Devil's Fork (25 page)

Mark nodded “It appears that when the human
mind encounters paradox-like situations, it is not able to take
action.”

Sara continued the thought “You know? This
probably even applies to other dangerous situations. Think about
climate change. How many times have you and I heard how many
degrees the Earth will warm over the next fifty years? We know that
target would be a bad spot for the arrow to hit. But we look around
and say that for this week, the climate situation does not seem too
bad, so we forget about it for the moment. We are only looking at
that frozen arrow. The same goes for deforestation, overfishing,
and other environmental issues that seem slow-moving.”

“
Going back to the
totalitarian examples – where do you think the Totalitarian
Uncertainty Principle plays in?” J.D. asked.

They all thought for a minute. “Maybe a
regime’s use of the Totalitarian Uncertainty Principle is a way for
them to smooth out the process,” Sara said. “Maybe that extra veil
over our eyes helps them throw grain of sand after grain of sand
onto that spot on the ground. It makes us more likely to look at
the arrow frozen. When Hitler was rearming, he not only made
everyone else think of it as just a grain of sand. He lied about
wanting to respect international law and peace to make everyone
misunderstand what he was doing.”

“
What would you call it?
When people are looking at the frozen arrow rather than the flying
arrow?” Mark asked.

Sara thought about it. Then
she shrugged her shoulders and said, “to
volerate
? Maybe like we all have been
volerating the North Korean regime’s behavior for the last thirty
years? The rhyme with
tolerate
or
tolerating
makes it seem right.”

“
How did you come up with
that?” Mark asked.

“
I studied French – it’s
the only language I know other than English. I love France and have
visited it many times.”

“
Really” Mark asked, “Where
do you like to go?”

“
My favorite town outside
Paris is Eparnay. Anyway, in France they have a problem where
English is invading their language. English words are being used
for more and more things. Maybe we can add a word from French into
English for once.”

“
What’s the word in
French?”

“
Voler
. It means ‘to fly,’ and I just combined it with
‘tolerate.’
Volerate
. Does it sound right? It can be defined as tolerating an act
that would eventually lead towards an undesirable conclusion
because the act itself is tolerable. We tolerate the arrow flying
because it is not yet at its target, which we cannot
tolerate.”

“
It sounds interesting.”
They all started repeating it.

They had some more coffee and thought to
themselves in silence. “I should probably get back to the Command
Room.” Sara eventually said. Mark and J.D. nodded in agreement and
they all left the kitchen. They walked down the hall quietly
pronouncing Sara’s new word. Before entering the Command Room, Sara
looked down the other side of the hall. Mr. Park was standing
outside the conference room occupied by his analysts. His hands
were on his hips and he was looking down.

What are they doing?

Then Anderson walked out of the same
conference room, looking down. His hands were on his hips as well.
Sara approached them slowly, with Mark and J.D. behind her.
Anderson looked over as they got close.

“
Guys, we have something
new that came up in Seoul,” Anderson said. His shirt’s top button
was undone and his tie was loosened so that the knot sat lower than
where it usually did.

“
What is it?” Sara asked as
she came to a stop by them.

Mr. Park began speaking in his systematic
tone, “I believe one of my analysts has been kidnapped.”

“
Kidnapped
?” Sara, Mark, and J.D. said
together.

“
After hearing that you
traced a phone call from that phone in Pyongyang to a number in
Seoul, I looked into it. One of my analysts – one of the two people
that briefed Tom yesterday—was working late in the office. She was
almost in her own apartment building when a group of three or four
people took her and carried her into a car.”

“
Oh my God, that’s
terrifying,” Sara said with her hand over her mouth. “How did you
figure that out?”

“
The concierge at her
apartment building saw part of it happen. He ran outside as they
were driving away, and then called the police. He seemed to
recognize her. I was just on the phone with the police and they are
trying to find the car.”

“
Did he get the license
plate number of the car before it drove away?” Mark
asked.

“
He did not. It was too
dark and he ran out too late.”

“
Did he see anything that
could help identify them? Even if he saw the type of car, it can
help.” Mark sounded like he knew what he was talking about, Sara
thought.

“
He did not see anything
like that. Nevertheless, all police stations in Korea have been
alerted.”

Sara prided herself on
getting to the point fast. “Do you suspect this was done by
North Koreans
?” she
asked.

Mr. Park thought for a moment before giving
his answer. “A kidnapping done this way, with a team, highly
organized, and few clues left behind, has the markings of a North
Korean kidnapping operation. This is the one area of foreign
subversion they have developed to a high level.”

Anderson looked up and put
into words what everyone was thinking. “If they have her, they
might be able to get her to tell them mission details. For now they
still don’t
know
that our target is that base. If they interrogate her, they
could figure that out, as well as Tom’s planned route and his
exfiltration plan. They could even go into the water and look for
his parked SDV.”

Mr. Park picked up the thought, “Aside from
this mission, they could learn about the entire network of illegals
we have in North Korea.”

“
What is clear is we need
to act fast. What can we do?” Anderson said.

J.D. jumped in, “Let me see if I can trace
that phone. Whoever received that call from Pyongyang is probably
still carrying that phone around.” He ran into the Command Room to
get on his laptop.

“
Let me make a phone call,”
Mr. Park said as he walked back into his conference room with
Anderson behind him.

Sara peeked inside. There were several NIS
analysts working on laptops. Piles of paper were stacked on the
table around them. They looked like various documents, files, and
printed emails. Some of the analysts were paging through the files,
while others were working on their laptops. In the short time they
had been there, they had created a small mess. Used paper coffee
cups were stacked randomly throughout the table.

“
Who are they?” Mark
whispered to Sara.

“
They are analysts from
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service,” Sara whispered
back.

“
What are they doing? Are
they helping with the mission?”

“
That’s what I’ve been
trying to figure out. I have no idea what they are doing. They have
not been involved in the mission planning from what I can tell.
Only Mr. Park comes out and talks to us.”

“
That’s strange. I wonder
why they even needed to come with him over here.”

“
I know. It’s bizarre. And
now this poor girl has been kidnapped. What is going on over
there?”

“
Let’s step inside. Maybe
we can help them think through it. Maybe I can think of some way we
can trace something other than that phone.”

Sara and Mark walked into the conference
room. The analysts inside barely looked up. They looked disheveled
to Sara. Their hair was messy and their clothes looked worn. They
seemed to be working fast. The ones on laptops were typing as fast
as they possibly could, their eyes never looking away from the
screen. The ones going through documents were reading a page every
fifteen seconds. Sara wondered how they kept such a pace after
their all-nighter.

Mr. Park got off the phone and looked at
them. “I just called the Minister of National Defense at his home.
I explained to him what happened. He is readying the White Tiger
battalion. We need to find her and send them in to rescue her as
soon as possible. Before they can figure anything out.”

Anderson answered Sara’s question before she
asked it. “White Tiger is their SEAL Team 6. They have a few Toms
of their own.”

Just then J.D. burst into the conference
room with his laptop. “I just checked. Whoever received that call
from Pyongyang turned his phone off. I can’t trace that person
now.”

“
Can you set it so that as
soon as he powers it back on we get alerted?” Mark
asked.

“
Sure. I’ll do that now.
But we have to find this girl another way.”

“
Mr. Park, one question I
have is how they knew to kidnap her. The NIS has thousands of
employees and your group, I’m guessing, is small. How did they know
to target her?” Sara said.

“
I am trying to figure that
out,” he said, nodding.

“
Is there anything else we
can do?” Anderson asked.

“
The Minister of National
Defense is also calling the Chief of Naval Operations. Our navy
will send gunboats to patrol the west cost.”

“
Why the west coast?” Sara
asked.

“
The western coast of South
Korea is much closer to Seoul than the eastern coast. They could
drive there quickly. Additionally, their navy is more active on
that side. So if they wanted to grab someone and quickly get them
to the North, that would be the fastest way to do it.”

“
If they can make sure no
boats leave the west coast tonight, and Mark and J.D. can trace
that cell phone as soon as it’s turned on, we might be able to keep
them in South Korea. Maybe she can be rescued before they get a
chance to move her anywhere,” Anderson said, his tone
hopeful.

“
We should tell Tom,” Sara
interjected, “He should know that his mission has potentially been
compromised further.”

CHAPTER 37

WEDNESDAY NIGHT / THURSDAY MORNING

Northeast Coast, North Korea

Tom slowed down. He had been moving at a
brisk speed for some time. He had moved to the edge of the forest
by the road. He found it easier to navigate this way. The ground
near the road was easier to move through as well. He had seen no
patrols on the road. As he looked at his GPS reader he saw that he
was at Waypoint 2. This was the spot where the road lined up with a
ridge that cut between two small mountains. At the end of the ridge
he would be able to find a path that led straight to the
underground facility’s entrance.

After hiding under the fallen tree from the
fireteam, he had not run into many patrols. He was able to keep a
more consistent pace. He believed he was only an hour behind
schedule. So far he had managed to evade everyone, he thought. He
started whispering into his radio,

“
Yankee Main. I’m passing
through Waypoint 2 now. Heading up the ridge towards Waypoint 3.
Confirm on your end. Over.”

“
Copy. You are heading to
Waypoint 3. How do the patrols look in your area? Over.”

“
Seems quieter here.
Over.”

Tom turned and started moving through the
forest towards the ridge. He knew he was getting close to the base
but was not thinking about it too much. While a SEAL, he had been
taught about the Willpower paradox. Like James-Lange, he had
learned that the mind worked with a glitch when it came to
accomplishing tasks. If someone had a goal and focused intently on
it while exerting monumental effort to try to accomplish it, he or
she is actually less likely to accomplish his goal. Someone who did
not focus too intently and just went and tried to accomplish the
task is more likely to succeed. This is why top athletes always
looked calmer than athletes who were good but not good enough to be
considered top. As a SEAL, part of his training was meant to get
him to realize that barriers he had set up in his mind were
breakable. Another part of training was the operant conditioning,
leading him to have a need to win. The other piece of training was
learning to exert the right amount of mental focus to get the
mission done, but not so much that one was overly tense. They had
to learn to use the Willpower paradox to their advantage. This was
why SEALs often appeared “calm” to those around them. He remembered
sometimes back in Langley, Sara or one of the other analysts would
try to question him in an indirect way to figure this out. He had
tried to deflect the questions, as he did not think they wanted to
hear about paradoxes. He himself was still not sure whether
paradoxes as a whole helped the mind or hindered it.

As Tom was running, he noticed that he was
now within the ridge. To his right and left were elevated hills or
small mountains. He saw a patrol up ahead and slowed down to go
around it. He raised his M4 to look through his scope. They were
walking in a diagonal direction relative to his position. He could
go around and they would pass by without seeing him. He kneeled in
a secure spot and looked through his scope again. He felt the base
getting close. He checked behind him. It looked all clear. He
wondered if that fireteam from earlier was behind him. Since he
could not see them there was little else he could do. He got up and
continued moving.