‘They can also land commandos behind enemy lines. We do not need to spend billions on one plane for it to be a good weapon.’ The colonel puffed out his chest in smug pride as the group rounded the blockhouse and the depths of the underground space came into full view.
It was an irregularly shaped artificial cavern the size of several football pitches. Hefty pillars were dotted throughout to support the fifty-foot-high ceiling, upon which was an endless grid of harsh lights. It was not the scale of the facility that made Eddie and Nina stop in surprise, though. It was what it was being used to build.
A production line occupied most of the vast space. But it was not making vehicles.
The seemingly random collection of metal pieces at one end gradually took on deadly form as they progressed through the factory. Curved plates became fuel tanks, mating with pumps and pipework and enclosed in cylindrical bodies, all to the percussive accompaniment of rivet guns and the crackle of welding torches. The bell-like nozzles of rocket motors were fitted at one end, conical nosecones at the other. The final results were revealed in all their sinister glory at the end of the line.
Missiles.
A fully completed example hung in a cradle, several white-overalled men inspecting it carefully. Sixty feet long and five in diameter, its two stages were painted a mottled camouflage green. There were no fins or anything else to break up its shape, a harsh, uncompromising digit of death.
This one was not yet ready to leave its birthplace. But it had siblings that were.
Parked at the line’s end were three enormous trucks, Chinese lumber transporters adapted for military purposes to avoid the arms embargo. Each vehicle had sixteen wheels, spreading the weight of a hefty hydraulic lifting system designed to raise its cargo from its horizontal bed to the vertical. They were TELs — transporter erector launchers, built to ferry ballistic missiles by road and fire them without the need for expensive and easily targeted silos.
And these were loaded. Each TEL bore a missile. ‘Shit,’ said Eddie as he stared at the weapons. ‘Those are ICBMs!’
Kang stopped, his subordinates all following suit. ‘You know our weapons?’ he asked with evident suspicion.
‘Call it a hobby,’ the Englishman replied with what he hoped was a disarming smile. He decided not to mention that his knowledge of missiles came largely from SAS briefings, where he had been taught to identify the weapons of hostile powers for the purposes of sabotage. ‘That looks like a modified Scud first stage with a copy of a Russian sub-launched missile on top of it. Just a guess, mind.’ He smiled again.
Kang’s scowl confirmed he was probably right, but the North Korean was not about to admit that his country was reliant upon second-hand designs. ‘You guess wrong. That is our latest missile, the Hwasong-15.’
Eddie shrugged. ‘I’ll update Wikipedia.’
Nina had noticed something about the missiles — not just the ones still under construction, but the completed articles on the TELs. Or rather, the incomplete articles. The tapered nosecones were abruptly truncated at the tip, looking like empty bullet casings. ‘They’re missing something.’
Eddie had spotted it too. ‘Yeah, looks like you haven’t put the warheads on ’em yet.’
Kang’s small smile was both unexpected and alarming. ‘They will soon be ready. Now come.’ He set off again, his men falling in behind him. Nina and Eddie exchanged concerned glances, then followed.
They continued around to the far side of the blockhouse, seeing more of the colossal space. Across the cavern were ranks of huge cylindrical tanks marked with red warning symbols; the missiles could be fuelled for launch before being loaded on to the TELs. The group’s destination was closer by, however. A large opening in the floor housed a trio of elevator tracks that descended deeper into the bowels of the mountain. A chain-link fence was the only barrier around the gaping chasm, the two waiting elevator cars open-topped cages with folding metal gates. ‘I guess North Korea isn’t big on workplace safety,’ Nina muttered.
A soldier hurried ahead of the two officers to open the gates of one car. Kang and Bok entered, the translator gesturing for Eddie and Nina to join them. A couple of the other troops followed them in, the remaining soldiers entering the second car.
The elevator was manually operated, the first soldier closing the gates and going to a control board to take hold of a large brass lever. He pulled it, and the car began its lumbering descent, the cables shrilling alarmingly. The second car followed on the parallel track. A stifling breeze gusted up from below, the shaft providing ventilation as well as access.
Rough rock walls slid past, opening out some eighty feet below to reveal another subterranean floor. This was not as large as the first, though still cavernous in its own right. More production lines were at work, some producing the microlight aircraft they had seen above, others an assortment of heavy weapons. Facility 17 was operating at full tilt to build up the North Korean war machine.
Bok saw Nina’s trepidation. ‘Impressive, yes?’
‘Seen bigger,’ Eddie replied, dismissively and truthfully.
The major smiled with all the charm of a rattlesnake. ‘But we have a lot more to show you.’
Nina’s worry grew stronger still. North Korea was revealing its military secrets to two foreigners — one of whom was a citizen of its most hated enemy. Even if they believed she was purely motivated by financial greed, it seemed unlikely that such a show would be given without consequences.
A new floor rolled by, markedly smaller, with several tunnels leading out of the main space. It was home to another assembly line, but this was not currently in operation, the machinery covered by dust sheets. There was still plenty of activity going on out of sight, however: an endless clinking and hammering of tools on stone. Down one of the tunnels she glimpsed a conveyor belt carrying stones towards the cargo elevator she had seen earlier. The rubble dumped in the forest was excavated from here — by hand, there being no noise from drills or jackhammers. Nina didn’t even want to imagine how many unfortunates were being forced to expand the underground base.
But her own concerns quickly returned as the lowest level came into view below. The air was now unpleasantly hot, banks of whirling fans at the shaft’s foot forcing it upwards. Whatever was going on was producing a lot of waste heat.
The car stopped. The other elevator arrived alongside it and everyone filed out. The three Kims, larger than life, watched them beatifically from a wall.
Kang waited for the group to assemble before leading the way through a set of double doors. Beyond was a short corridor. He exchanged words with a man in a captain’s uniform, then nodded and dismissed him. The young officer disappeared into a side room occupied by several other soldiers. The colonel continued on to the end of the passage, where a pair of metal sliding doors emblazoned with strident warnings in Korean blocked the way. He swiped a keycard through a reader and the barrier rumbled open. ‘In here,’ he said.
Nina and Eddie followed him into a large, softly lit control room. It resembled that of a power station, banks of monitoring equipment lining the walls and large boards covered with indicator lights showing the status of numerous systems. The hardware’s styling was dated, the moulded plastic panelling straight out of the 1970s, but a cluster of flat-screen monitors and a brace of laptops showed that at least some of the systems were up to date. Several technicians in white coats stood and bowed respectfully to the facility’s commander. Behind them, a bank of windows overlooked a large subterranean chamber, though from where she stood, Nina couldn’t see what lay below.
Kang spoke to a senior technician, then faced the Westerners. Bok stood beside him with an air of malevolent anticipation. The soldiers spread out behind Nina and Eddie, blocking the exit. ‘All right,’ said Eddie, ‘what’s all this?’