Darke Mission

by Scott Caladon

  JJ took this all in. He remembered the silver vaults robbery. The vaults there were meant to be in the top ten of impenetrable vaults in the world. If he recalled correctly, the same type of vault was used as part of a 1957 US nuclear test in Nevada. The 30-odd kiloton nuke tore away the vault’s steel reinforcements and some trim, but the core of the vault remained intact. Here they were with a 19 year old kid who undid it with a phone and a couple of laptops. JJ was warming to Victor.

  “How come you’ve got an Italian accent?” asked JJ directly.

  “My maternal grandmother was Italian and I stayed with her for a lot of my early life.”

  JJ didn’t really have anything additional to ask Victor. His credentials were his results and Ethel’s recommendation. Ethel had recruited Victor as her lead CI on financial crime and he had never let her down.

  JJ proceeded to outline the North Korean mission to Victor. He was free to choose whether to participate or not, but if it was not then he’d need to spend the next few weeks in solitary, just in case. If he said yes then Ethel would provide a cover story for Belmarsh, officials and selected inmates alike. Victor listened intently to JJ’s tale of adventure. For indeed, it was a tale of adventure to him. He was nineteen and full of the vim and vigour normally found in a French/Italian teenager. He understood why he had to be incarcerated in Belmarsh, but it was rubbish. He felt claustrophobic and surrounded all the time by seriously odd and dangerous scumbags. He was to be paid handsomely for his participation in North Korea and Ethel promised he’d be given a new identity on return and would not need to see the inside of Belmarsh ever again. Of course he was in.

  The meeting ended with three happy participants. JJ added a few more essential details and he shook Victor’s hand with enthusiasm.

  “Mr Darke,” said Victor. “One final thing. Do you know what type of vaults are in the DPRK’s central bank?”

  “No, Victor, I haven’t a Scooby-Doo. That’s a piece of research you could get cracking on, if you’ll forgive the pun,” said JJ jovially. The three of them laughed. Victor was especially happy that he could ditch his prison issue maroon jogging bottoms and faded anonymous T-shirt. Not the threads that a cool dude safe cracker should be seen in. Bring on the adventure.

  * * *

  JJ, Ethel and Victor were all on the morning BA flight from Heathrow to Seoul. It was an eleven hour flight so plenty of time for them to contemplate the universe. There would be no chatter regarding the mission. Walls have ears and so do planes. The disguised Volvo trucks were also en route via a DHL cargo plane, courtesy of Harold McFarlane and his team. Harold had also loaned JJ two HGV drivers, at a price, to ensure that the trucks got safely off the plane and out of Seoul Incheon International airport. There was no thought or discussion regarding any further participation by these drivers. The ‘Toblerone’ conveyors were with the trucks, housed in a dark blue Mercedes Sprinter van, significantly tweaked and enhanced by Harold’s engineers and described as ‘the fastest van in the West’ by his friend. The Mercedes logos and badges had been removed. Harold may not have known exactly what JJ was up to, but he was wily enough to realise that disguise and anonymity were the order of the day.

  As JJ was dozing in between half watching movies he had already seen, the three things he was worrying about were Cyrus, the precise details of the heist and the needed truck drivers, in that order. He thought Cyrus and Gil would be fine. He had told Cyrus he was on a business trip and that he would be home within a week. Cyrus was OK with that. JJ just hoped that it turned out as advertised. The drivers were still an issue. He hoped that Jim Bradbury, the KLO and his American friend, would have an idea or two. It would not be easy keeping Jim out of the loop. The ex-fill cover story was adequate but if he asked Jim about truck drivers and, given that the two helpful Koreans from his office would at least see them, he was going to need to feed Jim a few more information morsels.

  The night before, JJ, Ethel and Victor had been discussing the break in. JJ had already acquired diagrams and detailed schematics of the DPRK central bank in Pyongyang. He had a good idea of the layout now. He and Ethel would scope out the visible security the day before the heist and hope it was not markedly different at night. Victor had done his research and discovered that the secure room leading to central bank’s gold hoard was most likely protected by a UL Class II vault. This was meant to be the second most difficult vault to penetrate, taking at least sixty minutes, according to the performance standards set by Underwriters Laboratories, the major underwriter and overseer of the world’s best bank vaults.

  Victor had obtained images of vaults likely to be similar to that in the target central bank. It probably would be a dual custody lock which protected it rather than a time lock he concluded. That would be relatively good news, but it would still require two people to dial the different combinations at exactly the same time. Victor was still working on the details. JJ was hoping that one of those details was how to reduce the breach time well below sixty minutes.

  There was very little else that JJ could think about just now. He’d more or less shoved to the back of his mind that he was in this position because of Neil Robson’s blackmail and desperate need for government monies. He knew he could not trust him but he also knew that there was little he could do about that right now. Right now, he’d better put together a significantly more comprehensive plan than the one that was currently on offer. His own life, that of Ethel, Victor, Jim and the two, as yet unmet, Koreans were at stake. If they were caught in the act they’d be executed or dumped in a North Korean prison camp that would make Belmarsh seem like Butlins. He would never see Cyrus again. That was JJ’s prize. No matter the obstacles, curve balls, negative random surprises that this mission threw up, being a dad to Cyrus, his mentor, his friend, was his true incentive to overcome everything that North Korea and cancer could throw at him. He needed to stay alive. With that thought, JJ slowly fell into a deep slumber.

  * * *

  JJ had hired an E-class titanium hued Mercedes AMG at Seoul airport. He was driving, Ethel was in the front passenger seat and Victor, all hooked up with his laptop and smartphones lolling about in the back. They had just passed Gangnam Station and were on the lookout for PAU Travel, the CIA’s cover for their embedded office in the South Korean capital. The FAW-style trucks and tankers had been parked up a few minutes away in a vast multi-storey car park that was full of trucks, buses and other large vehicles. The Mercedes Sprinter van was parked there too. The car park, really it was a truck park, had twenty-four hour security so JJ felt comfortable. Being out of sight in plain sight was often the best way.

  JJ parked on the street just outside of PAU Travel. Before he could even ring the bell, the door opened and there was Jim Bradbury.

  “Saw you coming, JJ, you must be slipping in your old age,” said the man from Arizona, giving JJ a full strength man-hug.

  JJ was happy to see Jim. “You don’t sound very Korean for a KLO, Jim.”

  “I can turn on the Korean when I want, as you know,” retorted Bradbury.

  JJ introduced Ethel and Victor. Jim didn’t ask them or JJ anything about his companions, their backgrounds or their skillset. They were here with JJ, his old pal, and that was good enough.

  “Come on in and sit down and let’s grab a decent coffee,” Bradbury said as he motioned his three guests into a meeting room just beyond the front desk of the apparent travel agency. “Let me get a couple of the guys,” said Bradbury, clearly referring to the two helpful Koreans that he had mentioned before.

  Ethel and JJ were enjoying their decent coffees, Victor stuck to water, he was still footering about on his tablet. Jim Bradbury returned with two Koreans, both apparently in their early thirties, though it was difficult to tell with an untrained eye. One was about 5ft 10in, slim and athletic looking, the other about three inches shorter, more stocky and with muscles bulging through his upper shirt sleeves. Both had dark brown hair, cut short.

  “This is Kim Min-Jun,” said
Jim Bradbury, pointing to the muscly shorter one, “and this is Kim Chun-So,” he added introducing the taller one. “We call them Lily and the Iceman.”

  JJ wanted to know why those nicknames but he would find that out later. For the moment, he was just interested in what these two Korean CIA officers could do. Both Kims had trained at ‘The Point’ in North Carolina and had gone to university in the same state. They had become the best of friends and had requested their current assignments in South Korea. They had been briefed by Jim Bradbury that an ex-MI5 Officer and his team had been ordered to carry out a delicate ex-fill operation in the North and that the CIA was to assist. Beyond that they knew little. This first meeting was unlikely to enlighten them any further.

  As JJ and Jim Bradbury stepped out of the meeting room, the two Kims, Ethel and Victor got to know each other a little. The discussion was primarily small talk, background, training etc. It was relatively straightforward for Ethel, she explained CO19 and her role in it and said that she’d been selected for the mission primarily for her shooting prowess and that she had known JJ for a long time. Broadly speaking that was true. Victor piped up and said that he was ‘the knowledge’ as far as any type of electronic communication and surveillance was concerned. This was broadly true as well. However, had his moral code been guided by the Roman Catholic catechism whereby actual sin is ‘every sin which we ourselves commit, by thought, word, deed or omission’ then he’d have been branded a liar on the last count. No mention of safecracking or Belmarsh was on the table today.

  As the four teammates continued their chat, Jim and JJ were standing outside, leaning against the water cooler. JJ was particularly happy to get rehydrated. He didn’t drink as much water as he should have on the plane, either on the grounds of general well-being or more importantly given his particular health concern. It wasn’t for a good reason either, simply because when he was down and comfy in the plane’s seat, he never felt like getting up to pee every five minutes, or queue to pee, or get knocked out by the stench of pee in the plane’s loos after a multi-hour flight. Some guys’ aims are a disgrace.

  “JJ, it’s really really great to see you and you know I’ll give you every assistance that I can. After that time in Bosnia when you saved my skin, I’ve always owed you, even if you didn’t feel owed,” said Jim.

  “I know you will, and it’s no sweat, you’d have done the same for me,” replied JJ.

  “I like to think I would have, but, in the heat of the moment, under heavy fire, you never know,” Bradbury said, realistically. “Look, JJ, I know there’s more going on than an ex-fill operation. However important the ex-fill is, British Intelligence would have sent a regular MI6 team, not a retired MI5 Officer. Ethel might pass for an intelligence officer, but the kid, Victor, he seems more like a student on dope than an agent. I don’t expect you to tell me everything, and I’ll help you no matter what, but things around here have become a bit unusually active and I’m dedicating two of my men to your team. I need some kind of heads up.”

  JJ contemplated Jim Bradbury’s comments. He knew he was right. The man from Arizona was no dimwit and JJ was on his patch. Lying to him would be wrong and unprofessional. He was going to need to give Jim more information but not full information, just yet.

  “Fine, Jim. Let’s get some privacy and I’ll fill you in.”

  “Thanks, JJ. Much appreciated.”

  As JJ left the support of the water cooler, preparing to have a one on one with his friend, Jim Bradbury put his hand on JJ’s shoulder.

  “Before we go into all that, JJ, there’s someone in our secure communications room I think you’ll want to meet.”

  6: LILY AND THE ICEMAN

  “How’s your mum, Cally?”

  JJ and his daughter were having dinner at Omoya, a Japanese Izakaya, not far from Gangnam station. JJ remembered that as a child Carolyn loved roast chicken and she still did, her second favourite dinner meal after Châteaubriand. The katsu sauce at Omoya was outstanding, robust and tangy. Carolyn was tucking in heartily.

  “She’s fine, met an American guy who works at The Wall Street Journal in New York, so they chat about news stories all day long.”

  Father and daughter dinners can be very rewarding or they can be awkward. This was a little awkward to begin with tonight, not really through the fault of either Darke.

  “Jim Bradbury tells me you’re going by your mother’s maiden name?” JJ mentioned but he didn’t want to push the issue too much.

  Though it was Carolyn’s mum who left him when he was in his early twenties and the baby only five years old, JJ hadn’t been an overly attentive father. He was a student when he met Rebecca Reynolds. He was at Glasgow and she was an exchange student from the University of California at Berkeley. They met at a boisterous disco in the Adam Smith building at Glasgow University, had a torrid love affair and, whazam, nine months later out popped Carolyn. The three of them lived together in a student flat just off the Byers Road in Glasgow, then moved to London after they both had graduated and JJ had been recruited by MI5.

  Rebecca struggled to settle in London. All her family were from San Francisco and she missed them. JJ worked long hours and, on occasion, would disappear for weeks on either a training course or, on a dangerous field mission. Rebecca, who had suspended her promising career as a news reporter to care for Carolyn, did not feel that JJ’s paternal support for their daughter was up to scratch. So, with JJ’s extremely reluctant blessing, Rebecca and Carolyn went back to the United States.

  JJ missed his daughter with an agonising ache that had no words to describe it. Deep down he knew he chose work over family life, however important he had felt that work to be. He helped support Carolyn and Rebecca financially until the latter told him she was more than self-sufficient many years later. He kept in long-distance touch with his daughter and knew that she had joined the CIA. As the years went by however, the calls were a little more sporadic and the topics of discussion narrower and narrower.

  “Once I’d joined the CIA, I thought it best to use mum’s name. Darke is a memorable surname and you were still known to several of the CIA veterans,” Carolyn explained, saying veterans with cheeky intent.

  JJ looked at Carolyn and, for the first time in a long time, he had tears in his eyes. His beautiful baby daughter was all grown up and had developed into a gorgeous young lady. He had more or less missed all of her teenage years and early career, the kind of times that having a good father around can be very useful.

  He felt as emotionally rough as he could remember feeling, and for the first time in weeks the mission was not at the forefront of his mind. He knew he had to get back on focus so he looked lovingly at Carolyn for only a few seconds longer.

  “So, Cally, what are you doing here in Seoul, at PAU Travel?” he asked.

  Carolyn knew her dad would not expect her to spill her guts. Though she had successfully suppressed it for years, she remembered playing with him as a child. He was fun, loving and caring. She hadn’t really understood back then why her mum had taken her to America. It seemed to boil down to a conclusion that several uncles, aunts and grandparents added up to more support than one, often absent, dad. Carolyn wasn’t sure that was the right conclusion. But it was what it was, and she too needed to get back on point.

  “I’m on a job for the agency,” she replied very matter of fact. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m on a job too,” JJ replied with equal stoicism.

  “You’re not MI5 anymore, are you?”

  “No, I’m not, but I’ve been hauled out of retirement for one last job and that job is here.”

  Carolyn knew that jobs for the British security services were not likely to be wholly fulfilling here in Seoul. “Are you going across the border?” she asked a little more penetratingly.

  JJ knew his daughter was no dummy, so there was no point in lying. In any case, the PAU Travel office would be all abuzz with the recent activity of visiting personnel. Two NGA women locked up in the
secure communications room and now an ex-MI5 officer and his entourage decide to visit. Something was afoot.

  “I am, Cally,” JJ replied a little somberly. “In the next day or so. I can’t say I’m really looking forward to it but it needs to be done. How about you?”

  “No. My job here, with Dannielle, is a listening, translating, observation and reporting assignment, no wetworks or black ops,” she replied, sounding a little disappointed.

  JJ was still getting used to his daughter being all grown up, having a career, let alone having a blind notion what wetworks and black ops were! God, this was hard he thought. “Is Jim looking after you and Dannielle?”

  “Yes, he’s great, very pleasant. He doesn’t bother us, just makes sure we have the equipment we need and any local knowledge to help us. You two know each other don’t you?”

  “We do, we were on an op together many years ago. We didn’t start out on the op together, Jim being CIA and me MI5, but force of circumstance threw us together. Luckily for us, it also threw us back out again in one piece!” He didn’t feel like bringing up the fact that he had saved Jim Bradbury’s life.

  The atmospherics between father and daughter continued to improve as the evening progressed. They started chatting about their colleagues at PAU Travel. Carolyn told her dad that, like many more regular professions, the people were fixated by nicknames.

  “Yes, I gathered that,” said JJ.

  “Jim introduced me to two of the locals who have effectively been seconded to me for a while, Lily and the Iceman.”