A Northern Thunder (17 page)

“Mr. Scott, come on in,” Krowl said as he looked up, taking one last draw on his cigarette before crushing it into the already full ashtray on his desk.

“You know Mi.” He pointed to the back of the room where she was sitting slightly out of sight in one of the leather chairs.

“Yes, of course.” Scott was not totally surprised she was there.

“Commander Sawyer will join us. He has full authority and knowledge of these matters.”

Again, Scott could not say he was surprised. People he distrusted by instinct rarely worked alone.

“Okay, let’s review where we are,” said Krowl. “Scott, what is the progress of training?”

Coming in, Scott had decided to limit his comments. “He’s doing fine.”

“You have a month left at Quantico. Is the team ready?”

“Yes, they’ll meet him at Bridgeport.”

“And how long will Bridgeport take?”

“About a month.”

“That would make them ready in early January,” said Krowl. “They have to be ready sooner. The boat will be available at Pearl by fifteen December.”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts—fifteen December.”

“The team may not be ready by then,” Scott protested.

“Didn’t Colonel Parker pick the team himself?” Krowl sounded like a sneering bully. Once you bested Krowl, as Will had, he would use that fact, almost gloatingly, as a reason to predict your failure.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, they will be ready. Tell them something has changed. Tell them Intelligence reports the doctor is moving.”

Scott’s blood boiled. His hand squeezed the arm of the sofa as he attempted to suffocate his rage.

“Admiral, I don’t mind preparing the bloody man for a job that holds the probability”—Scott pronounced the word slowly and quietly to emphasize the point—“I said the
probability
that he will not survive, or worse, be imprisoned for the rest of his life in a dank, brutal prison by an already starving country that considers torture an art form. But, to continually lie to him—”

Scott was still angry about the unannounced insertion of the tracer into Will. Krowl had ordered the procedure during the dental treatments while Will was under the effect of the gas.

“Mr. Scott.” Krowl said it like a teacher about to send a misbehaving student to the principal’s office.

“Yes?”

“He agreed to this mission,” said Krowl. “And, besides, he’s getting paid. No one in this building, nor the public for that matter, will be concerned about a mercenary being caught, imprisoned, or killed.”

“Admiral, the money was your idea. I’m not sure it even mattered to him,” said Scott.

“Well, we’ll see.” The conversation was not going as Krowl had hoped. “And, Mi, how about it?”

“Sir?”

“Will he be ready?”

“Yes,” said Mi. “He’s already fluent in Hanguk. He’s conversant in Russian. He has been over the topography computer programs several times and knows every lake, stream, and valley within a fifty mile area. He has a general sense of the vegetation, too, from the 3-D program.”

Will had been taken to Langley several times. Always late at night, the van would pull into the CIA’s basement parking garage, after which they would travel two floors up to the computer graphics room. With a 3-D headset and instructions from Frank Darlin, Will could walk, run, or even fly through the computer-reconstructed topography of the North Korean countryside. The programs were integrated with the latest information received directly from satellites, along with Darlin’s personal expertise. The detail allowed Will to walk past vehicles parked that very moment on a roadway in North Korea.

“He’s fully up on the camera and satellite relay computer.” Scott had worked with Hamilton and Will for several days on the relay. Photographs were taken from several locations across Quantico and relayed directly, via satellite, to Langley.

“Good, okay. Anything else?” said Krowl.

Sawyer had been sitting quietly in the back taking everything in, but this was his cue. He stood up and opened the door to help move the visitors along.

“No?” said Krowl. “Then let’s get him to Bridgeport no later than one December.”

Scott grimaced. He picked up his raincoat and held it over his arm to make it more difficult for Krowl to shake his hand. This didn’t bother the admiral, who remained behind his desk.

“Oh, Mi, stay a moment,” said Krowl.

“Yes, sir.”

Scott looked at her and turned toward the door. Sawyer followed him out and closed the door behind him, leaving Mi alone with Krowl.

“Anything else I need to know?” Krowl asked. He had learned a long time ago that a close observer always provided the best intelligence.

“No,” she said hesitantly. “No, sir.” She regretted not giving him something. A wild dog is easier to control when regularly fed.

“Good. So, from your viewpoint, he can get to that valley?”

The admiral, she thought, had a tendency to describe only half the mission. Krowl never spoke about Will getting back from the valley.

“I think Will. . .” Again, another mistake. It was not like her.

“Yes?”

“Colonel Parker will get to the valley, complete the mission, and get back.”

“Okay.” He said it flatly, without much enthusiasm.

“Anything else, sir?”

“No.” He paused as he lit another cigarette. “But keep me informed. Your calls have been most helpful.”

She was silent.

“Mi?”

“Oh, yes, sir?”

“Thank you.”

Sawyer re-entered the room. A good aide always appeared and disappeared at the right moment.

“Miss Yong was just leaving,” said Krowl.

“Yes, sir.”

He walked her out to the hallway while Krowl stayed behind, seemingly preoccupied with a document.

Sawyer soon returned. “Sir, anything else?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m not sure about Scott. I want the CIA to order him to CINCPAC during the operation. Let him monitor it out of their SCIF. That’ll keep him out of the way,” he said. “We can say it’s necessary so he can be closer to Korea if the need arises.”

“Yes, sir. Good idea.” The top-secret, classified operation center, or SCIF, at CINCPAC in Hawaii would take Scott out of the action, but not totally out of Krowl’s influence.

Like his boss, Sawyer was devious, something Krowl recognized early. Others were never sure when he was talking for Krowl or when he was talking for himself, so the best thing was simply to stay away from him, they figured.

Sawyer appreciated the power, but knew it was illusory. Krowl would never help him get promoted, because Krowl helped no one. But whenever Krowl was out of the Pentagon, which was often, Sawyer left after lunch, carrying his cell phone. His tanned complexion came from golf at the Army-Navy Club. He enjoyed all the benefits of being an admiral without bearing any of its burdens.

“What about her, sir?” said Sawyer.

“Yong?”

“Yes, sir.”

“She’ll be our little insider,” said Krowl, “and when he moves on to the next phase, we’ll be done with her.”

“Doesn’t she know a lot?”

“Yes.” He leaned back in his chair, inhaling his cigarette. Thin white smoke curled upwards to the ceiling. “That’s a good point.”

“Isn’t she still high on their list?” said Sawyer.

“Oh, yes.” Krowl continued to lean back and draw on his cigarette. “Let me think about this. Good job, Sawyer.”

E
xempted from all the usual restrictions, Rei had been allowed to keep his apartment for several years now. It was unheard of for a single person to live in such an expansive apartment in North Korea, and initially caused his few neighbors suspicion. Rei, after all, was not a known party leader or a military commander.

His apartment was on the edge of what was called the Forbidden Zone or Forbidden City, where a high solid wall and armed guards kept everyone out but the elite. Plump, full-faced girls in starched khaki uniforms and bright, red-starred hats, armed with machine guns, guarded the few entrances. It was here that the powerful members of the central committee, the generals, the admirals, and the many central marshals all lived—with ample food, Mercedes cars, and numerous Western amenities. It was here, out of sight of the ill-fed people of Pyongyang, that Kim Il Sung’s select few lived in homes and apartments far above the city’s crude one-room cinderblock huts, where packed-in families slept together on dirt floors. Those on the outside could never look in.

Several years earlier, the local block commander had demanded Rei’s apartment, which was on the top floor of a small building overlooking the Taedong River. The porch faced east, so its occupant could watch the sun as it rose across the river in the mornings. The apartment request had been summarily denied by higher authority, and the commander was never able to determine who the decision-maker was. As with all dictatorships, many had license to use nondescript superiors as authority to issue orders. Often, one would hear, “The Ministry of Defense does not allow it.” However, in this case, the commander was simply told that Rei was to be left alone.

His curiosity ignited, the commander bribed Rei’s housekeeper to gain access. One day, when Rei was gone, the commander slipped past the unlocked mahogany door into a small separate entrance room, which led to another set of dark, oversized, elaborately carved wooden doors. Rei could lock out the world with this double entrance. The commander removed his shoes as he swung open the inner door and looked inside. The expanse of the room was overwhelming and intimidating, with deep red Persian rugs, accented with crystal lamps and tufted leather chairs, representing opulence he had never before seen. On virtually every space on the walls were Western-style oil paintings. The commander quickly concluded that Rei was untouchable. He quietly closed the door, put on his shoes, and left.

Rei knew the block commander had been there because the loyalty of his housekeeper was absolute. The commander had been allowed to look inside only after Rei had given his approval, because he knew the old man’s curiosity, unless satisfied, would only grow. It was important for the commander to know Rei was way out of his league.

Rei’s apartment in the Forbidden City was located at the end of a short alley with no street name or street signs. The lack of street signs was another example of North Korea’s paranoia. It was intended to prevent an invading army from coordinating their maps to city streets. If a society didn’t care whether Federal Express could find an address, the lack of street signs would be a powerful tool to slow down an invading army.

From one end of Rei’s apartment, he could see the small islet in the center of the Taedong River, where the two circular towers of the high-rise, ultra-modern Yanggakdo Hotel blocked most of the enormous Yanggakdo soccer stadium at the other end. If he looked another way, Rei could see the behemoth
Juche
tower. Of the many memorials to Kim Il Sung, this was, by far, the largest and most dominant. The gray structure, with a gold flame at the top, was shaped like an enormous radio tower constructed out of stone, and was designed to be visible from all of Pyongyang. The city, in fact, was filled with monuments, massive tombstones, and behemoth buildings on open boulevards. It was an opulent graveyard honoring one man. Even from the grave, Kim Il Sung commanded constant visual reminders of his stranglehold on the people.

Rei thought of Pyongyang as special in its own, peculiar way. This place of nearly two million people was a quiet, open city that acted like a shy girl. She didn’t bother you and often seemed to avoid you. One saw few cars, little air pollution, and few bicycles. And the city was immaculately clean. Teams of small gray-haired women were constantly sweeping.

It also seemed a city forever operating at a Sunday pace. Most of its residents quietly stayed away from the downtown. Old Soviet ZIS-150 cars and packed trolleys were common. The ZIS-150s, built like clumsy brutes, were run for hundreds of thousands of miles. Crude red stars painted on the doors indicated that an ZIS-150 had survived another fifty thousand kilometers. Many cars were covered with rows of red stars.

Here, Rei did not need to look over his shoulder. His one pass, a badge from the security police, gave him unlimited license. He could have anyone arrested without question, demand anything without payment, even commit murder without consequences.

Rei would plan each of his missions in the apartment. Many years ago, it would take several months, but Rei had his small study wired for broadband internet service. The internet was unavailable to most North Koreans—access to the unlimited flood of information was forbidden. Less than a few dozen in the city of Pyongyang had access, and Rei was one of them. He had found the internet a bottomless well of information that helped him plot each mission in detail.

When he was ready to leave for a mission, a government driver would meet Rei at the end of the alley, always before dawn. Rei made it a point, as much as possible, to leave well before the city awoke. Even in Pyongyang, Rei did not want to give anyone the opportunity to track his activities. He and the driver would rarely talk in the car.

The driver, much shorter than Rei, wore a gray-blue, zippered jacket, the common uniform of the Stalinistic state. Years of smoking had left him with large stained teeth that he often showed with a broad smile. An employee of the state police, he had a reputation for trustworthiness. They would drive the twenty-four kilometers out of the city to the Sunam airport, with no traffic during the entire ride. Pyongyang was largely without traffic on its busiest day, let alone before dawn.