Officer 2135 decided it was time to check in. He had been sitting in his apartment, looking at the grey sky. Evening was creeping in, which he actually preferred to the dim clouds during the day. His apartment had a yellow hue from his lights.
He got up from his couch and walked into his small bedroom. There was only enough room to walk in and sit on the bed. 2135 was never bothered by it. On the floor next to his bed was a small table. 2135 pushed it aside and looked underneath at the usual spot. A hand-sized door was cut out of the floor where the table stood. He thought of it more as a cubby. He opened the compartment and saw his phone in its plastic bag, sitting in the usual place.
Officer 2135 performed the same ritual he had every night for the last fifteen years. This has been quite a journey, he thought, as he reminisced back to his childhood.
He had seen many bright days in his small childhood town in South Korea. He never had much contact with foreigners. He had not seen a westerner or even a tourist from China until he was in college. Young 2135 had no need to run around town with others or take trips to a city to spend a few nights in clubs or bars. He was always content with himself. But he could always talk to anyone and had always felt respected by others in school. His soccer team voted him captain in high school. He suspected his journey had started when he joined the South Korean Army after college. He remembered having to take a psychology exam. He thought nothing of it at the time. He sat with his class of cadets and spent thirty minutes answering questions on a piece of paper. Most of the questions blurred with time. But a few stayed in his mind. One he remembered clearly was:
Imagine you have discovered an astonishing secret about a man in town who is not liked. Would you feel a need to:
a) Write an article about it
b) Talk to your friends about it
c) Talk only to your family about it
d) Keep it in your own head
He remembered sitting in the room and looking around at the other cadets. The majority had selected (c). Some of the other cadets marked (b). 2135 remembers thinking for an extra moment, and then filling in (d).
He remembered one other question:
Imagine you live in a large town. One day you save a young boy from drowning in the nearby lake. Which of the following do you feel would be the most appropriate?
a) You should be given an award by the mayor in a ceremony in front of the entire town
b) You don’t need an award but an article should be written in the newspaper about you
c) You don’t need a newspaper article about you but the boy’s parents should come and thank you
d) You don’t feel there should be any external recognition of your actions
After some thought, 2135 remembers circling (d). It felt the most correct to him, although he did not know why.
Several weeks later he was called into the commanding officer’s office. As he walked in he remembered immediately noticing two men in suits who were sitting on a couch. One had a dark blue suit, and the other had a grey suit. Officer 2135 remembered looking at them and seeing their unblinking gazes as they carefully observed his movements. The commanding officer told him that these two men wanted to talk to him and ask him a few questions. 2135 walked into another room with the two men. When they started asking questions, 2135 felt like he was being interrogated:
“Do you think there is a purpose to life?”
“Do you have any regrets in life?”
“We just learned that you failed your marksmanship test last week. How does that make you feel?”
“Your commanding officer says you are not one of the intelligent cadets. What do you think about that?”
“I heard you cheated on your university entrance exam. Is that true?”
“How would you approach a girl at a bar?”
“If I pointed out a mechanic working at a factory and told you to go make friends with him, what would you do?”
Officer 2135 always smiled when he thought about that meeting. He felt like a fencer trying to parry multiple swords attacking him. He had never been asked such probing and personal questions one after another. He still was not sure how he responded. He just threw out what was on his mind at the time.
2135 did not hear anything for two months. He in fact had forgotten about the incident altogether. Then came the day he finished his training. That day he found himself alone in the locker room, cleaning his gear. His unit had been given a few days to go home and rest, having just graduated. Some had already left and 2135 was planning to leave the next day. But as he was putting his gear away, a man in a suit walked into the locker room. 2135 remembers thinking nothing of it at first. There were civilian employees at the base who came and went occasionally. But this man was staring at him. 2135 remembered the next few minutes clearly.
“Hi.” 2135 had said.
“Hello. Congratulations on finishing your training.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“Me? Yes.”
“Do you want any tea or coffee?”
“No thank you.”
“I’m from the National Intelligence Service. Have you heard of what we do?”
“The NIS? I’m generally familiar.”
“What would you think if you were offered to join?”
“Me?” 2135 had said, almost unsure if the conversation was meant for him. “What would I do?”
“We have been watching you. You are unique. We think you will be a successful officer.”
“You mean you’re asking me to become a spy?”
“That’s correct. We think you have the right profile to be a deep cover officer, or illegal, in North Korea.”
“Illegal? What’s that?”
“We will train you and send you into North Korea. You will live and work as a citizen there. Your task will be to recruit contacts, or assets, and get information for us.”
“How do you just send someone in there? I heard you can’t live in that society unless you and your family have a verified ideological history.”
“We have ways to get people into that system. That will be part of your training.”
“How long would I spend there?”
“A long time. You need to establish an identity, get a job, rise within your job, recruit assets, and start getting information. That all takes years. We will tell you more in training.”
“What kind of training will I get?”
“We will supplement your military training with traditional intelligence, psychological, and social training so you can be effective. This type of work can only be done by people like you.”
After a pause, 2135 had made his decision.
“I accept.”
“Great. You may go home as planned. But instead of coming back here like you were told, report to the place on this piece of paper. This is the compound where you will be trained. Your commanding officers know and will not expect you back here.”
The man had handed him a piece of paper with a location.
“How long will I get trained for? Before I go in?”
“Two years. Have a good break. Enjoy your training. You will learn skills few know. By the way, no one, not even your parents can know what we discussed, OK?”
The man had left as suddenly as he came. That locker room conversation was what started all this, 2135 sometimes thought.
He now was sitting on his bed, holding his Samsung phone, which was out of its plastic bag and powered up. He was required to check it once a day for messages that Command might send him. The messages might be purely informational. Or they could be instructions. He could also send messages back whenever he wanted to. He sometimes sent mission updates but usually he was sending through information he had collected. This evening, he saw a new message from Command:
2135: Determine whether nuclear materials are going in or out of the port in your city.
Officer 2135 stopped to think. This was an odd mission. His broad objective for the last fifteen
years had nothing to do with nuclear weapons. He worked as the manager of the railway station in the city. He had access to the information on where regime members were traveling to and from, since rail was an important mode of transport for them. He sent back information on the movements of the regime insiders. But finding out if there were nuclear materials? This seemed like a sudden change in direction. He had never even heard of nuclear materials mentioned by any of his contacts, ever. But 2135 had a contact, an asset, who he thought he could even meet with tonight. He could try to get some information from this man, he thought.
Officer 2135 walked to his small kitchen and opened a cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of soju. He put the soju in a bag, turned off his lights and left his apartment.
He walked down the usual five flights of stairs and stepped out into the quiet city. Few people were outside. There was never much to do. A couple of homeless kids were sleeping on the street. The dark, overcast evening sky hung over the quiet city like a blanket. 2135 started making his way to the small hut his contact from the port lived in. Even though his training was well ingrained, 2135 always ran through some of the things he had learned fifteen years ago. Extracting information from an unsuspecting person was challenging. Extracting it in a way that the person never knew you sought the information was the highest challenge. That is what he had trained to do. That was what he knew he needed to do tonight as he walked to the house of his port contact, Choi.
The first lesson he learned at the compound where he received his training was the most elemental fact about human nature. Everything he had learned afterwards was built upon that foundation. In fact, everything else seemed like a footnote. He felt that he could have gone into North Korea having just learned that first lesson.
After he arrived at the compound, he soon realized he was the only trainee there. He learned that every illegal was trained alone. There were no other students at that facility. There were a number of instructors, but he was the only one there to learn. The facility itself was a complex that housed the instructors and their families. He realized he was to live with his instructors. Soon after he arrived, he sat in the small classroom alone as the first of his instructors walked in and asked if he was ready for his first, and most important lesson. 2135, remembers looking around awkwardly at the empty room, and replied that he was ready to learn. The instructor introduced himself as a psychologist.
“I will now teach you the most important lesson you will learn here. It will be the basis for all of your training going forward.”
“I’m ready.”
“What do you think is the one main driver of human behavior?”
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“If there was one aspect of human nature that drives the majority of how one acts, how one behaves, how one responds to others, what would you think that is?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never really thought about it. I didn’t even think such a concept existed. Aren’t different people driven by different things?”
“So here is lesson one and always remember this. John Dewey, an American philosopher and psychologist made a profound statement during the last century. He said the ‘deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important’. Never forget this. We go to work, meet people, talk, debate, dine together, buy luxuries, go out with friends and engage in many other activities because we want people to pay attention to us. We want people to be interested in us, in what we are doing, in what we are thinking, and especially in what we have to say. Have you heard of Dale Carnegie?”
“I’m not sure. Sounds familiar.”
“He wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People based on this concept. When you satisfy someone’s desire to feel important, you are providing a nourishment as important as food and water. You can make someone feel important in a number of ways. First, listen to others as they talk about themselves, and importantly drive any conversation towards them. People love talking about themselves. Praising people works as well. Showing admiration is highly effective. When you satisfy this desire for importance, you create a bond with other people. You open them up to where they can potentially be recruited as assets or sources of information. When you are in North Korea, you will not parade around, trying to recruit people by announcing you are a South Korean spy in need of information. Recruitment is a subtle art. By creating special bonds with people, you can quietly start influencing them so that they will want to help you. That’s how assets are recruited. Sometimes just by making someone feel important and creating that friendship, you might be able to get your intended information by asking innocuous questions. Your asset does not need to even be recruited. He will just think he’s saying something interesting about work to a friend.”
Now as 2135 walked towards the edge of the city, almost two decades later, he thought about how he had contacted Choi and developed him as an asset using that first lesson. He initiated contact five years ago when he realized he needed someone at the port. He had walked there one day and observed. Some men were working in groups but Choi was working by himself by a building. He seemed to be taking inventory. 2135 walked up to him and offered a cigarette. As they smoked together, 2135 mentioned how hard he and his colleagues at port were working. He then asked about Choi’s family. They struck up a friendship and soon were having drinks or cigarette breaks several times per month.
As 2135 approached Choi’s house that night, he thought that tonight should be much like those other meetings. But somehow he needed to figure out the question of nuclear weapons. He knocked on the door of the small hut. Within a minute Choi was standing there, smiling.
“Choi, I brought us some soju. Let’s sit outside and share some.” 2135 started.
“Wow. Thanks.” Choi replied.
“Do you want a cigarette?”
“I would love one. What brings you over here tonight?”
“I just wanted to celebrate my birthday with my best friend.”
Choi smiled, then asked, “How are you?”
“Doing well. How about you? How is your family?”
Officer 2135 spent the next several minutes asking questions about topics that 2135 knew interested Choi, including his family. He carefully directed the conversation towards Choi, and watched as Choi opened up and became more talkative. When the moment felt right, 2135 started indirectly probing for his desired information.
“You guys seem busy at port,” 2135 mused.
“Yes, well you know we’ve had a few ships come in this week so we are dealing with a lot of crews and cargo.”
“That’s strange that there are so many ships coming into port.”
“It’s actually interesting to tell you the truth. We’ve seen new ships come in this week. Ships I have never seen before.”
“I can’t imagine that. I would have thought you would have seen everything by now.”
“Well I actually thought so too. But this week I was surprised to see a new ship with a crew I have never seen before. Nobody at the port had seen them before. We did not want to approach them and ask, because we were afraid of getting in trouble.”
“The ship’s flag must have been strange. The crew must have looked strange too,” 2135 mused again. He had been trained to make musing statements rather than ask questions directly.
“I did not see the flag. Yes, the crew looked – strange. I’ve never seen men like that here.”
“I’m sure someone as smart as you can figure out where they were from.”
“Maybe I could. Maybe I’ll ask them when I’m loading their cargo tomorrow.”
“What cargo do they have?”
“I’m not sure. My inventory sheet just says to note how many containers they take.”
“I wonder what’s inside those containers.”
“Actually you know what’s interesting? What is really interesting is who brought them their cargo.”
“Why is that?”
“It was our army. Several groups of them dr
ove over in trucks. One of the men in the back had a special suit on.”
“What kind of suit?”
“I don’t mean a worker’s suit like I wear. This guy was wearing some kind of protective suit with a mask. He tried to quickly take it off in the back of the truck but I saw him.”
“Your job seems so interesting. Can I come for a cigarette break with you tomorrow morning?”
Choi smiled, “let’s do that. I’ll tell the other guys at the dock to find me if they see you.”
2135 made a mental note in his head to show up to the port the next day to see for himself who these people were. Command had figured something out, he thought. They were right to suspect that some kind of dangerous materials were passing through the port. Officer 2135 then refocused on his conversation with Choi. He directed the conversation back to Choi’s family.