Admiral Krowl had two small couches facing each other and a square mahogany coffee table, bright brass hinges built in. Behind his desk was an enormous oil painting of two Revolution-era sailing ships engaged in battle.
“Mr. Scott, come on in,” Krowl said as he looked up, taking one last draw on his cigarette before crushing it into the already-full ashtray on his desk.
“You know Mi.” He pointed to the back of the room, where she was sitting slightly out of sight in one of the leather chairs.
“Yes, of course.” Scott was not entirely surprised to find her here.
“Commander Sawyer will join us. He has full authority and knowledge of these matters.”
Again, Scott could not say he was surprised. People he distrusted by instinct rarely worked alone.
“Okay, let’s review where we are,” said Krowl. “What’s the progress of training?”
Coming in, Scott had decided to limit his comments. “He’s doing fine.”
“You don’t have much time left at Quantico. Is the team ready?”
“Yes, they’ll meet him at Bridgeport.”
“And how long will Bridgeport take?”
“About a month.”
“Make it a week.”
Scott nodded slightly.
“That would make them ready in just a few weeks,” said Krowl. “They have to be ready as soon as possible. The boat will be available at Pearl by fifteen December.”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts—fifteen December.”
“The team may not be ready by then,” Scott pointed out.
“Didn’t Parker pick the team himself?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, they’ll be ready.”
Scott’s blood boiled. His hand squeezed the arm of the sofa as he attempted to quell his growing irritation.
“Admiral, I don’t mind preparing the bloody man for a job that holds the probability”—Scott pronounced the word slowly and quietly to emphasize the point—“I said the probability that he will not survive, or worse, be imprisoned for the rest of his life in a dank, brutal prison by an already starving country that considers torture an art form. But, to continually lie to him—”
Scott was still angry about the unannounced insertion of the tracking chip into Will’s body.
“Mr. Scott.” Krowl said it like a teacher about to send a misbehaving student to the principal’s office.
“Yes?”
“He agreed to this mission,” said Krowl. “And he’s getting paid. No one in this building, nor the public for that matter, will be concerned about a paid mercenary being caught, imprisoned, or killed.”
Before Scott could argue, Krowl turned to Mi Yong. “How about your end?”
“Sir?”
“Will he be ready?”
“Yes,” said Mi. “He’s already nearly fluent in Hanguk. He’s knows Russian better than I do. He has been over the topography computer programs several times and knows every lake, stream, and valley within a fifty-mile area. He has a general sense of the vegetation, too, from the three-D program.”
Will had been taken to Langley several times. Always late at night, the van would pull into the CIA’s basement parking garage, after which they would travel two floors up to the computer graphics room. With a 3-D headset and instructions from Frank Darlin, Will could walk, run, or even fly through the computer-reconstructed topography of the North Korean countryside. The programs were integrated with the latest information received directly from satellites, along with Darlin’s personal expertise. Thanks to the latest advances in virtual-reality technology, Will could walk past vehicles parked that very moment on a roadway in North Korea.
“He’s fully up on the camera and satellite relay computer.” Scott had worked with Hamilton and Will for several days on the relay. Photographs were taken from several locations across Quantico and relayed directly, via satellite, to Langley.
“Good, okay. Anything else?” asked Krowl.
Sawyer had been sitting quietly in the back, taking everything in, but this was his cue. He stood and opened the door to help move the visitors along.
“No?” said Krowl. “Then let’s get him to Bridgeport now.”
Scott grimaced. He picked up his raincoat and held it over his arm to make it more difficult for Krowl to shake his hand. This didn’t faze the admiral, who remained behind his desk.
“Oh, Mi, stay a moment,” said Krowl.
* * * *
“Anything else I need to know?” Krowl asked Mi Yong.
“No,” she said hesitantly. “No, sir.” She regretted not giving him something. A wild dog was easier to control when regularly fed.
“Good. So, from your viewpoint, he can get to that valley?”
The admiral, she noted, had a tendency to describe only half the mission. Krowl never spoke about Will getting back from the valley.
“I think Will…” She stopped. Another mistake, using his first name. It was not like her.
“Yes?”
“I believe he’ll get to the valley, complete the mission, and get back.”
“Okay.” He said it flatly, without much enthusiasm.
“Anything else, sir?”
“No.” He paused as he lit another cigarette. “But keep me informed. Your calls have been most helpful.”
She was silent.
“Mi?”
“Oh, yes, sir?”
“Thank you.”
Sawyer reentered the room. A good aide always appeared and disappeared at the right moment.
“Miss Yong was just leaving,” said Krowl.
* * * *
Krowl called Sawyer back into his office.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m not sure about Scott. I want the CIA to order him to CINCPAC during the operation. Let him monitor it out of their SCIF. That’ll keep him out of the way,” he said. “We can say it’s necessary so he can be closer to Korea if the need arises.”
“Yes, sir. Good idea.” The top secret, classified operation center, or SCIF, at CINCPAC in Hawaii, would take Scott out of the action, but not outside of Krowl’s influence. “What about her?” Sawyer tilted his head at the door.
“Yong?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’ll be our little insider,” said Krowl, “and when he moves on to the next phase, we’ll be done with her.”
“Doesn’t she know a lot?”
“Yes.” He leaned back in his chair, inhaling his cigarette. Thin, white smoke curled upwards to the ceiling. “That’s a good point.”
“Isn’t she still high on their list?” said Sawyer.
“Oh, yes.” Krowl continued to lean back and draw on his cigarette. “Let me think about this. Good job, Sawyer.”
Sawyer smiled. “Anything else, sir?”
“No.”
Chapter 18
On the Edge of Pyongyang, North Korea
Exempted from all the usual restrictions, Rei had been allowed to keep his apartment for several years now. A single person living in such an expansive apartment in North Korea was unheard of, and initially caused his few neighbors suspicion. Rei, after all, was not a known party leader or a military commander.
His apartment was on the edge of what was called the Forbidden Zone or Forbidden City, where a high solid wall and armed guards kept everyone out but the elite. Plump, full-faced women in starched khaki uniforms and bright, red-starred hats, armed with machine guns, guarded the few entrances. It was here that the powerful members of the central committee, the generals, the admirals, and the many central marshals all lived—with ample food, Mercedes cars, and numerous Western amenities. It was here, out of sight of the ill-fed people of Pyongyang, that a select few lived in homes and apartments far above the city’s crude, one-room, cinder-block h
uts, where packed-in families slept together on dirt floors. Those on the outside could never look in.
Several years earlier, the local block commander had demanded possession of Rei’s apartment, which was on the top floor of a small building overlooking the Taedong River. The porch faced east, so its occupant could watch the sun as it rose across the river in the mornings. The apartment request had been summarily denied by higher authority, and the commander was never able to determine who the decision-maker was. As with all dictatorships, many had license to use nondescript superiors as authority to issue orders. Often, one would hear, “the Ministry of Defense does not allow it.” In this case, the commander was simply told that Rei was to be left alone.
His curiosity ignited, the commander bribed Rei’s housekeeper to gain access. One day, when Rei was gone, the commander slipped past the unlocked mahogany door into a small separate entrance room, which led to another set of dark, oversized, elaborately carved wooden doors. Rei could lock out the world with this double entrance. The commander removed his shoes as he swung open the inner door and looked inside. The expanse of the room was overwhelming and intimidating, with deep red Persian rugs, accented with crystal lamps and tufted leather chairs, representing opulence he had never before seen. On virtually every space on the walls were Western-style oil paintings. The commander quickly concluded that Rei was untouchable. He quietly closed the door, put on his shoes, and left.
Rei knew the block commander had been there. In fact, the loyalty of his housekeeper was absolute. The commander had been allowed to look inside only after Rei had given his approval, because he knew the old man’s curiosity, unless satisfied, would only grow.
Rei’s apartment in the Forbidden City stood at the end of a short alley with no street name or street signs. The lack of street signs was another example of North Korea’s paranoia. It was intended to prevent an invading army from coordinating their maps to city streets. If a society didn’t care whether Federal Express could find an address, the lack of street signs would be a powerful tool to slow down an invading army.
From one end of Rei’s apartment, he could see the small islet in the center of the Taedong River, where the two circular towers of the high-rise, ultramodern Yanggakdo Hotel blocked most of the enormous Yanggakdo soccer stadium at the other end. If he looked another way, Rei could see the behemoth Juche tower. One of the many memorials to Kim Il Sung, this was, by far, the largest and most dominant. The gray structure, with a gold flame at the top, was shaped like an enormous radio tower constructed out of stone, and was designed to be visible from all of Pyongyang. The city, in fact, was filled with monuments, massive tombstones, and behemoth buildings on open boulevards. It was an opulent graveyard honoring one man. Even from the grave, Kim Il Sung commanded constant visual reminders of his stranglehold on the people.
Rei thought of Pyongyang as special in its own, peculiar way. This place of nearly two million people was a quiet, open city that acted like a shy girl. She didn’t bother you and often seemed to avoid you. One saw few cars, little air pollution, and few bicycles. And the city was immaculately clean. Teams of gray-haired women were constantly sweeping.
Here, Rei did not need to look over his shoulder. His one pass, a badge from the security police, gave him unlimited license. He could have anyone arrested without question, demand anything without payment, even commit murder without consequences.
Rei planned each of his missions in the apartment. Many years ago, it would take several months, but Rei had had his small study wired for broadband internet service. The internet was unavailable to most North Koreans. Less than a few dozen in the city of Pyongyang had access, and Rei was one of them. He found the internet an invaluable aid in plotting his foreign operations.
When he was ready to leave for a mission, a government driver would meet him at the end of the alley, always before dawn. Rei made a point of leaving well before the city awoke. Even in Pyongyang, Rei did not want to give anyone the opportunity to track his activities. He and the driver would rarely talk in the car.
The driver, much shorter than Rei, wore a gray-blue, plain zippered jacket, the common uniform of the Stalinist state. Years of smoking had left him with stained teeth that he often showed with a broad smile. An employee of the state police, he had a reputation for trustworthiness. They would drive the twenty-four kilometers out of the city to the Sunan Airport, with no traffic during the entire ride. Pyongyang was largely without traffic on its busiest day, let alone before dawn.
Rei altered his air routes as much as possible. Pyongyang was mostly limited to three main portals. He would fly North Korea’s Air Koryo to Beijing, Moscow, or Berlin. Occasionally, to break up his pattern, Rei would take the train to Wonsan, several hours to the east on the Sea of Japan, where he would board the cruiser SamJiyan and cross over to Japan. The SamJiyan, a small passenger vessel, traveled to Nagasaki, giving him the cover of a Japanese tourist returning home. Once in Tokyo, he could take flights to anywhere in the world. But this nautical route into Japan was available only once a month, and added substantial time to his journey.
The third route, by far his least preferred, was via the border. Every square inch had been mined, booby-trapped, or barb wired. But the north maintained several tunnels—some much smaller than others—that permeated the line. Rei rarely used this portal and chose it only when necessary as an emergency escape route coming back from the south.
At Sunan Airport, Rei checked in, this time using the surname Nakada and a Japanese passport. The clerks at Air Koryo all worked for the state police and had a sense of who Rei was, but questions were never asked. When he passed through customs, his passport was never stamped with a North Korean marker. With their red and gold collars and shoulder boards, the airport’s uniformed security guards were his last reminder of North Korea before boarding the airplane. Once through security, Rei crossed over the terminal’s spotless linoleum floor to vendors selling cold noodle dishes. Like birds waiting for crumbs, several old women stood in the corner, waiting just in sight with small brooms and dustpans to sweep anything that fell to the floor.
Rei enjoyed using the same vendor each trip. He always bought a cup of red noodles with rice cakes, cucumbers, and salad. He sat in the corner, eating the dish while waiting for his flight. This was his final homeland treat before reentering the outside world on another mission.
It didn’t start this way, he thought.
During all his intelligence schooling in North Korea, China, and even Russia, Rei was taught that the spy game was more about subtle intelligence-gathering than assassination. To gain information, one was to recruit disenchanted secretaries or lonely wives, or hack email or internet sites by stealing access passwords. Assassinating targets was the stuff of spy movies, not reality.
Yet Rei had grown proud of his work’s violent nature. The generals respected him. They knew that if he were given a target’s name, that person had received an irreversible death sentence.
Other nations and organizations used assassination to achieve their goals. Hamas in Palestine and Al Qaeda had ruthlessly murdered for years. Rei, however, participated in a bigger plan. He murdered to help his country gain a clear advantage. He killed for a specific purpose. Peter Nampo and his team would have few challenges when Rei was finished. And it’s so easy, he thought. A random killing by someone lacking repeated contact with the victim. Unprotected scientists who have no notion of their fate. They might have the rare ability to affect our future more than any politician, yet they remain as vulnerable as a street sweeper.
Today, he would fly to Beijing on flight 151, and then on to Hong Kong. There, he would change passports and catch a flight to London. His target taught at Oxford University, a brief drive from Gatwick Airport. He would rent a car and be at Oxford an hour or two later.
Rei had researched his target well. The old professor taught a class on Mondays and spent the remainder of the week at an
engineering laboratory just outside London. He even knew where the professor usually parked his car and what route he would take to the lab. As in the past, his planned intersect point would be in a crowded area.
Once done, he would leave Heathrow Airport on a short flight to Paris. The passport he would use would be pre-stamped with a less recent entrance visa to England, and thus cause less suspicion.
Before the initial autopsy has even begun, I’ll be gone.
From Paris, he would fly to Moscow, using yet another identity. In Moscow, his delay would again be very short. His Air Koryo flight left only an hour later, taking him home to Pyongyang.
And if he ever sensed the dogs on his trail, Rei would divert to Hong Kong and then to Seoul. Through Seoul, he had access to an underground network of people; if necessary, he could cross the border at a specific, hidden access tunnel that had not broken through the soil in South Korea. With a shovel and the right location, a quick dig would open the entrance and allow him to escape. Rei was among a handful who knew where the entrance lay. The North Koreans, in preparation for war, had established dozens of tunnels which were saved until either a time of war or a time of need.
And then back home to sleep, he thought as he swallowed the last of the noodles. Even cold-blooded murderers needed their rest.
As for the future, after this set of Peter Nampo missions, his superiors had promised him an instructor’s position at the Academy. Just a few more names and Rei, at last, would be home free.
Chapter 19
The Woods of Marine Corps Base, Quantico
The wind had changed direction since the morning, causing a drop in temperature, but Will would make the afternoon run no matter how cold. Over the past several months, the training had hardened his body more than ever. When the Virginia forest turned to bright oranges and reds and the weather cooled, Will extended his runs. He would often run with a backpack, carrying some weight and a camelback pouch that provided water without stop. His physical strength was constantly increasing.
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