Hwan let his head flop back on the chair. He let the cooling waves from the ceiling fan wash over his face.

"So we have bombers who were in the North. How could they not be North Korean?" He was beginning to think that there was only one way to find out for certain, though he was reluctant to play a card as important as that.

As he reread the summary, the intercom beeped.

"Sir, this is Sgt. Jin at the desk. There's a gentleman who wishes to see the officer in charge of the Palace bombing."

"Does he say why?"

"He says he saw them, sir. Saw the men who ran from the sound truck."

"Keep him there," Hwan said as he leapt to his feet and tightened his tie. "I'll be right there."

CHAPTER THIRTY

Tuesday, 8:05 A.M., Op-Center

Bob Herbert and Matt Stoll both watched in shocked silence as the photos from the NRO came up on Stoll's monitor.

"I'll be diddled," Herbert said. "They are out of their freaking minds."

The photographs of Pyongyang showed tanks and armored vehicles rolling from the city, with antiaircraft artillery being moved into the surrounding countryside.

"These bastards are preparing for war!" Herbert said. "Have NRO look at the DMZ. Let's see what's happening there."

He snapped up the phone on the armrest of his wheelchair. "Bugs-- put me through to the chief."

Hood came on at once. "What've you got, Bob?"

"A job for you-- rewriting the Options Paper. We've got at least three mechanized brigades moving south from the North Korean capital, and at least I count one, two, three four AA guns ringing the southern perimeter."

There was a long silence. "Get me the hard copy and keep monitoring the situation. Has Matty found anything yet?"

"No."

There was another long silence. "Call Andrews and ask them to get us firsthand recon from the East Korea Bay west to Chungsan Bay every two hours."

"You want flyovers?"

"Mike and a Striker team are headed over. If the computers go down again and we lose our uplink, I don't want them going in blind."

"Gotcha," Herbert said. "Tell me, chief. You still think those bastards don't want war?"

"The White House or DPRK?"

Herbert swore. "Dee-Perk. We didn't start this--"

"No, we didn't. But I still think that North Korea doesn't want war. They're deploying because they assume we will. The problem is, the President can't appear soft and he won't blink. Will they?"

Saying he'd report back as soon as he had any information, Herbert muttered under his breath about Hood's suspicious nature. Just because he was a politician's politician when he was Mayor, consulting every adviser and poll, didn't mean that everyone was. He did not believe that this President would put American youths at risk to enhance his image as a tough guy. If he didn't blink, it was for the same reason that Ronald Reagan sent Tripoli a high-explosive wake-up call when Libyans bombed a bar in Berlin. You hurt us, we're going to draw blood. He wished that policy were standard operating procedure, instead of hollow chest pounding at the United Nations. He still wished that someone would pay back the Moslem terrorists who cost him the use of his legs in 1983.