"Sir, may I speak to you?" Hyun inquired.
Min nodded.
"Sir, as captain of this airplane it is my duty to inform you that we do not have enough fuel, even with all this," Hyun waved a hand at the bladders, "to make landfall in this direction. In two hours we will be too low on fuel to be able to turn around and make it back to Indonesia."
"There's land ahead," Min quietly remarked.
Hyun blinked. "We are heading for the South Pole, sir. There are no all-weather airstrips suitable for this aircraft down there."
Min shrugged. "I know that. My team will parachute out, and then you will attempt to land on the ice and snow farther away to ensure operational security. I will leave one of the members of my team on board to help you travel to our exfiltration point."
Hyun blanched. "But, sir-" He halted, at a loss for words.
Min stood. "But what, Captain?"
Hyun shook his head. "Nothing, sir." He turned and retreated to his cockpit.
Senior Lieutenant Kim looked at his team leader. "Our captain is a weak man."
Min turned his attention back to the papers. "Are you satisfied that your men know the parts of the plan that they need to?"
Kim nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Have you picked who will stay with the plane?"
"Yes, sir. Sergeant Chong has volunteered."
"Good."
Kim scratched his chin. "The only thing I don't understand, sir, is why we are doing this."
No one else would have dared to say that to Min, but the two of them had spent four years working together. They'd infiltrated the South Koran coastline three times and conducted extremely successful reconnaissance missions there. They owed their lives to each other.
"There are U.S. nuclear weapons at our objectives."
Kim didn't show any surprise. "But you briefed us that there was no one there. No military."
"Correct."
Now Kim was surprised. "You mean these bombs are unguarded?"
Min nodded. "Yes. Our objective is to seize those weapons along with their arming codes and instructions. And to leave no trace of our presence there."
"How will we do that and what will we do with the weapons? I thought our government already had nuclear weapons?"
"We are not going back home with the weapons." Min shook his head. "The rest is not for you to know yet, my friend. You will be told when it is time. Suffice it to say that if we are successful, Orange III will be implemented, and it will succeed."
Min leaned back in his seat as his executive officer moved away. Although this whole plan was jury-rigged on short notice, there was quite a bit of precedent for the entire operation. The primary wartime mission of the North Korean Special Forces was to seize or destroy U.S. nuclear weapons. Min had helped draw up plans for direct action missions against overseas targets, including U.S. 7th Fleet bases in Japan and the Philippines, and even Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
North Korea had never been particularly shy about striking at their enemies outside their own borders, and the Special Forces had been involved in every action. In 1968 thirty-one Special Forces soldiers had infiltrated across the DMZ and made their way down to Seoul to raid the Blue House, home of the South Korean president. The mission failed, with twenty-eight men killed, two missing, and only one captured.
Shortly after that attack, on January 23, 1968, KPA Special Forces men in high speed attack craft seized the USS Pueblo. Later that year a large SF force of almost a hundred men conducted landings on the coast of South Korea in an attempt to raise the populace against the government. It failed, but such failures didn't daunt the North Korean government.
In 1969 a U.S. electronic warfare aircraft was shot down by North Korea, killing all thirty-one U.S. service members on board.
As security stiffened in South Korea over the decade of the 1970s, North Korea moved its attentions overseas, ignoring international reactions. In 1983 three PKA Special Forces officers planted a bomb in Rangoon in an attempt to kill the visiting South Korean president. That mission also failed.
Later in 1983 four North Korean merchant ships infiltrated the Gulf of California to conduct monitoring operations against the United States mainland. One of the ships was seized by the Mexican authorities, but that didn't prevent the North Koreans from continuing such operations.
Min knew that history, and he also knew more than the average North Korean about the changes that had been sweeping the world in the past decade. Spending time overseas, even in remote Indonesia, he had been exposed to more information than those in the tightly controlled society in his homeland ever received. The breakup of the Soviet Union had never been acknowledged by Pyongyang, except in cryptically worded exhortations to the people telling them they were the last true bastion of communism in the world. In fact, Min truly believed he was part of the last line in the war against western imperialism. He believed that if this mission succeeded, he would strike a blow greater than any of his Special Forces predecessors. That was enough for him.
Antarctica
Tai knew there was no way she would be able to sleep. "There is one thing I think we have to do," she said.
"What?" Vaughn asked. They paused as the door to the mess hall opened and Logan walked in. He grabbed a cup of coffee. "Mind if I join you?"
Tai glanced at Vaughn, then shrugged. "All right."
"Didn't plan on sitting on top of a couple of nukes," Logan said. "This is a messuck. You two figured out what's next?"
"We're working on it," Vaughn said.
Tai put down her coffee mug. "We need to make sure these bombs can't be used. We need to destroy the PAL codes."
"How do you propose we do that?" Vaughn asked.
"We blow up the safe that holds them."
Vaughn shook his head. "Destroying the codes doesn't do enough. Besides, the codes in the safe might not be the only ones. Someone else, somewhere, probably has a copy. Probably buried deep in some classified file cabinet. But there is a way to neutralize the bombs. Or at least keep them from being activated."
"How?" Tai asked.
"I told you that those two newer bombs have a six-digit PAL code that allows limited tries followed by lockout. I can enter two wrong codes and cause both bombs to go into lockout. That will mean that they can't be exploded."
"Bullshit!" They both looked at Logan in surprise. "How do we know you don't already have the codes and will arm the bombs with the correct six digits instead of the wrong ones?"
"Why would I do that?" Vaughn asked.
"I don't fucking know!" Logan turned to Tai. "Listen to me. What's to stop Vaughn from arming the bomb with a time delay? Then he kills us or just holds us at gun point and leaves, taking Brothers with him. If one of those goes off, all evidence of this base will be gone."
"I know Vaughn better than I know you," Tai said to Logan. "I trust him."
Safe House, Pine Barrens, New Jersey
The old man looked up as the door opened and two men walked in. The short one carried a briefcase, the taller one carried nothing. Knowing he would never get their real names, the old man immediately labeled them the Short Man and the Tall Man. The Short Man placed the briefcase on the desk, and they both stared at the old man.
Finally, he could take it no longer. "What do you want?"
Not a word had been said to him since he'd been picked up on the beach, flown to Otis Air Force Base, cross-loaded onto a military jet to Fort Dix, then driven to this house in the middle of nowhere.
The taller one, whom the man had correctly guessed was in charge, spoke. "We need information, Colonel Whitaker."