The Devil's Playground Page 7

to a face of a North Korean. Today was no different.

  The giving of gifts to new business partners was a common practice in Asia, so Rob decided he would bring just the sort of things with him that James Garner's character the infamous Scrounger from The Great Escape would have been proud of, let alone a country with a UN Sanction on Luxury goods: Ten Google Chrome books, twenty Apple iPads, all with built in backdoors so Cyber Command in the States could monitor whoever they were given to, an assortment of loaded Gift cards from the top departments stores in London and Hong Kong worth twenty thousand dollars, twenty-four bottles of malt whiskey and XO Cognac and finally a whole box dedicated to Cadbury's chocolates, the vice of all Koreans as he remembered from his previous trip all those years ago.

  "This is the paperwork," he further clarified as he handled Susan the documents he had laboriously filled out on the plane. The eyes of the pair as they read the paperwork told him he had chosen wisely.

  "Thank you Mr. Robin," said Mr. Lee as they got into the empty bus.

  "These are most generous gifts," Susan added with a huge smile.

  The collection of his luggage took Susan only a matter of minutes.

  Moments after that, Rob and his minders left the VIP Building where upon he was whisked away from the terminal in a black Mercedes S600 of nineties vintage while a black modern Nissan People Carrier followed them, carrying his luggage.

  The journey, like the last time he was in North Korea didn't take them very long but the first thing Rob noticed was the amount of traffic there was on the road. The last time he had traveled into Pyongyang, there was the odd car. Now there were Range Rovers, Land Cruisers and Audis, but importantly he noted that the people who were walking by the side of the road all seemed to him to be smiling.

  Whenever a visitor comes or returns to Pyongyang one of the first things they are required to do by their hosts before they do anything else is visit the huge bronze statues of the Eternal President and Supreme Leader to pay their respects.

  It was Rob's turn today.

  After pulling into the car park, Rob stepped out of the car, took a bouquet of flowers from Susan, then by himself walked quietly up to the mount of Mansudae Hill. As he did so even he, an experienced traveler, admitted that the statues were impressive if somewhat oppressive. Doing what would be expected of him, Rob quietly joined a small party of North Koreans who were standing in front of the twenty-two-meter high statues. Then following their lead, he bowed his head as a mark of respect in the direction of the two dead leaders' statues.

  Duty completed, he carefully placed the flowers on the floor by the others that had been laid and then promptly returned to the Mercedes where Mr. Lee and Miss. Susan were waiting for him. They smiled at him and informed him that they would take him to his guesthouse. This journey took just a few minutes and the second the car pulled onto the road beside the Taedong River Rob knew where he was going.

  The last time Rob had stayed there, five years ago, he thought that he had stepped back in time to the 1950s, something that was not surprising considering the estate had been built for Nikita Khrushchev's secret visit in 1956. What he didn't expect once the car pulled up was the person who was there to greet him outside the villa.

  "Chairman O!" said Susan in shock and excitement.

  "Christ, I hope Langley's watching this," thought Rob, knowing that they most likely would be as the Director had asked for a NROL-39 satellite to be tasked over the city?so they could pick up on the signal that his BlackBerry would be secretly transmitting throughout his trip and take high definition photographs of everywhere he went and who he met when they were outside in the open.

  6

  Langley

  As the door of the secure meeting room in the SAD offices closed behind David Young the excitement in his eyes quickly betrayed to those in the room his thoughts. After the debacle on the Horn of Africa, where even POTUS had started to question his ongoing suitability to lead the Agency and then, as far as he was concerned, had begun to criminally question his Energy Security Doctrine that the organization was now actively engaged in by The Secretary of State, Young knew he badly needed a win, so to speak, to protect and shore up his position. Never more so because he planned to resign next year, enter politics, and ultimately take a run at the Presidency at some point in the next ten years.

  The collective shock on the faces of POTUS and better yet the Secretary of State when he informed the both of them that Thesiger had not only successfully reestablished contact with NIGHTSHADE but had been asked to act as his conduit and special adviser to the new National Agency as the precursor to the political reunion of the Koreas had been priceless and a godsend for a politically ambitous head of the CIA.

  Now with Ashley back on U.S. soil it was time to come to grips with the North's new leader's mind. SIGINT only told one part of the picture. It couldn't yet tell you the emotions that drove a man.

  "Welcome home, Mr. Ashley," Young said warmly, while offering his hand to Rob.

  "Thank you, Sir," Rob replied as he shook his hand firmly.

  "Well, quite a trip," the Director said as he sat down.

  "Indeed sir," Rob answered before he proceeded to brief everybody in the room on the details of the options that had been offered to him by O. Rob explained the new leader wanted to access his extensive range of contacts rather than telling the truth that he was the unwitting architect of the new strategy.

  "So what your thoughts?" asked Navjot after Rob had walked them all through the structure and goals of the newly formed National Agency of Natural Resources.

  "Well, NIGHTSHADE isn't strong enough at the moment to suddenly start doing business with the U.S," responded Rob to his longtime friend. "He needs to retire a few old school heads of department," he continued. The meaning behind the statement was clear to everybody in the room. "That said, he did suggest to me that a good place for him to start would be the DPRK re-entering the six party talks on Nuclear Disarmament. He believes that alone would show the Administration his good faith. More importantly, it would show the world he is a leader they can to do business with," Rob said.

  "Again something he intends to do by announcing the immediate closure of the re-education camps and the shutting down of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon," Rob added. "Finally, he also intends to invite human rights and weapons inspectors into the country."

  Young was taking notes as Rob spoke. "What does he want in return?" he asked.

  "The original deal that was offered by the Clinton Administration," Rob answered as the slide came up showing two water fusion reactors to be fully funded and built by the U.S.

  "How does he intend to do all this?" asked Ali.

  "By instructing DPRK Ambassador to the UN to shout at the Secretary General," Rob said with a smile.

  "Shout?" Young asked, totally misunderstanding Rob's quip.

  "Sorry, Sir, a joke between NIGHTSHADE and me?" Rob clarified before he explained why.

  Young nodded then put down his pen once Rob had finished with his overview. He was impressed with Rob's HUMINT if not his British tendency to make light of everything. Setting that aside for the moment, he reflected on his notes.

  The CIA had never in its entire history had an asset this close to the head of the North Korean regime. It was something he had proudly told POTUS, who it had transpired had met Rob Ashley when he was still working for his previous employer in Dubai when POTUS had been an ambitious Professor at the University of Chicago; again this was something he had only found out when out of the blue he had asked for Ashley's file after the initial briefing he had given to the NSC.

  "I had no idea he was this type of man," POTUS had said proudly as he read Ashley's file. "I thought he was the typical English idiot who worked for the Arabs as a lobbyist," he continued as if he was somewhat annoyed that he hadn't recognized Rob's true identity.

  "An Intelligence Star of unspecified actions?" queried the forty-fourth President.

  "I am afraid th
at has to remain classified, Sir," replied Young while he recovered from the shock of finding out that POTUS had remembered meeting his asset in the first place. The man's memory had always been impressive; this was just another example.

  "Let's just say there is a very bad guy that he took out who is no longer walking this earth," Young offered, already calculating in his head that Robin Ashley was going to be very useful to him in the Energy Security Doctrine goals and ambitions he had planned over the next few years due to his rather unique background and set of contacts-certainly far more than his control officer had ever been and the person he had decided was going to be Agency's scapegoat the Senators were demanding from him for GOLDEN HORN (the codename for the Adawlland mission) debacle.

  Ignoring Rob's attempt at humor and returning to the moment, he asked, "What else does he want?"

  "The United States of America's support at the Six Party talks on his proposal to open up the country's natural resources to companies of their choice, free and clear of the South's interference, and finally the immediate end of all UN Sanctions," Rob answered.

  "He doesn't want grain?" Ali queried, as in the past was the usual demand of the man's processors after the shelling of South Koreans or after the launch of a rocket or a nuclear test.

  "He says that will be provided through technology partnerships and by the companies that the