Full Force and Effect

44

Adam flew from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and from there to Shanghai on an Airbus A330 flown by China Eastern. He sat in the back of coach and spent his time listening to Korean-language audio files on his mobile phone.

He erased the files two hours before touchdown in China so there would be no record of his study of the language anywhere on his person.

Shortly after landing, Adam entered the immigrations area of Shanghai Pudong International Airport, waited his turn, and then stepped up to the immigration control officer sitting behind a desk. The man took Adam’s U.S. passport — it claimed his name was Shan Xin — and then looked through it. He stopped on the Chinese visa, affixed to one of the pages.

In Mandarin he asked, “You are Chinese?”

“Yes. I left China eighteen years ago to go to school in U.S.”

“You haven’t been back here?”

“No, sir.”

“Married an American?” The immigration officer didn’t know this, but he assumed as much.

“That is correct. I am home to visit family.”

“Where is your Chinese passport?”

“I lost it long ago. The embassy said I could travel on my U.S. passport and obtain a new Chinese passport while I am here if I provide my birth records. All that information is here with my mother.”

The officer eyed Yao carefully, then began thumbing through his passport slowly. He checked the few stamps that were there, and then he put the passport under a tabletop magnifier and examined the binding.

If Adam hadn’t known what was going on he would have been nervous, but he was aware they always did this at Chinese immigration control. The man was looking for evidence a page or pages had been removed with a razor in an attempt to get rid of entrance stamps. Foreigners traveling to China are not admitted if they have any Nepal entrance stamps.

The control officer found nothing amiss, and four minutes after stepping up to the desk, Adam Yao took his passport back, hefted his luggage off the floor, and began walking toward the arrivals area of the airport. He was now, according to his legend, Shan Xin, a Chinese national.

Three hours after arriving in Shanghai, Adam Yao entered a plain building in Shanghai’s Kunshan suburb. Inside he took an elevator to the second floor and then knocked on an unmarked metal door. He saw the peephole darken for a moment, and then an intercom next to the door crackled.

In Mandarin, he heard: “Name?”

“Shan Xin. I have an appointment with Mr. Hu.”

The door clicked open. Two men looked at his passport and then they frisked him carefully, removing his wallet, his mobile phone, and even a watch. One of them said, “Listening devices. Everyone must be searched.”

Adam had brought nothing incriminating into China, so he remained relaxed, and soon they led him into an office where a dour-looking older man sat behind a desk. This was Hu; Adam knew because he had videoconferenced with the man from Virginia via Skype in order to get the job. At the time, Hu had explained the job would be at one of the gangster miner operations in Mongolia, and he’d stressed that he needed Adam — or Shan Xin, as he knew him — to come to Shanghai as soon as possible for further vetting and processing.

As in the Skype teleconference, in person Hu was all business. He questioned Adam on his background, and on his knowledge of the computer system used to operate the hydraulic cone crushers. Adam could tell from the outset this wasn’t some sort of security check to confirm Yao’s identity. Instead, Hu was just making sure that Shan Xin possessed the qualifications for the job. Adam had passed all this in their Skype interview two weeks earlier, but it was clear to Yao that Hu was a careful man.

Perhaps not careful enough to recognize a CIA plant, but more than careful enough not to hire an unqualified employee.

Finally the older Chinese man was satisfied, and he pulled out some paperwork. “As we are not state-owned, we have a more informal approach.”

Adam thought Hu’s understatement was funny. Not only was the company not state-owned, it was wholly illegal. He kept his face blank.

“You will work on an eight-week contract, and you can be let go at any time.”

“Yes.”

“After eight weeks you can get one week off, or you can keep working if you want.”

Adam wanted to look eager. “I came here to work. Not for vacation.”

Hu looked him over and then nodded. He said, “You will tell no one that you have been in America. Ever. Certainly you will keep quiet that you have an American passport. I will keep it here. It is procedure.”

Yao knew why, but he pretended like he didn’t. “The people at the mine don’t like Americans?”

Hu lit a cigarette and leaned back. He spoke matter-of-factly. “This processing plant you are going to is not in Mongolia like we said. I wasn’t allowed to mention it before you came here, and when I tell you where you will be working you will understand why.”

Yao was a good actor, and reveled in the portrayal of a man genuinely confused. “I don’t understand. Where will I be working?”

“Later today you and forty-three other men and women will travel in a bus to the airport and you will board a plane to Pyongyang. The mine is in the north of the DPRK, not very far from the border with China.”

Yao’s eyes went wide. Before he spoke, Hu said, “It is all arranged at the highest levels of their state-owned mining corporation. Once you are in the air to Pyongyang, a North Korean government official will give you the documentation you need to get into the country.”

“What about the Chinese government?”

“To the government here, you never left China.”

Adam raised no complaints, and he signed all the papers using the name Shan Xin.

Hu finished the meeting with a warning. “We already have sent over one hundred fifty workers to the mining operation in North Korea. They are paid well, so they do not complain, but they report difficult conditions.”

“I understand.”

“Remember, you will be working in a facility under guard at all times. Don’t do anything to raise any suspicion with the authorities in North Korea. Do your work. Don’t ask questions, don’t look around, don’t complain, and don’t give them any reason to mistrust you. You do this and you will make a lot of money. If you don’t do this… there is nothing anyone here can do for you.”

Adam nodded calmly, as if blowing off the warning. But the truth was different. He felt an unmistakable feeling of dread about where he was going.

The flight from Shanghai to Pyongyang was in an Airbus A319 flown by Deer Jet, a Chinese charter company based in Beijing. On board the aircraft Adam met a few of the others heading to Chongju. Most if not all seemed bewildered by the fact they were heading into North Korea.

It was clear all these men and women were educated professionals. They didn’t look like miners any more than Adam did. He knew that in order to staff the processing facility Hu and his gangster mining company needed to recruit qualified systems engineers, computer technicians, and other high-tech industry professionals, and few if any of these people would have experience with the criminal underworld. Adam hoped to use this to his advantage. He’d fit in better where he was going if he behaved just like the rest of them. A little wide-eyed about the whole thing, but dedicated to his one specific role.

They landed at seven in the evening and deplaned within minutes. Adam had the feeling this was the only aircraft flying into the airport at the moment, because the terminal was empty except for two long rows of young soldiers in green parade dress uniforms, who virtually lined the walkway from the gate to the immigration control area.

Adam walked between the soldiers, following in the middle of the pack of tired Chinese, doing his best to keep his head down. He stole a couple of furtive glances, though, and he saw the soldiers were both male and female, they seemed to have programmed scowls on their faces, and they held their locally made Kalashnikov-style rifles across their chests at the ready. Adam could plainly see the weapons’ fire selectors were switched off the standard safe setting and set to fire semiautomatically at the press of the trigger.

Christ, the American thought.

His trip through immigration control was like none he’d ever experienced in his life. The Chinese technicians were each sent to their own table in a large open area in the middle of the terminal. Here, five armed and scowling immigration officers stood at the ready. Adam was led to his table, and in the poor Mandarin spoken by a female soldier standing behind him he was told to put his bag up on the table and unzip it. He did so, and two officers began taking everything out and going through it. He then was ordered to hand over his wallet, his employment contract, and his passport to a white-haired man. While this man looked through every page of his documents, a fourth official began frisking Adam from head to toe. He was ordered to strip down to his underwear — this he did in the view of not only the female North Korean officers but also the female Chinese technicians, who were stripping down themselves.

Every shred of their clothing was inspected, and then each person was wanded with a handheld metal detector.

All in all, Adam spent more than twenty minutes in his underwear. He was a fit and confident young man, but standing in front of two young females with guns in their hands and “Fuck you” stares on their faces was as uncomfortable an experience as he’d ever felt.

Right in the middle of the lengthy process Yao heard a disturbance at another table. A man raised his voice, speaking in Korean.

“What is this? What did I find here? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Adam turned to the action. A thirtyish female Chinese woman Adam had met on the flight over stood in her bra and panties, looking at what an immigration officer held out in his hand. She didn’t understand his words, so she waited for a translation. A North Korean minder who spoke Chinese came over and looked at the alleged contraband, then turned to the woman. “This is a Korean dictionary. Why do you have this?”

In Chinese the woman replied with genuine confusion. “Why? Are you kidding? I don’t speak Korean. I bought it in the airport. I thought it would be helpful to know a few words.”

“Helpful to your espionage?”

“What? Of course not.”

The woman was led away by the arm, still in her underwear and openly weeping. Her luggage remained open and unattended on the table, with her clothes scattered across the table and the floor.

Adam did not say a word. He hoped like hell she’d be expelled for this; he couldn’t imagine a better outcome for the lady. In fact, he didn’t know if he should feel sorry for her or envy her.

North Korea sucked already.

He chastised himself for this thought. Silently, he said, What the hell did you expect, Adam?

After the lengthy immigration process and the loss of one of their number, Adam and the forty-two remaining Chinese technicians were put on a bus and taken through the dark and nearly empty streets of Pyongyang to the Yanggakdo International Hotel.

Adam knew all about this place. The rumors were there was only one floor in operation: the twenty-sixth. The rest of the place was closed and shuttered because, despite the impression the North Koreans wanted to make with the massive business-class hotel, there were so few foreign businessmen in the city they needed only a couple dozen rooms at any one time.

Of course, with the arrival of the technicians, Adam assumed he’d be going to some previously mothballed floor.

In the lobby they were told to line up, and one of the impeccably dressed minders said, “I will pass out your keys. Four people to a room. Everyone will be staying on the twenty-sixth floor.”

Wow, Adam thought. He and his cohorts were probably the only people in the hotel, and virtually the only foreign travelers in the huge city.

A small reception for the Chinese technicians began at nine p.m. in a banquet room in the basement. To get there, Adam had to line up with the others on the twenty-sixth floor and wait for a group of minders to come up and then ferry everyone down in groups in the elevator.

Adam knew he should have been made uneasy by the tight control; it was probably like being in a maximum-security prison, after all. But to Adam it felt more like his memories of grammar school. Grown-ups making the children line up and wait, and constantly checking their every move.

The banquet room was almost comically ornate, and five times too large for the quantity of Chinese technicians. A dozen waitresses worked the room, none of whom spoke a word of Chinese. Adam chatted with his new colleagues, but most of them were too nervous to enjoy themselves, so the conversation was stilted. One of the waitresses turned a radio on and held a PA microphone up to the little speaker, broadcasting thin and scratchy revolutionary music throughout the banquet hall. Adam would have enjoyed the spectacle of the scene, and he could have stayed for hours, but he stopped drinking after two beers. He figured he would need fifty to calm his nerves, considering his predicament, and he was very aware of the fact good intelligence officers did not become better intelligence officers the drunker they got, so he just held his mostly empty bottle, grinned stupidly, and bobbed his head with the music.

He tipped well, but not enough to draw attention to himself, and then he went to the door, where a minder met him to escort him back to his room.

On his way back up to the twenty-sixth floor, he remembered something else about this hotel. To confirm the rumor, he leaned around his minder at the front of the car and looked at the floor numbers.

Yes. Just like he’d been told, Adam saw that the fifth floor did not exist. He assumed that was where the watchers and listeners associated with North Korean counterintelligence all worked. He knew that here in the Yanggakdo International Hotel, every last thing he did and said would be recorded and videoed. Yao wasn’t terribly concerned by this. He’d lived in China, after all, so he was accustomed to draconian intelligence measures.

But when it came to paranoid security protocols, the DPRK was starting to make the Chinese look like rank amateurs.