Authors: Scott Caladon
“Hey, Cyrus are you home?” JJ called out. “It's me and Gil.”
From the underneath that was the basement Cyrus called back. “Hi Dad, Gil. I'm down in the gym on the treadmill so that Gil doesn't give me grief for having no stamina,” came the teenager's haughty reply. A small light bulb went on in JJ's head and he smiled.
That Vincent Barakat may be one big fucking brain
,
but my son can have his moments
. “A treadmill,” he mumbled to himself.
* * *
Commander Kun-Woo Moon had completed his assignment. All 110 of the KPN's personnel he had been asked to deliver to the Haeju naval base were well and truly delivered. Commodore Park had done an outstanding job in organising the erection of prefabricated housing for the enlisted sailors. Each portakabin had ample room for around twenty submariners, in sturdy bunk beds. They had wash and eating facilities, though the latrines were outside. The Commodore had also helped organise accommodation for the majority of the officers in Haeju City. Though they were unlikely to be staying there for more than two or three nights maximum, the guest houses and small hotels offered reasonable comfort and cleanliness to their guests.
Commander Moon was staying with Commodore Park at his quarters within the naval yard's perimeter. He was looking forward to dinner that night with Park, mainly because he really did want to know what was happening. It wasn't every day you were ordered to select and transport the crew necessary for a very large submarine. Commodore Park had informed Moon that there would be two additional guests for dinner, Lieutenant Commander Gok Han-Jik and Sunwoo Chung, a leading light in the KPN's scientific division.
Commodore Park had two of the naval yard's cooks prepare a good sized and omnivorous plate for his guests. As they took their seats around the square, wooden table in the dining room, these guests marvelled at how comfortable the Commodore's premises appeared to be and how lucky they were to be about to enjoy a veritable feast. Commodore Park opened two bottles of wine, Desoju, normally imbibed on New Year's Day and Podoju, an alcoholic rice and fruit wine. He poured each guest and himself a glass of both and they all stood to toast their supreme leader, Kim Jong-un and the Korean People's Navy.
Re-seated, they all looked at the food on offer, which included kim-bahp, d'okk, sashimi and whole fried fish. Park gestured for his guests to help themselves. The rotund Sunwoo was on the kim-bahps like a fly on shit. He loved these little rolls of rice with fresh meat inside; they looked like sushi rolls but were different as the meat was cooked and the rice was plain not vinegared. The non-scientific personnel around the table were more polite in their food acquisition. The d'okk selection, a Korean pastry, was filled with either meat or fish and they proved popular with both Gok and Moon.
“This is excellent Commodore,” said Commander Moon. “Thank you for your hospitality.” Gok and Sunwoo raised their glasses and nodded in the direction of their host, signalling their agreement with Commander Moon. After several more mouthfuls of kim-bahp and a few helpings of sashimi, Sunwoo Chung had clearly had enough of pleasantries and small talk.
“Commander Moon,” Sunwoo began, to attract the attention of the naval officer sitting opposite. “Are your men in good shape and fully briefed on their mission?” Sunwoo was knowingly chancing his arm as no one seemed to know what the mission was.
“Well⦔ started Commander Moon, just washing down a piece of fish with a gulp of Podoju, “my men are in the state of physical and mental fitness you would expect from elite submariners in the KPN.” He replied confidently but disguising the fact that he had no idea what shape they were in, he'd only been asked to transport them, not give them a full medical. “As to the mission, I have no information,” he added. “Indeed, I was hoping to glean some here, this evening.” Moon, glanced in the direction of his host.
“I am somewhat in the dark too, Commander,” interjected Commodore Park. “My orders from Vice Admiral Goh were to berth and protect the Borei class submarine and to supervise the enhancements provided by our fellow diner, Sunwoo Chung.” Park acknowledged the scientist with a nod. Gok Han-Jik had been fairly quiet during the evening's proceedings so far, concentrating more on ensuring he had his fill of this most appetising fayre that lay before him. Clearly feeling satisfied he finally spoke up.
“I have Vice Admiral Goh's orders here,” Gok said, tapping the outside of his blue naval jacket, but clearly meaning in the left-hand pocket inside. The one thing about a mission, Gok was absolutely aware of, was that the people on it needed to know what they were doing. Up to this point, Commodore Park, Commander Moon and Sunwoo Chung had all done their jobs. They seemed loyal and trustworthy. The mission was to be underway in less than forty-eight hours, they needed to know on a need to know basis and that need was now.
Commodore Park was wondering why he was not the one to receive the direct orders from Goh, but his experience and common sense led him to gauge that this was not the moment to ask that question.
Gok continued. “The men will be briefed tomorrow morning at 10am. By the following morning, at the latest, the Borei will be ready, weaponised, seaworthy and on standby for sailing later that day. I will be in command of the submarine and its crew.” Gok paused for another drink of wine, maybe his last for quite some time, and to allow his comrades to ask questions.
Sunwoo Chung was first in. He felt he had done everything in his skillset to make the submarine as invisible as possible. He wanted to know what the application of all that knowledge was for. “What are you going to do with the sub, Lieutenant Commander Gok?” Sunwoo could have been less formal and addressed him as Han-Jik, after all they'd been on a road trip together to the yard. However, the dinner seemed formal and Gok had his uniform on. Gok knew he could keep the other three diners in the dark, but what was the point? They all wanted the greatest glory for the DPRK, they all were completely loyal to the supreme leader, his cousin, and they all had done their jobs precisely as ordered. Perhaps it was a little too much Podoju or perhaps it was because he had been given command of a nuclear, fully weaponised sub that he was bursting with pride and wanted to let it all out. Gok remained calm but was prepared to spill.
“My orders are to leave the 50km exclusion zone around our shores. Once safely away and in deep water we will submerge. Once it is clear that we are undetectable,” a simple nod to Sunwoo at this juncture, “we will then launch three of the SLBMs.”
Sunwoo was listening intently, Commander Moon still enjoying his dinner and Commodore Park becoming concerned; the tone in which Gok was delivering his information did not seem like the missile launch was to be a test, even though missile tests seemed to irk their enemies quite a lot.
“Do the proposed missile launches have targets?” the Commodore asked firmly. Gok may have been the submarine's commander but Park was the ranking officer around this table.
“They do,” replied Gok. “Two of the Bulava's will target the Pacific Coast of the United States of America, one will target Tokyo. If there are any signs of retaliation we will fire all remaining missiles at Washington D.C. and Seoul.” Gok delivered his information in such a matter of fact way that he could have been ordering a Chinese takeaway by rote. He displayed no emotion whatsoever.
Sunwoo Chung looked happy, though he'd have preferred if at least one of the missiles was headed for Boston. Commander Moon stopped eating before Gok had finished. He didn't know what to think, other than he didn't want to be near the naval yard or Pyongyang when it all kicked off. Commodore Park was phlegmatic. He had served the KPN with honour and had been fiercely loyal to all the Kims who had been his country's leader in his time on this planet. This action was way more aggressive than he had ever imagined likely, however, and it would be naïve to the power of n, where n was a very large number, to believe that the DPRK's enemies would not retaliate with massive destructive force. Millions and millions of lives would be lost immediately on first strike, and millions more, agonisingly, later as contamination took hold. Commodore Park was over fifty years old, so at least he had had a life. But his sister's children had not really, nor had the children of ordinary Korean families nor even those of his perceived enemies. As soon as Gok gave the order to launch the first of the SBLMs, their lives were over. As Commodore Park was contemplating this horror and his supreme inability to do anything about it, he recalled Edmund Burke's famous quote:
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Park knew deep down that the Irish philosopher's comment was correct, but he had been brainwashed and indoctrinated enough to think that while Gok was soon to unleash evil, it was primarily evil aimed at the corrupt and colonial predators that formed the nub of the USA. Maybe it was a price that he, his family and the children of the DPRK just had to pay.
The Commodore was holding that thought, and the rest of the dinner table was engaged in deep discussion as to the whys and wherefores of the upcoming attack on America and Japan. Tea was about to be served and one of the enlisted sailors entered the room holding aloft a decorative mahogany tray, with four floral china cups and saucers, biscuits and two teapots, one brewing ginseng tea and one a local herbal tisane. The tea never arrived at the table. Well actually it did, but more in the fashion of a tsunami fountain of hot beverage rain, rather than a delicate teapot pouring operation. For down in the yard, there was a loud commotion, there was nocturnal motion and there were at least two unexpected explosions.
* * *
“That was fucking great Billy,” yelled Joe Franks to his teammate amid the mayhem. “Now we've got their attention that we didn't want,” Franks continued as he was setting explosive charges to the base of one of the watchtowers at Haeju dock.
“It's not my fault, Joe,” replied Billy Smith, taking cover, part kneeling, behind some old wooden crates lying on the dock, next to the watchtower. “I didn't know that the stupid gook was hiding among a bunch of petrol drums. The shot must have gone through his skinny gook body and into the drum behind.”
SEALs teams 5 and 7 had arrived at Haeju naval base. The Borei class sub was berthed and tied to the dock but it was not heavily guarded, just as hoped for by Commander Mark O'Neill and his team. Lieutenant Evan Harris, leader of SEAL team 7, and O'Neill's number two for this mission was already on board the sub as were most of the rest of 5 and 7 including Tommy Fairclough the lead driver. Unfortunately, as they were boarding they caught a glimpse of two KPN armed sailors on guard at the top of the submarine. Yang Dingbang and O'Neill had moved like veritable ninjas and silently slit the throats of the two sailors before they could raise the alarm. One of them was a bit chubby and as his lifeless body belly-flopped into the dark water it caused such a splash that a passing sailor on the dock noticed it. Now he was barrelling off at pace to warn the rest of the KPN sailors housed near the submarine. Billy Smith just had to shoot. He needed to rush but took aim with his trusty M14 and pop, one in the running gook's arse. The hapless and now injured in his left butt sailor crawled off and hid behind some petrol drums, unbeknown to Billy Smith. The M14 was silenced with a Vortex Flash suppressor attached so the first shot did not trigger any KPN activity but, as he correctly surmised, the second one went straight through the sailor's right eye, its socket, his brain and skull and embedded itself in the petrol drum. Flash, bang, wallop, up it went.
Joe Franks, a lanky Texan, with ginger hair and freckles, had been pals with Billy Smith for years. He had seen the petrol drum incident unfold and came to Billy's aid. Now there were dozens of sailors running around with pistols and rifles, yelling away in Korean and trying to pin point the source of the attack. There were no officers in the yard. They were in Haeju City. There was no military order. Franks was in his mid-thirties but could still move like a twenty year old. He was the team's explosives expert and he concluded that diversion was the way forward. He planted the small devices at the foot of the watchtowers on dockside and on a pillar structure that appeared to be supporting some kind of living quarters.
“C'mon Billy,” yelled Franks to his pal after setting the explosives. “These little firecrackers are going off in thirty seconds, the sub's going to leave and we need to get the fuck out of here and on there,” he continued, pointing to the sub.
Billy Smith fancied unloading a few more rounds into the sailors on the dock, but the more he fired the more his position would be revealed, even with the flash suppressor on his rifle. He jumped up and headed off at pace. “Last one on board's a chicken,” he shouted to Franks. He too was up and running.
As they got to the sub, Yang Dingbang and O'Neill were letting loose the last of the berthing ropes. There were sirens going off, spotlights searching and rapid but random gunfire all over the dock. “Get aboard you two,” shouted O'Neill to his sprinting men. “Tommy's got it fired up, we're leaving now.”
Just as the last of the four of them disappeared down the hatch and into the sub, Joe Frank's explosions went off, one boom, two booms, three booms. It was boom number one which caused the tea fountain in Commodore Park's dining room. As a child, Sunwoo Chung liked fountains, but he didn't much like the one that had just drenched him. He had been scalded down the right side of his face and was screaming in agony. Eventually, the racket would subside, but the ugly scars remaining after all the burnt flesh had frizzled up and peeled off, would not. He held a cloth to his burned face but that wouldn't help, for as soon as he took it away he'd take away some of his face too. His head was hurting as well. What had happened? Commander Moon was unconscious on the floor; he had banged his head on one of the square dining table's corners as it shifted following the explosion.