1000 Yards

5

The hotel Yanggakdo, a thousand-room monster that was reserved for foreign guests, sat on the prow of an island in the Taedong River. Westerners called it The Alcatraz of Fun for its revolving restaurant on the roof and its basement of decadent delights: a casino, a swimming pool, a bowling alley and karaoke bars. Milton wheeled his luggage into the reception and checked in. One of the black tail cars had parked near to the entrance. Milton noticed that the dark-suited man in the passenger seat had disembarked and followed him into the lobby. While he waited for his room to be assigned, he made a lazy scan of the foyer. Two others were waiting for him: a man reading his newspaper as his shoes were buffed by a shoe-shine boy and, at the bar, a man who was drinking a cup of tea. The operatives were relaxed and easy, yet they were not experienced enough to hide their purpose from someone like him. If, and when, he left the Yanggakdo, one or both of those men would follow. There would be a car outside, ready to tail him should he avail himself of a taxi. The polite, smiling receptionist would also be in the employ of the secret police, as would be the bellhop who helped him with his luggage. The cleaners, the waiting staff who delivered room service; all would report back to the Directorate of the MPSS that had been assigned the file for Mr Peter Douglas McEwan, the known smuggler from Great Britain.

The room was clean and tidy, pleasant enough. Double-glazed windows behind thin net curtains offered a wide view of downtown Pyongyang. Milton sat back on the bed and took off his shoes. The TV in his room was switched on, looping a series of important events: ‘Kim Jong-un provides field guidance at the Pyongyang Hosiery Factory,” said one report. The next showed the young leader astride a large chestnut horse, inspecting troop movements near the demilitarized zone. Milton took up the remote control and switched through the channels: the BBC, CNN, an anonymous football match with teams that he did not recognise. The room would be rife with bugs but Milton made no effort to find them, nor even to adapt his behaviour to take them into account. He wouldn’t have been able to neutralise them even if he had been able to find them. And he had no way of knowing whether the mirror that faced the bed was two-way.

None of it mattered.

He wanted them to listen and watch.

He took of his shirt and went through to the bathroom to wash his face. The light fell over the tattoo across his shoulders and back, the angel wings tipped with razor claws. He dunked his head in the sink, scrubbing the cold water into his pores, trying to excise the last somnambulant effects of the dream.

He picked up the telephone and dialled a Chinese number. He held a brief conversation with the man at the other end of the line, checking that the transporter with the eight luxury cars had crossed the border successfully. It had, and it was due to arrive in the city tonight, around nine, right on schedule.

He took off his jacket and tie and made himself a gin and tonic from the minibar. Cheap Chinese gin, tonic that barely retained any fizz. He took the drink to the window and looked down from the thirteenth floor. The roads were virtually empty. The sky, usually so full of the vapour trails from passing jets, was clear. He stared, for a long time. Moranbong Park was half a mile away and Milton remembered it from his last trip: its host of pagodas, clouds of blossom and the people spreading picnics, drinking rice liquor and singing sentimental folk songs. Red flags fluttered at road junctions. Statues of the Kims could be seen in public places, arms raised aloft in victory that was so pyrrhic as to be a horrible joke. The enormous, clawed finger of the Ryugyong Hotel, designed as the tallest in the world when construction started twenty years earlier, still stood unfinished. An attempt to trump the upstart South, it stood instead as a permanent reminder of the North’s failure.

He allowed his thoughts to wander a little. He had an appointment to keep. Two people that he did not know would be waiting for him in the Park. His instructions were to leave the hotel after dinner. He was not, under any circumstances, to lose his tail. All he had to do was to be certain to arrive at eight.