1000 Yards

8

Major Kim Shin-Jo was concerned. Alone in his office at the airport, he placed the picture taken at the airport of Peter McEwan face up on the desk in front of him and then slid it eight inches to the left. In its place, he laid out the picture from McEwan’s file that Captain Yun Jong-Su had emailed him. There were some similarities between the two pictures — hair and eye colouration, the height was similar, both wore glasses — but that was as far as it went. Yun was sure: the Peter McEwan who had arrived at Pyongyang Airport that afternoon was not the same as the man who had visited six times previously.

Whoever this new man was, he was not who he professed to be.

Kim was prey to the usual lurid terrors that would he knew would befall him if he failed the state. The price of failure was well known, and not open to negotiation: total humiliation followed by exile if he was lucky. Execution was possible, depending upon the consequences of the failure. If he had been responsible for allowing an enemy spy into the Fatherland, and if that enemy spy was responsible for some grand, awful statement against the Revolution, perhaps during tomorrow’s grand Parade…

Kim willed himself to remain calm as he picked up the telephone and called his man at the Hotel.

“Comrade-Major, I was about to call you. The Englishman has left the hotel.”

Kim felt a tiny flutter of panic. “What?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

“Was he followed?”

“Two men on foot and two by car.”

“Why? Did anything happen?”

“He ate his dinner.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was he contacted?”

“Not in his room. He did very little: he had a drink, relaxed on the bed, looked out of the window. Nothing I would consider to be unusual.”

“Radio the men now. He is to be arrested. At once.”

“Yes, Comrade-Major.”

Kim replaced the receiver. He prayed it was not too late.