Hunt the Dragon

Chapter Eleven

It was a ranch house off Wilson Boulevard with a white gravel driveway and a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn. Looked like it had been built in the late sixties. Two big Scorpion CIA private security guards checked Crocker’s ID through the half-open screen door.

“Come in,” one of them said gruffly.

He peeled off the suit jacket and set it on the back of one of the living room chairs. The air was stale and reeked of cigarettes.

“You think one of you guys could crack a window?” Crocker asked.

“You’re a guest here. Take a seat.”

Choosing the path of least resistance, he sat and checked his texts. One of them had come from Cyndi, wishing him luck in court.

He used his thumbs to text back “All good. Charges dismissed! Tnx.”

They talked on the phone practically every night. He was hoping to get an opportunity in the next week or so to travel back to Vegas and meet her daughter. She also had a nephew who was interested in going to BUD/S and wanted to meet him.

If all went well, he was thinking of flying himself, Jenny, Cyndi, and her daughter to Hawaii for Christmas. They’d stay on Maui, his favorite island. If he could afford it, he’d rent a house away from the hotels on the south shore for a week-windsurfing, exploring, eating fresh fruit and fish.

He was trying to imagine how Jenny would respond to the idea when Anders entered in a burst of energy. Broad-shouldered and clean-cut, he walked with a slight limp-the result of a bullet wound at the hands of Syrian agents in a Paris hotel elevator-and spoke into a cell phone. Behind him followed a short, thin Asian man wearing a porkpie hat, sunglasses, and Bermuda shorts even though it had barely cracked fifty outside, and two more large security men.

Anders was arguing on the phone with someone. “I know. I’ve heard that, but I don’t agree. Look, I’ve got to go now. Print it out and leave it on my desk.”

They clasped hands and bumped chests, military style. The two had gone through a lot together over the past three years. Adversity had drawn them closer.

“Crocker. Real good to see you. What’s with the suit?”

“It’s a long story. How’s the knee?”

Anders rolled up the leg of his khaki pants to show the fresh scar. “Bullet entered here and shattered the patella. Took four hours of surgery and pins, screw, and wire to put it back together. Rehab’s been a bitch. But the knee’s working again, so I can’t complain.”

“Glad to hear it.”

One of the Scorpions entered with bottles of water, which he placed on the table. He pulled the shades closed and left as Anders introduced the Asian dude who was scrolling through something on his iPhone.

“Crocker, I want you to meet Terry.”

“Konnichiwa,” Terry said in Japanese, bowing from the waist.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

He still wore the plaid hat, which clashed with his shorts.

“Terry is Japanese,” Anders explained, “but he’s spent a lot of time in Pyongyang and developed a close relationship with Kim Jong-il and his son Kim Jung-un.”

“Eighteen years altogether,” Terry said, nodding and removing his hat. His head was as smooth as a cue ball.

“Terry here served as the Supreme Leader’s fitness and karate instructor. He taught his son as well.”

“I first meet Jong-un…twelve years old. No shit.”

“You must have stories,” said Crocker.

“Oh yes. Many stories. Stories to curl the hair on your head.”

Without prompting, he described his first trip to Pyongyang for a karate competition back in the ’90s, how he had been approached by an aide to Kim Jong-il, and how the Supreme Leader himself enticed him with money and gifts to become his personal fitness instructor. He spent six years in North Korea, returned to the town he grew up in Japan, and was later lured back. He eventually became part of the Supreme Leader’s inner circle and participated in wild karaoke parties, orgies with teenage sex slaves, and feasts with delicacies flown in from all over the world.

“Off-the-hook shit,” he commented. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Terry explained that while the majority of the twenty million residents of North Korea lived in abject poverty and others starved to death, the Supreme Leader surrounded himself with a carefully selected coterie of military and party officials who lived in extreme luxury. He basically bought their loyalty with apartments, houses, cars, special privileges, and gifts. Terry himself had been given hundreds of thousands of dollars, gold watches, fine clothes and shoes, jewelry, any pretty girl he wanted, and the wife of his choice.

In return, those allowed close to power first had to pledge absolute loyalty to the Supreme Leader. He was deified by state media and treated like a god. The slightest hint of disloyalty would result in one being tossed into a reeducation camp or one of the country’s 180 political prisons, or having to face some form of execution.

In December 2013 Kim Jong-hu’s uncle and top economic advisor Jang Song-thaek was abruptly removed from all official posts and dubbed “despicable human scum” by state media. A week later he and his top aides were stripped naked and fed to over a hundred dogs that had been starved for three days. Hundreds of top Kim Jong-un aides were forced to watch as the men’s bodies were ripped apart and eaten in a process that is reported to have taken over an hour.

North Korean citizens were routinely executed for routine offenses, including the possession of a Bible or watching South Korean-produced videos.

Crocker shook his head in disgust, despite that fact that he had heard much of this before.

Turning to Terry, Anders asked, “Tell us where Kim Jong-un gets the money to support his nuclear program, his million-soldier-strong military, and also to support his inner circle in luxury when the economy is dismal, most people are starving, and the country lives under a strict UN economic embargo that blocks practically all international currency from flowing into the country.”

“Illegal activities.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“The government has a branch that is a criminal enterprise to make money and accrue power to the regime by any means possible.”

“For example?” Anders asked.

“Killing people, torture, kidnapping for ransom, selling drugs, hacking into bank accounts, spying. All the things criminal organizations do.”

“How do you know about this?”

“I became friendly with the general who runs it. We call him the Dragon.”

As he lay on the bed Dawkins’s mind roiled with ghastly scenes of postnuclear Nagasaki and Hiroshima-buildings vaporized, people reduced to dust, mothers and children covered with oozing radiation sores and burns, wandering through rubble like zombies. Dawkins hovered over them like a giant bird. Hot, ionized air burned his feathers and skin. Ashes clogged his throat, causing him to choke.

The coughing pulled him into a level of semiconsciousness. He opened his eyes into darkness-just a glowing ribbon from under the door to his right and the hum of a ventilation system.

Something rustled nearby.

“Sung?”

He had trouble breathing and grabbed at his throat. Then felt warm hands on his chest.

“Sung, is that you?”

“Breathe, Mr. Dawkin. You have bad dream. Relax.”

He turned and saw her sitting beside him, her shiny black hair falling over her eyes, her neck long and arched like a swan’s.

It all came back to him-his kidnapping, his family, the missile program he was being forced to work on, and his terrible moral conundrum. For the second time in his life, he thought of killing himself. Junior year in high school he had swallowed a bottle of aspirin after his girlfriend dumped him for his best friend.

He told himself that this time he would do it right, and considered the means at his disposal, the cord of the space heater in the corner, the sharp edge of the metal bathroom sink.

But even as he did, Sung’s hands and words soothed him. “You need…relax, Mr. Dawkin. Go to sleep. Clear you head. You work in the morning.”

“Sung, I can’t sleep.”

“You miss family. Family okay?”

“I don’t know.”

She leaned in until their faces almost touched. “I stay with you, Mr. Dawkin. You want pill for sleep? I give you pill.”

“No pill, please.”

“You good man, Mr. Dawkin. You love family.”

He pictured Nan and Karen in his head and sighed. “Yes, I do.”

“You sick in you heart.”

“I am.”

“I know, Mr. Dawkin. I know.”

It was reassuring to hear her say so. His week of captivity had caused him to partially shed his sense of self because his very existence had become a problem. Dangerous men wanted his mind and the knowledge it contained. He had gone to Geneva with a plan to help save the planet and had been lured away by an offer to put the plan into operation. Now he was being asked to help destroy it.

The irony crushed him.

He blamed himself and the choices he had made. And then he argued that this current situation wasn’t his fault. He was a scientist and an engineer with no desire to hurt others. Could he help it if his expertise was used for sinister purposes? Yes, he had trained to become an expert in missile guidance systems. Yes, he had benefited from the money he earned from working for the U.S. government. It’s true that he could have gone into another field of endeavor.

“Sung, is there light at the end of the tunnel?” he asked out loud.

“I no understand,” she whispered back.

“Will I ever see my family again? Will I be able to face them when I do?”

He felt lost in a gray, formless muddle with nothing to hold on to. Death waited and watched. In many ways it seemed preferable to the dying ghostlike creatures that stumbled through the shadows of his consciousness at night.

“Mr. Dawkin…You family need you.”

This woman he knew almost nothing about had become his only real human contact. His nurse and angel of sorts. She sang him songs and told him stories, and massaged his legs, back, and shoulders to try to get him to relax.

In the far, far distance, over continents and oceans and beyond the moral quagmire he currently faced, waited his wife and daughter. He had no way of reaching them, or explaining why it might be better if he never came home.

His North Korean captors had cut him off completely from the outside world. No Internet, no phones, no newspapers, magazines, books, gossip. Nothing. Only Sung and the VCR, the TV monitor and a box of porno videos sitting in the corner.

She knelt beside him on the bed kneading his neck and shoulders, and singing what sounded like a lullaby. Her voice reminded him of a bird climbing and swooping through the branches of trees.

“What’s the song about?” he asked when she finished.

“It’s about a mother who goes to the shore to look for food for her baby and has to leave the baby alone in the house.”

“The melody reminds me of something…”

“She need the food for her baby. She has to have faith her baby will be safe. And her baby has to trust that the mother will be back. The same as us, Mr. Dawkin. We have our work.”

He noted that she had included herself.

“Sung, is that why you’re doing this, so you can return to your family?”

“This is my duty,” she answered sadly. “I return to family if Supreme Leader give permission.”

He had never really considered her situation. As sweet and attentive as she was, and as much as her words touched him, he wasn’t sure he could trust her.

“We need faith, Mr. Dawkin,” she said.

“In what?”

She didn’t answer. Did she secretly believe in God? Or did she believe the bullshit about the benevolence of the Supreme Leader?

He decided not to ask. In the darkness he heard her stand and the rustle of fabric. Then she pulled the blanket aside and slipped onto the bed beside him.

He felt her cool skin against his and her ribs against his chest. She held on to him and whispered, “Close you eyes and sleep, Mr. Dawkin. Tomorrow maybe bring you something good.”

“Freedom, I hope.”

“Sleep, Mr. Dawkin. Tomorrow maybe you have better news.”

Crocker passed through the lobby of CIA headquarters, stopped at the Memorial Wall, and looked at the 111 stars carved into the white Alabama marble, placed there in honor of CIA employees who had died in the line of duty. He knew that one of the stars was there to commemorate Mike Spann, who he had known when Mike was a young marine and he was a young navy recruit stationed in Okinawa. Mike had died tragically, killed by rioting Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress in Afghanistan in November 2001. Stars also paid tribute to Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who had died in Benghazi, and Elizabeth Hanson, Darren Labonte, and Jennifer Matthews, who had been killed during a suicide bombing in Camp Chapman in Afghanistan.

Crocker had worked with all of them at one point, and now said a silent prayer and moved on. There would be more stars on the wall as the war on terror spread from Afghanistan and Iraq to Syria, Kurdistan, Libya, Somalia, Nigeria, and Yemen. And that didn’t include state-supported terrorists and insurgents from countries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Upstairs a security agent scanned his badge and ID, then led him into a conference room. Twenty or so people sat two deep around a long oval table. He looked for Jeri’s face. Instead, he saw Jim Anders waving from the end of the table and pointing to a free chair beside him.

He didn’t recognize the other attendees. They seemed to be government analysts and operations officers from various branches, ranging in ages from late twenties to midsixties, and all wearing suits.

The meeting started with a detailed presentation on the counterfeit U.S. currency seized from the Cong Son Gang. According to the Secret Service’s director of investigations, the counterfeit hundreds matched the same 2HK1 profile as counterfeits that had surfaced over the past several months in places like Hawaii, Macau, and Las Vegas. The counterfeit bills were of very high quality and had passed inspection at some of the world’s high-end casinos, including the Park Hyatt in Mendoza, Argentina, the Ibiza Gran Hotel in Spain, the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, the Ritz Carlton in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Casino El Jadida in Morocco.

Millions of dollars of the bogus currency had passed through the Banco Delta Asia in Macau. Treasury estimated that there was currently as much as $1.5 billion in fake 2HK1 bills now in circulation. If they continued to enter the global economy at the current rate, they would act to devalue the dollar and cause inflation to rise. The long-term effects, according to the Secret Service’s director of investigations, could be catastrophic.

She explained that the seized bills had been examined under a microscope, scrutinized in ultraviolet light, and otherwise inspected to reveal flaws, composition, and printing techniques. The paper they were printed on matched the three-quarters cotton / one-quarter linen mix used for real U.S. currency. The bills had been manufactured using an intaglio press, which was the most advanced form of currency-printing technology available and far more expensive than offset, typographic, or lithographic presses.

While counterfeits manufactured by intaglio press had been seen before, they were very rare. Only a handful of companies made intaglio presses. Not only were they extremely expensive, they were also seldom sold to any entities except governments.

“Any idea which government we’re talking about here?” Anders asked.

“I can’t answer that specifically,” the female director answered. “But we do have several clues. Because of the number of high-quality imitations that were starting to appear in worldwide circulation at the end of the past century, we did a complete redesign of our currency starting in 1996. The new designs included a security thread embedded in the paper, a watermark featuring a shadow portrait of the figure on the bill, and microprinting. All these features were put in place to frustrate potential counterfeiters. The most significant and sophisticated change was a shift to optically variable inks known as OVIs. If you hold up one of today’s twenty-dollar bills and hold it one way, it appears bronze-green. If you turn it another, it looks black. That’s because of the OVIs.”

“Why is that important?”

“Because only one Swiss company, named SICPA, manufactures the types of OVIs used in printing currency, and the U.S. purchased the exclusive rights to green-to-black OVIs in ninety-six. That same year, North Korea purchased the exclusive rights to green-to-magenta ink, which can be easily manipulated to imitate green-to-black. It doesn’t prove anything, but we think it is significant.”

The next official who spoke was the head of the CIA’s Iranian desk. He speculated that the sudden spread of 2HK1 bills was an unintended consequence of international economic sanctions against Iran. They had been imposed starting in 2006 as a result of Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and had been expanded over the years. Not only had the international sanctions acted to strangle the Iranian economy; they also had the intended effect of shutting off sources of international currency, which the Iranian government could then use to buy foreign goods and services, including parts and matériel for their nuclear weapons program.

As the CIA officer spoke, Crocker considered the Persian man they had found on the Cong Son Gang.

“So the sanctions are working,” Anders remarked.

“Yes, most are still in place and have been quite effective,” said the officer from the Iranian desk. “And even if the Senate votes to roll them back in accordance with the new U.S.-Iran agreement, the fact remains that the Iranians have been cut off from the regular sources of international currency for years. Even if the sanctions were to end today, it would take the Iranians at least a year to earn enough international currency to make a difference in their economy. So they’ve resorted to illegal and extraordinary measures. Specifically, they made a devil’s bargain with the leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

“Kim Jong-un.”

“Yes.”

“Iran needs international currency, and the North Koreans want advanced rocket technology. Following a visit by North Korean ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-nam to Tehran and a meeting with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the two countries signed a trade agreement. The Iranians would start sending military parts and technology to North Korea, and the North Koreans would revive their production of counterfeit U.S. currency in order to supply the Iranians with much-needed dollars. Iran also dispatched a group of construction engineers to help build and expand their underground military and research facilities.”

“Those two countries have had a history of military and economic cooperation,” an official from the State Department remarked.

“It dates back to the 1980s, when the North Koreans supplied weapons to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. They included artillery, antitank weapons, naval mines, antiaircraft machine guns, mortars, tanks, and surface-to-air missiles. As late as 2010, a Russian-built cargo jet filled with North Korean weapons bound for Tehran was seized at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.”

During a break, Crocker found Anders talking to an aide in the hallway. When the aide left, Crocker asked, “What am I doing here?”

“Background,” Anders replied. “I’ll explain later. In the meantime, select a teammate to go with you and prepare to deploy to China.”

“China? We spent the last hour talking about Iran and North Korea.”

“You’re going to China. I’ll brief you as soon as this meeting is over. You’re leaving tonight.”