Devil's Fork (20 page)

Ugh, this is why I can’t sleep or work right
now.

Her mind could not let it go. Even though
something deep inside of her said that she would be hugging him
tomorrow, wrapped in his big arms, she could not rid herself of
these strange thoughts.

She slowly started walking back to her desk.
The endless rows of empty desks stacked with paper looked like
there had been a lot of work done in this office. She soon arrived
at her desk and sat down. She looked at her computer screen and
tried to focus. When she could not, she sat back in her chair and
looked around the office again.

Suddenly she jumped up in her seat. Her
heart sped up again and she could feel the blood pulsing through
the left side of her neck. Mr. Kim’s office was empty. His jacket
was gone. His bag was gone. He had left. Where did he go? She
looked around. She could not see anybody walking around. But Mr.
Kim is always here, she wondered.

Why did he stare at me and then leave so
suddenly?

CHAPTER 28

WENDESDAY

Northeast Coast, Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea

Captain Kim stood near the edge of the beach
looking into the pitch-black woods. He had one of his men shine a
flashlight into the woods again. He looked carefully. He did not
see any movement or anything resembling a human form. But then he
looked down again and stared at what was puzzling him. Right at the
edge of the beach as it met the forest he could see a wet spot. A
spot two feet by two feet that had wet-looking sand. The rest of
the sand on the beach was dry.

The other thing that
puzzled him was that leading to this wet spot were several indents
in the sand. He knew dry sand does not hold the shape of a foot
very well, but a foot stepping in the sand can certainly leave an
indentation. And Captain Kim saw a series of what looked like
indentations going all the way back to the tide’s high point. He
told one of his soldiers to shine his flashlight at these
indentations. People did not walk on this beach. There are no
beachgoers in this part of the country. This was supposed to be a
pristine beach, he thought. The only marks should be from his men
or any animals that might be in the area.
Or a spy.

He turned to a group of soldiers that were
not with him earlier but who were closer to this spot. “Did you
walk here?”

“
Not recently,
tongmu
Captain, we walked
through here maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

Kim enjoyed hearing his
proper title.
Tongmu
was the equivalent of “comrade”. Kim studied the marks leading
to the beach again.

“
Did you see any bubbles
coming from below the surface?”

“
No,
tongmu
. Not at all.”

Kim took his radio. He started talking into
it but realized it was not working. He hit it a few times and tried
clicking it on again. Nothing.

Typical. Nothing works in this country. I
don’t even know why I expected it to.

Captain Kim had been
allowed to study abroad in China for three months when he was a
university student. Being the son of a regime insider who had the
right political qualifications, he was one of few who had such a
special opportunity. The purpose was to learn Mandarin Chinese to
the point of fluency. Having citizens who could speak to the
closest ally was highly important. He was required to live in
special housing with North Korean officers who could watch him.
They did not need to. Kim made sure he was a model citizen. He
spoke to nobody and did not travel within Beijing. He focused on
his studies. He stayed quiet. But he had
thoughts.
Those were filled with awe
and questions. Two things impressed him most about China. First,
food was plentiful. He had never felt that feeling where one eats
past where one is full, where the stomach feels as though it were
an inflated balloon, hanging separate from the body. In China, it
was a painful feeling that he liked. Every time he was in the
university cafeteria he made sure he got himself to this
point.

The second thing that
impressed him about China was that most objects
worked.
Elevators just worked.
Electricity stayed on. TVs generally did not just shut off. The
metro system did not break every day. Cars drove normally on the
road. Heating generally worked. Water faucets just worked. How
luxurious, he remembered thinking. In the Democratic People’s
Republic things did not work like this. He had thought about it
during those three months abroad quite often.
Why
was his country
different?

Finally after tapping on his radio enough
times the lights flickered on. He radioed another company further
down the beach to ask if they had seen anything. They had not. He
radioed the officer in charge of the woods team. He reported that
his men had not seen anything.

He walked back to the spot near the woods
that looked wet. He thought about the idea of an American running
through here. He thought about the idea of an American in general.
His stomach felt sick.

“
You four, come with me.”
He pointed out four soldiers. “The rest of you keep patrolling the
beach.” He looked into the dark forest one more time and stepped
into it.

If he’s in here he can’t be that far away.
Do they know about that base?

CHAPTER 29

WEDNESDAY

Northeast Coast, North Korea

After moving as quietly as he could for
almost 20 minutes, Tom got on his knee right by a small bush. The
bush would help him stay hidden if anyone was around. He wanted to
observe his surroundings and double check his location. He had a
GPS unit on his wrist – almost like a watch. It was connected to a
satellite somewhere above. GPS satellites orbited around earth like
imagery satellites. But his communications equipment, his satellite
radio, was connected to a communications satellite. Unlike imagery
satellites or GPS satellites, which were constantly orbiting Earth,
communications satellites were geosynchronous. This meant that they
sat in one spot above Earth and rotated with the Earth. So if
someone stood in one location on the ground, it would look like the
same communications satellite was always above in the sky. The
reason imagery satellites could not do this was because to be
geosynchronous, a satellite had to sit pretty far away from Earth.
So far that taking clear, zoomed pictures of the ground would be
almost impossible. But to send communications back and forth, the
distance posed no problem. Tom liked to think about the
communications satellites while on missions. He liked the feeling
of having a tool that was constantly watching down on him – as if
he was surrounded by an omniscient presence. It made him forget for
a moment about the dark land he was infiltrating.

By now Tom had slipped on his night vision
goggles. He was now using his main technological advantage. He
would be able to see anyone around him. Even in these woods, which
Tom assessed were not too thick.

Tom looked around. He did not see any
patrols. He looked behind him. Nothing.

Finally.

The twenty minutes he spent moving through
the woods were really spent walking, then dropping down and lying
prone, then walking again. He had seen several patrols in the woods
to his left and his right. He got down to avoid being seen and had
to crawl to something that could give him some cover. Then as the
patrols passed by or turned around, he would get up and move again.
This was quite the opposite of what he expected. Coming in, he
thought he would be able to continuously move towards the
underground base.

It doesn’t matter. At least I’m past those
patrols.

Tom removed his Draeger unit and his
flippers, which were hanging on his back. He typically removed his
diving gear once ashore, as it added unnecessary weight. He pulled
out his knife and used it to dig up the ground next to him. He used
his hand as a shovel and soon had a small pit next to him. He threw
in a bag with his rebreather and his flippers and covered it up
with dirt. After two minutes he was satisfied that his gear was
buried safely, and the ground above did not look disturbed. Tom
marked his location on his GPS unit, so he could retrieve his gear
at the end of the operation.

Tom decided that now he could radio in. He
knew this was much later than they had planned. But he had no
choice – he was surrounded by the KPA. He knew Anderson, Sara, and
the other analysts would still be in the Command Room. They were
probably scared to death that he had not radioed in, he thought.
“Well, now I can tell them that there was something wrong with that
satellite imagery we looked at. They probably think I’m taking some
kind of vacation,” he mouthed to himself just below a whisper.

Tom clicked his radio on. He gave it a
couple seconds to get loaded. Then finally he spoke.

“
Yankee Main, this is
Yankee Actual. Come in. Over.”

There was a pause, then suddenly Tom heard
Anderson’s voice.

“
Yankee Actual, this is
Yankee Main. Reading you five. What is your status and position?
Over.”

Tom nodded at the successful radio check.
“Reading you five” is radiospeak that means the other person can
hear you well and clearly.

“
Infiltration successful. I
am one klick inland. I am on course. Kilo patrols very heavy. Many
more than expected. I could not perform radiocheck until I got past
them. I am turning on my headcam now. Over.”

That’s good, they should know now he
thought. “Kilo” was the term they used for the KPA or KPA soldiers,
since “K” was the first letter in “Korean People’s Army” and the
military phonetic alphabet for “K” was “Kilo”. A “klick” was a
military term for “Kilometer.” In each case, it was easier to say
one syllable.

“
Yankee Actual. Abort
Devil’s Fork. Repeat Abort Devil’s Fork. Mission is compromised.
They know you are there. They hacked our messaging system. They are
looking for you. Over.”

Tom dropped his head forward and closed his
eyes for several seconds.

You’re kidding me.

Tom quickly thought through the six elements
of successful special operations. He always had them in mind as it
helped him evaluate a mission’s progress in real time.

“
Let’s see,” he thought to
himself, “Simplicity: gone. There is nothing simple about this
anymore. Now I have to maneuver through all of these KPA
patrols.

“
Security: Gone. They
somehow hacked
us
and know about the mission.

“
Repetition: Still have
that one. Good thing I practiced with that ADS before
launch.

“
Surprise: absolutely gone.
These patrols all around are looking for me.

“
Speed: gone. Now I have to
slow down. It took me 20 minutes to get one klick
inland.

“
Sense of purpose—“ Tom
stopped and thought. He remembered that dinner he had with Jiyeon
the previous night. He got back on his radio.

“
Do they know what the
target is? Over.”

“
Negative. The message
they hacked only revealed your drop point and time. Not the target.
But they are looking for you. Over.”

“
Yankee Main. Negative on
aborting the mission. I am already past the heavy patrols. It is
easier to go to target now. Going back would risk capture as much
as going forward. Negative on that. Request Devil’s Fork continue
as planned. Over.”

“
Tom, I repeat. You are
instructed to abort Devil’s Fork. Kilo units are patrolling up
ahead of you too. You will get captured or killed. Abort now.
Over.”

Tom looked around the dark woods. Insects
were singing all around him. He closed his eyes. He thought about
that cold Pacific Ocean swim on three days no sleep back at BUD/S.
That felt like ages ago.

“
Negative. I might as well
try to get into target and look around. At least we will know what
is in there, whatever happens afterwards. Over.”

“
Yankee Actual. Wait
three. Over.”

Tom looked around. “Wait three” was
radiospeak for “wait for me to respond to you. I need to think or
check something. Expect my response in three minutes.”

Tom was checking all sides as he waited for
a response from Anderson.

Suddenly when he looked behind him he
thought he saw several soldiers not far away. It was difficult to
see but Tom’s night vision goggles helped. The soldiers also helped
by shining a flashlight all over the place, he thought as he
smirked. The soldiers were walking straight towards him and were
fanned out in a line formation. This allowed the team to observe as
much as they could.

Tom needed to get moving. He could not wait
for Anderson to respond, he thought. The only way to go was
forward. He did not even have time to make sure he was not leaving
any traces behind. He slowly rose from his kneeled position and
started walking away from the soldiers at a measured pace.

CHAPTER 30

WEDNESDAY

Langley, Virginia

Sara looked around the packed Command Room.
Now Mark and J.D. were in the back trying to figure something out
on their laptops. Most of the analysts in the room were shifting
their eyes between the screen in front and Anderson, as if they
were watching tennis. The screen ahead showed the view through
Tom’s helmet camera. Anderson was standing in the middle of the
room with his arms crossed. Sara turned around. Mr. Park was
sitting in the last row of desks. She studied his face. For some
reason it looked calm but serious as he stared into the screen
ahead. He had been quiet the whole time.