Full Force and Effect

14

Mining director Hwang had met intelligence chief Ri just once, a week earlier when he showed up unannounced to his office, and at that time Ri had been wearing his military uniform. Hwang supposed the lieutenant general was always dressed as an officer in the Chosun Inmingun when he left his house, so Hwang found it surprising to see the fifty-two-year-old this morning wearing a light gray Western suit and a blue tie. Hwang had to admit that Ri was, if anything, even more impressive out of uniform. He obviously exercised regularly, unlike Hwang, who rarely seemed to find the time for evening walks with his family, and often got winded taking the stairs to his office of the Korea Natural Resources Trading Corporation.

The two men stood in front of each other in the business-class lounge at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport. Each man had his own small entourage with him; in Ri’s case it was colonels as well as bodyguards, and in Hwang’s case a single personal attendant as well as several assistant directors and high-level technical advisers. It was just five a.m., and the first commercial flight of the day wasn’t leaving until eight-thirty, so the military and government men had the place all to themselves, although General Ri could have shut down the entire airport if he had any concern about eyes on him that might threaten today’s operation.

Director Hwang Min-ho still could not believe he was leaving his country, even if it was just for twenty-four hours. Virtually no regular North Koreans ever set foot abroad, and even very few high-level government officials earned the opportunity. North Korea is as close to a closed society as exists in the world, and the government-imposed sheltering of its people from the outside world was a key component to the nation’s ability to control the message to its citizens.

But Ri had orchestrated this trip; he’d arranged the travel for Hwang and himself and a total of nine of their translators and assistants, and he’d smoothed out the highly unusual situation with the Ministry of People’s Security. A nation that regards unauthorized departure as an act of treason punishable by death clearly took foreign travel seriously, so Ri and his office had a lot of hoops to jump through to make this all happen. He forced his way through much of the bureaucracy by invoking the fact he was on an approved operation of the Dae Wonsu. He had, in fact, gone as high as Choi’s office to get approval for the travel, and only after a few days of meetings with security men, meetings where General Ri and Director Hwang were asked personal questions to vet their commitment to the Supreme Leader, were they finally allowed the opportunity to go abroad, and only then in the presence of several domestic security agents posing as subordinates.

In Hwang’s case it was a truly rare occurrence that such a high-ranking mineral executive would fly out of North Korea without being part of some sort of organized delegation replete with state security officials sent along to watch over him, lest he either be kidnapped by the West or, and all knew this would be more likely, attempt defection.

And as uncommon as it was for Hwang to travel abroad, the fact that General Ri was outside North Korea at all was utterly unheard of.

But Ri made it happen. The men were supremely motivated by the threat to their own lives if this operation did not succeed; ergo, the men had torn up the rule book.

After a call came through the radio of an airport official, the entire group filed down a back stairwell of the terminal to ground level, then they took a rickety bus ride out to a Tu-134 twin-engine jet painted in the red, white, and blue markings of Air Koryo, North Korea’s national carrier.

Hwang felt his legs shaking as he climbed the jet stairs. It was not from excitement — this was no thrill that he was getting to visit outside his country — this was real fear. He’d lived fifty-four years hearing stories about the outside world, all of them bad. There was a statue in his hometown showing American GIs spearing a screaming Korean baby with a bayonet — foreigners were evil — and the disease and rampant crime and moral and physical decay of South Korea and Japan were legendary.

He had spent the evening before holding his wife and children, fighting back tears, and telling them to be strong and have faith in the Dae Wonsu should he never return.

On board he had his choice of seats. The plane could accommodate up to eighty, and there were only sixteen on the flight. He strapped himself in next to Ri and sat silently, his hands trembling, thinking about the prospect of what he would face when they landed.

They took off toward the south and the aircraft climbed into the morning fog, and Hwang did little more than nod as Ri began discussing his strategy for the meeting later in the day.

Four hours later Hwang was deep into his work and past the terror of the unknowns of the trip. He barely looked up from his paperwork as the aircraft landed in Vientiane, Laos, to refuel and to obfuscate the origin of the flight. Within half an hour they were back in the air.

They landed a second time in Singapore during a mid-afternoon rain shower, and here they were met by local operatives of Ri’s intelligence service and driven to the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Hwang Min-ho could not believe his eyes when he saw the opulence and grandeur of the lobby. As one of a rare few of his countrymen who had actually seen the inner sanctum of Residence No. 55, he could say without reservation that this hotel was even more luxurious than the palace of the Dae Wonsu. As confused as he was by the riches on display, available, apparently, to regular businessmen and not just to government elite or royalty, he noticed Ri felt the same way. He could tell by the wide eyes and sideways glances of the general that he had never seen anything like this, either.

Neither man remarked on the amazing facility as they took an elevator up to the presidential suite. At their sides were domestic security agents, and both men knew they were being watched to see how they reacted.

In the hallway on the top floor of the hotel, four physically fit men in suits greeted the entourage from North Korea. The translator for the Hwang — Ri group, a middle-aged North Korean woman, spoke in English to the men, and then everyone stepped into the 2,500-square-foot presidential suite.

Hwang and Ri both smiled at the sight of the man they’d come all this way to meet. Óscar Roblas de Mota cut an impressive figure. Seventy-three years old and heavyset, he was nonetheless surprisingly fit and his hair dye, though fooling no one, at least gave him the appearance of vibrancy. He stood a head higher than Ri, and even taller than Hwang, and he wore a beautiful black three-piece suit from Savile Row. He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, but spun toward his guests and walked to them with an energetic spring in his step.

He spoke with an air of unbridled competence and power, introducing himself to both men as if they were fans in line for an autograph instead of two of the most important officers of a nuclear power.

But that was Roblas’s way. Some successful men never do develop personalities fitting of their accomplishments, but Óscar Roblas was a winner, and he damn well knew it.

Roblas was the third-wealthiest man in Mexico and ranked number twenty-eight on the Forbes list, with personal and familial assets to the tune of $24 billion. He didn’t start out with nothing, though the narrative his company propagated had pushed that history for the past thirty-five years. The truth was that his family made its money in copper mining going back three generations. The Roblas family company, Grupo Pacífico, still mined copper and zinc throughout the nation, but they’d made money in oil, leasing land for drilling across Mexico, and then Óscar Roblas had created exponential growth for himself by expanding to mineral mines around the world by using offshore companies and limited partnerships.

He owned or had owned dozens of mineral mines on all points on the globe: part of a titanium mine in Mozambique, diamond mines in Botswana and Sierra Leone. Gold, copper, zinc, and nickel mines in a dozen countries.

With his vast wealth he had the ability to create companies and even banking institutions out of thin air to keep the money trails of his endeavors hidden. Hwang knew of Roblas because Roblas had partnered on North Korean mines in the past, albeit on a scale a small fraction of what Hwang would propose at today’s meeting.

The men all sat down at a large conference table brought up to the presidential suite just for the meeting, and after one of the North Korean state security men scanned the room for listening devices with a small apparatus, Roblas began the conversation with an uncomfortable question that was conveyed first in English, and then in Korean through the translator.

“And how is former director Kim?” Roblas asked. “I enjoyed working with him in years past on the magnesite project in Daeheung. I found him to be a capable man. Mr. Hwang, I understand you replaced him as director of Korea Natural Resources Trading due to ill health.”

Hwang paused for a moment, unsure as to what he should say. A state security minder sent along to watch the meeting sat on a sofa, away from the conference table, and stared stone-faced back at him.

“Yes,” Hwang replied to the translator, who converted his words effortlessly into English. “He has taken ill, but he will recover. The rigors of the job, however, are too much for him now, so he will tend to his beautiful garden and enjoy his large and happy family.”

Roblas nodded without smiling. “I understand.”

Hwang had a strong suspicion the Mexican did, in fact, understand quite well. He had been working on mining ventures in North Korea for decades. It would come as no surprise to him that a level of treachery such as that perpetrated by Director Kim would be dealt with quite harshly by the leadership.

With that matter settled, Director Hwang Min-ho spent the next hour laying out his proposal to restart the Chongju rare earth mineral mine without the partnership of the Chinese. He explained how General Ri would help him acquire some of the technology and information necessary, but that they would need an initial investment of hard currency and the support structure of a foreign partnership to obtain everything they needed to get the mine up and running.

Roblas listened politely, but with markedly little animation. Government mining ministers came to him asking for help on a regular basis. Only the month before, a Congolese minister approached him to partner on a new iron mine in his nation. Roblas declined. His own geologists doubted the size of the find, and he wasn’t impressed with the returns at his other Congolese mines.

The North Koreans had talked him into coming all the way to Asia to meet with them, assuring him they had an opportunity he would not want to pass up. Of course he knew this would involve the rare earth mine recently vacated by the Chinese, and of course he was interested. He had his finger on the pulse of the world mining community, so there was no way a find like Chongju would slip by him. He knew the Chinese had wanted to stay but Choi had forced them out, and Roblas was curious enough to fly to Singapore and sit with the little brainwashed fools from North Korea to see what they wanted to offer him.

He was ready to invest, to move mountains, both literally and figuratively, if and only if the North Koreans could show him that the value of the mine, and the terms of their contract offer, both made the deal worthwhile.

Hwang showed him the raw findings of the Chinese, all translated into English, and Óscar Roblas could not believe his eyes. He knew the North Koreans were sitting on a rare earth reserve large enough that the Chinese had been fighting to keep a partnership going despite Choi’s actions, but the assertion that $12 trillion at today’s value lay just beneath the rocks was nothing less than astounding to the Mexican.

He asked for clarification on various matters, but Hwang had been ready for this. He had the numbers from the tests and the CVs of the geologists who signed off on the find.

Roblas then said something that surprised both Hwang and Ri.

“I am interested. But as a businessman, I like to know what I am getting into. I haven’t been to your country in over twenty years. If I am going to invest in this project of yours, I want to see it.”

Hwang was confused, at first. “All of the findings of the Chinese are in the materials here. You may feel free to take your time in looking—”

The running translation was interrupted when Roblas said, “No. I want to go to North Korea and see the merchandise. The mine. The location of the proposed processing plant. The infrastructure you have in place now. If I like what I see, if I agree the potential is there and the terms of our partnership are to my liking, then we will do business together.”

Hwang replied, “Certainly. When would you like to come?”

“I suppose you have a plane at the airport now. I’d like to return with you tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. If I don’t come now, if you make me wait a week or a month, then you will have time to put some window dressing up at the mine. To reroute electricity or to take generators out of Pyongyang and truck them to the mountains just for my visit. To move every skilled miner in the nation to Chongju, and to put them in a new uniform made just for my visit. I have been at this a long time, amigos. I know all the tricks.”

Hwang started to balk, but General Ri, who had been silent for the vast majority of the meeting, stood suddenly. With the air of a military man he said, “Let us not delay.”

Even though the reception committee had less than twelve hours to put something together, in Pyongyang Óscar Roblas was treated like a visiting head of state, although no cameras recorded his arrival. He met a cavalcade of senior officials at a private residence set up for visiting dignitaries, and they promised their full cooperation, should he enter into partnership on Chongju.

Roblas’s other mining concern in North Korea had been a profitable exercise for him, and he found the North Koreans had held up their end of the bargain, so he was positively inclined to agree even before he headed up to Chongju.

The following morning they took off to the north in a long motorcade; Roblas sat with Ri and Hwang in a military SUV. They were silent on much of the journey. All that needed to be said had already been said, and there was little for the big Mexican to do but see for himself.

Roblas spent the day at the mine and the proposed location of the processing facility a few kilometers to the west of the pit itself. He walked the scoured earth, his patent leather shoes covered in mud and gravel. He knelt and held the dirt in his fingers.

Finally he smiled at Hwang and Ri. “Not so different from the Sierra Madre.”

They smiled back.

Over the next two months Roblas sat in his Mexico City office and worked in secret with his senior staff, ironing out just what was necessary to assemble a rare earth mining operation from next to nothing. Everything from how much water would be brought in to the list of United Nations sanctions that would have to be skirted for the operation to be successful. He worked closely with Hwang and his senior staff, and he worked with Ri as well, directing the head of North Korea’s foreign intelligence service in the drawing up of a battle plan of how to facilitate the successful mining operation.

The terms offered by Hwang were curious, but Roblas found them to be acceptable. There would be a huge capital outlay early on, of course, as Roblas deposited millions of dollars into North Korean offshore accounts. This was an initial cash buy-in that was a lot of money for the North Koreans, but nothing much for Roblas at all.

Then Roblas would use his own funds to move equipment and personnel into North Korea. This would cost, Roblas estimated, well north of $60 million. He’d been told about Choi’s demand that production begin in a year and a half, and this was a tight timeline, but the $12 trillion buried under the dirt gave Roblas the incentive to get it up and running.

The third major outlay for Roblas would be the largest. The day production began at the mineral processing facility, he would owe the North Koreans a one-time cash payment of $500 million. A lot of money, to be sure, especially after his other expenses, but after this the contractual terms were firmly in Roblas’s favor. He’d recoup his expenses in under five years, and he’d have so much pure profit after that his main concern would be on how to rake in and launder it all.

It was clear to the Mexican businessman that the North Koreans wanted the contract front-loaded to their advantage because they needed an infusion of cash. Roblas did not know why, nor did he ask. He knew theirs was a dirt-poor nation, and he hoped his money would go to improve the lives of the common people in North Korea, but he highly doubted this. He wondered if they would blow it all on luxury items and nuclear missiles, but he wondered this for only a moment, because he didn’t really care all that much.

Roblas intended to keep his name out of the entire affair. It would appear to the world, if they found out about it at all, as if North Korea itself had played the world mining industry like a Stradivarius, orchestrating the movement of manpower, brainpower, machine and natural resources, bringing everything together. Many would assume the DPRK had outside help, but on this venture, just as in other operations Roblas had undertaken in less permissive parts of the world, he would conduct his part of the business in secret.

In the lists and charts and white papers created by his staff about the hardships of bringing this plan to life, nothing appeared as a more obvious problem than the processing of the ore. Roblas and Hwang could build the mine and extract the ore, and once the ore was refined, Roblas could assist the North Koreans in getting it onto the world market in a way to maximize its value, but the highly technical and intensive processing of the minerals was beyond even the scope of Roblas and his Grupo Pacífico. A few mines around the world did their own processing, but only in the United States, China, and Canada. Even the Australians sent their ore to an Australian operation based in Malaysia to be processed.

But that would not work for the North Koreans. They would have to do it themselves, right there at the mine.

This was yet another crucial matter that he’d have to bring up with Duke Sharps.

Roblas’s Grupo Pacífico had relied on the work of Duke Sharps in New York City for much of its underhanded corporate espionage and investigations in the past decade, so it was a simple matter to contract with Sharps again.

The full scope of the North Korean operation was laid out to Sharps by Roblas himself at a luxury hotel in Saint Maarten. The American ex-spy agreed on the spot — as soon as Roblas agreed on a cost plus fee for the private intelligence firm.

Sharps charged an incredible amount of money for the work he did. Often the brash American infuriated Óscar Roblas by his near-extortionate fees and his occasional reluctance to get his hands really dirty. Sharps would spy, he would break some laws, and he would push some boundaries, but a man in Roblas’s line of work occasionally needed extreme measures taken, and Sharps was too aboveboard to do the real dirty work.

But Sharps and his people had their place. They would help get foreign nationals into North Korea, they would help move material and steal proprietary software needed for the production facility, they would pressure elected officials and UN members to vote the way the North Koreans desired to keep the money and the material moving. In the final analysis, even though Duke charged too much and refused to assassinate, kidnap, or beat Roblas’s enemies, the businessman in Óscar Roblas knew that Duke Sharps and his staff were worth every damn cent.