Free Darke Mission by Scott Caladon Page B

population is close to 400,000, around one-eighth of whom either work directly in the naval base or in factories which support its daily activities. The average high temperatures at this time of year are 15 – 20 degrees Celsius with 2 – 3 inches of rain. The city is only 60km north of the Demarcation line with South Korea. It is not very mountainous, with the largest one, Mountain Suyang topping out at just under 950 metres. Ben Nevis, in Scotland, is the UK’s highest mountain at 1,345 metres.
    Commodore Woo-Jin Park has had the responsibility of managing the Haeju naval base for four years. The KPN was widely regarded as a green water navy, indicating that its tasks were mainly that of coastal defence rather than anything more adventurous. The KPN fleet is split into east and west coast squadrons but sheer geography and the limited range of most of the navy’s fleet meant that were there to be a sea battle with the South, the two squadrons could not support each other. As a young man, Woo-Jin Park served aboard one of the navy’s frigates and more recently a Romeo class submarine. He was promoted from Captain to Commodore in the early 2000s and in 2010 made officer in charge of the Haeju base.
    Park was a man of short stature, thick black hair of medium length for a serving officer and wore metallic framed spectacles, silver in colour and round in shape. He took his job seriously, even to the extent that his marriage had broken down as a result of his total commitment to the cause. His marriage had been more or less arranged anyway, so, deep down, he wasn’t that bothered. He had no children of his own, and though he was a decent uncle to his sister’s children, his babies were right here at the Haeju naval base.
    Today he was a proud man. Vice Admiral Goh, his commanding officer, had explained to him that a new submarine was to be docked at Haeju. Goh made it clear that this was of the utmost importance. He told Woo-Jin Park that Haeju had been selected for its excellent repair and servicing facilities. In part this was true but it had also been selected because it was less obvious as a submarine dock than several of the east coast bases. Goh also told Park that a specific repair and enhancement programme was to be carried out on the submarine. Goh omitted to tell Park that it was also to be weaponised. That piece of information was on a need to know basis and Park didn’t need to know just yet.
    Woo-Jin Park looked out of his office window down at the submarine. He knew exactly what it was. He had been a competent submariner and he kept up his interest in these submersibles as the years went by. The one he was looking at, well not exactly looking at since there was a rubberised roof covering its length and obstructing his view, was a Russian Borei class nuclear submarine. The KPN’s pride and joy, to that point, had been several Sang-O II class subs but this was altogether a different kettle of fish. This was a great white. This was king of the ocean. This was the submarine of superpowers, well one superpower anyway. Commodore Park was not a stupid man. He knew that if this submarine needed to be repaired or serviced then, if it belonged to the Russian Navy, it would be having all that seen to in a Russian naval shipyard. By dint of logic it must now be a vessel of the Korean People’s Navy.
    True, the great leader’s missives were all about waging war with the South and striking at the heart of the evil empire, the United States of America. Any strike, however, on these two, pre-emptive or reactive, would surely be from land based missiles. The KPN was a coastal defence operation and would have little to do other than that. No, unless this Borei class submarine was weaponised, and to his knowledge and inspection it was not, this submarine must just be berthed here as a favour to the Russians, as a pit stop on its way somewhere else. Just as that thought crystallised in