Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

“Yes.”

“After eight weeks you can get one week off, or you can keep working if you want.”

Adam wanted to look eager. “I came here to work. Not for vacation.”

Hu looked him over and then nodded. He said, “You will tell no one that you have been in America. Ever. Certainly you will keep quiet that you have an American passport. I will keep it here. It is procedure.”

Yao knew why, but he pretended like he didn’t. “The people at the mine don’t like Americans?”

Hu lit a cigarette and leaned back. He spoke matter-of-factly. “This processing plant you are going to is not in Mongolia like we said. I wasn’t allowed to mention it before you came here, and when I tell you where you will be working you will understand why.”

Yao was a good actor, and reveled in the portrayal of a man genuinely confused. “I don’t understand. Where will I be working?”

“Later today you and forty-three other men and women will travel in a bus to the airport and you will board a plane to Pyongyang. The mine is in the north of the DPRK, not very far from the border with China.”

Yao’s eyes went wide. Before he spoke, Hu said, “It is all arranged at the highest levels of their state-owned mining corporation. Once you are in the air to Pyongyang, a North Korean government official will give you the documentation you need to get into the country.”

“What about the Chinese government?”

“To the government here, you never left China.”

Adam raised no complaints, and he signed all the papers using the name Shan Xin.

Hu finished the meeting with a warning. “We already have sent over one hundred fifty workers to the mining operation in North Korea. They are paid well, so they do not complain, but they report difficult conditions.”

“I understand.”

“Remember, you will be working in a facility under guard at all times. Don’t do anything to raise any suspicion with the authorities in North Korea. Do your work. Don’t ask questions, don’t look around, don’t complain, and don’t give them any reason to mistrust you. You do this and you will make a lot of money. If you don’t do this . . . there is nothing anyone here can do for you.”

Adam nodded calmly, as if blowing off the warning. But the truth was different. He felt an unmistakable feeling of dread about where he was going.

—

The flight from Shanghai to Pyongyang was in an Airbus A319 flown by Deer Jet, a Chinese charter company based in Beijing. On board the aircraft Adam met a few of the others heading to Chongju. Most if not all seemed bewildered by the fact they were heading into North Korea.

It was clear all these men and women were educated professionals. They didn’t look like miners any more than Adam did. He knew that in order to staff the processing facility Hu and his gangster mining company needed to recruit qualified systems engineers, computer technicians, and other high-tech industry professionals, and few if any of these people would have experience with the criminal underworld. Adam hoped to use this to his advantage. He’d fit in better where he was going if he behaved just like the rest of them. A little wide-eyed about the whole thing, but dedicated to his one specific role.

They landed at seven in the evening and deplaned within minutes. Adam had the feeling this was the only aircraft flying into the airport at the moment, because the terminal was empty except for two long rows of young soldiers in green parade dress uniforms, who virtually lined the walkway from the gate to the immigration control area.

Adam walked between the soldiers, following in the middle of the pack of tired Chinese, doing his best to keep his head down. He stole a couple of furtive glances, though, and he saw the soldiers were both male and female, they seemed to have programmed scowls on their faces, and they held their locally made Kalashnikov-style rifles across their chests at the ready. Adam could plainly see the weapons’ fire selectors were switched off the standard safe setting and set to fire semiautomatically at the press of the trigger.

Christ, the American thought.

His trip through immigration control was like none he’d ever experienced in his life. The Chinese technicians were each sent to their own table in a large open area in the middle of the terminal. Here, five armed and scowling immigration officers stood at the ready. Adam was led to his table, and in the poor Mandarin spoken by a female soldier standing behind him he was told to put his bag up on the table and unzip it. He did so, and two officers began taking everything out and going through it. He then was ordered to hand over his wallet, his employment contract, and his passport to a white-haired man. While this man looked through every page of his documents, a fourth official began frisking Adam from head to toe. He was ordered to strip down to his underwear—this he did in the view of not only the female North Korean officers but also the female Chinese technicians, who were stripping down themselves.

Every shred of their clothing was inspected, and then each person was wanded with a handheld metal detector.

All in all, Adam spent more than twenty minutes in his underwear. He was a fit and confident young man, but standing in front of two young females with guns in their hands and “Fuck you” stares on their faces was as uncomfortable an experience as he’d ever felt.

Right in the middle of the lengthy process Yao heard a disturbance at another table. A man raised his voice, speaking in Korean.

“What is this? What did I find here? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Adam turned to the action. A thirtyish female Chinese woman Adam had met on the flight over stood in her bra and panties, looking at what an immigration officer held out in his hand. She didn’t understand his words, so she waited for a translation. A North Korean minder who spoke Chinese came over and looked at the alleged contraband, then turned to the woman. “This is a Korean dictionary. Why do you have this?”

In Chinese the woman replied with genuine confusion. “ Why ? Are you kidding? I don’t speak Korean. I bought it in the airport. I thought it would be helpful to know a few words.”

“Helpful to your espionage?”

“What? Of course not. ”

The woman was led away by the arm, still in her underwear and openly weeping. Her luggage remained open and unattended on the table, with her clothes scattered across the table and the floor.

Adam did not say a word. He hoped like hell she’d be expelled for this; he couldn’t imagine a better outcome for the lady. In fact, he didn’t know if he should feel sorry for her or envy her.

North Korea sucked already.

He chastised himself for this thought. Silently, he said, What the hell did you expect, Adam?

—

After the lengthy immigration process and the loss of one of their number, Adam and the forty-two remaining Chinese technicians were put on a bus and taken through the dark and nearly empty streets of Pyongyang to the Yanggakdo International Hotel.

Adam knew all about this place. The rumors were there was only one floor in operation: the twenty-sixth. The rest of the place was closed and shuttered because, despite the impression the North Koreans wanted to make with the massive business-class hotel, there were so few foreign businessmen in the city they needed only a couple dozen rooms at any one time.

Of course, with the arrival of the technicians, Adam assumed he’d be going to some previously mothballed floor.

In the lobby they were told to line up, and one of the impeccably dressed minders said, “I will pass out your keys. Four people to a room. Everyone will be staying on the twenty-sixth floor.”