Red Phoenix Burning

by Larry Bond

  That, he thought grimly, was the key.

  Before Kim spoke, Pyongyang’s inhabitants had been worried about the war raging around them. Now they were worried about what came next.

  CNN Special Report

  “The Pyongyang Crisis”

  The news anchor’s image shared the screen with file video of Kim Jong-un inspecting a military unit. A brightly colored banner across the bottom read “Breaking News.”

  “A little over two hours ago, the Voice of Korea, North Korea’s official news station, transmitted a short speech claimed to be by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Lasting just a little over five minutes, the speaker claimed to have been nearly caught by a ‘cowardly attempt’ on his life, but escaped with only minor injuries. He claimed that criminals and foreign sympathizers were attempting to disrupt the government, but that they were now being arrested, having done little damage. He called on the army and all loyal North Koreans to obey the orders of all lawful officials. He also promised another broadcast in the near future.”

  The image of the dictator was replaced by a bearded man in his fifties, sitting across from the anchor. “We are joined by Dr. Russell Hayes of the Brookings Institution. Doctor, you’ve heard the recording. Do you think it’s authentic?”

  Hayes nodded. “It sounded authentic. I’m sure our intelligence agencies are analyzing the voice. But I’ve listened to dozens of his speeches. And he’s been much more public than his father or grandfather. The phraseology, the inflection, all sounded correct to me. Deception always remains a possibility with the North Koreans, but the timing also supports this broadcast’s authenticity.”

  The anchor looked confused. “In what way?”

  “If someone was going to air a fake, they could have done it much sooner, before the situation had degraded so badly. It’s been five days since the bombing, and my hypothesis is that it’s taken this long for Kim to recover from his ‘minor’ injuries and be able to speak.”

  “Is this the end of the coup, Doctor?”

  Haynes nodded again. “Most likely, unless his security organizations are too badly damaged. The biggest question for the last five days has been whether or not Kim was dead. That has now been answered. For three generations, North Korea’s people have been conditioned to follow the Kims. And now that he’s made his appearance, the plotters will have to admit they’ve failed.”

  “You’ve been following the reports of bloodshed in the capital and elsewhere. Will this broadcast put an end to that?”

  Hayes sighed. “End the bloodshed? No, unfortunately not. It will only change its nature. I believe we’ll see the rebel versus loyalist and army versus army fighting replaced by a massive wave of arrests and executions, including anyone even remotely connected to the plotters. That may go on for months.”

  The anchor looked genuinely shocked. “What’s your estimate of the casualties so far?”

  The analyst shook his head in frustration. “We’ve got information on Pyongyang, mostly from foreign embassies, and the dead are easily in the thousands. Several times that are wounded, but given the dismal state of North Korean hospitals, their chance of survival is based more on luck than receiving decent medical care.

  “And we’ve got nothing from the countryside at all,” Hayes continued. “Returning Western aid workers were a good source, but even though the State Department has recommended that all US citizens leave the DPRK immediately, few have, mostly because they can’t. The airports and train stations are closed.

  “All we can hope is that with someone in charge, the situation will stabilize, and the danger of the fighting spreading outside the North’s borders will be much reduced.”

  The anchor summarized, “So we’re likely to see a bloodbath, then a return to business as usual.”

  Haynes scowled but reluctantly agreed. “If Kim really is in charge, yes.”

  21 August 2015

  Myohyang-san, North Korea

  The thickly forested granite slopes of Myohyang-san, “the Mountain of Mysterious Fragrances,” rose sharply in multiple peaks one hundred and twenty kilometers northwest of Pyongyang. Famous for its roaring waterfalls and the ancient Buddhist temples and hermitages built into its sheer cliffs and slopes, in more peaceful times the mountain was a magnet for travelers and hikers. In the narrow river valley below, the Kim dynasty kept its vast treasure trove of precious gifts from foreign leaders in the one hundred fifty rooms of the International Friendship Exhibition.

  But there were no travelers or hikers on the mountain now. Nor were there any chattering bands of tourists snapping pictures of the armored train car given to Kim Il-sung by Mao Tse-tung, or the limousine presented by Stalin, or the gem-encrusted silver sword from Yasser Arafat.

  Instead, hurriedly dug trenches and rolls of razor-edged barbed wire ringed the base of each peak. North Korean soldiers in full combat gear lined these new fortifications, manning machine guns, mortars, and carefully sited antitank missile launchers and guns. Tanks and heavier artillery pieces were concealed in the surrounding forests under camouflage netting. SAM teams were deployed on the upper balconies of the pyramidal Hyangsan Hotel.

  From time to time, the officers and enlisted men laboring to turn the mountain and its environs into a fortified camp turned nervous glances on the looming spire of Piro Peak. Climbing nearly two thousand meters up the Chilsong Valley, it was the highest point on Myohyang-san.

  These men knew they were under constant observation from that peak. The slightest misstep, the smallest mistake, was taken as proof of treason. The firing squads were kept busy around Myohyang-san. And every day, the heaped mounds of earth marking mass graves spread wider.

  Buried deep within Piro Peak’s layers of rock lay North Korea’s National Command Redoubt, a labyrinth of concrete- and steel-lined tunnels, bunkers, storehouses, armories, and living quarters—sealed off from the world and danger by gigantic blast doors. Built over more than a decade at enormous cost and in great secrecy, the redoubt was designed as a nuclear bomb–proof shelter and command post for the Kims and their favored retainers in time of war or unrest. It contained an array of electronics, surveillance, and defense equipment that surpassed anything else in the Democratic People’s Republic.

  And now it was being put to the test.

  Audience Chamber, National Command Redoubt

  Carved out of granite six hundred meters below the summit, the Audience Chamber, already quite large, was given the illusion of even greater size by a massive mural that filled the entirety of one wall. Larger-than-life figures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were depicted on the slopes of the mountain, exhorting vast masses of joyful, cheering soldiers and peasants. Floor-to-ceiling red silk hangings lined the other walls, covering cold gray concrete surfaces and steel doors. Ventilators on the ceiling pumped in cool, fresh-tasting air.

  Kim Jong-un stood stiffly behind a podium, facing two television cameras. He wore a long black overcoat. It hid both the metal brace being used to prop him up and the thick bandages wrapped around his chest and stomach. A wig concealed the shaved patches and wound dressings on his skull. Skillfully applied makeup added color to his sallow, fleshy face.

  He ignored the low murmurs from the generals and marshals in full dress uniform lined up behind him. They were nothing more than window dressing for the live, televised broadcast he planned to make—a visible sign of the control he claimed over the nation’s armed forces. Most of them were new faces, a cast of less senior general officers rapidly promoted to fill the gaps torn in his inner circle by the same bomb that had almost killed him.

  Kim gripped the podium as a wave of pain rippled through his body. Those who had betrayed him had come close to success. Believing him dead in the rubble of Pyongyang, the traitors and those they had duped were locked in battle with loyal troops across the whole of North Korea. Soon, though, they would learn the bitter truth. Once the people and the armed forces saw him alive and in command, the rebellion would collapse, dissolving from with
in in the revelation of its own lies and folly.

  And then there would come a reckoning, he thought coldly. He would cleanse the nation of the traitors, their families, and other vermin. His nets would be cast widely. It was better that a million should die rather than risk leaving alive anyone who might challenge him.

  Kim squinted at the clock mounted on the opposite wall and frowned. Its hands swam in and out of focus, impossible to read. “How much longer?” he muttered to the young, grim-faced officer at his side.

  Colonel Sik Chol-jun was one of the few men he trusted, one of the bodyguards who had pulled him alive from the bomb-ravaged ruins of the Banquet Hall.

  “Thirty minutes to your broadcast, Supreme Leader.”

  “Good,” Kim said tightly, clenching his teeth as another wave of agony washed over him. “Then it is time for my injection.”

  Sik nodded crisply, raising a hand to summon the doctor waiting nervously with the small group of cameramen and sound technicians.

  The doctor, a middle-aged man whose fear-filled eyes were magnified by a pair of thick spectacles, hurried to them.

  “You know what is required?” Kim demanded harshly.

  “Yes, Supreme Leader,” the doctor said, already opening his medical kit. “Enough medication to dull the pain, but not so much that your speech patterns or thought processes are affected.”

  “You will prepare two injections,” Kim told him, watching closely while he filled a syringe from a sealed ampule.

  The doctor looked up, surprised. “But, Supreme Leader—”

  “Do it.”

  Trembling, the doctor obeyed, filling another syringe.

  Satisfied, Kim turned to Sik. “Carry on, Colonel.”

  Before the doctor could react, the younger officer took the first hypodermic away from him. Then, ignoring his startled squawk, Sik jabbed the needle into the doctor’s own upper arm. A spot of bright red blood appeared on his shirt.

  Silently, Sik handed the used syringe back to the stunned doctor, who stood wincing and rubbing at his arm.

  “Now we wait, Doctor,” Kim said quietly. “And if you are still alive in five minutes, you may give me that second shot.”

  He turned back to Sik. “Take your station in the control center, Colonel. You know my orders.”

  “Yes, Supreme Leader.” For the first time, the young officer smiled. “Everything necessary will be done.”

  Security Control Center, National Command Redoubt

  Colonel Sik paused just inside the control center, waiting briefly while his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. The armed guard posted at the entrance grunted slightly, closing the heavy steel door that separated this room from the rest of the complex.

  “Lock it,” Sik told him.

  “Yes, Comrade Colonel,” the soldier said, spinning a wheel set into the door. Super-hardened bolts smoothly slid into place with an audible click.

  Sik nodded, satisfied. Now it would take a powerful shaped explosive charge to break in.

  Set even deeper inside the mountain, the control center was crowded with computer consoles, equipment panels, and TV monitors. Piping and electrical wiring covered almost every inch of the plain concrete walls and ceiling. Signs identified controls for the redoubt’s ventilation systems, internal and external alarms, blast doors, fire suppression systems, and for an array of command-detonated minefields covering the slopes outside.

  Four officers manned the various consoles, their fingers flickering on keyboards and old-fashioned switches as they monitored data, video, and audio feeds from the internal systems and from the various observation and guard posts scattered across the face of Myohyang-san.

  Sik checked his watch. Fifteen minutes until Kim Jong-un went live on televisions across North Korea, announcing his survival and his determination to regain control.

  “Go to maximum internal security,” he ordered.

  “Yes, Comrade Colonel,” the senior watch officer, a major, said. He tapped a series of switches. Lights flashed red and the TV monitors showed blast doors sliding shut in corridor after corridor and room after room. One by one, the blinking red lights turned green. “All doors secured and locked.”

  “Activate overpressure systems.”

  The captain manning the ventilation panels nodded, already flicking controls.

  Sik heard a low hiss. He swallowed twice, clearing his ears. Raising air pressures in the redoubt’s sealed tunnels and chambers was a means of defending against outside chemical, biological, and radioactive contaminants. Toxic gases, vapors, and particles would be blown back outside, rather than sucked in through the ventilators that supplied the complex with fresh air. “Confirm that the Audience Chamber has positive pressure,” he said, watching carefully.

  “I confirm that,” the other man replied, tapping a switch and dial in the center of one of his panels. “Ventilation System One-C is fully operational.”

  “Very well.”

  Sik turned to another captain, this one tasked with monitoring the external defense and observation posts. “Sound the general alert.”

  “Yes, Comrade Colonel.”

  Klaxons sounded three times, echoing shrilly across Myohyang-san’s steep, forested slopes. Sik observed closely, checking the various TV monitors as they flicked from channel to channel. Each showed soldiers hurrying to camouflaged gun positions and surveillance posts.

  “All defenses manned and ready, Comrade Colonel,” the senior watch officer reported.

  “Make sure,” Sik told him evenly. “Sound the alert again.”

  Silently, the major nodded to his subordinate. Sik carried Kim Jong-un’s favor and trust. No one wanted to cross him.

  Outside, the klaxons blared again, sounding three more times before fading away.

  Above Observation Post Nine, Piro Peak

  Special Forces Captain Ro Ji-hun counted carefully. Four . . . five . . . six. He grinned in the darkness. It was time. He stretched carefully, testing each muscle. He and the eleven men under his command had spent the last seven days concealed beneath camouflage tarps in the middle of this boulder field high up on the mountain—moving as little as possible, conversing only in sign language, eating cold field rations, and always on edge against the possibility of discovery by a loyalist patrol.

  He flicked on his shielded penlight, illuminating a circle of watchful, wolfish faces. “Remember the plan,” he said softly. “Move fast. Move silently. Kill quickly and quietly. Understood?”

  His men nodded.

  “Then follow me.”

  Cradling his Czech-made Skorpion submachine gun, Ro quietly slithered out from under the camouflage tarp and crouched beside a massive, weathered rock. His troops joined him. Seven of them carried silenced submachine guns like his. Four were harnessed to a mesh-covered, metal cylinder slung between them.

  Through narrowed eyes, he studied the observation post about one hundred meters down the slope.

  It was a simple layout, just a narrow trench jackhammered out of the rock. At one end, slabs of granite and sandbags laid over the trench offered protection against shrapnel from artillery shells or bombs. This high up the mountain, no one really expected they would have to defend against an infantry attack. Four loyalist soldiers were visible, two peering through handheld binoculars at the valley floor far below and two more using more powerful, mounted scopes to scan Myohyang-san’s other peaks and the surrounding airspace.

  Ro glanced to the right. There, fifty meters from the observation post, a low, rounded gray hummock topped by a clump of brush marked their primary target. From the air, that mound would look like nothing more than a ripple of rock on the mountain’s flank. But it was man-made, not natural.

  He tapped his senior sergeant on the shoulder and pointed back to the narrow trench. “Sergeant Maeng. Take that observation post. No prisoners.”

  Maeng, squat, heavily muscled, and scarred, grinned back at him, showing a mouthful of bad teeth. “Yes, Comrade Captain.”

  The
sergeant and his six men rose and headed downhill, spreading out across the slope—moving in short bounds, with three or four commandos always kneeling and positioned to fire while the others advanced.

  Ro watched for a moment and then looked away, satisfied that Maeng would handle matters with his usual brutal efficiency. He signaled to the men harnessed to the metal cylinder. “Let’s go!”

  With the captain in the lead, they moved out from the boulder field, angling their way cautiously down toward that low gray hillock—straining against the weight they carried.

  Security Control Center

  One of the monitors was now switched to show the television feed from the Audience Chamber. Kim Jong-un still stood braced behind the podium, while aides were guiding the generals and marshals who would serve as his backdrop into position.

  “We have control over all circuits to Pyongyang, Hamhung, Wonsan, Kaesong, Nampo, and the other major cities,” a voice reported. “Broadcast begins in one minute.”

  “This is a great day, comrades,” Sik said quietly.

  The four officers grouped around the equipment and computer consoles nodded vigorously.

  A phone buzzed.

  One of the watch officers picked it up. “Yes? What is it?” He listened for a moment and then turned to Sik. “Observation Post Nine reports possible movement near the Paegun Hermitage.”

  “I will speak with them,” Sik said, stepping forward. He took the phone. “This is Colonel Sik. Report your situation.”

  “Sergeant Maeng here, Comrade Colonel,” a gravelly voice answered. “Captain Ro and his team are in position.”

  “Very well. Carry on.”

  Sik put the phone down and shrugged at the others. “A peasant jumping at shadows. But better to be unnecessarily vigilant than caught napping, eh?”

  The other officers chuckled.

  “Broadcast begins . . . now!” the voice from the monitor said.

  The image changed, showing a vast rippling North Korean flag. Stirring music swelled in the speakers with the crash of cymbals as the national anthem began playing.

  “Attention!” Sik snapped.