by Jeff Nesbit
“Most likely not,” Anshel said. “It took them months to let the news out about Pak’s stroke. They can go a long time without letting the world know that the leadership has changed hands.”
“So who has power now?” DJ asked.
“The military,” Anshel said, shrugging. “Technically, Pak’s position as Dear Leader has passed to his youngest son, which has been in the works for some time. But Pak Jong Un is in no position to deal with the military leadership. They will call the shots.”
“Unless,” Camara said, “we can draw him out, into the light.” All eyes turned toward the president to see what he meant. “If we can bring him toward us, in the open, then perhaps we can talk. Anything may happen in the darkness. But bring a discussion out into the open, into the light, and it is another matter entirely.”
“But that doesn’t seem possible,” DJ said flatly. “We’ve never had any contact with the son. We have no connection there whatsoever. How would we possibly draw him out into the open?”
President Camara turned back to Su and simply watched her reaction to the question.
Now Su knew why she was here. “I can,” she said softly, trying to keep her voice steady.
“How?” DJ looked confused, as if he suddenly was the only person at the table who’d somehow managed to miss important pieces of every conversation because they’d taken place at the opposite end of the room.
“I’ve met him,” Su said. “We had coffee together, at a Starbucks during a world student conference, seven years ago. I just didn’t know it at the time.”
Su didn’t mention that his best friend, who’d also been there, was now at Camp 16—and one of the sources of information about the cesium device. It was You Moon’s phone that had sent the texts to her through mVillage. She felt certain the president knew this. But she wasn’t about to volunteer that information here.
DJ sat back, stunned by this news. “You realize that you’re one of only a small handful of people outside North Korea who’ve ever talked to him in recent years?”
“I do now,” Su answered. “At the time, he was just another kid at the conference. We talked about normal things, like the NBA playoffs, mobile phones, and global warming.”
“That’s, well…that’s just unbelievable,” DJ said, shaking his head.
“So the question is how to get to him,” Camara said. “And what do we ask him to do, presuming we can get to him?”
“I think I can get to him,” Su offered quickly. “Or, at least, I can get to someone who will have the ability to communicate directly with his mobile.” Whether You Moon would take the risk of sending a message to his boyhood friend—given that it was Pak Jong Un who had sent him to Camp 16—was another question entirely. But Su could make the request.
Camara stepped toward the center of the room, rubbing his hands. “Great! In the interim, I’ll propose that we need to take two very large steps in the next twelve hours. As a prelude to both, I’ll go live with a statement—to the networks—that’s really aimed at an audience of one.”
“Saying what?” DJ asked.
“That I intend to board Air Force One, tonight, to fly to Pyongyang to meet with the president of North Korea,” Anshel said. “And, second, that I will leave for Tehran after that to see Rev. Shahidi.”
62
LILONGWE, MALAWI
Nash exchanged messages with Su immediately after the White House meeting, and then connected by Skype when she’d gotten back to her office at State around 9 p.m. It was just before dawn for Nash. Both of them felt like they hadn’t slept in weeks.
The president was scheduled to give a brief, five-minute talk on the networks in thirty minutes. DJ and others had started writing the script the moment the White House meeting broke.
Neither Nash nor Su talked about the seriousness of the news they were dealing with, and the efforts that both were undertaking. There would be time to consider that later.
As they were talking on Skype, a text came in from Ehsan. He would deliver the message to Shahidi later that morning that the president of the United States would announce his visit to Tehran within the hour. Ehsan couldn’t predict Shahidi’s reaction, but he promised Nash that he would do everything in his power to convince the Supreme Leader to meet the Americans halfway.
The two of them talked through the words of a text that she would send to You Moon, asking him to contact his boyhood friend. They both knew this would be an enormous risk for both You Moon and Kim Grace. It could, possibly, lead to their executions.
But Su had given her word to the president that she would try. It was too late to go back now.
Once they’d finished wording the message, Su sent it to You Moon. It was midmorning there, and she could only hope that he would see it in time. Then the two of them talked about the decision that Adom Camara had just made and would announce to the world in a matter of minutes.
For a sitting American president to fly, uninvited, to Pyongyang and then to Tehran in the midst of everything that had happened was dangerous, unprecedented, and so full of personal risk that neither of them could imagine it.
They could both imagine the herculean efforts being waged right now by the national security staff and the joint chiefs to keep Camara from going.
For all anyone knew, North Korea or Iran could try to shoot Air Force One down, surround the plane once it was on the ground, or attempt to breach his very limited security once he was outside the plane. It was one thing for special U.S. envoys to fly to either Pyongyang or Tehran—which had happened on occasion—but quite another for a sitting American president.
Only a neutral meeting place, like the United Nations, could assure the president’s personal safety. Yet Pak Jong Un would never be allowed to leave North Korea. And Rev. Shahidi had never left Iran to meet with a world leader. He was not about to change that position now. Even Andrei Rowan and Li Chan, China’s premier, flew to Tehran to meet with Shahidi.
Truthfully, Nash and Su couldn’t envision Camara going to either Pyongyang or Tehran. It was too dangerous. Both came to the conclusion that, at some point, the U.S. national security apparatus would keep the president from actually landing in either location.
But announcing his visit to Tehran did one thing—it kept Israel from launching any nuclear first strikes, for the time being. They’d be forced to wait and see what might come of the talks. It accomplished that, at least.
They watched the president’s live broadcast together. Su turned the TV toward the camera on her computer monitor so Nash could see, and they listened while the president made his statement. As usual, Camara’s oratory was brilliant and mesmerizing. It was hard not to believe—and trust—that he would do everything in his power to achieve the impossible.
Just as he’d promised, the president announced to a world wondering where the next shoe would drop that he intended to fly toward Pyongyang tonight, and that he would go to Tehran after that. There was no ambiguity in the statement.
As Su signed off for the night to head back to her apartment, there was still no word back from You Moon. She could only hope that her message had gotten through.
63
CAMP 16
NORTH KOREA
The prisoners received only one break every day—a brief opportunity to eat lunch that almost always consisted of stale bread, some sort of unrecognizable vegetable, and water. The prisoners always ate quickly, then returned to hard labor.
Because it was a rare opportunity to walk and stretch his legs, You Moon always took advantage of the break to walk back to the living quarters. He ate as he walked and ignored the sentries armed with machine guns every few feet in the heavily armed compound.
Today, as usual, he took a quick peek at his mVillage account on his secret Nokia mobile hidden inside the stuffing of his mattress. Since he and Kim Grace had connected with Kim Su Yeong, he’d checked it religiously twice a day, at lunch and at the end of the day.
He had no real hope of ever hearin
g back from Su, but he always hoped. What his friend would do with any information she received, You Moon couldn’t imagine. But, over time, Kim Grace had begun to change You Moon, and he wanted to return her kindness.
Their constant talks had begun to change You Moon’s heart. Thanks to her tireless friendship and willingness to give him her knowledge, You Moon had begun to read parts of the Bible. He’d managed to work his way through two of the gospels in the New Testament.
He always gently teased his friend that he wasn’t promising anything, but that he would surely give her God a try. Nothing else had worked, he would laugh.
When he saw the icon blinking on his phone, telling him that he had a message from the girl he’d met seven years earlier, You Moon could barely keep his hands from shaking. He opened the message and fought to blink back tears.
As he read it, part of him was a little angry—and instantly crushed—that there was no news of Kim Grace’s children to pass on to her. Su was silent on that.
But the message that Pak Jong Un’s father, the Dear Leader, had been poisoned by the military leaders in Pyongyang nearly caused him to fall from his bed. He knew, with certainty, that no one in North Korea yet knew this. He doubted that Pak Jong Un even knew the real truth behind his father’s untimely death. Most likely, they’d told him his father had suffered another stroke.
But the second part of Su’s message gave You Moon even greater pause—the request from Su to him that he contact his boyhood friend and plead with him to meet with the president of the United States, who was flying to Pyongyang even as she wrote the message.
Su had written:
I know the risk this means to you. The world is on the brink of nuclear war. Only your friend can help avert it by meeting with the president when he arrives in Pyongyang. You may be the only person who can tell Pak Jong Un the truth—about his father’s death, and the cesium device hidden near Camp 16 that now threatens millions.
You Moon closed his eyes and, for perhaps the first time in his young life, asked someone greater than himself for guidance.
An instant later, convinced that a still, small voice had answered, he quickly wrote a message to his friend. In it, he told his friend the truth—that his father had been murdered by the North Korean military, and that those same leaders were prepared to trigger a device that would utterly destroy their country and those nearby.
He urged his friend—who’d sent him to prison for life over a small, meaningless dispute—to meet with the president of the United States. It was, he wrote, perhaps the last hope for his country. He then pressed the button, sending the message to the last known mVillage address for Pak Jong Un.
You Moon wondered how long it would be until the guards took him away to the wooden execution post and a firing squad in the nearby woods that surrounded the camp.
64
Tehran, Iran
In the very same study that the Supreme Leader often considered the means of war, he now entertained Ahura Ehsan and several other clerics to discuss a possible framework for peace.
None of them spoke of the threat now posed by Israel, or the very real possibility that nuclear weapons could rain on Tehran at any moment in retaliation for the massive missile strike against Israel’s three largest cities. That was too much for them to address in this meeting.
Shahidi had never met President Camara. He occasionally wondered if he would ever meet the man. Circumstances were such that the two might never meet. Shahidi would never travel outside of Iran, and no American president could risk coming to Tehran.
And yet Camara had, on television, promised a deeply troubled world that he would make the trip to Tehran. As Shahidi had watched the telecast, he could only wonder about any man who would do such a thing. He was either crazy, or brilliant—or, perhaps, a little of both.
Ehsan, as he’d promised, delivered the information he’d received from the White House via Nash. Shahidi said nothing—and committed nothing—as he listened to Ehsan. But, as with the telecast, Shahidi had to marvel at the man’s courage.
Camara had shown an ability to intercede personally on the world stage before. He’d singlehandedly tried to forge a consensus among India, China, and others on global warming, and had almost succeeded. But this took that sort of personal intervention to another level entirely. Shahidi had to respect that.
At the close of his meeting with Ehsan and the others, they asked the Supreme Leader about his intentions. “If the Americans are serious about peace—and their president is willing to guarantee real progress, such as a meaningful Arab state and security to Iran—then I am willing to entertain the visit,” Shahidi said. “You can tell the Americans we will meet.”
“And we will assure the American president’s safety in Tehran?” Ehsan pressed.
“Yes,” Shahidi said, smiling. “We will roll out a real red carpet and welcome him into our home with an open heart.”
“Truly?” Ehsan asked.
“Yes, truly,” he answered.
Shahidi, of course, very much doubted that any American president could guarantee either of these conditions. Israel was simply not willing to move toward either of them, in any meaningful fashion. Strong-armed efforts from their closest ally were not likely to change their minds, he believed.
But he would meet with the American president. He could at least do that—even as he privately wondered if they weren’t just a matter of days away from the beginning of the time when the Jewish Dajjal and the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, would appear on the world stage as his empty-headed president often talked about in public.
65
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA
Pak Jong Un missed his friend. You Moon was the only true friend he’d ever had, and he could use a friend right now. The news of his father’s death and the knowledge that the leadership mantle had now passed to him was almost too much to bear.
The truth, which he would never admit to anyone, was that he regretted the decision he’d made in haste to send his friend away after their dispute.
But Jong Un also had a great deal of pride, and he was fiercely competitive. He had been very angry with his friend at the time. You Moon should never have challenged him the way he did. It was a direct threat to Jong Un’s authority, and his friend deserved to be punished for his mistake.
Still, over time, Jong Un had thought better of his impetuous actions. He would never bring You Moon back from Camp 16, of course. No, that would severely undermine his position and resolve as the next leader of North Korea. One did not admit any mistake, no matter how much one might think otherwise. No leader in his position could ever admit to a mistake.
Despite this, however, Jong Un had not deleted his friend’s contact information or mVillage page on the personal computer he kept in his private bedroom. Sometimes, when he was feeling especially alone, he would sit and reread some of You Moon’s posts that he still kept in his archive.
Today was an especially bad day. Jong Un was more depressed than usual. His father’s closest military advisors had warned him that there would be no official announcement of his father’s death. They said that the change in leadership would be announced later, at an appropriate time.
For now, however, the North Korean people would be told that Jong Un’s father had fallen ill, and would not be making any public appearances for a while. They also ordered Jong Un to essentially remain in hiding while they dealt with the Americans and others.
Under no circumstances, they told him, would Pak Jong Un meet with the American president if the man foolishly chose to land in Pyongyang. They would deal with it through proper channels, the military advisors assured him.
The advisors came to visit him with regular updates. But, Jong Un knew, it was mostly for show. None of them were giving him much real information.
Which is why, he knew, he would need to search mVillage forums and elsewhere for actual news of what the rest of the world thought of North Korea just now.
Bored and frustrated, Jo
ng Un called up his mVillage account to search the forums. He realized, with a start, that a new message from You Moon had arrived in his inbox. He sat there for nearly a minute, just staring at the message that had been forwarded from the mobile he now rarely used. Jong Un simply could not imagine how his friend had sent him a message.
Jong Un blinked twice, glanced around his bedroom nervously, then opened the message. He wondered, vaguely, how long it would take the security agency to catch up to the message.
He read it quickly. Its contents shocked Jong Un as much as the fact that You Moon had been able to send him the message in the first place.
His father had been poisoned? And the KPA leadership was prepared to detonate a cesium doomsday device—one that would do untold damage to North Korea—that even he knew nothing about? It just didn’t seem possible.
And yet, Jong Un knew, it might very well be true. There was no reason for You Moon to deceive him. The mere act of sending the message would likely guarantee You Moon’s immediate execution, once the security apparatus tracked it down.
If Jong Un’s father’s closest military advisors—some of whom had been his own friends and advisors since childhood—had murdered his father, it was only a matter of time before they dealt with him as well.
Pak Jong Un knew he needed to move quickly. Without thinking through the consequences, Jong Un sent a message back to his friend:
Tell the Americans I will meet with their president when he lands in Pyongyang.
66
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE