"What about third parties?" Commander Drexler asked. The skipper of VAQ-143 sounded worried. "Just how big a problem are the Chinese or Russkies going to be?"
Neil gave a small shrug. "Wish we knew. Intelligence doesn't think either Beijing or Moscow is going to come out in support of the PDRK, but at this point, their intentions are anybody's guess."
"There's intelligence again," Murcheson muttered.
"Thank you, Commander Neil," Admiral Magruder said, stepping up to the podium. The look in his gray eyes as he took Neil's place made Marusko think he wanted to head off further comment. None of the aviators in CVIC looked happy, and several wore expressions that were downright belligerent. He remembered an acronym which had made its way through military circles for years, one which had been invented by the raiders who went into Son Tay to rescue American POWs in 1972. Their unofficial symbol had been a mushroom with the letters KITD/FOHS.
Kept in the dark, fed on horse shit. This looked to Marusko like a similar situation, one where American lives were going to be put on the line with inadequate intelligence… and possibly inadequate backing as well.
And the skippers of Jefferson's air wing were beginning to feel the same way.
"Gentlemen," the admiral said. "As of now, this carrier group is on full alert. Within two hours this command can expect the arrival of a Marine Expeditionary Unit. The Chosin and her escorts put to sea from Okinawa last night. They should rendezvous with us by eleven hundred hours this morning, and their presence will give us full amphibious capability, if it becomes necessary to go ashore.
"Our orders are to be prepared to implement whatever policy the National Command Authority deems necessary for resolving this crisis." The admiral's eyes shifted, seeking out Lieutenant Commander Greene. "Obviously, air strikes against North Korean targets are one possible option. I would like to steal a march on Washington and get the planning for such a strike under way at once. Each of you will coordinate with CAG in preparing operational orders for sorties against the North Koreans." A low, chorused groan rose from the seated men. Writing op orders meant hours of paperwork… all in addition to their other duties.
Admiral Magruder held up his hand. "We will assume three levels of response: aggressive patrolling, strikes against selected ground targets, and full amphibious operations. CAG will pass out folders with what we know about KorCom radars, SAM sites, and other installations along the east coast.
"It is my intent, gentlemen, to be fully ready to carry out whatever is asked of us." He paused, giving the room one last sweep with those icy eyes. "Dismissed!"
The officers came to attention as the admiral strode past them and out the door.
CHAPTER 7
They pulled him out of the hole in the ground with shouts and curses. His hands were still lashed behind his back, and Coyote could no longer feel his fingers.
It had been a long night, and a cold one. His flight suit was still wet from his inadvertent swim the day before, and crouching in the mud at the bottom of the pit had left him chilled to the very core of his being.
"You come, imperialist damn sonabichi!" A rifle butt planted hard against his spine sent him sprawling facedown on the ground. A booted foot caught him in the side, sending a blast of pain through his chest and shoulder. "Up, sonabichi! You up!"
"With a kick like that, you oughta try out for the Cowboys," Coyote muttered through clenched teeth. Rough hands grabbed his arms and hoisted him to his feet. Prodded and jabbed by the muzzles of his guards' AK-47s, Coyote was herded toward the low, concrete block building in the center of the compound.
They'd brought him to that building for the first time the previous afternoon. He'd been hauled dripping from the North Korean gunboat which had plucked him from the sea and paraded through the streets of Wonsan while civilians raised clenched fists and chanted unintelligible phrases in which the words "imperialist" and "American" were prominently featured. At some point in the festivities, he'd been tied and blindfolded, slung like a sack of grain into the back of a truck, and transported over rough roads winding up into the mountains which backed Wonsan against the sea.
He was being held in a military base of some sort. Even blindfolded yesterday afternoon, he'd recognized the growl of military trucks and other vehicles, the measured stamp of booted feet marching in formation, the bark of orders and the answering whisk-crash of weapons brought to order arms.
The blindfold had been removed during his first interrogation and his suspicions had been confirmed. This was an Army base, a compound consisting of the drab, utilitarian buildings so prevalent in progressive socialist societies. Many were stained, looking as though they dated back to the Second World War. One, a three-story apartment building, was a barracks, Coyote guessed. Beyond the chain-link fence that encircled the compound he could see the ocean, dazzling under a morning sun. He concluded that the base must be located somewhere in the hills south of the city.
Wonsan was squeezed in between the waters of the bay called Yonghung Man and the mountains of Korea's spine. East of the city, a narrow peninsula reached north from the mainland, almost cutting Wonsan off from the sea. Sprawled across the peninsula, only a few miles north of the camp, he could see a large air base; distant thunder echoed among the mountains and in the sky, MiGs on patrol.
Surrounding the city, crowded onto the narrow shelf of land between sea and mountain, was the tangled sprawl of Wonsan's industrial heart. Coyote could see factories, the cranes and smokestacks of shipyards and industrial plants, the wire-festooned masts of high-tension-line towers bringing hydroelectric power in from the north, and the squat, neatly ordered drums of oil storage tank farms. Wonsan was the second-largest city in the People's Democratic Republic of Korea and one of its most important industrial centers. The camp lay at the edge of Wonsan's southern industrial sprawl, near roads and factory chimneys which poked into the hazy air like fingers. Military traffic rumbled along a nearby highway beyond the compound's outer fence, trucks and flatbed trailers carrying antiaircraft cannon.
His inspection of the city and its surroundings was brutally interrupted as a guard knocked him down with an AK butt once more, then kicked him viciously several times in the ribs and thigh. "Up, sonabichi dog! You up!"
Yanked to his feet again, he was dragged up the steps in front of the concrete building he'd tentatively identified as a security Headquarters of some sort, past a brace of unsmiling guards and into a low-ceilinged passageway that was all gray paint and naked light bulbs. The second office on the right was occupied by a hard-eyed little officer who smoked incessantly and who spoke almost perfect English.
He introduced himself as Colonel Li. The guards made Coyote kneel in the middle of the floor, while the officer rounded the desk and perched on the corner. "Good morning, Lieutenant," he said, taking a pull on his cigarette. "I trust you slept well?"
Coyote did not answer. One of the guards standing unseen at his back kicked him in the hollow of his knee, knocking him to the floor. The other stepped in front of him and kicked him in the face, a light touch which left him blinking away stars. Coyote could taste the salty stickiness of blood in his mouth. He struggled against the ligatures which bound his wrists and elbows. Someone grabbed him by his hair and dragged him upright again.
Li took the cigarette from his mouth, holding it between two fingers. "Name?"