Darke Mission

by Scott Caladon

  “Victor,” said JJ, just before exiting the back of the van to signal to the rest of the team that they were ready to rock. “Apart from Ji-hun, you’re the only one not used to handling guns and the like. I’m not expecting a fire fight but do you have any means of protection on you, apart from your brains and quick wit?” Victor shook his head. “Can you shoot?” JJ continued, realising that there was not much point in giving the youngster a lethal weapon if he hadn’t a blind clue as to how to use it.

  “I’m no expert, JJ, not like you and Jim, but my grandfather took me to a firing range just outside of Toulouse a few times, so I know how to point and shoot, if the gun is straightforward enough,” replied Victor.

  JJ reached into his near empty kit bag on the floor pan of the van. “Here, take this,” he said giving Victor a handgun. “Not that you’re interested in it Victor, you’re more brain than brawn, but this is a Glock 22. It’s light, has an indented hand grip and a very strong polymer frame that dampens recoil. It’s more modern than mine, not that that matters. It has a trigger safety, so keep that engaged for the moment. It’s loaded with fifteen rounds and it’s reliable. If you need to use it, remember to release the safety, then aim and shoot. You’ll hit something, just make sure it’s not any of the rest of us.”

  Victor looked at the handgun and understood everything that JJ had said about it. He nodded to JJ, put the Glock in his kit bag, zipped it up and said “Ready.”

  JJ nodded back, silently musing that clearly Victor wasn’t expecting to need his newly acquired firearm. Sticking it in his zipped up holdall didn’t make it the most accessible if the young fellow needed it in a hurry. JJ decided not to mention this as he did not want to freak out Victor any more than he had done already. The safe cracker was going to be in pole position soon and he would need the calmest of minds to crack the DPRK’s central bank vaults.

  On JJ’s signal, Ethel, Lily, the Iceman, Kwon and Ji-hun, got out of the PetroChina tankers’ cabs and headed to the van. It was a tight squeeze, all squashed up in between the ‘Toblerones’. Jim Bradbury and his two PAU Travel colleagues were in the front of the van, in the driver’s cabin, with the remaining five in the back. It made sense that way. The team was not expecting to be stopped between the petrol station and the central bank. There were no official checkpoints. The van was dark blue, de-badged and anonymous. If anyone caught a peek at or spoke to the drivers then there were two Koreans and a Korean linguist up front. Jim had put on his baseball cap for the short journey from the petrol station to the central bank. He was not committing the same fashion faux pas as at Songnim docks but nobody would clock his Caucasian chopper at that time of night, in the dark, in disguise lite.

  The fifteen minute drive to the rear of the central bank was uneventful. The Iceman had parked up, about a hundred yards from the central bank and on a slight incline, so that they could survey the car park.

  “Can you see anything Iceman?” asked JJ from the back of the van. Kim Chun-So had his binoculars out and was scouring the car park.

  “There are about seven vehicles still in the car park,” the Iceman reported. “Looks like around four saloon cars and three vans, two of which are about the same dimensions as this one. There are no guards either at the gates of the car park or what looks to be the rear entrance to the central bank. There are two CCTV cameras on long poles at the gates pointed inwards to the car park, and two aimed at the rear entrance of the central bank,” he added.

  JJ absorbed the information. “Kwon, ask Ji-hun if there are normally guards at the rear of the central bank, either the building itself or the car park?”

  Kwon asked and Ji-hun said no, only cameras. It made sense, thought JJ. In a country where you could be thrown into a stinking cesspit of a jail for farting a mile upwind of its supreme leader, the penalties for serious crime were so harsh and unrelenting that the non-political crime rate was one of the lowest on the planet. Nobody in their right mind would try to rob anywhere in Pyongyang let alone the central bank. A quartet of cameras seemed a reasonable security precaution under the circumstances.

  “Victor,” said JJ. “What are we going to do about the cameras?”

  “I’m on it,” replied Victor, tapping away on his laptop.

  “What are you doing?” asked Ethel, mesmerised by the speed and dexterity of his keyboard work.

  “There are several ways to disable a surveillance camera,” replied Victor. “Crude ways involve hitting it with a hammer, or disabling the camera lens with an infra-red laser. The trouble with the crudes is that the camera might spot you as you try to assault it so an image will show up on the security office’s computer screens. Even if you manage to zap the eye in the sky with a laser, the monitoring guard will realise the camera is down and investigate. So the crude ways are off the menu tonight.

  “So what are your dancing digits doing then?” persisted Ethel.

  “In the vast majority of cases, when CCTV cameras are set up, their default settings can be accessed remotely via the internet. Most purchasers and users of the equipment don’t know this. They’re just hoping that it allows them to access the footage via a laptop, even mobile phone. So if the appropriate central bank’s security guard is having a number 2 in the bank’s loo, he can watch the CCTV footage on his mobile phone, if he wants to,” said Victor smiling. “For the bad guys, or the good guys, however you would like to describe this happy band of eight tonight, these default settings allow us, i.e. me, to access the surveillance systems. If I can hack into them, and their password security is normally pathetic, then I too can look at the footage. More importantly, I can move the camera remotely, change the line of sight, zoom in and zoom out, send it on a loop,” added Victor, his mesmeric fingers now at rest. “Viola!” he announced, turning his laptop screen towards Ethel and JJ. Victor was now in charge of the DPRK’s external CCTV system.

  “What was the password, genius?” asked Ethel.

  “1,2,3,4,” replied Victor. “Around 80 – 85% of these types of cameras use one of four passwords, 1234, 1111, admin, or user. The new users of the cameras rarely change them to something more secure, and no matter which country they’re in, the default settings security password is still usually one of these.”

  “Good job, Victor,” said JJ, placing a hand on the young hacker’s back.

  “Won’t the bank’s security guard who is monitoring the camera’s live footage, notice it’s been tampered with?” asked Jim Bradbury.

  “No,” said Victor. “Unless the guard is remotely accessing the camera’s output at exactly the same time as me, he will notice nothing. I’ve now sent the cameras on a loop so in all probability we can remain undetected in the car park until the morning.”

  “OK,” said JJ. “Let’s drive closer to the gates. Lily you open them, Iceman you park up next to that dark coloured van you saw and which seemed to be only a few yards from the bank’s rear entrance.”

  The team were on the move. JJ understood probabilities. As they were driving into the car park, JJ turned to Victor and asked in a low voice, “Victor, what would you have done had the camera system been one of the 15-20% that had its security password changed?”

  “Cried,” said the young man, with a glint in his eye.

  JJ, Jim, Ethel, Lily and Victor all got out of the dark blue Sprinter van. They were parked next to a black 4x4, a Pyeonghwa Pronto, according to Lily. It wasn’t as big as the Sprinter van, more the dimensions of a Toyota Land Cruiser, the Japanese model on which the PP was based. If push came to shove, they’d probably get most of the ‘Toblerones’ in that car/van with all but the front seats lowered flat. Before leaving their Sprinter van JJ had asked Ji-hun, via deep cover Kwon, if he knew the code for the keypad lock at the back entrance. Ji-hun said that this was the service lift and went to all the floors of the central bank. The code was 1,2,3,4.

  “Jesus Christ,” blurted JJ, not in an unhappy tone, more an incredulous one. “Is there any code in this fucking dump that’s not 1,2,3
,4?” his blurt was within earshot of Victor.

  “I don’t think the code to the vaults will be 1,2,3,4, boss,” offered up Victor. JJ said nothing but acknowledged the safe cracker’s unhelpful contribution with a small shrug of the shoulders.

  The Iceman’s job was to prep the PP jeep to ensure that it could fire up in a hurry and to lower the rear seats in preparation to receive the ‘Toblerones’. Hopefully, the car’s owner would not turn up while the heist was underway, and it would be way more healthy for him if he didn’t. Victor was impressed with Kwon’s Xaver 600 mini tablet technology that he loaned Lily and the Iceman which could see objects through walls. Victor had seen one before in London, but here, in North Korea, it was sure a rare piece of kit. The Xaver’s penetration intel, confirmed by the moaner Ji-hun, was that the main vaults were one level below ground level. Ji-hun had also told the Iceman that the security detail on this floor was based in a bullet proof, lockable office with total visibility on three of the four sides of the office’s near square shape. The visibility was focussed on the vault’s doors. Luckily, for the five in the service lift, its doors opened to face the one solid wall of the security office.

  Lily was first out of the lift. He had borrowed Ji-hun’s security guard uniform and cap. Each guard at the DPRK had two, identical uniforms. The one that Ji-hun was wearing on kidnap day was in his locker on the ground floor. The one that Lily was wearing, looking a little daft in it, as he was a few inches shorter than Ji-hun, had been in the wash at the moaner’s apartment. Lily walked up to the security office door, knocked and waved at the two guards inside. Simultaneously, the other four heisters had dropped to a prone position and silently high crawled marine style to either side of the door. The two security guards weren’t expecting Lily or, indeed, a legitimate colleague, but maybe something was up or maybe he was being very considerate to the night shift and bringing them a welcome snack. Unfortunately for the guards, the only mouthfuls they got were of smoke and gas. Both guards got off their chairs to meet and greet Lily. As the office door opened, JJ lobbed in a couple of tear gas grenades and a smoke bomb. The guards were coughing, spluttering and trying to wipe their eyes as Ethel entered the office in a full face mask with breathing apparatus attached. She whacked both the disoriented security men with her police baton, brought all the way from London for the ride, and left them prostrate on the floor. Lily had exited the office at pace and even though he had been near the entrance when JJ tossed in the tear gas he was still finding it difficult to catch his breath. A few minutes had elapsed before the tear gas dissipated, JJ had deliberately used a low concentration variant. Ethel removed her breathing gear and she and Jim were tying up the guards with duct tape. Lily re-entered the fray and injected both guards with propofol, courtesy of Kwon’s collection. This would keep the guards out cold for at least four hours. If that wasn’t enough time to complete their task then they were in big trouble, not least of which because Ji-hun had told them the relief schedule of the vaults’ guards, i.e. the two on the ground were due to be replaced in four hours from now at 7am. Since entering the service lift nobody had said a word. Everybody knew their job and, so far, it had all gone to plan.

  Jim Bradbury and the now breathing easily Lily set up position outside the rear of the security office. They had a clear view of the main lift, the service elevator, and the stairs. They were hunkered down behind their kit bags and backpacks. Jim had his semi-automatic SIG Sauer ready and Lily his Remington 870 pump action shotgun. If anyone or anything entered this level of the DPRK central bank that wasn’t a buddy or a batch of ‘Toblerones’ then they were in for a rude awakening.

  JJ, Ethel and Victor were still in the security office. Victor was checking that the loop he had sent the car park cameras on was still working. It was. JJ was checking that all the other screens in the office were on and showing a lack of activity. They were. Ethel was checking that the two unconscious guards were still breathing and still knocked out. They were. Checks complete, the three of them made their way to the main vault doors. Once the moaner Ji-hun had decided to squeal, faced with good incentives and little sensible alternative, he had told JJ and the Iceman about the main vault security. From his recollection and observation the vault had a dual combination lock and probably was on a timer.

  “Looks like Ji-hun’s information was spot on,” said Victor, surveying the massive vault doors with respect. “It’s a steel reinforced concrete vault with a dual custody lock. Both dials need to be unlocked and it’s very, very unlikely one will automatically release the other,” he added. “It’s also got a time lock, which has been pre-assembled, and built into the vault’s door. We have no idea when it is set to unlock, possibly not till at least 10am. It’s probably a UL Class II or Class III vault,” he concluded.

  “Is that good or bad, kiddo?” asked Ethel.

  “Neither,” replied Victor. “The classification refers to the expected length of time it would take to breach a vault, set up for a mock break in by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) in Illinois. A class M one would take up to fifteen minutes. This one at least an hour, maybe two to three.”

  “Three hours would be pushing it Victor,” interrupted JJ. “As well as getting into the vault, we’ve got to load a bunch of 12.5kg bullion bars and get the ‘Toblerones’ down here to do that. As a rough calculation, if each of the ‘Toblerones’ has thirty gold bars on it continuously, and it takes a rapid three minutes to transfer them from here to the van, we’d need the best part of three hours to do it. You’ve got one hour at best Victor,” said JJ, unhappy that the safe cracker could not be allocated longer to ply his trade.

  “Good job I brought my thermal lance and my tablet then,” said Victor.

  JJ knew enough about stuff to realise that thermal lances were capable of burning through steel and concrete. As far as he knew, though, their capabilities were often exaggerated. JJ would return to that point in a minute he thought.

  “What good’s your tablet, Victor, going to play a safe cracking video game?”

  “No, Sir,” replied Victor, ferreting about in his large bag. “Time locks work because they’ve got mini computers inside them. They are programmed by the manufacturer and set in place before the vault is delivered to the vault owner. If the vault owner wants to change the time lock parameters, he has to get the manufacturer to remotely reprogram them. It cannot be done onsite and it would be prohibitively expensive and impractical to rebuild the vault if ever the owner wanted a different time lock span.” Victor was nearly consumed by his bag now, but seconds later announced, “Here you are, you little blighter.”

  JJ and Ethel were still listening, not knowing whether they should be elated or deflated.

  “Built into the hardware of this here tablet…” Victor said, waving a skinny device, no more than eight inches by five inches, “is a gigabyte P55 series motherboard. The manufacturers of this nifty piece of kit were aiming mainly at the domestic marketplace to allow parents to set time limits on their kids’ computers to avoid overuse and consequent brain shrinkage.”

  JJ and Ethel looked a bit happier, but they really didn’t know why, they barely understood what Victor was babbling on about. However, the youngster was looking all pleased with himself so something good must be happening.

  “And?” asked Ethel, impatiently.

  “And if you’re a smart enough cookie to be able to mess with the accompanying software then you can use it to accelerate or decelerate computer programmed time,” Victor finished. Indeed, he was a smart enough cookie. Surely there hadn’t been a tastier cookie since Edd Byrnes in 77 Sunset Strip.

  “Won’t you trigger an alarm if you break into the time lock?” Ethel asked.

  “No. I’m not breaking in. I’m going to unscrew the outer cover and attach three leads to the lock’s innards. This will bypass the clock as set and once I’ve keyed in a few commands on my tablet, you will see the digital time display speed up. When we hit the time that the lock was set to open then one pi
ece of the puzzle will be solved,” Victor replied as his flashing fingers moved deftly about the keyboard.

  “What about the dual custody locks?” asked JJ.

  “They’re the time constraint. I can probably unlock them, this gizmo is like an augmented hearing aid with stethoscope attached. I can magnetically attach the ends of it to each lock. This will then magnify the sound as I key in the numerical codes. A short high pitched tone signals the correct number and a long low pitched one means I entered the wrong number.”

  “Don’t suppose 1,2,3,4 or 1,1,1,1 will be the answer?” said JJ hopefully.

  “Unfortunately not, boss. For starters, each of these locks has a five digit code. I can’t be sure but every time I enter a wrong number the electronic system will block the lock for maybe five minutes. If I get two numbers in a row wrong it may block it for a further twenty minutes. Even if I get the first lock undone swiftly, I will have only around fifteen to twenty seconds to open the second one. That’s why I would need to use both the earphones to try to disengage the locks simultaneously. Each panel in the lock’s window can have the number 0 to 9, that’s ten digits. Assuming a number can be repeated, which in these types of lock they usually can, that gives us 105 or 100,000 possible combinations.”