Devil's Fork (39 page)

Tom looked up, “OK. I’ll be there.”

Tom walked out of the
conference room. As he walked down the hallway he could feel that
he had the thousand yard stare. He had learned from his time in the
SEALs, in DEVGRU, and in SAD that sometimes the worst can happen.
But the training and time spent in those units got him used to the
idea that the worst could happen to
him
. What still felt wrong was the
idea that the worst could happen to someone who he had thought was
safe. Now Jiyeon will be remembered as a star on a wall or a name
in a book, but her quiet smile and her inquisitive eyes will be
forgotten by others, he thought.

He entered the locker room. He started
putting his gear away. Tom wondered what the NIS was about to do.
What did Anderson mean when he said the NIS was about to get
even?

CHAPTER 57

FRIDAY

Tokyo, Japan

Officer 2135 walked down a packed street.
The notorious Tokyo morning rush hour was sweeping past him in both
directions. His life in Chongjin seemed to be from a different
era.

He had made it out of North Korea two days
ago. He had been lucky with his bicycle, which lasted for a
relatively long time before breaking down. In the next village he
came to, he bought a fresh bicycle from one of the villagers. Soon
he was on the Chinese border. He crossed the Yalu River dividing
China and Korea quietly in the middle of the night. During his
entire escape he kept thinking about the last message command had
sent him:

2135: Urgent. We believe you have been
compromised. Leave country immediately. Once in China, proceed to
Shanghai.

He tried to figure out how he had been
compromised. But nothing came to mind.

Once he arrived in China, he was able to
quickly make his way to Shanghai. Traveling was significantly
easier, and he no longer needed to just use a bicycle. He knew what
to do once in Shanghai. The NIS had a safe house where he would
most likely have a message waiting. When he arrived in Shanghai, he
already felt a world away from the land he had just left. When he
found the NIS safe house, he quietly entered it. Inside, he found
an NIS officer waiting for him. The officer handed 2135 a piece of
paper that had an address in Tokyo on it. He was told to go to the
airport and get to Tokyo immediately. Now, several hours later,
2135 was here. He had reached the address he was told to visit. It
seemed to be another NIS safe house. It was a several story house
just outside of Tokyo proper. Officer 2135 knocked on the door when
he arrived. A man, who looked like another NIS officer opened and
let him in. The officer escorted him to a private room at the top
floor. Inside the room was a face Officer 2135 recognized quickly,
despite not having seen it in the fifteen years he was in North
Korea. It was Mr. Park, the director of the illegals group. He
looked just about the same as he did when he had recruited Officer
2135 in the locker room at his military training facility.

Officer 2135 saw Mr. Park smile, and he
walked up to him and hugged his boss immediately. They sat down and
Mr. Park began to speak in his usual, meticulous manner.

“
I am very happy you made
it out of there,” Mr. Park said.

“
Me too. That message you
sent was unexpected to say the least.”

“
Well, I’m sure you would
like to know what happened, right?”

“
If you’re willing to
say.”

“
One week ago, one of your
colleagues – Officer 1414 – sent us a message before the secret
police found him. I can tell you some aspects of his mission. He
was working on figuring out North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. One
week ago, he assembled the final piece of the puzzle together and
sent us his message. In it, he sent two main pieces of information.
He found the GPS coordinates of a special base and attempted to
give us an idea of what was there. But he also had figured
something else out. He sent us a third piece of information within
the message. Here, I’ll show you the message, can you see the
hidden message?”

Mr. Park pulled out a piece of paper with
1414’s message written down.

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

Officer 2135 spotted the two main pieces of
information – the GPS coordinates and the reference to the jewels.
Those likely got his department at the NIS running around. But
Officer 2135 instantly spotted the hidden message. He remembered
his last day in South Korea, about 15 years ago. He had a private
meeting with Mr. Park, similar to the meeting now. Mr. Park had
told him that there was always a chance that in the course of his
activities, Officer 2135 might come across information that was so
sensitive, he would want only Mr. Park to be able to see it. Mr.
Park then showed how to send messages so that only he would see
them, but embed them within messages he sent to the NIS analysts.
It was so simple that it was laughable at first. But Officer 2135
soon saw that it could prove helpful.

Mr. Park demonstrated the technique by
handing Officer 2135 a letter to take with him. The letter was
short:

Get in quietly. Organize your plans
carefully. Only recruit assets in which you have full confidence.
Develop your identity with thought. Listen to everything around
you. Uncover any secrets you might find. Care for yourself first
and foremost. Kill only when you are in danger.

Then Mr. Park explained that within all of
the writing, there was an entirely separate message if one only
used the first letter of each sentence. He explained that writing
out each sentence vertically could help. Officer 2135 remembered
looking at the page again and seeing the first letter of each
sentence pop out of the page this time.

G
et in quietly.

O
rganize your plans carefully.

O
nly recruit assets in which you have full
confidence.

D
evelop your identity with thought.

L
isten to everything around you.

U
ncover any secrets you might find.

C
are for yourself first and foremost.

K
ill only when you are in danger.

Mr. Park’s final message released some of
the last minute tension:

GOOD
|
LUCK

The hidden message in the letter was “Good
Luck,” buried among all of the words. Mr. Park explained that
people rarely thought to put first letters or sounds together this
way.

Now as Officer 2135 looked at 1414’s
message. The hidden message jumped out immediately. He ignored the
GPS coordinates as he read it.

M
ission accomplished.
O
fficer 1414 compromised.
L
ast resort pill will be
used.
E
rror in
how we think about Jewels

He arranged the message vertically in his
mind.

M
ission accomplished.

O
fficer 1414 compromised.

L
ast resort pill will be used.

E
rror in how we think about Jewels

2135 could not believe what he was
reading.

MOLE

After Officer 2135 read and reread 1414’s
message, he looked up at Mr. Park. Mr. Park was looking at 2135
with tired but determined eyes. Then Mr. Park continued.

“
We have a mole. Officer
1414 found this out from the same asset who gave him the location
of the base. As soon as I received this message from 1414 I took a
small team of analysts whom I trusted most. We immediately flew to
Washington DC. I told them to take their computers and grab as many
documents as they could. We went to the CIA building. I helped the
CIA organize a mission to see that base 1414 found. At the same
time I had my team of analysts working nonstop to figure out who
the mole could be. They combed through documents and intelligence
we received over the last decade. We opened the files on all of the
illegals who had been caught and killed. I don’t think my team
slept for four days.”

“
But they figured out who
it is?”

“
What we noticed was that
the officers who sent us a message one week ago – around last
Thursday or Friday – had been compromised. Officer 1414 sent us a
message on Friday night telling us that he was planning to meet
with an asset and he might accomplish his mission the next day.
Another one of your colleagues, Officer 6237, had sent a message on
Friday early morning last week and on Saturday morning as he was
returning to his apartment he saw secret police outside and left.
The fact that those two sent a message around the same time and
were compromised, gave us a suspicion. As we looked over the past
ten years, we noticed small clusters like this. A few officers
would send a message on the same day, and all of them would be
compromised.”

“
So that meant that someone
was probably coming through the office and grabbing a bunch of
documents at a time. Maybe the janitor at night or something,
right? That’s what I had my assets - those who were janitors - do
in North Korea.”

“
Exactly. That’s exactly
what we started thinking. So I called my most trusted analyst, who
I left back at headquarters to watch things over. I asked him to
install several small cameras to watch over the office. I asked him
to tell everyone to go home early. I asked him to plant a stack of
fake documents on peoples’ desks. It was like setting a trap. By
the next morning we knew who the mole was.”

“
Who was it?”

“
I don’t think you know
him. It’s this kid, a loser from a different group upstairs. His
name is Sung-Ho.”

“
I’ve never heard of him.
So he was in a different group but was coming downstairs to look at
our documents and files?”

“
Yes. He made friends with
one of our analysts, Jiyeon. His move seemed to be to come
downstairs to our kitchen for tea, coffee, or snacks. He and his
friend would talk to Jiyeon. While doing this he would take a look
at how busy or quiet our offices were. I think he would also ask
Jiyeon if ‘things were busy.’ He did this earlier this past week.
He came downstairs very early on Wednesday morning because he saw
that it was quiet. He walked through our offices, taking pictures
of every document he could get his hands on. We actually were not
careful and Sung-Ho saw the message you sent us about the port.
That’s why I immediately told this most trusted analyst of mine to
pull you out.”

“
What’s his name? Do I know
him?”

“
It’s Mr. Kim. You might
have met him. He was young and just starting when you were about to
leave.”

“
I remember him. This mole
– how was he recruited? Was he sent in from the North or was he
someone who was turned?”

“
We looked into Sung-Ho.
They got him with money. The North Koreans paid him every month. He
was making almost his annual NIS salary every month from them. The
story he told was that he came from a rich and quiet family. He
bought himself gold watches, nice clothes, a car, in short,
everything someone who wanted to look important could
want.”

“
Incredible. I can’t
believe they did that to one of ours.”

“
They trained him in the
same techniques you use. He was always very friendly to his
colleagues, including Jiyeon. When he came down to our floor, under
the guise of getting coffee, nobody suspected him. Jiyeon in fact
saw him right after he snooped around our offices. She sat down at
her desk on Wednesday morning a few minutes after he had taken an
enormous amount of photos of documents down the hall. We saw it
with our cameras. He must have told her he was there for a walk or
something. He was a professional. Nobody could have noticed it.
Even I did not suspect him whenever I saw him wandering
around.”

“
Well hopefully he was not
able to do much more damage.”

“
Sung-Ho actually did
significantly more damage than what I’ve told you so far. The North
wanted to kidnap someone from our team in order to find out what we
knew about that base 1414 found. Sung-Ho told them to target the
young woman he had befriended, Jiyeon. A kidnap team abducted her
as she was approaching her apartment building. The team had been
given her address by Sung-Ho. I got some information from the
Americans right as this was about to happen. I tried calling Mr.
Kim to tell him to keep everyone in the office, but I could not
reach him. Jiyeon died on Thursday morning as a team from White
Tiger battalion was trying to rescue her.”

2135’s eyes opened wide. Mr. Park continued.
“That’s right. It’s just a tragedy. But that’s why I’ve told you
all of this. You know your mission in North Korea is over. You can
never go back as an illegal. You will have to do something else
with your life now. But I have one last mission for you.”

2135 sat up straight and leaned forward,
“Yes, sir.”

“
Sung-Ho took a vacation at
the end of this past week. He said he was planning to go to Japan
alone to meet some friends. Sounds suspicious right?”