by Ben Coes
He knew why he was startling himself awake at such an ungodly hour. But he tried to put the thoughts out of his mind. He did his job. He planted the antidote. No one had seen him. Who was it for? he wondered. It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to know. He did it, it was over, and that was the end of it.
Talmadge turned on the cold water and leaned down, splashing his face several times. He grabbed a towel from the shelf next to the mirror and put it to his wet face, drying it. The cool water made him feel better. He felt awake. He would get up and get an early start to the day. He finished drying his face and glimpsed himself in the mirror. He needed a haircut. Maybe he’d go to Mr. Gheng’s down the street from the office for a trim before work? As he finished drying his face, he kept staring into the mirror, feeling an odd sensation. Something was wrong. What was it? He put the towel down just as his eyes saw something in the mirror, just a small wisp of movement.
No, not movement. He’d seen another set of eyes, just behind his.
Someone was standing behind him.
Talmadge turned in shock, gasping. There—lurking just behind him—was a man.
It was General Yong-sik.
My God.
“Hello, Mr. Talmadge,” said Yong-sik.
“What are you—”
At the same moment two things occurred. Talmadge started talking to attempt a distraction as he slashed his right arm forward at Yong-sik, hoping to catch him by surprise. At the same time, Yong-sik raised his left forearm and easily deflected Talmadge’s punch as, with his right hand, he smashed Talmadge in the throat and, a half second later, delivered a brutal clenched fist into his nose, breaking bones, crushing Talmadge’s nose, blood spilling like a dam bursting from both nostrils as he groaned and reached for the sink, trying to recover, but Yong-sik didn’t give him time. Yong-sik charged one step then leapt, raising his right foot almost to eye level, then kicking. The sole of his boot struck Talmadge in the mouth, snapping his head back and breaking his jaw. A handful of teeth dropped like Chiclets to the floor. Talmadge was sent sharply back, ricocheting off the sink, tumbling to the bathroom floor. Blood already covered much of the floor. Talmadge landed on his side, trying to move, his hands scratching at the crimson-covered tile as he attempted to crawl toward the shower.
On his way to Talmadge’s apartment, Yong-sik had debated to himself whether or not to bring Talmadge to one of the prisons and try to elicit information out of him before killing him. But he decided against it. Yong-sik knew Talmadge worked for either the CIA or MI6. Which one? It didn’t matter. He also knew that torture would probably get information out of Talmadge, but he doubted there would be anything of use. Whoever Talmadge really was, whoever he was working for—he was deep cover. It meant he would have little information of value. Deep cover—especially in a hostile zone—was an island. Its lonely agents were told little if anything, and that was by design. If they got caught, as Talmadge had, it was precisely their lack of knowledge that kept secrets safe.
It was how North Korea worked. It was how all intelligence agencies worked. North Korea had agents scattered throughout the West—across Europe, in Central and South America, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. They were there to provide intelligence and follow orders, even if an agent didn’t know why.
Talmadge reached the shower and reached his hand up to grab hold of the side of the tub. Yong-sik watched him from the door as Talmadge tried to lift himself up, but couldn’t. In addition to bleeding profusely from his shattered nose, his mouth seeped blood down his chin. He made a low gurgling noise as he fought to stay alive, to fight back. The kick had broken one of Talmadge’s vertebrae, Yong-sik knew, perhaps both.
Finally, Talmadge let his hand go, slumping to the floor on his back as blood trickled from his nose and mouth. He looked up at Yong-sik, as if expecting Yong-sik to ask him something. Where are you from? Who do you work for? But Yong-sik stood watching in silence. He wouldn’t give Talmadge the satisfaction of thinking he even cared.
Talmadge coughed, trying to say something, like a drowning man. Yong-sik moved closer as Talmadge’s eyes shut for several moments. When he opened them one last time, he looked calmly into Yong-sik’s eyes.
“I worked alone,” whispered Talmadge through clotted throat. “I chose to come here. I stayed after they said I could go home. I’ll always be grateful for the kindness of the North Korean people.”
Yong-sik watched as Talmadge fought the blood now filling his lungs. When his eyes shut, Yong-sik turned and went back into the apartment.
He opened the door to the apartment. Outside stood two men, both dressed in suits.
“Ransack the apartment,” said Yong-sik, rubbing his hand, still sore from hitting Talmadge. “I want a complete inventory. Put his colleagues under surveillance, but quietly.”
“Yes, General Yong-sik,” said one of the agents.
Yong-sik walked down the hallway toward the elevator. He pressed the button and turned.
“One more thing: return the body to its owners.”
46
FOREST COUNTRY SOUTHWEST
NORTH KOREA
Dewey had on a custom-designed watch made for the CIA—hard black titanium with a bezel made of infinitesimally small pieces of diamond, heated to an air-like transparency, almost impossible to break. The dial was obsidian black with glowing numbers and glowing second and minute hands, using small traces of radioactive particles. It was an operational timepiece. Operators were not to wear the watches for long periods of time.
Macavoy had jumped seven minutes ago. That meant the closest possible missile was ten minutes out. Nine minutes from the point in time when he needed to jump. The chopper itself was set to detonate, to be found later by North Korean military, two charred bodies evidence of the mission’s failure.
He felt a sudden shot of flu-like heat rush over him. He’d forgotten—just for a moment—that he was infected. That he had less than a day before he’d be dead—if he didn’t get to Pyongyang and find the second antidote, if it even existed. It was the hope of a small syringe that Dewey needed to live. Hopefully, it was in the hands of the reporter, Talmadge. With any luck, Jenna had reached him by now.
Wind rushed in through the door of the helicopter. Dewey stood near the opposite wall. He wore a black Kevlar vest, jeans, and boots. On his back, a backpack was loaded with weapons, satellite phone, and water. Above the backpack was a parachute designed for low-altitude jumps. His face was painted black. If he survived the jump from the chopper, his only hope was to be invisible.
Right now, Dewey was in North Korean airspace. At that moment, he thought about the fact that he could’ve been back in Maine. He hated the feeling. He’d quit and yet something convinced him to come back in. It wasn’t just Dellenbaugh, he knew. Sure, part of it was duty, but a more powerful force ran through Dewey and only he understood it. It was a need to be on the outermost point of what he could do, physically and mentally, to stop those who would do harm to the country he loved. He hated the feeling—but he needed it. Once again, it had found him.
“Stop,” he said aloud. “Stop thinking. There’s one objective. Get the antidote. It’s all that matters. Don’t think about anything else.”
He looked at his watch. Seven and a half minutes out. He had time to relax.
Dewey caught the burst of light coming from in front of the chopper.
Dewey lurched toward the cockpit, looking into the distance. It was unmistakable. A missile, in wavy orange lines, was moving toward him. He glanced at his watch. Six minutes out. Someone had fucked up the calculation. Or the North Koreans had better technology than we knew.…
He heard one of the SAT phones ringing—Langley calling to tell him to get off the chopper.
All of this—every thought—crossed Dewey’s mind in a handful of seconds. The missile was accelerating with almost exponential velocity. It would hit long before it looked like it.
Jump when you can see the white of the missile.
Dewey charg
ed for the open door, grabbing the pack in his right hand and leaping out the open helicopter door just as the roar of the incoming surface-to-air missile shook the air. The missile struck with awful violence—slamming hard just feet behind Dewey—and then the chopper exploded into smoke and fire.
Dewey fell, clinging to the bag, kicked by a furious wind, with no time to throw out the low-drop chute. The incinerated chopper was barely above the treetops, just a few feet from him. He fell holding his hands and arms up, trying to avoid breaking a leg. He could get to Pyongyang with a broken arm. But a broken leg was a death sentence.
Dewey slammed, chest first, into the branch, a brutal meeting of moving object with immovable force. There was a sharp crack upstream from where Dewey hit the branch as it broke. Dewey kept moving, trying to cling to something instead of falling from the tall pine, at least a hundred feet in the air.
At some point, he managed to grab hold of a thick branch, the palms of his hands scraping along the wood, ripping flesh, but he held on.
Dewey clung to the branch and swung for a few moments, relaxing for a brief second, though he was barely holding on, and was high in the branches of a towering pine within a thick forest.
Then the light awakened him. His head turned, his eyes focused: the helicopter’s smoldering exoskeleton dangled just a few trees away, the flames catching the pine needles like they were doused with gasoline. The forest erupted in fire.
They would be coming.
Move.
Dewey put the rucksack over his shoulder and dropped down, branch to branch, climbing with raw hands toward the ground. When he stepped foot on soil, he looked at his hands in the light from the inferno just a hundred feet away. There was no blood. What had been raw was now covered in dark patches of pine sap, congealed on his hands, like tar. They hurt but he didn’t feel it. He was beyond that.
He glanced once at the fire and turned to the north. He took a last gulp of breath and began running.
47
SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
FT. MEADE, MARYLAND
Bruckheimer was standing behind his desk, smoking a cigar. In addition to being against NSA rules, it was illegal. Bruckheimer had an air-filter machine and an open window, but his office still smelled.
The speaker on the console of his hard-line desk phone made a short buzz, then his assistant, Kerry, came on:
“Will Parizeau from DIA is on two-six,” she said.
Bruckheimer hit the speaker.
“Hi, Will. Let me guess. New Zealand? Argentina?”
Parizeau let out a small laugh.
“Good one,” said Parizeau. “Jim, it’s devolving and we have a serious situation on our hands.”
“I know,” said Bruckheimer. “I saw the Green Flash. How can we help?”
“We believe Kim is getting ready to launch one or more nuclear missiles. They’re on missile vehicles and we have no way of knowing where the heck they are at any moment in time. I’ve racked my brains and the brains of everyone here trying to figure out a way. We’ll be able to pick them up the second they launch, but not beforehand.”
“So the Pentagon can’t zero in on them and blow them up?”
“Exactly. We don’t know where they are.”
“Which means the only option left is to wipe out North Korea,” said Bruckheimer.
“Yes,” said Parizeau. “I just came from the White House. In addition to not wanting to kill a million North Koreans, we have people inside Pyongyang right now. We need to know where they’re going to fire from. We could then take them down with Sidewinders and avert a nuclear war.”
“You’ll never know where they’re going to fire from, Will,” said Bruckheimer, “unless you have reliable in-theater knowledge. The North Koreans are detached from the cloud. They have their own network. It’s prehistoric. We simply cannot know where the missile vehicles are going to be. We’ve tried.”
“Is there anything we can exploit?”
There was a pause as Bruckheimer lit another cigarette.
“There is one thing,” said Bruckheimer. “SID has been able to hack into certain sections of the North Korean electric grid. In turn, we’re running an experimental appliance that translates electronic signals into symbols that we can then correspond to words. It’s DARPA shit, but we have it and it works. It’s called Rolex. Anyway, we ran it against North Korea for the past six months. We don’t know where they’re going to launch a missile from, but we know when.”
“So someone gives the order—”
“And we start tracking. The North Koreans send the orders hard line. They travel through a switch. What Rolex has learned to do is isolate the signals pattern from when a launch order is given.”
“What if the order comes from some area you guys don’t cover?” said Parizeau.
“All that matters is Pyongyang,” said Bruckheimer. “We have coverage in Pyongyang. The orders come from Pyongyang. Every one is the same: the order is issued electronically, and precisely thirty minutes later the missile is launched.”
“Can we set it up so that an alarm goes off?” said Parizeau. “It’s one thing to look at past behavior. We need to know when the order is issued in real time.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“I get what you’re trying to do,” said Bruckheimer, thinking aloud. “The algorithm works by parsing through historical data; in other words, it aggregates data from events that already happened. We need to parse through it in real time, before it’s aggregated. I honestly don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
“We need to know, Jim,” said Parizeau.
“I’ll get my best hacker working on it.”
48
NORTH KOREA AIR FORCE
COMMAND CENTER
PYONGYANG
Commander Rok stood above a large rectangular screen which displayed live radar of the moving helicopter—as well as the inbound missile. The two objects were on a collision course.
Several other senior KPAF officers and staff were standing around the satellite console.
“Are backup missiles locked?” said Rok.
“Yes, Colonel. We’re locked and loaded. But the first two missiles are tracking for a direct hit.”
“Nevertheless, I want the backups ready. The Americans have various evasion technologies.”
“Yes, sir. Three missiles are prepared to move at a moment’s notice.”
Rok put his finger against the digital red box—the estimated collision point between missile and helicopter. He drew a line from the estimated collision point to Pyongyang: ninety-two kilometers.
“Dispatch a heavy brigade from the reconnaissance unit,” said Rok, without looking up. “I want a full capability set on-site as soon as possible. That includes fire teams, forensics, emergency medical care, and of course recon. If there’s anyone alive, we are to use all efforts to capture them—alive. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Colonel. I took the liberty of ordering just such a precaution, sir. They are en route to the estimated control point.”
“Very good.”
The voice of Rhee came over the loudspeaker.
“Colonel, we are under twenty seconds until impact,” said Rhee.
The group stood before the screen and watched as the two objects grew closer and closer. Suddenly, they merged.
“Target in five, four, three, two, one…”
A moment later, the screen flashed once, then both lights disappeared.
“We have an affirmative hit,” said Rhee.
49
DIRECTOR’S OFFICE
CIA
Jenna ran from the elevator down the hallway to Calibrisi’s office. Calibrisi was standing outside, speaking with Lindsay, his assistant.
“Dewey’s helicopter was just hit,” she said.
Calibrisi started to say something, then stopped. A look of anger appeared momentarily on his face. He didn’t say anything.
“No cal
ls,” said Calibrisi, looking at Lindsay, “unless it’s the president.”
“Please, Hector,” she stammered.
Calibrisi went inside his office, leaving Jenna standing outside. He moved to the chair behind his desk and sat down.
Jenna went inside his office and shut the door.
“We attempted contact when we first saw the missile flare,” said Jenna. “He didn’t answer. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” said Calibrisi.
“That I may have got Dewey killed.”
Jenna looked at Calibrisi with a stunned look. Her mouth was open but she didn’t say anything, though her lower lip quivered ever so slightly. In that moment, Jenna felt lower than she’d ever felt, lower even than the day her husband was killed. Not because this was worse. The two were completely different. But it didn’t matter. She felt as low as she’d ever felt. She was out of place here. Out of place and without anyone. She had no friends, no family. She had nothing.
Calibrisi’s face was red with sadness. He stared at Jenna.
Jenna considered saying something, that it wasn’t her fault Dewey had gotten pricked by the needle. But she didn’t say anything.
“I’ll quit if that’s what you think would be a good idea, Hector. I never wanted to cause problems.”
* * *
Calibrisi sat back, running his hand through his hair, looking at Jenna. Her operation had exposed Kim. Beyond his nuclear capabilities, her operation had exposed his cancer.
“Dewey knew the risks,” said Calibrisi. “And, he’s not necessarily dead, either. What would you do if you saw a goddam missile coming at you? Jump. Jenna, you need to focus on what’s going to happen next, not what just occurred. We still have Kim and nuclear bombs that in a few hours are going to be on their way to America.”
