Temple of Spies

by Ian Kharitonov

  Frey frowned as he tightened the grip on his Beretta, watching the action unfold. Deep lines etched his forehead. His receding hair and growing gut conspired to make him look a decade older than his real age. He was entering the twilight of a career which had begun years ago in Seoul, and he was desperate to end it on a high. He would not let it slip.

  The casually dressed suspects, three Iranians and two North Koreans, panicked as they found themselves surrounded by Arintharat-26, the Special Operations Unit of the Royal Thai Police. The Iranian higher-up barked a command in Farsi to his two subordinates as he whipped out a handgun and opened fire at the advancing Thai team. A North Korean also drew his semi-automatic as his comrade took flight.

  None of them stood any chance against the special unit. The armor-clad members of Arintharat-26 scythed them down with a storm of bullets from Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns. The Iranians dropped dead, their skulls cracking open like ripe melons from the well-placed head shots. A salvo killed the gun-wielding North Korean even before he could pull the trigger. His running comrade stopped in his tracks and crashed down as slugs tore into his back.

  The firefight had ended in a flash. The Arintharat-26 men secured the area in the vicinity of the containers and their team leader gave the all-clear signal.

  “Dammit,” Frey muttered as he came over to inspect the carnage.

  All five arms-traffickers lay in pools of blood. The grisly sight coupled with the thick, smoggy air made Frey feel like he was suffocating. The armored vest on top of his long-sleeved shirt and tie didn’t help, either.

  “You okay?” asked a Thai-accented voice behind him. “You don’t look too happy. Lots of blood, eh?”

  Chatchai, the liaison from Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, joined Frey on the scene. At six feet tall, Frey towered over the short Asian. The Thai cut a portly figure and his soft, chubby features made him a man of indeterminate age. Perspiration on Chatchai’s shaved scalp glistened in the sun. With his fleshy cheeks and protruding ears, Chatchai reminded Frey of a laughing Budai figurine sold in souvenir shops.

  “Yeah,” Frey admitted. “I wanted to catch at least one of them. Alive.”

  Chatchai shrugged. “We won.”

  For a small fish in a small pond like Chatchai, seizing the arms shipment was more than enough. It constituted a domestic triumph that would propel his DSI career further. The global war on terror appeared to be peripheral to his personal glory.

  Frey nodded, but in his mind he rued the outcome of the operation. His gut feeling told him that the shipment was merely a piece of the puzzle. Now all possible links to the grand scheme had ended up sprawled on concrete, pumped full of lead and very much dead. Standing over the body of the lead Iranian, Frey identified him as Hossein Azizi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Just where and when Azizi’s terrorist group had intended to use the weapons, and for what purpose, Frey would never learn. Yet witnessing Azizi’s death had provided a measure of consolation.

  Chatchai gave the order to open up the first twenty-foot-long container, splattered with Azizi’s blood. The Arintharat men cut the metal locks and inspected the cargo labeled as drilling equipment. Inside one of the crates, they uncovered a batch of grenade launchers, fresh off the production line of a North Korean arms factory.

  Chatchai beamed like a Cheshire cat. “Tom, just look at this!”

  Cheering, he shook Frey’s hand.

  Just then, a harried Arintharat officer addressed Chatchai.

  “Sir, one of the perpetrators is alive!”

  Frey spun around and rushed toward another Thai operator who was keeping an eye on a prostrate North Korean several meters away from the containers.

  The runner.

  Covered in blood, peppered with slugs, he was still breathing, groaning in agony.

  “Hot damn.”

  Frey couldn’t believe his luck. Snatching the North Korean spy could blow the lid off the arms deal and expose the entire terrorist network.

  He turned to Chatchai.

  “Listen carefully,” he told the DSI man. “You and your men will make no mention of this bastard’s existence in your reports. You’ve only seen four bad guys. Three Iranians, one North Korean. Not this one. No big deal. Nothing else changes. Understood?”

  Chatchai’s black eyes darted from the wounded Korean back to Frey.

  “I have no idea who you are talking about. I never saw him.”

  “Good. Now get me your car over here before he kicks the bucket.”

  “Do you think he’s transportable?”

  “He’d better damned well be. The hell I will let him die without telling me everything he knows first.”

  Then, in a last-gasp act of desperation, the North Korean summoned whatever stamina he had left. He sprang to his feet and launched himself at the Arintharat officer. A strike with the stock of the MP5 knocked the wind out of the resilient smuggler in an instant, and the officer zip-cuffed him.

  “On the double, Chatchai!” Frey commanded. “Looks like the bastard's got some beans to spill. He’d rather get shot than start talking. But I’ll make him talk, whatever it takes. He’s mine now.”

  3

  The post-9/11 war on terror had given rise to CIA secret prisons around the world, known as black sites. The unrestrained use of black sites had allowed the CIA to employ abduction and torture as intelligence-gathering techniques against terror suspects. Under the covert interrogation program, detainees would be whisked away to any of the black sites scattered across Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, or most notably, Eastern Europe: Poland, Romania, Lithuania. But the earliest black site, which would spawn the CIA’s global network of clandestine facilities, had been located in Thailand. Code-named ‘Cat’s Eye,’ a warehouse in the north-eastern Thai province of Udon Thani had housed the CIA’s first high-value prisoner and Al-Qaeda leader, Abu Zabaydah. Other black sites had also existed elsewhere in Thailand, including one at the Don Muang Royal Thai Air Force base outside Bangkok.

  While the majority of black sites had been shut down, a nondescript building on the outskirts of Pattaya remained fully functional. Hidden in plain view on an ordinary street, the single-story structure did not appear any different from the houses surrounding it. No security forces protected it, no sign denoted it as property of the Thai government. Only a simple fence isolated the tiny plot of land it stood on, overgrown with tropical shrubs and short palm trees.

  Inside, the North Korean spy lay on a cot, unconscious, his wounds cleaned and bandaged. The ceiling fan stirred the odor of antiseptics around the Spartan room, mixing it with the air’s hot dampness. A strand of Frey’s dark hair stuck to his sweaty forehead.

  “So, how long has he got?”

  Kerry Gwinn, an American doctor on the CIA payroll, drew a curt, exasperated sigh.

  “Your guy has a bullet lodged in tissue from the penetrating gunshot wound to the thorax, but I don’t think the lung was hit. He should be diagnosed properly, however. I believe there’s internal bleeding and intestinal damage from the second bullet. It entered his posterior left flank near the twelfth rib and exited through the abdomen. This could mean very bad news. If he doesn’t bleed to death, he’ll die of severe infection. He needs immediate hospitalization and surgery.”

  “That’s out of the question, Doc. He knows enough for his own comrades or Azizi’s men to come after him. Either they’ll kill him as soon as he shows up near a hospital, or they’ll vanish from Thailand by the time I get the chance to interview him. He’s staying put.”

  “In that case, his prognosis is bleak. I’m warning you that if he doesn’t undergo laparotomy in the next eight to twelve hours—”

  “Ample time for me to squeeze the intel out of him.”

  “In his current condition, you shouldn’t expect much. His blood pressure is dropping. As he suffers circulatory shock, he won’t be able to respond to your questions.”

  “I’ll take the gamble. Nothing to lose. Just get him into some
sort of shape. Like you said, there’s not much time to waste.”

  Frey’s tone ended all further debate.

  Giving up, Gwinn injected the Korean with a stimulant.

  Frey paced the stuffy room, clenching his fists nervously. His plan was going to hell. He still hoped to extract some useful information from the prisoner before his physical state deteriorated further. Such extreme methods as waterboarding did not seem worthwhile, as he was unlikely to survive it. Frey would have to rely on chemically assisted interrogation. It hardly guaranteed success, but even a long shot was worth a try. Barring a miracle, the captive spy would take his secrets to the grave. His non-official cover made it almost impossible to identify him and trace his contacts.

  Three minutes later, the Korean blinked rapidly. He groaned, attempting to move, but the pain paralyzed him. With a deft hand, Gwinn administered an intravenous shot. It was a short-acting narcoanalysis drug which produced a psychoactive effect in less than a minute.

  “The hypnotic trance will wear off quickly,” Gwinn cautioned.

  Frey pulled up a chair and sat next to the cot.

  He shouted, “Neo! Ireumi mwoya?” You! What’s your name?

  The Korean’s lips moved, his voice barely audible.

  “Lee.”

  Frey continued in fluent Korean. “I know that you’re a spy from the North. At Laem Chabang, you were involved in the illegal transfer of weapons to Iranian terrorists. Right now, you can obtain medical attention and a new life courtesy of the American government. All you have to do is provide the details of your arms-smuggling deal—”

  Lee emitted a moan which grew into a guttural cry.

  “Father! … Father!”

  He stared blankly at the ceiling, beads of sweat running down his face.

  “Listen to me, Lee! Give me the name of your handler!”

  Instead of answering, Lee kept repeating the word over and over again like a mantra.

  “He’s delirious,” Gwinn said. “It’s no use.”

  Then, Lee yelled out in English.

  “Father! The priest!”

  Frey bolted from his chair.

  “The hell are you talking about? What priest?”

  “The priest! … I need to see him! … Dionysius. Father Dionysius. The All Saints Church in Pattaya. The Russian priest!”

  Lee mumbled groggily as his voice faded. Then he passed out.

  Frey grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

  “Take it easy!” Gwinn intervened, holding Frey back. “You won’t get anything else from him.”

  Livid with rage, Frey kicked the chair.

  “Worthless bastard!”

  He had reached a dead end and he knew it.

  Getting hold of himself, he realized that he possessed a single lead to work on.

  The priest.

  If Lee somehow knew him, then the priest could also know something about Lee.

  Still, Frey didn’t get his hopes up. It was far more likely that the Korean had been babbling complete nonsense. The drug’s influence often yielded fantasies instead of valuable data. Frey was clutching at straws, but it was his last resort. He had to dial Chatchai again.

  4

  As it turned out, the Russian priest was not Russian at all. Father Dionysius had Oriental features and a complexion to match. Even his facial hair, mandatory for Orthodox Christian clergy, grew in tiny whiskers. The full-length black cassock, long-sleeved and loose-fitting, looked incongruous with the frail Asian man wearing it in such excessively hot weather. Seemingly still in his twenties, he appeared remarkably young for a holy father.

  As he got out of Chatchai’s Nissan, Tom Frey showed the confessor inside the house. Frey felt no risk in bringing any visitor to the black site, let alone a priest. By design, the house gave away nothing out of the ordinary. Frey showed him into the room where Lee lay dying.

  “Do you know that man?” Frey asked.

  Father Dionysius shook his head.

  “How did he know about you? He asked to see you specifically.”

  “A lot of people come to our church to find peace,” the priest answered in English.

  With him, Father Dionysius carried a small bag which contained his communion kit. Frey scrutinized the priest as he went through his ritual. Himself raised a Roman Catholic, Frey couldn’t remember when he’d last gone to church, but he stood mesmerized by the ancient ceremony. Although he wasn’t too religious, Frey acknowledged that Christian tradition had transcended millennia and offered a sense of continuity. He was witnessing a liturgy that people had performed centuries before his birth and would continue to do so centuries after his own death.

  On the chair next to the cot, Dionysius laid out his utensils. Frey recognized some of the objects which were similar to those in the Western Mass. Atop a veil, the priest placed the ciborium, a receptacle for carrying the Sacrament bread and wine, and lit a candle. Then Father Dionysius recited a prayer in Slavonic as he poured wine into a golden chalice, mixing it with the Eucharistic bread.

  “I must ask you to leave,” he told Frey. “Absolution can only be granted in private. It is secret. You may return later.”

  Frey slipped into an adjacent room, where Chatchai sat behind a laptop. The display showed a video feed from the other room. The hidden surveillance equipment would record every word between Dionysius and Lee. Frey would get his confession one way or the other.

  The priest opened a prayer book and read from it in a booming voice. He continued reading for several minutes.

  “Just get on with it,” Frey said, growing impatient.

  Lee lay unmoving, his breathing shallow.

  Dionysius approached Lee with the chalice.

  “What sins do you wish to confess?”

  Lee uttered a single word.

  “Cowardice …”

  He would speak no more. A short silence fell.

  “Do you accept to take the Sacrament?”

  “Yes,” Lee rasped.

  Praying loudly, Dionysius held the chalice and brought a spoonful of the Sacrament to the North Korean’s lips.

  Another prayer followed. Subsequently, Father Dionysius collected his items, placing them back into his travel pouch as he prepared to leave. Frey cursed, chagrined at his failure. The entire procedure had proved pointless. Back to square one.

  At Frey’s prompt, Chatchai re-entered the room and offered to drive the priest back to the church.

  “No, thank you. I can find my way. The Lord will guide me.”

  No sooner had he said it than the priest exited the house and simply vanished.

  Twenty minutes later, the North Korean prisoner died.

  5

  Lee Young-Hwan of the DPRK Cabinet General Intelligence Bureau died with a sense of defeat. He deserved nothing else but death. Yet he welcomed his punishment. He had failed the Party by allowing himself to be captured alive. Death served as a consolation that did little to negate his failure.

  The poison acted quickly. Mixed with the bread and wine, the cyanide had enough dosage to kill him in minutes.

  His death became unimportant. He had prepared for it. He would have died of his wounds anyway. Only the way he died mattered now. Taking the poison would end his suffering and grant his family a chance for survival. By contacting his handler, he had shown his loyalty. He had proven that he had not betrayed the Party. He had not defected. He had told the enemy nothing.

  Dionysius would send a message back to North Korea for the government to spare Lee’s wife and two children.

  Or so Lee hoped as he took his last breath.

  Dionysius ...

  6

  After Dr. Gwinn had confirmed Lee’s death, Frey ordered Chatchai to dispose of the body. An autopsy and the resulting backlash of a formal investigation were inconceivable, not that Frey deemed it necessary to determine the cause of death for a guy shot by a special operations unit. As soon as Chatchai’s clean-up team arrived, Frey left the black site. This time the nondes
cript house outside Pattaya would shut down for good.

  Everything was over. Frey had done his job in Thailand. He had busted the arms deal, and the rest should have been of no concern to him. Acting beyond his immediate objective hadn’t paid off.

  Frey felt too exhausted to drive back to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. Nightfall neared. The notorious Bangkok traffic, aggravated by the Red Scarf protests, made the hundred-mile journey impractical. Instead, he asked Gwinn to drop him off in downtown Pattaya. He ignored the massage parlors en route. The red-light district would have made his blood rush at a younger age, but now the brothels and bars of Walking Street did not appeal to him.

  He checked in at a three-star seaside hotel. He ate a hearty meal of coconut-milk tom yam and chili tiger prawn curry, spicy enough to make his eyes water, and washed it all down with a pint of Tiger draft beer. Later, he went to his room, finding it reasonably tidy. A cool breeze wafted in from the spacious balcony. Frey salvaged a couple of Jack Daniels minibar bottles and nestled himself into a chair. The liquor, the star-filled sky and the serene night view of the beach outside all soothed him.

  Frey’s phone buzzed. He answered.

  “It is done,” said Chatchai.

  “Good.” Frey toasted with the mini bottle.

  “Are you in Bangkok?”

  “No, in fact I’m still in Pattaya.”

  Chatchai snickered. “Having fun with the ladyboys?”

  “Oh shut up. Something’s bothering me about that priest. Dionysius.”