Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

Hwang nodded slowly. He considered asking if he could go to China, but he did not. “I agree to your terms.”

“Good. Let’s begin with your debrief immediately.”

He was surprised by this. “I am very tired. Could we begin later, after I rest?”

Foley shook her head. “Absolutely not. Lives are at stake, Mr. Hwang. Your wife and your children can rest. You and I have a lot of work to do.”

Hwang sighed.

—

National Geospatial-Intelligence analyst Annette Brawley had spent the first part of her day looking over train cars in Pyongyang, searching for evidence that the North Koreans were moving any of their mining equipment north, salvaging parts from copper or coal mines with the intention of transporting them up to the strip mine at Chongju.

She hadn’t found anything interesting on the North Korean rail network, but she was holding out hope that some new sat images due in the next few minutes might give her a clearer picture of the mine itself.

She glanced at the time, and looked up from her computer monitor to see Colonel Mike Peters storming her way.

“Hi, Mike.”

“Come with me.”

“Sorry, boss, I can’t go right now, we’re about to get the latest Chongju images from NRO.”

“This isn’t a request. You and me have been ordered to go to the bubble on five.”

“Holy crap,” Brawley said, standing up from her desk as she did so. “Are we in trouble?”

“Dunno. I know we will be if we aren’t there in about two minutes.”

—

Brawley and Peters were led into the secure communications room, known as the bubble. They sat down in front of a monitor that displayed the image of an empty desk. Behind it was a sign that said OSAN AB.

After a minute they saw some moving shadows off to the side of the desk on the monitor. The two NGA employees looked at each other in confusion.

After a minute more Peters uttered a tentative “Hello?”

Almost instantly, Mary Pat Foley, the director of national intelligence, sat down at the desk. Her eyes were to a point off screen, and it quickly became apparent someone was talking to her. She nodded, then looked at the monitor in front of her. She seemed rushed and concerned, and this made Annette Brawley absolutely terrified.

Foley said, “Okay. Sorry, I don’t know your names.”

Peters spoke for both himself and his employee. “Madame Director. I’m Colonel Michael Peters of NGA and this is Annette Brawley, an analyst in my office. How can we be of service?”

“Your desk has developed the information on the rare earth mineral mine and processing facility in Chongju, DPRK?”

“Yes, Madame Director,” Peters said.

Brawley detected nervousness in her boss’s voice.

Someone off camera spoke to Director Foley, and she nodded.

“I am told you, Ms. Brawley, know more about this area than anyone else in the U.S. intelligence community.”

Brawley had no idea if that was true, because she had no idea what other operations were going on in that area. She only knew about the mines. She replied, “I have focused on the northwestern mountains and foothills of DPRK for over two years.”

Foley nodded. “What I am about to tell you both is code-word-classified.”

Brawley nodded slowly; she felt sweat dripping down the back of her neck.

Foley said, “We had a CIA officer on the ground in Chongju. Last night he was compromised during extraction. Right now he is in the wind, and we think it is possible he is injured.”

Brawley’s lips moved, forming the words Oh my God , although she made no sound.

Peters asked, “Do we know anything about what type of vehicle he is driving?”

“He was in an SUV of local manufacture. That vehicle has been destroyed by helicopter gunfire.”

“Was he inside?”

“SIGINT says the North Koreans are tearing up the countryside looking for someone. We hope it’s him. We were tracking him with a satellite, but we lost him after DPRK helicopters destroyed the vehicle he was traveling in. We caught a heat register of a lone individual nearby after the attack, but we lost the signature.”

“No comms, I take it,” Peters said.

“Unfortunately, we have no communication with him at this point. We do not know his location. All of his extraction options, it appears from NRO’s and CIA’s reading of the satellite images available to us, are closed off. We don’t know what he can do, and we don’t know what he will do.”

Brawley nodded. “We should have the newest daylight images in less than five minutes. If there has been anomalous police, government, or military activity in the area, maybe I can find evidence of it. Use that as a starting point to know where to look for . . .” She searched for the term. “The officer.”

Foley said, “The officer’s code name is Avalanche. He is an American citizen of Chinese descent.”

Brawley raised a hand. “If we find him, or evidence of where he is . . . is there something that can be done for him?”

Foley’s lips tightened, a pained expression. “Frankly, Ms. Brawley, I have no idea. Our options are extremely limited. But if we can’t even find Avalanche, I can guarantee he has no chance whatsoever.”

Brawley nodded. “I’ll find him.” She didn’t know why she said it, but once it came out of her mouth she knew she had to come through.

—

Adam Yao pedaled the bike with his right leg while his left stuck out in front of him. The swelling in his knee made it impossible to bend his leg, so slow, painful, one-legged biking was all that was available to him.

He’d stolen the bike in a tiny suburb of Sonchon City by picking the lock on a bike rack, and then he’d ridden as fast as he could with one leg, mostly on dirt roads, and even on fields and hillsides. It was slow going, he might have been averaging three miles an hour tops, but he had no choice but to push on.

He knew his only chance was to get to and then over the Yalu River. Getting to it would be tough. There were patrols on the highways and in the little towns, and he had spent the early-morning hours ducking helos that crisscrossed the sky. Once daylight came in a few hours, it would be even tougher for him. If he wasn’t in a good hide site by sunup he wouldn’t have a chance in hell.

And getting over the Yalu would be even harder. There were bridges, but they would be well guarded. The current was known to be impossible to swim, and any ferryboats, even the kinds used by smugglers, would most likely be known to the North Korean government, and therefore monitored now that the DPRK knew there was an enemy agent in their area.

His leg was bleeding from a gash next to the knee. He needed stitches for sure, and he needed to elevate it and apply pressure, but he’d done nothing more than tear off a piece of his shirt and tie it over the wound. It continued to pump blood, and Adam wondered how long it would take for him to weaken from the blood loss.

Adam was a smart guy, which meant he knew he was fucked. But what choice did he have? He just kept pumping the pedal on the right side of the bike, up and down, trying to get as far north as possible before daylight.

—

Annette Brawley sat in the bubble, in front of the monitor that connected her via videoconference to Osan Air Base in South Korea, and looked at her laptop. Mary Pat Foley sat on the other end of the connection, a laptop in front of her as well, and together they looked at a series of satellite pictures resident on their computers. Annette could make notes on her computer with a stylus, and Mary Pat would immediately see the notations on her images.

Annette said, “Look here. A police car and several people standing around.”