A Northern Thunder (27 page)

“There are alligators everywhere on this one. We can’t trust anyone.”

“Okay, boss.”

“I can say this much—it’ll be a limited insertion into North Korea. I’ll be going in-country alone,” Will said.

“Goddamn it, sir.” Moncrief ’s voice sounded more like a yell.

Will could feel the whole team openly rebel. “I’ll need your help at the beach.”

“Yeah, boss, but we can handle it.”

“I know you can,” said Will, “but a team will leave too many footprints.”

“Yes, sir,” said Moncrief.

“Boss, we can be pretty quiet.” Enrico Hernandez, normally understated, prompted a laugh from the others when he offered the mild protest in his south Miami Spanish accent. Hernandez was an unusual addition to this crew. An inner city kid, he was the leader of a Miami gang when the judge gave him and his mother the choice of five years in the youth prison system or enlistment in the Marine Corps. The judge had seen testing scores, which the Marine Corps later confirmed, showing him at a near genius GCT of 138. Enlistment in the Marines endangered Hernandez’s life but, at the same time, probably saved it.

“Hernandez, goddamn it, you know your role here is the coffee, man.” Moncrief referred to Hernandez’s ability, absorbed through his Cuban roots, to make delicious dark coffee.

“Okay, Gunny,” said Hernandez. He knew each man respected the other for far more than just one talent, even if it was coffee.

“At some point,” said Will, “I’ll tell this team to do something they’ll not want to do, but you must do exactly what I say to do.”

The team remained silent on this point until Gunny Moncrief spoke. “Boss, I’ve always done exactly what you’ve told me to do.”

“Oh, bullshit,” said Stidham, rocking forward in his chair. It was only a miracle that Moncrief had the gunny stripe.

“Sir,” said Hernandez, “I’m going to crash in that bunk over there next to the fireplace. You need something, just let me know.”

“We’ll lay low here for another two days,” said Will, “then work ourselves south, down the road, cut behind Lost Cannon Peak, and be back at base camp by twelve-hundred hours.”

“Yes, sir, just in time to watch those teams come down off the mountaintops all frozen,” said Moncrief.

“Let’s make a point of not bragging about this, Gunny.”

Will was back to calling Moncrief “Gunny,” something that gave Moncrief considerable comfort. When the colonel used “Kevin,” it meant danger—not the typical frontline danger they often faced, but a danger darker, more sinister, and rare.

• • •

Bridgeport was not very happy with the team when they came down off the mountain. On the fifth day, there was talk that search parties might be needed. A snow avalanche on the south side of Wells Peak had wiped out a valley of trees, and with no food picked up for days, speculation mounted that perhaps Will’s team had gotten caught up in the avalanche while making a daring crossover to the second mountain. The worst of it, however, was that the team was not famished, nor even very hungry, when its members showed up shortly before noon. After brief showers and new uniforms, they were whisked off by choppers to Fallon.

Scott joined them for the journey from there to Hawaii, and upon reaching cruising altitude, swiveled his chair around to face them. “We’ll get to Honolulu in about four and a half hours. Once there, the U.S.S.
Florida
, a Trident sub newly outfitted for special ops, will be waiting at Ford Island.”

“When’s sailing time?” said Will.

“Midnight.”

“Wow, a day in paradise.” Moncrief scowled.

“We have quarters set up for you on Ford Island if you need them,” said Scott, “but we’d like to keep liberty down to a minimum. Maybe a quick meal, a shower, but not much else.”

Will had things other than liberty in mind, but his team deserved one last run before hopping on the boat.

Scott liked the idea of Ford. Located in the center of Pearl Harbor, it was accessible only by a Navy launch and a restricted bridge, and with the arrival of the Trident, they had already tightened security. Though the deep waters of Pearl allowed great access for a boat the size of a Trident, the Tridents rarely came to Pearl. They liked to leave from the west or east coast, submerge, and lay protected below deep waters from the beginning of their journey until they surfaced at the end. Pearl only exposed a Trident further, but here it shortened the sailing time considerably.

“We will have very little running around,” said Will, instructing his men that they could do
some
running around.

“Yeah, sir. A quick visit to Duke’s on the beach at Waikiki, and I’m ready for war,” said Moncrief. The beachside watering hole at Waikiki was a familiar place to Marines heading out to danger. Often, they would meet at Duke’s for one last binge.

Will gave Moncrief the look of “Gunny, you’re not helping matters,” then quickly turned away to the window. At forty-one thousand feet, the jet was well above cloud cover. Will could see small dots of white on the Pacific below.

Isn’t it ironic?
he thought.
Today, five miles above. Day after tomorrow, a mile below.

T
his will be the final one
, Rei thought as he glanced around the dark, wood-paneled room. Gold carvings of dragons and flowers surrounded the cornice, and dark red mahogany-colored leather chairs framed a table desk at the room’s end. The desk’s crystal lamp illuminated a deep swirling burl pattern of wood as if this was the finely appointed office of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. But then, utterly ruining the sophisticated ambience, the walls had taped to them a splattered pattern of large sheets of paper, maps, photographs, and hundreds of small yellow post-it notes.

Rei surveyed the confluence of information, exactly as he had done time and time before, settling his gaze finally on the target. A poster-sized photograph was taped to the wall at the far end of the room. It was surrounded by numerous printouts and photographs from newspapers, all taken from the internet. The target was a gray-haired woman with a light smiling face and bright, curious Asian eyes. In the photographs, she often wore a white laboratory coat.

He reached over the desk, logged off the computer, then turned off the lights, only to see the blue screen of the monitor faintly illuminating the dark room and the target’s face.

I won’t have to do this again.
Rei sighed in relief, yet unsure if he could manage a new life without the adrenaline rushes of the past. Each kill he thought of as a mission for his homeland, but each kill had become easier than the one before.

I’ll clean this all up later when everything can be shredded, destroyed, and removed
, he thought as he swung the door closed.

The housekeeper would spotlessly clean Rei’s apartment, but she rarely entered that one room. Except for two other men, no one knew who his next target would be. The evidence in that room would tell all and thereby endanger his life, but only the housekeeper, whom he trusted implicitly, had access. She and her husband, son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren often had the only food in their tenant building. They had eaten well and suffered no hardships since beginning with Rei more than a decade ago. His secrets were absolutely secure with her.

Rei closed the inner door to the apartment, locking it and activating an alarm only the housekeeper could disarm. If sounded, it directly signaled a small security cell in the intelligence branch. A Western-style system, it was the only one of its type in Pyongyong. There was no great need for security in this city. Few had anything to steal. Those who had objects of worth were also those who could easily have a thief executed.

In the predawn darkness, the taxi driver waited at the end of the block.

“Today, a short ride, friend,” said Rei.

“Yes, sir.” His smile stretched across his face.

“Potonggang Station.”

The taxi turned north up a broad boulevard with wide-open sidewalks. Rei slumped down in the seat, thinking that only two weeks earlier, he had been summoned to the NCDB. “We have a most important mission, Comrade.” Sin Tae-sam had again been the messenger.

Rei placed both arms on the conference table in the National Chemical and Defense Bureau’s uppermost floor. “Comrade, I am always ready to serve our leader and the state,” he said flatly.

“We have other news as well.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, you have won your reward.”

“Comrade?”

“This will be your last mission,” said Sin. “Upon your return, you will be appointed to an instructor’s position at the National Defense University.”

Rei felt both glad and unsure. He was a Hall of Fame pitcher, but was his brilliant career ending on his terms or theirs?

“Is there a problem?” Rei could not keep himself from asking.

“In fact, there is,” Sin Tae-sam said, his face falling under the direct cast of a single light. His eyes seemed worn down by experience and time. “Our friends in Beijing have a source in Washington. It is apparently well-connected in their Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Yes?”

“They have a sense of what is going on,” said Sin. “They may know it’s you or at least suspect you.”

Another surge flashed through Rei’s body. He had sensed this for some time now. It was nothing he could articulate. He had felt it, but never seen it.

“I thought so,” said Rei.

“We know they’re still guessing, but it is enough.”

“I understand, but if this is so, should we do another with me?”

“We have had that conversation,” said Sin, “but this one is most important and most unique.”

“Why?”

“Nampo believes this one scientist, whose work he has followed for quite a while, is on the verge of a breakthrough in nanotechnology,” Sin said. “We have gained access to her work, and Nampo has nearly replicated it in his laboratory. It will allow him to reduce a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon to the size of a bread loaf.”

“That seems greatly significant.”

“It is. It will solve our payload problem and allow us to place multiple weapons into the highest orbits. One rocket will be able to carry several different payloads, similar to the Americans’ MIRV System. The multiple warhead system has been in existence for years, but it required a higher orbit than our North Korean rockets could achieve.”

“Yes, sir.” Rei wondered why the old man was being so open. Perhaps it was because, with the FBI possibly on his tail, he knew he was putting Rei at heightened risk.

“You have served well, Comrade,” said Sin. “You deserve this appointment.”

“Thank you, Comrade.”

“And, also. . .”

“Yes, sir?” said Rei.

“This one may be easier than any other.”

“Why?”

“It is in Japan.”

The taxi’s short and sudden stop jolted Rei back to the present as he thrust his hand forward to brace himself.

“We are here, sir,” said the driver.

The taxi had stopped directly in front of a large, block-shaped, cream-colored building. Outside, above the center of the front entrance, was an enormous framed painting of the Supreme Leader and his son. Below, in large letters, was the label, “Potonggang National Railroad Station.”

The light of dawn began to illuminate the city, and for the first time, Rei noticed soldiers in their green uniforms, large saucer hats, and red shoulder boards standing around the station. Wordlessly, he nodded to the driver and left the taxi.

The station was waking up. It was clear to Rei, however, that but for the military traffic, it would be virtually empty. A large blackboard, its writing in chalk, showed only three trains: two to China and one to Wonsan. The board’s empty lines were reminders of future commerce that was no more than a hope.

How pathetic
, he thought.
A city of millions with only three trains running?
Rei knew why the government was so determined to keep its borders closed. Comparing this main train station to any in Europe highlighted the pathetic condition of the North Korean economy.

Rei showed his security badge to a sentry, armed with an AK-47, standing near a stairway leading up to the train marked for Wonsan. “You will be on the priority car, Comrade,” he said.

“Yes.” He was aware of this important privilege. Even in North Korea, or especially in North Korea, there
were
privileges.

The train’s final car had armed guards posted on each end, with curtains drawn shut. Inside, a general, apparently from the army, sat in one of only a few chairs, intently reading
The Times of London
. The general glanced up at Rei, then turned again to his paper. Because Rei was not in uniform, the general figured he was someone safely ignored, and the two did not talk.

Rei’s unwilling companion puffed on a long, chocolate-brown cigar. Rei recognized the sharp smell of a Cuban.
There’s one pleasure a Communist country can enjoy—if one has the money to pay for it.

These generals are the problem
, Rei thought, immediately realizing even he would be shot for uttering this aloud.
They are so bent on keeping the power, the food, the perks, that they will never loosen their grip on it.