Hwang Min-ho could not believe his eyes when he saw the opulence and grandeur of the lobby. As one of a rare few of his countrymen who had actually seen the inner sanctum of Residence No. 55, he could say without reservation that this hotel was even more luxurious than the palace of the Dae Wonsu. As confused as he was by the riches on display, available, apparently, to regular businessmen and not just to government elite or royalty, he noticed Ri felt the same way. He could tell by the wide eyes and sideways glances of the general that he had never seen anything like this, either.
Neither man remarked on the amazing facility as they took an elevator up to the presidential suite. At their sides were domestic security agents, and both men knew they were being watched to see how they reacted.
In the hallway on the top floor of the hotel, four physically fit men in suits greeted the entourage from North Korea. The translator for the Hwang — Ri group, a middle-aged North Korean woman, spoke in English to the men, and then everyone stepped into the 2,500-square-foot presidential suite.
Hwang and Ri both smiled at the sight of the man they’d come all this way to meet. Óscar Roblas de Mota cut an impressive figure. Seventy-three years old and heavyset, he was nonetheless surprisingly fit and his hair dye, though fooling no one, at least gave him the appearance of vibrancy. He stood a head higher than Ri, and even taller than Hwang, and he wore a beautiful black three-piece suit from Savile Row. He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, but spun toward his guests and walked to them with an energetic spring in his step.
He spoke with an air of unbridled competence and power, introducing himself to both men as if they were fans in line for an autograph instead of two of the most important officers of a nuclear power.
But that was Roblas’s way. Some successful men never do develop personalities fitting of their accomplishments, but Óscar Roblas was a winner, and he damn well knew it.
Roblas was the third-wealthiest man in Mexico and ranked number twenty-eight on the Forbes list, with personal and familial assets to the tune of $24 billion. He didn’t start out with nothing, though the narrative his company propagated had pushed that history for the past thirty-five years. The truth was that his family made its money in copper mining going back three generations. The Roblas family company, Grupo Pacífico, still mined copper and zinc throughout the nation, but they’d made money in oil, leasing land for drilling across Mexico, and then Óscar Roblas had created exponential growth for himself by expanding to mineral mines around the world by using offshore companies and limited partnerships.
He owned or had owned dozens of mineral mines on all points on the globe: part of a titanium mine in Mozambique, diamond mines in Botswana and Sierra Leone. Gold, copper, zinc, and nickel mines in a dozen countries.
With his vast wealth he had the ability to create companies and even banking institutions out of thin air to keep the money trails of his endeavors hidden. Hwang knew of Roblas because Roblas had partnered on North Korean mines in the past, albeit on a scale a small fraction of what Hwang would propose at today’s meeting.
The men all sat down at a large conference table brought up to the presidential suite just for the meeting, and after one of the North Korean state security men scanned the room for listening devices with a small apparatus, Roblas began the conversation with an uncomfortable question that was conveyed first in English, and then in Korean through the translator.
“And how is former director Kim?” Roblas asked. “I enjoyed working with him in years past on the magnesite project in Daeheung. I found him to be a capable man. Mr. Hwang, I understand you replaced him as director of Korea Natural Resources Trading due to ill health.”
Hwang paused for a moment, unsure as to what he should say. A state security minder sent along to watch the meeting sat on a sofa, away from the conference table, and stared stone-faced back at him.
“Yes,” Hwang replied to the translator, who converted his words effortlessly into English. “He has taken ill, but he will recover. The rigors of the job, however, are too much for him now, so he will tend to his beautiful garden and enjoy his large and happy family.”
Roblas nodded without smiling. “I understand.”
Hwang had a strong suspicion the Mexican did, in fact, understand quite well. He had been working on mining ventures in North Korea for decades. It would come as no surprise to him that a level of treachery such as that perpetrated by Director Kim would be dealt with quite harshly by the leadership.
With that matter settled, Director Hwang Min-ho spent the next hour laying out his proposal to restart the Chongju rare earth mineral mine without the partnership of the Chinese. He explained how General Ri would help him acquire some of the technology and information necessary, but that they would need an initial investment of hard currency and the support structure of a foreign partnership to obtain everything they needed to get the mine up and running.
Roblas listened politely, but with markedly little animation. Government mining ministers came to him asking for help on a regular basis. Only the month before, a Congolese minister approached him to partner on a new iron mine in his nation. Roblas declined. His own geologists doubted the size of the find, and he wasn’t impressed with the returns at his other Congolese mines.
The North Koreans had talked him into coming all the way to Asia to meet with them, assuring him they had an opportunity he would not want to pass up. Of course he knew this would involve the rare earth mine recently vacated by the Chinese, and of course he was interested. He had his finger on the pulse of the world mining community, so there was no way a find like Chongju would slip by him. He knew the Chinese had wanted to stay but Choi had forced them out, and Roblas was curious enough to fly to Singapore and sit with the little brainwashed fools from North Korea to see what they wanted to offer him.
He was ready to invest, to move mountains, both literally and figuratively, if and only if the North Koreans could show him that the value of the mine, and the terms of their contract offer, both made the deal worthwhile.
Hwang showed him the raw findings of the Chinese, all translated into English, and Óscar Roblas could not believe his eyes. He knew the North Koreans were sitting on a rare earth reserve large enough that the Chinese had been fighting to keep a partnership going despite Choi’s actions, but the assertion that $12 trillion at today’s value lay just beneath the rocks was nothing less than astounding to the Mexican.
He asked for clarification on various matters, but Hwang had been ready for this. He had the numbers from the tests and the CVs of the geologists who signed off on the find.
Roblas then said something that surprised both Hwang and Ri.
“I am interested. But as a businessman, I like to know what I am getting into. I haven’t been to your country in over twenty years. If I am going to invest in this project of yours, I want to see it.”
Hwang was confused, at first. “All of the findings of the Chinese are in the materials here. You may feel free to take your time in looking—”
The running translation was interrupted when Roblas said, “No. I want to go to North Korea and see the merchandise. The mine. The location of the proposed processing plant. The infrastructure you have in place now. If I like what I see, if I agree the potential is there and the terms of our partnership are to my liking, then we will do business together.”
Hwang replied, “Certainly. When would you like to come?”
“I suppose you have a plane at the airport now. I’d like to return with you tonight.”