Red Phoenix Burning

Chapter 3 — Plunge

Chris Sawyer kept the CNN news channel on while he worked, although he’d muted the sound as soon as he was sure the anchors weren’t saying anything new. The satellite photo the networks were all showing didn’t need much in the way of explanation.

What had once been a building the size of a city block was now a huge mound of broken concrete and twisted steel. Any disaster on that scale would have made the news. But what had all the news anchors and talking heads in a lather was that this building had been identified as part of the massive Korean Workers’ Party office complex in Pyongyang, North Korea.

With all of the DPRK’s official media off the air, speculation that had first focused on sinkholes or shoddy construction was now shifting quickly to more ominous and sinister causes for the apparent implosion. Before he’d hit the mute button, they were also zeroing in on the possible significance of this catastrophe, as it occurred on August 15.

As the CIA’s senior analyst for North Korea, Sawyer knew the talking heads were right. That pile of rubble had been the Party Banquet Hall, used for formal dinners and celebrations by the North’s ruling political and military elite. And August 15, Liberation Day, was a national day of celebration set aside for parades, pomp, and parties to commemorate the end of Japan’s decades-long occupation of Korea.

He also knew a few other things he fervently hoped would not appear on CNN or the other channels. Leak investigations were always hell. And the last thing he needed right now was to have his team wired up to polygraph machines and cross-examined.

He stared again at the image of the ruined building plastered across the screen.

A network of tunnels ran under Pyongyang, connecting Kim Jong-un’s offices and residence with other official buildings. Extending for dozens of miles, it included escape routes out of the city and a lavishly appointed underground bunker, a refuge against air attack. Many of the tunnels had been bored through solid rock to a depth of three hundred meters, and they were wide enough for cars and other vehicles to use. In peacetime, they provided passage for Kim and other members of the regime to move about in secrecy and safety.

The fact that these tunnels existed was public knowledge, but Sawyer and his people, by piecing together overhead imagery, defector reports, and other information, believed they had about two-thirds of the network mapped. If the US ever went to war with North Korea, the air force would suddenly find a few dozen new targets added to its bombing list: innocuous-looking buildings or subway stations that were the entrances and exits to Kim’s secret labyrinth.

And one of those tunnels ran right under the Korean Workers’ Party office complex. From defector reports, Sawyer and his team knew that the banquet hall itself ran deep underground, with multiple basements filled with kitchens, storage areas, and air raid shelters. Analysts also believed that a set of internal high-speed elevators connected the building with the deeper tunnel system. It was an obvious destination for Kim’s private transportation system.

So what had caused a massive steel-and-concrete structure to collapse in a matter of seconds?

Sawyer was convinced that it had to be a bomb — a very big one. He’d had weapon effects experts from the agency examine all the available images, both the commercial ones shown by the networks and the more detailed photos taken by US spy satellites. Their reports showed that the lowest point in the rubble matched the estimated location of those elevators. They also argued that only an explosion that completely destroyed some of the hidden underground basements could account for so much damage to the banquet hall itself.

A demolitions expert attached to the CIA’s Special Activities Division had gone further. Over his many years in the military and then in the agency, Scott Voss had blown up enough stuff to take out a whole city. “No way was that an accidental gas explosion, Chris,” the big man had told him. “Not enough explosive power from natural gas, for one thing. Plus, there’s not enough fire damage. Ninety-plus percent of the time that you have a natural gas explosion, you’re going to get one hell of a fire.”

Instead, Voss believed it would have taken at least a thousand kilograms — a metric ton — of military-grade high explosives to destroy the assembly hall from within. A ton of explosives planted in one of those deep elevator shafts. “Nothing kills like overkill,” he’d said.

There were other clues.

All the satellite photos showed large numbers of emergency vehicles and military trucks surrounding the ruined building, with hundreds of civilians and soldiers swarming over the floodlit rubble pile. Rows of bodies were set aside, left waiting while ambulances took survivors to nearby hospitals. Sawyer winced, imagining the carnage. If the banquet hall was being used that night for a celebration, more than a thousand people could have been inside when it imploded.

Signals intelligence satellites had captured some of the radio transmissions made by emergency crews combing the wreckage. Most were the kinds of communications one would expect in any disaster — urgent requests for information on the scope of the emergency, reports on the numbers of potential victims, and finally, reports about the efforts being made to rescue survivors trapped in the rubble. But in this case, there had been a second thread, a series of frantic transmissions detailing a separate, panicked search for “higher priority” victims.

Since many of those buried in the ruins were likely to be among the North’s most powerful politicians and generals, who could possibly be “higher priority”?

Sawyer listened again to the audio files of those transmissions. The teams involved in this second search did not use any names of those they were seeking, just code words.

There. He stopped the playback.

One of the voices suddenly called out, “We’ve reached the dais! He is alive, but gravely wounded. The wife is dead. Four of the others are critically injured, the remaining six are dead.” That was the last snippet the satellites had picked up.

And the voice repeated it. “He is alive.”

Sawyer was sure they were talking about Kim Jong-un. It all fit, he thought. That bomb-shattered building, the near-simultaneous blackout of state media, and the failed mass defection attempt up at the DMZ. Someone had tried to kill — and he might die yet — the absolute ruler of North Korea. The “wife” they were talking about must’ve been Ri Sol-ju. The “others” were quite likely secretariat heads who helped Kim Jong-un rule as Supreme Leader. Sweet Jesus, he thought. Kim Jong-un, his wife, and the ten highest-ranking people in the DPRK government. The same number he’d just heard reported as dead or critically wounded on the dais.

He spun back to his keyboard, working through the possibilities again. Inside the paranoid police state of North Korea, it would take unparalleled access, information, and resources to pull something like this off. That meant a conspiracy set firmly in the regime’s inner circle.

Everything suggested a coup, and even a successful coup would be bloody. A failed coup might be even worse.

He pulled up the most recent report on that North Korean woman the military had rescued from the DMZ. The ROK National Intelligence Service had reported her name was Lee Ji-young, which placed her as a member of one of the ruling families; her father had been a senior politburo member. There was no way to know for certain which side her family had been on, but he had been a strong supporter of the Kim family in the past.

Were they Kim loyalists getting out ahead of a purge? Or were they conspirators fleeing a failed assassination attempt? According to the US Army colonel who’d carried her across the line, she’d kept talking about “the burning.” The CIA analyst was willing to bet that the violence that would necessarily accompany any coup — whether it succeeded or failed — was well underway.

Sawyer took another pull on his cold coffee, his second cup since a hurried lunch at his desk, and began typing. The White House and his own superiors were screaming for his best guesses about exactly what was going on in Pyongyang. It always made him itchy to make sweeping assessments with so little hard evidence, but that was inevitable for anyone trying to analyze the DPRK. Paranoid and ultra-secretive, what the West knew about North Korea might fill a thin volume. What they didn’t know was incalculable, but undoubtedly immense.

Despite that, it was Sawyer’s assessment, with high confidence, that an attempt had been made on Kim Jong-un’s life. But that bald statement raised more questions than it answered. Where was the North’s all-important Supreme Leader now? Was he alive or dead? Who were the plotters? Would North Korea’s armed forces hold together or splinter into different factions?

He added a number of indicators that would help produce answers to some of those questions. The rest would require additional collection. Some could be handled by the CIA, with its own resources, but most would require combined efforts by a host of organizations — the other US intelligence agencies, the military, the South Koreans, the Japanese, and many others.

Wrapping up the final paragraph in the report’s conclusions, he wrote, “The power struggle now apparently taking place could involve numerous factions armed with nuclear, chemical, and possibly biological weapons. Given the DPRK’s strategic location between two important US allies and two powerful US adversaries, and with US forces present in the Republic of Korea, there is a grave risk of violence spreading to any or all of these countries — threatening American interests and lives.”

Chris Sawyer sat back and read that passage over carefully several times. Its dry, analytic language was the type required in any official agency report, but it didn’t convey even half the anxiety he felt. At the moment, he could see only one possible future where the violence could be contained inside the boundaries of North Korea. There were at least a dozen more where death and chaos spread across the whole region… and maybe the whole world.

General Tae Seok-won had set up his battle headquarters in a courtyard just east of the mammoth Arch of Reunification. The Reunification Highway swept under the arch, heading straight north toward the center of Pyongyang.

He scowled. The arch, a project of Kim Jong-un’s father, showed two women in traditional Korean dress leaning forward to hold a sphere showing a united Korea. Given the circumstances, with the DPRK teetering on the edge of civil war, it was a painfully ironic piece of propaganda.

From the arch, Pyongyang’s skyline would be visible through the thick haze, with its spectacular, Stalinist-style hotels, universities, and government ministries dotting the horizon. He and his troops were just seven kilometers from the heart of the nation’s capital.

Tae had hoped to get farther faster, but both his luck and the willingness of troops from the Pyongyang Defense Command to accept his orders had run out at a checkpoint about a kilometer north of the arch. That was where loyalist soldiers had stopped the lead elements of the 33rd Infantry Division, demanding confirmation from the National Defense Commission itself before allowing his units into the city proper. They had refused to be bluffed, and, when Tae’s men tried intimidation, pushing and shoving had quickly escalated into shooting.

After a brutal, close-quarters melee that left bodies and burning trucks strewn across the highway, both sides had sought cover among the apartment buildings, shops, warehouses, and small factories on Pyongyang’s outskirts. A wide avenue, Tongil Street, intersected the highway at the checkpoint, offering any defending force a ready-made kill zone.

Now Tae could hear sporadic gunfire. They were sniping at each other while scouts from the 33rd’s lead regiment, the 162nd, probed for loyalist strongpoints. His men were not well-trained for urban combat, and they were making slow progress. But they were still moving. The closest bridge across the Taedong River was just a few hundred meters beyond Tongil Street. Take that bridge, he thought, and we’ll have a clear road to the inner city.

Meanwhile, Tae was trying to contact Vice Marshal Koh Chong-su, chief of the General Staff, and the first among equals in their coup against the Kim family and the other factions. Tae’s troops were fighting their way into position, and he was supposed to have received further instructions by now. The problem was that Koh wasn’t answering. Not by radio. Not by cell phone. Not even by dispatch rider.

And the clock was ticking.

Aware of the nervous glances being exchanged by the staff officers clustered around map tables and radios, Tae tried to buy time to think by pretending to study the most recent situation reports.

Time, he thought bitterly. A few of his fellow conspirators had advocated waiting for confirmation of Kim Jong-un’s death before acting, but Tae and the others knew that time was too precious. It was all about control. Three generations of North Koreans had been raised to look to the party and the armed forces, and they, in turn, looked upward to their own leaders, rising higher and higher through the hierarchy until all eyes rested on Kim Jong-un. For a few brief hours, if they were lucky, there would be no one to give orders — no one to stop them.

But as soon as it was confirmed that Kim Jong-un was dead, others would vie to take his place. So it was essential that Tae and his fellow plotters were organized and in charge before their rivals from the other factions sorted themselves out.

The plan had worked so well at the beginning, he remembered. Perhaps that should have worried him. Every separate piece had run smoothly, like a well-oiled killing machine — starting right from last night’s nerve-wracking helicopter flight to the 33rd Division’s headquarters just outside Kaseong…

The Soviet-made Mi-8 helicopter shuddered and rattled as it banked, heading for the lighted landing pad starkly visible against the darkened countryside.

“We are two minutes out, Comrade General,” the pilot told Tae.

Tae nodded tightly, teeth clenched against the vibration. He glanced at his aide, Captain Ryeon, who sat belted in beside him.

Ryeon leaned closer. “Twenty minutes, sir.”

Tae checked his watch. By now, the waiters in the banquet hall would have finished serving dinner. The older soldiers and party bosses would be knocking back round after round of soju, a cheap grain liquor. Kim Jong-un and the younger members of the elite favored expensive, imported single malt Scotch and looked down on the “peasants” who swilled rather than sipped. Well, he thought coldly, it was a divide that soon would not matter.

He turned his head, peering back into the darkened cabin. Twelve soldiers in crisp, camouflaged uniforms looked back at him with expressionless faces. They were special operations troops, a handpicked squad from one of the Reconnaissance Bureau brigades. Each man carried a Type 68 assault rifle, the North’s version of the Soviet-made AKM.

When the helicopter landed, Tae was the first one out.

Just beyond the slowing rotors, he saw a cluster of officers waiting. One of them hesitantly moved forward to greet him. Tae recognized the man from his briefing photos. Major General Yang was the deputy commander of the 33rd Infantry Division. He had a reputation for blind obedience, not initiative. And he was a born staff officer, not a combat soldier. He was perfect for Tae’s purposes.

They exchanged salutes.

“I regret that Lieutenant General Seon is not here,” Yang said nervously, eyeing the special forces troops lining up on the tarmac. “He is out on an overnight inspection of the Third Battalion of the 162nd Regiment.”

“I see,” Tae said flatly. Inwardly, he rejoiced. Seon, the 33rd Division’s commander, made a habit of spending as much time as possible visiting and inspecting the battalions under his command. It was a habit they had counted on.

Seon was one of the good ones. The IV Corps, stationed near the DMZ, was a breakthrough formation, and the 33rd had the highest readiness scores in the corps, in fact, in the entire western sector. His political credentials were impeccable, of course, but he was also intelligent and energetic. That would make him a dangerous enemy. And that, in turn, required direct action.

Tae checked his watch. Ten minutes left. He looked up at Yang, narrowing his eyes. “Are Major Paeng and Captain Han with you?”

Yang was visibly surprised. Paeng and Han were junior staff officers in the division headquarters, ordinarily well below the notice of a senior commander from the KPA’s General Staff. He looked back over his shoulder at the others waiting just out of earshot. “Yes, Comrade General,” he said quickly.

Of course they are, Tae thought. Paeng and Han were covert agents planted inside the division by the General Political Department and the Military Security Command respectively. Equipped with separate channels of communication to their superiors, they were tasked with ferreting out treason and subversion. Any unusual activity, like this unexplained visit, could be expected to draw them like moths to an open flame.

“Excellent,” Tae said. He lowered his voice. “A critical situation is developing, Yang. We have received credible reports of a plot against the Supreme Leader.”

Yang’s mouth fell open for a moment. Sweating, he visibly struggled to master his expression. “But—”

Tae cut him off. “Your commander is one of the conspirators.”

The other man’s knees started to buckle. He looked horrified.

“We know, however, that you are loyal,” Tae continued, planting the hook.

Yang couldn’t nod his head fast enough. “Yes, Comrade General!”

Tae fought down his disgust. He could practically smell the other man’s fear. Then he shrugged. Yang might be a cowardly worm, but he was a worm they needed. For now.

“Good,” he snapped. “Then you will continue to serve as deputy commander of this division. If this plot is not crushed in time, the state will need your steady hand and loyal service in the days ahead.”

Yang moistened his lips. “And Lieutenant General Seon?”

Tae nodded toward the hard-faced special forces soldiers waiting beside his helicopter. “Seon and the other traitors in this command will be eliminated. At once.”

The other man swallowed hard and then forced himself to stand up straight. “I understand. This is no time for weakness or hesitation.”

Tae allowed the hint of a smile to cross his face. “Your eagerness does you credit, Yang.”

“Sir!” A shout came from behind him.

Tae whirled toward his helicopter. Captain Ryeon came hurrying toward him. “What is it?”

“Pyongyang Defense Command reports a major explosion in the city!” Ryeon said, sounding horrified.

“Where?”

“I do not know, Comrade General,” his aide lied. “All of our secure communications channels went down immediately after that first report.”

Tae nodded crisply. “So the traitors are in motion.” He spun back to Yang. “Put your headquarters on full alert! Nobody leaves or enters until we have dealt with Seon and the other conspirators in this division. Understand?”

Yang nodded, sweating harder now.

Tae looked carefully at his aide. “Captain Ryeon, take your troops to the Third Battalion immediately. You know what to do?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryeon said calmly, as though receiving orders to execute a division commander and his closest aides was a routine duty.

“And take Major Paeng and Captain Han with you,” Tae continued, with a slight edge in his voice. “You can brief them on recent events on the road. Clear?”

Again, his aide nodded. Somewhere between the helipad and the Third Battalion’s cantonment, the two Kim loyalist agents would each receive the reward their covert services to the regime had earned — a pistol shot to the back of the skull.

Ryeon moved away, already signaling the Special Forces soldiers toward a pair of trucks parked beyond the pad.

Satisfied, Tae turned his attention back to Yang. “Until we can reestablish communications with the capital, I am taking command of the Thirty-Third.”

Yang looked relieved. He must have been dreading the prospect of issuing orders, rather than following them.

“I want this division on the road as soon as possible,” Tae said firmly.

“Comrade General?”

“We are moving north, Yang,” Tae explained patiently. “If this is the coup we feared, it is vital that we help secure the capital and its approaches against any further action by traitors or those they have misled.”

He took a thin sheaf of papers out of his uniform jacket. “These are orders from Vice Marshal Koh, prepared for just such a contingency. Our mission will be to guard the southern edge of Pyongyang and to take control of certain key points inside the city. We will coordinate with the Third Corps as the situation requires.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And shut down all communications, Yang, unless I give specific permission,” Tae said. “No radio or telephones, and search the entire division for contraband cell phones. We can’t risk traitors or sympathizers sending information or receiving instructions. Now, I suggest you and your staff get moving!”

Tae stood on the tarmac, watching Yang bustle away toward the waiting officers.

The plan formulated by Koh and the other plotters called for units loyal to the General Staff — and others taken over by deceit and force, like this division — to encircle Pyongyang. Once that was accomplished, they would use this show of strength to negotiate a stand-down of the Pyongyang Defense Command. With the capital firmly in their grip, the rest of North Korea would follow. As long as III Corps comes over, this will work, Tae thought coolly, weighing the odds. Otherwise it will be a bloody mess…

The sound of gunfire from up ahead intensified, breaking Tae’s momentary contemplation. He looked up from the reports he’d been pretending to read and listened closely. That wasn’t just sporadic small-arms fire now. He could hear the chatter of machine guns, the sharp crack of rocket-propelled grenades going off, and even what sounded like mortar fire.

That was bad.

It meant his troops were running into resistance from organized units from the Pyongyang Defense Command, not just a few scattered and stubborn checkpoint guards.

Tae swore under his breath. Where the hell was Vice Marshal Koh? And why hadn’t he heard anything from the III Corps over his secure radio channels? Motorized rifle and tank units from that corps were supposed to be moving into the city from the southeast, off on his right flank.

Whummp. Whummp. Whummp.

Tae stiffened.

That was artillery. Heavy guns, at least 122mm, were in action somewhere to the east.

“Sir!” Yang hurried over. The deputy division commander looked pale. “The 161st Regiment reports that it is under artillery fire.”

This is going from bad to worse, Tae thought coldly. He had deployed the 161st out along the Pyongyang-Wonsan Highway. It was there to guard his right flank against any loyalist troops pushing west to take him by surprise. If they were being shelled, that meant that at least some units belonging to III Corps hadn’t joined the coup as expected.

Ryeon joined them. He had been monitoring higher-level radio transmissions. Despite everything, the younger officer still seemed calm, almost unnaturally so.

“Yes, Captain?” Tae asked, forcing himself to match his aide’s wooden expression.

“Terrible news, sir,” Ryeon replied. “The Supreme Leader is dead.”

Tae stood motionless for a moment. They had done it. Even though this was what they had hoped for, the reality was almost overwhelming. That callow young fool, Kim Jong-un, and his vicious followers were dead — wiped off the board with one violent move.

But Ryeon was not finished. “Ohk Yeong-sik has announced that he is taking command.”

That was bad news indeed. As chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Okh was one of Kim’s most loyal supporters. And he was a logical candidate to fill Kim’s shoes, at least as an interim leader. But Okh was not the General Staff’s man.

Yang stared at Tae and his aide. “The Supreme Leader is dead? This is confirmed?”

Ryeon nodded.

“Then what shall we do?” the deputy division commander asked brokenly. To Tae’s astonishment, tears were running down the other man’s cheeks. Still reeling from the execution of his former commander, and then the outbreak of serious fighting, it was clear that the death of Kim Jong-un, by declaration and law the source of everything good in North Korea, had shaken Yang to his core.

“Do?” Tae snapped. He stepped closer to Yang. “We fight, Comrade Major General!”

He turned away, facing the other officers of the divisional staff. “Ohk Yeong-sik was on Vice Marshal Koh’s list of conspirators. He and those who support him are enemies of the state. Is that clear?”

Slowly, they nodded. Blood had already been spilled. And whether or not they believed that Tae was telling them the truth, it was too late to go back. Besides, they were all too aware that their new commander’s special forces bodyguards were stationed at key points around the headquarters.

Tae looked back at Yang, who was still standing there glassy-eyed and blank-faced. “Snap out of it!” he growled. “Pyongyang is in the hands of those who murdered the Supreme Leader! It is our duty to reclaim the capital and exterminate the traitors!”

He raised his voice. “Put artillery fire on every enemy position blocking our advance to the bridge. Hammer those bastards for five minutes. I want the 162nd Regiment to attack as soon as the barrage lifts! This is a general assault. I do not want anything held back. Not a man. Not a gun. Not a shell!”

Galvanized by his stream of orders, the 33rd Division’s staff swung into action.

From here on, this was going to be a straight fight, Tae realized, and a hard one. True, they were disorganized. But so was the enemy. There was no turning back. So be it, he decided grimly. When opponents are evenly matched, it is the strength of their minds that guarantees victory. Then he smiled thinly. That was a quote from the late and unlamented Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

Chris Sawyer loved hunting for scattered bits of information and fitting them into a recognizable pattern. The intellectual challenge had drawn him to intelligence work. He was providing real answers to people who made very important decisions.

But every job had its downside. The decision-makers needed their eight a.m. briefing, which meant the briefers needed input from the different intelligence agencies by six, which was why the CIA Joint Crisis Team was meeting at five o’clock in the morning. Even with the long summer days, sunrise was a ways off.

The news of Kim’s death and fighting in the capital, and of multiple “pretenders to the throne,” had put Washington’s national security organizations on a near-war footing. In addition to Sawyer and the rest of the North Korean section, the crisis team, run by Chris’s boss, had pulled in people from all over CIA, including the proliferation shop and the China and Russian desks. There was even an economist.

Jeff Dougherty, the team leader and head of the North Korean section, started the meeting the instant he walked in the room. He spoke loudly enough to cut through the buzz of conversation. “George, what can you tell us?”

George Yeom had Korean parents who’d immigrated to the US. He was fluent in Korean and kept in close touch with his extended family back in the “old country.” It was his job to also keep in close touch with the National Intelligence Service. The NIS was the South Korean equivalent of the CIA, and Yeom managed the exchange of information between the two agencies.

Seoul was thirteen hours ahead of Washington, which meant George was more accustomed to the odd hour than his colleagues. Short and square-faced, Yeom avoided the podium and stood near a map of the Korean Peninsula. “The South Korean agencies live and breathe HUMINT, of course. They don’t have our satellites or ELINT aircraft, but then again, satellites won’t tell them who’s loyal to whom.

“Most of that HUMINT used to come from defectors and their spy network in the North. That network is now in a shambles. Their assets are either unable to communicate, gone to ground, or possibly arrested. NIS just can’t tell. The channels the agents used to pass information are unavailable. Phone exchanges, dedicated tie lines, and the private networks used by some of the foreign organizations that operated in the North are all down, either by design or disrupted by the fighting in Pyongyang.

“On the other hand, the number of defectors, or more properly, refugees, is through the roof. They give a consistent picture of fighting around the capital, along with witch-hunts and random arrests throughout the countryside, but few useful details.

“My opposite number says they are ‘taking measures to get more information,’ but wouldn’t provide specifics.”

Dougherty asked, “What about their take on the communications we’ve intercepted?” The US and ROK operated joint listening stations along the DMZ, and the US shared the information it gathered by ferret aircraft.

Yeom shrugged. “Civilian traffic is way down, and what’s left is disjointed and contradictory government pronouncements. If you’re talking about cultural or linguistic insights, they can’t see any pattern or purpose, because they think there isn’t any purpose.

“They agree with our assessment that there are three major factions: Kim loyalists, a group of party bigwigs, and the General Staff. They have absolutely no idea who’s going to come out on top.”

Yeom saw Dougherty looking at the clock and wrapped it up quickly. “At a higher level, my contacts tell me there’s a huge fight within the ROK cabinet. A lot of people in the South want to send the army across the DMZ, right now, while the Kim regime is tied up in knots.”

Many around the room looked either amused or worried. “President An is not one of them,” Yeom announced firmly, “and has pointed out to the hotheads the danger of presenting the different factions with an external enemy.”

“Sounds like what’s been going on in Congress,” Dougherty remarked.

“And the ROK armed forces are remaining at something called ‘Invasion Alert,’ and the reserves are being mobilized,” Yeom finished, then returned to his chair.

Dougherty nodded and started working his way down the table. “Ben, what about China? Anything to add?”

“They’re keeping the embassy in Pyongyang and consulate in Chongjin open, but the last bus carrying noncombatants left Pyongyang for the border yesterday morning. The Chinese are beefing up their border security, but it’s all border troops. The three group armies in the Shenyang Military Region are still in their barracks or engaged in routine training. There’s been a major clampdown on the Korean refugee community. We’re all agreed that China’s worried, but is keeping clear.”

Dougherty nodded and turned to a thin woman with short white hair. “Russia?”

“No changes since they closed their embassy. There’s been some increased activity near the border, but nothing like China. Our assessment is that the Russians have enough on their plate. They’ll keep out. Of course, they love anything that gives us and China problems.”

After Dougherty had consulted all the subject experts, he called on Sawyer. “Chris, does this all agree with what you’ve seen?”

“No disagreements,” he said, standing slowly. It had been a long night. “One addition, though.” He pressed a key and a photo appeared in place of the map. “This is a weapons magazine outside Kaechon, north of Pyongyang. That’s the headquarters of the First Air Combat Command, and the magazine is located near an air base. We’ve had it marked as a WMD storage site for quite some time.”

The satellite photo showed a rectangular area with a grid of paved roads inside a three-layered fence. In the center of each square of the grid was an oblong mound, artificially flat on one end. There were several dozen such mounds, guarded not only by the fence but pillboxes at the gate and each corner of the fence. “This was taken last year. It’s been assessed as a chemical weapons site storing free-fall chemical ordnance.”

He hit a key, and a new photo appeared. It showed the same installation, but now a group of armored vehicles were clustered near the entrance, and half a dozen trucks were spaced neatly along one line of mounds.

“The vehicles near the front by themselves could be dismissed as extra security, but there’s only one reason for that many trucks to be inside.”

Dougherty asked, “When was this?”

“Early morning, their time, today — nine hours ago. I first saw it about half an hour ago.”

Low murmurs filled the room. Sawyer knew they were saying what he’d thought when he first saw the image. The genie was out of the bottle, but a better metaphor might be Pandora’s box. Remembering the sharing agreement, Sawyer explained, “I’ll be sending this to George Yeom as soon as we’re done here,” nodding toward the analyst.

Turning back to his boss, Sawyer added, “And this is in your in-box, along with more tasking requests.”

Dougherty smiled. “I don’t know what’s left to use. The only thing we don’t have watching North Korea is the Eye of Sauron.” There were a few laughs, and he continued. “I will ask that the priorities be reviewed, since we now have confirmation of exactly what we were most afraid of.”

He glanced at the clock and announced, “That’s it. I’ll be briefing the director in five minutes. Thanks for your hard work. We have more information, but that just means more questions.”

Colonel Rhee Han-gil concentrated on where to put his feet, one step at a time. It was simple enough. He wasn’t being shot at, and anything where he wasn’t under fire was, to his way of thinking, simple.

But it was hot today. His adjutant had politely suggested classroom and marksmanship training instead of a timed twenty-kilometer march. After all, the temperature at noon would be thirty-two degrees Celsius, nearly ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit. Regulations said the troops had to be kept inside if it was thirty-three degrees or higher. Of course, the adjutant’s real concern was Rhee. It wouldn’t look good for the Ninth Special Forces Brigade’s commander to collapse with heatstroke.

Okay, Rhee thought stubbornly, so he was on the high side of forty, maybe very high. But he was in excellent condition, and he believed in leading from the front. He knew his reputation: decorated combat service in the Second Korean War, then multiple tours in Afghanistan, and rapid promotion. He was one of the youngest officers ever to command a Special Forces brigade. There were rumors that he’d make general soon, but he was actually happier as a colonel. He’d seen too many energetic leaders promoted and tied to a desk, turning into sedentary lumps with hands.

He grinned. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to him. Paperwork was why they invented adjutants.

He shook the sweat out of his eyes and turned to look down the line of trainees pushing uphill behind him. He grinned again. He was still out in front and he was carrying the same load as the twenty-four-year-old second lieutenant leading the platoon. These men had completed their advanced training before being assigned to the Ninth, the “Ghost” Brigade. But if they had expected to relax, Rhee had told them, forget it. Their real training was just starting. Especially with the insanity going on north of the DMZ, he needed these new troops in shape, now.

They were fourteen kilometers in on what the brigade called the “Stone Snake.” Laid out in an extremely irregular oval in the rocky hills surrounding the brigade headquarters, the dirt path was worn ankle-deep in the surrounding terrain, except where stones resisted erosion and rose up to catch the unwary.

Rhee knew he was tired. The sweltering, sticky air didn’t seem to have enough oxygen to sustain him, but he forced himself to think like an officer, a leader. He sent the lieutenant back along the line to check on his platoon. Were they drinking enough water? Were any of them limping?

The kid had a good spirit. The required time for finishing the Snake today was two hours, while any man who made it in an hour and forty-five minutes would get the rest of the day off. The lieutenant, in front of his men, had promised Rhee that the entire platoon would make it in less than an hour and forty-five minutes. Confident, the kid was already planning a barbecue for his men later.

So far, they were on schedule. But the junior officer had to learn that if he wanted his men to perform like that, it took more than words. They had to know their lieutenant was looking out for them. And if that was the only lesson Rhee managed to pound home on this hell march, he would consider it time and agony well spent.

“Sir,” one of the trainees gasped, pointing ahead.

Rhee turned and saw the cloud of dust coming up a winding dirt road that intersected the Snake at several places. He shaded his eyes against the sun’s glare. That was a jeep speeding toward them. His adjutant’s voice suddenly squawked over the radio. “Sir, I’m with General Kwon.”

The young officer didn’t add anything else. He’d already said enough. Major General Kwon was Rhee’s boss. He commanded the Republic of Korea’s Special Warfare Command, the “Black Berets.”

Rhee turned toward the platoon leader. “Bring them the rest of the way, Lieutenant! And I’ll expect you to keep your promise!”

Using the energy he’d saved for the last few kilometers, Rhee sprinted for the jeep as it pulled up close to the Snake. He stopped just short and snapped a salute. “So it’s started, sir.”

It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact.

Kwon, lean and gray-haired, nodded sharply, with just the hint of a grim smile. “It has started, Colonel. And we’re sending you and your Ghosts in deep.”