“They all perished, unfortunately.”
Hwang nodded to himself, thanked the man, hung up the phone, and put his head down on the desk.
The bastard had killed himself, this Hwang did not doubt for an instant. Hwang knew nothing about the attempt on the life of the President of the United States other than what had been announced on state-sponsored television, and they’d mentioned nothing about America’s claim that North Korea had been involved, so he did not know why the head of the RGB decided he’d blow himself and his family to bits. But he spent little time considering Ri’s motivations. Instead, his focus immediately turned to his own precarious situation.
Hwang thought of his options, and quickly determined that there were none. Ri had been correct in his letter. They had accomplished much in the past year, and they had come close to success. But now that Ri was gone, there was no chance Hwang could mine, process, ship, and market rare earth minerals. He needed the active engagement of the RGB to work with Óscar Roblas overseas through all phases of the product cycle.
The mining director had worked tirelessly over the past year, and even with the recent setback of the confiscation of the froth flotation tanks by the Americans, he’d still been able to see a way forward. But now, in this instance, he knew it was over, and with this realization came the deep sadness of hopelessness.
He would die for his failure, and he was thinking of this, but more than anything he thought of his children. They’d done nothing wrong, they had celebrated and honored the Dae Wonsu with every fiber of their being, and soon the Dae Wonsu would nevertheless order them put to death.
They would die for their father’s failure.
It seemed so utterly unfair.
He lifted his head off the desk slowly. No. Hwang had not failed. General Ri had failed, and then he had taken the coward’s way out. Why should Hwang’s children pay for that?
Hwang’s eyes fixed in determination. He would not just sit here and wait to suffer the consequences of failure for someone else.
The fifty-four-year-old director snatched up his phone and called his own secretary.
“Put me through to the Agricultural Bank of China, Singapore branch. Vice President Chang Lan.”
While he waited for the connection to be made, he thought over his new plan. Chang Lan was Chinese, and when he’d last visited Pyongyang, Hwang had been notified by a member of his staff that the man had been asking pointed questions about the private lives of certain North Korean government officials. Hwang’s employee wondered if he should notify internal security about the man’s actions, but Hwang had ordered him to keep his mouth shut. Chang Lan’s bank was important to the Chongju mining operation, and the last thing Hwang needed was paranoid state security minders harassing an executive of an important financial institution because he’d solicited a little idle gossip.
Hwang didn’t think the man was a member of Chinese intelligence, but he surely had connections back in Beijing that could connect him with their Ministry of State Security. And although Chang Lan was no friend, he was a colleague, and he might be able to put Hwang in contact with others in China who could help him do the only thing that would save Hwang and his family now.
Defect.
The director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service knew where he could find the director of national intelligence. The last three times Brian Calhoun called the office of Mary Pat Foley, he’d been told she’d gone downstairs to the Acrid Herald command center. This time he called the third-floor office suite directly, and she took the call in a private room off the main room full of computers and communications gear.
“Hi, Brian. I guess you caught me skulking around behind the scenes in Acrid Herald again.”
Calhoun replied, “Your title gives you the right and the duty to skulk around any part of that building you like. I’m glad I reached you, though. We just got some time-critical intel.”
“Tell me.”
“As part of the wider investigation into the foreign accounts used by North Korea, we’ve been monitoring activities at a branch of a Chinese bank in Singapore. The CIA station there has a joint program with NSA to intercept communications of some of the bank’s key officials. It’s a new program that hasn’t paid dividends to date, but I think we just hit the jackpot.”
“Go on.”
“North Korean mining director Hwang Min-ho has contacted an exec at this bank, apparently someone he’s had a long-standing relationship with. He is expressing a desire to defect to China.”
“My God! Why?”
“We don’t know for sure. We didn’t hear Hwang directly, and the banker did not say. He only relayed the fact Hwang wanted to get out of North Korea with his family as soon as possible. He says he has no way to get to China himself, but he will be meeting with Chinese mining officials in Pyongyang next week.”
Mary Pat began furiously scratching notes on a pad. She said, “The failure to get Chongju up and running must have him looking over his shoulder.”
Calhoun agreed. “He thinks he’s going to get the firing squad. I can’t think of any other reason he’d want to bolt like this.”
“Any idea why he’s reaching out to China specifically?”
“He knows them, nothing more. What he doesn’t know is this banker acquaintance of his in Singapore doesn’t want to get involved. He hasn’t communicated with the Chinese yet. We found out when he, I’m speaking of the banker, called a colleague in Beijing and asked for advice. The colleague told him he needed to take it directly to the MSS, to not use the phone or the Chinese embassy in Singapore, so the man will be flying home on Saturday.”
“Hwang thinks the Chinese will just come get him?”
Calhoun said, “Not sure what he thinks, but as soon as the Chinese know about Hwang and his desire to defect, the ball will be in their court. I’m wondering if we can somehow take advantage of this three-day window before they find out.”
Mary Pat had an idea, and although she knew it was thin, she also knew the greatest intelligence coups often began with an opportunity that, at first blush, seemed impossible to capitalize on. She said, “I want you over here at the Acrid Herald command center as soon as possible. We’re going to put a plan together to get Avalanche involved in this.”
“I’m on my way.”
70
Adam Yao had genuine concerns he would be sent home from North Korea, and the fact that this concerned him almost—almost—made him laugh. For the past three days he had been ordered to produce no powder in his cone crusher. The ore he had prepared for the froth flotation tanks sat in rail cars alongside the refinery, protected from the rain with plastic sheeting. There was no room to store more powder, so Director Hwang had ordered Adam’s portion of the refinery shuttered to save electricity. Some other departments were still up and running — geology, maintenance, metallurgy — but no one needed any more crushed rock, so Adam had no job to do.
Adam had seen Hwang twice during his time here, once walking through the facility and once walking with his family from his SUV to the hotel. He thought it strange the man had brought his family with him here, but not overly so. He was the director, after all, he could do whatever he wanted. Both times he saw the little man, he appeared positively distressed. It had pleased Adam because it probably meant he was having difficulties getting his operation up and running, but it also created problems for Adam, because since he’d not been at his computer terminal he had not been able to communicate with Acrid Herald control for the past three days.
He had tried to use this downtime to get some more intel from Dr. Powers; he saw her each and every morning during his jog, sometimes just for a minute, sometimes for much longer. She was as stressed as Director Hwang, but for the opposite reason. She informed Adam, still in stilted Chinese, that there would be a new shipment of flotation tanks, though she did not know when. Each day she had revealed more about her desire to get the hell out of here and never look back, and the fact the tanks had not yet arrived had brought her to the edge of despair. She wanted to get production started on the plant so she could go home.