“The Great Leader is a dickless wonder,” I said, bowing again. “He is a zit on the ass of imbecility.”
More smiles.
It was so much fun that I considered sending Kamere over to buy out the rest of the flowers.
WE SPENT THE afternoon touring monuments around Pyongyang. These were all pretty much devoted to the Great Leader, except for those that were devoted to the first Great Leader. Sometimes it was hard to tell which was who. Generally, it didn’t much matter.
Finally around four, we were brought to Yanggakdo International Hotel. Yanggakdo is pretty much the international hotel in Pyongyang, and as far as I know the only building in the city that has both hot water and electricity, often at the same time.
“We leave for dinner at five,” said Kamere as we were shown to our rooms. “Be ready.”
Our rooms were all in a row. Kamere and Trace went to take showers—not together—and I amused myself by checking the room for bugs. There were only three, but one had to date to at least 1960 and would have made a good addition to the CIA’s historical collection. I made a mental note to grab it and some of the bath towels at checkout.
Trace Dahlgren looks ravishing in basic black ninja wear, so you can imagine how she looks in a black dress that stops about mid-thigh. Men snapped to attention in the lobby as we walked out with Kamere and our Korean escort, a Korean general whose name I think was Yu Stin Ki Pu. The general took personal charge of making sure we had no weapons, though he stopped short of personally frisking us. We were taken to a room off the lobby, made to empty our pockets and cummerbunds, and then wanded.
“Beeeeeeep,” went the unit as it was swung up near the side of my head.
Everybody in the room tensed. The soldier working the wand stepped back, adjusted something on it, and tried again.
“Beeeeeeep.”
Kamere looked like he was about to throw up. Trace glanced around, undoubtedly trying to figure out who to hit first.
I had passed through several metal detectors with the implants already. I couldn’t imagine that the North Koreans had developed a stronger metal detector than the ones our military was using, but the device began sounding a third time as the soldier brought it up to my head. I reached over and grabbed it; the two guards and the general reached for their guns. Smiling, I lowered the wand to my clip-on tie. The volume of the alarm increased.
“It’s not loaded,” I told them, unclasping it so they could check it out.
The general started to laugh. Color returned to Kamere’s face. All was well again and we were led out of the room, back through the lobby, and out front to a single large limo. The three of us slid in the back. There was a slight Korean woman of perhaps twenty or twenty-one, whose stiff blue worker’s suit looked to be about two sizes too big. General Yu Stin Ki Pu got in the front, then turned around and handed us blindfolds and hoods.
“You will please put them on,” he said in English.
“No handcuffs?” asked Trace.
There was a twinkle in Yu Stin Ki Pu’s eyes as he worked out what she said.
“It’s a joke,” said Trace, pulling down the hood and clamping her arms over her chest.
The ride from the hotel to the compound took roughly an hour and followed a route circuitous enough to make an otter dizzy. When we finally arrived, we were left in the backseat of the car for a few minutes.
“What do you think they’re doing?” asked Kamere nervously.
“Shooting our escorts,” snapped Trace.
Kamere began gasping for air.
“Relax,” I told him. “If they wanted to kill us, they would have done it at the airport when we landed. They wouldn’t have gone through all the expense of flying us here.”
“Are you sure?” asked Kamere.
“Reasonably sure.”
The car door opened. Some soldiers helped us out. Yu Stin Ki Pu had us take off the hoods and remove the blindfolds.
When you’re the absolute ruler of a country, even one at the brink of bankruptcy, you don’t live in a tar-paper shack. Because Kim Jong Il’s palace was actually underground, the compound was almost modest—fairly plain stone buildings stood in various locations around the grounds, and the whole thing was surrounded by two rows of fence. A small stone building near the gate housed the guards, and was also a gateway to part of the underground complex. At the center of the compound sat a massive slab of granite—the roof to Kim’s house.
We walked across a road made of pink and white marble. The rock, a giant tombstone with a set of steps under one side, sat just over the walkway. As we approached, I saw that it had a set of stairs extending along its entire length, which I estimated at about fifty yards. A second granite slab supported the first, inset ten yards or so; a third and then a fourth lay under that, so that as you went down the stairs the ceiling also stepped down. The offset seemed calculated to make it difficult for a cruise missile to navigate into the opening at the center of the structure.
Two full companies of Korean soldiers were stationed on the narrow patio at the base of the steps. They wore dress uniforms, complete with white gloves, and their Kalashnikovs gleamed despite the dim light. You could smell the oil they used on the guns’ wood furniture. As we reached their level, the men snapped to, dropped to one knee, and pointed their guns at us.
An elderly man in a colonel’s uniform stepped up from near the doorway, barking in Korean that we were vermin and must submit ourselves to the will of the people.
“I thought you said they wouldn’t kill us,” said Kamere after giving me the gist of what he’d said.
“This is just Kim’s way of saying, ‘My house is your house,’ ” I told him.
We weren’t in any danger. Kim was just having a little fun—and reminding us who was boss. There was a video camera inset in the stone near the doorway; undoubtedly we’d been watched the whole way down.
“It would be appropriate to bow as a sign of your subservience,” said Yu Stin Ki Pu.
“Subservience I don’t do,” I said. “But I do bow to a superior terminal ileum.”
You call it asshole, I call it ileum—Yu Stin Ki Pu saw only that I was doing what he thought was the right thing.
The door opened. A fresh set of guards stood with a pair of weapons detectors just inside. Behind them were four other men, armed with Chinese Type 64 submachine guns. H&K fanciers will turn up their noses at the Type 64, but at close range and in sufficient numbers, it certainly can get the job done. Among its features is an integral silencer as part of its business end. Clearly, the man in charge of selecting armaments for the security detail had the peace and tranquility of the palace occupants in mind.
Two more soldiers, these dressed in black pajamas, appeared. Trace frowned when Yu Stin Ki Pu informed us that they were going to frisk us.
“Ms. Lee is very professional,” said Yu Stin Ki Pu, referring to one of the soldiers who despite the flat chest and short hair turned out to be a woman. “Nothing improper will be done, and the men will not look.”
I suggested that Ms. Lee could do me first to put Trace’s mind at rest.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Trace, who went with the Korean behind a small screen at the side of the hall. Kamere and I, meanwhile, were checked right out in the open, Kamere chirping as his guard came a little too close to the family jewels.
“That happens to me,” I told the guard when he was done, “and your hands are going to be where your asshole is.”
“He doesn’t speak English,” Yu Stin Ki Pu said.
“He has about five seconds to learn.”
The frisk was uneventful, and Yu Stin Ki Pu led us down the hall, through a Z-shaped corridor—more protection against cruise missiles—and into a large room dominated by a pool of water. The rest of the room had been constructed to make the water appear as if it were in an underground cavern. We crossed at the side, where a rail gave the illusion that we were using a wooden bridge. An elevator was waiting, doors open.
We shot downward for five or six seconds. The elevator doors opened into a small vestibule whose walls were made of rose-colored marble. A second elevator sat right next to the first. Once we were inside, it began to descend. This trip lasted about thirty seconds, though because the car was moving more deliberately it was impossible to say whether the distance we traveled was farther than we’d gone in the first elevator.
A butler, dressed entirely in white, met us in the elevator foyer. He bowed very low, then gestured to a velvet-covered cushion on the right where we were supposed to leave our shoes.
The hall was lined with classical marble statues. There were silk Oriental rugs on the floor and elaborate tapestries on the walls. The floor, walls, and ceilings were all made of massive sheets of marble.
“I wonder how much of the artwork is stolen,” muttered Trace. “Doesn’t look like he grabbed this from the local Pier 1.”
She wasn’t kidding. The next hallway we entered was lined with paintings, most of them hundreds of years old. I’m not exactly an art expert, but even I recognized the Picasso and the Monet. Maybe they were knockoffs, but I’m guessing that Interpol ought to put Kim on their must-interview list anytime a famous painting is reported stolen.
Finally we reached the intersection of a large hallway. We turned right, then were shown into a large eight-sided room paneled in fine wood.
“The Rogue Warrior,” bellowed a voice.
Two middle-aged Korean army generals appeared in the doorway across from us. The men stepped into the room and parted, each to one side. Two more generals entered, followed by a tall man in civilian dress. Kim came through behind him.
Followed by Kim.
And then Kim.
Nothing like a paranoid absolute dictator with a sense of humor.
The three Kims appeared nearly identical, dressed in blue denim proletarian suits, wire-rimmed glasses, and terrible haircuts. Their cheeks were round and red. All wore a self-satisfied smirk.
No one spoke, obviously waiting for me to make my selection in the human Three-Card Monte game. I took a step back, bowed at the waist, and said what any red-blooded American would say under the circumstances, “Fuck you very much for inviting me.”
The three Kims nodded, more or less in unison.
“Which of us your host?” asked Kim Number 1. “Do you care to guess?”
“The answer’s obvious.” I turned to the video camera near the door. “The real Kim is back in the control room down the hall, watching.”
A peal of laughter came from somewhere down the hall. The ersatz Kims looked at each other nervously, probably wondering if the penalty for failing to fool me was death or just exile. A few seconds later, the real dictator walked through the door with a large grin on his face.
“I should have known that the Rogue Warrior would catch on to my little joke,” said Kim.
“Well fuck you very much, your scumbagship,” I said, bowing deeply.8
The room suddenly became so quiet you could hear the sweat breaking through the pores of the DPRK generals.
“And fuck you, too, Demo Dick.” Kim laughed. It wasn’t a fake-polite diplomat’s laugh, either—it was a belly-shaker, and within seconds the rest of the room was laughing with him. “This is an exchange of mutual endearments, yes?”
“As endearing as a turd in a soup bowl,” I told him.
“I have admired your books for a very long time,” said Kim. “You are my kind of man.”
“And you’re my kind of commie slime,” I told him, shaking his hand. I meant it—eliminate people like Kim from the world, and I’d have to spend my days sitting around a pool sipping drinks with tiny umbrellas in them while watching the latest in dental floss walk past. Say whatever else you want about him; Kim Jong Il is a role model for the rest of the world’s slimers.
Kim turned to Trace, bowing stiffly and taking her hand.
“You are Trace Dahlgren, of course,” he said. “I recognize you by your lovely eyes—though you look lovelier than your boss ever describes in his books. Perhaps you should write your own.”
“Careful,” I told him, “flattery will get you everywhere.”
Trace shot me a dirty look.
Kim led us through the door he had just used into another long hallway. This one was also lined with paintings; he ticked off the names of their creators as we passed.
“Rubens, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Da Vinci.”
“You like the old masters,” said Kamere, trying to be polite.
“I like naked women,” said Kim, laughing so hard I thought the paintings would vibrate off the walls.
YOU’D NEVER KNOW that his country was facing a severe famine by the spread Kim put on for us. Dinner began with eels so fresh they were squirming in the tureen. The server picked each one up and swiftly lopped off its head with a knife the size of a battle-ax after laying it in a plate.
The next dish was fresh monkey brains. I’ll spare you the description of how those were prepared if you’ll trust me when I say they were as fresh as the eels.
Kamere went into a state of semishock about the time the eels were presented, and didn’t say a word for the rest of dinner. Trace kept rolling her eyes but picked through the courses, her stomach genetically toughened by the hardships Apaches had endured for centuries.
I liked the food, but in most cases it could have used a little more salt.
We worked our way through twenty-seven courses. Each course was separated by a toast of some vile-tasting Korean liquor; French wine matched each individual dish. About halfway through, General Yu Stin Ki Pu began to turn purple. He eventually passed out, falling to the floor; two of the Great Leader’s waiters picked him up and carried him off. As far as I know, they may have sent him to a work camp somewhere, because I never saw him again.
The generals Kim had dine with us had clearly been chosen for their ability to drink, but they, too, started slowing as the night went on. Even Trace, who is no slouch when it comes to liquor, was wearing down as we finished dessert. So I wasn’t surprised that she begged out when Kim suggested that we retire into his “drinking room.”
“As you wish, Ms. Dahlgren.” He snapped his fingers and two women attendants appeared to show her to her bedroom.
“I didn’t know we were spending the night,” said Trace.
“I hope you’re not refusing my hospitality,” answered Kim.
Kamere started to say something, then found it necessary to close his mouth very quickly as his stomach threatened to erupt. Another pair of attendants appeared with a bowl and towels, helping him out. Kim was greatly amused.
“I can send them back to the hotel if you wish,” he said to me. “They will be more comfortable here, however.”
“Let them stay,” I told him.
“Good. Come with me and we will have a nice game of snooker.”
Kim led me out a side passage and down a wide hallway to a room decorated like an old English gentleman’s club, complete with two waiters. A large snooker table sat at the side.
“Drink?” he asked. And then without waiting for an answer, he nodded to one of the waiters. The man went to a bar at the side and returned with two large tumblers of Dr. Bombay’s finest.
“To your continued success,” he said, nodding in my direction.
“To your demise,” I answered.
Some of Kim’s good humor had drained away. “Always joking. But I would not expect anything different. You are lucky that my people do not speak very much English.”
“How is it that you speak English?” I said.
“Your CIA has not made a study of this?”
“If they have, they didn’t tell me.”
He wagged his finger as if I were a naughty boy. “You do not get along with the Christians in Action, do you?”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”
Kim had studied English as a young man during visits to Malta, and he spoke with a slight British accent. He had a surprisingly good command of
vocabulary, and either he had genuinely read my books or been briefed very closely by someone who had, for he now proceeded to quiz me on them. He began by asking which I liked best. Of course I answered that they were all my children, and that choosing a favorite would be out of the question.
“A most judicious answer. My favorite is your first. There is more fiction there than all the rest combined.”
I told him I’d heard that joke before.
He pointed at the snooker table nearby. “Do you play?”
“Only under duress.”
Kim put his glass down and chose a cue stick from the wall. The dictator slapped his cue ball into the pile of reds, sending one careening into a pocket. He proceeded to run the table in a few minutes. For those of you who don’t play—a snooker table looks like a very large pool table. There are fifteen red balls, a cue ball, and a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black ball. You sink one of the red balls, then put one of the colored balls into a pocket. And on and on and on.
When it was finally my turn, I chalked up, potted a red, and made my way through the colored balls. I wasn’t keeping score, but I was apparently doing very well—Kim was frowning long before I finally missed a shot.
“You practiced snooker before you came to Korea, yes?” he asked.
“Haven’t played in years.”
“We will talk,” he said sharply, gesturing toward a pair of chairs at the far side of the room.
“Talk away.”
“You think of your books as children,” said Kim. “But children are not like books, I think.”
Kim drained his glass, then called in Korean for a fresh round. The waiter immediately hopped to, returning with a bottle in each hand.
“A book can be depended on,” said Kim, his tone philosophical. “Children have minds of their own.”
I felt like I’d suddenly stepped into the middle of a Dr. Phil show.
“Why don’t you just leave the bottle?” I told the waiter as he finished pouring. He nodded and set mine down on the small end table near the chair.
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