:10 A.M., Washington, D.C.

With both hard copy and a diskette of the Options Paper in his small black briefcase, Paul Hood hurried to his car in Op-Center's underground parking lot. Once inside, he handcuffed the briefcase to his belt and locked the doors-- he also carried a.38 in a shoulder holster when he was carrying secret doc.u.ments-- then logged himself out using the keypad at the gate; the sentry visually ID'd his badge and marked the time of his departure on a separate computer. This process was virtually identical to the procedure each employee went through upstairs. The code here was different from the one upstairs, and the feeling was that security might be compromised at one point, but rarely two.

Which doesn't matter much, Hood mused, If we've got someone slipping into our computers without getting near the place.

Distrustful of technology, Hood had little understanding of the way it worked. But he was keenly interested to hear what had happened this morning: Stoll was the best at what he did, and if something got past him it had to be one for the books.

As he cleared the concrete structure and drove toward the gate at Andrews-- a third and final checkpoint, card ID only-- he snapped up the phone. He called information, got the number of the hospital, and punched it in. He was connected to their son's room.

"h.e.l.lo."

"Sharon-- hi. How is he?"

She hesitated. "I've been waiting for you to call."

"Sorry. We've got a situation." The phone was not secure; he couldn't say more. "How's Alex?"

"They have him in a tent."

"What about the injections?"

"They didn't work. His lungs are too full of fluid. They have to control his breathing until-- until he clears up."

"Are they concerned?"

"I am," she said.

"So am I. But what do they say, honey?"

"This is standard. But so are the injections, and those didn't work."

s.h.i.t. He looked at his watch and cursed Rodgers for not being here. What the h.e.l.l kind of G.o.dd.a.m.n business was he in where he had to choose between being at his ailing son's side and being with the President-- and picked the latter. He thought of how unimportant this would all seem if anything happened to Alexander. But what he did today would affect thousands of lives, maybe tens of thousands. He had no choice but to finish what he'd begun.

"I'm going to call Dr. Trias at Walter Reed and ask him to come over. He'll make sure that everything possible is being done."

"Will he hold my hand, Paul?" she asked, and hung up.

"No," he said to the dial tone. "No, he won't."

Hood lay the receiver back in the cradle. He squeezed the rim of the steering wheel until his forearms ached, angry because he couldn't be there, but also frustrated because Sharon was exacting her pound of flesh. In her heart, she knew that as much as he loved her and Alex and wanted to be at the hospital, there wasn't much he could do there. He would sit, hold her hand for a few minutes, then walk around and be otherwise useless just as he was when his children were born. The first time he'd tried to help her breathe through a contraction, she'd screamed for him to get the h.e.l.l away from her and find the nurse. It was an important lesson: Hood learned that when a woman wanted you, it wasn't the same as her needing you.

Now if only he didn't feel so guilty. Swearing, he hit the Speaker b.u.t.ton, called Op-Center, and asked Bugs to patch him through to Dr. Orlito Trias at Walter Reed.

While he waited, picking his way through late rush-hour traffic, Hood cursed Rodgers again-- though he knew he really didn't blame him for anything. After all, why had the President appointed him? It wasn't just because he was a second-string quarterback who could come in and win the game. It was because he was a seasoned soldier who would be a voice of experience and caution in situations like these, a combat veteran and historian with a profound respect for fighting men, strategy, and war. A man who stayed in shape by walking on his office treadmill for an hour each afternoon, reciting The Poem of The Cid in Old Spanish when he wasn't conducting business. And sometimes while he was. Of course a man like that would want to be in the field with a team he'd helped organize: once a general, always a general. And didn't Hood always encourage his people to think independently? Besides, if Rodgers had been less of a cowboy, he would be a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense, the post he'd wanted, instead of getting the consolation prize, the number two spot at Op-Center.

"Good morning, Dr. Trias's office."

Hood turned up the volume. "Good morning, Cath, this is Paul Hood."

"Mr. Hood! The doctor missed you at the National s.p.a.ce Society meeting last night."

"Sharon rented Four Weddings and a Funeral. I kind of had no choice. Is he in?"

"I'm sorry, but he's giving a lecture in Georgetown this morning. Is there a message?"

"Yes. Tell him that my son Alexander had an asthma attack and is in pediatrics. I'd like him to check on him, if he has the time."

"I'm sure he will. Give your boy a hug for me when you see him-- he's a b.u.t.ton."

"Thanks," Hood said, punching off the phone.

That's great, he thought. Just great. He couldn't even deliver the doctor.

Hood considered and quickly dismissed the idea of asking Martha Mackall to go to the White House in his stead. While he respected her abilities, he couldn't be sure whether she would be there representing his positions and Op-Center, or promoting the career and best interests of Martha Mackall. She'd come up from Harlem the hard way, learning Spanish, Korean, Italian, and Yiddish as she hand-painted signs for shops all around Manhattan, then studied j.a.panese, German, and Russian in college while earning her master's degree in economics on a full scholarship. As she'd told Hood when he first interviewed her, at forty-nine she wanted to get out of the Secretary General's office at the U.N. and continue to deal directly with the Spanish, Koreans, Italians, and Jews-- only this time shaping policy, not serving as just a mouthpiece. If he hired her to collect, maintain, and a.n.a.lyze a database on the economies and key political operatives of every country in the world, he was to stay out of her way and let her do her job. He'd hired her because she was the kind of independent thinker he wanted at his side going into battle, but he wouldn't trust her to lead the charge until he was sure that Martha Mackall's agenda wasn't more important to her than Op-Center.

As he swung down Pennsylvania Avenue, Hood was bothered by the fact that he was able to overlook Mike's flaws more readily than Martha Mackall's or Sharon's, for that matter. Martha would have called it s.e.xism, but Hood didn't think so: it was a question of selflessness. If he got on the horn and asked Mike to bail out over Little Rock, hitch back to D.C., and fill in for him, he'd do it, no questions asked. If he paged Orly, he would leave the lecture in midsentence. With women, it was always a dance.

Feeling as though he had two left feet, Hood pulled up to the White House gate, one of two that protected the narrow private road that separated the Oval Office and the West Wing from the Old Executive Office Building. Presenting his pa.s.s, he parked amid the cars and bicycles there and, briefcase in hand, hurried to meet the President.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

Tuesday, 11:17 P.M., Sea of j.a.pan, twelve miles from Hungnam, North Korea

The policy among most Communist nations regarding territorial waters was that the boundaries, as decided by international treaty, did not apply to them. That the limit was not three miles but twelve, and often fifteen where enemy troops have been known to patrol.

North Korea had long maintained that it owned waters that stretched well into the Sea of j.a.pan, a claim disputed by j.a.pan and the United States. Navy patrol boats routinely pushed the envelope, sailing within four and five miles of the North Korean coast, and were occasionally challenged; when they were, they came no closer but rarely retreated. In more than forty years, confrontations had been few. The most famous incident was the North's seizure of the USS Pueblo in January of 1968, accusing the seamen of being spies; it took a day shy of eleven months of negotiations before the eighty-two-man crew was released. The deadliest encounter occurred in July of 1977, when a U.S. helicopter strayed over the 38th parallel and was shot down with the loss of three crew members. President Carter apologized to the North, admitting that the men had been in error; the three bodies and one survivor were returned.

After a brief stopover in Seoul to deliver her film, Recon Officer Judy Margolin and pilot Harry Thomas were skyborne again for their second pa.s.s over the North. This time, however, they were obviously expected and picked up by early warning and tracking radar on the ground as they swept in over Wonsan. A pair of airborne MiG-15P interceptors quickly entered their attack zones, one coming in low from the north, one high from the south. Harry expected a chase toward the sea, and knew he could outrun the old planes easily if he was facing in the right direction.

Pulling his nose up, he started to roll while ascending and accelerating. Temporarily losing sight of the Russian-made jets, he found them again when one MiG's twin 23mm NS-23 cannons caught the fuselage on the starboard side. The loud pock-pock-pock sounded like balloons popping and took him totally by surprise.

Despite the screaming of the engine, he heard Judy moan into her mouthpiece; from the corner of his eye, he saw her slump against her harness. Finishing his roll, he banked south and continued to accelerate.

"Sir, are you all right?"