Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

Adam relaxed a little, but he was careful not to show it. “Okay, where do you need me to go?”

Mary Pat took over. “Your file says you speak Korean.”

“Just fair. I spent a semester in high school as an exchange student in Seoul, then I returned for a semester of college. Studied the language in school, and took a night class while doing NOC work in HK.”

The two intelligence executives nodded at the young officer. They knew all this already.

Adam asked the next question with some concern. “We are talking about me going into South Korea. Correct?”

When the answer did not immediately come from either Foley or Calhoun, Adam just muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Mary Pat answered now. “What would you say if I told you we have a way to get you into North Korea?”

“I would respectfully ask you to provide a little more information.”

The room was tense, but Foley laughed. “That is understandable. Nearly two years ago Chinese geologists and miners working in the DPRK found deposits in the mountains of the Chongju region near their northern border with China. They dug test shafts and confirmed the find, then began establishing the infrastructure for extraction.”

Adam had heard something about this, but it had never been on his radar enough to look into it more closely.

Mary Pat said, “Then, about a year ago, Choi Ji-hoon threw the Chinese mining concern out of his country.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know. Some contractual issue, perhaps? What we do know is his new minister of mining, a man named Hwang, has recently allowed a group of illegal Chinese mining industry personnel into Chongju to work at the mine. Clearly he’s smart enough to know DPRK can’t extract the rare earths without expert help. The gangster miners are crucial to his operation.”

“Sounds prudent.”

“This gangster mining company is very experienced and well organized, but they have specialized in extraction, not processing. The North Koreans have to process the ore themselves now, they can’t very well hand it off to the Chinese after canceling the Chinese contract, so the illegal operation has established a front company in Shanghai for the sole purpose of obtaining processing technology and brainpower from abroad.” She paused. “Are you with me so far?”

Yao just nodded, urging her on.

“This company has been in contact with a Chinese national working at a rare earth mineral mine in California. We only found out about it because we’ve had a surveillance package on the man for some time. Initially we thought the man was working for Chinese intelligence. He is not. Quite the opposite, actually. He is a gangster miner himself who managed to get hired in the U.S. to headhunt talent at NewCorp, the American mining concern.

“We have the ability to intercept communications between the gangster mining company and their agent in California. We know what the Chongju rare earth–processing plant needs as far as specialized labor. They are rushing to find the right people for the jobs, because in just two weeks they will be sending another group into North Korea to work at the mine and the processing plant. Our plan is to notify the gangster miners that he has recruited a Chinese American with knowledge of a critical piece of technology used in rare earth ore processing. That man, our man, will then fly to Shanghai to join the gangster miners, and from there go into Pyongyang along with the rest of the Chinese. He will go to Chongju under DPRK government control and work at the mine.”

Yao was astonished. This was a massive operation. “And report back to the U.S. some way?”

Calhoun answered this one. “That’s right. Science and Technology has some communications equipment that can go into DPRK. They say it is undetectable.”

Adam kept an impassive face, but he couldn’t help but think the eggheads at S&T wouldn’t be stood in front of a wall and shot if their “undetectable” device was somehow detected in the DPRK. If Adam went into North Korea, that fate would fall to him.

He muttered an unenergetic “Great.”

Mary Pat picked up on his doubt. “The North Koreans aren’t just allowing miners and processors into the country, they are also trying to get equipment in. The communications system will not travel with our asset. It will be embedded in a computer that our asset will have access to at the mine. We’ve learned a shipment of computers will be sent from Bulgaria to North Korea next week. We’ll have one of the machines altered with the hidden communications equipment. As long as our asset isn’t caught communicating with the device red-handed, our asset will be free and clear on this operation.”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand.” He noted that Mary Pat was speaking in general terms, still referring to the person going into North Korea as “our asset.” Clearly she wanted him to agree to go, but she wasn’t assuming anything yet, and this Adam appreciated.

He asked, “What specific intelligence are you trying to get from an asset in the Chongju mine?”

Mary Pat replied, “Satellites aren’t telling us what we need to know. Is there equipment in the mine in violation of sanctions? Are there personnel from other countries there? Experts? Specialists? How soon till that mine is generating revenue for the DPRK?”

“May I ask how many other CIA officers are operating inside North Korea?”

Mary Pat shook her head. “I can’t give you that information. I can only tell you that you will be working without a network in country.”

Adam assumed as much. If he went into the DPRK, he would be on his own. But this wasn’t the only thing bothering him. “I have to ask. Is this really that big an issue, considering all the other problems we have with North Korea? I mean, they are involved in illegal mining in violation of sanctions . . . but if you can get me in the country, shouldn’t I be trying to get a look at something more important than mining?”

Mary Pat said, “If possible, yes, you should. We see it as an incredible coincidence, and hopefully one we can capitalize on, that in a nation some forty-six thousand square miles in size, the Chongju mine happens to be located only twenty-four miles away from Sohae Satellite Launching Station. Sohae is where they launch their ICBMs.”

“That is a coincidence that probably seems a bit easier to capitalize on while we’re sitting here in Virginia. In country twenty-four miles might seem like a long way.”

She smiled. “Very true. And we’re not sending you there because of Sohae.”

Mary Pat shook her head. “President Ryan has dictated that this mine at Chongju represents a critical intelligence need of the United States.”

That sounded, to Adam, like hyperbole. He didn’t know Mary Pat Foley personally, but he knew that her reputation was of a supremely levelheaded individual. “What makes it a critical need?”

“Because estimates put the capacity under those mountains at two hundred thirteen million tons of heavy rare earth minerals. A value approaching, depending on market conditions, twelve trillion dollars.”

Adam reached out with both hands and took hold of the conference table. “Twelve trillion ? That can’t be possible, can it?”

“It can. Is your imagination big enough to consider what all Pyongyang could buy with twelve trillion?”

Adam nodded slowly. “They could buy nukes, ballistic missiles, every bit of armament made by the Russians or the Chinese. They could buy technology and intellectual capital.”

Mary Pat leaned over the table. “They can buy all that, but they can also buy something more important. Friends. ”

“Friends?”

“Votes in the UN. States that would go against official sanctions. Trading partners they can’t even dream of now. With that much money on the table, many nations who seem so perfectly resolute now in their insistence they won’t work with a rogue regime would suddenly find some flexibility in the issue.”