The World Game (3 page)

“Yes sir!” came back in unison.

“Cadets, about face and do it!”

CHAPTER 6

The White House - Situation Room. 24th June.

“Mr. President, Madam Secretary, please watch this recording of the Korean Hegemony cabinet meeting some two hours ago. I must warn you that there are extremely violent and distressing events recorded.” The director of the Asia - Iran Intelligence Group pressed a button and a fully three dimensional image of the Korean conference room materialized. The President and Secretary of State watched from a viewpoint above the conference table, and heard everything that had taken place in Korea two hours earlier.

At the execution of Jun Park the Secretary of State collapsed back retching in horror, barely keeping her lunch down. The Director paused the recording until she recovered. She apologized for her reaction and bade him to proceed. to the conclusion of the meeting. From the recording angle, Jun Park’s dead eyes stared up at the camera from the floor the whole time.

Shaking her head and fanning herself with a sheaf of top severet documents, she asked, “Director Hanes, is it out of line for me to ask how you obtained this recording?”

“Madam Secretary, our technology has allowed us to see into all our allies and enemies alike for quite some time. I would not have breached security today had this matter not been of the gravest concern. The only location we do not have a permanent facility in place is the central government of the Iranian Islamic Empire. Since they went to extreme fundamentalism and reverted to tent life, we could not place a long term facility in a non permanent structure, their council tent. Due to the nature of the technology, we have to rely on secondary intelligence from the fixed structure homes of high officials.”

The President tapped his pen on the desk blotter absentmindedly. “Do we have confirming intelligence that Jong Il is right about Iran? Are they ready to strike? A whole nation of suicide bombers. It is beyond belief. Has God abandoned us completely?”

“Mr. President, we have sufficient intel from Iranian officials speaking out of place, casually, in their homes for our analysts to say that there is an eighty percent certainty that Jong Il is right. Korean Hegemony must have a mole planted high in the Iranian Empire to be so sure of himself. Recall that it was the former North Korea that supplied the materials and advisors for the Iranian nuclear establishment. He would certainly have embedded sleeper spies during that time. The sad matter is that our President back in 2010 had the opportunity to strike and demolish Iran’s fledgling nuclear capability and he didn’t. Today we are about to reap the poisonous fruits of that failure.”

“Director, is there any indication when there would be a first strike from Iran?”

“Mr. President, we are watching the mobilisation of the Iranian Empire armed forces and the placement of their nuclear missiles. Our assessment is that a strike will occur within the next 72 hours.”

The President shifted to the edge of his seat, his knuckles white as he gripped the armrests, listening intently, jaw clenched.

The Secretary of State picked up the thread, “So we have to assume that Korea will strike immediately if their threat analysis is the same. Mr. President, Director, I need to leave now and call a meeting of the Joint Chiefs. We should raise the Homeland Security alert to Red. Mr. President, do you have any other instructions for me?”

“Other than get the Joint Chiefs in here fast, no.”

The Secretary of State left, racing out the door.

“Chuck, what are our options here. Before the brass turns up. I don’t want this to become a war of words and I can’t chop off heads like that psychopath in Pyonyang. Do we need to do a double header and take out Pyonyang and Teheran right now? Do we have satellite capability to knock down any missiles they fire? Straight Chuck. We have been friends for a long time. No bullshit.”

With just the two of them in the room, formality went out the door.

“OK Tom. We have some defensive satellite capability. We can take out a small number of missiles during flight, but to attempt to cover the whole shooting match between these two, well, quite a few are going to get through.

We do have test ready one of our new AMD devices we could use as a last resort. An Anti-Matter Device would take out all the missiles and everything else in the air. It would destroy the ozone layer in its effective destructive region and maybe send us the way of the dinosaurs. Its untested, we just don’t know what it will do.”

The President shook his head and threw up his hands. “Damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Chuck, we are talking about Armageddon here. The possible end of the world. Because of two lunatics. Sheesh. We can’t even throw some blame at Israel for it this time.”

The President looked up at his friend suddenly, squinted in thought and grabbed the telephone off his desk. “Get me Rafi Ben-Gurion right now,” he ordered the operator, then replaced the phone. Thirty seconds later it trilled and the President snatched up the handset. A deep voice came through, “Ben-Gurion here Tom, what can I do for you today?” asked the President of Israel.

CHAPTER 7

Goddard Space Center - Skyhook Base. 24th June.

“Stand at ease cadet Hannaford.” Fuller walked around her, hands clasped behind his back. “Cadet Hannaford, by what authority did you interfere in my direct order to another cadet in a matter that was no business of yours?”

“It was my business sir.”

Fuller raised an eyebrow. “Oh! How do you see that cadet?”

“Sir,” she took a deep breath, “it is clearly obvious that we must look out for each other at all times. At what point does this obligation to look out for the other start? I believe at every point sir. Even the most insignificant point... Sir.” Felicity paused to gather her thoughts.

“If we are there for our partners in a physically dangerous situation then we should be there to help against anything that may be detrimental. I saw that Cadet Shaw was being shamed enough by his own negligence without having to undergo the embarrassment of standing naked in front of the whole group, sir. I made the decision to protect cadet Shaw by the only means at hand. Sir.”

Fuller rounded his desk and sat down. He cocked his head to one side. “Cadet, now that you know that such impulsive behavior will result in disciplinary action, how will you act in future similar situations?”

“My action was not impulsive sir. It was calculated to cause the least possible immediate and long term harm to our group. I would do exactly the same thing again, sir.”

Fuller allowed a tiny smile to turn up his mouth. He reached out to a drawer in his desk and took out a small box. “Step forward cadet Hannaford.” He paused as she took a step forward. “Let’s make that Second Lieutenant Hannaford for the moment.” He held out the box with the rank insignia. Her eyebrows raised in surprise, just a slightly. Regaining full composure she accepted the box and stepped back.

“Thank you for your confidence sir.”

“You are the squad commander of your group as of now Hannaford. Your rank is only good within your group. Not in general personnel. I will call upon your recommendations for promotion of other members in conjunction with my own observations. We will structure into five squads of four cadets per squad. This will be completed by 0600 tomorrow. Promotions will follow in due course. I will announce your position at dinner in one hour. Do you understand cadet?”

“Yes sir!”

“You may return to your quarters.”

CHAPTER 8

CIA - AIIG Division 24th June, late afternoon.

“Director Hanes, Madam Secretary.” The senior operative acknowledged their presence as they waited for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to assemble. The Secretary of State looked ruffled after her rushed task to call the Joint Chiefs. She had out a small mirror and a lipstick as she watched the operative.

He launched into his analysis conjuring up images of buildings that floated before him with transparent walls showing room interiors down the most minute detail. Looking closely, human figures could be discerned moving about.

“We are looking into the governmental palace of Jong Il in Pyonyang in real time, currently early morning of June 25 in Korea. It is our understanding that Jong Il will instigate a nuclear attack within hours, just as fast as he can arm his missiles, so we are following him 24/7.

He will push the button himself. Our Psych profile on him makes it clear that he could not allow anyone else to do this. He has admitted on more than one occasion that his apparent belligerence and madness is feigned, as was that of his father and grandfather. It was all showmanship and brinkmanship contrived to destabilise the region and milk surrounding nations and of course us, for all the money they could collect. That run has now ended because the real lunatics, the Iranians, have achieved nuclear capacity and they will first use it on their old ally and supplier. Iran perceives the Korean Hegemony as the only threat to their plans for Islamic world domination. Our threat assessment has increased to 98% certainty that Iran will press the button. That is what Jong Il has concluded and he really does know his old playmates well.”

The operative stopped for a breath and the Secretary of State asked, “How can we be so sure that Jong Il really knows for certain? Where are we getting these live feeds from? I had no idea of our capability until I saw the recordings a few minutes ago!”

The operative looked to Director Hanes for a cue. Hanes nodded for him to answer.

“Madam Secretary, Jong Il has had deep cover operatives embedded in the Iranian nuclear project for over a decade. These operatives are Iranians who believe they are working for the West. Some think it is Great Britain, some think for the United States. Jong Il was very clever about that as he anticipated that any Asian operatives in the project would be purged, which in fact happened about a year ago. His operatives have given him intelligence from the innermost circle of Iran’s nuclear development group.” The operative gave the Secretary a moment, but she sat silent and indicated he should continue.

“Our methods for intelligence collection are highly classified. So much so that outside of these walls, only the President and three of the Joint Chiefs know about it, and only on a “need to know” basis. You are the fifth person outside of this directorate to see this in action. Director Hanes, I ask you now to state the level to which I should disclose our surveillance technology to the Madam Secretary.”

The Secretary huffed with anger at this “in your face” bypass of her authority. The Director waved his fingers to calm her down and said, “Agent Gordon is following strict procedure Madam Secretary. He could not do otherwise and would be criminally negligent had he gone further without my authority. You have my authorisation for full disclosure Agent.” Hanes pulled a communicator from his pocket and spoke a few words in a low tone. A similar device now in the Agent’s hand gave one beep. The Agent looked at the authorisation code record and acknowledged the Director.

“My apologies Madam Secretary.”

“Accepted and not required. Please continue.”

“Madam Secretary, over the past two decades the USA has developed the concept of molecular sized robots far beyond what is known publicly. We have all heard of nanobots and the good they can do medically and in a host of other applications. We decided to try to create spybots and succeeded far beyond the original concept.

Our solution is a nanobot based wall paint. On the premise that every building has some paint in it, even the most dank and basic prison cell in Pyonyang, once we infiltrate the paint based spybots into our target they remain virtually invisible and undetectable.

The present generation of spybots are based upon those used by NASA for their Astronaut Buddy systems. These are, and I quote the NASA handbook, biobot derivation of semi-organic hybrid protoplasm enhanced with human stem cells for intelligence, earthworm DNA for structure and organic armor growth from deep sea sulphur based life forms.

We took these biobots and made them self sustaining scavengers that could be controlled by signals from satellites. To ensure an ongoing replenishment of the biobot spybots we made their base sustenance paint. They eat paint. And of course in doing so create a need for repainting.

We are able to control the spybots to form lenses and audio amplifiers and they transmit on a nanofrequency radio range that is undetectable by any present technology outside our own.”

“Excuse me Agent,” The Secretary interrupted, “How can you be so sure about that?” The Agent gave a little smile.

“Madam Secretary, if they knew about the transmissions or the spybots, we would have been the first to hear about their discovery as we watch them 24/7. They know nothing. The can of paint looks, smells and acts exactly like a can of paint. The air drying activates the spybots and they have an effective life of six months. We move them around so the same patch is not being painted over time and again. They are quite mobile and almost invisible. They change color with their background just like a chameleon lizard.

This view is being rendered through a new method recently perfected. The spybots have distributed themselves as a lagrange mono layer throughout the whole building complex. Each molecular biobot is equidistant from its six neighbors effectively covering over a million times the area that the same patch of paint would cover. The downside is that the biobots will fail within 48 hours rather than six months. They cannot find nourishment on their own.”

“At the risk of sounding ignorant, how can we take such a risk, of losing our long term coverage?”

“Madam Secretary, the threat level is so high and the use of nuclear weapons so certain, there is no point in not taking this action. However we have one more trick up our sleeve Madam Secretary.”

Gordon looked to Hanes once again and the same short ceremony went down with a beep to Gordon’s communicator.

“We have kept aside several strategic, concentrated patches of spybot paint in key locations of the presidential palace. Jong Il has the nuclear activation keys close at hand and amazingly enough, his nuclear activation fail-safe system does rely on antiquated metal keys that need to go into keyholes. These key locks are behind an hermetically sealed safe door that we have not yet been able to crack with the spybots. We are waiting for Jong Il to open this door and give us the chance to flow a spybot patch into the locks, where they will self destruct and fuse the locks closed. He will not be able to launch his attack.”

“Phew!” The Secretary made a most unladylike noise. “So the fate of the world hangs in the balance on whether Jong Il will turn the keys immediately or give you time to run your plan.”

“Not entirely Madam Secretary.” Gordon did not lose his composure or miss a beat. “I did say we had several patches of spybots in place. We may not have been able to get into the safe, but we did get to the keys themselves. Both keys have a coating of spybots. We change these coatings every four to six weeks to make sure they will always be active. They were changed one week ago. Jong Il has handled the keys with the spybots and suspects nothing. We have three options with the spybots on the keys. We could build the spybots up in the keyway channel and prevent the key entry. This could be overcome by a strong push into the keyway.

We could build up the spybots and change the key profile, so preventing the key turning while the ally spybots flow in. Or we could self destruct on the keys making them turn red hot for a moment, burning his fingers and delaying him enough for the flow in.”

“So Agent Gordon, before I say that I am still not convinced, do you have any more magical tricks that you have not told me about? I do recall that you could not penetrate the Iranian high command tents.”

“Well Ma’am,” he grinned “we could theoretically kill Jong Il any time we want to with the spybots, but our assessment is that the destabilization would set off the nuclear exchange even faster. Jong Il is a ruthless bastard as we have seen, but he really does have some very scary people around him. As to Iran, we are working on infiltrating tent pole paint but we have run out of time.”

The Secretary looked at Hanes for clarification. “Charles, where does it go from here?”

“June, it goes nowhere but back to Iran. We may be able to stop Jong Il, but we also need to stop the Ayatollahs. That’s not so easy. We don’t have too many paint patches in that neck of the woods and as stated, it is extremely hard to paint the inside of a tent.”

“Tom was talking to Rafi Ben-Gurion earlier. We should go and find out what he has in mind.”