Devil's Fork

DEVIL’S FORK

By Spencer Adams

Copyright © 2013 
All rights
reserved.

This book, or any portion
thereof
, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the author
 except for
the use of brief quotations in a book review.

In this work of fiction, the characters,
places and events are either the product of the author’s
imagination or they are used entirely fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Nothing
is intended or should be interpreted as expressing or representing
the views of any department or agency of any government body.

ISBN: 978-1494838812

Printed in the United States of America

Cover design by Elizabeth Mackey

Also by Spencer
Adams

The Four Hundred
Conspiracy

For a limited time get a FREE copy of Tom
Hull’s CIA case file

Go to

spenceradamsbooks.com

Follow Spencer on
Twitter

Facts:

The SAD is a real unit in the CIA. Most of
its missions are unknown to the public.

The NIS is South Korea’s intelligence
agency.

A number of intelligence agencies have an
“illegals” program.

Other organizations described in this novel
are real or based on real groups.

All technologies described are real or are
derived from existing technologies.

“
The unleashed power of the
atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN

RWMUW XTPIY GTSPN PPEZ

CHAPTER 1

SATURDAY

Pyongyang, North Korea

Officer 1414 knew he was going to die. He
peeked through the curtains of his apartment, catching a glimpse of
the bleak capital. On the street several military trucks pulled to
a stop and soldiers jumped out with urgency. They ran towards
Officer 1414’s building.

The apartment in which he had spent almost
five years was on the seventh floor of a nondescript concrete
building. He could see the soldiers clearly on the street, although
their faces were difficult to make out. A few officers were giving
orders. One was motioning to a squad to run to the intersection to
the right of the apartment block. To another squad he motioned to
run to the intersection on the left.

They are trying to cut off
my escape
.

1414 was an officer in the National
Intelligence Service of South Korea, known as the NIS.
Fourteen-fourteen was his code name – to be used for communications
and in any documents related to the mission. He was an “illegal,”
meaning he was not officially working at an embassy or agency while
gathering intelligence. This was a moot distinction because South
Korea had no embassy or agency operating in North Korea. The two
countries were still officially at war. The term illegal referred
to his being in the country illegally. Americans used the term deep
cover. The North Koreans would consider him an illegal and that is
how 1414 preferred to view himself. He had been in the North for
about a decade with forged papers, a false identity, and more cash
than an average North Korean earned in a lifetime. His job in
Pyongyang was in the Transportation Ministry. His real job was to
make friends with military officers, government bureaucrats, and
members of the state news agency. Each contact he made was either a
source of information or a ticket to meet someone closer to the
regime, with more precious information. All of this was done to
accomplish the mission he had been given back home. Each of the
illegals in North Korea worked separately, and the NIS gave each a
mission that they expected to take a decade to complete. But each
task, including 1414’s, was paramount to the South’s survival.

One squad along with three plain-clothed men
entered the building below. The plain-clothed men had the markings
of secret police. They looked better fed than the broad populace.
They looked more confident than anyone around them. They also
nonchalantly held pistols in their hands – a strictly forbidden
item in this country.

1414 knew the secret police were not making
an ordinary arrest. If a family was discovered with crumbled
pictures of the leaders, they were guilty of a crime punishable by
an unknown-number of years in a prison camp. But the secret police
arrested those families in the middle of the night, precisely so
nobody would see. This put maximum fear into the people – either
those being detained or those not. But now it was 9AM – long after
such an arrest would have been made. The apartment raids that
happen at this time are for those who must be arrested immediately
– foreign spies.

I only have a few
minutes
.

There was little time to think. The door to
the apartment was locked, which provided an extra minute of
security. Luckily the elevator never worked in the building, so the
arresting party would be forced to use the stairs, which might add
four minutes. 1414 lunged for his couch and started pushing it
towards his door. He could bench press 250 pounds and now was
thankful more than ever for his strength. He aligned the couch
right in front of the door. It was the perfect height to block the
handle from turning. He picked up his small dining table and put it
on the couch.

But he did not barricade his door to try to
escape out of another entrance. There was none. 1414 needed extra
time to send a message to Command. He knew death was inevitable. He
underwent two years of training to be an illegal, and psychological
preparation for the possibility of death was an important part of
the program. He had learned not to cling to life as if wildly
treading water to catch the ledge. Death would be a time for the
rest and peace he was not able to get while in the South Korean
Marines or as an illegal. It was not to be feared. His training was
working: 1414 was not shaking or panting. His movements were
methodical. He looked like a farmer going through his tools in his
barn as he searched for his phone. He calculated that his guests
were probably about halfway up the stairs by now. In the bathroom,
he reached through some piping that was visible through a small
hole in the wall. He pulled out a bag with his phone. It was a
Samsung device that connected to Command through a satellite. The
NIS modified it to encrypt his voice and any typed messages he
sent. He used it just last night to tell Command that his
decade-long mission might be completed today, but he still needed
to put the phone back each time he used it.

Then the knocking started. His door vibrated
with each fist that hit it. The knocking soon transformed into
banging.

Do they really think I’d open?

He pressed the power button on the phone. As
it loaded, the banging on the door became more violent – they were
trying to kick it down now. The kick’s percussion reverberated
through his small apartment. This message must be sent, 1414
thought. He was now focused on completing the last leg of his
mission.

An hour ago, he had met with one of his
contacts. They bought newspapers and cigarettes together and then
walked along the south side of the Taedong River, just north of
1414’s apartment. 1414 amused himself thinking about the
difficulties meeting someone in Pyongyang which his counterparts in
Japan or even China never had to worry about. In the rest of the
world there were many bars, clubs, cafes, bookshops, or malls to
meet with a contact. In Pyongyang there were so few of these places
that meeting to buy newspapers and cigarettes was almost the only
possible activity. His contacts of course had no idea that he was a
South Korean officer. An intelligence officer of any country might
have a number of contacts who were really unsuspecting sources of
information. They thought they were talking to a curious friend.
Many only needed a drink or two at a meal before information flowed
like water out of a fountain. This morning was different. After
spending a decade on his mission, 1414’s meeting this morning was
the culmination of everything he had been striving for. Contact
after contact, piece after piece of information collected from the
moment he crossed the Yalu River on the border with China was all
carefully planned towards one goal - his mission objective. This
morning, he finally met with an insider, a member of the elite,
someone who had the Final piece of information. 1414 extracted it
on the banks of the Taedong as the early morning mist rose from the
river and into the gray city.

1414 entered his final message into his
phone and quickly sent it:

41.160167, 129.612440. Mission accomplished.
Officer 1414 compromised. Last resort will be used. Error in how we
think about Jewels.

He wished he could
just
say
what he
found out. The NIS misunderstood North Korea’s activities. But he
had to stick to the code words and procedure he was assigned. If
the message was discovered, intercepted, or later hacked then his
holiday in this country would have been for nothing. The message
had to be specific enough so Command could understand it, yet vague
enough to keep mission security.

1414 pressed a small button on the side of
his phone four times in succession. Smoke started to come out of
the phone as the circuitry inside started melting. Command had
modified the phone with chemicals that could be discharged if it
needed to be destroyed.

The secret police were beating the door
wildly now. It moved at least half an inch inward with each hit.
1414 could hear voices on the other side.

1414 sat in the far corner of his bedroom,
his legs stretched out in front of him. He thought about the summer
days he used to spend outside as a child. The sun was so bright
that he felt that it was giving a kiss to him and the grass around
him all day. The sun was what he missed most in North Korea. He saw
the sun here too, supposedly the same sun he saw growing up 300
miles south. Yet it was not the same.

1414 took out the item of last resort
Command gave illegals: a pill. He saw his door break open. The
couch and table were now all that kept the visitors away. He bit
the pill and closed his eyes for the final time.

CHAPTER 2

MONDAY

Washington, DC

Tom Hull was stepping out of the shower when
he received John Anderson’s email.

TH: meeting first thing this morning. Come
to office ASAP.

-JA

Tom read the message and put his phone down.
It feels like a new mission, he thought. Urgent meetings on Monday
morning usually meant new missions. He started getting dressed.

Tom worked at the CIA’s
Special Activities Division, known as the SAD. The general public
occasionally read about traditional espionage activities. Many knew
that traditional spies work with diplomatic cover while they
recruit assets in foreign cities. But the SAD was a unit that few
knew about. Tom’s group carried out covert missions in dangerous
places where traditional spies could not go. Often acting as a
paramilitary force, SAD operators were on the frontier of the CIA’s
intelligence gathering operations. In hostile countries, SAD
operators were on the ground, fighting with rebels, undermining
military facilities, or capturing high-level targets. There was a
popular term that described the SAD’s activities: black operations.
SAD operators were recruited from the already elite special
operations units in the military. The group included desk analysts
who supported the operators. The desk analysts combed
through
information and intelligence from
the rest of the CIA and helped the SAD operators plan
missions.

Tom had been a Navy SEAL before joining the
SAD. After college he joined the SEAL teams as an officer and after
several years was recruited into DEVGRU, the counter-terrorism unit
formerly known as SEAL Team 6. He was approached to join SAD after
years as a DEVGRU officer. Over the course of his career he
traveled extensively around the world. He had visited the most
unwelcoming places.