“You like, Mr. Dawkin?” Sung asked. She had her hair pulled back and held with a rubber band. The skin over her high cheekbones was pulled tight. No makeup to conceal the brown circles under her eyes.
“Yes. Very good.”
“You watch movie after?” She pointed to the new videos the honored general had given him, stacked on top of the box of pornos from Japan, Thailand, South Korea, and the Philippines.
The North Korean films he’d watched so far were stagey, propagandistic tropes with names Sung had translated as Order No. 27, The Kites Flying in the Sky, and The Respected Supreme Commander Is Our Destiny.
“No thank you,” he responded.
When he finished, she took the plate and chopsticks away and waited for Kwon outside to inspect them. Nothing that could possibly be used as a weapon was allowed to remain in the room. Every morning he had to request a razor. Kwon would carry it in and watch Dawkins while he shaved, and then take it away.
“I think I’ll meditate a little, then get ready for bed,” Dawkins said.
Sung had taught him how to sit quietly on the chair with the lights out and monitor the thoughts and images that floated into his head. Pushing away the negative ones, she said, would give him a healthier mind and body.
Dawkins sat quietly. He found the time between dinner and bedtime to be the most difficult, because he had nothing to engage his mind. He wasn’t allowed music to listen to, or books to read, and the videos were awful. The first thoughts that drifted into his minds were concerns about Nan and Karen. It felt wrong to try to will them away.
Three mornings after the op in China, Crocker hopped a cab from Honolulu International Airport to Pearl Harbor. During the drive he listened to the balding driver talk excitedly about how he had driven a famous pop star named Iggy Azalea back to her hotel last night and how she had tipped him twenty dollars. Crocker pretended to care, even though he didn’t know who she was. He was thinking about how he had missed Easter dinner and had to call Jenny.
Even at 0740 the sun was blinding. He got out at the entrance to the base, stretched, and looked out over the harbor, which still seemed filled with ghosts. His grandfather had passed through here on his way to Guam back in ’43. His dad had billeted here often while serving on various destroyers and aircraft carriers in the Pacific fleet.
Inside, he found a mess where he fortified himself with a cup of coffee and scrambled eggs, then hustled over to the CINCPAC building, where he checked through security again and was escorted to a third-floor conference room.
Anders looked up from some papers, saw Crocker in his customary black jeans and T-shirt, and said, “You’re on time. Good. How was China?”
“Strange.”
“How come you can’t execute a mission without causing complications?”
“Shit happens. How’s the kid?”
“Alive. Still in Dandong. Interesting that you inquire about some North Korean boy you barely know before you ask about the intel.”
“People come first. You got a problem with that?”
“No. But the Chinese aren’t happy.”
“They’ll get over it. Choi get you the intel you wanted?”
“He did. Thanks. Our guests should be here any minute. Get yourself some coffee and a muffin and relax.”
He didn’t want coffee or a muffin. He’d rather be running along Waikiki Beach, which he spied out the window on the left. Staring at the breaking surf, he remembered his honeymoon with Holly and happier times-the two of them splashing one another, the time he broke a surfboard in two on a monster wave while he was showing off.
The door opened and three serious-looking Asian gentlemen and a guy wearing a white hockey mask marched in. Two of the Asians were wearing uniforms, one had on a suit. The dude with the mask sported a white polo shirt and pants.
Any doubts Crocker might have had that the subject was North Korea were dispelled the moment Anders introduced one of the men in uniform as Park Yong-koo of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service-NIS, their equivalent to our CIA. They took their places in upholstered chairs around the oval table and without ceremony or small talk got down to business. They were here to pick the brain of the man wearing the hockey mask-Min Sang Fu-a recent defector from North Korea and colonel in the North Korean Special Operation Force (NKSOF), an elite military unit trained to perform military, political, and psychological operations. He had served as personal liaison to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un since 2013 and had defected during a recent visit to Beijing to consult with his Chinese counterparts.
Min was compact, with a square head and close-cropped black hair. Through an interpreter, he said he was currently a target of the North Korean secret police. He had decided to cooperate with U.S. officials, he explained, after hearing about the brave action Crocker had taken on the Tumen River.
“The kid was going to drown. I had to do something,” Crocker said, and turned to glance at Anders as if to remind him that in the end everything was personal, even covert ops.
Min proceeded to warn them about the dirty tricks of Office 39, which he described as a criminal enterprise run like the Mafia, designed to raise revenue for all of the Supreme Leader’s special programs and activities, including a very large gift and privilege system designed to buy the loyalty of his top lieutenants and military leaders and keep the regime in place. Office 39 also funded the regime’s aggressive nuclear missile program, which the North Koreans viewed as the key to their survival. The enterprise was run by one of Kim’s right-hand men, a former criminal and businessman named Chou Jang Hee. Chou, according to Min, was the most feared man in North Korea and had been given the title Honored General. His elite staff at Office 39 headquarters in Pyongyang consisted of about 150 operatives, planners, managers, and accountants.
Office 39 also employed another fifty to a hundred men and women who worked overseas-some in front companies in Switzerland, Thailand, and Dubai, which were used to buy and sell military equipment and procure parts and technology for the nuclear weapons program. Others ran operations including selling cigarettes and counterfeit currency, and drug trafficking. In recent years, according to Min, Office 39 had made billions of dollars manufacturing crystal meth and selling it in places like the Czech Republic, Sweden, Latvia, Slovakia, Finland, Thailand (where it is known as yaba), and the Philippines (where it is called shabu).
Office 39 also kidnapped young women from places like Thailand, Vietnam, and the Ukraine to serve as sex slaves to top regime officials, managed a large Internet hacking operation, and stole industrial secrets. Illegal activities in foreign countries, Min explained, were often farmed out to local criminals and gangs. Chou’s code name was the Dragon, and he called all the shots.
He also had a hand in managing Office 99, which raised funds by selling missiles and military equipment to countries like Syria and Iran, and Office 35, whose focus was to undermine the government of South Korea. Many of the billions of dollars in assets Chou accrued annually were stored in bank accounts in Switzerland, Dubai, and Macau.
Anders opened a folder and spread across the table the documents that had been smuggled over the border. They appeared to be hand-drawn plans of the various Office 39 facilities. As Min started to explain what they were and how Office 39 worked with other branches of the North Korean government and military, the air conditioning died and the lights went out.
The South Korean officials fidgeted and chattered nervously, but Min kept his eyes focused on Crocker across the table. A few minutes later a navy orderly knocked on the door and reported that the city of Honolulu had suffered a large-scale power outage. If the electricity wasn’t restored shortly, he said, the base would begin firing up its emergency generators.