“We’ll trace him, sir.”
The general was still avoiding the sight of the tetanus needle. “Owe my life to that Brentwood. Make a note of it, AL Silver Star.”
“Happy to, sir.” The general grimaced as the cold steel pushed into his arm and he felt the antitetanus serum injected into him. “Al — our photographers. Did they get out?”
“Four of the six, General.”
Freeman nodded. “They get pictures of us all over Crap City?”
Banks was so tired that for a second he thought Freeman meant pictures somehow being spread all over Pyongyang like propaganda leaflets.
“They get shots of us?” pressed the general, the first time the ROK officer had seen anything like apprehensiveness, even fear, in the general’s eyes.
“Oh, yes, General,” answered Banks. “Two of them were up on the People’s Study House. Top floor. Infrared shots mostly, around the square and of the howitzers firing. I think they got most of it, far as I know.”
“You haven’t seen any yet?” asked the general.
“No, sir. I—”
“By God, Al. We’ve got to get those pictures stateside right away. The President’ll want to see them. American people need to know—”
Banks began to tell him that the news of the American raid via SAT signals was already burning the wires hot to half a dozen news agencies throughout the world. “It’ll be headline news all around the world, General.”
“Pictures, Al. Goddamn it — we need to get the pictures out. Know what the Chinese say. Picture is worth a thousand words.”
“I’ll check it out, sir.”
“Do it now.”
“Yes, General,” said Banks wearily, getting up and feeling a little light-headed, making toward the sick bay door. “I’ll get right onto it.”
“Al-”
Banks turned slowly, trying not to look as fatigued as he felt. “Yes, General?”
“Al. There’s only one son of a bitch in this world with a bigger ego than that runt!”
Banks looked puzzled.
“Me,” the general said, and winked.
Banks was correct. Dawn now, 6:00 p.m. the night before in Washington and 11:00 p.m. in London — too late for the early evening news in America and pushing it for the midnight BBC broadcast, the news nevertheless took the world by storm. All programs in progress were put on hold as announcers cut in with the news flash of the American attack, the video pictures showing Kim Il Sung’s enormous statue now a rubble on the ground, his body badly cracked yet clearly recognizable, the head split and nothing left standing but the hump of the pedestal.
Then came the biggest shock of alclass="underline" cuts of Pyongyang Polly, picked up by satellite, announcing to the slow accompaniment of funereal music that “our dear and respected leader” had been killed in the American raid and that the new people’s provisional revolutionary government was being led by “our dearly revered president, Choi Yunshik,” formerly a vice martial in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The CIA at Langley knew nothing more about Choi than that he was a middle-of-the-roader who had opposed the hitherto unheard-of Communist “succession” of Kim Jong Il taking over his father’s title.
General Kim, it was announced by Pyongyang Polly, was being relieved, “due to ill health.”
With the precious time and intelligence gained by Freeman’s attack, the pressure on the Yosu/Pusan perimeter was immediately reduced. Kim’s overextended supply line severed by the “Freeman-style” attacks, as the press was calling them, on Taejon and Taegu had only added to General Kim’s problems.
Everything had come unglued for Kim, due in no small measure to the capture of Kim’s plan of attack on Pusan from Major Rhee, who, after interrogating Tae at Uijongbu, had been given the plan by Kim to take to Pyongyang for the blessing of the NKA’s general staff.
In Beijing, behind the highly lacquered bloodred gates of Zhongnanhai Compound on Changan Avenue, the North Korean ambassador reported that Pyongyang wished to “discuss the situation” with the United States, and as there was no official representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea “ in the imperialist warmonger’s capital,” the government in Pyongyang representing the “freedom-loving people of North Korea” requested that their comrades of the People’s Republic of China might intercede on their behalf.
The ambassador’s request was not well received by Premier Lin, who reminded the Korean that their late dear leader, Kim II Sung, father of Kim Jong D, whom Chinese intelligence knew was not dead but under house arrest, had once referred to the Chinese as “American puppets.”
The ambassador was shocked, and said, with great respect, that he did not recall this.
“It was,” said Premier Lin coldly, “in February 1989.” With that, Lin rose, indicating the meeting was at an end. Pyongyang would be informed of the Central Committee’s decision.
The ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea bowed as low as his back condition would permit.
In three days Pyongyang, seeing their exhausted troops now reeling back from the Yosu/Pusan perimeter as far as Taegu, saw what President Mayne referred to rather mundanely as “the writing on the wall,” at least as far as the Korean theater was concerned.
The CIA was receiving messages from Beijing’s Bureau of Public Safety, the Chinese equivalent of the FBI, that “certain overtures” had been made from Pyongyang. These confirmed the CIA’s suspicion, gained from Japanese businessmen who had visited North Korea prior to the war, that, despite the loyal public displays of affection, the wearing of sixteen different pins of their dear and respected leader, the most secretive dictatorship on earth had within it a boiling discontent. The people, in consequence of the economic cost of Kim II Sung’s lavish self-idolatry, and that of his son, were experiencing the lowest standard of living in the Communist world, it being estimated that over 20 percent of the country’s GNP was going to the military.
General Freeman did not know any of this as he was in the throes of a violent allergic reaction to the tetanus shot. Nothing on his record sheet indicated any such reaction, it being hypothesized that the original vaccination given him years before had been made from a different serum. The knife wound had become badly infected, and in Tokyo’s U.S. military hospital, to which he was transferred, surgeons were discussing the possibility that they might have to amputate.
At the moment the United States Congress rose in unison upon hearing that the heretofore little-known General Douglas Freeman, U.S. Army, was to be the recipient fo the first Congressional Medal of Honor in the Asian theater, Captain Robert Brentwood, U.S. Navy, was in the redded-out control room on the top level of the four-tiered sub off the Kola Peninsula. He was about to take the USS Roosevelt up for a last attempt to receive a burst message via the VLF. No message came.
“Retract VLF,” he ordered. “Ready HF.” This was a whip aerial that would slide up from the periscope cluster to receive on the higher-frequency channels, but its appearance above the sea’s surface could prove fatal if picked up by enemy SATRECON — satellite reconnaissance.
“Five minutes only, Pete,” instructed Brentwood. “Then retract.”
“Understood. Five minutes. Counting.”
At three minutes fifty-seven seconds there was an electronic burp, the receiving screen registering digitized transmission from a TACAMO aircraft out of Reykjavik, Iceland.
There was a collective sigh.
“Jesus!” said one of the planesmen, too relieved not to break the silence order. Brentwood let it pass, relieved himself. From the computer room an operator handed him the computer-converted number-for-word message to USS Roosevelt: “Battle Stations Missiles.”