Brilliant New Light (Chance Lyon military adventure series Book 3)

by Van Torrey

  CHAPTER 28

  SCOUNDRELS AND SKULLDUGGERY

  “There is no honor among thieves.”

  Proverb

  *

  Three days and several thousand air miles later a DVD landed on the desk of General Fhang. He had a translator queue it up on a Sony laptop. He became horrified as he watched and heard the details unfold of the plot to commit the terrorist act, code-named “Wonson”, against the Americans unravel before his eyes and ears. Fhang didn’t know either of these men, but as time went by he began to reluctantly believe the veracity of at least Yim, as the details he was exposing could not easily be invented, even by the devilish South Korean intelligence apparatus. No, his gut told him that, much to his consternation, this information was, unfortunately, very true indeed.

  General Fhang immediately dismissed the translator and summoned General Kim. General Fhang queued up the DVD and ordered General Kim to watch it as he paced the room nervously, while feelings of anger, frustration and even fear crossed his troubled mind about what he had just seen and heard. When Kim had seen enough, he looked with urgency at General Fhang and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “What does this mean?”

  Fhang started off evenly but soon was venting his frustration in a furious rage that momentarily startled General Kim in its scope and intensity. “Even in their deaths, the Chongs and their former minions bedevil me with their bizarre and outrageous plots that threaten my Brilliant New Light. WHY WAS I NEVER TOLD OF THIS? THERE MUST BE SOMEONE HERE WHO KNEW OF THIS AND FAILED TO TELL ME SO I COULD CALL OFF THIS MURDEROUS SCHEME!” he bellowed.

  *

  General Kim had a more rational reaction to what he had seen on the DVD and started to think the problem through. Kim, too, marveled at how many coincidences, secretive blunderings, personnel purges, and outright deceptions could have confluenced to allow this plot to proceed without General Fhang’s knowledge. The more he thought about and followed the trail from the death of Madam Chong, the purges, and the outright mysterious disappearances of people, the more it played out and went cold at the desk of General Rhee, Fhang’s first Chief of Staff. Kim became convinced that Rhee knew about the plan and had deliberately committed an egregious act of omission by not making Fhang aware of it immediately after he assumed power. But he had to be absolutely sure before making the fateful accusation. At that point it would be either his life or General Rhee’s.

  Before the day ended, General Kim approached Fhang and made a well calculated suggestion. “General Fhang, I have a plan to smoke out the person or persons who have betrayed you. Please give me two days and I think your tormentor will make himself known to you in person.”

  “Very well, General Kim, but I am very angry about this and expect a speedy resolution. I cannot stand to be falsely accused by the international community of being a terrorist. You have your two days,” he responded angrily.

  “Sir, for you to know with certainty who has betrayed you, please make up a name known only to you and me for this murderous act of terrorism on the cruise ship. The person who has betrayed you will come to you and implicate me using the name of this operation that you give me today - a name known only to you and me.”

  General Fhang looked at Kim with suspicion for a long moment before speaking. “General Kim, I am a soldier and a military leader. What you speak of here is intrigue...the work of spies and those who plot revolutions and overthrowing of regimes. I know little of such nonsense. But I will trust you to help me bring any betrayers to my regime out in the open. You will have your word. It is “Yalu”, our great river to the north.”

  *

  TO: DCI

  FROM: DDI

  TIME: 1039 HRS

  FLASH TRAFFIC GAMMA. FHANG LIKELY UNAWARE OF DPRK T-CELL.

  END.

  “Ms. President, if this is correct, where do we go from here? We can’t punish the dead,” remarked Ray Rollins.

  *

  General Kim set an elaborate trap to flush out General Rhee.

  General Kim approached General Rhee in the executive dining area of the North Korean government offices the day after General Fhang had viewed the DVD of the confessions of Yim and Mario. General Rhee had been away on government business the day before and did not know of the revelations made to Fhang about the terrorist cell.

  “I want to tell you something as a trusted colleague,” Kim confided to General Rhee. “The new leader is intent on cleaning up any vestiges of resistance to his leadership, or any open-ended activities he is unaware of that would threaten his agenda, as the final phase of consolidation of his power. That includes any initiatives of foreign espionage or sabotage, both active and passive, the Chong family may have put in place through the Reconnaissance Bureau or the Army prior to him taking power. Such things that perhaps were obliterated or overlooked during the purges. He is very concerned that nothing gets in the way of improving the image of the DPRK in the eyes of our Asian brothers. His only agenda is the promulgation and acceptance of the Brilliant New Light!”

  “Yes, well, I appreciate you telling me this, General Kim, but why are you telling me?” replied Rhee skeptically.

  “Well, to be honest, I’m a little worried. There were some notes I saw when I came here that were given to me by the Ministry of People’s Security that made mention of something called “Operation Yalu”. Apparently this had something to do with planting a sleeper cell of North Korean paramilitary people in America for the purpose of terrorism. I suppose I should have told General Fhang about that, but I failed to do so. Could this be something important?”

  General Kim detected a momentary look of recognition and surprise in the countenance of General Rhee, which he quickly masked back into his normally stoical demeanor.

  “As you know, General Kim, before your arrival I was as close as anyone to General Fhang and in that position I would have undoubtedly heard about such a thing. This does not ring a bell with me,” he said dismissively. “It sounds like fantasy or idle gossip.”

  “Nevertheless, something with the military sounding name of Operation Yalu must be important. I am very curious about this and I suppose I should have mentioned this to General Fhang,” continued Kim.

  *

  The next day General Rhee asked one of the secretaries to approach General Fhang to see if he could get a private meeting with the Fhang, circumventing General Kim. “Something extremely important and most secret,” was how he described the proposed meeting.

  Rhee had stayed up half the night plotting the revenge that had finally dropped so propitiously into his lap. General Kim came in here and completely isolated me from General Fhang, after I had showed such loyalty to him immediately after the coup. I was going to tell Fhang right away about the Terrorist cell operation. I never knew the name of the plan, but apparently it was “Yalu”. We could have stopped it, as I knew how to contact Mario. This is now my chance to implicate General Kim and get him removed from the good graces of Fhang. When this happens, he will dismiss Kim and reinstate me to my former status as his closest associate. I will simply tell Fhang that General Kim came to me in confidence to tell me that he was worried that he hadn’t told the General about Operation Yalu. I will provide Fhang with the planning details, names of the Korean and Cuban leaders, means of transportation, everything about the operational plans and people. Fhang will then know that it was Kim who was holding back vital information from him. Kim will get the firing squad, and I will get my position back, he dreamed.

  *

  The next day General Rhee got his requested meeting with General Fhang, and the General received him graciously.

  “General Fhang, I must tell you that there is a traitor in our midst, someone who is trying to dim the illumination of the Brilliant New Light.”

  “How can this be?” answered an astonished General Fhang.

  “Unfortunately this is true, General. He is right here among your inner circle.”

  “I assume you have proof, General Rhee. This is a very
serious charge indeed,” said the General skeptically. “Who is this traitor? I will see he pays with his life!”

  “It is General Kim, sir.” replied Rhee darkly.

  “KIM!...General Kim, my Chief of Staff? Impossible!” scoffed Fhang. “What is the proof you have, and how has he betrayed me?”

  “Sir, his crime is that he failed to tell you about an espionage operation planned and set in motion by the Chong family and the Reconnaissance Bureau, prior to you assuming power. This operation, code-named Operation Yalu, was about sending North Korean paramilitary personnel to America, through Cuba, to commit an act of terror against American citizens.”

  As soon as Fhang heard the word ‘Yalu’ his antennae came to full attention and he encourage Rhee to proceed with as many details as possible.

  “In my former position, sir, I would have surely heard of this, but apparently it was so secret that only the Chongs and Madam Chong specifically, as Director of the Reconnaissance Bureau, including the actual operators, a man named Yim, the leader, and his men, knew of the plan. The fact that General Kim knew about it while he was in Pakistan shows he was an accomplice with the Chong family. He should have made you aware of this plan, sir, when he came to work here, but he did not. All this evidence is proof that his is a traitor.”

  “Are you sure of what you have told me here, General Rhee? This Operation Yalu?”

  “Sir, I am telling you everything General Kim told me yesterday. Needless to say I was overwhelmed by the enormity of this and felt it was my duty to tell you everything.”

  General Fhang walked over to the large window overlooking the compound and thought for several moments while Rhee waited nervously, wondering what would come next.

  “General Rhee, what you have told me is very disturbing. Please return this afternoon at sixteen-hundred, and we will discuss this further. Thank you for coming here today.”

  After Rhee made his exit, General Fhang called General Kim and asked him to come to his private office. Over coffee the two men spoke of what had transpired over the last twenty-four hours. “General Rhee asked to meet with me and told me a rather fantastic story, General Kim. It was replete with all the details supplied by the interrogations of Mr. Yim and Mario that we saw on the DVD. There was one exception; Rhee insisted the name of the operation was “Yalu”. Yim and Mario continuously made reference to Operation “Wonson”. There can be only two explanations for this discrepancy,” noted the General, “either you gave him all this information and simply inserted the operational word “Yalu’ in place of “Wonson”, or Rhee knew all the details of the operation except the code name, and took it at face value that the code name for the operation was “Yalu”. How can I be sure that it was not the latter, rather than the former?”

  General Kim knew that his future as an aide to General Fhang, as a highly paid American spy, and perhaps his life itself depended on how he responded to the dictator’s cogent, probing question. An ordinary soldier, a man unseasoned in navigating the darkness of human intrigues, a person not inured to the taking of another man’s life to advance his own agenda, would panic at the thought of having to put this last piece of a life-changing puzzle in place in front of his critic. But General Kim was no ordinary man.

  He produced an object that looked like an ordinary fountain pen and placed it next to the Sony laptop computer on Fhang’s desk. After a few deft keystrokes the contents of the pen were downloaded by Bluetooth to the internal memory of the laptop and Kim prompted the file to display on the screen. In the next few moments the entire content of the conversation between Fhang’s two generals unfolded before him in living color and clearly audible sound. The recording showed unequivocally that the only substance of the conversation was General Kim’s vague reference to some unknown event known as Operation Yalu. No details of the plan were revealed by General Kim, and the conversation took less than two minutes. The damning conclusion could only be that General Rhee had known the details of this espionage and terror operation since its inception and held them from General Fhang for some unknown, but self-serving, reason.

  General Kim said nothing when the recording ended, allowing the evidence to sink in with a clearly disturbed General Fhang.

  Fhang was silent for a full two minutes as he absorbed the unassailable truth that General Rhee had betrayed him about a matter that was clearly in conflict with the strategy of the Brilliant New Light and had the potential of escalating the smoldering enmity that existed between the United States and the DPRK. The question now was not so much about Rhee’s knowledge of the terrorist cell, but what else he might know that could be a danger to General Fhang. There was only one way to get such information and keep it contained to the exclusive knowledge of Fhang and his trusted Chief of Staff, General Kim.

  *

  Later, in a steel and concrete cell in the basement of the notorious prison located on the ironically-named Flower of Peace Street in Central Pyongyang, General Kim and Rhee faced each other in silence. Kim dismissed the guard and Rhee heard the steel door slam behind him. As the echoes of the slamming door reverberated in his ears General Rhee, now for all practical purposes reduced in rank to a level below that of an ordinary Army recruit, faced what he knew was a grim future.

  “Well, General Kim, it is now obvious that you have a complete victory over me in our short-lived competition for the ear of General Fhang,” said Rhee in a half-hearted attempt to gain some degree of mercy from what he knew was coming. “You are a skillful man. I hope you will use it to the greater glory of the Brilliant New Light.”

  “Mr. Rhee,” Kim emphasized the Mr., if you wish to have a dignified death, unlike that of the Chongs before you, you will give me the names of those who still oppose General Fhang as well as any of these insidious plots, such as “Wonson”, that may still be brewing here in North Korea or anywhere else. These are simple questions that require simple answers. Shall we proceed?”

  Rhee knew the reputation of General Kim and faced the reality that it was useless to resist. He made one final request to Kim who watched impassively as his prisoner squirmed uncomfortably sitting secured to a sturdy wooden chair. “If I tell you what you want to hear, may I see my family one last time?”

  “Agreed.” replied Kim, evenly.

  Over the next twenty minutes Rhee gave General Kim the names of over a dozen military officers and senior officers in the Reconnaissance Bureau and the Ministry of Internal Security who remained loyal to the memory of the Chong family and were philosophically, if not actively, opposed to General Fhang. Rhee convinced Kim that he knew of no other lingering plots. Kim himself had thought that the existence of other terrorist cells was unlikely as sooner or later they would be exposed by indigenous law enforcement where they were based, or they would run out of operational funds.

  Kim also thought that Rhee might have knowledge of others who were opposed to General Fhang, but the purging of those whose names he had obtained today would surely convince those few who were still unknown to advance their allegiance quietly to the Brilliant New Light.

  The two hours had passed quickly and Kim wanted this nasty piece of business to be concluded. “Alright Mr. Rhee, we are finished with our business here. Thank you for your cooperation. At least I can report some degree of long delayed candor on your part to General Fhang.”

  “We had a deal General Kim...may I see my family now?”

  “Yes, of course, I am man of my word, Mr. Rhee. I have arranged for you to see your family.”

  With that General Kim retrieved a picture from his jacket pocket and gave it Rhee. “There,” he said, “isn’t this a picture of your family?”

  As General Rhee studied the picture intently, General Kim moved behind the chair while Rhee cried out, “My family...I want to say goodbye to my family in person...you promised.”

  “I’m afraid that will be quite impossible, Mr. Rhee. Your family is on their way to one of the People’s re-education camps as we speak.”

  Rhee’s s
hrieks of anger and despair were cut short by the report of General Kim’s service revolver, as a single 7.62 mm bullet slashed through the back of his skull, exploding from his forehead, and spilling a deadly amalgam of blood, bone, and brain tissue over the picture still clutched in General Rhee’s hands.

  CHAPTER 29

  RAT IN A TRAP

  “...the lion cannot protect himself from traps...”

  Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince)

  *

  Foreign Minister Yang Lu Tho watched for the second time the DVD that Ambassador Bledsoe had left for him after their brief meeting. In the Chinese Minister’s mind there could be no question that the evidence supplied by these captives clearly incriminated the government of the DPRK in the recent terrorist attack on the Caribbean Star cruise ship.

  It had occurred to the Foreign Minister that all this could be an elaborate ruse on the part of the Americans as a pretext to justify another, perhaps more deadly, counter-attack on the North Koreans in retaliation for the terrorism. However his gut feeling, reinforced by the U.S. President’s admirable show of restraint up to now, and the fact that they had sent their Secretary of State, in person, to discuss this matter at the highest levels of the Chinese government, was the Americans were being patient and thorough in building an air-tight case against the DPRK government before taking any decisive action against those responsible.

  “Premier, as you know I had yet another meeting with the American Ambassador yesterday. He brought me graphic evidence, in the form of a video tape of the interrogations of the surviving terrorists, showing clearly that the attack on the cruise ship was planned, financed, and put into action by those at the highest level of the North Korean government. Ambassador Bledsoe did not ask me to show this evidence to you, but I will do so if you like,” said the Minister.

  “The fact that he did not ask you to do this, speaks to their desire to keep this at a low-key level at the moment. I think I like this new American president. Her approach to problem solving is encouraging to me. Not everything is black and white in this world we live in, Minister Yang. Perhaps we should arrange a meeting sometime soon. It has been a long time since I have been to America. Now, what do you suggest our reaction to this evidence, at least internally, should be?”