Good man, Rodgers thought as he literally dove over the smoking remains of a jeep destroyed by the last Nodong. He landed hard on his side and threw his arms over his head just as the last missile took off on a bright finger of flame, roaring like an unchained dragon as it sliced through the morning sky.

Then Rodgers thought about Squires and the Striker team, and he scrambled to pull the field radio from his belt. But it had been smashed when he fell on it, and all he could do was pray that they didn't misunderstand what they were seeing

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

Wednesday, 7:35 P.M., Op-Center

"Bad news, Paul," Stephen Viens said over the phone from the NRO. "It looks to me like one of the Nodongs got away from them."

"When?"

"Seconds ago. We saw it light up-- we're waiting for the next pictures."

"Is Hephaestus watching?" Hood asked.

"Yes. We'll let you know where she's headed."

"I'll stay on the line," Hood said, and put the secure line on speaker. He looked at Darrell McCaskey and Bob Herbert, who were both in his office.

"What is it, chief?" Herbert asked.

"One Nodong was launched," he said, "headed for Japan. Bob, find out if there's an AWACS in the area and tell the Pentagon they'd better scramble fighters out of Osaka."

"They'll never intercept it," Herbert said. "That's like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Georgia."

"I know," Hood said, "but we have to try. Coming right at it, they may get lucky. Darrell, NRO will pick up the missile's heat signature on the Hephaestus satellite. We'll get the trajectory so that at least we can give the flyboys a general vicinity to look." He fell silent for a moment. All the lives, he thought. The President will have to be told at once so he can telephone the Japanese Prime Minister. "Maybe we'll be able to give the people on the ground a few minutes to seek cover," Hood said. "At least that's something."

"Right," McCaskey said.

Hood was about to phone the White House on his second line when Viens stopped him short.

"Paul-- we've got something else on the screen now."

"What?"

"Flashes," Viens said. "More than I've seen since Baghdad on the first night of Desert Storm."

"What kind?" Hood asked.

"I'm not sure-- we're waiting for the next picture. But this is un-freaking-believable!"

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

Wednesday, 9:36 A.M., the Diamond Mountains

Perched behind his field glasses, Lt. Col. Squires watched as the Nodong rose and the antiaircraft guns opened fire.

His initial thought was that an aerial attack was underway, and his first impulse was to disburse the men and attack the gun positions. But why would they be firing the shells into one another? For incoming aircraft, they'd turn them in the direction from which the radar said the planes were coming. Then he saw the guns actually lower as they fired, and he understood.

The clip-fed 37mm shells zipped skyward from all sides of the perimeter, two guns on each side, setting up a shield of explosive fire roughly one thousand feet over the Nodong site. Radar-guided shells were colliding one into the other, replaced by new shells every half-second.