Isle of Frogs

“Shit,” I said. “What’s on fire now?”

“Currently,” said Wilson, “a little nothing of an island off the coast of North Korea.”

“Literally on fire?”

“No,” said Church, “though that might be better than what we’re facing.”

“I hate it when you say shit like that,” I muttered.

“I hate it when I have to, Colonel.” Church gestured to the screen. “This is Gaeguli Seom.” I worked out the translation.

“Island of Frogs. Never heard of it.”

“No reason you should have done,” said Wilson in his crisp Eton accent. “It has a small fishing village with a population of one hundred and eighty-six. Or, at least it did so until last night. There was a satellite flyover using thermal scans and it’s currently estimated that the population is zero. That includes, by the by, a platoon of North Korean regulars who were sent in to investigate. And the two-man staff of a small sonar station. The station was established, apparently, to watch for an American submarine invasion of the North Korean mainland.”

“Which is never going to happen,” I suggested.

“God forbid,” snorted Wilson. “To invade North Korea would be to declare war on China. But, the propagandists need to engender fear in order to control the population, hence the sonar station.” I studied the thermal overlay on the image, and saw that a few heat signatures were there, but they were cooling to the point where they’d vanish from the scan.

“Everyone’s dead?” I asked. “How? I didn’t hear about earthquakes or a tsunami. So, what happened? They have a nuclear plant there that melted down?”

“No,” said Wilson. “Apart from the sonar station there is no industry or military presence at all on the island. They don’t even have electricity, apart from a few shared diesel generators.”

“Then why’s everyone dead?”

“We don’t know,” said Church, “and neither, apparently, do the North Koreans. One of the members of the sonar team attempted to send a distress call, but it was cut off. They sent in a small platoon via boat to investigate, and they failed to report. A second team was sent, this time by helicopter, and shortly after arrival they stopped broadcasting.”

-Rage pg. 135-136, Kindle Edition.