Edge of Apocalypse, Page 2

  Captain Han Suk knew something was wrong even before he reached the bridge of his ship. The Daedong was a sleek long-range North Korean missile launcher. It was everything he had dreamed of as he went through the rigors of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Military Naval Academy. When he'd been a young seaman coming up through the ranks, the Korean People's Navy was considered a "brown-water navy," its ships few and small with no long-range ability, operating mainly in coastal waters and inland rivers. But with the advent of the great nuclear reawakening at the hands of their new "supreme leader," Kim Jong-un, the nation had turned its energies back to repelling the American threat and had embarked on several ambitious military enterprises. Yet unlike the other missile-launching destroyers in the North Korean navy, the Daedong was different in one spectacular aspect: it was designed to launch weapons of mass destruction.

  The financial drain on the country, already suffering from shortages and the rumored starvation in the northern provinces, was enormous, but the benefits were incalculable. The nation's prestige as an international military power soared. After all, the imperial American menace would soon be cowed by the sight of dozens of ships along their coastlines flying the red star of North Korea.

  That was the glorious future as Captain Han Suk saw it. But for now, the Daedong was the first that was tasked to patrol the eastern coastline of the hated United States, and he was honored to be given the task of bringing its fearsome might to the teeth of the enemy.

  Still, he had reservations. Reservations he would never raise to any of his superiors, reservations he allowed himself to consider only in the few moments he had to himself, between sleep and duty.

  The ship, a beautiful, fast, seaworthy triumph of Korean naval expertise, had been rushed through assembly, its production goals set to meet the date of the great leader's anniversary celebration. Though completed on time, shortcuts had been taken and materials shortchanged. The time for proper testing had been limited to get the ship into the Atlantic before the winter freeze of the Northern Arctic passage.

  The captain had been able to catalogue some of the ship's shortcomings. Most pressing of which were its communication systems. The Americans had a vast array of satellite and ground station receivers utilizing the latest VLF, microwave, and laser technology to quickly communicate from anywhere in the world. For the Koreans, being out of their own territorial waters was a new experience, and no system yet existed to ensure safe, secure, consistent communication. From the moment the ship had entered the Atlantic, the Americans had been jamming its radar.

  The captain was also concerned by the isolation he felt, alone in enemy waters. The Daedong's sister ship wouldn't be ready for another six months, so he had been tasked with the maiden voyage on his own. He knew the strict coastal territorial limits of each nation and had been sure to steer clear of any hostile shores, but he still felt vulnerable to an enemy that had occupied Korea's sovereign territory to the south for over sixty oppressive years.

  All this the captain kept to himself. It was his duty to honor the flag of his beloved North Korea and to bring glory to his grateful nation and leader. It was especially important since Supreme Naval Commander Admiral Sun Tak Jeong was himself on board, to report, firsthand, on the glorious news of their triumphant voyage.

  As the captain climbed the exterior gangway to the glassed-in bridge, most of the crew was down in the mess hall. As he entered the bridge he could sense something unusual, an increased agitation among the small group manning the ship's radar and controls. The normal military efficiency of his handpicked deck officers had been replaced by something he couldn't quite put his finger on. As he stepped onto the bridge, everyone snapped to attention. He let them stand there for an extra second as he took the temperature of the room. What he sensed did not reassure him. Fear.

  "Back to your stations, men."

  "Captain." The XO immediately stepped forward.

  "Captain." The second voice came from Admiral Jeong, who emerged from the shadows at the back of the octagonal structure. The captain hadn't seen him when he came in, and his presence on the bridge this early in the morning only confirmed his worst misgivings.

  "Captain, we received a coded message." The admiral held out a slip of paper for him to read. The text was brief but chilling:

  2 KPA jets ambushed and shot down over sovereign Northern territory by overwhelming American occupying air forces. No provocation. No warning. Missiles launched...

  "Why wasn't I told of this immediately?"

  "Because I received it first," enunciated the admiral. The implications were clear. He scanned his men for a hint of betrayal. No one met his gaze.

  The captain wanted to know more. "Is there any more to the message?"

  "The Americans jammed our communications," volunteered the XO. "We haven't been able to reach Pyongyang since."

  "If it's still there." The admiral's statement sent a shiver down the captain's spine.

  "We must turn around and return home immediately to defend our beloved country and leader," said the captain.

  "Isn't that what he sent us here to do?" Again the admiral's words shot a sickening chill through the captain.

  "Admiral, no one is more aware than I of the wisdom of your long experience and knowledge. But I believe we can serve our country and our leader best by returning to join the battle at home...to repel the American invader from our beloved shores."

  "I disagree."

  Everyone on the bridge froze.

  "The message said, 'Missiles launched,'" the admiral barked, making sure his meaning wasn't lost on anyone in the room, especially the captain.

  "The message was interrupted, sir; we can't just leap to conclusions."

  "The interruption wasn't here, Captain; it was in Pyongyang."

  The captain felt a sting of rage, blindsided, as he turned to his XO. The XO blurted out, "I don't know, sir; we cannot confirm one way or the other yet."

  "Then get me a confirmation!"

  "We don't need a confirmation, Captain; we need to act."

  "We are acting, sir."

  "Like cowards with our tails between our legs!" The admiral's words echoed through the bridge.

  "Do you have an order, sir?" Han Suk retorted.

  "Do you need an order, Captain?" The captain remained silent. The admiral quickly turned to the firing officer. "Then here's an order. Proceed to commence prelaunch procedures..."

  "Admiral?" shouted the captain.

  The admiral continued, "I will transmit the nuclear authorization code--"

  "Admiral!" The captain's voice was steadily rising.

  The admiral snapped open a hard plastic stick revealing a coded set of numbers, then turned coldly to the captain. "I need your key, sir."

  The captain stepped back.

  "That is an order, Captain."

  The captain continued to back away.

  The admiral turned to the XO and said, "Give me your firearm." The XO hesitated.

  "Give me your firearm!"

  The XO unholstered his weapon and handed it to the admiral. The admiral raised it and aimed it at the captain's head.

  "Are you going to give me the key now, Captain?"

  "Admiral, I beg you, we don't know what's happened yet..."

  The sound of the gun going off in the closed space was much louder than the admiral had expected. The bullet entered the captain's right cheekbone and exited the back of his skull, spattering the steel panel behind him with blood and brain matter.

  The admiral's hand was shaking as he reached down to retrieve the firing key from around the captain's neck, where he had slumped dead onto the corrugated metal floor.

  No one said a word as the admiral, with the gun still in his trembling hand, passed the bloody key to the XO.

  The admiral stared out at the sea for a moment, then smiled with an air of manufactured confidence. "They'll write stories about us someday." He turned slowly to the XO and nodded. "The ship is yours now, Captain
. Make us proud."

  A phone rang in the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was 7:00 at night, but the chairman was still there. He liked to use the early evening hours, when the rest of the staff was gone, to think over the next day's agenda. His secretary had gone, so he picked up the phone. "This is--"

  The voice on the other end of the phone didn't let him finish. "General, we have a status red, repeat, a confirmed status red."

  The general's body shot up in his chair. "What and where!?"

  "Two birds incoming, U.S. East Coast," intoned the voice on the phone.

  "Specify!" roared the General. "Where?!"

  "New York City."

  THREE

  There was one unusual thing about that night for Abigail Jordan. At long last she and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Deborah, had managed to book tickets for an opera at the Met. Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Abigail tried to arm-twist her husband, Joshua, into going, but she had to laugh at the improbability of that. Besides, Joshua was scheduled to fly back to New York from a meeting with some military brass in Washington. He was taking the shuttle to JFK and would then, in his private helicopter, go directly to his Manhattan office to do some late-night work with his research and development team. Which meant Joshua Jordan had a built-in excuse to miss the opera. Much to his relief, Abigail figured.

  Still, Abigail had applied her powers of persuasion. Clever arguments came easy for her. She'd been trained as a lawyer. "Look, Josh," she'd said to him on her cell phone earlier, "I know you don't like the opera, but Madame Butterfly is actually a story about a lieutenant in the Navy who has this conflict--" Her husband chuckled and cut her off. He even managed to say it with a straight face: "Navy? You got to be kidding. Abby, honey, even if I didn't have to work late, let's remember that I retired from active duty as a colonel in the Air Force. The Air Force. Sitting through an opera about a sailor, hey, that'd be a betrayal to all my flying buddies..."

  She'd tried not to laugh at his sly comeback, but it was hard. At least this way she would have some private time with Deborah--first a wonderful dinner together, and now they were looking for a cab to whisk them to the Met before curtain time. In some ways her daughter was so much like her dad. A cadet at West Point, Deborah was heading for a career in the military. Yet Abigail was delighted that she still loved girly things. A good love story, even in Italian, would be right up their alley.

  As the two of them walked quickly through Times Square looking for a taxi, she glanced at Deborah. She had Joshua's dark, penetrating eyes and a softer, pretty version of his square-jawed face. Like her mother, Deborah was tall, thin, and athletic. Abigail had missed her, even though West Point wasn't that far from their penthouse in New York City, and she and Joshua had seen her several times during her third year at the academy. It was still so good to have her around, even if only for a weekend.

  The two of them crossed Broadway, underneath the brazen illumination of the giant three-hundred-foot-high LED screens, neon signs, and flashing JumboTrons of Times Square. Abigail and Deborah were almost to the island in the middle of the street that housed the large glass-encased TKTS discount tickets booth. They would have to get off of Broadway to find a cab. For many years traffic had been banned from Times Square, so Abigail and Deborah were about to head to a side street to hail a taxi.

  But just then they heard the awful sound. A sickening metallic crash.

  Abigail and Deborah quickly whipped their heads around. A cab had just smashed into a vendor's hot dog cart.

  Abigail was stunned. What's a cab doing in Times Square?

  Unbelievably, the taxi didn't stop. The cabbie continued to gun his engine down 47th Street, first dodging around pedestrians and then hopping the curb onto the sidewalk at full speed, toppling pedestrians like bowling pins. Several theater lovers, waiting in line at the TKTS booth, started to race across the street to get to the fallen pedestrians.

  Deborah turned to sprint after them. "Come on, Mom; they need help!"

  But Abigail saw something and grabbed her daughter's arm. "Look out!"

  A large black limo and then a minivan streaked into Times Square and almost mowed down the good Samaritans. A second cab attempted to veer around the crowds and jumped the curb, this one slamming through the foldout tables where hawkers had been selling Yankees and Mets memorabilia moments before.

  Abigail stared in shock. She couldn't compute the odds. Almost as if orchestrated, vehicles were racing into the no-traffic zone of Times Square. Two taxi drivers had jumped curbs, committing the same insane act in the same place within seconds of each other. What was going on?

  Suddenly cell phones started to ring all around her. For a moment it was as if the world encompassed in that twenty blocks of Times Square had stopped to answer the same communal phone call. Abigail had her cell with her, but it was turned off on purpose. She cherished her alone-time with Deborah.

  Deborah looked as if she was trying hard to figure it all out. Trying to make sense of it. "Something big's going down, Mom."

  Abigail grabbed for her Allfone, the new generation multifunctional cell phone, to turn it on. Every person around her with a cell phone, as if on cue, was moving now--some running, others crying, some screaming wildly. Everyone else simply stood there with bewildered faces.

  Abigail punched the speed dial for her husband. By then Joshua would be up in the chopper high over Manhattan, heading to his office. But a homeless man in a dingy Knicks hoodie stumbled past her and knocked her Allfone out of her hand.

  He was yelling, "It's the end, man; it's the end!"

  Abigail reached down to snatch up the phone, but another reckless vehicle, an airport van, came speeding toward her. She jumped back as it brushed past, but it slammed into the homeless man from behind. He flew over the top of the van and landed several yards behind it in the gutter. The driver never slowed down. More cars and trucks began careening into Times Square at breakneck speed.

  "What's happening?" a woman with shopping bags screamed out to no one in particular. No one stopped to answer. From Abigail's vantage point on the traffic island, people were swirling madly around her, running in all directions. The sidewalks had become deadly speedways for taxis and cars, smashing into anyone and anything, trying to get around the intersection crowded with scrambling pedestrians and out-of-control traffic.

  Abigail could not imagine what chaos had just been loosed. Cars and buses were colliding, creating bottlenecks, forcing more people to spill onto the streets on foot. Subway entrances were jammed with people trying to escape the mayhem above ground. People pushed and shoved, knocking others to the pavement in a mad exodus to nowhere. The plate-glass window at the empty Nike store was shattered by looters who had already grabbed overpriced shoes, jerseys, and anything else they could get their hands on.

  A few confused souls had taken refuge with Abigail and Deborah on the traffic island--a relatively calm eye in the middle of the storm. Most simply stood and watched in horrified confusion. Others cried. Some prayed.

  Deborah was circling around helplessly, watching, and shaking her head. "We've got to do something..."

  But Abigail's mind was whirling. She shouted back. "Have to figure out where it's safe. Where the danger is..."

  Just then she noticed people looking up at the sky, mesmerized, as if waiting for something beyond their control, something catastrophic to fall on them.

  An elderly man behind Abigail pleaded, "I need to get to my granddaughter's. Can anyone tell me what's going on?"

  Then Abigail noticed something on one of the largest of the building-sized electronic billboards. Instead of the usual glitzy ads for the latest designer jeans and blockbuster movie was a simple aerial shot of the sparkling Manhattan skyline, an eerie reflection of the skyscrapers towering around them.

  "I don't understand," said someone in the crowd, pointing to the looming video feed.

  Then Abigail saw it. She pointed down the street to a giant ribbon of digital text
wrapping around a building. The breaking news headline scrolling high above Times Square was too outrageous to make sense of. Then it sank in. The digital words were announcing a headline that was too horrible to comprehend:

  TWO NUCLEAR WARHEADS HAVE BEEN LAUNCHED FROM A N. KOREAN SHIP OFF THE COAST OF GREENLAND...TARGET: MANHATTAN

  Involuntary sobs escaped from the woman with the shopping bags. People screamed in terror.

  Deborah shouted, "Got to find a bomb shelter..."

  Abigail grabbed her hand. "Stay with me. Let's run to the Crowne Plaza. Maybe they've got a basement level..."

  The two women began to sprint together across Broadway toward the hotel. A human flood of screaming pedestrians were scattering in all directions.

  Deborah yelled as they ran, "The sign said nukes. Nukes, Mom! A basement won't save us. We're ground zero!"

  "Maybe they're wrong. Maybe they're not nukes."

  "But what if they are?"

  They were at a full sprint now, blowing through the chaotic crowds. But Abigail knew something that even Deborah didn't know. A few details about her husband's top-secret project. Joshua ought to be very close to his office by now. His R&D team was supposed to be waiting for him. Maybe. Just maybe...

  Abigail yelled over to her daughter as they were locked into matching strides, "If they're nukes, we have to pray that Dad can stop them..."

  "Dad?"

  Without breaking her stride, Abigail started to pray. Tears were starting to come. But it didn't stop her voice as she shouted out a prayer.

  "Heavenly Father, oh, please, God, please save us...and help Josh...help him, Lord!"

  FOUR

  The private executive helicopter glided high in the night sky over the glittering lights of New York City. Joshua Jordan, the lone passenger, was in the back. Forty-three, square shouldered, athletic, and dressed in an expensive Italian suit, he looked like a man on top of the world. But he didn't feel that way.

  On a normal evening, heading to his office for late-night work, he'd be paging through his Allfone--checking emails and tabbing through a variety of documents that had been scanned-in for him to review. The digital revolution had finally merged all the major information, communication, and entertainment functions into one platform: a small handheld device that became all things--cell phone, fax sender, two-way Skype video camera, television, radio, and, of course, Internetaccessible computer. The big versions replaced TV sets in the entertainment cabinets of homes across the country. But it was the small handheld units, the top-of-the-line Allfone and its cheaper imitators, that had become the primary personal communication link for the public.