CHAPTER 48
EARLY THURSDAY
Northeast Coast, North Korea
Tom pointed his ADS at the crowd of soldiers. He was holding it in his left hand. He kept it tucked onto his hip, allowing him to keep it stable without keeping both hands on it. He set the beam on the widest setting, so it would not shoot at a point but in a wide area. He thought of it like squeezing the end on a garden hose so that the water came out as a shower instead of a sharp stream. In his right hand he held his Sig Saur pistol. Tom knew exactly what he was going to do.
Tom squeezed the trigger on the ADS. Instantly, each of the 40 soldiers standing around erupted into a scream. Some started jumping up and down. Others dropped to the ground and started wiggling around and rolling. Some of the soldiers started to take their uniforms off. They had no idea what was happening because they were not trying to step away like the soldier did on the test range. They did not know there was a beam hitting them. Tom imagined that they just thought their bodies had caught fire. As Tom watched, he thought it looked like some kind of spontaneous dance ritual. Men were jumping, rolling, shaking and frantically waving their arms. The sound of their loud screams cut through the quiet night like a sharp knife.
Tom held the trigger and kept shooting the beam at the KPA unit as he started to walk slowly towards the crowd. Tom had remembered one small unit infantry tactic they had learned in SEAL training. It was an older tactic that was not often used by modern military forces. It was called marching fire. A unit would march forward towards the enemy and start firing without taking much time to aim. In modern warfare, military units typically leapfrogged. This meant that one soldier would lay down a stream of fire to make the enemy hide, while another soldier ran forward. Then the soldier who ran forward would start firing, allowing his colleague to run forward. This way they could securely advance towards an enemy. But marching fire was different. A unit would simply fire and walk forward simultaneously. It looked crazy, but it had success during World War II. Tom remembered reading General Patton’s memoirs and being surprised that Patton was a major proponent of marching fire and his units in World War II used it often.
Tom now did what Patton would have had him do. He slowly moved forward while hitting the soldiers with his beam. He had now walked almost half way towards them. None of the soldiers had a rifle in his hands any longer. None even saw Tom. They were solely focused on their burning pain. Tom figured that he had been holding the beam at them for almost seven seconds – already more than double what most test subjects could withstand. Now as Tom approached, he spotted the man who had been holding a radio in his hands earlier. The radio was now lying on the ground next to the man, who was writhing on his back. Tom took aim with his pistol in his other hand and pulled the trigger. The radio exploded and started releasing smoke.
Now they can’t call anyone for help.
Tom continued walking and soon was within ten feet of the crowd. He had been hitting them with the ADS for 10 seconds now. He released the trigger and pointed his pistol at them. He started motioning with his pistol by waving it in a circle. He was signaling to roll on their stomachs. After a few seconds, a few of the soldiers actually noticed that there was a black uniformed figure standing above them. Some of the soldiers instinctively reached for their rifles. One soldier on Tom’s right grabbed the butt of his rifle and started pulling it in. Tom shot him with his pistol. Another soldier tried to do the same on his left and Tom shot him as well. He saw the men’s faces looking up at him – many of them had burn marks already. The crowd, now having fully noticed Tom, started moving as if trying to stand and many now tried reaching for a gun.
I’ll give them a reminder.
Tom pulled the trigger on the ADS and the crowd of soldiers started screaming again. One soldier tried to get up and run away from the beam. Tom shot him with his pistol.
Then Tom ceased firing with his ADS. Now he made another motion with his pistol for the soldiers to roll on their stomachs. He raised his ADS to show that he was ready to use it again. This time the men complied. Within seconds the entire group was on the ground, on their chests with their arms out. Some of them took longer to roll over. They all looked burned.
“Yankee Actual. What are you going to do with them? Over.”
“I’m going to flexcuff them. Over.”
Tom pulled out the plastic handcuffs he carried on missions. He realized he did not have enough to cuff each soldier individually. He thought about how he could securely tie up all of the soldiers with only the fifteen or so cuffs he had. First he got back on the radio.
“I’m going to put my radio on loudspeaker. Give the microphone to Mr. Park. Tell him to tell this group that they are surrounded and we will shoot if they move or talk. Over.”
“Yankee Actual. Standby.”
Tom switched his radio so that it would broadcast to the group. Then he heard Mr. Park’s soft voice.
“Tom, I’m ready.”
“OK go ahead.”
Mr. Park’s said a phrase in Korean two times. Tom saw the soldiers perk up their heads, as they heard something they could understand.
“Mr. Park, tell them to nod their heads if they understand.”
Mr. Park made a quick statement, and Tom saw that everyone lying down in front of him was nodding his head up and down. Tom walked up to the soldiers and started putting his flexcuffs on them. It took about one second to slip them on and tighten them, so in less than half a minute, over one third of the soldiers were lying with their hands cuffed behind their back. Tom started thinking what he would do next. On his typical missions, he never had to deal with tying up such a large force of enemy soldiers. Then again, he thought, this mission stopped being typical the moment he got on the beach.
He holstered his ADS on his back and pulled out his knife. He walked up to one of the dead soldiers who had tried to fight him. He took off the man’s shoes and then cut off the man’s pants. He only cut off the leg of the pants. Tom then cut down lengthwise and opened up a rectangle of strong cloth. He then started cutting strands widthwise from the rectangle of cloth. In less than one minute he had a pile of pieces of string. He looked up when he had finished cutting. None of the men on the ground had moved. He started walking up to the soldiers who were not yet cuffed and picked out the first two he saw. He aimed his ADS at them as he helped them to his feet. He then got back on his radio.
“Mr. Park, tell these two to take the strands of cloth I have here and tie everyone’s hands behind their backs. Tell them I will check each one and if they are not tight, I will shoot both of them.”
Mr. Park relayed the statement in Korean and soon the two soldiers were grabbing the strands of cloth and tying everyone’s hands. Tom stood back with the ADS aimed at them. He decided to have these soldiers tie up their colleagues because it would have taken too much time for him to do it. It would have been enough time for someone to grab a gun.
Once the two soldiers were finished tying everyone’s hands behind his back, they stood and looked at Tom. Tom motioned with his hand for them to turn around. Tom checked the knots they had tied and was pleased to see that they were tight.
“Mr. Park, tell these two soldiers to help everyone else stand up. Say that once they are on their feet, if they try to run, I will make it feel like fire again.”
Tom’s radio broadcasted the new message to the group. Tom paused for a moment. Then the two soldiers who tied the knots started helping the soldiers on the ground to their feet. In less than a minute, the entire group was standing in a line.
“Now Mr. Park. Tell them to march forward to the woods.”
Again, Mr. Park’s voice called out a command on the radio. The group of soldiers started marching forward, towards the tree line to the side of the entrance. Once the last man crossed into the woods, Tom caught their attention and held out his hand, signaling them to stop.
Tom got back on his radio to Mr. Park. “Now tell them to lie down.”
Soon the group was lying
down among the trees and plants.
“Mr. Park, tell those two soldiers to tie everyone’s ankles and to put a blindfold on everyone.” After the translation, the two men started working again. Once everyone was fully tied up, Tom motioned for his two accomplices to lie down. He walked up to them and tied their hands and ankles, and he wrapped a strand of cloth around their eyes. Then Tom went through the rest of the group and checked the new knots on the ankles. They were all tight. Those soldiers must be afraid, Tom thought.
He got back on his radio.
“Last thing, Mr. Park. Tell them my teammates are watching them. If they stay quiet, nothing will happen to them. If they make any noise or start moving, they will be shot.”
Mr. Park gave the final message through Tom’s radio. The men nodded as though they understood. Tom looked at his watch. It had only taken him about ten minutes to clear the area. Anderson got back on the radio.
“That seems like it was effective.”
“Tell Eric I’m not sure if that’s how the ADS was supposed to be used, but it seemed to work well,” Tom replied.
“Will do. OK. Proceed. Over.”
Tom walked out of the forest. He looked back quickly to make sure everyone was still on the ground. They were. Tom now thought he had to be quick in the base. If a patrol came across the men tied up in the woods and an open door into the underground facility, it could quickly become a disaster.
Tom walked up to the concrete structure sticking up out of the field. It was about eight feet tall and it looked like an industrial box that just fell out of the sky and landed in the middle of nowhere. The metal door looked thick and heavy, even though it was shut. Tom tried to push down on the large handle. It did not budge. He pulled out an explosive charge out of one of the straps on his chest and set it on top of the handle, where the locking mechanism to the door would sit. When it was set, Tom started the fuse and then ran around the back of the structure. He kneeled against the wall and looked down. In fifteen seconds the charge made a loud pop and the door swung open. The sound irritated one’s ears in the silence of the night.
Tom shifted around the structure so that he was now on the side. He held up his M4. He waited for a moment. He knew that if a unit was stationed inside, they might have been surprised by the blast and would try to run outside to see what it was. As they ran out the door, he would be behind them and could shoot them without them seeing him. He also watched the surrounding woods for any patrols.
After quietly waiting, he saw on his watch that one-minute had passed. The silence continued as the two-minute mark approached. Not only did nobody run out of the door, but Tom did not hear any voices or sounds coming from inside the structure.
“Yankee Main. Target door is open. No sign of kilos inside. I’m going in. Over.”
“Copy that. Go ahead. Don’t forget to put the signal booster on the door. Over.”
Tom had brought along a small square device that had a suction cup on one side. It would maintain the signal between Tom and the satellite while he was underground. He got up off his knee and walked towards the entrance, his M4 raised. He stepped in front of the open entrance quickly, with his rifle pointed, his finger ready to pull the trigger. He saw was a staircase leading straight down into darkness. Next to the stairs was a large elevator door. Tom imagined that this elevator brought countless workers or soldiers into the base below each day. Tom put on his night vision goggles and pulled out the signal booster. He stuck it right on the inside of the door so that if someone came in after him, he would not be able to see the signal booster. It could only be seen coming out of the entrance.
Tom looked down the stairway again. It went down fifteen or twenty steps and then reached a landing where he would need to turn 180 degrees and continue down. He pointed his rifle and started walking down, careful to stay on the balls of his feet in order to make as little noise as possible. As he stepped down towards the landing he listened for any sounds, but heard nothing. The stairwell was quiet. It was a dark silence that could send chills up the spine, a pitch-black silence to match the pitch-black sight. Tom was glad for his night vision, which allowed him to see the steps he was trying to use. Soon he was on the landing. As he looked around him he noticed he had to descend several more flights of stairs. He continued down. Within a few minutes he could see the bottom of the last set of steps and paused. He still did not hear any movement or voices, so after a moment he continued down. As he approached the bottom, the inside of the facility came into view. Tom saw that he was descending into the center of a small corridor. It extended out for about thirty feet after which it opened up into a large warehouse-type space. Tom stopped when he reached the bottom of the stairs. He paused for a moment. It felt like he had climbed down into the center of Earth.
I’m inside the base.
On either side of the corridor stretching out in front of him, Tom saw doors and windows. They looked like a series of offices. The Command Room saw it too.
“Can you go up to one of those windows and just peek inside the office for a second?” Tom smiled as he imagined Anderson was probably standing one foot away from the large screen, trying to see everything and saying whatever was on his mind.
“Roger,” Tom replied. He walked up to the first window on the right and stared through it. It looked like a normal office. There was a desk, some papers, binders, notebooks, pens, and even an old computer, one with a thick monitor.
“It just looks like an office,” Tom said.
“Can you step inside and just see if there’s anything interesting in there?”
Tom was surprised. “Wouldn’t it just be better to go straight in the warehouse and start looking around? What are we going to see in an office?”
“Well let’s just see if anything is in this office. Just look for twenty seconds and then walk over to that warehouse space.”
“Roger.”
Tom reached for the handle on the door that led to the office he was looking into. This handle was not locked. He pushed the door open and then went inside. From the inside it appeared to be a normal office as well. The one thing that bothered Tom was a stuffy smell he could sense immediately. He walked up to the desk. He grabbed one of the pieces of paper and looked at it. It was written in Korean as he expected so he did not know if he was staring at a poem or instructions to build a nuclear bomb. He saw that there was a “39” at the top in larger font. It looked like a heading.
“I obviously can’t read any of this.” Tom said into his radio.
“I’m putting the main microphone in the room back on.” After a quick pause Anderson was back, but sounded farther away. “Tom, hold that piece of paper closer up to the helmet camera. Mr. Park is going to try to read it.”
Tom held the page about a foot away from the camera on his head. Soon he heard Mr. Park’s voice.
“This looks like some kind of document referencing a ship that was being chartered. A cargo ship of some kind.”
Anderson quickly said, “That’s unsettling. But it doesn’t have anything to do with nuclear technology?”
“No,” Mr. Park said definitively.
Tom asked the one question that was itching his mind, “What do you think that 39 means at the top?”
“Could it be the 39th ship they were hiring?” This time Sara spoke.
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I’m looking at all of these pieces of paper and each one has a 39 at the top or somewhere on it. The notebooks all have a 39 on the front too. Even the computer has a sticker on it that says 39. Mr. Park, does 39 mean anything?” As Tom looked around, he saw a 39 on everything.
Tom heard Mr. Park’s voice slowly respond to him. “It could.” Then he paused. “I think it would be a good idea to go take a look at that warehouse.” Tom thought Mr. Park sounded like he had understood something, but was not sure. Tom put the piece of paper down. He walked out of the office and shut the door behind him. He turned right and started walking towards the large entrance to a
massive open, dark space. He walked slowly past the other offices. He tried to see what was past the threshold ahead. He could not make it out, but as he came closer, it looked like aisles of shelves.
When he arrived at the entrance to the warehouse he stopped. He listened again for any sound. Again he heard absolute silence. He tried to gauge the size of the underground warehouse stretching out in front of him. It looked like an airplane hanger.
“This warehouse looks to be around 3 football fields long and about two football fields wide” Tom said after looking around.
Anderson’s voice came on, “Got it. Wow. Do you want to take a look at those shelves ahead of you? What’s that stuff sitting on them?”
“Roger.”
Tom walked ten feet to the aisle in front of him. It stood about seven feet tall and seemed to have about seven shelves. It was difficult to make it out even with the night vision, so Tom flipped up the goggles and turned on a small flashlight on his helmet. He shined it on the shelves.
All the voices in the Command Room burst out. “Oh my God. Is that - what kind of base is this?”
Tom started at it in silence. In front of him on all of the shelves were bags. They looked like bricks, filled with a white powder. They were stacked up on each shelf. Tom saw that there was a sign above the shelf.
“That sign says ‘heroin,’” Mr. Park said back in the Command Room. Tom looked down the aisle of shelves to his right. He saw bag after bag of white powder, or heroin as it was now identified.
“What is this place? Is there anything else here?” Anderson said.
Tom started walking down the aisle. He looked at the shelves of heroin, making sure his helmet camera had a good view. When he got to the end of the aisle, Tom realized that he had just walked by millions of dollars worth of heroin. At the end of the aisle, he could see the warehouse better. He saw that there were many rows of these shelves. At roughly the center of the warehouse, there was more open space.
“Tom, can you walk through another one of these aisles?” Anderson asked.
“Roger”
Tom walked past a few and then turned into the fifth or sixth aisle. He aimed his head at the shelves as he walked through it, again so the Command Room had a good view.
“Is that -?” Sara began. “I think that’s –.“ Tom grabbed one of the bags off the shelf. Instead of a white powder, he saw what looked like a pile of crystals.”
Mr. Park declared, “This sign says Methamphetamine.”
“Crystal Meth? They aren’t kidding around.” Anderson replied. Tom continued walking down the aisle.
“This entire row looks like it’s shelves of meth,” Tom said as he reached he middle of the aisle. He sped up to get to the end of the aisle. It was a long walk however.
“Is all this here meth too?” Sara asked.
“Roger, this is still meth.” Tom walked by and looked at shelves stocked full of these bags of crystals. He looked up and saw the top shelves piled with at least ten bags. The other shelves had fewer, but were so full Tom could barely stick his hand through when he tried to grab another bag to check it. Tom continued walking and after a few minutes reached the end of the aisle.
“Tom, can you see what that open space in the middle of this warehouse is?” Sara asked.
“Roger.” Tom walked past the other aisles. As he walked past each one he glanced down to see what was there. At this point, Tom was not surprised.
“Guys, I don’t know if it’s coming across clearly on the helmet cam, but each of these aisles I’m walking past is stocked full of drugs as well.”
“Roger. We see it.”
Tom kept walking past what seemed like endless aisles of drugs. He spotted more bags of powder and crystals but also tablets. After finally walking past the last aisle he saw a vast open space in front of him, free of aisles. Within the vast space, two large glass rooms sat alone. They looked like large, clear boxes resting on the ground. Tom realized he was looking at laboratories, enclosed so that the chemicals they were mixing did not get into the warehouse. He could see right inside. There were several long rectangular tables. They were outfitted with Bunsen burners, beakers, trays, tubes and sinks. By the entrance to the glass rooms, he saw coatracks that hosted several hanging lab coats. There were tables next to them with masks and gloves. Tom walked up to the glass rooms. He noticed a pipe coming out of the top and going straight to the roof of the warehouse.
“Those are ventilation shafts coming out of those rooms. Those are meth labs,” Sara said.
Tom walked up to one of the rooms and stared inside. The lab looked clean but it also looked used. Test tubes had residue. The Bunsen burners looked burned around the edges.
“These look like they are in active use,” he said on his radio. Tom looked further back into the warehouse and saw that there was something past the glass labs. He walked over to take a look. He aimed his helmet light up high to illuminate more space.
“That looks like an assembly line, a production space.” Sara said back in the Command Room. In front of Tom there were at least ten long tables that stretched out at least thirty feet. Stools sat on either side. It looked like a typical setup in a manufacturing facility. But as Tom walked closer he saw empty bags stacked up in piles. They looked like empty versions of the bags holding the drugs in the shelves he saw earlier. Tom looked at the wall behind the tables and saw several large elevator doors. He assumed these went to other entrances in the forest and were probably used to load and unload the drugs.
“So this is basically a big drug-making factory,” Anderson finally said. “We have yet to see any sign of any nuclear research.”
Tom at this point noticed a desk that sat by itself against the side wall. It looked like a floor manager’s desk. He walked towards it. As he got closer, his flashlight revealed that it had a lot of papers and folders piled up. When Tom reached it, he grabbed one of the folders at the top of the pile and looked at it. It also had some writing and then a “39” written on the front.
By now Anderson had become curious about this as well. “So what do you think this ‘39’ means Mr. Park?”
Tom heard Mr. Park take a deep breath and then begin. “What it says on the folder is ‘Room 39’. This looks like a facility belonging to Room 39. I can’t believe it.”
Anderson asked the obvious, “What is Room 39?”
“Room 39 is a secret organization in North Korea. It is a group that attempts to make money for the regime. It operates various front companies in the world that do or sell illegal things to make money and then launder it for the regime. Companies run by Room 39 have been found engaging in insurance fraud around the world, weapons sales to terrorist groups or dictators, counterfeiting currency including the dollar, trafficking women and slaves around the world, and a variety of other things. They even run a chain of restaurants throughout Asia. They do all of these activities and make a lot of money – they have made billions of dollars over the years. We’ve known about it, but we have never been inside one of their facilities.”
“Why is it called ‘Room 39,’” Anderson asked. By now Tom had opened a small utility bag he brought and began stuffing it with the documents on the desk.
“It is called Room 39 because its headquarters are located on the third floor of the Workers’ Party building in Pyongyang. They might have called it that because the set of offices they occupied were numbered 39. This is effectively the personal investment office for the regime. They make money, allowing the regime to take that cash and buy the various luxuries it needs. You always hear stories about how the regime is one of the largest buyers of Hennessy cognac or that they buy yachts or expensive watches. This is how they afford these things. They also use the money to buy luxuries to award high-ranking officials. The regime basically buys their loyalty.”
Tom had finished grabbing most of the papers on the desk and started walking further back into the warehouse. He finally joined in the conversation.
“S
o this is Room 39’s drug wing? They make heroin and meth and do what? Export it out?”
“Yes,” Mr. Park continued, “We have been receiving reports that North Korean embassies around the world were told that they were to become responsible for selling drugs like heroin in their respective countries. The North Koreans also work with other groups to get the drugs sent around the world. Have you heard of the Pong Su incident?”
Everyone in the conference room replied, “no,” Mr. Park went on, “In 2006, a ship called the Pong Su, flying the Tuvalu flag, was spotted off the coast of Australia. Police followed several men who landed ashore. They eventually found them in a hotel with 50kg of heroin. Then when the Australian SAS raided the Pong Su, they found another 150kg of heroin aboard. The smugglers who came ashore were not North Korean. They were Southeast Asian. But the leaders on the ship were North Korean. One was a Workers’ Party official. That would be like finding a member of your President’s administration on a ship carrying heroin. It was an unbelievable catch made by the Australians. The Pong Su was also outfitted with enough fuel and supplies to travel around the world nonstop.”
“So it would have moved on and dropped heroin off at other countries around the world after it left Australia?” Sara asked.
“Exactly. One wonders how many North Korean drug ships have made global trips like this already,” Mr. Park said.
Tom jumped in, “Mr. Park, when your analysts briefed me, they said that one of your deep cover officers had spotted some strange European-Middle Easterners at the port near here. Your officer also spotted men in radioactive suits. I’m guessing that the explanation now is that those men he spotted were international drug smugglers and those radioactive suits were really the protective suits sitting next to the meth lab.”
“That would make sense now,” Mr. Park replied. “This is the facility where Room 39 makes all of their drugs. They then ship it out of the port nearby in Chongjin. They probably sometimes send it out on ships managed by officials from Room 39, as in the case of Pong Su. Because they have so much of these drugs, they probably also send some off with smuggling groups.”
“How many people work for Room 39” Sara asked.
“In terms of the officials managing it and running the various companies and operations, it’s hundreds of people. But if you include all of the workers that you would see in a drug factory like this, it would be in the thousands,” Mr. Park replied.
By now Tom had found a door on the outer wall of the warehouse. It looked large and heavy unlike the office doors he had seen earlier. Tom tried to press on the handle but it was locked. He kicked it several times but it did not open. He aimed at the lock with his M4 and shot it three times. Now he grabbed the handle and was able to open the door. Tom quickly put on his night vision goggles and turned off his flashlight. He wanted to first make sure the room did not have anyone in it. He entered it quickly with his rifle pointed. He soon saw that there was nobody inside, but he saw something strange instead. He flipped up his night vision goggles and turned on his helmet light. What he illuminated would shock anyone who saw it.
“Wow,” someone in the Command Room said.
In front of Tom was a large table. On it was more cash than Tom had ever seen in his life. US dollars were piled at least three feet high and covered the entire table. Tom walked up closer. He saw that most of the bills were hundred dollar bills. He looked around the rest of the room. There were more bills piled up along the sides of the room.
“Tom, take a few of those. We can give it to the Secret Service for analysis,” Anderson said. Tom took a stack of bills from the table and put it in his utility bag. Tom remembered that the US Secret Service was responsible for tracking financial crimes, in addition to protecting the President. Tom wondered if the bills he was packing were counterfeit or real. As Tom was packing the bills, he spotted a desk on the other side of the room. He walked to it and grabbed one of the papers on it. He could not read it, but the tables and numbers on it indicated what it was.
“This looks like a bank statement,” Tom said.
After a pause while Tom held the page closer to his helmet camera, Mr. Park said, “I can’t read it. It’s written in Chinese.”
“Tom, pack those papers too,” Anderson said. Tom put all the papers in his bag. He walked out of the room back into the main warehouse. He continued walking farther back into the facility.
“Mr. Park, the one lingering question is why did Officer 1414 give this location in his message? He also said we were mistaken in the way we thought about North Korea’s nuclear weapons. He clearly thought there was some connection between nuclear weapons and this facility. What could he have meant?” Anderson finally asked what had been on Tom’s mind for some time.
After a pause, Mr. Park said, “This is what I have been thinking about since we read that first ‘heroin’ sign. I am not sure what Officer 1414 was thinking. I really don’t know why he sent us here.”
“Tom, are there any other side doors like the one to that money room?” Sara asked. Tom smiled as he heard her mind firing away. Tom spotted another door further back.
“Roger. Going to it.” He walked past several of the long assembly line tables until he reached another door on the outer wall. He tried the handle for this door. It actually turned. Tom readied his M4 with his right hand and pushed open the door. He moved in cautiously but saw nobody inside the room. He was in a larger room. It was almost thirty feet on each side, he estimated. This room was packed with cardboard boxes in various shapes and sizes. As he shined his light on them, he could read labels on the boxes. He was looking at boxes of TVs, computers, cell phones, video game consoles, vodka, whiskey, wine, cognac, DVDs, candy, potato chips, and various other items. The room was packed full.
“This is probably stuff that Room 39 imports with the cash it makes from drug sales,” Tom said.
“Roger,” Anderson replied.
As Tom was looking around, he noticed something else in the room. At the far side of the room was a large circular hemisphere that stuck out of the wall. Tom approached it. As he got closer he could make out some of the details. It was made out of a shiny dark metal and had what looked like a steering wheel on it. It looked like a large submarine hatch on a wall. He stopped a few feet from it. It was a door.
“I wonder what they keep in here,” he said into his radio.
“It must be more valuable than the drugs in the rest of the warehouse or the money in that other room,” Anderson replied. “Can you try to open it?”
Tom reached for the steering wheel. He started turning it. It required effort, but he was able to rotate it. As he rotated it, he could feel the door unseal.
“I think I unlocked it,” Tom said.
He grabbed a handle on the door and began pulling. The massive disk swung out of the wall. Tom could feel the warm air from the other side of the door.
“Tom, before you go in, give us a moment to get the Director on the phone.”
Tom waited outside the door. He could not make out much beyond the threshold. What he was about to see was probably vital information for the agency, he thought. Anderson told him before the mission that the Director might update the President as the mission was progressing.
“We are ready. Go ahead.”
“Roger.” Tom stepped past the threshold. He came to a landing. He was at the top of another staircase, except he could now see a large room open before him. To his right an industrial set of metal stairs descended about 20 feet from the landing to the floor below. The room looked like another warehouse within the larger warehouse. To his left was an open-air elevator made out of large metal beams. Tom guessed it was for heavy loads.
The space below was completely empty except for several objects on the floor. Tom could not see what they were.
“Yankee Main, do you see the objects below?”
Tom waited several seconds but no response came. That was odd, he thought.
“Yankee Main, come in,
over.”
He waited again. No response came. Tom turned around and looked at the door. He did not realize at first, but now he saw that the walls were made of thick concrete and had layers of either steel or iron. Tom wondered if his signal to the booster became too weak. He stepped back outside the door.
“Yankee Main, come in, over.”
“Yankee Actual. We lost you for a few seconds. Over.”
“I think this room behind the vault door is a bunker. My signal is not getting through. Over.”
“What’s in the bunker?”
“It’s another warehouse. The door opens to a landing at the top of a staircase. I can see several objects on the floor of the warehouse, but otherwise it’s completely empty.”
Now Sara’s voice came through. “Tom, can you go in there and see what those objects are. Take a few pictures with your helmet camera. Once you get back out to where you are now, they will be sent to use automatically and we will be able to see what’s inside.”
Tom knew this was why he liked having Sara on his missions. “Roger that.”
Tom ran back through the doorway. Once on the landing he immediately went to the stairs. He climbed down the metal stairs as fast as he could, even though the steps were shaking. Soon he was on the floor of the room. He ran towards the objects he had spotted. As he came closer he could see the two objects better. They were the size of refrigerators and each had a sheet covering it. They looked almost like cars in a garage with a cover on. He slowed down once he got within several feet. He knew what he had to do. He grabbed a piece of each sheet in his hands and pulled them off.
Tom stared for a moment, trying to comprehend what sat in front of him. There were two platforms. Each held what looked like a giant ten-foot football that had fins sticking out of the back. Tom realized he was looking at two bombs. Tom walked up to one. He knew that there was a nuclear weapons expert sitting in the Command Room. He had probably been waiting patiently to see something he could provide insight on. Tom reached for his helmet camera and started pressing the button on the side to take pictures. He took picture after picture of each bomb and then came closer and took several more. He looked around the room. There was nothing else. These were the only two objects in the entire space. There was not even a desk or a chair anywhere. It was barren.
Tom quickly turned around and ran back to the stairs. As he climbed the squeaky steps, he imagined what he had seen. He wondered if these were nuclear weapons or just conventional bombs. If these were nuclear bombs, what were they doing sitting by themselves? There was no equipment around and certainly no research facility in this building.
Soon Tom was at the top of the steps again. He ran back out of the vaulted doorway. He could hear the Command Room come back on the radio.
“OK, Tom, we are getting your pictures now,” said Anderson calmly.
Tom waited for a few moments, and as he heard silence, he just let out what he saw.
“There are two bombs down there. I took pictures of them. But there is nothing else. Just two bombs sitting by themselves.” Tom heard several gasps in the room. He guessed that nuclear weapons analyst probably felt a mixture of excitement and terror upon seeing the helmet camera images and hearing what Tom said. Tom heard his voice immediately.
“These look like older munitions. The metal casing looks like the material bombs were made from in the ‘60s. I do not see anything that would indicate a guidance system or any computer technology on board. This looks like a dumb bomb.”
“But is it a nuclear bomb?” Anderson asked.
“Yes. Tom, you just saw two nuclear bombs.”
There was a pause.
“But where’s the research facility? Tom do you see any research equipment?” Anderson asked.
“No. This room is completely empty, except for those bombs. I did not see any nuclear research space in the warehouse either. These are the only side rooms here besides the offices in front.”
“I wonder how they produced these. Does anyone have any ideas? Does this mean Officer 1414 should have sent the message ‘red jewels’?”
The nuclear analyst’s voice came back, “John, I don’t think they made these. These are old Soviet or Chinese designs from the early years of the Cold War. At the end of the Cold War we were worried that a few of their bombs would slip through the cracks and end up in the wrong hands. That was always the ultimate fear. Now it seems that it came true.”
Sara had put several more pieces of the puzzle together. “So these weapons are in this facility, which also stores the drugs that Room 39 makes to sell internationally. These are old bombs made by another country. Does this mean that the North Korean regime is just buying bombs on the black market from the cash made from drug sales?”
“Not ‘just’ buying on the black market,” the nuclear analyst replied. “You don’t ‘just’ buy nuclear weapons on the black market. Every country around the world takes a lot of care to make sure its nuclear weapons are safe and secure. The North Koreans must have moved in when the Soviet Union collapsed and bought these. Or maybe they paid off a Chinese general to get them. I don’t know how they bought it but it was not easy.”
Anderson jumped in, “But, Sara, you’re right that this means Room 39 must be funding the purchase of nuclear weapons. They must not be doing research. I don’t know which is more startling: that they can’t produce nuclear bombs themselves, or that they somehow bought these from others. They are a threat because they have nuclear weapons. But they may be less of a threat because they cannot produce them.”
Mr. Park, who had been quiet for some time, said, “This is what Officer 1414 meant by ‘error in how we think about jewels’. We only gave him codewords for the various stages of nuclear research. He wanted to say that he found no evidence that North Korea was performing serious research, but at the same time they seem to have acquired nuclear bombs with drug money. We were indeed all thinking about their nuclear program incorrectly. The real question for us is whether this is really it. Are they really not capable of developing nuclear weapons systems on their own?”
Tom listened to the conversation in the Command Room as he stood motionless in front of the door to the bunker. He wondered how everyone could have misread the situation. Going into this mission, the CIA and NIS were focused on figuring out what stage of the production process North Korea had reached and it turned out they had no production process, yet they had nuclear bombs. He wondered how North Korea was able to dupe everyone. Then Tom’s focus returned, and he realized the mission was not over yet.
“Should I set charges next to the bombs? Do we want to destroy them?”
“I don’t think this bunker is deep enough,” the nuclear analyst began slowly. “The bunker floor is about fifty feet underground and those are two bombs of probably fifteen kilotons each. They would need to be thousands of feet underground in order not to have any impact on the surface. At this level, there would certainly be a blast on the surface and nuclear fallout.”
“But we can’t leave these weapons in the hands of this regime,” Matt said hurriedly. Tom had not heard his voice until now. “They could start a nuclear war. It doesn’t matter if there’s nuclear fallout in North Korea. If destroying these weapons can save the world later on we must do it.”
“Think about this,” the nuclear analyst replied. “If these two bombs go off, they will throw radioactive material into the atmosphere. There are two large cities nearby where probably close to a million people will get radiation poisoning. If there are any winds, the radiation will travel – possibly to Japan and definitely to China and Russia where countless more could die. This is not the way to prevent nuclear war – by creating a nuclear disaster.”
“It’s better to take the risk of some civilian casualties now than to risk the lives of millions of people later. Imagine if because of this regime and these nuclear weapons, we get an escalation to a global nuclear war – involving China, Russia, and us. I think we must put explosives the
re and destroy these weapons.”
“That’s the other point I wanted to make. Detonating an explosive next to those bombs might not necessarily destroy them. For one of those bombs to go off, a nuclear fission process needs to take place. You might not necessarily set that off with an explosion.”
“Can we guide Tom in disarming them?” Sara asked.
“He would have been able to disable the circuitry on a modern weapon, but he does not have the tools to disarm that iron football,” Anderson responded. “The Director is briefing the President right now. They are probably having this discussion too and need our recommendation. Tom, how solid is that bunker?”
“It looks several feet thick. From the doorway I can tell it is made of layers of concrete and steel or iron. The room is also several more stories underground. It is deep.”
“I think we should be able to set charges to destroy the warehouse without disturbing those bombs. I will recommend this to the Director. I am calling him now. There is no good option here.”
The radio was silent as the team waited for a decision. Tom took another look at the bunker door and the structure of the walls around it. Soon he heard someone in the Command Room say that the White House was on the phone with the decision.
“The decision is to detonate the warehouse but not the bombs,” Anderson said. “They say we have the coordinates and can monitor this facility with satellites. When we detonate the facility, it will collapse on the bunker, burying it, and it will be very difficult for the North Koreans to access those weapons. If war ever breaks out, we can launch a strike on this bunker but right now we cannot risk setting off those bombs. Tom, seal that door and set charges in the rest of the warehouse.”
“Roger,” Tom replied.
Tom started pushing the large door back to shut it. The heavy door required a lot of strength but after some effort, it was closed. He listened to the conversation that was developing back in the Command Room.
“I just feel that this is not right,” Sara said.
“I agree,” Anderson replied. “But the question is whether you would have that same bad feeling if we went down the other path. I know I would. I hope you would too.”
“We should not have let it come to this point,” Sara said quietly.
By now Tom had managed to shut the door and turned the wheel to lock it in place.
Suddenly Tom heard a noise. It was a faint scratching sound. The warehouse and the side rooms had been completely quiet. He quickly shut off his helmet light and turned on his night vision goggles.
He whispered into his radio, “Yankee Main, I think someone’s in the warehouse. Over.”
“Roger.” The Command Room went silent.
Tom raised his M4 and turned towards the doorway to the warehouse. He did not see anything.
He kneeled down next to the imported goods and tried to listen more. He heard several distinct steps, but steps that sounded like they were trying to be quiet. Tom did not see anyone through the open door into the warehouse. He moved closer to the entrance. He tried to see as much of the warehouse as he could. Straight ahead of him were the assembly line tables. He could see the far side of the warehouse well. What he could not see was his near corner, or along the wall that the door was on. On the far side it looked like there was no movement. But Tom still heard the distinct scratching or stepping sound. Tom did not want to poke his head out and look. From his days in DEVGRU he knew that poking your head out was the best way to give away your position. He also knew that moving targets were very difficult to hit and the warehouse’s pitch-black darkness would help him. He looked again at one of the assembly line tables. They were long and extended all the way to the ground. He could hide behind one of them, he thought.
In a split second, Tom was running. He felt like a sprinter darting off from a still, kneeling position. He aimed himself for the long tables ahead. As he crossed the threshold, he looked to his right along the wall he could not see before. He had been right for not poking his head out earlier. He saw in his nightvision goggles several KPA soldiers about fifty feet away, walking towards him. Right away he heard it. The sound of gunfire awakened the silent warehouse. The KPA soldiers were shooting at him. He heard bullets snapping and cracking as they whizzed near him. But within seconds, he was behind one of the tables, kneeling safely. In the Command Room, he heard Sara say in a whisper, “Tom be careful”. He wished Anderson had muted the main microphone in that room.
I’m not in danger. They are.
Now that he was behind one of the tables, Tom crawled towards tables even farther away towards the other side of the warehouse. He no longer heard any movement. The KPA soldiers had probably stopped. He heard them whispering intermittently. Within seconds he was behind the table that was on the opposite side of the warehouse from the door out of which he sprinted. He hooked around the corner of the table and crawled forward. Tom wanted to try to flank these soldiers, or attack them from the side. Tom crawled forward and was soon at the front side of the table, the side facing the shelves of heroin at the front of the warehouse. This time Tom peeked around the corner. He saw five soldiers. They were standing close to where he had originally spotted them. But they did not see him. They were looking at where he had run to. He had maneuvered around so that he was now staring at them from their right side.
Tom knew what he was going to do. He raised his M4 and aimed for the soldier in front. He squeezed the trigger. His rifle made a clicking sound from the barrel recoiling and the soldier he aimed at fell to the ground. Tom got up and started running towards the heroin shelves. Because of the suppressor on his rifle and the darkness, the soldiers were looking around for where the firing came from. As Tom was about to reach one of the glass meth labs, he took aim and let off another shot and hit the second soldier. He then ran past the meth labs and into one of the aisles. He did not hear any shooting from the KPA team. They were now down to three.
Tom now tried to run quickly to the other side of the aisle, the side of the warehouse at which the KPA soldiers had been standing. Tom thought he might be able to get the last three from behind. He almost enjoyed this game. It felt like those chess games he played in college where he would slowly dismantle the opponent’s pieces. He focused on planting his feet carefully so that he would not make a stepping sound. Soon he was on the other side of the warehouse. He paused for a moment to listen. He did not hear anything. The warehouse was back to being quiet. He looked at the shelf right next to him. These bags contained white powder, similar to the bags he remembered seeing on the first aisle.
Tom looked around the corner of the aisle. He expected to see the soldiers’ backs. But they had moved. The area where they had been standing was empty. Tom crawled out of the aisle quietly and put his back against the outer wall of the warehouse. Because of his night vision, he spotted their heads. They were now kneeling by the long tables to which Tom originally ran. He saw two heads sticking out of the space in between the tables. Tom smiled as he thought they evidently liked his hiding place. He knew they could not see him because their faces were moving left and right as if they were looking for something around them. Tom aimed his M4 at one of them, took a moment, and then gently squeezed the trigger. The soldier fell back. At the same time, the other head that had been sticking up came down and disappeared behind the table. Now there were two left, Tom thought. He guessed that the officer was probably the one hiding and refusing to look.
Tom kept his rifle aimed and took a few steps forward, keeping his back against the wall. He waited for the other head to pop back out. He watched the spot for a minute and then another minute. After what Tom guessed was two and a half minutes he saw the other soldier’s head stick back up. He had moved a bit back, but was not far from his first position. Tom took aim and squeezed the trigger again. He saw the head disappear. There was now one left.
Tom guessed that the officer who had been hiding was lying in fear. He decided to start slowly walking towards the tables wher
e the soldiers were. He kept his rifle up and aimed forward. As he walked forward he looked for any sign of the last soldier. He could not see any body part sticking out. He also did not hear any noise. Soon Tom was close to the tables. He was bending to try to stay low. Tom thought it was clear this officer was not going to move. He was probably sitting with his rifle pointed and waiting. Tom slowly approached the tables even closer.
Suddenly he heard a loud noise. It was the sound of metal hitting the ground. He saw an AK rifle fly out of the space between the tables and land a few feet from him.
Did he just throw his rifle away?
Tom took a few more steps closer. Then he saw something. It was unmistakable. Two hands were sticking up straight out of the space between the tables. Two hands were being raised. Tom waited a moment and then stepped over to the side of the table.
He was looking at the last thing he had expected to see on a mission. A North Korean officer was on his knees. His back was straight and his hands were raised high into the air. Tom stared for a moment, trying to figure out what was the catch. Then the KPA officer started speaking. Tom was surprised to hear decent English.
“American, I want to surrender to you. I request asylum in your country. Take me out with you. I can help us leave.”