by L. J. Martin
By now he spoke Dutch, French, and English, and he was soon to master Afrikaans.
To his great dismay, South Africa acceded to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in 1991, and he was forced to turn his attention to non-military uses of nuclear power, primarily electric power generation. He was immediately employed in South Africa by Escom, the largest producer of electricity in Africa, to aid in their domestic nuclear ambitions.
In 2012 his beautiful wife, Marta, whom he’d met at Oxford, succumbed to breast cancer, and having no children, he was adrift emotionally. He’d always yearned for adventure; he thought of quitting and sailing the world but was yet satisfied with the amount of his savings, wondering if he might outlive them. He’d spent over half of all he’d put away traveling with his wife to both Switzerland and Germany, in order to try various treatments. All for naught. More money in the bank was necessary.
In 2014, after a long successful career with Escom South Africa, it was announced in the Mail and Guardian that he’d accepted a consulting position in Korea and would be leaving South Africa. He did not divulge that it was North Korea who’d lured him away with half again what he currently earned, plus perks.
He gave Escom South Africa two months’ notice.
After a leisurely lunch at Johannesburg’s Michelangelo Hotel, near his office, he exits to take a bench in Nelson Mandela Square and continues reading the old Wilber Smith novel he’d picked up at nearby Exclusive Books. It is twenty minutes before he is due back at his desk. He is deeply involved when a gentleman of color takes a seat next to him, unfolds a Times, and begins reading.
Then the well-dressed man turns to Pieter and comments, “We hear you’re leaving Joburg, Dr. De Vries?”
A little surprised, as he does not recognize the man, he lays his book aside, runs a hand through his sandy peppered-with-gray hair and asks, “Do we know each other? I’m sorry, you have the advantage….”
The man’s smile flashes in his dark face, and he laughs; nice wrinkle lines form at the edge of ebony eyes. “No, sir, we haven’t met.” He extends a hand, which Pieter takes, and shakes. “I’m Charles Eddington. An honor to meet you.”
Pieter judges his accent to be American but with a slight English overtone. So, he asks, “American, schooled at Oxford?”
“More than merely intuitive. You have an ear for accents, even the slightest echo of one. Actually, I did a couple of years at Cambridge but born and raised in Houston, Texas, USA. My mother is English, so I guess it wore off on me.”
“So, we don’t know each other from university?”
“No, Doctor, we haven’t met. I went to Cambridge, somewhat after your time at Oxford, and then to work for the American Embassy in London. I’m now stationed here in South Africa…Pretoria, to be exact.”
“And your duty?” Pieter asks.
“Cultural Attaché.”
“CIA…so you spent some time at Langley?”
He receives another flashing smile from the man who’s introduced himself as Charles Eddington. The man looks around, over his shoulders, as if to make sure no one is close enough to overhear; then he nods, but only slightly.
Eddington continues, “Let’s say I have a close association with those folks, and we’d…they’d…like to have a conversation with you. One that could be to your great financial advantage.”
Pieter merely stares at him, wondering how much the CIA knows about his new job, but, obviously, they know more than he wants known. “What possible interest could the CIA have in me and my work?”
This time Eddington laughs aloud. Then, his voice low, he says, “You’re on your way to a country in which we have a great interest. To involve yourself in a program in which we have a great interest. We know quite a lot about you, Doctor. You had an excellent reputation at Shell and NATO. We believe, even involved in the work that seems to have consumed you for so many years, that you are no zealot, no believer in nuclear proliferation. You have been active in some, shall we say, liberal causes, environmental causes in Holland and Belgium, anti-apartheid causes here in-country, and always with a good heart and with your fellow man in mind. But you also support freedom and have capitalist, not socialist or communist, sympathies. That said, we’re all attracted by money.” Then he smiles widely again. “We understand you have an interest in sailing?”
It was a question, and with his mind swirling, Pieter hesitates before asking. “All Dutch have an affinity…a love-hate relationship with the sea. Yes, I’d like to sail far more than I’m able.”
“Have you been to Maputo of late?”
Pieter is a little surprised at the sudden change of subject. “Not for more than a year.”
“There’s a nice Boreal 52-footer moored there you might like to see. Roller furling, power winches, of course, one-twenty-five horse Volvo, full worldwide navigational capabilities, all the bells and whistles.”
Now it’s Pieter's turn to laugh. “As if I could afford a million-rand boat—“
“Seven hundred thousand US is what she’s worth. Our Drug Enforcement Agency owns her and is thinking of selling her to you.”
Pieter laughs again; then his smile fades as Eddington continues, “For one dollar.”
Pieter is silent for a long moment; then he clears his throat, picks his novel back up, and mumbles, without looking over, “I don’t want anyone to know we’ve been talking.”
Eddington returns to behind his newspaper and speaks through it. “Understood. I’ll meet you for breakfast at the VIP Grand in Maputo on Sunday morning. Your room is paid for, as you’ll arrive late Saturday afternoon. Sign for anything you’d like in the bar or restaurant.” Then he reached into his inside coat pocket, pulled out an airline ticket, and slipped it under his thigh so it would remain when he left. “Here’s a flight. We’ll go for a short sail, so bring some deck shoes.”
Eddington then rises and leaves.
Bloody hell, Pieter thinks, even with the quarter million a year US plus luxury housing in NK I’ve been promised, I’ll be a long time in affording a Boreal 52, if ever. I wonder how she’s equipped, he thinks.
Present Day
Flat on my back, gagging, choking, trying not to breathe, for to breathe is to drown. Bound to a hard-wooden bench riddled with splinters, a heavy rag over my face, six ugly bastards surrounding me, laughing, while hoping to put me under with gallons of water. SEALs are supposed to be on our side...or so I thought. To say I’m wondering what the fuck I’m doing here would be the understatement of my life...but I digress.
Only days before....
“Reardon, you understand what we’re about to tell you is above top secret, and, should you disclose it to anyone, you’re destined for the graybar mansion.” My old Marine Recon Commander from Desert Freedom, Thomas Scroder, leans on his knuckles and focuses cold, gray eyes at me, laser eyes that seem as if they could melt steel.
It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to lay my life, and the lives of my friends, on the line for something my country wants done but wants nothing to do with...or, better said, to be blamed for. And is willing to pay to see it get done.
“How much?” I ask, presuming what I’m about to hear will more than likely get me killed—and not if I talk about it. I’d face the same fate if I merely accept whatever is coming.
“What kind of attitude is that?” the unformed general to his left asks, with a voice as gravelly as one of those country roads back near Sheridan, Wyoming, where I was raised. I feel as if I’m a hundred thousand miles from there at the moment. Although I’m merely in LA, near LAX, the international airport, in an old Hughes plant helicopter hangar. One I presume is a CIA front, as the other five guys at the gray metal table are in suits but with holdover military haircuts. Hairstyles not complemented by furrowed faces that look as if they’ve seen way too much of this lousy world. Obviously, this is not an official government building, as cigar smoke wafts from metal ashtrays made of some machined chopper part.
“First,” th
e commander replies, “you might want to listen to the problem.”
“First,” I ask, “I’d like to know who the players are. These gentlemen...” I nod at the five seated suits.
“Okay, but even the fact you’re meeting with them is secret. Understand?”
“I’ve already forgotten their names, even before I know them.”
“Good. Shake hands with Alex Peabody, Assistant Director of the Directorate of Analysis—“
“CIA?” I ask, leaning over the scarred metal conference table to shake hands.
“All of them other than General Holland,” he replies.
I know Holland from NATO and from the fact he cost me lots of dough as I risked all to rescue his daughter from Estonia and ended up with me, and lots of my guys, with the part of the goldmine known as the shaft.
Maybe he’s trying to make up for it with this gig…whatever this gig is. However, he’s not the make-up-for-it kind of guy.
Scroder goes on to introduce me to the other four: Rutgar Paddington, who he describes merely as a field agent; Anthony Bartolo, from the Directorate of Support. Felix Von Reif from the Directorate of Analysis; William Nuthouer from the Directorate of Digital Analysis; and last but hardly least, Duane Roanoke from the Office of the Director. He is introduced as Executive Director. I know enough about the CIA to know his position is or very near number three in the organization.
His very presence—and the fact most of the sections of the organization are represented—means to me that this is something very big. Way bigger, I imagine, than anything this Wyoming cowboy has ever been near.
Had I half a brain, I’d thank them all for dropping by and haul ass out of here. But my curiosity has got the best of me. What the hell do they need with a former Marine who was railroaded out of the Corps with a general discharge? Who’s likely on the watch list of their organization, the NSA, the FBI, half the law-enforcement agencies in the USA and several in Europe...and certainly the FSB, formerly Russia’s KGB.
I remain standing until Scroder suggests, “Reardon, you’d better take a seat. This is going to take a while.”
So, I do, as stupid as a box of rocks am I.
As soon as I do, I turn to Scroder. “And how do you fit into this, Commander? Since you’re no longer a commander—unless you’ve re-enlisted.”
“You’ll see how. My company has acquired a drilling company that’s involved in offshore exploration and has a couple of rig-mounted ships, offshore drilling ships, working near the objective. Rigs that can be used as a base of operations.”
I shrug. “Okay, makes sense.”
However, the answer to “How much?” turns out to be ten million good ol’ American greenbacks, tax free—not that it might matter, as there are no pockets in shrouds, and when did you ever see a Brinks truck following a hearse?
It’s by far the most dangerous play we’ve ever undertaken.
Our op is labeled “The K Factor.”
1
Present Day
“Kim Hyun-hee, the North Korean ambassador to China,” I tell my buddy Pax Weatherwax, who’s the only human I’m authorized to tell, since he, too, is going to be scheduled to assist in the operation, at my insistence. And he’s the only one I’m allowed to choose, as the rest of the team is being provided—much to my chagrin. I want to know I’m with buddies who have my back as I have theirs.
My buddy Paxton Weatherwax was a fellow Desert Storm Marine who saved my bacon more than once. The last time he did so, he lost an inch and a half out of his left thigh, thanks to an AK47. He lost the inch and a half, won a discharge, a purple heart to add to his chest full of medals, and a bucket of dough. Still, even with a platform shoe, I’d take him as a backup before ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the supposedly tough guys I’ve come across. And Pax is not only double tough but triple smart. He’s turned his disability pay into a business as an Internet service provider, with offices in four cities. He’s kept me out of the all-seeing-eye of the fed for several years, routed my dough and messages through a half dozen cities in as many countries, and rivaled the NSA in digging up information needed in my dubious endeavors and the subjects of my attentions.
And he’s more than just a buddy. I’d get between him and a Cruise Missile, should it come to that. But I would never confess any of that to the pussy hound who’s beaten me out of more than one good-looking blonde.
“So, why the hell is Kimmy Hee so damn valuable?” Pax asks.
I’m back in Vegas, and we’re having supper at the Italian Club. The management here eighty-sixed us for a while, after we had a major shoot-out in their parking lot, but then, remembering all the gumba boys who’ve come and gone—some literally gone—in the past, we were forgiven and allowed back in the joint.
We’re at a corner table, talking in low tones, and I have some gizmo in my pocket—thanks to my new friends at the CIA—that blocks electronic transmissions. So if some spy is across the room trying to listen in with a tiny parabolic mike, he’s blocked. And no one’s staring enough to be reading lips. Half the folks in the place are wondering why they’re not getting four bars on their cell phones. It kind of tickles me that they have to actually talk to each other.
“So,” I answer, “Kim is valuable as he’s the North Korean ambassador to China and knows more about the Chinese-Korean relationship—and North Korea’s nuclear program—than anyone other than the North Korean Cabinet. He wants to defect.”
“So?” Pax asks.
“So, the North Koreans have this interesting way of keeping their foreign travelers faithful to the little worm who runs the country.”
“And that is?”
I finally have his undivided attention, which is hard to do, as only two tables away, two blondes, a brunette, and a redhead are enjoying straight-up Manhattans and plates of antipasto…while giggling and glancing our way. One blonde would be a distraction for my gimpy buddy. Four luscious ladies are a hell of a hill for me to climb when it comes to keeping his attention.
“That is, they keep a close family member. In this case, three—his daughter and twin granddaughters.”
“In North Korea?” he asks.
“No, at the Ritz Hotel in London—of course, in North Korea, you dumb fuck. Pay attention here. I presume all the blood has fled your brain to your crotch with those four wooly crested bed thrashers checking you out.”
He ignores my sarcasm and responds, “So, our illustrious government wants to hire some suckers to go get the ladies so Kimmy can come over? Obviously some suckers who won’t be tied directly to the government of the USA?”
“Yep.”
He smirks. “You’re not quite the right shade of canary to wander the streets of Pyongyang.”
“I’m impressed,” I say, and am.
“About what?”
“That you know the capital of North Korea. However, they aren’t being held in the capital.”
“And there’s no son-in-law who needs a rescue?”
“There is, but he’s a faithful Colonel in the Ministry of People’s Security...the MPS the Gestapo of North Korea. He has a plethora of concubines and seldom sees his wife and daughters. Neither our people, nor, so I understand, the ambassador, give a rat’s ass if son-in-law gets drawn and quartered. Which, I’m sure, is the reason he’s not invited to the party.”
“Are we doing this for love of country or...?”
“‘And,’ and an ‘or.’ Love of country plus...two point five million for you, two point five for me, and another five to split between our crew, all tax free...and you don’t have to go in-country. You’ll be offshore in the lap of luxury on a high-class drilling ship, eating fat steaks, directing us poor suckers.”
“Bullshit...while you have all the fun downrange?”
“We need intel, and Sol is out of commission. Besides, you’re the only one I trust to run the brain tank.”
Sol is the number-two guy at Pax’s Vegas office—as smart a guy as I’ve ever met and a computer and in
ternet guru. But he got tied up with some very bad dudes in our last operation and is now in a mental-rehab joint in Reno.
Pax is pissed that he might not be downrange with me, and grumbles, “We’ll talk about it some more.”
“No, we won’t. You’re backup. If it makes you happy, you’ll go through the training with the rest of us and be only twenty minutes from the battlefield—and we hope it’s not a battlefield. You’ll be covering our flank from onboard ship with a quick-response team in case we’re hit by a shit-storm.”
“Knowing you, a shit-storm is inevitable. We can’t take the Viking. He’ll stand out like a wart on Scarlett Johansson’s nose.” Our buddy, Skip, who’s been with us on lots of gigs, is half-again our size and blonde. Not exactly the body type or coloring to do an undercover gig in an Asian country where ninety-five percent of the population is undernourished.
“Nope, we’ll have an ethnic Chinese CIA operative who’s an expert on North Korea and can pass for one; two ethnic Korean cats, both former SEALs; and a lady helicopter pilot who’s former Navy. And, you’ll be surprised to know, a fifty-seven-year-old former bosun’s mate.”
“Great. Everybody needs some old knot-head squid. And the lady pilot? Korean, I hope?”
“Yeah, and butt ugly, so don’t start scheming.”
“You’ve been known to lie, even to a best buddy.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“Right. So, why does the United States government need a couple of broken-down jarheads? Why not Blackwater?”
“Blackwater is way-too-well known. I asked the same question. And it seems the Chinese, and likely the North Koreans, know every SEAL, Delta, and current Marine Recon cat in the current services, as, not too long ago, the Chinese, or so the CIA believes, hacked into Pentagon records. They got everything, including DNA. And Blackwater’s personnel records were among them. Luckily those separated from the services were not compromised. Hell, they probably can call our current boys and their old girlfriends up on their cell phones with the intel they hacked...besides, the feds have a cover that makes a lot of sense. Not only that: the dudes I met with implied that our President wanted no military personnel tied to this operation. Plausible deniability...just some half-crazy Americanos. But he wants it done.”
