Darke Mission (26 page)

Thank god for that, thought JJ, at least the driver issue was now solved. Assuming Lily and the Iceman came through tomorrow's surveillance op in one piece, the next day would see six of them attempt to get into North Korea in two large trucks and a Sprinter van.

“JJ,” said Jim. “While the two Kims are getting their papers sorted for the border crossing tomorrow, the rest of us need to scope out two things. First, we need to look at the photographs, diagrams and schematics you have for the DPRK central bank. When Lily and the Iceman return tomorrow, we need to check out how their visuals match our diagrams. Information about the North can be sketchy and even those intrusive fuckers at Google maps can be out of date.”

JJ thought it somewhat amusing that Jim felt Google maps were intrusive given the multiple intrusions that his friend had authorised or carried out in his career.

“Secondly,” Jim continued, “we need really good covers for us taking two big trucks and a van into the North. They're as twitchy as a guy with Tourette's on speed,” referring to the DPRK border guards. “If we muck it up on that crossing there'll be no gold for your bankrupt country and a muddy grave for all of us.”

* * *

JJ, Jim and Victor were back in the meeting room, perusing overhead shots of the new DPRK central bank building. The CIA satellite had taken a decent image of the large, impressive structure in the tree-lined boulevard, close to Taedong River. The shot was from only two nights ago and it was clear that the tallest part of the building complex was complete but that one of the two smaller structures on either side was not. The central bank had previously been located near what is now The People's Theatre in the Changjon street area. This was torn down a few years ago and the new building was much more of a statement.

“This new building is good news and bad news,” said Victor. “The good news is that the construction may not be fully completed from what we can see. This means that the security guards will be used to building workers, electricians, painters, etc. milling around. They would all need to be authorised and probably subject to spot checks but at least it would not be unusual to see them on the premises. Further good news is that there are parking zones across the street, under the trees. See here,” highlighted Victor, pointing at the photograph. “Lily and the Iceman may be able to park up there and observe.”

“And the bad news?” asked Jim Bradbury.

“Well,” said Victor. “The building is new, so it is likely to have state of the art security installed. As it is only the main tower which is finished, it is probable that the vault rooms are in that building, more likely underneath it.”

JJ and Jim were not overly fazed by the bad news. They had assumed that the central bank would have state of the art security. They also knew that a tunnelling operation was out of the question, it would take too long, and probably be too noisy. In any event, it looked like the central bank structure was stand alone with no adjacent shops, theatres, cafés or other establishments. No, they thought, this breach would need to be quietly through the front door or something very similar.

“Is there a car park?” asked JJ.

“Yes,” said Victor. “Here behind the main building, facing away from the river, towards the centre of Pyongyang.”

JJ and Jim Bradbury considered the information so far. Assuming all had gone well up to that point, the secret service friends concluded that it would be feasible to park their Mercedes Sprinter van in the central bank's car park. There would probably be CCTV there but Victor intimated that he could freeze the camera's picture frame or send it on a continuous loop. The heist would be after business hours so any security officer looking at a picture of no action in the car park would just assume that that was what should be going on in the central bank's car park in the dead of night – nothing.

“We still have a problem,” said JJ, “the van's got the ‘Toblerone' conveyor system in it. Assuming we've opened the vault without setting an alarm off, loaded the gold onto the ‘Toblerones', and then loaded the gold bars into the van, we're not going to have the space to re-load the conveyor system into the van. We can't leave them there. While there are no markings or manufacturers stamp on the ‘Toblerones', we need them again to load the tankers with the gold. It's the same problem as getting the gold from the vaults to the van. We can't spend sixty hours doing it. Even sixty minutes could be too long.”

“Can't we drive the tankers to the DPRK car park and load the gold straight on to them?” asked Victor, reasonable enough he thought.

“No,” JJ snapped back not unfriendly, but with purpose. “We can check when the Kims return, but I'd bet anything that there will be no trucks or tankers in the car park. It's a central bank, not a supermarket or petrol station. There will be saloon cars, executive cars, maybe the occasional sports car but the largest vehicles in that car park will probably be vans like our Sprinter, carrying supplies for the central bank's daily operations and its workers. Two disguised Volvo trucks with tankers attached, however decaled, would stick out like the proverbial.”

Jim Bradbury didn't have a lot to offer at this point, but Victor did not seem defeated by his earlier no good idea.

“We could always hot-wire one of the vans in the car park,” he ventured. “I'll have the cameras on a loop so they won't notice a thing.”

JJ thought immediately that was a workable option. “Good,” he said. “Well done Victor. We'll check with Lily and the Iceman. If there're a few vans dotted around the car park that'll be good news.”

Jim Bradbury still appeared thoughtful. “What about the tankers, JJ?” he asked. “Where are they going to be?”

“When I was looking at the maps and satellite image coordinates with the Kims, I noticed there is a substantial petrol station, south of the river across the bridge, right here,” said JJ stabbing the map with his right forefinger. “During the daytime, Lily told me, it is quite busy given that there are not many petrol stations in Pyongyang. Apparently this one was built recently by Pyeonghwa Motors, has four to five rows of pumps and, more relevantly from our point of view, a trailer park where trucks and fuel tankers can park up before either unloading or loading their goods or petrol. Often, according to Lily, there can be several tankers there overnight. At night the petrol station is much less busy. This is the ideal location to park our trucks and to do the gold transfer.”

Victor, Jim Bradbury and JJ thought that they had accomplished as much as they could on the transport plan for the moment. They'd await the scouting report from the Kims if and when they got back from their surveillance op, before making any adjustments. In the meantime, they'd find Ethel and start to work on their stories for the border crossing.

* * *

While the boys had been figuring out the transport plan, Ethel and two of the junior PAU Travellers had been working on the Volvo/FAW trucks. Their main task was to decal the tankers with the logos and paintwork of PetroChina, one of China's largest oil and gas companies. The main decal looked like a fully-open flower with serrated edges, mustardy-yellow on top and solid, rust coloured red on the bottom. It was distinctive and it was all over North Korea.

Ethel's phone beeped. It was a message from JJ asking her ETA back at PAU. Ethel replied ten minutes. They'd finished up on the trucks and a fine job they had done, she thought. Now, back to the grungy part of the mission.

“We've got the trucks set up as Chinese FAW tractors delivering petrol from PetroChina in Shaanxi tankers,” began JJ. “That part has been relatively straight-forward. We'll aim for a border crossing just after breaking dawn on Thursday. That way the border guards may be a bit sleepy and less inclined to go through with a thorough inspection. The issue for this meeting is our collective covers.”

Ethel, Victor, the two Kims and Jim Bradbury were listening attentively. This is where the pre-match heist would succeed or fail. Lily and the Iceman felt comfortable enough with their plan for the surveillance operation on the DPRK central bank tomorrow, Ethel felt that the trucks would pass muster and Victor seemed content with his research and all the equipment he had in tow.

“The starting point should be that we are delivering new petrol tankers to Pyeongwha Motors in Pyongyang from PetroChina in Beijing. Lily and the Iceman can be the drivers just for the border crossing itself. Don't panic Lily, you'll be approaching the border guards at, maybe, 10mph; you'll need to get out and speak to them to allow you to cross. One of the guards may even get in the cab with you, but that's no sweat. Once crossed, Jim will take over truck driving,” said JJ. “You two stars,” he continued, pointing to the Kims, “need to be the first contact. You look local, you sound local, in fact are local so the initial response will be that you are not a threat. You'll be dressed in PetroChina overalls, so the first impression as to how you look and talk will seem OK. The rest of us will be dressed in suits. Jim and I will appear to be PetroChina executives. Foreigners but seconded from Beijing to Seoul, primarily to ensure the safe delivery of these new fancy dan tankers. Ethel will be our corporate PA and Victor a petrochemical engineer, specifically requested by Pyeonghwa Motors.

“Those of us who cannot speak Korean will say as little as possible. Victor, you need to seem like some babbling egghead so be prepared to drop stuff, generally be clumsy and geeky, etc. Ethel you need to get a pair of specs, look a bit like a PA and hang on every word that Jim and I utter,” said JJ smiling.

Ethel gave him a look which said in your dreams, bub.

“Any questions?” asked the Scot, hoping that there would not be, but knowing that there would.

Jim was first to jump in. “OK, we can get the right overalls, suits, the look, and the necessary forged Korean papers but what about our authorisation, won't that need to come from PetroChina and Pyeonghwa Motors?”

“Victor has already downloaded the corporate logos and headed paper for both companies. We know who their senior personnel are, which department they're responsible for and who would authorise such a delivery. Jim, Ethel and I will also have authentic looking PetroChina business cards. Young Pagari, here, hasn't been wasting his time.”

“OK,” said Jim Bradbury. “Let's say we all look the part and have papers to prove we are the part. Why don't the border guards just phone up Pyeonghwa Motors and ask if the delivery of two trucks is legit?”

“When Lily and the Iceman hand over all our papers and authorisation to the border guards it will feel like a volume of the Encyclopedia Brittanica landed on them. If they persist, we will have given them letters of authority from Pyeonghwa Motors with contact numbers on them. Of course we'd be happy for them to call, but it'll be around 6.30 in the morning. They won't be able to get through till 8.30 at the earliest. In the meantime, we'll have two fat trucks and a van blocking up their bridge, with the workers for the Kaesŏng Industrial Estate about to pour over from 7am. The odds are they'd just want rid of us,” concluded JJ, hoping that the early morning North Korean border guards didn't want major hassle before breakfast.

There were nods and approval mumblings around the table, it was a plan which may have merits.

“What about our weapons, Victor's equipment and the ‘Toblerones'?” Ethel asked.

“The ‘Toblerones' look fairly innocuous, so they do not need to be disguised,” said JJ. “If the guards really insist then we can say they're for rotating the empty petrol tanks once off the trailers. They have no markings, no tells, they're fine. Once we've bagged up our weapons, and any breach specific equipment of Victor's, we'll be placing them in Gore-Tex bags and submerging them in the sunbeds in the tankers which will be temporarily filled with water. A friend of ours in Woking, Surrey had them made up. The bags are good down to 300m even under high pressure,” said JJ, simultaneously thinking that Harold surely did know a lot of stuff.

He glanced at Jim. His Arizona friend smiled back and gave him one of those two fingered salutes from the side of the forehead, so often used by military types to signal A-OK. The two Kims were nodding and babbling away in Korean, clearly believing that this mission could be pulled off. Ethel had moved a little closer to Victor and they both seemed convinced by the plan so far. Without shifting her attention from Victor, Ethel gave JJ the thumbs up from behind her back.

JJ was satisfied with the progress. It had been a hell of a rush, just getting to this point. It seemed like an age since he had been admiring Cyrus's ‘Toblerone' sketches and a veritable eon ago that he had first come across Vincent Barakat and PLP. Yet it was only days. The prelims were over, the tests were due to begin the very next morning. JJ and his international clan of clandestine chums better be on their marks.

* * *

Kim Chun-So and Kim Min-Jun had definitely been on their marks. They had no trouble whatsoever getting across the border at 7am. Hordes of workers joined them as they trudged across the footbridge at Panmunjom on their way to the Kaesŏng Industrial Region. Their overalls, caps and work bags looked authentic. The DPRK border guards, probably still short on breakfast, only stopped, searched and checked every fifth or sixth worker. They had done these checks a thousand times. Nothing ever turned up, the workers were too scared that they would not be able to return to the South, ever, if they were caught with the smallest suspicious item or any minor incorrect detail in their papers. The guards were bored, this was a monotonous job and, to a man, they wished some fool would make a break for it so they could have some target practice or at least beat him up a bit under harsh interrogation.

Lily and the Iceman could not risk carrying any weapons or equipment across the bridge. They would lose any firefight with the guards and, if captured alive, they would never see their families or friends again. The plan was to pick up a car near the industrial estate and drive to Pyongyang. The car would be left there by one of only two deep cover CIA officers in the whole of North Korea. Kwon Min-Ho had been posing as an official tourist guide for over two years and, so far, he had not been rumbled.