Devil's Fork (2 page)

John Anderson was the head of the SAD. He
looked younger than his 50 years. Trim, neat, and thin he was the
presentable face of the group that some within the agency saw as a
secretive gang. As director of the group he oversaw the operators
and their missions. Tom could see in his eyes during briefings that
he thought of operators more than just as assets or weapons.
Anderson could have been an SAD operator himself at one point – Tom
was never sure, and he never asked.

As Tom was buttoning his Hawes & Curtis
shirt, he glanced at his TV, which was on BBC World News.

“
Tensions rose again today
on the Korean peninsula, as North Korea made further threats of
nuclear war. The South Korean President spoke today, saying his
nation’s military was on high alert and any provocation from the
North would be answered with overwhelming force. The North
meanwhile has been threatening to test-launch missiles that it said
were capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. Fear of nuclear war
has spread to the US, where the President held an unscheduled
meeting with his national security team.”

The left corner of Tom’s
lip curled up. He had a feeling he knew what would be on his
calendar for the next few days. SAD operators could be called away
any moment, and what BBC World News reported frequently correlated
to the missions they were sent on. Tom’s life as a bachelor in DC
was frequently interrupted with these trips, often to undeveloped
countries. The endless swapping of civilization’s comforts with
environments that
had no basic necessities
provided something to look forward to constantly. Tom took
advantage of his time at home to enjoy what was unavailable during
his travel. He pulled his small cup from his Nespresso machine with
the Kazaar blend of coffee and typed out an email back to
Anderson.

Got it. See you soon. –TH

As he drank his coffee, BBC World News
turned to the next story.

“
Today the American
President is meeting with a Chinese delegation including President
Wang Wei as well as Zhang Ming, Lo Jie, and Huang Ping – all either
ministers or representatives of the Chinese military. They plan to
discuss among other things, cooperation to relieve tension on the
Korean peninsula. The Chinese President has stated he wants a
peaceful resolution to tension.”

Tom switched off his TV and left his
apartment. Outside the early morning sun bathed the city as he got
in his car. He was not sure when he would see his apartment next.
He knew there was a chance he never would.

CHAPTER 3

MONDAY

Langley, Virginia

Sara Hayward’s week could not have started
more hectically. The SAD’s section of offices within CIA’s Langley
headquarters was buzzing more than usual. People were entering and
exiting offices. Phones were ringing. Other desk analysts walked
around briskly. She saw a small group of South Koreans who were
given a conference room and worked through what looked like severe
jet lag.

She still did not have all the facts.
Anderson called her late last night and asked her to come in early
today. She was at Langley by 7AM. All Anderson told her then was
that Tom was going on an operation in the Korean peninsula and she
needed to go through the usual pre-mission checklist that SAD desk
analysts typically prepared. She began going through satellite
intelligence, figuring out what military assets were in the region
and filing the mission in the CIA internal electronic filing
system. Once Tom arrived, she needed to get him into a secure
conference room. Anderson wanted to start the briefing soon. He was
now in the conference room that held the South Korean group down
the hall. She did not have time to speculate what aspect of the
mission they were talking about, or why that team was here.

Right now she was curious more than
anything. Many SAD missions started off on a fast pace, but what
she saw this morning was unusual. She wondered what Anderson was
cooking up. She knew the Korean peninsula was always unstable and
there were always threats of war. Why were we sending Tom now, she
thought. And what was it about – nuclear weapons, conventional
weapons, labor camps, or regime change? She would have to wait for
the briefing.

This morning her computer was slower than
usual. It did not seem to want to let her use the internet. She sat
back as it figured out how to take her to Google. When she needs
something most, it never seems to work she thought.

Another analyst stuck his head into her
office, “Hey Sara, have you seen Tom?”

“
No. I think he should be
here soon though.”

“
OK thanks”

Have you seen
Tom
. That was the eternal question at SAD,
Sara mused. Everybody always seemed to be looking for Tom. What was
it about him that enchanted everyone, including her? For Sara it
was his hazel eyes which seemed to change color based on what he
was wearing. What intrigued her was that his heart rate never
seemed to go above 60 – no matter what was happening in the office
or around him. Sara could not maintain that level of calm. She was
not neurotic, but she did get stressed on the job. This was after
all one of the most secret and dangerous wings of the CIA. Plenty
of things could get a desk analyst’s heart rate up. Yet Tom, who
actually had to go on missions, somehow never let anything get to
him. Maybe it was the SEAL training he went through she thought.
But mix his calm with his charming smile, she thought, and there
was the likely reason everyone was always looking for him. He did
not seem to need it though. Sara remembered at group parties how in
the chaos of everyone talking, eating, drinking and laughing, she
would spot Tom standing alone with his drink. But he was not
standing there out of shyness like she caught herself doing once in
a while. His eyes would be half-closed and he had an expression
that seemed to say that he owned the building. Others must have
felt it because he was never standing alone for long – people were
always coming up to him asking him questions – his opinion on
something – or asking about his war stories. She always had a
thousand questions she wanted to ask him.

Just then she saw a large-framed,
dark-haired figure leisurely stroll past her door.

Tom!

She ran out of her door with her files and
coffee.

“
Tom, good you’re
here”

Tom looked back, smiled at her and then kept
walking to his office as she caught up to him.

“
How was your weekend
Sara?”

“
Good. Anderson wants you
in the secure conference room. He wants to start the briefing right
away.”

“
Let’s go”

They walked to the end of
the hall. On the interior side of the building was a conference
room specially built to prevent sound leakage. The CIA’s internal
security staff constantly monitored it for electronic surveillance.
Sara remembered learning that the basic way electronic bugs worked
is that they recorded the sounds around them and transmitted the
recordings to a device outside the room. The transmission could
either be continuous, meaning it was sent through a live feed, or
the bug could record for a number of hours and then send the
transmission in one batch. Ultimately an electronic signal needed
to be sent outside of the room. In the secure conference rooms, the
CIA had devices that monitored whether electronic signals were
transmitting out of the room. This conference room was also in the
interior of the building and windowless. Foreign intelligence
services had developed a technology in the 1970’s that sensed the
vibrations a window made from the voices inside and translated
those vibrations into words. This allowed someone sitting in a car
outside to listen to what was being said in the conference room.
Windowless conference rooms were more
secure.

When Sara and Tom walked in, several people
were already sitting inside. Sara thought one was from the
technology group – she recognized him but did not know him. He
introduced himself as Eric.

“
Are you here for
Anderson’s briefing” She asked

“
Yes” Eric
replied.

The other man, who introduced himself as Sam
said he was a lawyer from the White House. Sara noticed that
lawyers snuck around and got into SAD meetings from time to
time.

Matt Smith was sitting by a laptop at the
head of the conference table. Matt was the group’s IT specialist
and was charged with communications – often with the military.

There was an ominous map of North Korea on
the screen. As they were getting settled, Anderson walked in with
an older looking South Korean man – one of the people Sara saw in
the other conference room earlier. Anderson was in a dark suit,
white shirt, and dark tie.

“
I thought I saw you come
in,” Anderson said to Tom.

“
Yes, sir. Luckily it was
smooth driving over here this morning”

Anderson introduced the man he came in
with.

“
Tom, Sara, this is Mr.
Park. He is South Korea’s National Intelligence Service’s director
of their deep cover program in North Korea. He just got in
yesterday. You probably saw his team in the other conference
room.”

The three shook hands and sat down. Anderson
closed the door and began the briefing immediately.

“
Well, we have an
interesting situation. Two days ago, one of Mr. Park’s officers who
was operating in Pyongyang was compromised. He took his own life
rather than allowing himself to get captured. However before he
died, he sent back a message. As background, this officer had been
tasked with finding a hidden base where North Korea conducts most
of its nuclear weapons research. We along with the South Korean NIS
have known for a number of years about several sites where North
Korea was supposedly doing nuclear research. But all of those sites
were decoys. We have suspected for some time that they must be
doing most of their research and bomb building in one secret
location. This is for a number of reasons. They only have a handful
of nuclear scientists, so it would make sense for them to be all in
one place rather than spread out. Also with the electricity
shortages and power outages they have, it would be easiest for them
to do all their research in one place and be sure to provide that
location with the power they need. Lastly, after years of UN
inspections and negotiations, they know that the world is watching
them closely. So they likely wanted to have a secret facility where
they could do research covertly to avoid scrutiny. Mr. Park’s
officer – what was his code name?”

“
Officer 1414” Park
replied.

“
Officer 1414 was working
on finding that facility and as a secondary mission, he was tasked
with determining their level of nuclear capability. Three days ago,
he messaged that he was going to meet a cousin of a regime insider.
He had that meeting two days ago and we believe he was told the
location of the facility and possibly what was in it. The message
he sent back was the following – I’ll read it to you:

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

Everyone except Tom squinted his or her eyes
and looked in different directions as if it made thinking easier.
Tom sat motionless. Anderson went on.

“
Obviously ‘mission
accomplished’ means he figured out this facility’s location. The
numbers seem to be GPS coordinates which we can pull up on the map
here.”

Anderson moved behind Matt as he typed the
GPS coordinates into the mapping program. The big screen zoomed in
on an area in the Northeastern part of North Korea. The spot was
south of the city of Chongjin and North of Kilju. It was hundreds
of miles on the other side of the peninsula from Pyongyang. The
spot was in the middle of what looked like a forest in a hilly or
slightly mountainous area. The group leaned forward in their chairs
and squinted their eyes further. The location 1414 gave looked like
a simple dirt plot.

“
This is not just a pile of
dirt in the middle of nowhere,” Anderson went on. “This spot in the
center we have identified as a structure – probably containing an
elevator and a set of stairs. We believe this is the entrance to
the facility. About a mile away, we can see the presence of trucks,
which are rare in this number in North Korea. They look like they
are loading and unloading something. Our satellites have also seen
troop movements in the area. The military presence is mostly the
counter-intelligence unit of the Korean People’s Army, or KPA. We
can tell this from the type of uniform they wear and the weapons
they carry. This strange facility seems to be completely
underground.”

Sara was always impressed with the level of
satellite imagery the SAD routinely saw. The number of US
Government imagery satellites was classified and only a few people
knew exactly how many there were – maybe Anderson was one of them.
But these satellites were so powerful that they could spot a golf
ball on the ground and read whether it was a Titleist or
TaylorMade. This is how the imagery analysts at the agency had
figured out what uniforms and weapons the local military had.

Sara also knew the
significance that the soldiers were KPA counter-intelligence. In
totalitarian regimes all spies and secret police were trained as
military officers. Tom and the other SAD officers came from
military backgrounds, but most of the conventional espionage force
at the CIA did not. In totalitarian countries, intelligence and
counter-intelligence are military-like activities. These states are
mainly focused on protecting their regimes from threats abroad or
threats from their own people. Setting up the intelligence services
as
military organizations is
one way to ensure these officers were highly
trained
and sworn to defend the regime.
While the secret police monitored the people and spies monitored
the outside world, the military counter-intelligence safeguarded
the regime’s secret activities. Their tasks would include guarding
North Korea’s nuclear arms program.