by Terry Toler
She scanned the area below her for a babo. A mark. Her next victim. Babo was the North Korean word for idiot. Bae felt that anyone stupid enough to have a backpack stolen by a thirteen-year old girl was a babo and deserved any ridicule she could heap upon them.
Several were within her line of sight. A fat man was trying to take a selfie and had set his backpack down on the concrete sidewalk. He stood with his back to the ocean, his hand high in the air holding a cell phone, struggling to get the camera at the right angle. Probably trying not to get too much of his bald head.
The thought and sight of the man made her laugh. He was too easy a prey. He might have money in the bag, but the rest was probably smelly tourist stuff. By looking at him, she figured the bag probably had more food than anything else.
A bunch of kids played in the playground. Parents left several backpacks unattended on the benches. She’d learned from experience that those weren’t worth the effort. They were filled with diapers, children’s wipes, bottles, and little bags of snacks. More stinky things. Not to mention the insides were full of germs.
A college student caught her eye. His backpack would be full of books, writing instruments, paper, and maybe a cell phone. Probably not. What did she need with all that? That’s what hers was full of.
A cell phone would be interesting. Only a few of the elites were authorized to have one. More and more people were buying them on the black market. But the penalties of having an unauthorized cell phone were onerous. It wasn’t worth the risk.
One of the foreign investors was carrying a briefcase. She really wished she could steal one of those. They were too hard to run with. She’d learned that the hard way. A businessman left his briefcase sitting on the ground next to him at a restaurant a few months before. Bae grabbed it and took off running, awkwardly. The case was heavier than she thought it would be.
Still, the cases were tempting. She’d lain awake at night thinking about what might be in them. Passports. Money. Checkbooks. Appointment calendars. Important business papers. These were the types of things that interested her. Maybe letters from secret lovers.
Wouldn’t it be funny to send one of those notes to the man’s home for his unsuspecting wife to read? Bae had a vivid imagination. That was only one of the sinister thoughts that came into her head in her late-night fantasies.
Mostly, she was just bored. Which was probably the reason why she stole things. She didn’t need the money. Her parents had plenty. Though it wasn’t her money, she had everything she needed. Her parents spoiled her, which was probably part of the problem as well. Because she had everything, she wanted things that weren’t hers. Things she couldn’t have because they didn’t belong to her.
Bae was a thinker, not a feeler. School testing labeled her a genius. She analyzed everything. Including herself. Ad nauseam. That was working against her at the moment. She needed to force herself to decide and quit thinking.
So, she made one.
Tonight, nothing but a businessman would do. She wasn’t going to waste her time on mothers with little kids, college students, disgusting bald tourists, or businesswomen. Women in business held no positions of importance in North Korea. Even though by law women were equal to men, the only women of influence were relatives or wives of leaders.
Women like her mother.
That decision to focus on a businessman narrowed her options considerably and raised the risks dramatically. Not just any businessman would do. It had to be one who was being careful with his bag. Why? It meant something of value to him was in the bag.
How did she know he was being careful? Telltale signs. He’d keep touching it, assuring himself it was still there. If it had a strap, it would be draped over the chair or on the table rather than hanging loose. The bag would be expensive and not well worn. A rich person would only carry a new briefcase to an important meeting.
How he was dressed was a clue. He had to be in a suit. Was his hair mussed, or perfectly groomed? Was it dyed or graying? Once she narrowed in on a target, she analyzed his every move. How did he use a napkin? Did he dab at his mouth, or clumsily wipe food off his face? These were all questions she considered.
She wanted someone who paid attention to detail almost as much as she did.
Almost.
A babo always made mistakes. If the man really wanted to protect the case, the strap would be around his shoulder not around the chair. Instead of on the floor on the outside of the chair, it would be on the inside, between his legs, with one foot against it at all times, so that he would feel any movement. Most people didn’t think of these things.
She scanned her immediate view. One target stood out from among the rest.
An older gentleman, probably in his mid-fifties, was dining at the restaurant by the pier. Older was good. He couldn’t run as fast.
At his feet, lay, not a briefcase or a backpack, but a satchel.
Interesting.
Bae had never stolen a satchel before.
The letter D was engraved on the metal lock. Probably his initial. Only a wealthy person could afford such an extravagant indulgence. The bag was on the left side of his chair, not the right. A big mistake. The right faced the inside of the restaurant. The left was close to the sidewalk facing out. If the man was smart, he would’ve asked for an inside table.
He obviously wanted a table with a view because he kept gazing out at it. But he kept looking down at the satchel, touching it, and he was fidgeting, like there was something important in it. Maybe something valuable. Perhaps something he didn’t want anyone to know about.
The man was well dressed in a designer suit. His nails were manicured. He appeared to be middle eastern, although she couldn’t be sure. She’d never personally met any middle eastern men. He was definitely not from any of the Asian countries. From what she knew of the middle east, they were wealthy. Perhaps an oilman or even a person of royalty. That excited her even more.
He didn’t have his food yet. That was a good thing. It would give her time to formulate a plan. She’d wait until he had his food for obvious reasons. That would distract him and cause him to hesitate when she made her move. Who’d want to leave a hot meal they just started eating to chase after a bag no matter how important it was? Especially if he was hungry. The bag would ultimately win out, and the man would give chase but only after a brief moment of indecision.
He’d also stumble out of the gate. The napkin was already in his lap. Instinctively, he’d take it off his lap and put it on the table. He’d have a fork in his hand. If she timed it right, he’d have a knife and a fork so both hands would be occupied. She’d wait until he took a bite. It’s harder to run with a mouth full of food.
A bolt of excitement went through her now that she was satisfied, she had the right target. Her thoughts turned to developing an escape route. The sidewalk was wide and extended all along the beach like a boardwalk. Good for running. A lot of people ran along on the boardwalk, so she wouldn’t seem out of place.
She scanned the path she wanted to run. What she saw next made her pause. Two members of the NKAGF, North Korea Army Ground Force, were smoking a cigarette in the direction she preferred to go. The plan in her mind was to come up from behind the man, not from the front, so he wouldn’t see her coming and then take off running in the direction she was heading. That would lead her right into the guards.
It would be awkward to turn and run the way in which she’d come. Bae was also right-handed. She preferred to grab the satchel with her right hand in one fluid motion. That wasn’t an option. There was no way she could run that way. She’d have to come up from behind him, distract him because he’d feel her presence, then pivot, grab the satchel with her left hand and then take off running.
She’d have to get off of the boardwalk, then run onto the grass and then between the buildings because they could see her on the boardwalk for a great distance.
For a minute, she reconsidered and thought about choosing a different target. But she was int
rigued. She wanted to find out what was in that satchel.
A decision had to be made soon. The man was just served his meal.
Without hesitation, she came out of the shadows from her hiding place and started walking toward him.
3
It occurred to me that this might be my last opportunity to get out of this alive.
The leader and his armed sidekick led me out of the makeshift interrogation basement—an abandoned office building, actually—and walked me toward what was a newer, and expansive, four-story, high-rise where the cyber lab was located. The buildings were several hundred feet apart and were connected by a dirt sidewalk. The walk would take about seven minutes. Enough time for me to make a quick assessment of my surroundings.
Disarming the one man and killing both would be as easy for me as beginner Sudoku. The sun was setting, and the woods were nearby. I could get away undetected, cross back over the border of South Korea, and spend the night in my luxury hotel room with room service, a jacuzzi tub, satin sheets, and a morning massage.
According to the calculation in my head, I had about six hundred feet to decide which was the distance between the two buildings.
Enough time to decide since my brain could process the debate quickly. A skill that came from my years of working with the fastest computers in the world. I could actually see the SPOD spinning in my mind, which caused me to almost laugh out loud. Officially, in the macOS lingo, the spinning icon on a computer was called the spinning wait cursor or the spinning beach ball. My CIA trainer, Curly, called it the SPOD, or the spinning pizza of death.
It was his way of saying that if you have to think about it and decide a life or death matter that quickly, then you were unprepared and were thinking your way to death. He was right. I hadn’t sufficiently thought this through. Walking into a den of rattlesnakes made more sense.
I often heard his voice in my head in times like this.
Halee, I could hear him say in his gruff and always short tone.
Curly never called me by my first name, Alex, it was always Halee.
Don’t rely on luck, Curly said. Don’t place yourself in a situation where you don’t have the skill to get out of it. Eventually, your luck will run out.
This felt like one of those times. Curly would say I was crazy to go inside that building. He emphasized preparation above all things. The risk should already be assessed before I was in the situation. A mission like this, required weeks of surveillance. He’d want me to know how many people were in the building. Were they armed? If so, with what kind of weapons. He’d encourage me to secure blueprints of the building layout if possible. Assessing entry and exit points were vital information. Did the building have an alarm system?
Video cameras?
Stairways?
Elevators?
Hiding places?
Escape routes?
Above all else, what was the probability of success? Curly always insisted that those things be thought through before entering a hostile environment. That didn’t mean circumstances didn’t change. There was always the unexpected. In our business, we often had to think on the fly on almost every mission. Curly insisted that if we had to think on the fly, make sure our fly isn’t open. If it was then you probably forgot something. Something that could get you killed.
Curly was famous for his euphemisms.
“What are you grinning about?” Jethro asked me.
I just shrugged. No time to explain. We were halfway to our destination, and the debate was still raging.
The MSO doesn’t have to be a hundred percent, but it should be damn close, Curly ingrained in us the concept. The MSO—mission success odds—was the most important calculus in any mission.
Don’t take unnecessary risks, he said often. If the MSO is too low, you have to abort.
Curly’s words were winning the argument. He had another saying, Stupid will kill you faster than an opponent’s weapon. Going into the building alone with no advanced preparation, no weapon, and with no plan on how to escape seemed like a stupid thing to do.
The CIA had limited operations in North Korea for a reason. It was too dangerous. If I failed, I could spend years of torture and hard labor in a North Korean prison, and the CIA could and would do nothing to help me.
We were getting closer to the building.
With two hundred remaining feet left, the decision became obvious. The SPOD quit spinning in my head. Escape was the best plan. Cut my losses and live to fight another day.
I couldn’t make myself do it.
I was stubborn that way.
The potential reward outweighed the risks. In a few moments, I could be inside the North Korean cyber facility. Something that sent a surge of excitement through me like a lightning bolt. The curiosity drew me to it like a magnet. If I succeeded against the odds, the cyber war would shift in our favor with one stroke of a keyboard.
When would I ever get another opportunity like this?
What’s your plan, Halee? I heard Curly say.
I have a plan. I answered.
I’d seen the building when I first arrived. It looked to be about ten thousand square feet. If you’ve seen one office building, you’ve seen them all. Two elevators and two stairways would be standard. The main doors were in the center of the building. That’s where one set of elevators would be. Service elevators were usually in the back where there was a loading dock.
Stairway exits were on the two ends of the building. I could see the exit door on one side and assumed the other emergency exit door was on the other. More than likely they were locked to outside access but would open from the inside. That was universal. What’s the point of having an emergency exit if the door doesn’t open from the inside?
That gave me four possible exit points.
A large dumpster full of trash stood in the back, and the lid was open. In a worst-case scenario, I could jump from the roof or a window into that dumpster, and it would likely catch my fall.
Avoid that option if at all possible.
I also had a weapon.
Remember, you’re always armed, Curly said.
What he meant was that I was trained to kill a man a hundred different ways with my bare hands. My legs, feet, shoulders, head, elbows, and knees were weapons when used properly. Almost anything can be turned into a weapon if I was resourceful. The desks would have office supplies, scissors, letter openers, writing instruments, rulers, and staplers among other things that could be turned into a weapon. Even a computer monitor could kill a man if brought down on his head with the proper amount of force. It could also stop a bullet, as Curly displayed for us in one training session.
I felt emboldened as I talked myself into it.
Most of the people inside would be geeks. Small, thin, nerds with glasses. The average North Korean male was five foot five and a hundred fifty-four pounds. I was six foot four, two hundred and thirty pounds. Admittedly, a geek as well, but also the starting quarterback for the Stanford Cardinal football team that lost to Alabama in the National Championship game. I could bench press two of the geeks with my eyes closed.
An enigma was what my handler called me. A rare combination of star athlete and computer whiz. The best hacker the CIA had ever produced, my success proved. Although, I had most of the skills when they hired me. Along with my computer savvy, I felt confident I could handle the North Koreans if a fight broke out. Most of the nerds would run away or cower behind a desk.
I noticed security was minimal. Min Yang ruled North Korea with an iron fist. Dissent was met harshly and swiftly. The need for an armed presence was limited even at such a sensitive site. The dictator was smart enough to know that excess security would draw attention to the building. There were no armed guards out front. No fencing surrounding it. No gates monitoring vehicles in and out. American satellites would spot the unusual activity around the building and investigate further, so Yang kept it to a minimum. This building looked like any other office building in North Kor
ea, by design.
We were close now.
What’s the MSO? I heard Curly say with more urgency, demanding I put a percentage on the odds of success.
That almost stopped me in my tracks. I did slow my steps to give me more time to think. Not having an immediate answer, I stopped and bent down to tie my shoe, buying me more time.
“Let’s go,” the armed man said roughly as he pushed the back of my head with the muzzle of his gun. That was almost enough to make the decision for me. I would like to end his miserable existence. But I refrained. I had a bigger picture to consider.
I stood tense for a moment before I began walking.
What are the odds? Curly demanded.
The SPOD in my head began spinning again.
I’m sure the North Korean has a boss. He could say no.
I only have one hour.
Is there equipment fast enough and powerful enough to do what I want it to do?
Will the CIA let me transfer a million dollars into the man’s account?
That was the biggest wildcard. When I logged into the system, I would have to make the CIA believe it was me. As far as they knew, I was in that hotel in South Korea. They would be skeptical. It would be a risk on their part. If they let me in, and I was a hacker, they could have real problems shutting down the system in time to prevent real damage.
If they did believe it was me . . . that didn’t mean they’d automatically authorize the money. I wasn’t on an official mission. They’d know I was in North Korea but wouldn’t know why. It’s possible I was being tortured and entering the system under duress.
The door was less than twenty-five feet away.
What are the odds of success? Curly shouted.
Fifty-fifty.
The interrogator used a passkey to open the front door to the building. He waited for me to walk through ahead of him.
Abort! Abort! Curly was insistent.