When the Situation Room was in use it was usually full, with every chair around the long table taken, and aides in the seats ranged along the walls, under the screens; but now just a handful of people were present: Gus, Chess, Luis, Chief of Staff Jacqueline Brody, and Sophia Magliani, the Director of National Intelligence, with a handful of aides. There had not been time for others to assemble.
At every place there was a computer workstation and a telephone headset. Luis was wearing his headset, and as soon as Pauline walked in he began speaking, without preamble. ‘Madam President, two minutes ago one of our infra-red early warning satellites detected the launch of six missiles from Sino-ri, a military base in North Korea.’
Pauline did not sit down. She said: ‘Where are the missiles now?’
Gus put a mug of coffee in front of her, dark with a splash of milk, just how she liked it. ‘Thanks,’ she murmured. She sipped gratefully while Luis continued.
‘One missile misfired and came down in seconds. The remaining five headed into South Korea. Then another broke up in flight.’
‘Do we know why?’
‘No, but missile failures aren’t unusual.’
‘Okay, carry on.’
‘At first we thought they were aimed at Seoul – the capital seemed the logical target – but they have now passed over the city and are approaching the south coast.’ He pointed to a wall screen. ‘The graphic, built up from radar and other inputs, gives a picture of where the missiles are.’
Pauline saw four red arcs superimposed on a map of South Korea. Each arc had an arrowhead that crept slowly southwards. ‘I see two likely targets,’ she said. ‘Busan and Jeju.’ Busan, on the south coast, was South Korea’s second city, with three and a half million people and a huge naval base for both Korean and American forces. But the much smaller Korean-only base on the holiday island of Jeju might have symbolic importance because it was where the North Korean submarine had been destroyed yesterday.
Luis said: ‘I agree, and we’ll soon know which.’ He held up a hand, asking everyone to wait while he listened to his headset, then he said: ‘The Pentagon says the missiles are now more than halfway across South Korea and they should reach the coast in two minutes.’
The speed at which the missiles travelled a hundred miles was breathtaking, Pauline thought.
Chess put in: ‘There is a third possibility, which is no target at all.’
‘Explain,’ said Pauline.
‘The missiles could be meant only as a demonstration, to scare South Korea, in which case they could overfly the entire country and come down in the sea.’
‘Something to hope for, but somehow I don’t think that would be the Supreme Leader’s style,’ Pauline said. ‘Luis, are those ballistic missiles or cruise missiles?’
‘We think we’re looking at medium-range ballistic missiles.’
‘High explosive or nuclear?’
‘High explosive. These missiles came from Sino-ri, which is controlled by the Supreme Leader. He has no nuclear weapons now – they’re all at bases controlled by the rebel ultras.’
‘Why are those missiles still flying? South Korea has anti-missile missiles, doesn’t it?’
‘Ballistic missiles can’t be shot down in mid-flight – they’re too high and too fast. The South Koreans’ Cheolmae 4HL surface-to-air system will engage them in their descent phase, as they approach their target, when they slow down. The system couldn’t hit them when they passed over Seoul.’
‘But it should now.’
‘Any second.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ Pauline turned to Chess. ‘What have we done to stop this?’
‘I called the Chinese foreign minister, Wu Bai, as soon as we got the warning about signals activity. He gave me some bullshit but it was clear that he had no idea what the Supreme Leader was up to.’
‘Did you talk to anyone else?’
‘The South Koreans don’t know why they’re under attack. The North Korean envoy to the UN didn’t return my call.’
She looked at Sophia. ‘Anything from the CIA?’
‘Not from Langley.’ Sophia usually looked glamorous, but tonight she had dressed in a hurry: her long wavy hair was scraped back and tied up in a bun, and she had put on a yellow warm-up jacket and green running pants. But her brain was working. ‘Their best man in Beijing, Davidson, is desperately trying to speak to the head of the Guoanbu, whom he knows well, but he hasn’t reached him yet.’
Pauline nodded. ‘Chang Kai. I’ve heard of him. If anyone in Beijing knows what’s going on, he will.’
Luis was listening to his headset again. ‘The Pentagon is now certain the target is Jeju,’ he said.
‘That settles it,’ said Pauline. ‘This is retaliation. The Supreme Leader is punishing the naval base that destroyed his submarine. You’d think he had enough to do combating the rebels in his own country.’
Gus said: ‘He’s failed to crush the rebellion, which makes him seem weak, and the sinking of the submarine makes it worse. He’s desperate for something that makes him look tough.’
Luis said: ‘We’ve accessed video from the base. It’s not public, they must have hacked it.’ A picture came up on a wall screen, and Luis said: ‘It’s closed-circuit television security-surveillance footage.’
They saw a large harbour enclosed by a man-made sea wall. Within the wall were a destroyer, five frigates and one submarine. The picture changed, presumably to a different CCTV camera, and now they saw sailors on the deck of a ship. Someone in a back room was looking at multiple feeds and selecting the most informative ones, for the shot changed again, and they saw roads around low office and apartment buildings. This picture also showed frenetic activity: men running, cars driving fast, officers shouting into phones.
Luis said: ‘The anti-missile battery has fired.’
Pauline said: ‘How many missiles?’
‘The launcher fires eight at a time. Wait . . .’ There was a pause, and Luis said: ‘One of the eight crashed seconds after firing. The other seven are in flight.’
After a minute, seven new arcs appeared on the radar graphic, on an intercept course with the incoming missiles.
‘Thirty seconds to contact,’ said Luis.
The arcs on the screen moved closer.
Pauline said: ‘If the missiles explode over a populated area . . .’
Luis said: ‘The anti-missile missile has no warhead. It destroys the incoming ordnance just by crashing into it. But the incoming warhead might explode when it hits the ground.’ He paused. ‘Ten seconds.’
The room was silent. Everyone stared at the graphic. The dots came together.
‘Contact,’ said Luis.
The graphic froze.
‘The sky is full of debris,’ said Luis. ‘The radar is unclear. We have hits, but we don’t know how many.’
Pauline said: ‘Shouldn’t we have got them all – with seven interceptors to destroy only four incoming?’
‘Yes,’ said Luis. ‘But missiles are never perfect. Here we go . . . Shit, only two hits. There are still two missiles heading for Jeju.’
Chess said: ‘For Christ’s sake, why didn’t the battery fire everything they’ve got?’
Pauline replied: ‘Then what would they do if the North Koreans sent over another six?’
Chess had another question. ‘What happened to the five anti-missile missiles that didn’t hit their targets? Can they try again?’
‘At that speed they can’t turn around. Eventually, they’ll slow down and fall out of the sky, hopefully into the sea.’
Luis said: ‘Thirty seconds.’
Everyone watched the TV pictures of the naval base that was the target.
The people there would probably not see the missiles, which must be moving too fast for the human eye, Pauline thought. But they clearly knew they were under attack: everyone was running, some in a brisk, purposeful way, others in a blind panic.
‘Ten seconds,’ said Luis.
Pauline wished she could look away. She did not want to watch people die. But she knew she must not flinch. She had to be able to say that she saw what happened.