Steve Abbott - Devil's Gambit

Chun took a long pull on his cigarette and shrugged. “I will do what I can, but there are things my country does that even I was kept out of.”

“It appears that somebody of great influence manufactured your demise in the Congo. Someone close to the Inner Council. Kwan Te Sung, your deputy?”

“My friend, our Ambassador to the Congo, informed me differently. He also assured me that his source was seldom incorrect.”

Forest looked down at the tabletop. “I am afraid that our sources in the region indicate that the Ambassador returned to North Korea, citing reasons of health.”

Chun felt his stomach go cold. He knew all too well what that phrase meant: another old soldier fallen in the pursuit of the Worker’s Paradise. He looked away from the table for a moment. “Good-bye old friend,” he said quietly.

Forest saw the cold glint in Chun’s eyes. “I’m sorry to have to bring you the news like this, but there are other questions and time is of the essence.”

Chun stubbed out his cigarette and lit another, his hand tight around the lighter. “Tell me what you know and ask what you will. This news changes things a great deal.”

“Very well.” Forest pulled out his tape recorder and a thick manila-bound file with TOP SECRET: DEEP GREEN CLEARANCE EYES ONLY.

Chun looked at the tape recorder with distaste. “Is that still really necessary?”

Forest looked up from his preparations. “Hmmm? Oh I suppose not. Force of habit. Langley would have my balls if I missed something that their own bugs failed to pick up.” Forest pulled out five photographs from the file folder and laid them on the table top in front of Chun. Four of them were obviously autopsy photos. “Can you identify any of these individuals?”

Chun pulled them towards him one at a time. After a moment, he shook his head and pushed only one back towards Forest. “Sorry, but Sung’s is the only face I recognize. Who are the others?”

“Well this one,” Forest tapped the photograph closest to Chun’s elbow, “is one Heinrich Burghoff, an ex-Colonel in the East German STASI. The other three are officers of a Soviet Rocket Forces Technical team, specializing in SCUD missiles and the upkeep of their nuclear payloads.

Chun’s eyes narrowed, “Of course there is more.”

“Yes, there is more. The commander of the local Mobile Rocket Base discovered three complete warheads of at least fifteen kiloton yield were missing from three of the missile carriers.”

“Taken by these three?” Chun ran his finger over the photograph of the dead Soviets.

“That is correct. They were reported as leaving the night before. All four of these people were found floating in the waters off Batumi, a Georgian port on the Black sea.”

“Shot?”

“Yes. A heavy truck with papers for a supply run into Batumi was parked nearby.”

“So the warheads were loaded on to a boat of some kind?”

“Our people at the NSA were able to find a boat capable of such a thing on one of our satellite passes over the region. We were able to back track its progress. Its point of origin was most likely Batumi.”

“And this boat went to?”

“Carasamba, Turkey. We believe the devices were then flown out of there.”

“Interesting, but what does Comrade Sung have to do with all of this?”

Forest extracted another set of photographs. “Recognize him, and where he is?”

Chun spent a much longer time looking at the photograph than he had the other three. “Andrew Verkatt, entering our warehouse in Cape Town.” He looked up. “So what? It could be nothing more than a routine request from my government for more materials.”

Forest shook his head and gave Chun a grave look. “That photograph was taken by British intelligence while you were still the man in place in the Congo. Verkatt, according to our sources, dealt exclusively with you. A drug dealer in Georgia who was interrogated in connection with the deaths of the three Soviet officers gave up only one name: Andrew Verkatt. Walking into the operation at Cape Town is not what I would call discreet, and from what I have been told, discreet is a way of life with him.” Forest slid another photo across the table. “British cameras caught this man on film one week prior to Verkatt’s appearance. I’m sure you will recognize him.”

It was Kwan Te Sung. It took all of Chun’s control to stop from crumpling the picture into a ball and hurling it across the room. Instead, he bore down on his anger, saving it for another time. When he finally answered Forest, his voice was flat and emotionless. “My deputy. It would seem your sources are correct. I never knew he was in Cape Town. No doubt solidifying his presence with the operation’s executive.”

“MI6 shows the previous resident was transferred back to Pyongyang and replaced.”

“Sung showed me a report listing the man’s shortcomings. I had no choice but to recommend his replacement.” Chun hung his head. “Sung chose his successor. Had I known then, what I know now, I would have taken more effective steps to protect myself.”

Forest felt bad for Chun. It is not easy to have an apprentice betray you. “You guarded yourself as best you could. Your Congo posting removed you from party politics for too long.”

“Pah, I never cared for the politics, only for my country. The things I built were for Korea, not for the damned party.”

“And it is two of those buildings you built that Langley is interested in.” Forest extracted copies of the Yongbyong and Pakchon nuclear facility plans. “Right now, your country is in the gravest danger it could ever face. It is believed that the three devices are on board a submarine bound for North Korea. We are all worried at the speed and style of the acquirement of these devices. Langley feels that they will be used on the new long range SCUD E or Nodong-2. For what, nobody but the North’s leadership knows, but with a state of alert in effect along the DMZ and tensions at their highest in years, you don’t need a doctorate to figure an outcome.”

“My country’s back is against the wall. Why does not matter, but they are like a cornered rat. I would draw a two thousand kilometer circle from the southernmost point of North Korea and consider everything in it a target.”

“That is not a great deal of help.”

“What do you want me to say? For years I have watched you Americans and your European counterparts carry on in your blind business-as-usual policies. A reaction to reports, generated only when an area erupts in violence and revolution. Look at Iran and the Embassy bombing in Lebanon. Even that Pan Am flight that went down in Scotland, the Twin Towers. You had ample warning, but you chose to ignore the signals.”

“You are not exactly one to talk,” Forest snapped back at Chun.

Chun merely shrugged. “I am just a man. If I make a mistake, it will be me who pays the ultimate price. If a government makes a mistake, how many pay that same price?”

“So forget this and tell me about Sung. If he is in charge, what is his intent?”

Chun lit another cigarette with the smoldering stub of his previous one. Blue smoke hung about his head in a smog halo. “He thinks he is, but the ultimate power will lie with Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader. If an idea is outlandish or ambitious enough, he will play out the line to the underlings like the greatest of fishermen. If all goes well, he pulls in the rewards. If the underling fails, the line becomes a hangman’s noose. Comrade Sung is playing a very dangerous game with his life as the collateral. The man’s character? He is intelligent and ambitious and apparently ruthless. I did not see that side of him when I gave my recommendation for the job of my deputy. If I had, neither one of us would be sitting here. The warheads could be to provide our own engineers with another Russian model. Much can be studied and reverse engineered with the production of a locally produced warhead in mind. I was engaged in securing triggering devices; Kryton switches from a source in the Middle East.”