“Mr. President, according to what this defector said, they took about five hundred people and put them in an isolated maximum security prison in a rural area, then sprayed the organism in the ventilation system. Virtually everyone was exposed, even some of the guards, although quite by accident. It survived in the environment longer than they thought it would. They didn’t feed these prisoners anything for two days after exposure, thinking the virus would all die. It didn’t. When they went in after forty-eight hours, it was still quite viable, and a number of the prison staff also became ill. They had to disinfect the whole facility with formaldehyde. The incubation period was about five days. A week after everyone was ill, they executed all of the survivors and cremated everybody. He didn’t know how many were ill from the virus, or how many were ill from the formaldehyde disinfection. They sprayed everything with a solution of it, then aerosolized it and pumped it around as a gas. They even laundered the prisoners’ clothes in formaldehyde. That is pretty toxic stuff in itself. They wanted to make sure the virus didn’t get loose into the environment.”

“So, you think this virus could be here in the U.S.? How would they get it here, how would they maintain it if it is vulnerable to the environment?”

“Mr. President, it is ridiculously easy to smuggle a biological weapon in enormous quantities into this country. We import hundreds of thousand of tons of frozen foods every year. Everything from frozen meat from South America, fresh frozen fruit juices, chilled fruits, and so on are brought in under refrigerated or in the frozen state. The virus is viable for decades if it is kept frozen at very low temperatures. It is far easier to smuggle in biological weapons than it is nuclear weapons.”

“How then, would they disseminate the agent?”

“Mr. President, dissemination could occur by a variety of ways. Aerosolization is by far and away the best. It can be put in aerosolized canisters, in large spray tanks, delivered by aircraft such as a crop duster, as insecticide control sprays in city streets, it could be released in ventilation systems of large buildings, in subways, and so on. If the agent is contagious, and you could figure out a way to expose a large number of people on a single exposure, such as at a professional football game in an enclosed stadium, then it could spread like wildfire among the population. It is really limited by the imagination.

“Some ten years ago, a regional epidemiologist from a rural state sent a letter to the White House with a scenario for a smallpox attack that was quite feasible and as scary as they come. It was a plane load of revelers leaving Honolulu after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. An enemy agent put aerosolized smallpox into the aircraft ventilation system. Four hundred plus people were infected. When they landed in Atlanta, they got on two dozen commuter flights and went all over the Midwest and east coast. In two weeks, we had hundreds of outbreaks over half the country as a result of secondary cases in this scenario.”

“How then, could they maintain this agent in the frozen state if they brought it in this way?”

“That is relatively easy, Mr. President. It can be maintained in home deep freezers supplemented with dry ice. That will keep it at minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit for years. Just renew the dry ice periodically. They could rent lockers in cold storage areas for modest-sized quantities, or somewhat bizarrely, in bovine semen containers.”

“What?”

“Our veterinarian informs us that every rural county in the country has at least one, and likely several bovine inseminators for insemination of both dairy and beef cattle. Each of these commercial inseminators maintains tanks of liquid nitrogen which hold bovine semen at minus seventy degrees Centigrade. They usually have a number of such tanks and can store good-sized quantities of a virus agent in these tanks.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“It gets worse, Mr. President. It seems the neighbor of our informant was also a virologist who is working on smallpox. Our informant learned from this neighbor that they have a red-hot strain of smallpox that they acquired from Russian scientists they hired after the breakup of the Former Soviet Union. They hired these Russian virologists for nice salaries and high positions with lots of benefits who have been continuing their work in North Korea for some years. What I said about the influenza virus also applies to smallpox.”

“Do you have any other good news, Colonel? What about vaccinating our people against smallpox?”

We don’t know if the vaccine we have will be effective against this strain. Mr. X doesn’t know much about it. You will remember that in 2002 and 2003 a number of people wanted to initiate a national mass vaccination campaign against smallpox, but the people down at the CDC scared the living crap out of both the medical community and the general public about adverse reactions to the vaccination. They claimed they could vaccinate the county in a few weeks in the face of a release of smallpox. It won’t spread so fast they can’t control it , so they claimed. So, the entire country is at risk if we are attacked with smallpox. It takes a week or two to build immunity after vaccination. There is some evidence that some degree of immunity is immediately conferred, but it probably isn’t sufficient for protection in the face of exposure to a large dose. Smallpox, too, is spread by aerosolization, but you have to be relatively close for person to person spread. That’s generally considered to be six or eight feet. Some people cough, and then spread millions of the virus from their throats when they do.”

“What else do you want to tell me, Colonel?”

“I don’t know what information would be of benefit to you at this time, Mr. President.”

“Alright, make sure you leave your phone and fax number outside in case I can’t get ahold of you through Secretary Neville. I presume you have a secure phone arrangement at your office?”

“Yes, Mr. President. I have a secure hotline. I can be reached any time, day or night, at my office. I live about twenty minutes from my office and can be there if I get a heads-up call.”

“Thank you, Colonel. I appreciate your candor and your immediate response in coming.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. I wish I had better news.” Johnny Withers escorted them out. The President’s personal bodyguard, Robert Lee, standing in the corner, with his arms folded across his chest, watched them through narrow eyes as they left.

Chapter 13

Johnny Withers came in. “Well, Mr. President. The word is out. There is a media feeding frenzy in the press room. They are clamoring for a statement. CNN and all the other channels are broadcasting live from different locations in Korea. It seems that CBS and NBC reporters headed south out of Seoul in a hurry, at the first flight of aircraft. CNN stayed in Seoul and is broadcasting from there. It looks pretty ugly over there.”

“Turn on the television, Johnny, CNN, but no volume; I just want to see the pictures, please.”

Withers picked up the remote control from the top of the television, turned on the digital TV, laid the remote on the President’s desk and walked out to the antechamber.

The intercom rang on the President’s desk; he answered it. It was Air Force Chief of Staff George Shelton. “Mr. President, we just received word that all the airports in Pusan are down. Their runways are sufficiently cratered that nothing can get in or out. This cuts the possibility of air delivery of reinforcements into Pusan until those runways are repaired. The air battle is see-sawing back and forth. No clear-cut picture as yet on that, Mr. President.”

“What are we talking about, in terms of getting those airfields repaired, General?”

“Well Mr. President, if the South Koreans are up to snuff, about eight hours. The North Koreans copied our catering bomblets munitions. The runways are filled with hundreds of holes that will tear the landing gear off any aircraft, landing or taking off. Unfortunately, with continued wave attacks, it becomes a battle between repair and destruction. I can’t predict who will win that one. I have no idea how much repair materials and manpower and equipment the South has dedicated to this function. If the North Korean ground attack aircraft take out the people and equipment, it is probably a done deal.”

“Anything else, developments of any kind that I should know about, General Shelton?”

“No, sir, nothing more at this time.”

“Thank you, General,” and Thornton hung up the phone.

Johnny Withers came in. “Mr. President, Roger has a prepared statement, very brief, acknowledging to the press that South Korea is under attack. Do you want to take a look at it?”

“No, Johnny, I’ll trust Roger. I am sure he has not identified what our response will be. Neither should he identify that we haven’t formulated one at this time. If he is that stupid, I’ll fire him, if I don’t wring his neck first. Let him rip.”

The President glanced over at the television, where a CNN reporter was standing inside the White House Press Room. Roger McCall, the White House Press Secretary, strode confidently to the podium. The President turned the volume up with his remote.

The phone on the President’s desk rang. He turned down the television volume. “Mr. President, Marge Talbott. I was just on the phone with our ambassador in London. Things don’t look good. Seems the Brits have been debating their role in this for a couple of hours now. The Labour government is deeply opposed to any kind of British participation at all. Near as our guy can figure out, there are a couple of things that the British find disturbing. They are afraid of terrorist retaliation on the home islands, by whom, I am not sure. Perhaps more importantly, they look at it as perhaps the final solution to the Korean problem. Let the peninsula be reunited under whomever and then deal with whichever government is the winner. They certainly aren’t going to commit any of their whopping three divisions to it, and they are even debating whether or not they should allow us to use Diego Garcia. As soon as the dust settles, our man will send us a secure fax.”

“Do you think a phone call from me to the Prime Minister would be of any benefit, particularly in regard to Diego Garcia?”

“I asked that question, and our man said right now their P.M. is engaged in a hot and heavy debate; maybe later today, but not now. He never was very friendly to us Americans. He is leaning against us on all fronts at the moment. He wants to see how the political wind is blowing with the natives first, at least that is what our man thinks.

“One more thing, Mr. President. The French Ambassador can hardly retain his glee at our dilemma. It seems the French want to see us get our comeuppance. I don’t think we will get any support at all out of the French, formally or informally.”

“Thanks, Marge. Keep me informed of anything of use that you hear, as I am sure you will. Oh, give our Russian friends a call at their embassy as a matter of courtesy. Ask them what their position is on the North Korean invasion this morning. Let’s see what their take is. Talk to you later.”

Jason Thornton turned the volume up on the television, just in time to hear NBC’s latest beautiful lady reporter ask Roger, “What will be the United State’s response to this invasion?”

Roger just smirked and said, “Do you think it would be wise to tell an extremely lethal and unpredictable enemy how you will react to his aggression? Don’t you think he might prepare for any response you would care to identify? Perhaps you would like to be part and parcel of whatever our response is? I am sure that the troops in one of our first response ground units, should we choose to militarily respond, would certainly be happy to have you embedded with them.” The double meaning was not lost on the reporter, and her blush was obvious on camera. Jason Thornton laughed to himself, glad he had selected Roger McCall. Neither of them had much use for antagonistic journalists, and Roger, obviously, could be just as sarcastic as the best of them.

By noon, a dozen or so demonstrators had gathered outside the White House. None of them were favorable to involvement. The placards they carried, obviously home made, carried various slogans: NO WAR! U.S. STAY HOME! NOT IN ASIA! KEEP US OUT! and so on. They were marching, circling peacefully under the watchful eye of a dozen Washington, D.C., and National Park police officers and some men in civilian clothes who had small radio receivers clipped to their ears.

The Vice President called from his office, just to let Thornton know that various Congressional Committees were meeting on Capitol Hill to discuss the invasion.

Margie Talbott called again. “Mr. President, I just spoke with the Japanese ambassador. He has received no guidance from the Japanese government. His personal opinion, however, is that a major re-alignment will result. Japanese forces are on alert, and their militia units have been put on stand-by notice. I’ll let you know as soon as he gets back to me with any formal response.

“The Taiwanese delegation was also here and just left. The Taiwanese have gone to full alert. They are concerned that China might use this as a cover for invasion. They are not taking any chances. Their ships of the line are putting out to sea in the Strait now. They have armed their missiles. We think they are going to establish an Aegis destroyer picket line. Our AWACs over the Strait haven’t picked up any indicators of unusual ship or military air activities.”

“Thanks, Marge. Talk to you later.” Thornton hung up the phone. Frigging great, Thornton thought to himself. If the Chinese do go for Taiwan, how in hell are we going to respond to both Korea and Taiwan?

Thornton dialed the war room. “Anything changing down there? Secretary Talbott just told me that Taiwan is on full alert and moving their ships into the Strait.”

“Admiral Stark here, Mr. President. Yes, sir, we are monitoring their movement into the Strait. They are scared. We are listening to their conversations in real time, and they are very unhappy campers.”

“Anything on any kind of movement or response from the Chinese?”

“No, Mr. President, nothing in terms of any movement. One of our naval attaches noticed, however, something a little odd. It seems that over the last month, a large number of Chinese freighters have been tied up in Chinese ports, big and little. Probably a hundred or more of these freighters have been pulled off the oceans and seem to be just sitting in ports.”