The Armageddon Machine

by Mike Ramon

Chapter Thirty-Four

  Pyongyang, North Korea

  June 17 -- 04:16 UTC/1:16 pm local time

  For eight years his name had been Tarantula, and that was how he thought of himself. He watched the building across the street, and waited. He had always been a patient man, and he displayed that patience now; he had been waiting for three hours, sitting on a bench across from the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security, North Korea’s feared secret police force, which shared a name with China’s intelligence ministry. Tarantula was feeling no fear at all. In fact, a sense of calm had settled over him the night before, a welcome end to days of worry and anguish.

  Violet Dawn had been betrayed, there was no question about it. The people who had sworn to shield them, to protect them from the heavy hand of the State, had forgotten their oaths. What else could explain the crackdown on the organization’s safe houses and bases over the past few days? Those with the power to protect them had turned coward, or perhaps they had always been such. Maybe their pledges and their oaths had never been anything more than the promises of men who sought some advantage, some gain, for themselves; now that they saw Violet Dawn as a liability instead of an asset, they were turning against the group.

  But now all of the fear and anger was gone from Tarantula’s mind, and he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest. He was patient; he could wait. Across the street men and women came and went. A few of them cast stares in his direction; he was sure that there were security people watching over him even now, keeping a wary eye on him. He wasn’t overly concerned that their suspicions might move them to place him under arrest. If he were arrested, and they brought him inside the building, then they would only have helped him in his task.

  He worked his tongue in his mouth, feeling the thin wire wrapped around a back molar, reassured by its presence. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, then opened his eyes and stared up at the blank windows of the Ministry building, a thousand dead eyes staring back at him. Time slid by and around him, everything seemingly in slow motion--the people walking past, the few cars on the streets, a group of soldiers passing by on some errand he would never know of.

  It was just past two o’clock when he finally saw the man he had been waiting for. Kwoong Yeong-su came from around the corner of the building across the street, carrying a black briefcase and whistling to himself as he walked. He stopped whistling when he saw Tarantula waiting on the bench. Kwoong immediately lowered his head and hurried for the entrance to the Ministry, hoping that he had not been seen. But he had been seen. Tarantula got up from the bench and quickly crossed the street. He cut Kwoong off before the man could reach the entrance.

  “Mr. Kwoong, it is good to see you after so long,” Tarantula greeted him.

  Kwoong looked up into his face with a quizzical look, feigning forgetfulness.

  “Excuse me; do I know you?” Kwoong asked.

  “I am Kang Sung-hoon,” Tarantula said, using the false identity that for years he had used as a cover. “Mr. Ho from Shanghai was a mutual friend of ours.”

  Mr. Ho from Shanghai didn’t exist; he was merely a code word (one of many) used between members of Violet Dawn and their fellow travelers to identify themselves to one another.

  Kwoong Yeong-su considered continuing his charade of not recognizing Tarantula, but he was afraid that the man would cause a scene of he was ignored. When a security guard in military uniform opened one of the doors leading into the Ministry to check if Kwoong was all right, or if he was being bothered by this strange man, Kwoong waved the guard off.

  “It’s all right; I know him,” he said to the guard.

  The guard went back inside after throwing one last suspicious look at Tarantula.

  “Come, my friend; follow me, and we will talk inside,” Kwoong said.

  Kwoong led Tarantula through two security checkpoints, the first right when they entered the building, and then another as they exited the elevator on the fourth floor. Both times Tarantula was asked to show his identification, and both times Kwoong was able to bully the guards into letting Tarantula pass though without ID. When they were inside Kwoong’s office he shut the door behind them and locked it so they would not be disturbed.

  “Please have a seat,” Kwoong offered.

  Tarantula remained standing as Kwoong moved behind the desk, set his briefcase on the ground and sat down in a deep, padded chair.

  “You really should not have come here,” Kwoong said. “These are dangerous times. The government has been feeling pressure for some time from the Chinese to act against your group, and now with what your people did to Los Angeles--it seems that the pressure has finally become too great to resist.”

  “I know. That is why I am here, Mr. Kwoong. We have been very disappointed that our...friends in high places have failed in their duty to us.”

  Kwoong shook his head.

  “There is nothing that I or anyone else can do to help you now,” he said. “Anyone who appears to be aiding Violet Dawn, or acting against the crackdown, is to be arrested immediately. Those are the orders from the top. Nobody could be asked to risk their freedom, even their life, for you people, even if in our hearts we agree with your cause.”

  “You clearly do not understand the meaning of loyalty, Mr. Kwoong.”

  “Loyalty? You do not understand reality. Right now there is simply nothing that I can do for you. For any of you. That is all I have to say to you, really. When you leave here I don’t want you, or any of your cohorts, to ever come here again. When things calm down I will get in touch with you. Until then, stay away from me. Do you understand?”

  Tarantula nodded his head.

  “I understand everything,” Tarantula said. “I understand that we were foolish to ever place our trust in pigs like you.”

  Kwoong’s face reddened.

  “It is time for you to leave,” he said. “I will send for someone to escort you out of the building. It would be best for you if you didn’t say anything else to me.”

  Kwoong picked up the telephone and punched two buttons. A moment later he spoke something quietly into the phone; Tarantula didn’t catch what he said, but then again he wasn’t really listening.

  “To the weaklings and the cowards, their reward,” Tarantula said.

  He opened his mouth and reached two fingers into it.

  “What are you doing?” Kwoong asked with a tone that was closer to annoyance than apprehension.

  There was a stiff knock on the door just before someone tried to enter. The door, and was Kwoong had forgotten he had locked it.

  “Give me one moment,” Kwoong said, rising out of his chair to unlock the door.

  When Kwoong tried to pass by Tarantula he was pushed back.

  “Let me pass,” Kwoong said.

  Tarantula, who still had one hand in his mouth, struck out with his other hand, landing a blow to Kwoong’s chin and sending him reeling. There was a loud knock on the door.

  “Unlock this door,” someone called from outside.

  Tarantula gagged as he drew his hand out of his mouth, a barely visible wire pinched between two fingers.

  “Who do you think you are?” Kwoong asked while rubbing his jaw. “Don’t you understand what can happen to you for striking me?”

  “Open this door immediately!” commanded the voice from the other side of the office door.

  Tarantula finished pulling the small capsule he had swallowed earlier in the day from his mouth. It was attached to the wire that had been wrapped around his molar.

  “What is that? What do you think you are doing?” Kwoong asked, and now fear had finally crept into his voice.

  “This is your reward, Mr. Kwoong,” Tarantula said.

  “”Help me!” Kwoong yelled. “Get in here now!”

  There was a loud thud as somebody hurled their body against the door; the door held. Tarantula gripped the tiny capsule at both ends between his fingers. It didn’t have the destructive power of Fireblossm, but
it was enough. He twisted the ends in opposite directions, and Kwoong heard a small click.

  “Help!” Kwoong called.

  There was a second attempt to break through the door, but the door still held fast.

  “Witness the fire,” Tarantula said. “Witness--”

  He never finished the thought. A tremendous explosion rocked the building to its foundations. Of the four thousand people who were in the building at the time of the explosion, only thirteen would survive.