international airspace. But Pyongyang was clearly sending a message. What was it they
didn't want U.S. intelligence to see? What exactly were they hiding?
Harris alerted the AWACS operators four hundred miles to the north, as well as the air
operations center back at Kadena. Sixty seconds later, four F-15s were scrambled and
ordered to give the Cobra Ball the cover they needed. But how should they handle things before that help arrived?
There was no place to run, no place to hide. And suddenly the first two MiG-29s
roared into view. The first came in above them from the north and made an incredibly
dangerous pass, slicing past their window at Mach 2 and coming within fifty feet of their windshield.
No sooner was it gone than Harris spotted the second MiG several miles in front of
them, climbing at a rate of sixty-five thousand feet per second. And then its pilot decided to play a game of chicken. Harris could see the MiG coming straight at them. Like the first, it was going supersonic. Harris's heart was pounding in his chest. Should he break right, left, or keep heading straight? He knew he had only a moment to react, but by the time he made his decision it was already too late. At the last second, the North Korean pilot pulled up.
The MiG screamed over their heads. And then one alarm after another began buzzing in
the cockpit.
"Someone just painted us, Captain," his second-in-command shouted.
"What?"
Harris scanned his instrument panel. Sure enough, in all the chaos of dealing with
the first two MiGs, the other two had come in behind them. One of them now had a radar
lock on them. Harris tried to steady his nerves. Each of the Russian-built jets behind him carried six air-to-air missiles, not to mention a thirty-millimeter cannon with enough
rounds of ammunition to blow the Cobra Ball out of the sky.
Harris instinctively took the plane into a dive, but the 275,000-pound bear was not
exactly the most agile plane in the world to fly.
Forty-five thousand feet.
Forty.
Thirty-five.
Thirty.
Twenty-five.
They were descending fast and hard. One of the navigators behind Harris began to
vomit. The g-forces were killing them all. At twenty thousand feet, Harris leveled out
and broke right. But the MiGs were still there. They were still locked on. And the
American F-15s were still several minutes away, at best.
"How bad is this, Captain?" asked his copilot, his knuckles white and his shirt soaked in perspiration.
"No problem," Harris replied a bit too quickly. "It'll be fine. Just do your job."
Harris knew that typically when a North Korean fighter pilot intercepted an American
spy plane, they'd shadow the American for fifteen, twenty minutes, bring in some
colleagues, come in dangerously close— sometimes within forty or fifty feet—and then
make it clear it was time for the American to go home. He had seen it happen countless
times. But rarely did the NK jets lock on. To do so was an incredibly hostile act, the prelude 7
to actually firing one of their missiles. It had never happened to Harris in the past five years he had been stationed at Kadena and running these recon missions along the North
Korean coastline. Indeed, he'd heard of it happening to only one other crew, and that had been years before he had even arrived in the Pacific theater.
But Harris wasn't about to recount any of that. For one thing, his crew probably knew most of it, or ought to have, anyway. For another thing, Harris didn't have the luxury of time to chat. Right now he needed to buy as much time as he possibly could until the good guys
arrived. But how?
The second two MiGs were now inbound hot. Four on one wasn't going to work,
especially when he had no way to defend himself or his crew. Harris put the RC-135 into another dive. Soon they were rapidly descending below fifteen thousand feet, ten, five. The Boeing was shuddering violently as it dropped precipitously. Half his crew were retching their guts out. The other half wished they were.
When they reached two thousand feet, Harris pulled out of the dive, pushed for
maximum speed, and began climbing as rapidly as he could. One moment, he was banking
right. The next, he'd break left. None of it mattered. They were essentially sitting ducks if the North Koreans were going to blow them out of them sky. But at least they were taking
whatever evasive measures they possibly could. And they were eating up the clock, and that was everything.
"Two more minutes, sir."
That was his chief navigator. The cavalry was on their way. That should have felt
comforting, but it seemed like an eternity. How was he supposed to outrun four MiG-29s for another 120 seconds?
The answer came fast and without warning. At six minutes after 8 p.m. local time, the
lead MiG pilot fired two AA-10 "Alamos." The missiles were armed from the moment they launched. Harris's eyes went wide, but he had no time to react, no time to maneuver.
They were too close.
Impact came an instant later. The American RC-135 erupted in a horrendous fireball.
Wreckage rained down over several fishing trawlers operating in the Sea of Japan.
NORAD Commander Charlie Briggs received word ten minutes later. Captain Vic
Harris and his fellow airmen had died instantly, and with them, Briggs realized, any chance for peace.
8
5:18 A.M. MST-NORAD OPERATIONS CENTER
Marie Oaks slowly opened her eyes.
Seeing her husband sitting at her side was more comforting than she could express at
the moment, but she squeezed his hand and tried to smile.
"Hey," she said softly.
"Hey," he whispered back.
"Are the boys okay?" she asked.
He nodded. "The Secret Service has them tucked away for the moment, safe and sound. If all goes well, they'll bring them here tomorrow."
"Can we call them? I want to talk to them."
"Of course," the president said. "But not right now, sweetheart. You need to rest. How are you feeling?"
It was a good question. She hadn't really had time to think about it. On the flight from Jacksonville to Colorado Springs, she had feared she was having a heart attack. In the rush to leave their house, she'd forgotten to grab her pills. Now she could tell all kinds of medications were coursing through her veins. She felt light-headed, almost dreamy—
peaceful and trying for the life of her to remember what had caused all that stress.
"I'll be fine," she assured him. "I just need some more sleep."
"You hungry?" he asked.
She thought about that for a moment. "No, not yet."
"How about we have dinner together later?" the president asked. She smiled. "It's a date," she sighed, her eyes slowly closing, her mind drifting again.
maybe longer, then stepped into the conference room. Summers followed, and the room
was immediately sealed off by Coelho and his team.
* * *
Word of the attack on the American RC-135 spread quickly through NORAD.
The mood was tense. Voices were quiet. The nation was already at war. But now, some
were saying, at least they had a target. Lieutenant General Briggs asked Bobby Caulfield and 9
Judge Summers to clear the conference room. The president would be back from the infirmary any moment for a top secret briefing.
"Is everything all right, Bobby?" Judge Summers asked as the two stepped into the corridor.
"Fine," Caulfield said curtly.
"You sure?" she said kindly, "Because . . ."
"It's really none of your business, ma'am," Caulfield snapped. "I just ... I don't want to talk about it."
> Summers was taken aback. She hadn't known. Caulfield for long, but his behavior certainly seemed out of character. She was about to try one more time but just then the president came around the corner, Agent Coelho and a team of Secret Service agents at his side.
"How's the First Lady?" the judge asked as the president passed.
He stopped for a moment. "That's the first time anyone has called her that."
"Will she be okay?"
"She will," Oaks replied. "She's under a lot of stress. I guess we all are. But yes, I think she'll be fine."
"I'm glad," Summers said.
Agent Coelho apologized for interrupting but noted that the war council was waiting.
"Judge Summers, I'd like you to sit in on this meeting," the president said.
"Of course, sir."
Oaks turned to Caulfield, told the aide that he'd be at least an hour,
General Briggs called the videoconference to order.
On the line were Vice President Lee James; Defense Secretary Burt Trainor; several of
Briggs's senior aides; Admiral Neil Arthurs, commander of USPACOM—the U.S. Pacific
Command—based at Camp Smith, Oahu; Brigadier General Jack Bell, commander of the
18th Wing at Kadena Air Base, Japan; and Army General Andy Garrett in Seoul, commander
of Combined Forces Command Korea, overseeing some six hundred thousand active duty U.S., Korean, and U.N. ground, air, and naval forces and now another 3.5 million ROK reservists called up over the past few hours.
Briggs immediately turned the meeting over to General Bell at Kadena, who quickly
briefed the president on the details of the incident, played the radar track of the entire event with what little audio was available, and showed the latest satellite imagery of the crash site.
"Just to be clear, General," the president asked, "our plane was in international airspace, correct?"
"Our planes don't need to penetrate North Korean airspace, Mr. President," Bell replied.
"We can get what we need from a safe, legal distance."
"That's not what I asked, General. I asked if our plane was, in fact, in international airspace."
"It was, Mr. President."
"There's no doubt about that?"
"No, sir."
"None whatsoever?"
"None whatsoever," Bell replied.
"Was our plane doing anything provocative?"
"No, sir."
"Could it have been doing something that may have been misperceived as hostile?"
"No, sir," Bell maintained. "Look, Mr. President, these are routine recon missions. We 10
do them every day, several times a day. We've been doing them for years."
"Were our guys doing anything out of the ordinary, anything at all?" the president pressed.
Bell shook his head. "The only thing different about today was the urgency of your request that we give you real-time updates on the state of DPRK troop and missile
deployments."
"Has anything like this ever happened before, General?"
"Mr. President, our planes get intercepted all the time. It's a game of cat and mouse, cheat and retreat. You know the drill. I briefed you in detail on this the last time you came out to visit us."
"I remember it well, General."
"Sir, the last time a North Korean fighter jet shot down an American recon aircraft was 1969. It was an EC-121. Thirty-one American airmen were killed that day, Mr.
President."
"I'm well aware of the incident, General," the president replied.
"Well, just for the record, on January 23, 1968—fifteen months before that recon flight was shot down—you'll recall that the North Korean navy attacked and seized the USS Pueblo.
They killed an American sailor. The captain and the rest of the crew—eighty-two men in
all—were held and tortured for eleven months."
"Of course I recall the Pueblo," the president said. "What's your point, General?"
"My point, sir, with all due respect, is that President Johnson did nothing to punish Pyongyang for the Pueblo incident. That was an act of war. So is this. Is it really any wonder the North Koreans then shot down an American plane a few months later when
they realized there was no price to be paid for taking American lives?"
"That's enough, General Bell," Admiral Arthurs at USPACOM said. "I know you and your men are hurting, Jack, but watch your step. And don't forget: Johnson already had a pretty serious war on his hands, General. Perhaps he didn't think it wise to start another one with a million Korean Communists."
"Yes, sir," Bell said. "My apologies sir."
"Look," the SecDef said, stepping in, "the past is past. We're not about to relitigate Vietnam and the Pueblo incident. The question is, what should we do now?"
The president turned to General Garrett at Command Post Tango, the high-tech,
state-of-the-art American war room in Seoul.
"What are you and your men facing, General? How bad is it?"
"Mr. President, it's a pretty serious situation we've got on our hands over here," Garrett replied. "My heart goes out to General Bell and the families he's having to console. But I would remind everyone that Pyongyang has the fourth largest military in the world-1.2
million active duty forces, seven million more in the reserves, and one of the largest
special ops forces on the planet—about 125,000 men—and they're all pointed my way.
They've got 170 infantry divisions and brigades, 3,800 tanks, 12,000 pieces of artillery, and on a normal day, 70 percent of it all is pre-positioned within ninety miles of the
DMZ, in some four thousand concrete-hardened underground facilities, none of which
our satellites can penetrate."
"And today?" the president asked.
"The latest intelligence estimate was 90 percent."
"Then they really are mobilizing for war," the president said.
"That would be my assessment, yes, Mr. President," General Garrett concurred. "And 11
that doesn't take into account their air force, navy, submarines, or long-range ballistic missiles, all of which we are seeing on a heightened state of readiness as well."
"What kind of firepower are we talking about?"
"If they don't go nuclear?"
"Right."
"Using just the artillery pieces already on the front lines, they could hit Seoul and our frontline forces with half a million rounds an hour."
12
5:22 A.M. MST-NORAD OPERATIONS CENTER
The news hit Caulfield hard.
He hadn't eaten all day. He was surviving—if you could call it that— on coffee and
cocaine. Darkness seemed to be closing in around him, hour by hour. And now this. The
North Koreans had just shot down an unarmed U.S. plane. Without provocation. In cold
blood. Caulfield didn't need to be in the briefings to see what was coming next. He could read the handwriting on the wall.
The president was going to hit back. He had to—hard. And there was Derek, his older
brother—the brother who had practically been a father to him since his r ;al father had left home when he was five—sitting on the DMZ. Directly in the line of fire.
Sweat began pouring down his face. His skin felt like it was crawling. He had to get
out of here. He needed fresh air and time to think. But none of that was going to happen.
Not today. Maybe not for weeks.
* * *
The president felt every muscle in his body tense.
He had no illusions about what was coming. It was going to be a bloodbath, and the
South wouldn't be the only ones to suffer. North Korean No-dong and Taep'o-dong missiles could reach Tokyo, U.S. bases in Okinawa and Guam, even Beijing. The whole
region could be engulfed in war within days. Where would it stop? How would it end?
The president's father had bee
n a young staff assistant in army intelligence in
Washington during the Korean War. Oaks still remembered the phone call ordering his
father into the Pentagon that Saturday night, June 24, 1950. He remembered gathering
around the radio with his mother and younger brothers. He remembered listening to
reports of more than 135,000 North Korean infantry troops and hundreds of Soviet-built
tanks racing across the 38th parallel in an audacious predawn, Sunday morning raid,
local time, backed by unrelenting artillery fire.
Three days later, they had seized Seoul, backed by Communist China and aided by a
phalanx of Soviet advisors.
By the time the cease-fire was signed on July 27, 1953, 2.5 to 3 million had been killed, including 36,940 Americans. Millions more were wounded and maimed. The damage up
and down the peninsula was incalculable. But this, Oaks suddenly realized, would be much worse.
The very notion of a capital city being hit by half a million artillery rounds per hour was absolutely staggering. He couldn't let it happen. Then again, he wondered, how was he supposed to stop it?
"How long would it take for the North Korean army to roll across the border, defeat the ROK's forward deployed forces, and take Seoul?" the president finally asked.
"It depends on their strategy, sir."
"What do you mean?"
"It all depends on whether they want Seoul intact or not," Garrett explained.
"Assume they do."
"Assuming all we have is the current twenty-five thousand American boots on the
ground, along with the ROK and U.N. forces?"
"Right."
"They could have Seoul in a week, maybe less—probably less. It's only thirty-five miles south of the DMZ, after all."
"Less than a week?" the president asked. "Even with the ROK reserves in place?"
"The reservists won't be fully up and running for another two weeks, at best—if the North moves in the next few days, they'll have the advantage, and they know it."
"And if Pyongyang doesn't want Seoul?"