Devil's Fork (14 page)

He remembered studying it
in an economics seminar. When China opened up trade in the late
1970s, its economy was relatively small and did not produce many
goods that the world wanted. So the leaders started printing money,
causing inflation. Inflation meant that China’s currency was being
devalued against other world currencies, including the US Dollar.
This caused Chinese goods to become far cheaper than similar goods
produced anywhere else. The cost of making a product in China
became a small fraction of the cost to make it anywhere else –
because materials were now cheap and labor wages were now
especially cheap. So the rest of the world reacted predictably –
they started getting all of their goods from China. It did not
happen all at once, but set in slowly, as China’s currency kept
devaluing. As China exported more goods to the rest of the world,
its economy began growing at a fast pace. And here was the catch –
as people abroad, mainly Americans, bought Chinese goods, they paid
for them in dollars. The companies exporting these goods wanted to
convert the dollars back into Chinese currency. So the Chinese
government stepped in and gladly gave them Chinese currency, which
the government had freshly printed in abundance. The government
took in exchange, the US Dollars. In this way, the Chinese economy
continued to grow and importantly, the Chinese government
accumulated a growing hoard of US Dollars, called foreign reserves.
The Chinese government was slowly becoming the richest entity in
the world. The last time NATPAC checked, he had read that China had
several
trillion
dollars in foreign reserves, and growing. All it had required
was printing currency to artificially keep the exchange rate low.
It also required a large, cheap labor force. The factories
producing all of these goods needed many workers. NATPAC knew they
worked in near-slave conditions, but it was justified he thought.
It was their service to getting China towards superpower status.
This system allowed China to grow without needing to create any
innovation and without developing anything new.

It was such a simple hack, he thought.
Generally countries wanted what they called “strong” currency. It
was a silly way to call it, he thought. As a country’s currency was
gaining in value, its economy would not be able to grow by
manufacturing goods and selling them abroad. This was because that
country’s products would be too expensive for the rest of the
world. But an artificially low currency, fueled only by printing
money, allowed a country to sell to the world and accumulate
dollars. NATPAC was mainly mesmerized by this hack because of the
massive scale on which it was being done.

NATPAC smiled every time he saw American
movies and the consumer culture they encouraged. On TV, he saw
Americans buying everything they could. They shopped for new
clothes every month. They had many cars and seemed to always buy a
new one. They all wanted multiple computers, cell phones,
refrigerators and toys. Advertisers had Americans in the palm of
their hand – telling them such paradoxical nonsense as “save more,
buy now!” He saw an American car advertisement on the internet
once. His computer started yelling and shouting and barking to buy
a car immediately. NATPAC almost felt a heart attack set in, but
steadied himself. He now smiled at the brilliance. As they
scrambled to keep buying as much as they could, they were buying it
all from China. We were getting richer, he thought. When explaining
this concept to some of his team, NATPAC often alluded to the
Japanese martial art of Aikido. He did not like Japan very much nor
its martial arts. But he liked the central concept taught in
Aikido. Instead of meeting an attacker head on and trying to
out-punch him, Aikido practitioners used their opponents’ force
against them. As the opponent was kicking, Aikido masters knew how
to step aside and redirect the kick so that the attacker became
unbalanced and fell.

That was step one – produce the goods and
fan the flames of runaway consumerism. That was the first act of
China’s rise and it was genius, he thought. NATPAC grew anxious as
he remembered that he needed to be a part of this rise. He needed
to be a part of Acts 2 and 3. Tonight’s activities would get him
closer to that goal, he thought anxiously. China’s Act 2 was even
more brilliant than Act 1.

CHAPTER 17

WEDNESDAY

Langley, Virginia

Sara barely slept the previous night. She
bought two coffees on the way to work this morning. She was driving
through the empty morning roads. It was just past 5AM. In a few
hours Tom would be getting into the helicopter.

Let’s just launch this mission. I’m sick of
worrying and not sleeping.

Despite Anderson’s reassurances, she could
not shake the feeling. Was the mission turning on them? She went
through the facts. Somehow Officer 1414 had been compromised. Then
that blasted Chinese character appeared when she and Matt sent that
message to Pacific Command. But neither the North Korean nor
Chinese navies were doing anything out of the ordinary. And the
latest satellite imagery, from the last satellite pass several
hours ago, showed no change in the activity of the Korean People’s
Army around the base. Sara was not comforted by the contradicting
facts.

She pulled into the parking lot at the CIA.
She managed to find a good space today, one of the few benefits of
coming in this early. She slung her bag over her shoulder and
grabbed both coffees. She realized she must have looked silly
walking into work this way. But she did not really care.

She walked to her office and started getting
ready for the big day. Inside she turned on her computer. Her door
opened.

“
One of those for me?” It
was Anderson. His eyes looked like they wanted to shut. Sara
wondered how much he had slept.

“
John – “

“
I’m kidding. I have one
already. Thanks for coming in so early.”

“
Do we have any updates?”
She could not help jumping to the only topic on her mind. She
wanted to know whether there was any change in naval activity or
activity around that base.

“
No – everything is
unchanged from last night. I just looked at satellite imagery from
the last past a few hours ago, and the activity around that base is
the same as before.”

“
That’s good.” Sara sighed,
releasing some tension.

“
Tom is set. He will start
gearing up shortly. Helicopters are fueled and ready. We’re looking
good to launch the mission at 7.”

“
How is Tom?” Sara knew she
sounded like a mother, but did not feel that way.

“
He’s good. He is rested.
Also spent a good number of hours pouring over maps and satellite
imagery of that area. You know him – he’ll be ready.”

“
Good.” Sara sensed she was
looking at Anderson a bit too eagerly.

“
Anyway, get settled in and
then let’s meet in the Command Room at 6 to get going. So I’ll see
you there in a little over an hour.” He looked at his
watch.

As Anderson left her office, Mr. Park walked
by and greeted Anderson. He was wearing the same clothes as the
previous day. He and Anderson walked down the hall together.

What did Mr. Park need to stay here all
night for? Will someone tell me what he’s working on?

CHAPTER 18

WEDNESDAY

Yongsan Garrison, South Korea

Tom was gearing up in the locker room. He
looked at his watch – already less than an hour until mission
launch. He was wearing his all black night operations uniform. He
saw himself in the mirror across the room. He thought he looked
like a ninja. Maybe a high tech version of a ninja he thought. It
had many pockets all over - three on each arm. It was made from a
special fabric that repelled water, so it dried quickly. It did not
help to be wet while trying to move covertly.

His Draeger Rebreather was sitting on the
bench next to him. Unlike a traditional SCUBA oxygen tank, the
Draeger was closed circuit. A diver breathed in air from the
Draeger, and the carbon dioxide he exhaled was recirculated into
the system and converted back into oxygen, which the diver ended up
breathing again. This meant that no bubbles came out. With a
Draeger, an operative could swim right up to an enemy beach and
they would have no way of knowing he was there from looking at the
water. It was the perfect device for these types of SAD missions.
Tom had experience with it because as a SEAL he had used it for a
number of operations.

Into a sheath on his hip, Tom inserted his
Mark 3 knife. Almost seven inches, it was very durable and had many
potential uses on any mission. Next, Tom strapped a holster around
his right thigh. In it he put his silenced Sig Saur P226.

Tom closed his eyes. He
tried to feel his heart beat. He rested his arms limply at his
sides and let his jaw hang open in a more relaxed position. He
forced himself to slow his breathing. Within a few seconds he could
feel his heart rate slow down gradually. With that came an overall
feeling of calm as any remaining tension left his body. He was
performing an old trick he had learned while in training for the
SEALs. Most people believe that there was a one-way path between
someone’s emotions and his or her body’s physiological action. One
is scared, therefore one’s knees shake from muscle tension. One is
unsure of himself, therefore one feels his stomach tense. But what
many people did not realize, which is what the SEALs taught, was
that a person’s body and mind work in the
other
direction as well. A body’s
physiological action can create the emotions. And that is important
because everyone can directly control his or her body’s
physiological behavior. So if someone “wills” his knees to stop
shaking by relaxing his muscles, the feeling of being scared will
slowly start to go away. If someone makes himself release that
tension in the stomach, he will slowly feel more sure of himself.
By controlling one’s body, one could control one’s emotions. Simply
letting the arms and jaw hang limp could often be enough. Anyone
can employ this technique anytime – even while sitting on a couch.
This was not based on some new popular psychology either. Tom
remembered learning in the SEAL classroom courses that William
James, a Harvard psychologist from the late 1800s and early 1900s,
had come up with this theory back in the 19
^th
century. It was known as the
James-Lange Theory. The James-Lange theory got lost in the
waste-bin over the next hundred years as psychologists criticized
it and tried to disprove it. It just felt wrong to them. But while
they were criticizing it, SEALs were quietly using it. And it was
as much a weapon to them as their rifles. Being able to control
one’s emotions in hostile situations and maintain calm sometimes
made the difference between life and death. Tom had seen it first
hand while deployed in his SEAL team. The question he sometimes
thought about, usually in the morning while looking over the
Potomac, was whether they were controlling their minds or their
bodies when using James-Lange. They used their minds to control
their bodies to control their minds. He sometimes searched for the
right word to describe that.
Paradox?

Tom grabbed several explosive charges and
placed them into special straps on his uniform. He would need these
if any doors were locked. He assumed all doors would be.

He picked up the ADS. He had grown to like
it, although he still doubted whether he needed it. It had been
wrapped in an airtight plastic wrap so that it could travel in the
water with him. He strapped it onto his back.

Tom lastly checked his helmet. His night
vision goggles worked. They were folded up so that they stuck up
straight out of the helmet. Right behind and to the side of those
was a small but sturdy helmet camera. That would be providing a
live video feed to the Command Room – Anderson, Sara, Mr. Park, and
the rest of the team back in DC.

Tom spoke to Anderson several hours earlier.
Anderson told him that North Korean activity looked normal and he
could still expect a low presence of troops. Tom thought it was
smart that they were using only satellite imagery. There was no
need to send in a drone, which the North Koreans could potentially
shoot down. Given that the peninsula was on the brink of war, that
would be an unnecessary provocation. Anderson told him to be
careful and to make this infiltration fast. But Anderson also said
that Tom should take the time he needs. There was no need to risk
himself in order to be marginally faster. Tom appreciated hearing
Anderson say that. But he would try to make this quick, he
thought.

Tom put on his helmet, strapped on his M4,
and put his Draeger and flippers into a utility bag. He strapped
that on his back. He did not need those yet as he was first going
to fast rope from the helicopter onto the submarine. Then after the
submarine had moved into position off the northeast coast of North
Korea, he would climb into the SDV with his diving gear to make the
infiltration.

Tom looked at himself in the mirror one more
time. He looked like a shadow in the well-lit locker room. He
glanced around the empty room. The clock on the wall told him it
was about time to get loaded into the helicopter. He could hear the
faint sound of blades chopping through the air outside. Tom nodded
to himself and started walking towards the door.

Outside the locker room, he
saw Jiyeon standing against the wall in the hallway. At first her
eyes ran up and down him, looking at his rifle, his upright night
vision goggles, and his pistol strapped to his thigh. Tom guessed
she had never seen a black ops officer in full gear. She came up to
him and stared into his eyes. Hers were open wide. She held her
hands together, her fingers intertwined like a zipper. She shivered
one or two times.
Is she going in there or
am I?