Tom Clancy's Op-center_ Op-center Part 34

Bob Herbert came wheeling in, followed by Martha, Coffey, McCaskey, and Ann Farris. Hood had a feeling she'd come, not so much to check on the crisis but to look after him. Her mothering made him both uncomfortable and strangely content, though he let the discomfort go for now. He'd liked how her hand felt on his shoulder before.

"Darrell," Hood said, "why is Hong-koo just sitting there? He has to know by now what's happened."

"It wouldn't matter," Martha answered for him. Darrell shot her a look. "The North Koreans would still have a party even if the birthday boy was shot dead. They like being unflappable. A holdover of President Kim Il Sung's ideology of juche-- self-reliance."

Ann said, "He'll probably use the forum to make a political statement of some kind."

"How they've been attacked and have exhibited enormous self-control by not responding," Martha said.

Darrell threw up his hands and sat down.

Hood watched intently as the pictures continued to come in, on the upper left and lower right of his computer, respectively. The arrival of each one was marked by a second-long whir of the hard disk as it stored the images; a code number in the bottom right of each picture-- the sequential number followed by a "1S" for "First Sweep"-- would allow it to be brought back instantly. The computer could also enhance the images with greater clarity, brightness, and even change the angle from directly above to head-on by extrapolating from information in the picture.

"Hold 17-1S," Hood barked, sitting up in his chair. "The lone figure standing behind the tree one hundred and something yards from the caravan--"

Bob and Darrell came around to look.

"His face is hidden by leaves," said Viens. "Let me move the camera over a bit."

A bit meant thousandths of an inch that, magnified by the satellite's distance from the Earth, would give them a different angle by a foot or more.

The new picture came in and it immediately began to shine with a faint blue line.

"Canasta!" said Viens. "I'm locking on him with the other satellite."

"No. I want an overview of the area-- give it to me from a quarter mile."

"Gotcha," said Viens.

Hood took the second phone line off hold, watched as the next photo showed Lee turning his body slightly toward the General's car. Hood had the same eerie feeling he got whenever he watched the Zapruder film of the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination: the event was happening and he was powerless to stop it.

The next photograph of Lee came up. He was clearly moving from behind the tree.

"Ms. Chong, can you hear me?" Hood said.

"Yes!"

"Tell your people that the rogue officer is emerging from behind an oak tree one hundred and thirty or forty yards north of the conference area. We believe he intends to attack General Hong-koo. Tell your people to stop Major Lee by any means necessary."

"I understand," she said, and relayed the message.

While she did so, Hood told Bugs to get General Schneider on the phone. As Bugs hurried to make the connection, Hood watched Lee continue to move from behind the oak. He was holding a gun. The men below him were watching General Hong-koo as he stood in his jeep, ready to emerge. In the larger picture, Hood saw the entire conference area, and both the immediate north and south sides of the DMZ. What he had been hoping to see was there-- on the South side, roughly three hundred yards southwest of Lee.

"I've got General Schneider!" Bugs said. He patched Hood through to the commander's field phone as he oversaw the deployment of the troops.

"Hood," the General snapped, "I wouldn't even be talking to you now if you weren't head of the crisis--"

"Major Lee is behind the conference center, North side."

"What?"

Hood said urgently, "You should be able to see it from your watchtowers southwest of the center. You've got a rifleman up there?"

"Yes--"

"Then use him. Fast!"

"You want me to shoot one of our own officers and fire into North Korea?" Schneider said.

"Isn't that what you've been wanting? Lee is armed and he's going to kill Hong-koo. You've got to stop him or a minute from now you'll be up to your G.o.dd.a.m.n neck in bodies!"

"What about my man in the tower? They'll fire back--"

"Hopefully not. My people are talking to them now."

" 'Hopefully,' " Schneider snorted. "Mister, I'll give the order, but this one's entirely your a.s.s."

Schneider signed off, and Hood asked Viens to keep one satellite on Lee, the other on the watchtower.

The second image moved in closer, showed one of the two soldiers picking up his phone, the other looking through field gla.s.ses.

The first image showed Lee boldly approaching Hong-koo. The second image showed the man with the binoculars lowering them.

Lee was closer now-- close enough so that he and Hong-koo were in the same image. Hong-koo was stepping from the jeep on the pa.s.senger's side, his men forming a semicircle around him, an honor guard. Reporters and photographers were off to the sides.

The soldier in the watchtower picked up his rifle.

Lee raised his gun.

The soldier put the stock of the Colt M16 to his shoulder.

Hood's gut was a furnace, his mouth painfully dry. A second late, one word too many, might be what plunged the peninsula into war- Photo flashes flared as Lee's gun went off. Hood's heart pushed against his throat as the watchtower soldier stood with the rifle in position. It seemed an eternity before the next set of pictures arrived.

Lee's face was turned away, apparently in response to the flashes. Hong-koo was falling backward with what appeared to be a splotch on his upper right arm.

The M16 spit smoke.

Hood had a curious flashback to when he was a kid, hiding in the muted, woolly quiet of his parents' cedar closet. The silence in his office was that thick.

The next photograph of the North Korean side showed General Hong-koo on his back, holding his arm. Nearby, Lee still stood, smoke rising from his gun his head entirely obscured by a cloud of blood.

"They did it," Herbert said, clenching a fist and shaking it.

McCaskey patted Hood on the back.

In the next photograph, Lee was falling and Hong-koo was rising. To the south, the men in the watchtower were ducking.

"Mr. Hood?" Kim Chong said. "I've given them your message and they're relaying it to Panmunjom."

"Do you think they believed you?"

"Of course," she said. "I'm a spy, not a politician."

Hood rose and Ann came over and hugged him. "You did it, Paul."

Coffey watched unhappily. "Right. We killed a South Korean officer. There will be repercussions."

"He was crazy," said Herbert. "We shot a rabid dog."

"Who may have a family. Rabid dogs don't have rights; soldiers and next of kin do."

Bugs interrupted with a call from General Schneider. Hood told him to try to raise Mike Rodgers, then sat on the edge of his desk and picked up the phone.

"Yes, General?"

"Looks like you may have pulled this one out. There's no shooting-- the North Koreans seem to be waiting."

"Can you see General Hong-koo?"

"No," said Schneider. "My boys up there are still ducking."

Hood looked at the monitor. "Well, the General's sitting up in the jeep, holding a handkerchief or cloth to a wound in his shoulder. Now they're driving away. Looks like he's okay."

"Colon's still going to s.h.i.t."

"I don't know," said Hood. "The President may like how this worked out-- self-policing plays well in the press. So does taking a hard line with an ally we've been underwriting for forty-plus--"

"Excuse me, sir," Bugs interrupted, "but I have Lt. Col. Squires on the TAC SAT. I think you'll want to talk to him."

Elation was replaced by a fresh wave of burning in his gut as Hood was plugged through and listened to what Rodgers was attempting

CHAPTER EIGHTY.

Wednesday, 9:00 A.M., the Diamond Mountains

The trip down the hill was slower than Rodgers had hoped. They had gone over four hundred yards around the troops stationed below and had crept down on their bellies, feetfirst, to keep as low a profile as possible. Sharp rocks poked at them, th.o.r.n.y plants stabbed their bare arms, and the grade was exceedingly steep the lower they got. Several times, each man had lost his footing and had to dig at the rocks, hand and foot, to keep from sliding into the camp. Rodgers realized that that had to be the reason the command tent had been pitched where it was: in daylight it was difficult enough to approach. In the dark, even with night-vision gla.s.ses, it would have been virtually impossible to get to.

Rodgers was in front, Moore and then Puckett behind; he stopped them behind a boulder twenty yards above the tent. With his two men behind the rock, Rodgers leaned around to watch for signs of activity below.

He heard soft, very muted voices, but saw no movement within.

d.a.m.n strange, he thought. This wasn't standard operating procedure at all. Once the Nodongs were raised and targeted, it was typical for commanders to be in the field: a launch order would never be given over the phone, but in person. It frustrated Rodgers that he couldn't make out what was being said in the tent, not that it really mattered. The only way they were going to stop the missiles from being launched was to get in there and persuade whoever was in charge to lower them. Though he couldn't hear, he was willing to bet his pension that it wasn't the North Koreans who were calling the shots.

He leaned back toward the others. "There are two or three men inside the tent," he whispered. "We'll go in right below, on the back side. Moore-- you cut us a doorway, then step to the left. It'll have to be fast. I'll go in first, then Puckett, and you follow us. I'll cover the left side; Puckett, you take the right; and Moore covers the front. We go in with guns, not knives-- we don't want anyone even to think about calling for reinforcements."

Both men nodded. Drawing his knife, Moore inched down the last stretch of slope, feetfirst, his back to the rock. His Beretta drawn, Rodgers set out behind him with Puckett bringing up the rear.

Upon reaching the bottom, Moore waited for the others. The three men crouched in the relative dark behind the tent, Rodgers listening as Moore crept over.

"will find that I have a great deal of support here," someone was saying. "Your own people made this possible. Reunification, like remarriage, is a precious notion, but ultimately impractical."

The South Koreans have obviously taken over here, Rodgers thought. He watched as Moore rose slowly beside the tent, the long knife in his left hand, pointing down and ready to strike. Rodgers made his way over, Puckett behind him, both crouched on the b.a.l.l.s of their feet, ready to jump in.

If only he knew who was the infiltrator and who was the DPRK officer. He would kill the former without hesitation.

Moore nodded once, then pushed the hilt bottom with his right hand. The blade tore through the fabric, Moore pulled down, and then he stepped aside. Rodgers leapt through, stepping to the left and pointing his gun at the Colonel sitting on the cot: he was bald and holding a b.l.o.o.d.y cloth around his hand. From his wound, and the fact that he was unarmed, Rodgers knew at once that this was the North Korean officer and that he was a prisoner of the other two. Puckett jumped through, pointing his gun at the officer standing on the right side of the tent. He grabbed the Type 64 pistol before it could be fired and put his own Beretta to the Colonel's forehead.

Moore came in next as Kong, beside the front flap, held up his left hand and dropped the Type 64 he was holding in it. His gun pointed at the big orderly's head, Moore stooped to pick up the gun.

His right hand behind him, Kong whipped the TT33 Tokarev from his belt and fired into Moore's left eye. The soldier fell back and Kong aimed at Puckett.

Rodgers had been watching Kong, and when he saw the big man's right hand slip behind his back, he had swung his own gun around. The General was not quick enough to save Moore, but he put a bullet into Kong's forehead before he could fire at Puckett. The orderly crumpled to the floor of the tent, slumped against the flap, causing it to bulge out.

Puckett's jaw was set like iron, his eyes aflame. "Don't you move, dirtbag."

Rodgers heard soldiers yelling outside. He looked down at the officer on the cot.

"I've got to trust you," Rodgers said, not sure he was being understood. "We need those missiles stopped."

He made a point of aiming the gun away and stepped back. He motioned for Ki-Soo to rise.

The officer bowed slightly.

"You traitors!" Colonel Sun shouted. "See how a patriot dies!"

Sun reached forward and pulled Puckett's arm toward him. Reacting as he'd been trained to do in an attack situation, the Private fired. Sun groaned, folded at the middle, and fell at Puckett's feet.

Rodgers dropped to his side and felt for a pulse. "He's gone," he said. He turned to Moore. He had known that the Private was dead, but picked up his wrist anyway. He pulled a blanket from the cot and handed it to Puckett, who draped it over Moore's body.

"Colonel," Rodgers said, "do you speak English?"

Ki-Soo shook his head.

"Pu-t'ak hamnida," Rodgers used one of the few Korean words he knew. "Please. The Nodongs-- Tokyo."

Ki-Soo nodded as soldiers appeared in the doorway. He held them back with a raised hand and barked command. Then he pointed to the dead man.