“We had nothing, or even less than nothing. The house was a ruin, a derelict nobody wanted. With only a few things she had managed to snatch before we’d been taken away, she had to barter the clothes on her back for our first meal. I did what I could to help, finding work a child could do, but the villagers knew they could prey on us at will. I quickly learned how to fight, and how to read people. Who was trying to trick you, who would help, who would wait for the best moment and attack you unaware.
“My mother only lasted a few months. Early in the fall, she became sick, and died on a pallet of rags, the only bed we had. I left the village, almost daring the authorities to come after me and just try to kill me, but they didn’t care.”
Cho sighed. “After that, I lived by working and stealing until I was twelve. I was in Najin, a port city far in the north, looking for work, when the Russians recruited me. They first offered me food, then an education, and eventually the chance to strike back at the regime that had murdered my family and made my life hardship.
“I returned to the DPRK from Russia when I was twenty-two. I spied on the North’s military, its political structure, and its economy, whatever my handlers wanted to know. I usually used money, because loyalty was cheap under the Kims. Even when money didn’t work directly, it could usually buy what my target wanted: drugs, sex, sometimes a favor from an official that they couldn’t normally approach.
“I mapped military bases for the Russians, including many that were underground. I learned to ask the locals, because local labor was often pressed into service. Injuries and deaths were common, so I listened to widows and those maimed in accidents. Often, all I needed was bottle of good alcohol. A basket of food, or some Chinese medicine, was more than enough, and I would follow up with some good detective work. I had to be careful, of course, but even the organs of state security have their price.” He smiled grimly.
“And where do you believe Ga was going?”
“There are several bases that have been dug into the mountains in that area. They were all extensive enough to accommodate surface-to-surface missiles. I can show you the ones I found, and how I found them.”
Once the Second Operations Command officer left to give the necessary orders, Kary managed to arrange for a few quiet moments with Cho, “to go over some organizational matters.” The 31st Division’s officers seemed reluctant to let him out of their sight, and Kary felt the same way. Privacy was impossible, and they settled for the near-empty officer’s mess, with Lieutenant Hak on the far side of the room.
They sat on opposite sides of a small table, pretending to drink their coffee. Kary couldn’t hide her uneasiness. “If you are unsure about doing this, we can wait. We could ask Colonel Little for his help.”
“To do what?” Cho asked. “Guarantee my safety? It looks bad when you’re more worried about your own side than the enemy.”
“And you don’t need to come back to Munsan for anything?” she asked.
“My home is in a tent with twenty-three other men. Everything I own fills about half of a footlocker under my cot…”
“I’ll hang onto it for you until you get back.”
“… and the most precious thing I have in the world is right in front of me.”
She smiled at the compliment, but still fussed. “I wish they’d let you have a phone. Not that phone,” she hastily added, “but a regular phone, so we could talk, at least a little.”
“I will very much miss talking to and being near you, Kary Fowler, but this should not take long, and then I will do my best to remain by your side for as long as you can stand me. And did you hear the general?” Cho laughed softly. “At first he was mad at me wearing the uniform, but then he said, ‘If you’re going to wear the uniform, you should just sign the papers.’”
She laughed. “And then you tried to bargain him up to lieutenant!”
He shrugged and smiled. “It was a long shot. Still, I might do it anyway. Starting as a sergeant is an intriguing offer. Besides, I need the pay.”
Kary’s brow furrowed. “For what?” she asked, curious.
“I don’t like living in a tent. When this is over, I want to buy a house. On a lake.” He reached over and squeezed her hand gently.
“That sounds wonderful,” she replied.
Chapter 20 — Strange Bedfellows
At first, Rhee didn’t like it. It jarred. He understood why Cho Ho-jin needed to keep a low profile. The army agreed. They had even made up a fake ID card for him. Or maybe not so fake. How was he different than the other Northerners who had answered the call to join the United Han Army? But then they really were soldiers, not just someone playing the role. Maybe it was because Cho wore a sergeant’s stripes. He hadn’t earned them, the way Master Sergeant Oh had.
Cho was earning his pay now, though, assuming they were paying him. Rhee had been allowed to sit in on Cho’s debriefing by army intelligence. He’d be betting his life on what Cho told them, after all.
The intelligence people were using one of the purpose-built trailers that had been brought to the base. It was electronically shielded, and had map displays and other equipment that let the analysts fit Cho’s information into the bigger picture. And he was filling in a lot of blank spots.
In addition to Rhee, representing the operators, there were regular army intelligence officers and a counterintelligence specialist from the National Intelligence Service. Everything Cho said was recorded, both on video and paper. That was good, because Rhee thought it would make a great book.
The Russians had trained Cho well, from his early teens, according to what Lieutenant Hak had heard. Cho could speak Russian fluently, and decent Chinese, but very little English. He’d demonstrated an excellent memory, and when pressured by the intelligence types, had responded calmly. They couldn’t rattle him.
Using many false identities, and with currency supplied by his Russian patrons, he’d operated successfully in one of the most repressive police states in the world. He’d been a peddler, a farmer searching for a runaway child, a soldier many times, and of course different government functionaries. Cho had bribed, deduced, and tracked down information the Russians wanted from the time he was twenty-two until now, twelve-plus years later.
He’d remained alive by never staying in one place too long, never forming any attachments, and by total dedication to one goaclass="underline" revenge against the Kim regime. Rhee was proud of what he’d done as a special operations soldier, but as he listened to the former spy, he had to admit that he could not do what Cho had done.
Cho used a digital map, zooming in to show fine detail, to trace his movements, where he’d gathered information, and where the clues had led. In his travels, often by foot, he’d found roads and rail lines that weren’t on any map, and signs of construction in narrow mountain valleys. Tracing power lines, in that energy-starved country, was a good technique. Crisscrossing the entire DPRK, he’d noticed long-term changes that hinted at deeper meanings. Once, he’d discovered the remains of a thriving village that had been forcibly moved, for no apparent reason.