OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE
Brubaker, Calibrisi, Polk, Perry, and Jenna stepped into the Oval Office. The aroma of coffee was in the air. A small group was already gathered. Everyone was seated in the central seating area, a pair of long, light tan chesterfield sofas that faced one another across a stunning red, white, and blue needlepoint carpet. In addition to President J. P. Dellenbaugh, six other individuals were present: Secretary of Defense Dale Arnold, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Phil Tralies, NSA Director Piper Redgrave, Secretary of Energy Marshall Terry, Secretary of State Mila Mijailovic, and Chief of Staff Adrian King.
President Dellenbaugh was seated in a leather club chair at one end of the sitting area. He was dressed in shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes, holding a cup of coffee.
These were the top national security, intelligence, diplomatic, and military officials in the United States government. The Yong-sik documents were causing the country’s war council to drop everything and focus on North Korea. Until now, the Kim threat was theoretical. Kim was a maniac—but his constant threats to the U.S. had inured the government into complacency, like a boy crying wolf. Either a way for Kim to look strong inside his own country or a not-too-subtle form of extortion. But the documents sent by General Yong-sik changed everything, and they all knew it.
A secret plan to launch a nuclear missile on the U.S. was now operational. Moreover, Kim had cancer and was going to die. Kim wanted to go out with a historic attack on the U.S., an attack that would be self-destructive and result in most of North Korea being wiped out. Kim knew it. He wanted it. He wanted to live in infamy, even as a monster, but someone who would one day be written about in history books, like Hitler or Bin Laden. A perverse desire for fame.
America faced imminent threat. A nuclear device falling on Los Angeles would be devastating. Upwards of a million citizens would die.
Dellenbaugh and the war council were sent into high alert.
Brubaker, Calibrisi, Polk, and Perry sat down on the large sofas.
“Coffee, Hector?” said the president.
“I’ll get it,” said Calibrisi.
Jenna was the last to enter the seating area, and when she did all the seats on the sofas were gone. Only one empty place remained, in a leather club chair next to the president. Jenna glanced around and sat down in the chair. She stared at the ground and then looked up to see Calibrisi holding out a cup of coffee to her. He smiled at her as she took it.
“Thank you,” she mouthed.
Calibrisi was on the left sofa, next to Dellenbaugh. He glanced around the room as he took a sip of scalding hot coffee.
“We’ve all seen the documents,” said Dellenbaugh, looking at Calibrisi. “First of all, are they real?”
All eyes were on Calibrisi. He didn’t answer but instead glanced at the NSA director, Piper Redgrave.
“Yes,” said Redgrave. “We were able to analyze the metadata in the documents to look for possible alteration since Yong-sik returned. There was none. Either the North Koreans kept fakes on hand, anticipating such a circumstance, or they’re real.”
Dellenbaugh looked at Calibrisi.
“Are they real, Hector?”
“Yes.”
“We are potentially going to kill millions of people based on these documents,” said Dellenbaugh. “You better be goddam sure.”
Calibrisi didn’t move. He took another sip of coffee and looked at Jenna, then back to Dellenbaugh.
“I believe they’re real, Mr. President,” said Calibrisi. “If the military documents had come by themselves, I’d have my doubts. But the health records indicate Yong-sik wants us to know the truth. He’s reaching out to us. There can be no other conclusion.”
Phil Tralies, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was seated diagonally and across from Calibrisi. He leaned forward, a distemperate look on his face.
“How the hell did we miss this?” said Tralies, an angry look on his face. “It’s your job to know the state of the North Korean and Iranian missile programs! It’s your job to know Kim’s health! And it damn sure is your job to know we’re about to get blown up!”
“Then we did our job, General,” said Calibrisi. “Thank you for the recognition.”
“We have fifteen hours, maybe less!” barked Tralies, pointing at Calibrisi.
“Sorry,” said Calibrisi, “I didn’t realize the greatest military power on earth needed more time.”
Tralies started to stand up, irate, but Dellenbaugh held up his hand.
“Sit the hell down, Phil,” said Dellenbaugh sharply.
A few silent moments of tension and animosity hung in the air. Calibrisi glanced at Jenna and gave her a small grin.
Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anyone bully you around.
Across from Tralies, Secretary of State Mijailovic shot Tralies a cold look, then turned her head to the president. She caught his eye. Then she looked at Jenna.
“It’s a miracle we have this level of intelligence,” said Mijailovic. “Had we simply killed Yong-sik,” she looked at Tralies, “as you wanted to do, General, we wouldn’t have found out. We certainly wouldn’t have fifteen hours.”
Mijailovic, at forty-one, was the youngest secretary of state in United States history. She was an academic, with Ph.D.s from Columbia and Stanford. Dellenbaugh had appointed Mijailovic following the death of Secretary of State Tim Lindsay, gunned down in a Paris hotel room just a few months before.
Mijailovic again looked in Jenna’s direction, then sat back on the sofa and crossed her legs.
There was a tense silence as Tralies looked at the secretary of state.
“Mila’s right,” said Tralies apologetically. He glanced to Calibrisi. “My apologies, Chief. Your team deserves a ton of credit. I’m just concerned, that’s all.” Tralies paused and looked around the room. “I don’t need to tell you all, we don’t have the manpower to invade North Korea, and even if we did, they could still launch bombs. That leaves us with precious few military options. We could wait and hope that the North Korean missiles fail—or pray that THADD will shoot them out of the sky.”
THAAD stood for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, America’s most advanced antiballistic missile defense system, designed to shoot down short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase. THADD worked by attempting to intercept missiles with a hit-to-kill approach, smashing enemy missiles from the sky. It was advanced, but it wasn’t foolproof.
“The last thing I want to do is drop a tactical nuclear bomb on Pyongyang, but I don’t think THADD is reliable enough to take the risk of allowing Kim to launch a missile,” continued Tralies, looking at Mijailovic. “But the secretary of state is right. Thank God we know. So let’s figure out what to do.”
“Before we begin, Mr. President,” said Jenna, “we need your authorization to release the location of the antidote to General Yong-sik.”
“Why the hell would we do that?” said Secretary of Defense Arnold. “Yong-sik’s death might buy us time. It would create chaos at the upper end of the North Korean military.”
“Kim doesn’t need Yong-sik to press the launch button,” said Jenna. “We made a bargain. He lived up to his end of the deal.”
“When it comes to the threat of nuclear war, there are no bargains,” said Arnold.
Dellenbaugh held up his hand. He looked to his right, at Calibrisi.
“Hector?”
“I think letting him die would be foolish,” said Calibrisi. “He’s trying to signal us as to Kim’s state of mind. He might even be an ally. I doubt it, but there’s a chance he’s working from within to stop Kim. It’s the only thing that explains the health records. With Yong-sik dead, we have nothing. With him alive, who knows, it might be a small hope, but I’d rather have him there than not.”
“Yong-sik is a thug,” said Arnold.
“We deal with a lot of thugs,” said Dellenbaugh.
“We either wipe out Pyongyang, or we don’t and run the risk of a million Americans dying,” said Arnold, the secretary of defense. “This is the fault of Kim Jong-un, no one else. He’s the one killing his citizens, not us. The North Koreans are getting ready to launch a nuclear strike on the United States. We need to move now to stop them. Let the guy live, let him die, but we need to move right now.”
“Mila,” said Dellenbaugh, speaking to the secretary of state, “what about China? I assume we’ve briefed them.”
“I’ve spoken with my counterpart in Beijing, yes, Mr. President,” said Mijailovic. “I have not, however, revealed the fact that we’re this far along, only that all options remain on the table. If it’s as it seems, Kim is dying of cancer and wants to go out in a big way, involving China only creates risk for the United States. The moment Beijing calls Kim and attempts to talk him out of launching missiles, Kim will know that we know his intentions and could launch the missiles immediately, before his self-imposed deadline. Our greatest asset right now is the element of surprise. We need to keep this in the dark. If Kim has gone off the deep end, the last thing we want is for him to know we know.”
“You need to find out more, Mila,” said Dellenbaugh. “Quietly, off the record, but we need to know how Beijing is going to look at things if we attack.”
The door to the Oval Office opened and Cecily Vincent, the president’s executive assistant, stepped inside.
“Mr. President, there’s a gentleman from the Pentagon at the East Gate. He says he’s supposed to be at this meeting. His name’s Will Parizeau.”
“I invited him,” said the secretary of defense. “Please show him in, Cecily.”
Dellenbaugh looked at Arnold.
“The satellite expert,” said Arnold. “Mr. President, before we do anything, we need to know if we can somehow detect activities the KPA might be doing which would indicate that they’re preparing to launch. If we cannot detect with reasonable confidence that they’re getting close to launching, through movement of missile launchers or some other activity, then I must agree with General Tralies. We can’t take the risk—based on some document—that Kim is going to do it on a Sunday. He might launch his missiles at any moment.”
The door to the Oval Office opened and a tall, blond-haired man with thick glasses stepped into the room. For a moment, Parizeau resembled the proverbial deer in the headlights as he glanced nervously around the room, which had gone quiet.
“Hello, everyone,” he said somewhat shyly.
“Sit down, Will,” said President Dellenbaugh, pointing to a chair at the other end of the sofas.
“Yes, sir. I’m Will Parizeau, sir. It’s an honor, Mr.—”
“This is very simple,” said Dellenbaugh, cutting off Parizeau. “Can we detect when North Korea is getting ready to launch a missile?”
Parizeau sat down. He pushed his glasses up on his nose.
“What kind of missile?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“An intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead.”
“How far in advance, sir?”
Dellenbaugh turned to the secretary of defense.
“What’s the flight time on a missile from one of our submarines until it lands in North Korea?” asked the president.
“About three minutes. But there needs to be a margin for error.”
Dellenbaugh looked at Parizeau.
“Ten minutes,” said the president. “Can we figure out if they’re going to launch a missile ten minutes out?”
Parizeau stared at the president and then leaned back, deep in thought. He pushed his glasses back as he seemed to be calculating numbers in his mind.
“The answer is, I’m not sure, sir,” said Parizeau. “We’re very good at the part that comes after they take off. We can detect a launch within seconds, even when our satellites aren’t necessarily looking at the launch site. Within a short period of time, we can calculate precisely where the missile is going. But right before, well, that’s hard. Ten minutes before, I … I just don’t see how, sir.”
“What about radiological imprint?” said Brubaker. “Are we tracking North Korea’s nuclear devices?”
Parizeau took a deep breath.
“We have the ability to analyze air quality down to a molecular level,” said Parizeau. “Thus, once we establish a nuclear device is there, we can lock onto the device’s radiological imprint. This is how we knew a device had been moved from Ukraine last year. But we need human intelligence to come up with a confirmed sighting. We need to know where it is within a few feet, otherwise environmental factors make it impossible. Nukes don’t glow in the dark, sir. With North Korea, we have no on-the-ground intelligence telling us where their devices are. Both missile facilities are large. Furthermore, the North Koreans have seventeen mobile missile launchers, most of which we have no clue where they are. Without knowing precisely where a nuclear device is, it would be like trying to shoot ants with a BB gun from a mile away.”
“So if they were to launch a missile, we would only know after it took off?” said Dellenbaugh. “Is that correct, Will?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Tralies looked at Dellenbaugh.
“Mr. President, isn’t it obvious?” said Tralies. “We won’t know they’re attacking until it’s too late. Imagine the devastation even one nuclear bomb would do. Sir, it is my recommendation that we launch a preemptive nuclear strike targeting both missile facilities as well as Pyongyang and other population centers, before it’s too late.”
“We have fifteen hours to figure this out,” said Polk, disagreeing.
“That’s what you think,” said Tralies. “But none of us knows when this crackpot is going to hit the button.”
“So what you’re saying is ‘don’t trust the documents as they relate to when Kim is going to launch a nuclear missile, but do trust the documents as they relate to everything else?’” said Calibrisi. “You can’t have it both ways, Phil. If the docs are real, we have fifteen hours.”
“Mr. President,” said General Tralies, ignoring Calibrisi. “You asked the Pentagon to come up with three attack scenarios. This is the only one I feel prepared to recommend. I repeat, it is my strongest recommendation that we move our Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines into the Korean theater and prepare to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea. The difference between fifteen hours and fifteen minutes is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. We cannot risk the lives of so many innocent Americans. It is your job as commander in chief to protect our citizens.”
Dellenbaugh looked at Tralies.
“Move the subs,” said the president. “General, you have an hour to develop a second attack scenario. We have manpower in the area. I want to know what our soldiers could do in the event we want to pursue a non-nuclear strategy here.” President Dellenbaugh stood up. He looked at Parizeau. “Will, get to work on a way to detect when they’re getting ready to launch. Improvise. Be creative. We need to know. We’ll reconvene in an hour in the Situation Room. Meeting is adjourned.”
Everyone stood up to leave. Dellenbaugh pointed to Jenna as she started walking to the door.
“Jenna,” said Dellenbaugh.
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“Release the location of the antidote to Yong-sik. It seems to me he lived up to his end of the bargain.”
“Yes, sir. But do know that an agent in the field has been poisoned, the same agent who succeeded in getting to Yong-sik. If there’s only one antidote, and Yong-sik uses it, the agent will die.”
“I’m aware of the situation, Jenna,” said Dellenbaugh. “Dewey will be fine. I’m sure the other antidote is in the man’s apartment. Get Dewey into North Korea. He’ll figure out the rest.”