by Dalton Fury
Webber watched Yost place the photo and papers back into the folder and lay it on the edge of the table.
“We appreciate your insight, Captain Yost,” General Swacklion said. “It’s refreshing to hear that your SEALs and Colonel Webber’s men can work together, particularly given the administration’s desires for one killing force.”
“No problem, sir,” Yost said.
Webber shivered. One killing force?
The Delta colonel gritted his teeth, knowing he needed to remain calm. General Swacklion was talking out of the side of his neck, that much Webber knew. Swacklion had no idea of the complexity of the two organizations and how trying to mix them had been tried many times before, with disastrous results. Even Yost knew that the two units were the yin and yang of the counterterrorist world, equally skilled and committed, just with fire and gasoline DNA.
“In fact, that speaks well to the president’s initiative to get you two aligned,” Swacklion said, pointing with two fingers extended to both Webber and Yost. “I understand you had a mostly successful exercise recently.”
Webber nodded. Yost gave the typical navy sir sandwich, “Sir, yes, sir!”
“By the way, Captain Yost, great job at Sochi,” Swacklion said.
Holy hell, a shout-out to Six!
“And, I almost forgot, that hijacked 767 last year over India,” Swacklion added, “super work by you guys.”
Webber felt his forehead turning red hot. First, Swacklion’s comments about combining Delta and Six to support POTUS; now congratulating Hank in front of the entire board. Sure, Yost’s SEALs had pulled off two open-air hits on moving buses during the Olympics in Russia, stopping seven Chechen female suicide bombers, Black Widows, before they reached the Olympic village. But, holy hell, the SEALs had nothing to do with the hijacked American Airlines flight in India. That was all Kolt Raynor and Delta.
I’ll be damned!
Webber wasn’t necessarily jealous; he was a team player, and proud the SEALs saved lives, for sure. He was also pleased that the president’s administration, in an effort to appease Russian president Vladimir Putin, hadn’t let leaked information go viral. But, since Mr. Pinstripe’s announcement a few minutes earlier, Webber realized that every attaboy pulled in by Six was going to be an ass wound to Delta’s staying power, and for Webber, more than anyone, the kind of thing that he knew would keep him awake at night.
“Please pass on this board’s congratulations to your sailors,” Swacklion said.
“I will, sir,” Yost said. “Thank you.”
Webber sensed Yost was a little uncomfortable with the personal attention, particularly in mixed company and given the president’s initiative.
“Gentlemen, my apologies for letting us get sidetracked, let’s get back to the matter at hand,” Swacklion said.
I guess taking the Barrel Bomb Butcher off the target list doesn’t rate? Well fuck this. Webber was going to go down swinging for Raynor!
“Actually, sir, about that hijacked plane in India…”
FIVE
Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang, North Korea
“Would you show the dogs your neck?”
“I would hope for the firing squad.” Kang Pang Su, the Korean Workers’ Party’s sixty-seven-year-old deputy secretary of science and education said, remaining laser-focused on the center of the caged pen. “His feet are slipping.”
“As your son, Dae-Jung, did?” Pak Yong Chol said, remaining statue-still as well.
Kang’s narrow shoulders slumped at the mention of his boy, his heavy hands dropping an inch lower, closer to the wet concrete balcony. It had only been a few months, but the horror of losing his granddaughter, then his last son, threatened to buckle him at the midsection. He bent slightly at the knees, ensuring blood flowed to his lower extremities, and fought back a wicked sense of nausea.
“He might have saved himself this day,” Pak Yong Chol said. “Better to take care of matters while inside the concentration camps.”
“Too late!” Kang said, relieved his old friend had left his son alone. “Could you take your own life?”
“The Juche religion forbids it,” Pak said, referring to Kimilsungism and that there is no god but Kim Il Sung, the country’s eternal president. “But, if I was a traitor to the Motherland, I certainly would, with honor.”
Kang squinted slightly in the misty rain, hoping the demons would depart, leave his conscious thought at least long enough for him to get through one night without the nightmares. Yes, Kang Pang Su still had his head, full of slicked-back black hair, maybe pushing the government’s five-centimeter limit. Barely a touch of gray near the ears, nor any sign of male-pattern baldness. He wondered what it must be like. What it would be like to lose his head. How horrible it would be to be discovered as a longtime stooge of the American imperialist bastards’ Central Intelligence Agency.
Surrounded by the Dear Leader’s crack security troops, whose dark shifty eyes, from under their olive drab hockey-puck-shaped, flat-brimmed dress hats, were famous for slewing to suspect behavior or signs of potential collaboration with the guilty, Kang and Pak stood motionless side by side. Their demeanor was nothing new to Kim Il Sung Square, where party officials, especially at a public execution, made it a point to be Mr. Incognito.
No, not new at all, because Kang knew that one slip in his body language, even an innocent one, could have him snatched up out of the crowd by the secret police and dragged to the dungeons in no time. It had happened before, to others, over the past few years. On overcast and colorless days, at least in the last three years or so, it seemed to happen quite often. And, Kang knew, more than once a simple nod from the vigilant man next to him was all it took to start a countryman on the road to the concentration camps.
No, Kang didn’t dare flinch. He fought the urge to shift his eyes down toward his rubber galoshes, protecting his hard-won leather shoes from the puddled water and light mist, afraid his mirror reflection would scream out, revealing his true feelings. Or, even worse, his reflection might wink in sequence at Pak Yong Chol, sending some centuries-old code to the most cut-throat senior party leader in North Korea, something that would tighten the screws on Kang, force him to explain. If anyone could pull the plug on Kang’s three-decade life as a mole within the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Kool-Aid-drinking potbellied Pak Yong Chol certainly could.
“Those days are behind us, Kang,” Pak said. “You know the defenders of our homeland must account for every bullet.”
“The dogs are always hungrier than the people,” Kang said, carefully monitoring the rise and fall of his chest underneath his white collared shirt, gunmetal gray necktie, and flat black suit made of Vinalon, a stiff and shiny synthetic material unique to North Korea. His arms remained locked and arrow straight down his sides, his digits thick as cigars curled naturally but tense against the seam edge of his dark dress slacks.
“I wonder how long the people will allow these dogs to live before they are steamed and mixed with rice and seaweed?” Pak whispered.
“With their bellies fattened, maybe a day or so,” Kang replied.
Kang was smart to conceal his smile from his friend. Not so much as even a glance in Pak’s direction. His eyes remained locked on the center of the cage, focusing on the metal stake that had been sledgehammered three feet into the hard dirt before the rain. Kang’s eyes followed the length of sixteen-millimeter-gauge chain, some ten feet or so of rusted steel angling upward until it wrapped around the bony wrists of a mostly naked man, a pair of off-white boxers allowing him to retain some modicum of dignity even before certain death.
After a half day of hard, at times horizontal rain, it had let up enough to get on with the published agenda. In less than an hour, just enough time to unfurl the red-and-white DPRK flags and banners and lift them to their prominent positions overlooking Kim Il Sung Square in the center of Pyongyang, the distinguished attendees and security forces were able to take their box-seat-like positions for the
show, with a direct view of the large bloodred-and-ribbon-blue banners, a large red star left-centered in a white circle on each, the national flag of communist North Korea. Even more so than the party leadership gathered just east of the Taedong River, the real audience that government officials very much wanted to view the execution of a party traitor was the hundreds of thousands of citizens that had slogged their way from the fields and factories to the square that day.
“Have you any reason for concern?” Pak said.
Me? Why me? What does Pak know?
Kang froze for a moment, feeling his wobbly knees lock to the rear, practically killing the blood supply to the fat feet he would need to run from the brutal hands of the secret police. And Kang knew he wasn’t a fast runner, as the flat feet were something he could thank his parents for. Yes, Kang had watched his weight over the years, remaining fit and trim through the seasons, closer resembling the citizen workers than the portly party members, but he knew that wasn’t enough. If he was singled out on suspicion, Kang knew he wouldn’t get off the puddled balcony before he was corralled by some of Kim Jong Un’s henchmen.
No, Kang knew he had been careful, very careful over the years. Kang would have to admit that he and Pak weren’t as close as they used to be during the glory years when they shared a cabin on the president’s armored train, traveling the trams and railroads to all parts of China and Russia, and visiting all parts of North Korea, but he knew he hadn’t showed so much as a frown or a turned-up eye during official party meetings.
Kang Pang Su had toed the party line.
But what about the trips to Sonch’on, his boyhood home? Had he pushed it over the last two months, taking leave ostensibly to tend to his parents’ belongings and prepare the home for market sale? What about the smuggling of the small electronic parts? Three trips wouldn’t arouse that much suspicion, but what about the naturally curious locals? Had the workers or peasants seen something out of the ordinary? Had they heard the machine talking from the living room? Had they noticed the new wires running from just under the tiled roofline to the power pole nearby? The antenna?
No, Kang had been as careful at home as he had been at work in Pyongyang. And even though he accepted no money, never had, as that would have been impossible to hide from the authorities, he was definitely no rank amateur.
Three decades now, and the secret still held. Sure, it had been almost twenty years since Kang shared a state secret with the CIA. It had been on the tail end of the Cold War, in fact, when he relayed secret information that caught Chinese scientists in a lie about American use of biological warfare during the Korean War. Big news at the time, but not much to speak about since, and Kang hoped nobody ever would.
The relationship was clear. The mystery CIA man, the man with the dark skin tone, maybe of Middle Eastern descent, or possibly Latin American, promised they wouldn’t push Kang. No, Kang would only communicate if and when his heart took him there. The CIA never considered Kang Pang Su their international asset of the year for a treasure trove of national secrets, because, frankly, Kang hadn’t provided squat.
Kang was certain he didn’t need to run today, but he did need to answer Pak’s question.
“My loyalties have always been to our republic’s eternal president, Kim Il Sung,” Kang said.
“And to his grandson?” Pak asked. “Kim Jong Un?”
The knots in Kang’s stomach bounced about as he watched General Ri Myong Suk’s skid-row-looking body, barely an ounce of body fat visible, wrists shackled together behind him, pull with all his strength. Ri had turned from the savage sounds of the dozen or so spastic starving dogs licking their chops in the metal cages only forty feet away, seemingly as if by facing away when the rabid jaws and razor-sharp nails arrived, his pain would be less. Or, maybe Ri had already been stripped of all sense of reality and believed he might even survive.
Fingered by Pak over a year ago and purged from his position as the minister of security for the Korean Workers’ Party months ago, General Ri had to know there was no escaping. There would be no stay of execution. No reconsidering by President Kim Jong Un for ole Uncle Ri, as chubby little Kim used to refer to him when the general bounced him on his knee, having the good favor of Un’s father, president Kim Jong Il.
Once the cage attendants pulled the rope to raise the three metal gates, the recently purged senior party leader, who also had close ties to Jang Song Thaek, would brace himself at the end of the chain. With his age-spotted back to the attacking dogs, he’d really only have one choice and that was to stick his neck out, offering it to the animals in the hopes of a quick death.
General Ri was not unlike the others caught up in the sweeping purge of party officials tied to Jang and the Kim Jong Il era. All of them had been part of the DPRK political culture, and had been removed to allow Kim Jong Un to consolidate his authority over military affairs. Like all the other party members, Kang and Pak were happy not to have made the list.
But, as party leaders like Kang and Pak knew very well, Pyongyang purges are sometimes a matter of flushing the suspect from cover and concealment out into the open ground. And now, Kang wondered if Pak was doing that very thing, spooking him into exposing his extraordinary distaste for the young, flamboyant current party leader, Kim Jong Un. The recent decisions by the short, fat, thirty-two-year-old on the final weaponization of miniaturized nuclear warheads and on the party’s secret plans to finally exact their revenge on the puppet-master United States and reunite the people of Korea had not set well with Kang.
Just as Kang had rehearsed his reply to Pak, deciding to throw out a bald-faced lie, music blared without warning. The lyrics to “No Motherland Without You,” the signature song of the late Kim Jong Il, the man that handed down the key to the hermit kingdom in 2011 upon his death to his son, Kim Jong Un, bled with static from the large speakers surrounding the city square. The peasants and workers, packed in chest to back, tight like fat library books sitting on the white-painted curbs, began to chant from behind the line of tall trees with white-painted trunks. Trees marked by the government, forbidding harvesting for much-needed fire wood.
“DEATH TO THE TRAITOR AND COLLABORATOR DOG!”
“DEATH TO THE TRAITOR AND COLLABORATOR DOG!”
Kang couldn’t hear the pulleys rotate, drowned by the music and shouting, as the metal cage doors rose less than a foot off the ground. The pack of rabid dogs jockeyed for position, lowering their slanted heads to stoop under the gate’s bottom, and pushed their shoulders through the opening. They dug their front paws into the mud, clawing and scratching in an effort to pull the rest of their scrawny bodies from the cages, eyes locked on the prize.
Kang could feel the energy on the balcony. He had been there many times before, and with each execution, more vile and horrific than the previous, he had always been amazed by the mental impact this type of killing had on the human psyche. He knew bullets were expensive, but the sight of a ravaged dog tearing a man limb from limb, a man who used to stand on the same balcony as Kang and Pak now stood, a party leader, a man who could crush every peasant in the crowd at the flick of a finger, was utterly priceless propaganda. People talked.
As the first few gangly dogs cleared the cages, somebody killed the music, cueing the chanting crowd to put a lid on it, as if some giant hand had held up an index finger vertically in front of two lips, or run its hand menacingly across its throat.
General Ri turned his head to see the first three dogs, one brown and spotted white, two darker but pure, taking the forty feet at a greyhound racing gallop. Ri’s eyes widened; Kang figured twice as wide as if he’d been facing a firing squad with no hood.
Kang turned back to the pack of canines closing in, now seven or eight free of the cage, kicking mud out from under their paws as they pulled and pushed through the slippery surface. Their eyes beamed death.
Two of the dogs, the two darker ones, met each other’s pace, and from six feet away, just a few feet past the metal stake, launched them
selves into the air like flying monkeys. One bounced off Ri’s right shoulder as the general flinched to defend himself and fell to the mud, landing on his side. The other dog clinched a mouthful of Ri’s left triceps, practically tearing it off with one bite, scratching its four paws on Ri’s naked back to secure purchase. The dog shook his head violently left to right, tearing a large piece of Ri’s arm away from the bone, as the second dog, now back in action, sank his teeth into Ri’s narrow side just under the rib cage.
Kang tried not to listen to Ri’s screams, eerie horrific sounds of imminent death and shock that Kang was sure could be heard across the Taedong River easily into southeastern China and as far southeast as the Korean Demilitarized Zone and the border with South Korea. But Kang knew breaking his disinterested, statuelike demeanor to cover his ears would likely condemn him to a similar fate. Pak had not flinched; neither would Kang.
With all dozen dogs now fighting for flesh, feeding their insatiable appetite, the last few faint screams of General Ri, traitor to the Motherland, were all but muffled by the slurping and chomping of large pieces of bone and flesh. Part of a bloodied arm being worked over by a few there, a hand fought over nearby, two dogs playing tug-of-war with a lower leg near the metal stake, the blood mixing with the muddy surface and changing the color to a dark brunette.
Pak spoke first, breaking Kang’s trancelike stare at what was left of his former colleague, General Ri. “The honorable thing to do would have been for the conspirator to show the dogs his neck,” he said, “not hide it.”
“A cleaner kill, yes,” Kang said as the balcony party members began to stir, with the spectacle complete. “Less suffering.”
“I will not rest until I expose all the traitors,” Pak said. “It is my duty.”
Kang’s stomach tightened and his chest bounced. Nervous and threatened, he looked at his wristwatch as if he had somewhere to be. The small picture of dictator Kim Il Sung’s face on the dial reminded him of what he knew he needed to do.