Act of War

by Brad Thor

  Standing on a stool, he sealed off the bathroom vent with the painter’s tape and then rolled the block of dry ice from the cooler into the sink and turned on the faucet. He took a camera-phone picture of the man’s position on the floor and then adjusted his legs so they would clear the door.

  Removing the stool from the bathroom, he exited and pulled the door shut behind him, leaving the party official still unconscious on the floor. He stuffed the towel into the crack under the door and then sealed the rest of the edges with the painter’s tape. After that, all he had to do was let the dry ice do the work.

  While he waited, Cheng cleared out all traces of communication with his wife from the party official’s computer. When enough time had passed, he unsealed the tiny bathroom and looked inside. The carbon dioxide from the dry ice had done its job. The man was dead.

  Consulting the picture, Cheng positioned the body as it had been. He then stripped away the rest of the painter’s tape from the vent and stuffed all of it, along with the towel, back into the cooler and set it near the front door.

  For carbon monoxide poisoning to be believable, there had to be a source. Cheng walked back into the kitchen and, searching through the fridge, cupboards, and freezer, assembled an array of fatty, unhealthy foods—the same kind someone might want to cook up after a night of drinking—and set them on the counter next to the stove. He then turned on the oven and two burners, blew out their flames, and left the oven door open.

  He waited to make sure enough gas would collect in the room. Once he was satisfied, he left the party official’s home, returned to his life, and kept watch for news of the man’s death.

  When word did finally make it to the Second Department, it was just as Cheng had planned. It had been ruled an accident—death by stupidity, as many were calling it. He had been so drunk, he didn’t realize his gas had been left on. Suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, he had fallen, hit his head, and died.

  Based on the man’s reputation, no one was surprised. He became a cautionary tale of what lies at the end of the road to excess. When speaking of him, people simply shook their heads. No one remembered what, if anything, he had accomplished, only how ignobly he had died.

  It was a fitting demise. Cheng chose to leave the son alone. He did not deserve to be punished for the monster of a man his father was. Cheng’s battle with the party official was over, but his battle with himself had just begun.

  He slipped into a drunken haze. He ignored his wife’s attempts to contact him. He ignored his friends, and, most unforgivable of all, he ignored calls from the Second Department. Colonel Shi then came to see him personally. Cheng was a mess. When he wouldn’t answer his questions, Shi began digging, starting with the man’s wife.

  Shi eventually put everything together, but Cheng was in no condition to care. When the colonel asked him if he’d been behind the death of the party official, Cheng ignored him. That was the only confirmation Shi needed, and he ordered him to pull himself together.

  That was the last he had heard from the colonel or anyone else, until Shi informed him he was going to America to carry out at least one operation, and possibly two. It wasn’t a request. It was another order. And when it was explained what he was expected to do, Cheng had debated resigning on the spot. Such theatrics, though, would have been useless. He would have been given two very clear alternatives, comply or face a speedy trial and receive a bullet to the back of the head.

  There was so much wrong with what Cheng had been asked to do that he didn’t know where to start. Moving so quickly was dangerous. Doing things right took time. Unfortunately, time was something China did not have. The General Secretary, the Politburo Standing Committee, Colonel Shi, and General Wu were expecting him to move as rapidly as possible. They had, though, made one concession. Since Cheng knew the United States best, he would handle the details as he saw fit. They would not micromanage him from Beijing. All that mattered were his results.

  Now, sitting in the American Airlines Admirals Club, he looked up from his Wall Street Journal and noticed a young man of Chinese heritage approach. He pointed to the seat on the other side of the power port next to Cheng. “My iPhone is almost dead. Is anybody sitting here?”

  Cheng shook his head and motioned for the young man to sit down. He was carrying a small plate of carrots and celery. “Where did you get the vegetables?” Cheng asked.

  The young man nodded back toward the bar area. They had just put them out, near the coffee station.

  Cheng folded his paper, set it on the arm of his chair, and stood up. “Would you mind watching my things for a minute? I’m going to go get some.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Cheng went to the bar area, fixed himself a plate of vegetables, and returned. The young man had plugged his iPhone into the power port, plugged his earbuds in, and was now listening to music. Cheng slid the Wall Street Journal into his suitcase and ate his vegetables.

  Twenty minutes later, the young man unplugged his iPhone and left the lounge.

  Cheng waited for fifteen minutes and then followed. He stood on the other side of the concourse and watched as the young man boarded the flight to Omaha. Once the door had closed and the plane had taxied away from the terminal, Cheng retrieved the boarding pass that the young man had slid inside his Wall Street Journal.

  After checking the name and departure time, he then sought out his gate and his new flight to Nashville.

  CHAPTER 26

  * * *

  * * *

  NORTH KOREA

  Are you getting all of this?” Les Johnson asked as he watched the buzz of activity through his binoculars.

  About three square miles of the valley had been fenced like a large tic-tac-toe board with something going on in every square. In one, men were learning how to operate old tractors. In another, men on horseback were being shown how to herd cattle. There were pens with pigs, pastures with sheep, llamas, goats, and more cows, along with field after field planted with all kinds of crops.

  A water wheel built along the stream powered a gristmill of some sort. Red-and-white-bladed windmills pumped water into troughs for the animals. American cars and trucks from the seventies and early eighties traveled along dusty roads, transporting hundreds of people and assorted supplies. If this wasn’t the DPRK, it could have easily been a scene right out of the American heartland. Even the clothes looked American.

  “I’m getting it,” replied Jimi Fordyce as he took picture after picture.

  “What the hell are they up to?”

  “Farming,” the little boy answered when pressed by Billy Tang. His name was Jin-Sang, but after all three SEALs had called the kid Ginseng for the fourth time, Tang had given up trying to correct them.

  Jin-Sang was eleven and looked eight years old only because he was so badly malnourished. Tang had offered the boy some of his peanut butter and he had scarfed it down and then looked to the rest of the group to see what else they might have to offer. He had huge eyes and an unbelievably frail body. It was no wonder to any of them that his leg had snapped so easily.

  Though terribly underweight, the boy was indeed bright. He had lots of questions for Billy Tang, but Tang wasn’t interested in sharing anything but pain meds and nourishment with the little guy. The American had his own questions.

  The boy knew something bad had almost befallen him. He wasn’t sure what the other three soldiers had intended to do to him, but he knew it was serious. He also knew it was Tang who had intervened on his behalf, even to the extent of pointing a gun at one of his comrades. While the boy didn’t understand everything that was going on, he knew enough to know he needed to stay on Tang’s good side.

  “Where do you live?” Tang had asked.

  “In the camp,” the boy replied.

  “The soldiers’ camp?”

  “No, the prison camp.”

  “Are you a criminal?” Tang asked.

  Jin-Sang shook his head. “My father was. They brought us all to the cam
p.”

  “Is your father at the camp?”

  “No,” the boy said. “He is dead.”

  “What about your mother?”

  Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. “She is also dead. They both died in there.”

  “You said you have a sister?”

  Jin-Sang wiped away his tears. “Yes, but she is sick. She needs food, meat. I also make tea from the pine needles. They have vitamins.”

  Tang was aware of the tea North Koreans made from pine needles. It contained a ton of Vitamin C. “If you’re a prisoner, what are you doing out of the camp?”

  “I was born there.”

  “Born there?”

  “Yes, my sister was five years old when my father was arrested and they brought us here.”

  “But how did you get out?” Tang asked him.

  “I know the camp and I know the guards. The camp is not well maintained. As long as I bring them rabbits, the guards pretend I do not sneak out and I pretend there are no holes in the fence.”

  “Jin-Sang, look at me,” Tang had insisted. “How long will it take them to notice you did not return last night?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “Have you ever gone out and not returned to the camp the same night?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Will the guards come looking for you?”

  The boy shrugged again. Tang was getting frustrated. He knew how evil the camps were. All of the prisoners, including the children, were taught to snitch on one another. Even family members were encouraged to turn one another in. Informants were rewarded with extra rations. “What about your classmates, your teacher? They’ll notice you are gone.”

  “There is no school tomorrow,” the boy replied.

  If Jin-Sang was telling the truth, that was good news. But there was no way to verify his story. The kid was a little hustler, a survivor. He would say and do anything to get what he wanted—what he needed to live another day. That made all his statements suspect.

  Even so, they had to find out what he knew.

  “Why are the Chinese here?” Tang asked him.

  “For farming.”

  “What about farming?”

  “My sister is sick,” said the boy. “She needs food and medicine.”

  “Focus on my question, Jin-Sang. Why are the Chinese here?”

  Tears began in the boy’s eyes again. “Please,” he said. “My sister. She needs food, medicine.”

  Though Fordyce couldn’t understand the words the boy was saying, emotion was universal. “What’s he upset about?” he asked from behind his camera.

  “There’s a labor camp in the valley. He and his sister are prisoners. He says she’s sick and that she needs food and medicine.”

  “If he’s a prisoner in a labor camp, what’s he doing out here?”

  “Apparently, he’s a good little trapper. He’s bought off some of the guards by bringing back rabbits for them. They look the other way when he sneaks out.”

  “What’s wrong with his sister?” asked Tucker. “What are her symptoms?”

  Tang asked Jin-Sang and translated as the boy spoke. “Cough. Fever and night sweats. She has lost a lot of weight.”

  “Is she coughing anything up?”

  Tang asked the boy and then looked at Tucker and nodded. “He says sometimes there’s blood.”

  Even before the response, Tucker had already begun digging into his medical kit. He removed a surgical mask and handed it to Tang. “Explain to Ginseng that he needs to put this on and keep it on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it sounds like his sister has TB.”

  “Tuberculosis?” Tang replied as he explained to Jin-Sang what he was doing and then helped place the mask on the boy.

  Tucker nodded. “Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis is a shape-shifter and it’s surging in North Korea. We’re not taking any chances.”

  Jin-Sang said something and Tang translated. “He wants to know if we have medicine that will help his sister.”

  Tucker was about to answer when Fordyce interrupted him. “You tell him that before we talk about helping his sister, we need to know what’s going on down there.”

  Tang relayed Fordyce’s directive and waited for the little boy to respond. When he did, Tang said, “The Chinese are here for farming.”

  Fordyce set his camera down. “We got that point. But first of all, how does he even know what China is? They only teach these kids enough reading to understand how to operate sweatshop equipment. They never learn more than basic addition and subtraction.”

  “He says his father had worked for the North Korean government. He had been a trade negotiator. Not only spoke Korean, but English and Chinese, too. He fell out of favor and was accused of taking bribes. That’s what led to the family’s imprisonment. His father taught him where China was and that if he could ever escape, that’s where he and his sister should go.”

  “So why didn’t he? If he’s able to get out of the camp, why hasn’t he run?”

  Tang waited for the boy to explain and then said, “Because the parents made the children promise to watch over each other. He wants to run, but his sister has been too afraid. Rather than leave without her, he’s been staying to protect her.”

  The men respected the young boy’s sense of honor.

  “So his father taught him about China,” Fordyce clarified. “What has he learned about the Chinese since they’ve been here?”

  “He says they’ve been bringing through waves of farmers, thousands of them. They’re also being given military training and have bullets that hurt real bad.”

  “What kind of bullets?”

  Tang asked the boy to explain. When he was done, Tang replied, “It sounds like rubber ones.”

  “And they’ve been using them on the prisoners? What the hell for?”

  “The Chinese have established multiple farms across the valley. Every couple of days, the guards select a group of prisoners and tell them that if they can successfully raid any of them, they will be given extra food. The Chinese are being trained how to defend their farms. That’s why they’re using the rubber bullets.”

  Tang paused for a moment before saying, “The Chinese are being told to envision the prisoners as starving Americans coming to steal from them.”

  Fordyce was repulsed by what he heard.

  “He says,” Tang continued, “that the Chinese farmers have even killed a few prisoners. Now, before each exercise, they are reminded not to attempt headshots, especially on the children. One of the kids Jin-Sang went to school with was killed by one of the rounds.”

  Fordyce shook his head. “Let’s back up. Why exactly are the Chinese here? Does he know?”

  The boy nodded and asked again about medicine and food for his sister.

  “We’re not doing anything for him, or his sister, until he tells us all he knows,” Fordyce replied. “In fact, take that Fentanyl pop away from him. Maybe if his leg starts hurting again, he’ll get more cooperative.”

  Tang looked at Fordyce. “Seriously?”

  “As serious as a heart attack. We’re running out of time on target.”

  “But he’s just a kid.”

  “Listen to me closely, Billy. Maybe you’ve gotten used to operating by yourself in Indian country, but as long as you’re on this team, you’ll respect my command. Our orders are to gather as much intelligence as we can and get out. We’re not here to open a children’s hospital, dig a well, or build a new school. We’re way behind enemy lines and the security of our country depends on what we do here. I will not allow this operation to fail because you can’t do what needs to be done. Are we clear?”

  Tang didn’t like being spoken to that way. It mattered little that Fordyce was completely justified and that Tang had brought it upon himself. “We’re crystal clear,” Tang said, as he snatched the Fentanyl pop away from Jin-Sang.

  As the startled boy looked at him, Tang launched into a series of angry questions in Korean
. The boy would begin to answer, only to have Tang cut him off and either repeat the question or berate and browbeat the child. Tang’s good-cop persona had completely evaporated. If Lieutenant Fordyce wanted him to play rough with an eleven-year-old, he would give him what he wanted.

  The SEALs watched the exchange between Tang and Jin-Sang ebb and flow for a good fifteen minutes. Several times, the little boy was reduced to sobs.

  When it was over, Tang handed him back the Fentanyl lollipop and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Fordyce waited until the quiet CIA operative opened his eyes before asking, “So?”

  “You have no idea what this poor kid has seen.”

  “I’m sure it sucks. For right now, though, I only want to hear the details relevant to our mission. Got me?”

  Billy Tang nodded. “The Chinese are here for both military and agricultural training.”

  “Two areas in which they far outpace the North Koreans. I don’t buy it,” Fordyce replied.

  “From what I can gather, they aren’t here to necessarily learn how to farm well, but to learn how to farm in extreme hardship. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s and agriculture-related subsidies to North Korea dried up, the North Koreans had to learn new methods very quickly.”

  “Yeah,” said Tucker. “They learned how to starve. One million North Koreans died in that famine. That’d be like losing twelve million Americans. What could the Norks possibly have to teach anyone?”

  “How to survive. How to survive with no pesticides. How to survive without commercial fertilizers. How to survive without electricity. How to survive without running water. How to survive with little to no fuel for generators or vehicles. How to breed and raise livestock under medieval conditions. How to ration much-needed supplies when they barely trickle in from abroad. And how to protect all of it from roving bands of angry, starving American citizens. That’s what the North Koreans are teaching the Chinese.”

  “Do you believe him?” Fordyce asked.