National Security Adviser Robillio added, “Russia will veto, but it creates another attempt to isolate Russia diplomatically. With a new resolution we can marginalize Russia and censor North Korea. Kill two birds with one stone.”
Ryan answered back, “That’s not killing two birds with one stone. That’s yelling at two birds as they fly on by without a care. Russia will keep doing what they’re doing, and Chairman Choi doesn’t give a damn about condemnation in the Security Council. His focus is on holding and exerting power. Nothing more.”
Adler was unwavering. “The UN might not have teeth, but the sanctions against the North are already as strict as we have any hope of making them without some dramatic new development. Diplomatically speaking, there is little we can do.” He looked across the table at SecDef Burgess. “Unless you are going to send Bob to attack Pyongyang, Mr. President, a UN resolution is about the only weapon we’ve got.”
Ryan dropped his elbows on the table. “Even with the broad sanctions on their weapons development programs, conventional and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, they still manage to launch ICBMs and detonate nukes. The Chinese don’t want them armed with nukes any more than we do, so we know they aren’t supplying them. Russia is the one adding fuel to this fire.”
Canfield agreed. “That’s right. The Russians don’t care if North Korea has a nuke. It’s another headache for us to deal with, and the DPRK pays in cash. There are only two impediments to North Korea having a deployable ICBM.”
“And those are?” asked Ryan.
“One, the sanctions. Russia doesn’t want to get caught sneaking banned items and technology into North Korea, because that hurts them diplomatically. They do it, but they do it carefully, and that means the technology comes in a slow trickle.”
“And the other?”
“The other, quite simply, is money. North Korea is a hopelessly poor regime, with very little hard currency in the West. If they suddenly found themselves flush with cash, they could up the ante with Russia and unscrupulous private defense contractors and command a lot better service. Russia will sell them anything at any time. If the DPRK ever starts waving around hundreds of millions instead of millions, you’ll see the proliferation increase precipitously, and they will get an arsenal of ICBMs.”
Jack put it succinctly for the rest of his national security team. “A poor DPRK is in U.S. national interests. We can’t go out and say it to the world, because we’ll be accused of starving the citizens of North Korea, even though it is the government of North Korea that is starving its own people. But we have to do whatever we can to prevent Choi’s government from flourishing financially.”
Mary Pat said, “Violations of sanctions allow millions in wealth and goods to trickle in and out.”
Jack said, “We’ve worked for two generations to bleed them dry so they would come to the bargaining table, and still they keep moving on. We need more intelligence out of the North.” He looked to Mary Pat and Jay. “This is a critical need. I know you have a thousand other things to deal with, but after that DIA brief it is clear to me we aren’t going to have a solid handle on DPRK’s capabilities until they demonstrate their capability by dumping a payload onto San Francisco. At that point it will be too late to do anything about it. I want you to improve your HUMINT in the DPRK.”
The meeting broke up minutes later, and Mary Pat Foley stood from her chair, ready to return to her office at the Liberty Crossing complex in McLean, Virginia. Her President wasn’t satisfied with the intelligence product he was getting, which meant she had a hell of a lot of work to do. She’d meet with CIA director Canfield and discuss it, because they were both feeling the same heat.
She had just left the cabinet room and collected her mobile phone from a wicker basket on the President’s secretary’s desk, when the device vibrated in her hand. She answered it without looking.
“Foley.”
“Mary Pat? It’s Gerry Hendley here.”
Foley stepped into the West Wing hall. She could tell by Gerry’s tone of voice something was wrong. “What is it?”
“Are you where you can talk?”
Mary Pat looked around. Men and women walked all around her. “I’ll be back in my car in a few minutes. I’ll call you then. Just tell me this. Is this about Colin Hazelton?”
“Yes.”
“Is he okay?”
Gerry sighed into the phone. “No. No, he’s not. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
She stopped fully in the hall, her knees weakening in shock as she did so. “Dead?”
8
The office of the Supreme Leader of North Korea is the Ryongsong Residence, also called Residence No. 55. It is located on a small lake in the northern suburbs of Pyongyang, and it serves as one of ten private residences for the nation’s ruler.
The compound is several miles square and surrounded with fencing and gates; the living facility is hardened for conventional and nuclear attack, and two brigades of elite troops reside on the property with the sole mission of protecting the Supreme Leader both from foreign armies and domestic insurrection.
A black limousine arrived at the compound’s outer perimeter checkpoint at ten a.m.; armed guards checked the driver and the occupant in the back, a small, thin fifty-four-year-old bald man in a gray suit. Soon the limo drove north through the hills of Ryongsong, stopped at more checkpoints along the way, until finally the vehicle pulled up to the entrance of Residence No. 55 itself. The bald man climbed out and was led with his small entourage into the building, then he was brought into an ornate sitting area by three female assistants of the Dae Wonsu, and he sat down on a straight-back chair.
Tea was placed in front of him, and a second cup was placed on the empty sofa on the other side of the table and left empty.
He sat nervously in the silence, concentrating with all his might on giving off an air of calm.
The man’s name was Hwang Min-ho; he was the new director of the Korea Natural Resources Trading Corporation, the nation’s state-owned mining concern. In his position for less than a week, he was here to meet Choi Ji-hoon; this would be his first face-to-face with the leader of his country, and the current occupant of the center of the personality cult to which Hwang had belonged every second of his life.
Both of Hwang’s parents had been on the personal staff of a colonel who served as a deputy of the Workers’ Party of Korea, his father a driver and his mother a nanny for the children, and they were both typically fervent believers of the propaganda upon which the entire society was based. Hwang was raised to revere not the party or the government but the leader of his nation, a benevolent god who created all and bestowed all his blessings upon his people. Choi Ji-hoon’s grandfather, then his father, and now Ji-hoon himself, they had all been the epicenter of Hwang’s universe.
Hwang never questioned the things he knew to be truth: His leader’s perfection and omniscience were established facts as sure as the rising and the setting of the sun. That said, Hwang was worried about his new promotion.
Hwang saw what happened to his boss. He’d done his difficult job to the absolute best of his ability; the Dae Wonsu had demanded the impossible, and when the impossible was not delivered, Hwang’s boss was taken from his home. The rumor at the state-run mining company was he’d been sent to Kyo-hwa-so No. 9, the notorious reeducation camp on the east coast of the country. The urbane sixty-year-old former director of mining was, if the rumors were true, now working on his hands and knees in a coal mine and subsisting on a cup of barley soup a day.