They could read three of the four numbers in the bottom row: one, nine, eight. Whoever had programmed the numbers was blocking the last one on the right.
“My guess is the last number’s an eight,” Stoll said. “That’s been a recurring theme today.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Hood said as he got back on the phone to Rodgers.
“Mike, you’ve got to program the missiles as follows: one-nine-eight-eight on the bottom row, zero-zero-zero-zero in the middle row. Repeat-”
“Nineteen eighty-eight on bottom, four zips in the center. Stay on the line.”
“Don’t worry,” Hood said under his breath. “I’m not going anywhere.”
EIGHTY-TWO
Wednesday, 9:24 A.M., the Diamond Mountains
The foliage canopies were lying beside the missiles, which glistened like polished ivory in the young sun.
Rodgers climbed up to the control panel of the nearest Nodong and told Puckett to punch the two codes into the second, Colonel Ki-Soo into the third. A medic was following him, snarling with rage as he tried to bandage his hand on the run.
Rodgers hit one-nine-eight-eight, then stood there expectantly waiting for the middle row of numbers to light up.
They didn’t.
“Nothing happened here, sir,” Puckett said.
“I know, soldier,” Rodgers said.
He didn’t bother trying the numbers again. Not with four minutes twenty-five seconds on the countdown clock. He ran back to the tent.
“Paul,” he said, “it didn’t work. You sure about those numbers?”
“The one-nine-eight part,” he admitted. “We’re not sure about the last one.”
“Great,” Rodgers snarled as he bolted from the tent.
He thought as he ran back to the Nodong. Less than five minutes. Takes about five seconds for each goddamn number to click in. That doesn’t leave much time.
“Private Puckett,” Rodgers yelled, “start with nine-teen-eighty and-”
A soldier, festooned with medals, came running up to the Nodong on which Puckett was standing. He pushed the soldier off, where Rodgers couldn’t see, whipped out his pistol, and fired once toward the ground. Then he turned and emptied several rounds into the keypad before Ki-Soo could order his men over. The North Koreans wrestled him to the ground, screaming.
Squires’s voice crackled over the field radio. “We heard that shot. What was it?”
Rodgers whipped it from the strap on his belt. “Someone doesn’t like us being here,” he said. “Don’t worry. They’ve got him.”
“Sure feels useless up here, sir,” Squires said.
Rodgers didn’t answer; he understood. But he had bigger problems right now.
The medic left Ki-Soo’s side and ran to Puckett. Fighting the urge to join him, Rodgers climbed up to the nearest Nodong and started punching in numbers.
One-nine-eight-zero.
Nothing.
One-nine-eight-one.
Nothing. Nothing until he reached one-nine-eight-nine. There was a beep, the middle row lit up, and he quickly changed the numbers to zero-zero-zero-zero. As he did so, the missile began to lower.
The top clock read two minutes two seconds. He ran to Puckett’s missile. The keypad was shattered beyond repair, but at least Puckett was alive. The doctor had pulled away his shirt and was wiping blood from a shoulder wound.
“Colonel!” Rodgers said as he jumped off the missile. He put his hands against the side of the truck. “We’ve got to push … push it over so it fires into the hills out there.” He pointed. “Deserted-no one dies.”
Ki-Soo understood and ordered his men over. While the doctor dragged Puckett out of the way, fifteen men ran to one side of the missile and began pushing. Ki-Soo went around the truck and shot out the tires on that side. While the colonel’s men pushed, Rodgers headed toward the last missile. There’s still time, he told himself. We’re going to do it-
Behind him, he heard a metal stanchion groan as the weight of the missile shifted. Without stopping, he looked back as the entire truck-and-rocket assembly slanted, the missile sliding to one side of its gantrylike support-and the men shouting as smoke began to pour from the back, followed by a jet of yellow-orange flame. The Nodong had ignited as the truck went over.
That’s impossible! Rodgers thought as he hit the dirt and covered his head. Tipping the truck over wouldn’t cause the missile to launch.
Men ran in all directions from the spire of flame as the missile left the overturned truck and rocketed along the ground, ripping up tents, jeeps, and trees as it blazed across the terrain. It shot through everything in its path for nearly a half a mile before impacting against the side of a hill, sending a fireball over a thousand feet in the air and a searing shock wave back toward the base.
When he felt the rolling heat pass over him, Rodgers was up and running toward the last of the Nodongs.
He had a sick feeling as he ran-a sense that the South Korean officer was going to have the last laugh. They’d all assumed that the missiles had been programmed to launch at the same time.
But what if they hadn’t? Why would they? He went from one to the other to the other. There might be minutes between each one. The first missile programmed had just gone off. The one he’d deprogrammed could have been the second one the South Korean programmed or it might have been the third. Which meant he might have just a minute or so, or-
When Rodgers was just twenty yards from the No-dong, he saw the tail begin to smoke.
And then it hit him hard. The timers were set differently. Of course. Why wouldn’t they be?
There wouldn’t be time to scramble jets or fire air-to-air missiles, not with a missile capable of speeds of over two thousand miles an hour. And even Patriot missiles fired from Japan were chancy: what if the Nodong didn’t pass near any of them?
“Colonel!” Rodgers shouted as he started running back toward Ki-Soo.
There was only one chance, and he suspected the officer was ahead of him. As the Nodong hissed on its launcher and erupted in flame, Ki-Soo was already shouting into his radio and his men were quickly seeking cover behind rocks and under ledges.
Good man, Rodgers thought as he literally dove over the smoking remains of a jeep destroyed by the last Nodong. He landed hard on his side and threw his arms over his head just as the last missile took off on a bright finger of flame, roaring like an unchained dragon as it sliced through the morning sky.
Then Rodgers thought about Squires and the Striker team, and he scrambled to pull the field radio from his belt. But it had been smashed when he fell on it, and all he could do was pray that they didn’t misunderstand what they were seeing….
EIGHTY-THREE
Wednesday, 7:35 P.M., Op-Center
“Bad news, Paul,” Stephen Viens said over the phone from the NRO. “It looks to me like one of the Nodongs got away from them.”
“When?”
“Seconds ago. We saw it light up-we’re waiting for the next pictures.”
“Is Hephaestus watching?” Hood asked.
“Yes. We’ll let you know where she’s headed.”
“I’ll stay on the line,” Hood said, and put the secure line on speaker. He looked at Darrell McCaskey and Bob Herbert, who were both in his office.
“What is it, chief?” Herbert asked.
“One Nodong was launched,” he said, “headed for Japan. Bob, find out if there’s an AW ACS in the area and tell the Pentagon they’d better scramble fighters out of Osaka.”
“They’ll never intercept it,” Herbert said. “That’s like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Georgia.”
“I know,” Hood said, “but we have to try. Coming right at it, they may get lucky. Darrell, NRO will pick up the missile’s heat signature on the Hephaestus satellite. We’ll get the trajectory so that at least we can give the flyboys a general vicinity to look.” He fell silent for a moment. All the lives, he thought. The President will have to be told at once so he can telephone the Japanese Prime Minister. “Maybe we’ll be able to give the people on the ground a few minutes to seek cover,” Hood said. “At least that’s something.”
“Right,” McCaskey said.
Hood was about to phone the White House on his second line when Viens stopped him short.
“Paul-we’ve got something else on the screen now.”
“What?”
“Flashes,” Viens said. “More than I’ve seen since Baghdad on the first night of Desert Storm.”
“What kind?” Hood asked.
“I’m not sure-we’re waiting for the next picture. But this is un-freaking-believable!”
EIGHTY-FOUR
Wednesday, 9:36 A.M., the Diamond Mountains
Perched behind his field glasses, Lt. Col. Squires watched as the Nodong rose and the antiaircraft guns opened fire.
His initial thought was that an aerial attack was underway, and his first impulse was to disburse the men and attack the gun positions. But why would they be firing the shells into one another? For incoming aircraft, they’d turn them in the direction from which the radar said the planes were coming. Then he saw the guns actually lower as they fired, and he understood.