Third World War (14 page)

'Tell me again what he said,' answered Yushchuk, leaning against the wall. 'Tell me how he said it, and I'll tell you what I think.'

'He wanted to know three things. One - did I believe there had been a military takeover in North Korea? I said I did, and I believed Park Ho was the man responsible. Two - could I guarantee him that North Korea would not fire another missile?'

Yushchuk, with his detailed knowledge of Kozlov's character, detected a deliberate pause. He stepped in. 'You told him no one was able to tell North Korea what to do, especially if the government had been overthrown and a rogue general was in power.'

'To which he asked a follow-up question - was Russia an ally of North Korea? And I said that it was an alliance that had long decayed. If he was looking for big-power allies, he should talk to Jamie Song in Beijing. Failing that, get the United Nations' list of the poorest and most unstable nations and work up from the bottom.'

Yushchuk laughed, pushed himself off the wall against which he had been leaning and lit a cigarette. 'Was it a good conversation? It sounds as if you were winding him up.'

Kozlov folded his large hands together, stretched them back and cracked the knuckles. 'He was wound up anyway. He had just got off the phone to that old snake, Toru Sato.'

'His third question?' asked Yushchuk, dropping his spent match into an ashtray on the table beside him.

'Did Russia regard North Korea as a vital and strategic buffer state?'

'Not if it's going to fire missiles all over the place. It switches from being a buffer to a liability,' said Yushchuk.

Kozlov nodded. Reaching his desk, he stopped pacing and ran his fingers along the crevice between the leather and teak. 'To which he added another supplementary--'

'Trying to slip it in unnoticed?'

'Yes. But I fear, like myself, the American president does not possess such subtlety of character.' Kozlov walked around the desk, sat in the chair behind it, pushing himself into it as if stretching his back. 'What would be Russia's reaction to a US strike on North Korea? To which I asked whether it would be to reprimand it or to collapse it. He wanted an answer to both options. To which I said a reprimand could be carried out without comment providing it was against a military installation with no civilian casualties. An onslaught to collapse the regime would destabilize the Korean peninsula and therefore the whole of the western Pacific rim. It would cause untold civilian casualties and a refugee crisis within Russia and China. Therefore, I would oppose it.'

Yushchuk drew on his cigarette. 'You are right.'

'He believes I have influence,' said Kozlov, tilting the chair forward and running his hands over the surface of the desk. 'He wants me to use it to stop Park Ho from doing anything that would provoke an attack.'

'He is clever.'

Kozlov shook his head. 'No. He is not clever. He is forcing me to take sides when I don't want to. He is assuming I will take his side. But this is not the nineties. Russia is not Japan. Nor is it Europe. We are no longer supplicants to defeat.'

****

18*

****

Beijing, China*

'Jim, how are you?' asked Jamie Song, the sharp, flamboyant, and media-savvy President of the People's Republic of China. 'Your call is a pleasure to receive, of course, but I can't say it was unexpected. Now before we go on, tell me: is this an official conversation, in which case I'll have to bring in an interpreter, or is it just a friendly chat?'

'Let's make it friendly,' said West.

'Very good. Fire away and don't hold back. The franker you are the better.'

Jamie Song's idiomatic English reflected his years of living in the United States, first as a law student at Harvard, then switching seamlessly between the roles of international businessman and diplomat, becoming China's foreign minister and eventually president. Song was a spiritual child of Deng Xiaoping, the leader who in the 1980s put China on the path to modernization with a speed that no nation had experienced before.

Shanty towns were ripped down to be replaced by high-rise apartments. Swamplands became airports. Country lanes were turned into expressways. Whole areas were declared economic zones with their own sets of rules for creating wealth. While India and Russia foundered through lack of resources and conflict, China pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty and gave them a sense of their own destiny. It skilfully lured in foreign investment and allowed the wealth to spread. Yet it gave little heed to international opinion. Political dissent was silenced. Demonstrations were put down. Poverty was hidden. Books were censored. Newspapers and television broadcasts were controlled. China apologized for none of this.

In China's eyes, Western democracy had failed the poor. China had developed a system that was working. Jamie Song, who so cleverly straddled all worlds, was now at the helm for the nation's journey forward.

'North Korea,' said West bluntly. 'What's going on?'

Song let the question hang on the scrambled satellite telephone line between them. He had perched himself on a window sill overlooking Zhonghai Lake in the secure and secretive compound where the Chinese leadership lived and worked. Through the misted glass, Song watched fresh snow turn the lake's dirty ice back into a brilliant white.

'We're almost certain there's been a military takeover, Jim,' said Song. 'Park Ho is in charge and he has the loyalty of the military. What we don't know is whether he ordered the firing of the missile, or whether it was done in the heat of the moment by someone else.'

'When will you know?'

'You're the one with all the gadgetry.'

'You have the border, Jamie. You have the trust--'

'Don't kid yourself,' Song laughed. 'They've been such a pain in the neck, I'm beginning to wish we had lost the Korean War.'

'We've got fifty-eight dead Americans, Jamie, killed by a North Korean missile,' said West, in no mood for jokes. 'You're the closest they've got to an ally. You're also a world leader.'

Song tapped his index finger lightly on the telephone. He didn't like being lectured. But he understood the high emotion of American society. 'OK,' he said with deliberation. 'How exactly can I help?'

'What influence can you use to stop Park?'

'Doing what?'

'Carrying out more hostile acts against Americans.'

'If he is in charge, we can try to persuade. In the present climate that would work more than threats. I understand your position has to be different. But ours will be a softly-softly approach. If you want, you could be the stick and we would be the carrot.'

'In what way?'

'Your electorate is demanding retribution for the deaths of its compatriots. Being the president of an autocracy, I have no such constraints. If you wish, Jim, you can threaten to obliterate North Korea. I will urge you to restrain, while between us we can broker a deal which will advance the situation on the Korean peninsula towards some kind of resolution.'

West was silent for a few seconds before responding. 'In reality, how far can we go?'

'If Park Ho ordered the firing of that missile, then you would have my private support to take out his missile launch sites. If he retaliates across the Military Demarcation Line, then you're on your own. Should you go beyond attacks on the missile launch sites, I will have to consider my support. Should you launch a military attack on North Korea designed to cripple its military machine, overthrow the present regime and either reunify with the South or install a government of your own choosing, China will oppose you.'

'If it self-implodes, then what do we do?'

Outside, a strong north-Asian winter wind blew through the barren trees around the lake. Soon the branches would be alive with spring blossom, but Song wondered what folly the leaders of the world might have imposed on their citizens before then. He leaned forward and rubbed a small, clear patch in the condensation on the window of the Central Committee Office. A silver-grey Mercedes limousine was drawing up.

'If it self-implodes - God forbid - you have to keep your troops off North Korean soil.'

'That sounds reasonable, but South Koreans?'

'No. They're too closely entwined with you. My military wouldn't stand for it either, specifically up near the border.'

'Who then?'

'A UN force led by Chinese and Russian units on six-monthly rotations, leading to a non-elected government of technocrats for the first five years of transition. South Koreans will have de facto control of the economy, but a World Bank panel, comprising Chinese, Russian, Singaporean and European Union delegates will oversee.'

'You have a blueprint?' said West, not hiding his surprise.

'We have a blueprint of more than a thousand pages translated into seven languages, Jim. The bottom line is no direct US involvement. A buffer state between great powers has to be deflated slowly and with deliberation.'

'Thank you, Jamie,' said West. 'Thank you for being so upfront.'

Jamie Song replaced the telephone in the cradle on the chair. Outside, a tall, brisk figure, dressed in a blue silk shirt and tie and a pinstripe suit cut by a Parisian tailor, stepped out of the Mercedes. General Yan Xiaodong brushed down his lapels and bounced energetically up the steps to the front door. Yan was the head of the Communist Party's International Liaison Department. His visiting card named him as executive director of the China Association for International Friendly Contacts. Its main mission was counter-espionage and to watch on Hong Kong, Taiwan and North Korea.

Jamie Song picked up the telephone. 'General Yan has arrived,' he said. 'As soon as you locate Park Ho in North Korea, put him through.'

An hour later, the call had still not come.

****

19*

****

Panmunjom, Korean peninsula*

At the truce village of Panmunjom, no fence separated the enemy troops. The actual line between the two Koreas ran through the centre of seven huts. Outside, it was marked by a strip of concrete. Inside, a microphone cable lay across a table covered in green felt where negotiations took place to end the war. The huts had a temporary campsite air about them.

Three of the huts were a pale blue, the colour of the United Nations, rectangular, long and narrow, pointing north-south, with aluminium chimneys for the winter and sloping, sharp-edged roofs with wide eaves that provided some shade against the overhead summer sun.

Lieutenant Lee Jong-hee, aged twenty-six, had been assigned to the centre hut, used by the Military Armistice Commission which handled the 1953 ceasefire negotiations. Outside the window were three North Korean soldiers, one looking south, the other two north. On the other side, the pattern was repeated with South Koreans. Soldiers from both sides took inspection tours around the huts.

Lee stood inside at attention precisely on the Military Demarcation Line. On both sides of the main negotiating table were smaller tables with hardback wooden chairs. The walls were plain blue with no posters or decoration. The windows had no curtains. In front of Lee were the UN and North Korean flags. Facing him directly at the other end of the table was a North Korean officer. It had been like this for more than half a century.

At the end of the Second World War, Korea had been divided along the thirty-eighth parallel between the United States in the south and the Soviet Union in the north. On 25 June 1950, North Korean troops attacked. Four days later they took Seoul. Five days after that, they were in combat with US soldiers. Then China's new leader, Mao Tse-tung, sent in his army against the Americans. The Korean War was the only conflict since 1945 when the armies of two formidable nations - China and the United States - directly fought each other.

America made its peace with China. The Soviet Union ceased to exist. South Korea became a great Asian economy. But North Korea, stubborn, unbowed, and bankrupt, remained a self-created prison camp, the ceasefire inconclusive and the conflict unresolved.

On the morning that Lee was on duty, fifteen tourists from Europe and the United States were shown into the hut on a tour that took place several times a day. Lee and the North Korean officer on duty with him remained stock-still in position, as a military guide, Captain Ed Hutton, explained the history of the war and the armistice.

'There have been violations, but none has led to war,' Hutton said. He ran his hand down the green felt, picked up the microphone cable and dropped it down again. 'You can now tell your folks you've stood on the last Cold War frontier in the world. Behind you is the success of democracy and freedom in South Korea. In front of you is a nation on the verge of collapse through poverty and communism. The succession of Kim Jong-il from his father Kim Il-sung was the only dynastic succession from father to son in the communist world. You may have read in the newspapers that a new, as yet unknown ruler, might now be in charge over there.'