Battle Born (27 page)

KOREAN PEOPLE’S ARMY MILITARY COMMAND
AND COORDINATION FACILITY,
SUNAN, DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S
REPUBLIC OF KOREA
THAT SAME TIME

Y
ou are late.

The South Korean commandos relaxed and lowered the muzzles of their MP5Ks. The two groups approached each other. The South Korean team leader saluted the ranking officer. “Lieutenant An Sun-hun, team leader.”

The North Korean returned the salute. “Major Hong Song-ku, chief of security. Welcome to the People’s Army command center. Follow me.” Lieutenant An dispatched one squad to set explosives at several other key sites on base. What he didn’t tell his North Korean contact was that the commandos would also place electronic target markers on the CCF itself. In case their plan did not work, the CCF was going to be demolished with concentrated aerial and rocket bombardment until it was nothing more than a hole in the earth.

The upper two levels of the Command and Coordination Facility, which were mostly administrative offices, were virtually deserted. The ground-floor security desk was manned, with the five-ton vaultlike upper-access door secure, but the guards on duty did not register the least bit of surprise when the twelve South Korean commandos were escorted through.

The commandos quickly descended the staircase to
the first subfloor level. This level housed the facility’s security forces—two full infantry companies, over two hundred specially trained and heavily armed soldiers. A security station at the bottom of the stairs was deserted too. On the other side of the security officer’s desk was another vault door, which led to the command center. On either side, angled away so there would be no cross fire from security troops, were the two access hallways leading to the barracks of the two infantry companies. The North Korean security commander led the South Koreans to his office along one of the corridors.

“We were afraid you would not come,” Major Hong said. “You were not spotted by any of our patrols until you entered the outer perimeter.” He smiled wryly. “I suppose that does not look very good for our security here—we knew you were coming, and still we could not detect your presence. My congratulations.”

Lieutenant An bowed in thanks. “We must contact our headquarters as soon as we have secured this facility, or else it will be attacked.”

“What must I do?” Hong asked.

“We must take the command center itself immediately,” An replied. “What is the situation, sir?”

“Full staffing in the command center, communications, and intelligence cells,” Hong replied. “Thirty-seven officers and fifty-three noncommissioned officers, all loyalists.” Lieutenant An’s face fell—that was a very large complement of Communists, and even if they weren’t all battle-hardened soldiers, it was going to be tough to take them all. “The vice-marshal in charge of the Artillery Command and the commander of the Air Forces are here as well, along with their personal security teams. They are here to monitor your Team Spirit bombing exercises.”

Hong added, “They ordered both security companies activated to double the guards, so I have my full force
of two hundred and eleven men on duty. We have fifty men in the command center, ten in the communications and intelligence centers, and the rest spread out inside and around the building. They are more than enough to subdue all the loyalists. All are under my sole command.”

Hong noticed An’s second-in-command shift his feet uneasily. “Do not worry, Sergeant,” Hong said with a reassuring smile. “Not all of my men are conscripts, but most are, and the rest are not full party members—only officers and senior noncommissioned officers are accorded full party status.”

“Are you a party member, sir?” An asked.

“My parents were both party members, and so I was enrolled in the Young Patriots Corps and then awarded a commission,” Hong replied. “But my mother was killed trying to cross the frontier. She was accused of illegal travel and treason. She committed suicide in prison. My father and I were stripped of our party affiliations, and I was reduced in rank and given a noncom-bat post. I have been an outcast ever since. My father died of pneumonia eight months ago because he was not given any medical treatment. He had not had one regular meal or any heat for his apartment in over a year.

“Not one of us nonparty members, myself included, have been paid in more than six months, nor do we expect to be paid until perhaps next spring, if ever. Our families are starving. Our children have no clothes, no education, nothing. Only full party members are allowed to buy food at the base commissary—the rest must beg, steal, scavenge, or starve. Yet our government spends billions of won on weapons to destroy the very people whose unity we hope will bring us salvation.”

He looked at the South Korean commandos and added somberly, “The time for mistrust is over. We are
on our knees. We must stop the Communist war machine from destroying us. We will start now. Every true Korean patriot is behind us.” He pointed to a stack of boxes in a corner of his office. “There are ponchos you can wear to cover your uniforms.”

“Not necessary, sir,” Lieutenant An said. With that, his commandos withdrew their own ponchos—which looked identical to North Korean-issued ones.

“Very well,” Hong said, smiling approvingly as he donned his own poncho. “Let us then march into history—or oblivion—together. I have everything ready. Follow my lead.”

“Tell me what your plan is,” An said.

“It would be better if I did not,” Hong said. “Your surprise will help the ruse. Trust me. Do you have ear and eye protection?” An nodded, then looped his flash-bang goggles around the back of his neck and hid them under his poncho. Hong did the same to his pair. “Good. Follow me.” With that, he shouted an order to his men in the hallway, issued an order on a handheld radio, then marched purposefully out into the corridor. Although An still felt that old chill of mistrust and fear, he could do nothing else but follow along. He and his men, and the nation behind them, were already too far down the path to look backward.

Hong stepped in front of the large steel door leading to the command center and pushed a CALL button. “Identify yourself” came the reply on the speaker.

“Major Hong.”

There was a confused moment’s silence. The person at the other end was the assistant to the senior controller, in charge of access to the command center. “State your business please, comrade Major.”

“Status inspection. Several security systems are not in order. I want to inspect them myself and then report to the senior controller personally. I am also bringing
down six cases of food, electronic parts, water, and publications. You should have received the invoices for them already. Lieutenant Wu is with me.”

“Stand by, please.” A moment later, after receiving permission from the senior controller, the heavy steel door motored open. By design, the elevator was big enough for only three or four persons, and only two persons after they loaded the six crates of supplies onboard. Lieutenant An hid his MP5K and backpack under his poncho and squeezed inside the tiny elevator with Major Hong. The elevator moved at only two meters per minute on its way down the ten meters to the command center. It had been designed that way to prevent a massive, rapid enemy assault.

Five minutes later the elevator doors slid open, and Lieutenant An found himself staring at a room he never truly believed he would ever be allowed to see—the Korean People’s Army Military Command and Coordination Facility. The entire North Korean military machine was directed from this very chamber. It was exciting to be here—and also a bit of a letdown. It was much darker, gloomier, and smellier than Major Hong’s intelligence reports had said.

“Lieutenant,” Major Hong said in a sharp, officious voice just as the doors slid fully open, “take the top two boxes to the galley immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” An replied. He hoped this was some sort of ploy or diversion, because he had no idea where the galley was. An picked up the top two boxes . . .

. . . and, just as he took a step forward, he felt a tear at the bottom of the second box, and the bottom popped open, spilling bags of rice, cans of cooking oil, dried meat, tea, and other foods onto the floor of the elevator. The two-gallon cans of oil and the bags of rice split open, scattering rice everywhere, and the floor was slippery from the oil oozing from the cans.

“Lieutenant, what in blazes are you doing?”
Hong shouted. The North Korean major whirled around and struck An sharply across the face with his open hand. “You idiot! Can you not follow one simple order without creating a disaster?”

“What is going on over there, Major?” a voice from the gloom asked.

Hong turned and bowed into the darkness. “My apologies, comrade Vice-Marshal Kim,” he replied. “My clumsy assistant has spilled some supplies in the elevator. It will take only a moment to clean it up.”

“If any of those electronic components are damaged, Major,” another voice said, “I will hold you personally responsible.”

“They do not appear to be damaged, comrade General Cho,” Hong replied.

“Relax, General,” Kim said. “We are all under enormous stress. Get it cleaned up immediately, Major. We cannot afford to have our only service access elevator down too long. And it is not the sign of a good commander to physically strike a subordinate in public, no matter how much stress one is under. Remember that next time.”

“Yes, sir, comrade Vice-Marshal,” Hong said. “Lieutenant, get out of the way.”

Lieutenant An swallowed hard as he maneuvered clear of the elevator, ready to help Hong in any way he might indicate. He realized Hong had been talking to Vice-Marshal Kim Ung-tae, the commander of the Artillery Command, himself. Vice-Marshal Kim was in charge of all of North Korea’s rockets, ballistic missiles, air defense missiles and artillery, and coastal defense missiles and artillery. He was also responsible for all of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads that could be delivered by rockets or artillery. He was the third most powerful man in the North Korean
armed forces and reported directly to Marshal Chang Song-u, the commander in chief of the Korean People’s Army, and to Supreme Commander and Beloved Leader President Kim Jong-il.

The other man was probably Lieutenant General Cho Myong-nok, the chief of staff of the Korean People’s Army’s Air Forces. General Cho was responsible for approximately one-fifth of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction—the warheads carried on his bombers and strike fighters. Together, these men commanded four-fifths of North Korea’s deadliest weapons. They held one of the two keys necessary to unleash those forces; the Beloved Leader, Kim Jong-il, held the other key.

It was generally believed, however, that Vice-Marshal Kim and General Cho had full authority and standing orders to launch an attack, especially if South Korea struck first—President Kim would immediately authorize a counterstrike with special weapons without any hesitation or question. That meant that Kim and Cho had extraordinary powers that few men on earth commanded.

Lieutenant An quickly realized the purpose of the spilled supplies in the elevator. Because there was only one elevator to the command center, because it moved so slowly, and because it could only hold three or four persons at a time, it was constantly in use. No one could leave or enter now.

As An’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out more details of the command center. It resembled a theater, with a wooden stage, an “orchestra” section at which computer and communications technicians worked, and behind them seats for the defense ministers, senior commanders, and their aides in a semicircle. There were several conference rooms and cubicles behind the commanders’ stations, a circular access aisle,
and then more support staff areas. Up onstage, old-fashioned greaseboards and mark-and-erase maps and flow charts, updated by communications technicians with tissue paper and grease pens, dwarfed a few electronic computer screens. It was all much smaller and much less sophisticated than An had anticipated. But security guards were everywhere. Vice-Marshal Kim and General Cho each appeared to have one armed aide with them at all times, and another armed bodyguard was roaming the aisle off to the side so he could observe the entire room.

“Take that box up to the plotter’s station, Lieutenant,” Major Hong said in a loud voice, “and if you make another clumsy mistake, I will do much more than embarrass you before your fellow officers. Now
move
.” Lieutenant An bowed and picked up the box Hong indicated. He didn’t know where he was supposed to go, and Hong didn’t give him the slightest indication. The only thing that looked like a plotter was up on the stage, in front of all those high-ranking commanders. Swallowing hard, he turned and started down the access aisle to the front of the command center. When he reached the floor, he simply went up the nearest set of steps. Then, once he reached the stage, still without any guidance, he started across to the center of the stage.

Just as he reached the center, he heard Major Hong shout,
“Lieutenant, what in the name of the gods in heaven are you doing?”

An stopped and turned to face Hong, somewhere in the back of the command center. Every face on the command center floor, from Vice-Marshal Kim to the lowliest clerk, was looking at him. “Major, I . . .”

Just then the world exploded in a blinding flash of white light and an ear-splitting
ka-bang.
Anyone whose eyes were open and without vision protection, including
An, was instantly blinded and paralyzed from the two-kilo flash-bang grenade in the box that Major Hong had set off by remote control.

Lieutenant An awoke a long time later, sprawled in a chair on the stage. His poncho was still on, which he removed, and he still wore his MP5K on its shoulder harness sling. When he looked behind him, he noticed several officers and enlisted men, bound wrist and ankle with nylon handcuffs, their mouths wrapped in nylon too. A few were shouting muffled curses, but most were still. Major Hong handed An a canteen of water, which he poured over his face. The cool water felt wonderful—his face felt as if it had been badly sunburned.