The man at the desk rose slowly and stared at them. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?”
“The Supreme Leader must be told,” said one of the other men.
They all well knew that the higher-ranking general was a personal friend of Pak’s. This had all been orchestrated because of that fact. The truth in North Korea did not necessarily set one free or cause one to die. It was merely one factor of many that had to be taken into account if your goal was survival.
“Do you not agree, General?” asked the other man.
The general looked at the phone and then down at Chung-Cha’s unreadable features. He knew he had just been badly outmaneuvered and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
He nodded, took his cap off a hook, and led the two other generals out the door.
They simply left Chung-Cha behind. She was not surprised by this. There was no gender equality here. She was not in the military and was thus a second-class citizen to those who were.
She wondered if they would send her to kill Pak. She thought the odds were against his simply being executed by firing squad, the normal way of dealing with traitors. It was a tricky balance, she knew, much like the street vendors and the Dutch tourist. Publicly executing Pak would require some explanation. They could lie, of course, but savvier folks would know that only an egregious transgression would justify such a high-ranking official’s execution, and the speculation would undoubtedly come to rest on an attempted coup of the Supreme Leader. That such an inner-circle official could have participated in such a scheme would reflect badly on the Supreme Leader. Even though the traitor would have been caught, others might be emboldened to try as well. But traitors had to be dealt with, and execution was usually the only punishment deemed acceptable. So Chung-Cha might be called on to do it, but make it look like an accident, a task she had performed in the past. Thus the traitor would be dead, and any of his confederates would think twice before trying again. But the public and other potential enemies within the country would not necessarily know of the attempted coup at all. That way the Supreme Leader would not appear weakened.
She thought about all of this and then thought no more. The order would either come or it would not.
She slipped her phone back into her pocket, rose, and left.
A few moments later she walked out into the sunshine and looked to the sky, where there were no clouds visible.
At Yodok this was the time of year when prisoners knew the cold was coming. The first set of clothes Chung-Cha had received upon entering the camp had come from a dead child. The clothes were filthy and full of holes. She would not receive a “new” set of rags for three years. She labored in a gold mine, digging out the precious metal, unaware of what it was or that it was valuable. She also worked in a gypsum quarry, in a distillery, and in the fields. Her days started at four in the morning and ended at eleven at night. She had seen clearly insane people forced to dig holes and pull weeds. Dying prisoners were sometimes simply released so their deaths would not be officially reported, thereby making the mortality rates of the camps look better. Chung-Cha had not known this was the reason; she only remembered old and young prisoners dragging themselves through the open gates only to expire meters from the spot, their bodies left to decompose or be eaten by animals.
She had lived with thirty other prisoners in a mud hut not much bigger than her current apartment. The huts were unheated and the blankets threadbare. She had suffered frostbite while inside the hut. She had awoken to find the person next to her dead of the cold. There was one toilet for two hundred prisoners. To the outside world this probably seemed unimaginable. For Chung-Cha it was simply her life.
Ten.
Ten was the number of basic rules at all the camps.
The first and most important was, You must not escape.
The last and nearly as important was, If you break any of the above rules you will be shot.
All the rules in between — no stealing, obey all orders, spy on and betray other prisoners — were just filler, she believed. The fact was they could kill you for any reason or no reason at all.
Rule number nine had intrigued her, however. It said that one must truly be remorseful for one’s mistakes. She knew this was an incentive for those who hoped one day to be free of the camps. She had never hoped this. She never believed she would be free. She was not remorseful for her mistakes. She was simply trying to survive. In that regard her life now was no different from her life in the camp.
I am simply trying to survive.
Chapter 25
The three men were in the White House Situation Room again. And once more the NSC Watch teams had been walled off. There were no recordings being made. There were no other attendees. No official transcript would be kept.
Evan Tucker looked at the president, and the president stared back at him. The latter had not been told why this meeting had been called, only that it was urgent and needed to take place immediately. That was why they were sitting here now and why the president had canceled four meetings that he had been scheduled to attend.
“Care to take me out of the dark, Evan?” the president said in a clearly annoyed tone.
Josh Potter had already met with Tucker and thus knew what was coming. He had been uncomfortable not informing the president directly since he was the president’s man, but Tucker had browbeaten him into letting the DCI make the briefing.
And, in truth, Potter did not want to be the messenger on this debacle.
Tucker cleared his throat, which lately had felt like mold was growing there. He clasped his hands together and rubbed his two thumbs against one another so hard they turned bright pink.
“There have been developments of a critical nature related to the mission and none of them are good.”
All the color seemed to drain from the president’s face. He barked, “Explain that.”
Tucker said, “As you know, Lloyd Carson was the British envoy assigned to the embassy in Pyongyang. He has been our chief go-between with General Pak. Really our only go-between.”
The president said, “And I was initially incredulous. He should’ve gone to his own government with this. Then my esteemed colleague at 10 Downing Street could have dealt with it.”
“And as I explained, Carson was well aware that no one in his country would have the stomach to follow this through. So with his leader’s blessing he presented the opportunity to us.”
The president closed his eyes, his top row of teeth clamping onto his bottom lip. When he opened his eyes, his look was one of fury. “It always falls to us, doesn’t it? The good old USA, the world’s policeman. We’ll do the dirty work while everyone else stays safely on the sidelines. And if things go to hell feel free to turn on us or simply run away.”
Tucker nodded and said, “Superpower status carries great responsibility and much of it is unfair. But the fact remains we did follow it up because we saw a tremendous opportunity to get rid of a regime that has been a thorn in the civilized world’s side for decades. We knew there were risks, but we all felt that the benefits outweighed them.”
“Save the cover-your-ass speech, Evan,” snapped the president, “and tell me what happened.”
Tucker sat back and composed himself. The president had read him exactly right. That was his CYA speech, but at least he had said it.
“Lloyd Carson apparently got on the radar of the North Korean’s state security people.”