by Van Torrey
“Dialogue! You are suggesting dialogue, after I have been lectured like a misbehaving child by the Chinese and then insulted by them by removing their so-called ambassador, who never gave me as much as the time of day! Dialogue! With the hysterical, whining bitch of an American President who pretentiously sends me ultimatums, then destroys my airport and my docks with invisible missiles. I will never debase myself by speaking with her or her running dogs,” Fhang brayed on into the empty night.
General Fhang unsteadily poured himself more vodka and sat heavily into his leather chair. He looked at Kim through watery, bloodshot eyes while a strange thin smile crossed his face. “General Kim, are you sure that you extracted every bit of information from General Rhee before he met with his unfortunate accident?”
“Well sir, it is hard to know, but I felt the information we got from him was most valuable. He seemed anxious to tell me everything so he could be reunited with his family one last time.”
“Yes, well, I believe you. He told us everything, I am sure. But you, General Kim, may be interested in something I learned as well, something neither you nor General Rhee knew.” Kim suddenly became nervous and had to work consciously to contain his anxiety. Had Fhang found out about his double life, and was he about to confront him? If so, he would not likely live out the night.
“The successor to my brother at the Reconnaissance bureau found a file hidden in a concealed place in his desk that had undoubtedly eluded my brother’s attention. He sent it to me yesterday. It details yet another plot hatched by the Chongs...something even more diabolical than the terrorist cell in Florida...”
Kim allowed himself to openly groan at the thought, but Fhang interrupted him. “No...no, General,” he continued hastily, “this is something that will work to our advantage if we can just get control of it...being well after the fact that it is,” Fhang said excitedly, expelling a great fume of alcohol vapor in the process.
General Kim picked up on the enthusiasm shown by Fhang and became a careful listener, detecting that something of substance was about to be revealed by the North Korean leader.
“General Kim, if I can believe what is in this file - and I am cautiously optimistic - my predecessors have been able to successfully place a nuclear warhead on the North American continent! It is even one of our latest iteration of small, missile-deliverable warheads based on a Pakistani design that you are familiar with from your previous work. If we can move it from where it is currently stored to a large American city and manage to detonate it, the casualties will be enormous and the damage to their infrastructure will make what they have recently done to us with their missiles pale in comparison. If this is true, I have the perfect vehicle for my revenge on the Americans...and my personal redemption in the eyes of my detractors!”
General Kim could only stare in surprised disbelief at the drunken Premier as he seemed so amused at the idea of such a fortuitous revelation. “And you know the best part, General?” asked Fhang conspiratorially, “the Americans will never know it was us who visited such a calamity on them. Yes, they might suspect, but they will never have enough proof to implicate us, so a response will never be forthcoming. Imagine, Kim...only the second country ever to use an atomic bomb in conflict will be the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea! Grudging though it may be, that is how we will regain our respect among our Asian brothers...and you, General Kim, are the man who will make this work for me...and the Brilliant New Light!”
CHAPTER 30
NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK
“The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.”
Fridtjof Nansen (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate)
*
TO: DCI
FROM: DDI
1230 HRS
FLASH TRAFFIC FROM GAMMA. DPRK HAS PLACED A NUKE
“SOMEWHERE” IN NORTH AMERICA. NO DETAILS.
END.
*
Meeting, White House Oval Office:
“Ms. President, I realize this is nothing more than a fragment, but it is something, a disturbing something to be sure, but at least we know a fact rather than a suspicion,” said Ray Rollins the DNI.
“Talk about a needle in a haystack! How are we supposed to look for that?” asked Rachel Hunter to no one in particular.
“I find it interesting that he specifically said North America,” commented Marilyn Mitchell. “To me, that could include Alaska, Canada and possibly, Mexico as well.”
“The question is, “Who do we tell in those jurisdictions, and how much, if anything?” posed FBI Director Clayton Wheatley. “The Canadians don’t want us poking around on their turf, and the Mexicans...I don’t know. The narco-terrorists have infiltrated many levels of their law enforcement, and I wouldn’t want those guys to get wind of a stray nuke in their backyard.”
“You’re not leaving out the good-old USA, are you, Clayton?” asked Hunter.
“Of course not, Ms. President,” Wheatley replied evenly, “but like Ms. Mitchell, I am curious about why the term North America was used. It could be important or it could merely be loose semantics on Gamma’s part. The Alaska oil fields and the pipeline are part of North America and are very remote.”
“Marilyn, can we try to get a message to Gamma asking him to further define North America? This is very important to everyone here,” asked Rachel Hunter.
*
General Kim Dong-son met the day after General Fhang’s startling revelation that his ruling predecessors had somehow been able to infiltrate a nuclear warhead somewhere into North America. Up to now General Kim had been given no details. He had received a coded message from his handler at Langley to clarify his initial message as to the specific location in North America where the device was to be cloistered.
The meeting was in Fhang’s private residence where he always felt more at ease to talk freely while he partook of the ever-present fine Russian vodka. “General Kim, the Chinese, the Americans, and to a lesser degree, our brothers to the south, have pushed me up against a solid stone wall and I have been forced to make a strong statement. I cannot simply languish here and watch North Korea shrivel up to nothingness. When we are too weak to defend ourselves, our body, resources and people, will be fed upon by them like vultures on the carcass of a wounded lion. I will not permit it!” he announced forcefully. “The only way I can win back the respect of these fair-weather friends and sometime adversaries is with an impressive show of strength. With this strength, I can then negotiate. If such negotiations fail, then we will fail as a country, and I will fail personally. If I am to die, I would prefer to die as a soldier and not as a common prisoner begging like a coward for my life.”
“Spoken like a true leader, Sir,” replied Kim, as he tried to humor the General, but not patronizingly so.
“General Kim, you have served me ably since your return from Pakistan and it will be difficult to replace you...”
At this point a chill went up Kim’s spine as, once again, his anxiety about being exposed as a spy was triggered by Fhang’s carefully slurred words.
“...but as I mentioned yesterday, you are the perfect person to help me carry out the plan that has so fortuitously fallen into my lap.”
“And what, sir, is our good fortune?” asked Kim, guardedly.
“General Kim, since I first disclosed this news to you, I have given this much more thought and have changed my original strategy of simply setting off the weapon after it has been moved into the U.S.A. If we set it off and they don’t discover it was us, the DPRK, who did it, what would it profit the Brilliant New Light? Yes, we would be a suspect, but there would be others as well. Perhaps Iran, or some rogue terrorist group who has managed to acquire a warhead. No, I have another strategy, one that will give the Brilliant New Light the respect from others I deserve. “We...actually you...are going to see to it that the nuclear device is transported to a specific location within the United States, carefully hidden, and prepared for detonation at a s
pecific date and time. Then you will go to ground a safe distance from the weapon and wait for a coded signal from the Americans that will constitute a response to our demands from the Americans. If the Americans do not agree to negotiate with us, the warhead will detonate with disastrous results for them. Of course, they will retaliate, but such retaliation will engulf the entire peninsula, and perhaps the region itself, in a nuclear holocaust for which no end can be pleasantly imagined. But the end results will be of no interest to me as I will not likely survive but I will have saved face. However, if they capitulate and agree to negotiate, this will generate another signal that you will see, allowing you to disarm the device. All this will be made public, causing great panic among the American people, and putting enormous pressure on the weak American bitch president to accede to my demands. She will have no choice but to humbly come to the negotiating table and see me as an equal.”
“Sir, the latter is difficult to imagine,” said Kim, “after all you have envisioned for the Brilliant New Light.”
“However, on the brighter side, as you have just alluded to, there is a chance that the Americans will capitulate and agree to see us as an equal. The Americans can tame the tiger to the south, act as a catalyst to bring the Chinese back into the economic partnership fold we previously enjoyed, and make themselves the provider of cheap capital to repair our infrastructure that they have so callously destroyed with their missiles,” Fhang concluded.
“It is clear you have considered your options, General Fhang, but I‘m not completely clear how I fit into this,” Kim asked cautiously.
“But of course, General. You are eminently qualified for this job in many ways! First, you know our nuclear weapons inside and out by virtue of your service to us as leader of the North Korean-Pakistani Nuclear Liaison Group for all these years. Two you are an ethnic Korean who speaks excellent English which makes it easy for you to travel internationally. Finally, you have the soul of a soldier and the mind of a diplomat, making you mission-focused, yet flexible enough to think on your feet in changing situations. I can think of no one more perfect for the job.”
“Thank you for these compliments, Sir. I feel undeserving of such praise.”
“Also, General, there is one more intangible,” Fhang said cryptically. “Your family, your sister and elderly mother, continue to live here in Pyongyang under my care and protection. This fact alone ensures that you will come back and remain in my service after your mission.”
“Of course, Sir. There was never any thought of not returning from any mission you sent me on, whether it was Pakistan, or now, this.”
“Please do not take offense, General Kim. In the past we have had many defections...those who have wanted to leave North Korea for selfish reasons. The result is that many who have left were later sorry for using such poor judgment. They found themselves used and exploited by the country that gave them asylum, and then cast aside after being so. That, and the fact that their family’s loyalty then came under suspicion at home, required those family members, women and children alike, to be sent to our re-indoctrination camps. I regret that conditions in many of these camps are less than optimal, but such places are for remedial discipline, and personal comfort of the guests is not a high priority.”
Indeed, since he was a youth, General Kim had heard many stories from his friends, and later, associates in the military establishment, about the misfortune of those who had failed the rigid dictates of the Communist-cult system put in place by the elder Chong and then followed blindly, and with a sense of greater paranoia, by his successors. Whole families of multiple generations had been known to be swallowed up and sent to such camps, often on the whim of some petty bureaucratic official for a minor transgression, or the perception thereof, never to be heard from again. In the back of General Kim’s mind he knew, even in spite of his lofty position as a confidant of General Fhang, he and his family were not immune from such a fate should any of them cease to live up to the fanciful ideals of the Brilliant New Light of General Fhang.
*
The North Koreans had mastered the art of counterfeiting nearly any printable document. They were actively producing relatively good copies of many foreign currencies, although United States currency in the twenty, fifty, and hundred dollar configurations was routinely turned back by international criminals as being woefully inadequate for use in anything but petty street crime. The U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving was so masterful at engineering a combination of specialty paper and sophisticated ink, combined with the integration of unique graphic design and its application, that even sophisticated counterfeiters had given up on penetrating the supply and distribution chain of American currency.
But the North Korean’s expertise was not limited to foreign currency. They produced South Korean identification documents, passports, and other legal documentation that were often superior to what the South Koreans produced themselves. When the North was able to get spies and paramilitary personnel infiltrated into the South, these human assets were easily assimilated into the general population of South Korea by virtue of their identical ethnicity, language and dialect, educational peerage, knowledge of Western popular culture so accepted in the South, access to a steady amount of money hidden in various safe houses in South Korea and, of course, identity documents. Over the years North Korea had been able to infiltrate hundreds of agents into South Korean culture. Although some had been apprehended and some had defected, many more became good sources of low-to-medium level intelligence to their handlers in the DPRK.
The first part of Kim’s journey on his mission to deliver the nuclear device to its ultimate destination, and the most dangerous, was to be infiltrated by the North Korean military into South Korea. Once in South Korea, he would have identity documents, a passport, a cover story, and access to money that would make the rest of his travel seamless. It would be like a native New Yorker making his way to New Jersey and continuing his journey, never being seen as out of place.
*
It soon became most obvious to General Kim that Fhang had taken his attention off the internal difficulties facing North Korea as a result of the American missile attacks, and had become completely obsessed with the idea of turning the North Korean nuclear device that was supposedly hidden in a secret place in North America into an asset for potential terror. Fhang may not have been personally involved in the Jonathan Braxton assassination or the cruise ship terrorism, but if the nuclear device scenario was played out to its darkest end game, General Fhang would go down as the most evil, and successful, international terrorist ever.
Try as he might, General Kim was unable to discretely question Fhang about the exact whereabouts of the purported weapon. Perhaps it was because Fhang was unsure of the details of when, how, and by what means the weapon had been infiltrated and was embarrassed that he actually knew so little, or perhaps he was inwardly troubled that the whole story might be a hoax into which he was placing too much faith and energy. All General Kim had been told was, “he would soon be traveling to North America to connect with those who would lead him to the weapon and assist him in transporting it to its final location”.
Kim asked Fhang, “How will I connect with those who are already there at the end of my travels?”
“Do not concern yourself with that detail, Dong-sun,” replied Fhang. “The file I have provides me with details of how to communicate with those who are already there. When the time comes, you will be met at a specific time and place by one of them and taken to where the nuclear warhead is. That information will be given to you in pieces just prior to the fact. For security purposes we must compartmentalize your knowledge in the event you are unfortunately compromised along the way.”
General Kim knew such security was normal tradecraft common to all intelligence gathering and espionage activity. He warned himself to be cautious about seeming to be overly anxious about seeking details, lest he create suspicion on the part of Fhang.
*
TO:
DCI
FROM: DDI
TIME: 1455 HRS
FLASH TRAFFIC GAMMA. SOON TRAVELING TO N.A. VIA AIR. UNABLE TO GET DETAILS. MOST SECRET. WORKING IT.
END.
*
“We are obviously at a very delicate stage on this, Ms. President. I wish we had something more for you, but the good thing is Gamma is coming to our turf and, presumably, we will have an opportunity to make personal contact with him, turning this to our advantage,” reported Ray Rollins.
“What is your assessment of why he is being sent to North America?” asked Rachel Hunter to no one in particular in the room.
“Well, Ms. President,” offered Marilyn Mitchell, “given his previous assignment in Pakistan of ramrodding the joint Pakistani-North Korean nuclear program, a good guess would be that he is being sent by General Fhang to take charge of the nuclear device and do something with it. I don’t think it is too wild a speculation that the North Korean management would like to strike back at us after the bloody nose we just gave them,” she concluded darkly.
“I agree, Ms. President,” replied Ray Rollins. “Fhang is like a wounded bear right now. He’s been abandoned by the Chinese, probably the only ally in the region. He feels threatened by the South Koreans. He’s just taken a well-deserved beating from us. Fhang is holding no aces, with the possible exception of a rogue nuke floating around somewhere. My estimate is he’s looking for a little street cred, and a nuclear weapon either as a threat or an actual detonation event would put him right up there as King Rat in the terrorist world.”
“I don’t have anything to add to that,” said Clayton Wheatley. “I’d say we need to a little war-gaming and come up with some scenarios about how the North Koreans may think they can get Gamma into our continent, and then plan to meet him head-on.”
*
Rachel Hunter invited Clayton Wheatley to dine with her in her private residence the following night. Over drinks she remarked, “I just thought it would be interesting for two old intelligence and law enforcement wonks to plot and scheme about the Gamma guy and think about how we would play it if the shoe was on either of our feet.”