`We can't afford a nuclear attack,' said the President.
`That is why they've raised the stakes,' said Secretary of State Gillchrest. `They know our thinking.'
Weinstein continued: `The Chinese also have a sea-launch capability. But we have sunk the Xia which was heading towards the Eastern Pacific. The Russian-built Kilo class submarine has sea-launched cruise missile capability. That would be good up to 2,500 kilometres. Tests have been carried out on the updated Xia class submarine with a JL2 ICBM with a range of 8,000 kilometres. We have no intelligence that the submarine is anywhere but in port. Tests have been inconclusive. We believe it's not even ready for use.'
`Do they know we know?' the President asked.
`The first question we ask in intelligence, sir, is why are we discovering this. In Xining, definitely, they have ensured we know what they are doing. Or they wouldn't have brought them out in daylight. The Chinese always announce their intentions, Mr President. They're telling us they might nuke us any time.'
The President turned to Kuhnert: `Arnold, if you were going to hit their nuclear arsenal, how would you do it?'
`The main targets would be the Second Artillery units in the north at Shenyang, Harbin, and Yanbian. Simply because of range, that is where the launch would probably take place. I would like to also target the Nanjing, Guangzhou, and Chengdu military regions. To do it effectively would need a lot of firepower. The attacks would have to be simultaneous and even then it would impossible to guarantee the destruction of China's military arsenal. The only possible way to deter them from using nuclear weapons, Mr President, would be to carry out a nuclear strike on China first. But frankly, knowing a bit about Chinese military thinking, I don't think it would work. I believe the military mindset right now is that they would see their whole country wiped out before being defeated by the United States.'
Seoul was engulfed in smoke and raging fires. President Kim took a call on his direct line from Jamie Song.
`We have put an end to it', said the Chinese Foreign Minister, speaking in English. `Xinhua will be putting out a statement within the hour, saying that Kim Jong-Il and his close associates are on an official visit to China. We sent our own special forces units into Pyongyang to bring him out. There was fighting at the airport and our first aircraft was destroyed. But several army units have now come over to our side. Troops around the Presidential Palace have been neutralized. Kim Jong-Il is in the city of Yanji, across the border, under close guard. There'll be a statement from Pyongyang announcing the formation of a new government, but that might not be for some hours.'
`What about the current offensive?' interjected the President.
`I have no idea if the guys taking up the reins in Pyongyang have the power to call off the attack. On that one, you're on your own. And one other thing: once the truce is secured, we want the Americans out within a month.'
The first North Korean T-62 tank circled through the Demilitarized Zone as if the driver was in a manic frenzy, before crashing through one of the truce huts and heading straight for the South Korean military positions. Allied troops stopped it with an anti-tank missile. Then the North Korean artillery opened up with a ferocious barrage. Four Americans died from one shell explosion in Camp Greaves. Six were wounded. Five American helicopters, two giving covering fire with rockets and heavy machine-guns, came in to take out the dead, wounded, and survivors. Camp Greaves was empty when four North Korean T-62s broke down the perimeter fence. North Korean artillery was being destroyed by guided bombs and missiles fired from aircraft, warships, and land positions. The highway running north to Pyongyang was littered with the burnt-out wrecks of armoured vehicles. Fires raged below ground in the tunnels and caverns. But, unlike Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard in the Gulf War ten years earlier, it took far more to cripple the North Korean military machine.
Tens of thousand of troops poured south. Some emerged running across fields. At first, as they crossed the line, they were mown down with machine-guns or blown up by mines. Others came out in company strength through dozens of tunnels which had been dug over the years but not used. Hovercrafts with platoon-size units sped down at 40 knots landing men wherever they could find suitable landfall. Antonov troop-carrying planes dropped paratroopers. Hundreds were shot as they came down. Planes filled with men were blown out of the skies. By early afternoon, when the North Korean land offensive was at its height, it appeared that Fort Boniface would have to be abandoned. One North Korean commando unit penetrated the outer bunkers and there was hand-to-hand fighting on the sand-bagged defences. But the Americans put up a protective cordon of helicopter firepower around the base and soon the sheer devastating force of the South Korean and American counterattack put a stop to the first wave of enemy advance.
Skirmishes were continuing when Radio Pyongyang announced a change of government in the North. It broadcast a command for a ceasefire and within an hour of the news being known a Chinese military Boeing 737, met by escorting South Korean F-16 fighters on the Northern border, headed for Pyongyang. The troops advancing on the South fell into disarray. Soon it became clear they were without commanders and over the following hours many of those caught in forward positions changed from being the enemy to peasant refugees seeking sanctuary under UN protection.
At a military airbase near Pyongyang, Chinese and South Korean officials stepped off the aircraft to be met by their North Korean military hosts. A temporary treaty, brokered by China, was signed in a run-down and unheated building which later became as famous as the buildings around Panmunjon. Photographs showed the participants muffled up in military greatcoats as they put their signatures to the document.
It stated that the Korean Peninsula would be reunited under a formula of one country, two systems. The demarcation line along the 38th Parallel would remain in place to ensure that South Korea was not flooded with refugees. There would be two separate currencies. But the border would be open for trade and investment and in a gradual process the two societies and governments would be completely integrated. Monuments to the Great Leader Kim Il-Sung would remain intact, as would his Juche philosophy. The few monuments to Kim Jong-Il would be removed. Kim Jong-Il himself would remain under indefinite house arrest in Yanji. Once the Dragonstrike crisis was over, joint military celebrations of the unification would be held in both Pyongyang and Seoul. The last clause of the treaty specified that all foreign troops would be asked to leave the peninsula once a genuine peace had been restored.
As soon as the American military Boeing 707 entered Chinese airspace, it was intercepted by four Shenyang J-6C Farmer air-combat fighter aircraft. These ageing warplanes were copied from the Soviet MiG-19s with a design which dated back to the 1960s. They would be no match for the American Tomcats in action over the South China Sea. As American, British, and Chinese lives were being lost at war, the Chinese fighter pilots followed the Boeing in and stayed with it for the safe landing at Beijing's Capital international airport. This was the only foreign airliner there. All civilian aircraft had left China within the past forty-eight hours. China's own civilian air fleet was either grounded or being used for troop transport. Even during the flight, first from Seattle to Tokyo and then on to Beijing, Reece Overhalt had never imagined that the passenger terminal in Beijing could so quickly be transformed into a military installation. Camouflage had been taken off anti-aircraft positions in the dusty fields around the runway. Rows of Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer-C all-weather ground-attack and interdiction aircraft together with the Shenyang J-6Cs were parked where just a week ago United Airlines and British Airways Boeing 747s would have been. Two Air China Boeing 747s were at air bridges at one of the main terminal buildings where Overhalt's plane came to a stop. As he disembarked, hundreds of Chinese troops were milling around, waiting to board for their deployment on the Vietnamese border.