Shining his torch across the underside of the roof, he observed that its structure was strong and simple. The main support was a single central steel beam running all the way from the front to the back of the hangar, with about a dozen girders positioned like ribs on either side of it, and additional longitudinal supports to carry the roof panels.
He calculated it would necessitate a fifty-foot climb – at about a fifteen-degree upward angle all the way, and hanging upside down underneath the rafter, in order to reach the central supporting span.
Richter secured a webbing strap to the harness he had already strapped around his torso, looped it over the rafter and clipped it to the D-ring. That would now be his safety line. Then he pulled on a pair of custom-made leather gloves with yellow mesh webbing on the palms and fingers, designed to provide the maximum possible grip, checked that all his equipment was secure, grasped the rafter with both hands and swung his feet up, digging his heels into the recessed sides of the steel beam.
Immediately he could feel the strain on his arms and legs, and knew he had to get this climb over with as quickly as possible. He reached out with his left hand, grasped the central beam, about six inches beyond his head, and repeated the manoeuvre with his right hand. Then he slid his feet along the beam in the same direction. It was slow, hard work, but every time he completed these three movements, he was another foot closer to his objective.
And, he consoled himself, coming back it would be downhill all the way.
Pyongyang, North Korea
Almost in the centre of the city of Pyongyang stood a plain six-storey concrete building. Like most of the other structures in the vicinity, it carried no sign or logo to enlighten the curious about what activity might be carried on inside it. Here, as elsewhere in North Korea, curiosity was not encouraged, and anyone considering just walking in would get little further than the double doors of the entrance. The armed guards posted there would guarantee that.
This was the headquarters of Central Committee Bureau 39, a deliberately innocuous title obscuring the fact that the organization was the hub of North Korea’s government-sponsored drug production and smuggling network. The building now appeared almost deserted, lights burning only in the entrance hall, and in the one office currently occupied.
After Pak Je-San’s proposal had been accepted, he’d worked with Kim Yong-Su – not an enjoyable experience – in putting a number of procedures in place to ensure that all details of their operation remained totally secret. Approving his suggestions, Kim had then issued instructions to the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Those orders, in turn, had filtered down through the various levels of command, their content becoming progressively less informative as they descended, until at the very bottom level every troop commander and radar officer had received little more than the briefest possible instructions and a telephone number.
But that was enough. The call from the radar-watch supervisor at Pyoksong reached the switchboard at Bureau 39 headquarters, and was automatically diverted to Pak’s phone because tonight, not unusually, he was sleeping in his office.
The call had awoken him from a deep slumber, and on answering it he was somewhat confused. He hadn’t expected to be disturbed, but if anyone was going to call him, it was likely to be someone from Russia. So it took him a few seconds to grasp what the so-ryong was telling him.
‘We think it might be an attempt to land an agent, sir.’
‘Where, exactly, so-ryong?’ Pak was now fully awake.
The major carefully explained where they’d lost contact with the radar return, some three kilometres off the coast.
‘Projecting the track, sir, we think the vessel must have made landfall somewhere to the south of Suri-bong.’ He started to say something else, then broke off with a muttered apology as something distracted his attention. In a few seconds he resumed his report. ‘I’ve just been advised by one of my staff that the contact has reappeared on radar, and is now heading south-west. We believe it’s a small powerboat, and that it’s currently returning to its parent vessel.’
‘Which is what?’ Pak asked. ‘A submarine?’
‘Not likely so close inshore, sir, and we’ve already provisionally identified the larger vessel as a fishing boat with South Korean registry. It’s sailed out of Inchon on the same route about a dozen times over the last month, and our patrol boats have already checked it twice. We could intercept it before it gets back to Inchon.’
‘No, that vessel is unimportant. Even if we did stop it, we would find nothing of interest on board, and our action would just warn Seoul that we know what they’re up to. We must forget the fishing boat and concentrate on finding the man they’ve dropped off.’
‘I don’t understand. Why would they infiltrate a spy there?’
‘There’s a lot you don’t understand about this situation, so-ryong. I know exactly why they landed their man where they did, and I know where he’s currently heading.’
Aïn Oussera Air Base, Algeria
Richter reached the steel centre span of the hangar and swung himself up onto it. There was just enough space between the beam and the roof panels to allow him to crouch down. His arms and legs were trembling from the strain of the climb, and he needed a few seconds’ respite before tackling the next phase.
He looped his safety strap around the beam, out of the way, then tested the roof with his gloved hand: it was made from corrugated iron panels. Taking the collapsible jemmy from his pocket, he extended it and eased the point between two of these panels and pulled gently. With a faint creak, the lower one gave slightly. He repositioned the tool and applied pressure again, and this time it lifted far enough for him to see the sky. It would, he reckoned, be a big enough gap for him to climb through.
He checked his equipment to make sure everything was properly attached, then seized the sides of the opening he’d created, and pulled himself up. He wriggled through the gap and lay flat on the roof, checking all around him before moving on.
At that moment Colin Dekker was still looking in the wrong place, at the nearer edge of the roof, but he now spotted Richter within seconds of him emerging. He nudged Wallace and gestured towards the hangar.
‘Alpha and Bravo, look sharp,’ he said into his microphone. ‘Spook’s just climbed onto the roof. Let me know if any of the guards spot him.’
Beside him, Wallace trained his sniper rifle on the roof of the hangar, pinpointed Richter through the scope, then dropped the muzzle of the weapon so that it would cover the sentries on the ground.
‘Spook. I’m moving forward towards the gantry,’ Richter said softly. He was confident that the roof would take his weight – having seen the immensely strong steel skeleton supporting it – and now his biggest concern was to avoid making any noise.
He stayed in a crouch, just in case any of the guards looked up: the sight of a man standing upright on top of the hangar in the moonlight would bring an instant burst of fire from the ground. Not only would he be less noticeable on all fours, but it would also enable him to spread his weight more evenly on the rooftop.
The panel he’d forced open was close to the front of the hangar, so it took only a couple of minutes, even moving slowly and with the greatest care, for him to reach the lighting gantry. From the satellite pictures, the structure had looked fairly substantial, but Richter guessed that at least some of its apparent width was actually shadow, because when he stopped directly above the main doors and looked down, the gantry seemed incredibly narrow.
He glanced over the edge of the high building, looking straight down. The guard was visible below, leaning back against the main entrance doors, a cigarette burning in his mouth, and his rifle slung over one shoulder. The advantage for Richter was that human beings are very limited in their normal field of view: most regard the world at eye level and below, and rarely bother looking up. The bad news is that people in some occupations, pilots and professional soldiers in particular, are trained to look up, and if the guard below did
so while Richter was crossing the gantry over to the adjacent hangar, he’d be a sitting duck.
Stepping back from the edge, Richter murmured into his microphone. ‘Spook. I’m starting across now.’
‘Alpha One. Roger that.’
The gantry wasn’t going to get any wider however long he hesitated, so Richter took a deep breath and lowered himself onto it. He deliberately ignored the guard below, and also the two sentries standing in front of the target hangar, because clearly there was nothing he could do about them. If any of them spotted him, the first he’d know about it would be a bullet. He concentrated on moving steadily and silently, taking care not to kick against anything – a floodlight or the gantry itself – or trip over the cables, and focused, instead, on getting to the far end.
Halfway across, a sudden gust of wind rattled the entire structure, and for a minute or so Richter paused, just in case a sentry heard the noise and looked up, but then the breeze died away and he continued his careful progress.
Less than four minutes after he’d stepped onto the gantry, he climbed off it thankfully at the other end, and began crawling up the gently sloping roof towards the central ridge. He wouldn’t need to get into this hangar: merely force a panel and look carefully inside, and record whatever he saw there with the camera.
More or less reaching the centre of the roof, he took out his jemmy, and began to lever up a panel. The sound of tearing metal was not loud enough to be heard by the guards below, and soon Richter was able to lift the entire panel free and peer down, along the narrow but powerful beam of his torch as it illuminated the interior of the hangar.
Directly below him was a small electric-powered towing truck, normally used to manoeuvre aircraft in and out of the hangar or around the hardstandings. To one side of that, closer to the wall of the building, was another cherry-picker, but what astonished Richter was what else occupied the hangar.
‘Shit a brick,’ he muttered as he fished the Nikon out of his pocket. ‘Six will never believe this.’
Chapter Three
Monday
North Korea
Well before he left Seoul, Yi Min-Ho had spent several hours with his colleagues at Naegok-dong working out the optimum route to his objective, though there had actually been little choice. The coastal area was mainly flat, but cultivated and inhabited, and therefore potentially dangerous. The hills extending north of the coast provided very difficult terrain and, although taking that route would guarantee the least chance of being detected, it would take him an unacceptable length of time to reach his objective.
So Yi stayed near the coast, and followed the main – almost the only – road. He walked along the grass verge because the sound of footsteps – even those made by his rubber-soled boots – risked alerting someone to his presence. Every fifty paces or so he stopped and listened for a short while, in case his ears might detect something his eyes had missed.
Twice he froze into immobility on hearing the sound of movement nearby, his hand reaching for his pistol, but each time the noises faded away. Animals, he assumed, resuming his solitary march. Once a vehicle – an old truck lacking one of its headlamps – rattled past the ditch where he’d already taken cover. He stayed motionless for a few minutes after it had passed him, just in case anyone was following it on foot.
His GPS unit told him that he’d covered almost three kilometres in the first hour, and he calculated that he should reach the vicinity of Ugom in another two. Yi stopped between two stunted bushes for a brief rest, ate a small chocolate bar and washed it down with a mouthful of water, then resumed his steady progress eastward.
Aïn Oussera Air Base, Algeria
Richter held the Nikon firmly by the strap and aimed it at the far end of the hangar, pressed the button, then moved the digital camera slightly to cover the next section of the floor of the large building. Because of the filter, the electronic flash was invisible to his eyes – and more importantly, invisible to the sentries standing outside the building – but was ideally matched to the infrared-sensitive media inside the camera.
He took a dozen pictures, then another couple just in case, switched off the Nikon and replaced it in his pocket. There was no way he could refit the metal roof panel, so he just pushed it down until it was more or less level with those either side of it.
‘Spook. I’m on the way back,’ he murmured into his microphone, then started crawling across the roof back towards the lighting gantry.
‘Roger,’ Dekker replied. ‘Heads up, all callsigns. Watch the guards, but don’t fire unless you’ve no other option.’
Wallace settled the stock of the rifle comfortably into his shoulder and aimed it along the left-hand side of the nearest hangar, looking out for the sentry.
Before stepping out on to the lighting gantry, Richter checked below for the current positions of the guards, who still appeared totally unaware of his presence. The return trip seemed to take less time than before, and within five minutes he was crouching on the roof of the first hangar to make a final check all round him, before re-entering the building itself.
He slid his legs into the gap where he’d lifted the panel, his feet locating the steel beam. He crouched down on it and did his best to pull the panel back into place behind him. It wasn’t a good fit, and would be obvious to anyone doing an inspection of the roof, but from the ground it would probably pass muster.
Rather than crawl precariously back down the sloping roof girder, Richter decided it would be quicker to use his climbing rope, and go straight down to the floor of the hangar. He draped it over the main roof spar, both ends of it easily reaching the ground. He looped the safety strap around the beam, clipped it to his harness, and altered his position until he was lying flat across the steel spar.
Trapping the two lengths of the dangling rope between his boots, he also gripped it firmly with his right hand before totally letting go of the beam itself. The safety strap immediately tugged at his harness, and he reached down and released the clip, allowing the strap to slide around and off the steel beam and dangle loose below him. The descent was fast and easy, Richter letting the doubled-over climbing rope slide through his gloved hands, till in seconds he was standing on the hangar floor.
He tugged one end of the rope, pulling it clear of the beam, then coiled it and looped it back over his shoulder. He next walked over to the cherry-picker and lowered its cradle to ground level, then checked around with his torch that he wasn’t leaving anything behind him. Seeing nothing out of place, he crossed over to the side door he’d used to enter. At least he wouldn’t have to pick the lock this time, nor was he wasn’t going to bother relocking the five-lever mortise. He’d merely close the door behind him and walk away.
Richter pressed his ear to the door and just listened for a few seconds. ‘Spook. I’m coming out,’ he said into the microphone, and waited for Dekker’s acknowledgement. Then he turned the handle of the Yale lock and eased the door open.
Wallace moved the rifle across to cover the side door of the hangar, watching for Richter to re-emerge. He saw the doorway turn black as the door opened inwards, then a dark shape appeared and looked cautiously in both directions. The sentry wasn’t in sight, and within seconds the door was closed again behind him.
But as Richter started to sprint across the open ground towards the cover of the oil drums, the guard suddenly stepped around the corner, then froze as he saw a running man.
‘Boss,’ Wallace hissed urgently.
‘I see him. Alpha Two – take him out.’
Wallace shifted his aim fractionally, centring the cross-hairs on the sentry’s chest. Above the sight picture, he saw the Algerian open his mouth to shout as he began unslinging his AK47 assault rifle. Then Wallace squeezed the trigger. The sniper rifle bucked against his shoulder, but the suppressor reduced the noise to a muffled thud, and the guard tumbled backwards, the Kalashnikov falling from his lifeless hands.
Hearing the faint noise of the shot coming from outside the boun
dary fence, Richter glanced round even as he ran. He absorbed the scene in an instant. Time was now crucial, as sooner or later one of the other guards would be bound to notice that the sentry was missing, and head around the side of the hangar to check on him. The team had minutes at best to get away from here.
Richter raced straight for the section of fence where he’d stashed the ladder, lifted it up and leant it against a post. In front, he could see Dekker moving quickly towards him in a crouch, another SAS soldier right behind him. Richter climbed up and perched for a moment on top of the fence, while he swung the ladder over, then slid down to the open ground outside.
‘Time we got out of here,’ Dekker observed.
‘Roger that.’
As they turned away from the fence, Richter felt a slight tug on his left boot. He glanced down and spotted what they’d all missed, but it was now too late. The thin silver trip-wire gleamed in the darkness.
‘Oh, shit.’
Behind him security lights suddenly flared into life, illuminating the boundary fence and the open ground outside it. Simultaneously, sirens started their atonic wailing. Their supposedly covert insertion and surveillance operation had just turned very overt indeed.
North Korea
The truck seemed to come out of nowhere. One minute the road was empty as far as Yi Min-Ho could see. Then headlights came stabbing through the darkness directly towards him. The unmistakable sound of a big diesel engine shattered the silence of the night.
He’d just crossed the bridge over the river that drains into the Teiton Wan bay at Ugom, and was about to leave the road and strike out across country, heading for a narrow gap through the double line of hills that lay north of the town.
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