Chapter Thirty-Four
Agent Jenny King dressed up again as North Korean engineer Kim Dong-Sun. The platoon of Marines whisked her out of Fort 24 to a waiting helicopter. The Black Hawk flew across the desert spaces of ISIS-controlled Iraq to its northeast mountain border along Kurdistan, Iran.
As the first phase of the new Operation Fire Sanctuary unfolded, the CIA director phoned his counterpart in Tehran’s secret police, explained the mistake his agents made in crossing the border into Syria, and that he wanted to make the mistake go away by handing the North Korean engineer over to Iran in less than twenty-four hours of her capture, so Tehran could return her to her native country. The director also explained that, because of the ongoing civil war in Syria, the ISIS skirmishes in southern Iraq, where no victim was too small or young, and the numerous mass graves recently discovered, the US in no way was going to appease Syria by paying it tribute. With that, the director emphasized that it was in the best interest of both nations, regardless of what caused the sinking of an Iran fishing trawler laying sea-mines in the Strait of Hormuz, to move on and contend with the crisis of Sunni extremist flare-ups.
No word would leak to the press about the missile launch site, nor would Israel be notified of Syria’s plans to defend itself if Iraq fell completely into the lap of the enemy.
After a conference call with Tehran clerics, including the Iranian prime minister, Iran agreed to meet the US Marines ferrying the North Korean engineer at the Diyala province’s lone road border, controlled by the Kurds. Money from Washington would motivate Kurdish leaders to allow the crossing at its border. The CIA director called it an “expensive bridge toll.”
In the past, Kurdish demonstrators had blocked the main road in protest when Iran cut off the water supply from the al-Wind River, one of the five main tributaries that feed the Tigris River. But with the water flowing again into the fertile plains of Diyala, the main road was open — yet heavily guarded by Iranian soldiers, with the Ayatollah’s Revolutionary Guard en route to transport Dong-Sun. Without a Korean translator on the Iranian side at the crossing, the US figured the handing over of Kim Dong-Sun would run smoothly. What they didn’t have a handle on was where the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was going to take her once inside Iran. That became the CIA director’s chief concern.
Would they take King back to Tehran? To a military base? Or to a nuclear weapons site?
If the transfer went down without a hitch, both sides agreed to keep the real events that led to the shootout and kidnapping at the Syrian missile site under wraps. The CIA didn’t need any more negative press. The international media was still bashing the agency on the drone strike of the school in Jaar, Yemen, even after the agency put out evidence to the contrary that the structure wasn’t a school, but a terrorist safe house after all. The bodies of the children killed, the CIA suspected, were flown in from Syria and used as props. The press was investigating that new claim; the UN was looking into it as well.
The FBI’s request to take DNA samples was denied. Where did the bodies of the children disappear to in Jaar? Then a new problem arose. No one could find the corpses after they were supposedly driven to a hospital between Jaar and the coastal town of Zinjibar.
No matter what the CIA or UN would discover about those claims, the damage had already been done. The hatred toward the “Great Satan” United States had kicked into overdrive. The images of the bloodied bodies of children, along with the woman’s amputated arm — a teacher? — weren’t going away from the world’s collective memory or the social media channels anytime soon. The damage was fixed and indelible.
On the other hand, Syria didn’t need to be linked to a long-range missile program with North Korea while the country was being torn apart by civil war, threatened by the Islamic State, and propped up by Russia, while several in the US intelligence community were skeptical that all of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons — toxins, biologic chemicals, and lethal agents — had been destroyed aboard the Danish ship.
For the delivery of Kim Dong-Sun, the US Marines were given strict orders to make the flight to the border crossing comfortable for her. Getting the message, four young jarheads threw a blanket on a wooden crate in the rear of the cargo bay, plopped the North Korean engineer down, and gave her a canteen of water and an energy bar. Due to the logistics of ongoing ISIS strikes and bombings, the flight required a refueling at an air base outside of Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk. The northern city of Mosul had fallen to ISIS and became its stronghold.
For Jenny to convincingly play her role as the North Korean engineer, she slept on the first leg of the trip, feeling each burr of the rotor vibrate through the metal deck, up the slats of the crate, and drum into her thighs, buttocks, and spine.
The longest day she could remember just got longer.
When the helicopter landed to refuel, a marine sergeant and a Delta Force colonel climbed on board and checked the engineer’s condition. She opened one eye, saw the officers standing in front of her, and opened the other eye, then cursed at them in Korean. They stepped back, motioning the engineer to calm down. They showed her a map of where they were taking her, and then gave her a backpack and a cooler stuffed with fruit, yogurt, vegetables, and cereal.
Dong-Sun grabbed a lemon. She began peeling the rind, split it open, and squirted lemon juice in the face of the buzz-cut Marine sergeant. He squinted, his eyes watered as he wiped his face with the back of his hand, and then glared at her with wet red eyes.
On orders from JSOC, the Delta Force colonel handed Kim Dong-Sun two backpacks with woman’s clothes, size 0, that would fit her lithe frame, toiletries, and two envelopes of cash in the amount of twenty thousand dollars in denominations of twenties, fifties, and hundreds. She made a grouchy face and bit into the lemon, sucking on its sour juices to refresh her dried-out palette. Eating a lemon raw repulsed the marine sergeant — which was her point, to revolt him enough to make him deboard the helicopter when the refueling finished. He waved good-bye; she kissed him off and followed that with a staccato burst of Korean swear words that turned into an endless stream of profanity. Although he didn’t understand the meaning, he got the message loud and clear.
The sergeant stepped out of the helicopter, yelling, “Get the bitch out of Iraq ASAP.”
The CIA and Joint Chiefs of Staff knew when they handed Kim Dong-Sun over to the Iranians they would search the backpacks of clothes and cooler of food in their search for any device that might be hidden. They would review her papers and North Korean passport, which Jenny took from the real engineer. And with a half year immersed in deep training of the real Kim Dong-Sun, from Jenny King modulating the engineer’s speech and stiff mannerisms, combined with slight modifications to her looks, she felt she could pull off the ruse — until she got to Tehran. There it would be anyone’s guess as to what would happen next, whom she would meet in person or by videoconference from North Korean military. So the risk of being caught as a double agent still lay ahead and increased the deeper she moved into enemy territory.
Knowing that gamble, the CIA station chief removed a brass button from her grey North Korean military uniform sleeve, opened it up, hollowed out the shell, inserted a micro GPS chip, sealed the button, and had it sewn back onto the sleeve. Once the marines handed her over to the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Langley could track her movements through Iran, as long as she wore the uniform and didn’t go deep underground into one of Iran’s hardened nuclear facilities.
After refueling, the Black Hawk lifted off for the second leg of the flight.