Kai reached the Guoanbu campus at last. He took off his coat as he went up in the elevator.
He was waylaid in his outer office by Jin Chin-hwa, who was a Chinese citizen of Korean ancestry, young and eager and, more importantly, fluent in the Korean language. Jin was casually dressed today, as was permitted for weekend working, in black jeans and an Iron Maiden hoodie. He had an audio bud in one ear. ‘I’m listening to KBS1,’ he said.
‘Good.’ Kai knew that this was the principal news channel of the Korean Broadcasting System based in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
Jin went on: ‘They’re saying there has been an “incident” at a military base in North Korea. They cite unconfirmed rumours that a detachment of the Special Operation Force attempted to arrest a group of anti-government conspirators in a dawn raid.’
Kai said: ‘Can we put on North Korean TV news in the conference room?’
‘North Korea television doesn’t start broadcasting until the afternoon, sir.’
‘Oh, shit, I’d forgotten that.’
‘But I’m monitoring Pyongyang FM, the radio station, switching between that and KBS1.’
‘Good. We’ll gather in the conference room in half an hour. Tell the others.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Kai went to his desk and reviewed the information that had come in so far. There was nothing at all on social media, because North Koreans were forbidden access to the Internet. Signals intelligence confirmed what was already known or suspected. The embassy in Pyongyang had nothing.
Ting phoned. ‘I think I’ve done something wrong,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Do you have a friend called Wang Wei?’
There were hundreds of thousands of men in China called Wang Wei, but as it happened, Kai did not have a friend of that name. ‘No, why?’
‘I was afraid of that. I was learning a long speech, and I picked up the phone. He asked for you and I told him you’d gone to the office. I was distracted and I just didn’t think. After I hung up, I realized I shouldn’t have told him anything. I’m so sorry.’
‘No harm done,’ he said. ‘Don’t do it again, but don’t worry about it.’
‘Oh, I’m glad you’re not mad at me.’
‘Is everything else all right?’
‘Yes, I’m about to leave for the market. I thought I’d make dinner tonight.’
‘Wonderful. See you later.’
The call had been from a spy, probably American or European. Kai’s home phone number was secret, but spies discovered secrets, it was their job. And the caller had learned something. He now knew that Kai had gone to the office on a Sunday morning. That told him there must be some kind of crisis.
Kai went to the conference room. His five senior men were there plus four North Korea specialists including Jin Chin-hwa, and the Guoanbu office in Pyongyang was attending remotely. Kai briefed them on the events of the last twenty-four hours, and each individual reported what information he had been able to glean in the past hour.
Then Kai said: ‘For today and probably the next few days, it’s imperative that we have real-time information about what’s happening in North Korea. Our president and our entire foreign policy establishment will be following events minute by minute, and considering whether China needs to intervene, and if so, what form the intervention will take – and they will be depending on us for reliable data.
‘All sources of intelligence must be milked. Satellite reconnaissance must focus on the military bases. Signals intelligence must monitor all the North Korean traffic we can access. Any sudden flurry of phone calls and messages could indicate a rebel attack.
‘The Guoanbu office in the Chinese embassy at Pyongyang will be working 24/7, as will our consulate at Chongjin. They ought to be able to provide some information. And don’t forget the diaspora. There are several thousand Chinese citizens living in North Korea – some businessmen, a few students, plus people married to Koreans. We should have phone numbers for all of them. This is the moment for them to prove their patriotism. I want every one called.’
Jin interrupted him. ‘Pyongyang is making an announcement.’ He translated as he listened. ‘They say they have arrested a number of American-controlled saboteurs and traitors at a military base this morning . . . they don’t say which base . . . nor how many people were arrested . . . Nothing about violence or gunfire . . . And that’s it. The announcement is over.’
‘This is surprising,’ Kai said. ‘They normally take hours or even days to respond to events.’
Jin said: ‘This has got the Pyongyang government agitated.’
‘Agitated?’ said Kai. ‘I think they’re more than agitated. I think they’re scared. And you know what? So am I.’
DEFCON 4
ABOVE NORMAL READINESS. HEIGHTENED INTELLIGENCE WATCH AND STRENGTHENED SECURITY MEASURES.
CHAPTER 20
President Green hated the cold. Growing up in Chicago, she might have got used to it, but she never did. As a little girl she had loved school but hated getting there in the winter. One day, she had vowed, she would live in Miami where, she had heard, you could sleep on the beach.
She never lived in Miami.
She put on a big puffy down coat to walk from the Residence to the West Wing at seven o’clock on Sunday morning. As she passed through the colonnade she thought about sex. Gerry had felt amorous last night. Pauline liked sex, but she was not driven by it, not since her early twenties. Gerry was the same, and their sex life had always been pleasant but undramatic, like the rest of their relationship.
Not anymore, she thought sadly.
Something had gone wrong in her feeling towards Gerry, and she thought she knew why. In the past she had always felt the reassuring sense that he had her back. They occasionally disagreed, but they never undermined one another. Their arguments were not angry because their conflicts did not run deep.
Until now.
Pippa was at the bottom of it. Their cute little baby had turned into a mutinous adolescent, and they could not agree on what to do. It was almost a cliché; there were probably articles about it in the women’s magazines that Pauline never read. She had heard that marital rows about how to raise the children were said to be the worst.
Gerry did not just disagree with Pauline; he argued that the problem was her fault. ‘Pippa needs to see more of her mother,’ he kept saying, when he knew perfectly well it was not possible. It made her feel sorry for them both.
Until now they had faced issues together and taken joint responsibility. She had been on Gerry’s side, and he on hers. Now he seemed to be against her. And that was what she had been thinking about last night, as Gerry lay on top of her in the four-poster bed that stood in the Queen’s Bedroom that had once been used by Queen Elizabeth II of England. Pauline had felt no affection, no intimacy, no arousal. Gerry had taken longer than usual, and she guessed that meant he, too, was feeling estranged.
Pippa would get through this phase, Pauline knew, but would the marriage survive? When she asked herself that question she felt despair.
She arrived at the Oval Office shivering. Chief of Staff Jacqueline Brody was waiting for her, looking as if she had been up for hours. ‘The National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence are hoping to speak to you urgently,’ Jacqueline said. ‘They’ve brought the CIA’s Deputy Director for Analysis.’
‘Gus and Chess, the DNI and a CIA nerd, while it’s still dark on a Sunday morning? Something’s up.’ Pauline took off her coat. ‘Show them in right away.’ She sat at the desk.
Gus wore a black blazer and Chess a tweed jacket, Sunday clothes. The Director of National Intelligence, Sophia Magliani, was more formal in a short jacket and black pants. The CIA man looked like a street person, in jogging pants and well-used running shoes with a pea coat. Sophia introduced him as Michael Hare, and Pauline recalled that she had heard of him: he spoke both Russian and Mandarin, and his nickname was Micky Two-Brains. She shook his hand and said: ‘Thank you for coming to see me.’