Darke Mission (27 page)

As the two Kims reached the outskirts of the Kaesŏng Industrial Region they could see the dark blue car parked in one of the region's remote car spaces. This model of car and its successor was the second best seller in North Korea, produced by Pyeonghwa Motors, one of only two car manufacturers in the country, along with Pyongsang Auto Works. It was in reality a re-badged and re-tweeked Fiat but it passed for a local car. In so far as any car on North Korea's roads was anonymous, this was it.

Cars were few and far between, even in the capital, Pyongyang. Pyeonghwa Motors apparently had facilities to produce up to 10,000 cars per year, but in 2012, had only made 600. Most North Koreans did not have cars either because they were too expensive or because they had nowhere to go. Still, this four-door saloon car would fit in on the roads of the capital and that was what the Kims were counting on. Lily and the Iceman got into the car and out of their workers overalls. Kwon Min-Ho had left them more city appropriate attire underneath the back seat. There was also an array of surveillance equipment in a canvas holdall in a secret compartment. Deep cover Kwon had done a fine job.

The drive North to Pyongyang would take around an hour and a half. The first half of the journey ought to be fairly straightforward, there were no major villages or towns. As they got closer to the capital, they would hit places like Hwangu, Songnim and Chollima. They would probably be stopped at least at one of the checkpoints and questioned but they believed their cover was solid. That belief was well founded. The two Kims had entered the capital without incident and were parked up on the main tree lined boulevard, almost directly opposite the central bank, with a view of the Taedong River to their right. At least another ten cars were parked on the same stretch of road and some of them were made by PMW, three of which were Hwiparams II or III. The Kims' car did not look out of place.

Although tourists can visit Pyongyang, there aren't many of them and they are accompanied by official tourist guides, many of whom are agents of the DPRK's secret police. One thing you can't do is take photographs willy-nilly. The guides tell you what you are allowed to take photos of and then they check your camera at the end of the day. Kwon and the Kims were well aware of this, so they would not be hanging out of their car's windows like happy snappers. Kwon had left them a skinny tube camera that was barely visible from the outside as it poked out of the front offside headlamp. Lily was manipulating it from the driver's seat and he now had its sightline focused on the front of the central bank.

“Nice building Iceman,” he said to his friend and colleague.

“Hadn't really noticed yet, Lily,” the Iceman replied. “I'm still checking what goodies Kwon has given us.”

“Anything useful?”

“Well, we've got the basics, notepad, pencils, medical supplies, mini camera stuff, though God knows when we'll get a chance to use the camera. In high-tech world we've also got a directional zoom microphone with recorder, Sunagor mega-zoom binoculars and, wait a minute, the jewel in the crown, a mini-tablet with encoded note attached,” said the Iceman.

“What does the note say?” asked Lily.

“Hold your horses, I'm still reading,” muttered the Iceman.

Kwon had truly surpassed himself. He had left the Kims a mini-tablet with Xaver 600 technology. Apparently, for distances up to several hundred yards, this software enables the tablet to see through walls and seek out heat signatures from body movement. It is notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to get internet access in North Korea but Kwon had enhanced the software algorithm to tap into any passing satellite. It could only be activated for a few minutes, safely, to avoid detection. The enhanced tablet used high frequency radio signals to capture an image akin to a baby foetus in a mother's womb, then the computer software processes the signals and converts them into a 3D image of people or objects concealed by solid barriers.

“Wow,” said the Iceman.

“What?” asked Lily anxious to know the scoop while still processing the images form the tube camera.

“Kwon's gone
Star Trek
high-tech, Lily,” said the Iceman.

“We're going to be able to peek inside the central bank without even getting out of this car,” he continued, with a broad grin on his face.

The two Kims spent the rest of the morning observing, listening, surveying activity inside and outside of the central bank. They drove around the block a couple of times before re-parking on the same street but in a different position. Even in a city with a population of over 3 million, there was never any issue about parking. Lots of spaces, not lots of cars. Kim Min-Jun was the first to need a pee, and it was nearly lunchtime.

“Iceman, I'm going for a jimmy riddle and I'll get us something to eat too,” said Lily, showing off his command of rhyming slang which he had picked up on a vacation to London.

“Make sure you wash your hands before getting the lunch,” instructed the Iceman. “I don't want any commy bugs in this dump giving me the skitters.”

Lily nodded and off he went. About forty-five minutes later he returned.

“Where have you been, I'm starving,” announced the Iceman.

“I went over to Juche Tower, near the Diplo. There's a decent fast food and noodle shop near the club, Kwon told me about it a while ago. Then I wandered along the street at the back of the central bank. You can see the car park through some hedges and railings. There are cars parked there as well as some delivery vans. That's good news for us. Anything going on here?” Lily enquired as he handed the Iceman a roll, a couple of basic noodle rice trays and a bottle of water.

“Not really,” he replied, munching rapidly into his lunch. “There's a few suits coming in and going out of the place, nothing unusual. There's still some work being done on the left hand smaller building, but the workers have security guards with them all the time. There's definitely a basement level because some of the 3-D bodies that get in the main elevator kind of disappear when most of the ones that go up are clearly visible. I guess Braveheart was right, the vaults are likely to be below ground level. There's one potentially interesting development though,” said the Iceman.

“What's that?” asked Lily, feeling much more lively after relieving himself and getting something to eat.

“Well, there's one security guard, stationed just outside the front door, who's got a right bitch on. Here, listen to this,” said the Iceman, handing Lily the recordings from the zoom microphone. Lily plugged in and listened up.

People don't really moan much in the DPRK. If you were foreign and you were caught complaining about something, the food, the transport, the ever present official guides then you'd be deported. If your complaint was extended to the regime, its leadership, or even the supreme leader himself then it was bye-bye to life as you knew it. If you a were DPRK citizen and you were caught moaning much, you were likely to meet with an accident or simply vanish. Vanish in this context meant dumped to rot in one of the republic's many unsavoury prison camps.

The particular security guard that Lily was now listening to was called Ji-hun, and he was moaning to his security buddy about all sorts. He wasn't happy about being transferred to front door duty. He had been happy as part of the security detail supervising the vaults, nothing much happened there and, at least, he could sit down. He wasn't happy that his holiday request, which he had put in last January had only been approved this week and was due to begin tomorrow. He wasn't happy that he had no plans to go anywhere. He wasn't happy that he didn't have a girlfriend and that he lived in a sparse, cardboard box of an apartment next door to a family with three young and boisterous kids. If there was ever a certainty that needed no interpretation it was that Ji-hun was not happy.

His security buddy kept saying ‘shut up Ji-Hun, we'll get into trouble' but Ji-hun was in full groaning flow. Lily took off his headphones and handed them and the zoom microphone's recorder back to the Iceman.

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking Iceman?”

“Depends what you're thinking.”

“I'm thinking the moaner Ji-hun could be helpful to our quest,” said Lily.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” agreed the Iceman.

Kwon Min-Ho had informed the two Kims that the normal closing time for the central bank was around 6pm, though a few executives could still be working there as late as 9pm. The front door security guards normally clocked off at 6.30pm. At this time of year, sunset would be around 7pm in Pyongyang and twilight about half an hour later.

“If we grab him, Lily, we're going to need to do it between 6.30 and 7pm. Later would be better because there will still be a hint of daylight at 7pm, but the last crossing from the industrial region back to the South is at 9.30pm. We can't miss it or we're stuffed.”

“OK. Although we can't take the moaner with us back to Seoul, and god knows what Braveheart and the Road Runner will say when we tell them we've snatched a security guard,” he cautioned.

“Look Lily. We were both in the meeting run by Darke. We don't know for sure where the vaults are, we don't know what kind of vault the bullion bars are in and we don't know the extent of security protecting them. This Ji-hun guy will know at least some of that. We've got to get him.”

Ji-hun finished his shift at precisely 6.30pm. He changed out of his uniform in the guards' locker room, put on his civilian gear and hot footed it out of the central bank. He had no wish to be there a minute longer and, at least, tomorrow began seven days of rest and recuperation, or so he thought. He headed out of the front door, turned right along the main boulevard and had every intention of walking the twenty minutes or so it would take him to get to his ground floor box in a high rise tower block.

It was 6.45pm. As Ji-hun took a side turning into a nearly deserted street, he noticed that a dark blue saloon car had just passed him and parked. As he bent his head a little lower to peer into the driver's side, Lily had popped out round the back of the car. Silently, he grabbed Ji-hun around the neck and stuck a ketamine filled syringe into one of the moaner's veins. Lily held him as his sedated body crumpled. Ketamine may not be the anaesthetic of choice for the world's best equipped intelligence services but Kwon Min-Ho couldn't be high-tech on everything. He had included the drug under medical supplies, presumably in case a bullet had to be removed from one of his colleagues in the field. Lily manhandled Ji-hun into the back seat of the car, returned to the front passenger seat and they drove off.

“How long will he be out for?” the Iceman asked his friend.

“Hard to tell. I put a full dose in the syringe. Probably keep him quiet for a couple of hours. We need to figure out what to do with him now we've got him. We don't have time to interrogate him. It's 7.15pm now. By the time we get back to Kaesŏng and park up we'll just about make the 9.30pm crossing.”

“I know. Do we have any other supplies from Kwon that could be of use?” asked the Iceman.

Lily got Kwon's bag and had a rummage through the remainder of its contents. There was a small drill, speedcuffs, some duct tape, two ropes and a small plastic bottle with a label on it.

“Iceman, what's propofol?” Lily asked.

“Propofol is just what the doctor ordered,” replied the Iceman, concentrating on the road out of Pyongyang but formulating a plan as he did so.

It was nearly 8pm. Lily and the Iceman had soon passed through Chollima and Songnim but the checkpoint they had previously been stopped at, on their way to Pyongyang, was about ten minutes' drive away at Hwangu. The Iceman stopped the car and then pulled over to a totally unlit part of the road. The two Kims transferred the moaner Ji-hun, who was of course not moaning at present, to the car's trunk.

The hapless security guard now had some additional accessories on, in the form of speedcuffs and duct tape. The two Kims and their acquisition passed the Hwangu checkpoint without incident. The guards just waved them through, noting that they had recorded their registration number earlier on the way to Pyongyang. The Iceman drove with purpose, but within the speed limit, to the same spot near the Kaesŏng Industrial Region that they had picked up the car in the early morning. It was 8.45 pm. They had time but they needed to do something with Ji-hun and they needed to let Kwon know what was going on.

“What's our plan Iceman?” asked Lily.

“First, let's make sure Ji-hun's still breathing.” He was, confirmed the Iceman after checking his pulse.

“Secondly, I'll administer the propofol,” added the Iceman. “You drill a few air holes in the trunk's lid. Try not to make them too obvious.”

Propofol was sometimes referred to as the milk of amnesia. It looked milky as the Iceman filled the plastic tube with needle attached. It is a widely used anaesthetic and approved in over fifty countries. It leaves the sedated one less fucked up of mind and speech once they recover compared to most other sedatives. As the Iceman was preparing to inject Ji-hun he marvelled at how useful deep cover Kwon was. He was low-tech, high-tech, whatever tech you needed. No wonder he had gone undetected in the DPRK for so long.

Kim Chun-So was no doctor. Thankfully, Kwon had left instructions. If you want to knock the ‘patient' out for eight to ten hours then start by injecting 10ml and then hook up the enclosed tube so that the entire contents of the small bottle can drip into him intravenously over time. The Iceman did the first injection, hooked the tube over and around one of the hinges on the inside of the trunk lid, held the contraption in place with some duct tape and checked that the milky liquid was flowing through. It was. Game on.

Lily had completed drilling half a dozen or so holes near the front of the trunk lid. They would not be noticed by passers-by, not that there were many of those right here, right now nor would there be till business hours tomorrow. The two Kims changed back into their workers clothes. It was 9pm.