Darke Mission (7 page)

True, the great leader's missives were all about waging war with the South and striking at the heart of the evil empire, the United States of America. Any strike, however, on these two, pre-emptive or reactive, would surely be from land based missiles. The KPN was a coastal defence operation and would have little to do other than that. No, unless this Borei class submarine was weaponised, and to his knowledge and inspection it was not, this submarine must just be berthed here as a favour to the Russians, as a pit stop on its way somewhere else. Just as that thought crystallised in Commodore Park's mind, three long and modified KAMAZ 5460 trucks pulled into the yard.

* * *

Two days had passed since the meeting at Langley. Commander Mark O'Neill was back at his headquarters in Coronado, San Diego, California. Associate Director Adams had been true to his word and had fast tracked the Borei report and recommendations through the CIA hierarchy and the Department of Defense's chain of command. The President had initially baulked at the idea but came to understand that O'Neill's recommendation was the best one; or at least the one with least potential loss of human lives and political downside, both factors high up on the President's priority list. It was clear that an air strike was too risky as the ensuing chain of events could put the United States and North Korea, or what was left of them, at war. This was especially true if the submarine at the heart of the matter was weaponised, a known unknown currently being investigated by the two NGA officers whose report started this particular scramble.

Any other form of destruction of the submarine would also likely leave fingerprints as to the perpetrators. Although the US naval and other military forces could perhaps disguise the make and type of the explosives used, there would almost certainly be giveaways as to their manufacture and source. If any US military personnel were killed or captured they would not necessarily be easy to identify or extract information from. In the end, though, they probably would give up what they knew and the trail of blame would lead directly to Washington. So, for the Commander in Chief, destroying the North Korean's recently acquired nuclear submarine was not an option. Leaving it in peace was not an option either. On the scale of clear and present danger, a nuclear submarine that could fire deadly ballistic missiles at the USA in the hands of America's craziest and most unpredictable enemy, was highly visible and catastrophically dangerous.

A mission to steal the submarine had merits. First, if it failed then the loss of human life was probably contained to the SEAL team undertaking the mission and a few hapless North Koreans. While regrettable, that was manageable as far as the White House was concerned. Media coverage would be more of a pain, and the North Korean propaganda and sabre-rattling machine would have a field day or even week. The probability of a nuclear missile launch by Pyongyang would be under 20%, however, according to the war games statisticians at the DoD. Stealing an enemy's submarine may not be optimal but in the real world, proliferated by second best solutions, this seemed to be the one to go for.

Secondly, stealing the sub at least gave the US the opportunity of plausible deniability. While the North Koreans would clearly initially suspect the South, America or Japan, in that order, they did seem to be a bit careless with their submarines. In early April 2013, two North Korean submarines went missing off the coast near Hwanghae Province. Admittedly, they were small submersibles of 130 tons and a ten man crew, and admittedly they may just have been winding up the South Koreans. The White House, however, thought that this episode was evidence enough of careless submarine management to allow the US at least a feasible ‘it wasn't us' story that would fly on American TV channels, the nation's websites and among the global twitterati community.

So there it was. Operation Philidor Defence was a go. Mark O'Neill preferred Operation North Wind as the mission's title. Boreas meant North Wind in Russian and that was why the Borei class submarines were so named. However the military's mission computer had randomly selected Philidor Defence. His task now was to put together his team for the mission.

Mark O'Neill was quite young to be a commander, twenty-seven years old and looking a little younger. He had joined the Marines at eighteen after high school but had requested a transfer after the accidental death of one of his best friends at Marine training camp. He knew the SEALs training programme would be even tougher but he just had to get out of the atmosphere surrounding his friend's death. SEAL training is rigorous and punishing. The drop-out rate is over 90% and, in total, training can take up to five years, no less than two, before a Navy SEAL is ready for his first deployment. Mark O'Neill took two and a half years to complete his training. He was truly physically and mentally exhausted after that but now he was the lean, mean fighting machine that his country needed.

Commander O'Neill was part of the west coast SEALs team, the Naval Special Warfare Group 1. The decision had been made that two five man teams would be the operational minimum to steal and operate a Borei class submarine. A larger operational group may have been desirable but for SEALs the more the merrier didn't really apply. The key for O'Neill was the composition of the teams. A Borei class submarine would normally have a crew of a hundred or so, maybe nearly half of which were officers. If you stripped out the cooks, the medics, the scientists and the politicos then you were down to around forty. A further ten or so could be lost if you excluded first time submariners, effectively trainees, and a further ten if you took out sailors who were essentially back-up for key positions, e.g. missile launch. That would leave around twenty as the bare essentials for manning and driving the submarine. After much discussion with his colleagues at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, O'Neill concluded that around ten suitably skilled SEALs could do the job of twenty Russian submariners. He also concluded that he would select his guys from SEAL Teams 5 and 7, both teams had six platoons, a worldwide mandate, were based in Coronado and had the diversity of talent needed for this operation.

Considering the task ahead, Mark O'Neill was quite relaxed in his quarters at the base. He was checking files, backgrounds, assessments and skill sets of the available for selection SEAL team members. He knew many of them first hand. One of them, Billy Smith – he got a lot of stick for his name even though he couldn't act and wasn't black. His ears did stick out a wee bit though. He was with O'Neill when they killed the pirates who hijacked the Maersk Alabama in April 2009. From a floating submersible off the coast of Somalia, Billy had taken out one of the three pirates with a single sniper shot to the head. Though this wasn't meant to be a shooting mission, Billy was in the team. O'Neill, who was no mean sniper himself, probably could not have hit such a small target while bobbing about on the ocean.

As he was mulling over all the other potential team members, he was sifting through his brain cells for what was really needed on this mission. O'Neill had not gone to university, but he was no dummy, having an IQ of over 140 and scoring in the nation's top five percentile in his SATs. His family were relatively low income for those living in California, his father had a career-ending accident being involved in a car crash, and his mother did a wonderful job bringing up him and his sister. Back on point, O'Neill concluded that after the usual suspects, i.e. submariners, radar operators, skilled shooters, one medic, and an explosives expert it would be necessary to have someone who could speak either Russian or Korean. Preferably both, however unlikely that was.

As he was mentally juggling with the permutations, his tablet beeped, indicating that he had received a secure email. Commander O'Neill opened his mail, it was from the NGA.

Mark O'Neill read the short email again. Now those two ladies were smart and they were feisty, especially Reynolds if he recalled accurately, but no fucking way Jose was his initial thought. By law, women could not join the Navy SEALs so the mere thought of having those two cuties, albeit CIA trained, splashing about in the Sea of Japan, with ten testosterone filled SEALs, was a total non-starter. What was Michieta thinking, the moron. In any event what could they do? They were analytical officers not field operatives. There would be no need for analysis of satellite images as, hopefully, they'd be underwater and steering the sub to a destination as yet undecided. Jesus. Preparing for this mission was tough enough without that kind of distraction. Commander O'Neill was contemplating not even replying to Michieta, when his tablet beeped again.

Mark O'Neill put his head in his hands. There was no one in SEALs Team 5 or 7 who could speak or read Korean and the only two fluent Russian linguists were already on a mission in Eastern Europe and could not be recalled. Either or both languages may be essential to interpret any operating instructions, especially since the SEALs would only be a skeleton crew. This wasn't happening, no way, the two NGA officers looked about the same age as his little sister for god's sake. They were talented alright and they were pretty, he thought, especially Carolyn Reynolds. These aesthetic visions needed ejecting pronto from his head. It was
not
happening. What if they were killed or captured? He'd need to tell their families, their photos would be all over the media. It had disaster written all over it. No, no, no, no, quadruple fucking no, he concluded. No girls on tour.

* * *

Commodore Woo-Jin Park hurried down the stairs from his office to the yard below. The three KAMAZ 5460 trucks now parked in the reserved area of his naval base were each with full trailers. A dark red jeep was stationary next to them and two plain-clothes men emerged from the car, an imitation of the real thing, produced by the Sungri Motor Plant in Tokchon.

“Commodore Park,” began the taller of the two men. “I am Gok Han-Jik and this is Sunwoo Chung.”

Commodore Park shook Gok's hand and acknowledged Sunwoo who was standing a little further away.

“I am a lieutenant commander in our glorious navy, Commodore Park, I report directly to Vice Admiral Goh. I am out of uniform today to attract less attention. Here are my papers.”

Woo-Jin Park accepted Gok's papers, at the same time thinking that in a naval base being out of uniform was more likely to attract attention than being in it. After inspecting his papers and gesturing to have a look at the speechless Sunwoo's, Commodore Park was satisfied that they were who they said. Gok then handed Park further paperwork which turned out to be from Vice Admiral Goh explaining the contents of the trailers on the Russian built long haul trucks and Park's role in supervising and managing their installation. Park knew he had to get a move on as Goh wanted to have the submarine fully prepared, sea-worthy and ready for action in less than two weeks. It was a tall order but Haeju had the manpower and Park had the dedication. As he was walking with his two uninvited guests towards the berthed Borei he was glad Vice Admiral Goh had trusted him with the knowledge of what the trucks were carrying. He was also glad that the still mute Sunwoo was apparently the man who knew what to do with the odd pieces of angular metal shapes that took up virtually all of one truck's available space, because he sure didn't.

Sunwoo didn't stay mute forever. By twilight he was barking orders at several of the Haeju yard's painters and a different set of orders at their welders. He was a short man, 5ft 5in tall, rotund like a fat rodent with wisps of fading hair clinging to his head. He definitely wasn't going to be on the cover of GQ in any of its guises. This didn't bother Sunwoo anymore. He was in his late forties, never married, no children. He had an unhealthy interest in soft child pornography but never acted on his most base desires. When the sexual urge overcame him a quick call or visit to Pyongyang's red light district did the trick. Compensating for his personal weakness and foibles, or so he told himself, was that he was a fine scientist. Not any run of the mill scientist but an engineering based scientist who was second in command of the KPN's scientific division. His speciality was submarines and his jewel in the crown was disguising their presence. Stealth technology, the west called it; he was more used to the term low observable (LO) technology. His task now was to be as LO as you could go. Vice Admiral Goh wanted this submarine to be invisible.

Sunwoo's undergraduate studies had been at the People's Friendship University of Russia, in Moscow. There he learned all of the basics of mechanical, electrical and aeronautical engineering, eventually earning a Bachelor's degree, First Class, in Automation and Control of Technical Systems. He followed this up with a post graduate Doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT in Massachusetts, USA. Oh, how easy it was to get into America, a forged South Korean passport, letters of recommendation and he was in. Sunwoo loved his studies, all the information he gleaned from the Materials Science and Engineering optional course was sure coming in to play now. He hated the American people. They were loud, they were superficial, all
American Idol
and
X-Factor
reality shows, celebrity watchers.
I mean
, he thought,
does anybody really care what Kim Kardashian wore last night or that Justin Bieber changed his hairstyle yet again?
Nearly everyone he came across in Boston looked down on him, both literally and metaphorically, but his revenge on these slights was now underway.