Devil's Fork Read Free Page B

abroad or
threats from their own people. Setting up the intelligence services
as military organizations is one way to ensure these officers were highly
trained and sworn to defend the regime.
While the secret police monitored the people and spies monitored
the outside world, the military counter-intelligence safeguarded
the regime’s secret activities. Their tasks would include guarding
North Korea’s nuclear arms program.
    As with all North Korean activities this
appeared paradoxical to Sara. The North Koreans wanted to keep
secret their most precious project. So they put military
counter-intelligence units to guard it. But because military
counter-intelligence units were guarding it, the SAD could tell
this was where the regime’s special project was housed. From all
the time she spent working on North Korean-related projects, the
one commonality Sara noticed was that paradoxes were abundant.
    As the briefing continued, Sara looked at
Tom. He hid a subtle smirk and sat with a straight back. His
sleeves were rolled up and his forearms looked like baseball bats.
His hands looked like two sledgehammers at rest.
    Anderson continued, “we also know that the
underground nuclear tests the regime has been conducting have all
been near this area. This confirms that they are probably doing
their research in this underground facility.”
    Tom jumped in “Do we know of any other
entrances?”
    “ If there are any, we can’t
see them. This is a hilly area with a forest so we cannot see
whether people are entering this base from other
locations.
    “ OK, let’s move on to the
rest of 1414’s message. He then said he was compromised and made it
clear he planned to take his own life. Mr. Park says his team
provides each illegal with a pill they can take as a last
resort—“
    “ How was he compromised?”
Sara asked.
    Mr. Park turned to her from across the
table, looked down as if in deep thought for a brief moment and
spoke in what sounded like native English.
    “ We are not sure. Maybe
someone overheard him talking with some of his contacts. Maybe he
inadvertently used words from the South Korean dialect that drew
attention to him. It is difficult to say right now.”
    “ Could his source, his last
contact, have been a plant from the secret police? Could 1414 have
been given a false location?” Sara felt it was part of her job to
protect Tom. He would go anywhere they sent him, but she had to
make sure they were not sending him into any traps.
    “ I don’t think so” Mr. Park
replied, his voice methodical “like us, they are vigilant in the
North. If 1414 had met with a secret police officer or a plant,
they would probably have arrested him on the spot.”
    “ Are we sure that the North
Koreans did not see the message that 1414 sent? If they saw it,
they could be fortifying that base.”
    Mr. Park again began quietly and precisely
laying out an explanation. “We have high confidence that they did
not see the message. This is for two reasons. First, the message he
sent was encrypted. Secondly, we believe 1414 destroyed his phone
before his death.”
    Anderson added “And if they arrested the
contact 1414 met with, they might have found that he mentioned that
base. But they still would not know for sure that 1414 was
specifically looking for that piece of information. So they have no
reason to believe that we know about that base.”
    After a pause as everybody digested the
information, Anderson continued the briefing. “So then the last
part of the message is ‘error in how we think about Jewels’”
Anderson read slowly with his arms crossed. “This part we are not
sure about.”
    Mr. Park started speaking again, carefully
choosing every word.
    “ As Mr. Anderson mentioned,
when we sent him in we told 1414 that his primary objective was to
find this facility and his secondary objective was to try to
determine how far along North Korea’s nuclear weapons program
was.”
    Sara knew this was an issue SAD dealt