Page 143 of Never
‘No comment.’
Pauline giggled. She knew they joked about her being a tyrant.
Gus said: ‘The National Intelligence Service in South Korea says the Pyongyang regime has repelled an attack on Residence Number Fifty-five. It’s a fort with an underground nuclear bunker, and it’s probably the most heavily defended place in North Korea. The fact that the rebels have even tried to take it suggests that they’re a lot stronger than any of us imagined until now.’
‘Could they win?’
‘It’s looking possible.’
‘A military coup!’
‘Exactly.’
‘We’d better find out more about these people. Who are they, and what do they want? I could be dealing with them as a government in a few days’ time.’
‘I’ve asked the CIA those questions. They will be working all night on a briefing that you should get in the morning.’
‘Thanks. You know what I need before I do.’
He dropped his eyes, and she realized that her remark might be interpreted as flirtatious. She felt embarrassed.
He took a sip of his drink.
Pauline said: ‘Gus, what happens if we fuck this up?’
‘Nuclear war,’ he said.
‘Indulge me,’ she said. ‘Walk me through it.’
‘Well, both sides would defend themselves with cyberattacks and anti-missile missiles, but all the evidence suggests that these methods would be only partially successful, at best. Therefore some nuclear bombs would reach their targets in both the warring countries.’
‘What targets?’
‘Both sides would try to destroy the enemy’s missile-launching facilities and also target major cities. At a minimum, China would bomb New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the town we’re sitting in, Washington DC.’
As he named the cities, Pauline saw them in her mind: the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Houston Astrodome, Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, Rodeo Drive in LA, her parents’ home in Chicago, and the Washington Monument outside her window.
‘More likely,’ said Gus, ‘they would aim at between ten and twenty major cities.’
‘Remind me what the explosion is like.’
‘In the first one-millionth of a second, a fireball is formed two hundred yards wide. Everyone within it dies instantly.’
‘Perhaps they’re the lucky ones.’
‘The blast flattens buildings for a mile around. Almost everyone in that area dies from the impact or from falling debris. The heat sets fire to anything that will burn, including people, within a radius of two to five miles. Cars crash, trains come off the rails. The blast and the heat go upwards, too, so planes fall out of the sky.’
‘How many casualties?’
‘In New York, about a quarter of a million people die more or less immediately. Another half a million are injured. More die of radiation sickness in the following hours and days.’
‘Jesus.’
‘But that’s just one bomb. They would aim more than one missile at each city, in case of malfunctions. And China now has multiple warheads, so a single missile can carry up to five separate bombs, each seeking a different target. No one knows what the effect would be of ten, twenty, fifty nuclear explosions in a city, because it has never happened.’
‘It’s unimaginable.’
‘And this is only the short term. With every major city in the US and China on fire, imagine how much soot is released into the atmosphere. Enough, some scientists think, to weaken sunlight and lower temperatures on the Earth’s surface – leading to poor harvests, shortage of food, and starvation in many countries. It’s called nuclear winter.’
