by Glen Robins
I pressed the button and heard the familiar beeps as the numbers were processed.
Using a StingRay device, the technical crew searched for the cell phone Yong Byun’s controller had used to call the store and make her daily order. They started by scanning the cell towers near the store, then moving further and further away from our location by pinging towers in an increasingly large radius. They traced the last known location to a parking lot at LAX but informed us that the phone had been powered down for hours.
As suspected, the call went straight to a default recording that told me the subscriber I had reached did not have a voicemail box setup and that I should try my call again later.
Hope began to fade. Our success depended on us finding these people.
Robinson and the FBI agents had moved the Ford to the parking lot of a building directly across the street while we waited for the trace to complete. This way they could maintain visual contact with the front door of the market. An unknown number of law enforcement agents in an unknown number of locations monitored an unknown number of inputs to track developments and communicate them to each other and to Robinson, who kept me in the loop on anything pertinent.
Yong Byun and I remained in the store, waiting for the phone to ring. I kept myself out of sight of the front windows, but close enough to keep watch. The store owners, who had come back at this late hour as a favor to Yong Byun, were ready to go home. We had made their long day longer and stolen their precious rest time by insisting that the items on his list were of vital importance to him and his family. They were kind enough to let us stay, but their patience was growing thin. The conversation had stopped, and the woman no longer seemed interested in Yong Byun’s plight. There was nothing for her to do but sit behind the counter watching the phone while her husband puttered around in the storage area, occasionally calling out, “Are we ready to go yet?”
I explained to the woman the urgency of reaching Yong Byun’s wife by telling them she was not well. There were both mental and physical health challenges. “You must understand,” I said after a several awkward minutes of staring at the phone, “that since my friend lost his phone on our trip, he hasn’t been able to talk to his wife to make sure she’s all right. I can’t use my mobile phone because once she has my number, she will never stop calling it. That’s the way it is with obsessive compulsive behavior. But it’s very important that he makes sure she’s well.”
That softened the woman’s countenance, buying us some additional time by means of ramping up the sympathy. After thinking on what I had said for a moment, the woman turned to Yong Byun and said, “It all makes sense now. The daily phone calls, the small orders with very odd items. The insistence that you come here in the middle of the night like this.” She wagged her head. “I had no idea what you were dealing with, Mr. Lee. I’m sorry.”
A hundred questions ran through my mind, and a hundred more concerns for those in the doomed airplanes. My head was practically spinning as I wondered how extensive the North Korean presence was here in Southern California. How many “guards” had they posted to prevent defection? What sized team would they send to gather Yong Byun and the others? How well trained were they? Or had they already left the US? That was not out of the question, but it would effectively end our chances of saving those passengers.
For those of us tasked to deal with North Korea defectors, our experience had taught us much. If my father was right, the North Korean personnel handlers would expect Yong Byun to “return to ground” out of fear of reprisal. Punishments for disobedience, though not broadcast, were widely known to be brutal and swift. If any member of the team were to fail, the whole team would pay the price. Therefore, I expected Yong Byun’s handlers were close, possibly even watching the store. That’s why I stayed back from the window. I had told Yong Byun to do the same, but he gave me a look of disbelief and kept close to the phone. He looked out the glass front doors constantly, causing me to think that maybe he was contemplating making a run for it.
As I watched Yong Byun fidget, I wondered to myself what the North Koreans hoped to gain by this operation. It seemed so carefully planned while at the same time being completely irrational and fool-hardy. Did they not think the Americans would detect them? Did they expect terror tactics to cause South Korea to capitulate and allow them to continue testing nukes? Was that what they wanted? Or did they expect this horrific stunt to somehow get the sanctions against their impoverished nation lifted?
The clock was ticking. That much I knew. Texts kept coming into my phone with updates. The flight from Dallas, because it had the furthest distance to travel, would be the first to run out of fuel. It had also departed before any of the others. It had until 3:15 a.m. My watch showed it was ten minutes after two o’clock.
I beckoned Yong Byun over to where I stood, then walked to the far end of the store. I whispered instructions to prepare him for the task ahead. Assuming the woman who was supposed to be his wife would return his call, he needed to tell her a story about his escape and what he did with the dead body and the warehouse and the car. He would beg her for a quick extraction, telling her he didn’t feel safe, not after blowing up the warehouse. I reminded him that his life and his freedom depended on his ability to persuade her to come to him. “Obviously, this conversation needs to happen out of earshot of her,” I said, tossing my head towards the shop owner behind the front counter.
He nodded his understanding and said he would do it, but his face was pallid and his movements rigid and awkward. Something had shifted in him. With other pressing matters on my mind, I dismissed it as nerves and went back to my train of thought.
I wondered how long this woman would ignore the calls. Half an hour had passed since our first attempt to contact her. Certainly, she would be monitoring incoming calls. My guess was that she wouldn’t be asleep, not with their mission still incomplete. She must be in full panic mode by now. None of the planes had blown up and all were at least an hour past their scheduled arrival time.
Because our first three attempts to reach her went straight to voice mail, I was beginning to feel an oppressive gloom closing in on me. Each delay increased my anxiety. I needed something good to happen now. I—we—needed to find this woman and learn what she knew. I was pinning all my hopes on her as the one with the operational knowledge. She would know where I could find the information I needed to save those doomed passengers. It was just a matter of extracting it from her. And I had a plan for that.
She could have been anywhere. Time was working against us, as it had all day. Every minute we had to wait raised my anxiety level that much higher. Waiting had never been one of my strong suits. I was always a man of action. I preferred to be moving, doing, working. Proactive, rather than reactive. But, in this case, I had no choice.
Out of an abundance of caution, I paced along the back aisle in case the North Koreans had a surveillance team watching the front. The 9mm Glock 17 handgun loaned to me by Robinson had a round chambered and a full clip. Plus, I had two additional clips in my pockets. I flashed the piece at Yong Byun periodically, in case he got any unwise ideas.
As I waited, a text came in from Sunny, my father-in-law. “Call me,” was all it said. I explained to Robinson that I had to make another call. I thumbed to Sunny’s cell phone number on my favorites list.
“Listen to me,” he said without a greeting. “I spoke to a contact of mine in Seoul. I know what’s going on. You need my skills.”
Those few words, and the conspiratorial tone he used, caught me completely off guard coming from my laid-back father-in-law. I was at a loss for words. The only ones that tumbled out were, “Your contact in Seoul? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I know people. That’s all you need to know.”
“Your skills? What…? No way, I can’t ask you to get involved in this. It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Are you kidding me? Do you know what kind of supply runs I did for the Allies i
n Vietnam?”
I guess I paused too long. I realized right then that I really didn’t know what he did over there so many years before I was born.
“We’ll talk later,” he said. “My contact told me about the bombs and the need for some sort of code to disable them. Have you got the alpha team leader yet?”
I was blown away. Sunny, the guy who wore Aloha shirts and flip flops, had just summarized reams of classified data into the pivotal missing element of my mission.
He continued. “I can help. I understand you’ve got one of them in custody.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Let me question him. I have certain . . . skills that should help you get the information you need,” he said.
My perception of this man I had known for so many years had just been blown out of the water. I didn’t know how to react. I stuttered. “I’ve already questioned him.”
“How much useful information did you get?”
“We got enough to figure out there are five planes, not one, and how the detonators work. He says he was not privy to much beyond the scope of his duties. So, we didn’t get mission-critical intel, like how to stop this attack.”
“All right. You really do need my skills then.”
“Why? He seemed to be telling me the truth.” I was starting to sense the skills he was alluding to. I had them, too.
“Maybe, but I seriously doubt he told you everything he could have told you.”
“Skills?” I said, still trying to wrap my head around this revelation.
“I never really used them myself, but I saw some, shall we say, ‘questioning’ going on more often that I care to recall. I watched closely, if you know what I mean. It’s been a long time, but you never forget that kind of stuff once you’ve seen it.”
“What are you saying?”
“Let me at him. I’ll get you the details you need. That way there’s no blood on your hands. It keeps Stephanie and your family safer. I’m sure you’d agree, it’s better that way.”
Once again, my wife’s surfer-dude dad showed wisdom far beyond his appearance. “You’re right. But I also don’t need you to get mixed up in this. Because of my dad and his clout, I’ll be granted immunity.” I only hoped that was true, but I said it with conviction. “I know what to do.”
“I saw the list of supplies you sent to Stephanie. Most of them were in my warehouse. “Just bring your guy up here and I’ll help you.”
“No, no. I really don’t want you to get any more involved. I’ve got another idea.” Just then the store’s phone rang. “I’ve got another call coming in. Gotta go. I’ll call later.”
My heart leapt. This was the break we needed. I hoped and prayed for the best, knowing what was at stake.
As instructed, the shop owner answered after the second ring. She exchanged pleasantries, explained that she and her husband had come back to the store when “Mr. Lee” called and explained the situation. “He seemed so worried because he lost his phone was unable to reach you all day. He came here later than usual, hoping I had a message from you. Then he called me two hours later and asked me to let him use my phone to call you back. He’s so nervous. Won’t you please talk to him?” After nailing her lines, the kindly shopkeeper handed the phone to Yong Byun.
Yong Byun followed the outline, explaining that there had been an accident that had delayed him. He told his pretend wife how worried he was when he found the house empty and how he needed to talk to her so they could patch things up. He needed her to pick him up at the market.
When the call ended, Yong Byun looked at me, shaking his head, eyes wide with fear.
That sinking feeling worsened as I read a text from Robinson. “She’s here. In the building across the street from your position.”
I was half-way to the back door when I heard the glass of the front door shatter.
Chapter 39
Onboard Korean Air Flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Seoul
June 6, 5:27 p.m. local time; June 6, 2:27 a.m. California time
Four hours after receiving the initial communication from Seoul, the Dallas-Fort Worth inbound flight was rounding the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. Captain Hong received the welcome phone call from a top technology expert at the Ministry of Science and Technology. He listened intently, asking questions occasionally, and jotted down notes on a pad of paper kept near the pilot’s seat.
After ending the call, Captain Hong turned to his cockpit flight crew and outlined the strategy as it had been explained to him and asked for a volunteer to go belowdecks with a tablet computer to disable the explosive device.
Since the First Officer was a thirty-something-year-old with a penchant for the latest electronic gadgets and devices, he was elected to be the one to attempt to jam the Bluetooth signal between the terrorists’ phone and the explosive device.
First Officer Kim wore a blank expression as he sauntered through the cabin to the back of the plane, nodding calmly at any passengers who made eye contact. It was important that they think this was something routine. He took the small service elevator down to the cargo hold to get as close to the two devices as possible so as to have the maximum amount of jamming power.
Once in the cargo area, he pulled out his cell phone and tapped the screen to connect with the experts at the Ministry of Technology. Using his tablet computer, Kim opened the app he had been told to download and set it to work. The app sent out a stream of digital interference across a wide spectrum of the 2.4Ghz signal.
First Officer Kim used the sleeve of his uniform to wipe sweat from his brow as he tapped on the tablet’s screen. He listened carefully to the team as they walked him step-by-step through the process. Officer Kim repeated each set of instructions as they were relayed to him. The steps involved complex, high-level programming.
“OK. I’ve completed the command prompts. I hit ‘Enter,’” said Kim into his headset. “There is a long list of words and characters scrolling down my screen, but how do I know if we’ve succeeded?”
One of the technology team members in Seoul sucked air in through his teeth. “I don’t really know. I’ve never dealt with military-grade signal without the lab equipment..”
An array of pulsating squiggly lines on the tablet’s screen was the only indication that anything was happening.
“How do I know for sure it’s working? All I can see is a screen full of colored waving lines,” said Kim.
“Then the app is running,” said the one of the government gurus.
Even though there was nothing more they could do, the technical team in Seoul maintained phone contact with Officer Kim. One of them explained how the app was able to sniff out the devices’ MAC addresses.
“So, once it finds the right MAC address, the bomb is disabled, right?” asked Kim.
“That’s right,” said a mature, reassuring voice. “You’ve done well.”
The truth that no one wanted to relay to Officer Kim was that there was no guarantee of successful jamming of the signal without the link key that paired the two devices. Only the person who set up the connection between the cell phone and the detonating device would know the exact pairing sequence.
Without the type of sophisticated hardware available on the ground, there was less than a twenty percent chance of making this work. Nonetheless, for the sake of Officer Kim’s peace of mind, this vital fact was never shared. The current set up was the best they could do to save the four hundred seventeen lives onboard that aircraft.
At that moment, another voice came through the open line to the team in Seoul. It was the pilot, but his voice was obscured by the harsh blare of an alarm.
“This is Captain Hong. The low fuel warning system has come on,” he said. “We have less than sixty minutes to land this aircraft.”
Chapter 40
Garden Grove, CA
June 6, 2:30 a.m.—45 minutes of fuel remaining in the first plane
I should have seen it coming. All the time we were waitin
g and calling from the store, Yong Byun’s North Korean handlers were maneuvering into position. One shot from a silenced high-powered rifle is all it took for them to staunch the leak of vital information. A loose end tied up. By not following his prescribed escape plan, Yong Byun had been flirting with death all day. He knew they would want him dead. I knew it, too. I just never thought they would be so swift and so brazen.
Watching Yong Byun’s head explode into a spray of blood and brain stunned me to the core. Paralyzed by a wave of anguish and sympathy, I stood as if my feet were bolted to the floor. The visceral reaction to something so shocking is natural and unavoidable. One’s brain does not know how to process something like that. But allowing one’s innate inclinations to take control in combat situations is often the difference between life and death, success and failure.
My soldier’s training kicked in and I pushed all of that human emotion out of the way.
The mission was always far more important than one man’s life.
Thoughts of my students on that doomed plane rushed into the void, replacing hopelessness and confusion with an action plan.
First, I assessed my situation. Feeling exposed and vulnerable, I dropped below the line of sight, using the stocked shelves as cover. Crouched down, I sprinted as fast as I could until I was through the back door to the storage room. As I ran, I called Robinson. “Stay in the car,” I barked. “Don’t move. Don’t do anything or you’re all dead and they’ll be gone.”
I burst out the back door and took a hard left, sprinting past the back doors of several businesses until I reached the end of the building. Not wanting to catch the attention of the shooter, I crossed the narrow aisle of asphalt that ran along behind the stores. With the building blocking me from view, I jumped the low back wall of the parking area and ran to the opposite side of the road behind the strip mall. I was in the shadows of the streetlights, beneath the canopy of mature trees that lined the residential street which paralleled the main road. I ran another half a block, behind the back of a car dealership, then slipped through the next parking lot until I was back at Garden Grove Boulevard, a full block east of the market. No way they would look this far down for signs of motion.
