Ri kept his chin up. He’d been summoned to this meeting first thing this morning, which meant he’d had all day to prepare. “It was unfortunate. The American warship USS Freedom is making things difficult for us in acquiring the larger items we need. Smaller equipment can travel by aircraft, and we have utilized this method with good results. It is only on the sea where we are still having problems.”
“The problem is America,” Choi said.
“Exactly correct, Dae Wonsu. The other nations in the UN are not pursuing interdiction. Even before the return of Jack Ryan to the White House, the former President, Ed Kealty, had not harassed our shipments nearly to the extent we are seeing now.”
“So the problem is Jack Ryan, specifically.”
“Again, this is true. But not to worry, we have ordered more rocket tubes, they are being built by another company in Russia. It will take six months for delivery, but we will have everything else in place by the time they arrive, and I feel sure the Taepodong-2 will be operational well within my window for success in the mission.”
In truth, the Russians would ship him nothing until he paid them, and he could not pay them until Roblas delivered his five hundred million. This wouldn’t happen till Hwang’s damn rare earth — processing plant went live.
Ri troubled Choi with none of these additional details.
Choi just asked, “Won’t the Americans capture the next ship like they did with this one?”
Ri smiled. His sad eyes did not brighten, but the smile was there. “The Russians have an aircraft, the An-225, that is large enough to transport the tubes by air. We won’t have to worry about maritime interdiction.”
“You have less than two years.”
“Yes, Dae Wonsu. I am aware.”
“President Jack Ryan has two years left in his term.”
“I am aware of this as well, Dae Wonsu. If not for him, we would be operational much faster.”
“Your predecessor had many complaints about Jack Ryan as well.” Choi drank a long gulp of brandy. “I called them excuses.”
Ri realized he needed to create distance between himself and his predecessor, so as to keep distance between himself and the kennels at Chongjin. “I will not use them as excuses. Ryan is a problem, but we will succeed nonetheless.”
Choi looked across the table for a moment; his eyes were dull from the drink but they did not waver. “What do you know about Rangoon?”
Ri knew Choi wasn’t asking him what he knew about the capital of Myanmar, but instead about a particular event that happened there. When North Korean leadership spoke of Rangoon to the intelligence community, it could mean only one thing, because of the importance of the city to his nation’s intelligence agency.
Ri answered with confidence. “October ninth, 1983. I was a lieutenant in the Chosun Inmingun at the time. I will never forget learning of the bravery of our men who—”
Choi talked over him as if Ri were not speaking. “October ninth, 1983. My grandfather sent three assassins to plant a bomb to kill the president of South Korea during his visit to the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Burma. The bomb missed Choon Doo-hwan, lamentably, because his motorcade had been delayed by traffic.”
Ri knew all of this, of course. Twenty-one people had been killed, forty-six wounded. He did not know why Choi was bringing up this thirty-year-old event.
Choi said, “As an expert on history, I cannot help but think about what might have been. If Rangoon had succeeded, South Korea would have been destabilized. Our army was better than theirs. America’s will would have faltered. My grandfather would have taken the entire peninsula within one, perhaps two years, and we would have been in a position of incredible strength. Economic strength. Military strength. The problems of the famine during the 1990s would have never occurred, the United States would have realized the pressure and sanctions were futile. Just think where we would be today if there had been a little less traffic on the road that afternoon in Rangoon.” Choi smiled wistfully.
General Ri nodded. Undoubtedly, some of Choi’s conclusions were sound. And undoubtedly those that were not sound would not be mentioned by Ri.
“You see what else would have happened?” Choi asked.
“I am sorry. I confess I do not.”
“My father would not have been killed by Jack Ryan.”
“Your father?”
“The Americans poisoned my father. How else to explain it? He was a healthy man. Hard of hearing, maybe, but his doctors say he would have lived another twenty to twenty-five years in good health.”
Ri didn’t believe this was true for an instant, though he had no doubt believing the elder Choi’s doctors would have made the claim he had been poisoned to deflect blame on themselves. Ri was the operations chief of RGB when Choi’s father died, and he and his people were ordered to find evidence of an assassination. Ri found no such evidence, because no such evidence existed.
Choi went back to Rangoon. “My grandfather’s bravery in ordering this attack on the leader of the South was only matched by his forward thinking. Just consider it for a moment, Ri.”
Ri couldn’t help but think the three assassins were the real brave ones, braver than the man who sent them down with orders to kill themselves after the attack. But of course he made no mention of this.
Choi finished his drink, and a beautiful young girl — Ri did not think she could have been more than seventeen — walked across the empty banquet room with a crystal flask and refilled Choi’s snifter. Choi did not regard her — instead, he kept talking.
“If Rangoon had succeeded it would have changed the fate of our nation. Indeed, the fate of the world.”
Ri bowed. “Yes.”
“If you were able to eliminate Jack Ryan, I feel certain this would have a similar outcome for our nation. Do you agree?”
Ri’s heart sank. He was being given another impossible task. But he said, “Yes. I agree wholeheartedly.”
Choi said, “I know the difficult thing is to make it look like someone else is involved.” Choi leaned forward halfway across the table. Ri caught the unmistakable smell of brandy, not from the snifter in his hand, but from his skin. “But that is your problem.”
An uncomfortable silence told General Ri that it was his turn to talk.
“Yes. Well… certainly there are many who would benefit from his death.”
“Of course. How would you do it?”
Ri blinked. He needed to say something to bolster Choi’s confidence in him. He tried to show no doubt, no hesitation. He spoke off the top of his head, fighting for the words just as they came out of his mouth. “I would find out his foreign travel schedule. I would use Middle Eastern bomb makers. I have access to them through our good relations with Syria and Iran. I would organize the affair through proxies.” He hastened to add, “But I would be involved with every aspect of it, because there could be no failure. Jack Ryan is well protected now, but if there is a credible attempt on his life, the Americans can do so much more to keep away from assassins. There will be no second opportunity.”
Choi nodded thoughtfully.
Ri worried he was about to order him to proceed, so he spoke quickly, couching his words of warning in layer over layer of deference, lest he offend the Dae Wonsu. “I am certain you are aware of this, because of your astute knowledge of world history, and I only bring this up to remind myself of the stakes of any such operation, but there is the need to remember how America reacts to insult, threat, and attack. Pearl Harbor is but one example. As the Japanese marshal admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said, they awoke a sleeping giant. America will look long and hard for the perpetrators of the act, and if they suspect for an instant we are the perpetrators, then they will seek revenge on our soil.”