Cole turned from the tee to watch al-Zayani shouting at his caddy in furious Arabic, but the charade didn’t fool Cole for one second; al-Zayani had wanted his caddy to cause a distraction so that Cole would make a bad shot. It was only his shift of mental focus away from the ball which had allowed him to see al-Zayani’s nod and had saved him from following through with the swing.
Al-Zayani turned to Cole, his face aghast. ‘I am so sorry my friend, that was an unforgivable error. I will have Ahmed fired from the club immediately.’ He turned again, shouting more insults to the shame-faced caddy.
‘That’s alright,’ Cole said, ‘really. Don’t fire him, these things happen. I’m sure he’s very good at doing what he’s told.’
Al-Zayani’s eyes narrowed at the implication, but he said no more on the subject, just gestured with his hand for Cole to play the shot again.
Cole returned to his position, already steadying his breath, once again entering the zone he needed to be in. His mind was so clear, so focused, and yet he was thinking of nothing at all as the driver swept through the air in a perfect arc, the titanium head striking the ball with a satisfying thwack which sent it soaring over the path of al-Zayani’s ball to land just a dozen yards from the eighteenth hole.
Cole turned to al-Zayani and smiled. ‘I’ll have to ask for your caddy next time,’ he said amicably. ‘Must be my good luck charm.’
Al-Zayani ignored Cole completely, grunting as he strode past him towards his ball.
Cole watched al-Zayani as he went, having learnt something about the man’s character. He was a cheat and a bad loser, but did that mean he was involved in terrorism?
Cole followed al-Zayani onto the fairway, content that he would soon be finding out.
5
The Saudi National Oil Beach was on the eastern side of Half Moon Bay, a journey which took Cole just over half an hour in one of the company limousines.
As he was escorted to the front door of the yacht club, he looked around to verify that nothing obvious had changed since his visit earlier that day. Pleased that everything was still the same, Cole strolled through into the club, wandering to the bar where he ordered a black coffee.
Cole had eventually won the game by a single point, managing to sink the ball on his first putt. Al-Zayani, to his horror, had taken three shots after his initial drive to put the ball away, leaving Cole able to choose the location for dinner.
Al-Zayani had been visibly frustrated by his loss, and Cole saw a violent temper flaring behind the genteel façade; but he had nevertheless accepted the situation and agreed to take Cole to the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club for dinner that evening. There were to be no more business talks for the day, al-Zayani claiming he had urgent appointments to keep. But like the caddy ‘accidentally’ dropping his clubs, Cole saw through the lie straight away; al-Zayani was just too upset over his loss to spend any more time with Cole.
As a man responsible for the finance, strategy and development of a trillion dollar company, Cole saw the move as a sign of weakness; he had let personal feelings get in the way of business, something that should never happen at this level. He sipped his black coffee as he considered the fact that Dan Chadwick would probably have let al-Zayani win; after all, it was Texas Mainline that stood to make the most from the proposed deal.
But Cole’s agenda was somewhat different to Chadwick’s; and after tonight, a potential business deal with Texas Mainline would be the last thing on al-Zayani’s mind.
The camp loomed before them in the green half-light of their night-vision binoculars, hidden deep in a mountain crevasse.
Navarone estimated the camp to cover at least a hundred acres, roughly a thousand yards long by four hundred wide, occupying the great majority of the narrow valley. It was bordered by two sets of huge barbed wire fences, undoubtedly mined down the strip which separated them, and concrete guard towers overlooked everything from all four corners.
Inside the camp, there were four single-story concrete buildings which he assumed were where the prisoners were held, and Navarone estimated that they probably contained upwards of a hundred people in each one.
Details were scarce on the ground about the North Korean political prison system, and Camp 14 was especially secretive; Chinese intelligence believed that it was here that the regime’s most feared enemies were taken for interrogation and ‘realignment’ with the republic’s ideology. It wasn’t known how many people were held here, but Navarone could see that it must number in the hundreds.
There were other buildings that he could make out through his binoculars; barracks for the soldiers, which he saw coming and going at changes of shift; a wooden structure that could have been a cookhouse and canteen; another four-story concrete structure that was probably the camp’s administrative headquarters; and several other smaller buildings which were scattered around the compound.
A man came out of one of the barrack buildings and lit a cigarette. The uniform caught Navarone’s eye, and he zoomed in. It was a major, and Navarone wondered if he was the camp commandant. He gestured to his men, and they all took note.
Navarone’s attention moved away, to other structures that he could make out beyond the camp, hidden further down the valley. Some were military checkpoints and sentry shacks, but there were other buildings fenced off away from the others which Navarone found it harder to identify. There was no activity there at this time of night, but the vast network of metal piping on the outside seemed to indicate some sort of industrial use.
Navarone tried to focus his binoculars for a better look, but it was no use; the mystery buildings were beyond the far side of the camp, and no more detail could be made out.
‘Tony, Liu,’ he breathed quietly over his throat mike, ‘let’s move around the valley to check out those buildings over on the east side.’ There were double clicks of affirmation over the radio, and Navarone spoke again. ‘Frank,’ he said to Jaffett, ‘you’ve got control here until we get back.’
There was a double click to confirm the order, and Navarone rose silently, slipping off through the dark forest with Tony Devine of SEAL Team Six and Liu Yingchao of the People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Force right behind him.
For some reason, his gut told him that whatever they were looking for would be found in those strange industrial buildings fenced off outside the main camp, and he wanted to be in position for reconnaissance before first light.
Whatever was stolen from this camp was now out in the open, in the hands of an unknown enemy, and Navarone knew they might not have much time left.
Major Ho Sang-ok smoked a cigarette and sighed. He was a long way from home, and a very long way from the relative luxuries of Pyongyang.
It sickened him that he was here at this forsaken prison camp in the remote northern wilds but, he considered as he took in a deep lungful of delightfully warming smoke, at least he wasn’t dead.
Not yet anyway.
His last meeting at the headquarters of the RGB had not gone well; Lieutenant General U Chun-su had been furious about the situation in Jakarta, and unsurprisingly so. U had had to report his bureau’s failings directly to the Minister of State Security himself, which must have been no easy feat.
But U had survived too, and Ho soon found out why; the RGB was being given one last chance to make this mission a success. President Kim had not yet been informed of the details, and there was still a chance that his ultimate order — the arranged reunification of Korea — could still be carried out.