Maurice nodded and understood. After a moment’s thought he said simply, “I think I might be better on my own to be honest, in spite of the fact that Dr. Choi might recognise you but has never seen me before.”
This time, Soo nodded and also understood.
“But I am told to stay here for as long as you are here, and to help whenever I can with your briefing,” he said.
The longer he was at The House, the more detailed Northcot’s briefings became. They went through his itinerary with a fine toothcomb, until he knew all the details backwards. They went through his documentation more than once, and showed him literally hundreds of photographs, satellite pictures and film, especially of the really important parts of his tour. By the end of it all Northcot was confident that, if everyone else played their part as planned, he could successful meet the objective of his mission.
Only one thing concerned him.
It was going to be difficult for him to communicate with London, or they with him.
He was not used to that.
He really would be operating on his own.
***
He eventually left the tranquil countryside of the Cotswolds for a short flight from Birmingham airport to Stockholm.
He was now no longer an agent of MI6.
He was a tourist.
A traveller.
But he had with him all the paraphernalia which went with both.
He stayed the night in Stockholm, which he knew well anyway, and left for Beijing the following morning after he had met up at the airport with the rest of his tour party. There, they transferred to Air Koryo flight JS152 from Terminal 2 at the Capital Airport, and flew to Pyongyang, on board a reasonably new Russian Tupolev TU-204.
They arrived more or less on time, and were greeted by their tour guides, who from now on would be with them everywhere, all the time. There would be no escaping their ‘minders’. Northcot was somewhat surprised that they were really quite pleasant people, and not the sinister individuals he had almost been expecting.
A gap in his briefing; he hoped there weren’t many others.
Not that he would see much of his escorts, as it happened.
Their bus took them on a tour of Pyongyang on the way to the Yanggakdo four-star Hotel, an extravagant-looking building on an island in the Taedong River. It was already plain to see that Pyongyang was the home of the rich and privileged members of North Korean society, developed as a sign to the outside world that the country was as prosperous as the regime’s propaganda claimed.
Before dinner, the visitors just had time to freshen up during the evening’s one hour of warm water at the Hotel.
The next day was to be the climax of Northcot’s visit.
It was the day allocated for ‘the drop’.
He and his party of tourists were scheduled to drive to Kaesong, about 10 miles from the Demilitarised Zone which separated the two Koreas. They were also scheduled to visit the DMZ itself. At the abandoned village of Panmunjom, where the 1953 Armistice was signed, the tour included a visit to the Military Museum on the 38th parallel.
Northcot was scheduled to buy a rather special souvenir there from a rather special trader.
But there was no trader and no souvenir.
The Bourleywood House plan had collapsed already.
This was not the easiest place on earth from which to make an escape, either. Their allocation of guides had been implemented by several North Korean officers who had showed them round Panmunjom.
But somehow, Northcot had to dodge the party and abandon the tour, not least because this was as close as he could get to his escape route.
The tour party was next scheduled to take a walk in Janamsan Park, noted for its panoramic views of historic Kaesong, and it was here that he managed to slip away unseen, and hide among the rather overgrown shrubs and bushes away from the main viewing points.
Thinking about it afterwards, the others had to admit that he didn’t quite look like an ordinary tourist.
No sandals, no shorts, no trainers, but jeans and ‘sensible’ shoes.
He was not missed until the party returned to the coach for their drive into Kaesong for lunch, but by then, it was too late.
They had all left their backpacks on the coach. Northcot had kept his with him.
He was away.
He made his way deeper into cover, and decided to wait for the next tour party to arrive at the Museum, in case his souvenir seller should turn up then.
He didn’t.
It was dangerous for Northcot to hang around the museum and tag on to too many coach parties. He would soon be noticed.
Indeed, he was already wondering if there weren’t rather more soldiers around than there were when they arrived yesterday. He had even seen some of them in the Park.
He concluded that, having missed him on the coach, they were now looking for him.
Searching, even.
There was now only one option open to Northcot. He would have to make his way to Yongbyon, about 100 miles north of Pyongyang, and find Dr Choi.
He would be heading away from safety and possible escape, which lay south. He was going north. Not for the first time recently, he wondered if he’d perhaps done enough travelling.
Maurice realised that they were in some way able to track his movements at HQ, but he had to send a message just the same.
“No drop.”
It was enough to send James Piper, and others, apoplectic.
Not just because of Maurice, but also because of what might have happened to ‘the trophy’ which the souvenir seller was supposed to have sold to him.
Like Maurice, the Museum trader was one of their top men in North Korea, and locally recruited. If he had been betrayed, then their whole network could be in jeopardy.
And that meant real trouble for Northcot and his mission.
***
Piper went straight to ‘C’s’ office.
Something had to be done, and done quickly.
They had half talked about this before, but had made no firm contingency plans, never believing for a minute that the original scenario so carefully planned and discussed at Bourleywood House would fail so early.
It was plain that something had gone seriously wrong - the word ‘treachery’ sprang to mind – and that immediate action needed to be taken if the mission itself as well as the people involved in it, was to be saved.
Sir Geoffrey Sefton got hold of Jack Salisbury on the red phone, told him that the mission had failed at the first fence, and agreed to meet straight away to discuss yet another Plan B.
There were three things for them to decide as a matter of the utmost urgency. First of all, should Northcot be brought home with all speed, or left there to make one further attempt to obtain the precious information he had gone to collect. Secondly, if they did decide to press on in spite of everything, how could they now help Northcot to succeed? And thirdly, what had gone wrong so quickly into the venture. Post mortems are usually the last thing one does – in this case it was vital to quickly establish what might have caused this failure in order to decide whether it might happen again if they pressed ahead.
There was one other element to all this as well, as Piper pointed out, and which they had better all bear in mind.
Northcot himself.
Whatever they decided in London, they now had no direct control over Maurice Northcot. Knowing the man, he was as likely to press on as not, regardless of the odds or what London might think.
Indeed, it was a pretty fair assumption, that this was what he had already done.
Surprisingly, Jack Salisbury himself pondered an even higher priority.
“It’s no use us sitting here deliberating about what went wrong and what to do next,” he said, “until we know why things have gone wrong. Unless we know that, whatever we decide to do next could also – um – go wrong.”
“The problem is, Jack, that at present my whole admittedly rather shaky organisation
in North Korea, seems to have fallen apart.”
“Quite so,” said Salisbury. “Quite so. But not because of anything they could have done.”
They looked puzzled.
“They have been betrayed, as we all have, by someone here.”
He scowled at them all.
“Someone here told them what to expect, and someone there was then able to stop it happening.”
He looked round at the other two in his office.
“Perhaps even someone in this very office – now.”
“Impossible!” said ‘C’.
“How do you know it wasn’t me?” said Salisbury. “How do I know it wasn’t any of you?”
He waved his hand.
“We are the great and the good in the intelligence world, but that proves nothing,” he said dramatically.
They shuffled uncomfortably, and looked around.
“You’re right, of course,” said Sefton, “but if we can’t trust one another, who the hell can we trust?”
Salisbury smiled.
“Having said what I said, rather more to alert you than to – er, um – accuse you,” he said, “let me ask you two questions. First of all, how well vetted was Dr.Choi’s nephew, Yong I think his name is, and secondly, does it really matter a damn anyway?”
“Does it matter,” asked Piper, speaking for the first time. “Of course it damned well matters.”
“Perhaps not,” said Salisbury, standing to look out of his office window. “He’s your man, not mine, but from what little I know of Northcot, he has already set off in pursuit of his objective. What we may or may not decide sitting here probably doesn’t matter a jot.”
“I suspect you’re right,” said Piper after a moment’s thought. “He will be on his way by now, probably in an attempt to find Dr. Choi.”
“If he has set off in pursuit, as we suspect, then he will simply ignore any attempt by us to call him off. He will press on. As I said earlier, to try to call him off and get him home by some means is probably a waste of effort. So perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on deciding what we can do to help the man.”
Salisbury put his hands behind his back.
“The first two of our problems seem to have been solved for us,” he declared. “We do not – indeed cannot – call the mission off, and if we did, Northcot would most likely not return even if we told him to and could arrange it.”
Salisbury scratched his head, and turned to Sefton.
“So how do we help the man, Geoffrey? Who do you have left on the ground out there? And can you trust them after this?”
Salisbury’s PA knocked quietly, and came in with a tray of tea and a plate of biscuits. China cups, not mugs, Piper noted.
Sir Geoffrey Sefton ambled to the window, idly stirring his cup.
He looked across at James Piper.
“There is one, Jack,” he said to Salisbury.
Piper nodded.
“He is almost too valuable to be put at further risk,” said Sefton.
“On the other hand,” countered Piper, “He is almost too valuable to the North Koreans for them to sacrifice him, if he was to be discovered.”
“Tell me,” demanded Salisbury.
“He is retired Royal Navy Surgeon Commander, Professor Peter Ramsay, working under the auspices of the British Council at the hospital near the Yongbyon Nuclear plant. He is one of the top oncologists in the country, and providing a unique service to the people who live in and work near the power station and all its subsidiary institutions. He also spends a good deal of his time lecturing to their medical students, and staff. It was he who initially diagnosed Dr. Choi as having radiation sickness, and then cancer. It is also he who provides us with significant and valuable intelligence about what is going on there. The North Koreans value him highly and have threatened to close the British Council office in Pyongyang, if ever we bring him home.”
“Suits us, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly. And he doesn’t seem to mind, either. He knows he’s doing valuable work, and claims to be learning a lot as well. He couldn’t get that level of experience anywhere in this country, and as well as treating people affected by their appalling safety standards at the nuclear plant, he is also lecturing their own medical students.”
“How long has he been there?”
“Two years now,” replied Piper.
“Are you in contact?”
“When we need to be, although it is mainly him who contacts us, when he has information.”
“But he knows Dr. Choi, you said.”
“Correct.”
“We must make use of him now,” decided Salisbury. “Get word to him somehow to expect Northcot, and tell Northcot that he is to make contact.”
“If he gets that far,” said Sefton.
“Quite so. But let’s get down to detailed planning now, on the assumption that Northcot will eventually turn up looking for Dr. Choi.”
“There is one other way in which we might be able to provide Northcot with additional support,” said Sefton.
“On the ground?”
“Yes.”
Salisbury thought for a moment, looking concerned.
“I think I’m ahead of you,” he said. “But very risky.”
“I’ll get it organised then.”
15.
THE STRAIGHT LINE
Jon Field looked around at the others, hunched over their screens. The Operations Room was never the brightest place in the building, and somehow it always seemed worse when you were on a night shift. Not that you could tell whether it was night or day. It had no windows. It was in the basement, two floors down from street level. Just banks of TV screens and computers and telephones.
Not every position in the Ops room was manned at night. Just essential staff to keep in touch with current operations around the world.
That was Jon’s problem at the moment. Keeping in touch. He wasn’t, and was getting worried.
One of his tasks was a bit special, he knew. He was the only one in the room who did know about it. A special briefing he’d had, a few weeks ago. There were others, of course, but very few. The Head of the Joint Intelligence Organisation knew, of course, and his own boss the Head of MI6, ‘C’ knew about it because he gave the briefing, but knowing Jack Salisbury and Sir Geoffrey as he did, Jon doubted they had even told the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary, their own boss. At the moment, they didn’t need to know, so don’t let’s tell them. His Head of Section, James Piper, also knew about it, but Jon and a colleague watch-keeper had been given only a limited briefing. Not the whole works. They had been asked to leave before it was over.
There had been a couple of others at ‘C’s’ briefing who’d sat through the whole thing, and it was a relief to know that tonight’s Duty Officer Doug Ritchie was one of them. But then it had been specially arranged so that he and Jon would always be on duty together at critical times. Tonight had been one of those critical times. It looked like becoming even more critical soon.
Jon sat back and pondered, frowning; staring at the blank screen in front of him. It was not supposed to be blank. That was the problem.
He looked at the array of international clocks along the wall above him.
The scheduled time for the transmission had come and gone. There had been no signal from the communications satellite – no audio and no spike on the sine wave. The sine wave was there, on his screen, but a straight pale green, slightly vibrating line. There had been no peak, no wave, and no sign at all to signify the receipt of the planned automatic communication. Just a straight line. And no beeps, either.
Jon knew the computer was working OK, and that the satellite was sending it signals. If not, there wouldn’t even be a straight pale green line on his screen and the distant mush in his headphones. For some reason, the transmitter on the ground had not sent anything to the satellite.
Again.
The same thing had happened yesterday. And like yesterday, he could do nothing
about it. Except tell the Duty Officer. Doug Ritchie wasn’t best pleased last night, and would be even more peevish today.
Jon decided to wait a bit longer, just in case.
He knew it was a waste of time, because the whole thing was precisely programmed – day, hour, minute, second. That precise. Nothing could go wrong with the communications link at all. It was the latest. Not that he knew much about it. He only knew what he needed to know, and even then he knew more than nearly everyone else, especially among the Ops room watch-keepers. Only one other, Giles Clayton, had been at the special briefing, and they shared the secret monitoring duties. But even they didn’t know who had the transmitter, or where he was.
Whoever it was had probably dropped it or trodden on it or something, Jon thought. That would explain it. It wasn’t working because the bloke who had it had broken it. Even top spies can break things. No wonder it didn’t work.
Eventually, he gave up waiting, and called across to one of his colleagues.
“Keep an eye on my station, will you. I’m just nipping upstairs to see Doug. Shan’t be a tick.”
“Why can’t you ring him?”
“Because I don’t want you listening in, that’s why,” he said with a grin. “Besides, I need a pee.”
He walked up the two flights of stairs, and along the wide corridor with its tatty carpet tiled floor. Carpet tiles were better than vinyl, he supposed.
He knocked on the Duty Officer’s door, and walked in without being invited.
Doug looked up from one of the familiar computer screens on the wide desk, covered in paper and telephones, and frowned, already worried.
“What’s up, Jon?”
He knew Jon wouldn’t be there if everything was sweetness and light in the Ops room.
Jon sat down, again without being asked.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
“I somehow guessed that’s why you were here.”
He pulled open a drawer of his desk and brought out a bottle of Bushmills. Half empty, Jon noticed.
“Care for a swig?”
“I’m not allowed to drink on duty.”
“You can if I say so, and I say so.”
“Only a large one, then.”
Doug poured two and passed one across.
“Having a bad night, then?” A statement, rather than a question.
“We’re straight lining.”
“Again?”
“Again. Same as last night.”