Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller (28 page)

Martin was, somehow, able to keep his
voice even. “You each bring up an important point—that thousands of lives are
in the balance here. We’re all aware of that, and all horrified and saddened by
it. I don’t believe any of us want to see more mass graves of any nationality.”

The president’s gaze probed each
congressional leader, hoping to find another soul laid bare. “However, I can’t
say the same about the man we have to deal with. I’ve stood toe to toe with Kim
and I
know
he doesn’t care. And, for
that matter, al-Qaeda’s new leader doesn’t care either, so long as those graves
advance the cause. Whether Kim is manufacturing and planting the bombs, or
whether he manufactures them and al-Qaeda delivers them, Kim is the key. No
more DPRK bombs, no more mass graves!”

He looked into their faces, each in turn,
his eyes piercing the careful veils of their expressions like a bayonet. “You
know what I’ve been trying to do, what Ming and others have been trying to do,
and that it hasn’t worked. So if Kim won’t step down, for us, or for the UN, or
for his Chinese patron, or for the good of his people, how do I get him out
before he attacks us again?”

Rick wasn’t surprised when nobody
answered. “I can order Kim assassinated.” He looked at each of the men from the
Hill.
This is what they call a pregnant
pause,
he thought
. And nobody’s
giving birth. Not one of them is willing to go anywhere near that. So, neither
am I.

“Or, perhaps we could capture Kim and put
him up before the ICC. Eric, how about that?”

“Sir, the SEAL in me wants to say we can
do it . . . but we can’t. Kim controls the DPRK so tightly that no American
special ops team could grab him and get out of the country. With a lot of luck,
they might be able to kill him—but not bring him back alive.”

The president resumed: “OK, Eric, we
invade the DPRK and chase Kim out. Then, depending on how much help or
opposition we had from China,
we let Ming pick a Korean communist to succeed Kim and eliminate the nukes,
or
we assist in reunification under
South Korean rule and
they
eliminate
the nukes. What’s the prospect of doing that?”

“Highly problematic, sir. We’d be
outnumbered, since it’s unlikely that South Korea would assist us or even
permit us to cross their territory in invading. The Japanese might go in with
us, but without ROK support we probably couldn’t supply our forces in the
field. Kim has said he’d attack us, the Japanese, and South Korea
with nuclear weapons if we attacked him, and he’s demonstrated the capacity to
do it. China
might well help him, either overtly or covertly. Mac and the field commanders
have looked closely at this and think the odds are we’d end up in another
bloody stalemate, and, unless our ABM defenses are perfect, Japan, Korea,
and maybe Guam would get hit with Kim’s
nuclear missiles.”

“And for sure Kim would be doing his best
to pull off another nuclear attack in the United States!” added Guarini.

The
congressional leaders said nothing. This time the president waited.

With an angry
expression, the senate majority leader spoke up: “Then the Pentagon has been
lying to Congress for years! You’ve always told us you could handle the North
Koreans!”

“That’s right!”
said the house majority leader.

“Gentlemen,” said Mac evenly, “we were
always speaking about our ability to respond to the north invading the south.
In that case, the ROK military would be fully with us and we’d have use of South Korea’s
ports and airfields. We weren’t lying; we were talking a different ballgame.”

The president observed the men he had
summoned.
And now we all know what comes
next. None of my former congressional colleagues will look me in the eye.
Funny, but the Democrats seem angrier than the Republicans, as if it’s
unconscionable that a fellow Democrat would put them in this position.

He spoke somberly and fatalistically,
like a man who had come to terms with his advanced cancer. “In the nineteen
sixties Herman Kahn wrote a book, subtitled thinking about the unthinkable. The
title was
On Thermonuclear War
. That
war seemed pretty close then, but we got through the next thirty years. Now
we’re at that precipice again; in fact we’ve been swept over it. We’re here not
by way of hostility among the five big nuclear powers, but thanks to a pissant
dictator with Ray-Bans and a fondness for movies. How could we—and I include
myself—have been so willfully blind?”

In a voice heavy
with sadness and consequence, the president said, “Tell them, Eric.”

“Yes, sir!” Secretary of Defense Easterly
responded with the brisk confidence of a surgeon describing what he could do
with his knife, without acknowledging that he didn’t expect surgery to save the
patient. A slight tremble in his hands betrayed his feelings.

“We have a full
range of nuclear options, but they boil down to two.

“We can hit the DPRK with eighteen
nuclear warheads simultaneously. This would ensure that Kim couldn’t launch any
nuclear missiles. It would destroy all cities and military bases and,
ultimately, kill half to three-quarters of the population. Essentially the
DPRK, including the Party, the military, and what passes for civil society,
would cease to exist. Refugees, many dying from radiation, would surge into the
ROK and China, maybe some
into Russia.
Fallout would cause some problems in South Korea
and Japan but not in China or Russia. We expect no American
casualties from such a strike, which could be accomplished in a few minutes
using cruise and ballistic missiles.”

Easterly’s words left Rick faintly
nauseated and a little light-headed. He reminded himself that he hadn’t signed
the order yet. Judging by their expressions, the five legislators were
explorers scrambling away from a suddenly gaping crevasse.

With sweat beading his hairline and a
slight tremor in his voice, the secretary of defense continued.

“At the other end of the spectrum, we can
do a demonstration-of-resolve attack with several warheads of a type that emits
lethal radiation but has relatively little explosive power—for a nuke—and
leaves no fallout of consequence. This would kill most people in the target
city but not obliterate it or generate cross-border fallout. We could then
pause to see if Kim would give it up, or if other DPRK leaders would topple him
to save themselves, or if China
would intervene militarily to remove Kim and his cronies. This, too, would be
done with missiles, without American casualties. Or, I should say without more
American casualties, since we had about a hundred eighty thousand killed and
injured on Six-thirteen.”

Silence
followed—the silence of the grave.

Finally, the house minority leader gave a
low whistle and said, “Jesus weeping Christ!”

Martin looked at him with tired, haunted
eyes. “Indeed,” he said softly. His mind registered that this was their first
honest comment since the “informal conversations” began.

The Speaker looked at Martin with
disbelief. “You could
do
that? You
could
give
that order? That’s crazy!”
he hissed. “You deserve to go down in history as a monster like Stalin!”

Rick felt as if his soul had been
stripped bare, because the Speaker had just named one of his nightmares. But
that wasn’t his worst nightmare.
That
was
visiting dying Americans again and knowing that he could have prevented their
agony. So instead of challenging the Speaker’s damning words, he said, “Then,
Ron, what would you have me do instead?”

“Find another way! This is unacceptable!
It cannot be beyond your wits to keep us safe without murdering tens of thousands
of innocent people. I refuse to even discuss such a monstrous plan!” The
Speaker waved his hands as if they could drive away the secretary of defense’s
words like marauding insects.

The president responded: “That’s where I
was until a few days ago, when we found the second bomb and then Kim refused
Ming’s offer. But I now believe we’re beyond the point where we can decline to
act decisively, where we can look for another way. You see how our country is
today, even though we defeated Kim’s second attack.

“Do you think I
want
to do this? Is there anything else I could do to be sure of
stopping Kim before we lose another city? What else can I do to reverse the
disintegration of our society?”

Rick’s voice rose and cracked:
 
“If there’s something else that would do
those things, for God’s sake tell me what it is!”

Martin looked at five silent
representatives of the coequal, legislative branch of government. The Speaker
returned his gaze with contempt. Three looked at the carpet. The senate
minority leader looked at Martin with an expression that said, “No, there isn’t
something else. And I no longer want your job someday.”

Rick glanced at the folder on his desk,
and Guarini knew the meeting was over.

Returning his attention to his visitors,
the president said, “A few minutes ago Sam announced that I will go on the air
tonight at nine. I will tell Kim, and the world, that he has a choice to make.”

Martin rose and began walking the Speaker
to the door. The others trailed, attended by Guarini and Easterly. When the
president touched the Speaker’s elbow in a friendly gesture, he pulled away.
Rick banished his emotions. He didn’t have time to regret this end to an
important alliance and a not inconsiderable friendship. In seven hours he would
give Kim an ultimatum and had a lot to do before then.

He felt as if he had been pushed into a
swift river and would inevitably be swept over the falls.

Chapter 50

Dottie Branson announced, “President Ming
is coming on now, sir.” Martin punched speaker; interpreters in Washington and Beijing
dialed their concentration to its highest.

“Good morning,
Ming.”

“Good evening, Rick.

A few minutes before seven, the president
sat at his big desk. Its photos and other mementos caught Anne Battista’s
attention for an instant.
They’re a time
capsule,
she thought.
How the world
has changed—and how it’s changed us!
She, Dorn, and Guarini hovered; there
were plenty of chairs, but nobody could relax enough to sit.

“Ming, this is a grave moment. When last
we spoke, I said that consequences would surely flow from identification of the
second bomb. As you know, our governments have jointly completed that
identification and have agreed, along with IAEA scientists, that this bomb is
also North Korean.”

“Rick, what was agreed was that the
fissionable material in the bomb was produced at Yongbyon, not the same thing
as saying the bomb itself was produced there. And they also agreed, did they
not, that the warhead was of an early Chinese design, stolen by A. Q. Khan?
Will you announce that?”

“I don’t intend to announce the warhead
design, but if asked, the U.S.
government will reply along the lines you just described.

“My purpose in calling is to give you
notice of the consequences of this second North Korean act of war against the United States.”

Ming frowned. “Act of war? Rick those
words lead only one way and cannot be taken back!”

God,
how I hate translation!
Rick thought
. I can’t tell if he’s
genuinely concerned or just tweaking me.

“I agree, Ming.
And those words fit this situation.”

Martin paused.
Ming waited, working a cigarette from the dented case.

“In two hours I will tell Americans who
is responsible for this second bomb, and I will tell them—and Kim and his
people—what may happen soon because of it. I’m telling you now out of respect
for you and for China.

“Ming, Kim and his gang must go, now! My
country has lost eighty thousand people and a city to Kim’s attacks. And I need
not tell
you
the economic damage
we’ve suffered. Tonight I will announce that unless Kim leaves North Korea within seven days, he and his
countrymen will receive a devastating attack from the United States.
If he does leave, and his successor agrees to nuclear disarmament, this attack
may be avoided. The United
States is imposing no conditions other than these
but will accept no less.”

Ming nearly interrupted to say that America could not dictate to China but held
his tongue, as he had many times, to his advantage, during his long career.

Rick steeled himself, praying that Ming’s
interpreter would convey his determination.

“Ming, I refuse another bloody ground war
in Korea
when I have other means to utterly defeat the DPRK! I will use our nuclear
weapons. The Kim regime and North
Korea’s people will have one chance to
recover if they make the mistake of ignoring my ultimatum. We will destroy a
single city and then pause. If America’s
demands are not met, the pause will end with the total nuclear destruction of North Korea.”