Coburn hadn’t only been looking at the lights. He’d been looking at the backdrop — at a sky no longer glowing red, but streaked in orange, and so filled with smoke that, even inside the car from this far away, the acrid smell of burning was unmistakable.
Some diversion, he thought, nasty enough for anyone, and if O’Halloran wasn’t being over-optimistic, big enough maybe to have given them the break they needed.
On their drive back to the motel, he kept the Chrysler’s speed down, approaching the south end of Canyon City with extra caution in case he was wrong about a roadblock, but finding that now the bar had closed, instead of the place being ready to go to sleep, it was asleep.
John Day was equally quiet. A young couple were locked in an embrace in the doorway of the hardware store, and a man outside a butcher’s shop was unloading a carcass from his pickup, but the main street was otherwise deserted.
Highway 395 was deserted too. For the entire duration of their journey, they encountered fewer than a dozen vehicles, most of them late-night delivery trucks or cars being driven by people in a hurry to get home.
It was close to 1.00 a.m. when they pulled into the motel car park, and because O’Halloran insisted on having a shower before he did anything else, nearly 1.30 before the American was ready to sit down in front of his laptop.
Coburn had half-expected to be disappointed. But no sooner had he begun viewing the data on the screen than he knew he wasn’t going to be, and five minutes after that, intrigued and struggling to understand the implications, he’d started to wonder what the hell it was they’d stumbled on.
CHAPTER 15
Of the nine files O’Halloran had copied, one listed the names and addresses of FAL members in different US states, another provided a record of those companies who, over the last twelve months, had donated sums in excess of $10,000 to the League. Two other files were of even less interest, appearing to be early versions of a speech Shriver had delivered after the Rybinsk incident in which he condemned North Korea for maintaining what he claimed was a covert programme to develop more nuclear weapons.
It was the remaining five files that were intriguing — a collection of information consisting of a clipping from an obscure suburban newspaper, a map, two data sheets and the draft press release that O’Halloran had mentioned.
Like Coburn, the American was trying to make sense of what they were looking at, scrolling backwards and forwards through the files, and irritating Coburn in the process.
‘Give it a rest.’ Coburn reached over and brought up the copy of the newspaper clipping on to the screen. ‘Just leave that where it is for a second. If you don’t want to read it again, I do.’
The clipping was dated 27 July and had been taken from the Baltimore Leader:
Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialists Andrea Aspin and Debbie Lowe, both of Baltimore, will later this week fly out to the US Naval base at Chinhae in South Korea where they will be joining the crew of the USS Sandpiper, an Osprey Class Minehunter currently on duty assisting the South Korean Navy to clear mines from coastal waters in the Yellow Sea.
Although all Osprey Class vessels are scheduled to be replaced by the new family of Littoral High-Speed Surface Ships, Andrea and Debbie say they are looking forward to serving on the Sandpiper, and hope the experience will stand them in good stead for a future transfer to one of the faster vessels if and when the opportunity arises.
Speaking from Chinhae yesterday, Lt Cdr Sam Ritchie said that the two young women will provide a fresh dimension to the operational and tactical abilities of his ship.
In the past month, the Sandpiper alone has been responsible for the retrieval and deactivation of seventeen North Korean mines which, despite repeated protests to the Pyongyang Government, are still being allowed to drift south across the Maritime Demarkation Line into the waters of South Korea where they pose a serious hazard to shipping.
Debbie and Andrea say they are ready for the challenge. The people of Baltimore know you are. We are proud of you both.
Taken in isolation, the clipping was unremarkable, so unremarkable that if it hadn’t been for the mention of North Korea and the map in one of the other files, Coburn would have paid it little attention.
To cross-reference the two pieces of information he scrolled up the map again. It was in colour, centred on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula at Kyonggi Bay where the international Maritime Demarkation Line separated the waters of North Korea from the waters of the South.
Marked in red was the route to be taken by the USS Sandpiper between the dates of 1 August and 20 August.
This was a dotted line, showing that the ship would be keeping well inside South Korea’s territorial waters for the majority of its voyage, and only on one occasion would it be venturing anywhere near the heavily guarded and heavily patrolled waters of the North.
Printed along the bottom of the map was a warning:
This document is the property of the Government of the United States. In accordance with US Navy directive 473 the contents herein are classified as ‘Restricted’. Disclosure to any unauthorized person or persons is a punishable offence under US law.
‘Brigadier’s been busy,’ Coburn said. ‘How would he have got hold of something like this?’
O’Halloran shrugged. ‘You don’t need much in the way of security clearance to get your hands on stuff that’s only classified as restricted. He could’ve got it from anybody. What we need to figure out is why he wanted it.’
Coburn had a disturbing feeling that he might already know. Wary of jumping to conclusions, instead of going straight to the draft of the press release, he pushed a key to display the data sheets.
There were two: one providing a photograph and a description of a typical US Osprey Class Minehunter, the other providing similar information for high-speed, Russian-built missile-attack craft of the Osa Class.
The sheets were primarily specifications, listing the displacement, length, beam, draught, top speed and range for each vessel. Separate sections were devoted to electronic countermeasures, radar, sonar, and armaments. In the case of the Osa patrol boats, the number of countries using them was also given — including an entry for North Korea around which someone had drawn a box to highlight the fact.
There was nothing particularly secret or confidential about the data sheets, Coburn decided, which meant that, before he could confirm his suspicions, he’d need to somehow connect them with the map and Shriver’s draft of the press statement.
The draft showed signs of being an early attempt. Some of the rhetoric needed to be toned down, and the text was unfinished. But now Coburn had managed to assemble most of the puzzle, the picture it painted was as clear as it was chilling:
In the wake of North Korea’s unprovoked attack on the USS Sandpiper on the night of August 9 in the Yellow Sea, the Free America League wishes to add its voice to those of all Americans in expressing outrage at Washington’s response to an incident that should have demanded the sternest possible retaliatory action.
Now that European and Russian satellite data has proved that the Sandpiper was at least two nautical miles south of the Maritime Demarkation Line at the time of the attack, and now South Korean radar, and GPS traces recorded by the US Navy have confirmed the ship’s position beyond question, have Washington and the families of the young men and women who lost their lives received an apology from Pyongyang?