17 - Roughing the Plot

“You didn’t tell the Hanawon center that we were coming?” Gail exclaimed to The Orb. She stood outside QT1, feeling exhausted. Her body clock told her it was past 3 AM in the morning, whereas the North Korean sun told her it was mid-morning and she should be up and at it. She felt far from up, and very far from at it. The Orb had just informed her that the Settlement Support Center, west of Seoul, where the North Koreans were to receive their adjustment training, was not expecting fifty-two new inhabitants. 

“It would have complicated matters,” The Orb said. “The risk of a security breach was too great, and in any case occupancy at Hanawon has been low since Covid struck in the early 2020’s. They have the capacity to take all of the people, and keep the facility fully staffed in case of an influx of defectors. Since it will be during the day, they will adapt. I have reviewed their records. They have shown an amazing capacity to adjust to a multitude of issues.”

“Ok, I get it, but still…no warning whatsoever? If you dumped fifty-two dogs at my dad’s clinic he’d be completely swamped.”

“But your father is not supported by a government with great resources,” The Orb said. “If we are comparing analogies.”

Gail sighed. “So we just drop them at the front door and fly away?”

“The compound is secure and monitored. So you, and the others will off-board them out of sight of the guarded gate. I have already instructed the North Korean leaders on what to do. Language is not an issue. They will simply declare that they defected en masse via a tunnel, which they then destroyed behind them. It is easy for them to sell, since it is not far from the truth. They are valuable assets that the South Korean government will want to nourish. I anticipate that most will complete their adjustment process within the standard six-month period, and integrate well into South Korean society. It is possible that the senior people and their families may be offered residency in the USA. There they can be debriefed in full on North Korean military preparedness and nuclear capabilities. Now, do you remember the introductory formalities?”

“Yes. Bow politely. Introduce myself to the two leaders. You’re sure that this translation thingy will work?”

“Yes Gail. It will precisely translate American English to North Korean dialect, and vice versa. You will understand them perfectly, and they you.”

“Ok. After the introductions I will reveal my ship. Once the shock of that has passed, I’ll ask Nathan and Christina to reveal theirs. We’ll split them up according to the agreed list: thirteen for Nathan, nineteen for Christina, and I get twenty including the extra one.”

“The newborn baby,” The Orb said. 

“Yes, the baby girl.”

“And next?” 

“We don’t muck about,” Gail replied. “Get them on the ships and take off immediately. If anyone resists, you will deploy the neural suppressant. Depending on whose ship they’re on, either Nathan, Christina, or I will escort them, and get them settled.”

“Excellent,” The Orb said. “Until the people arrive, which should be in approximately ninety minutes, you will be in your module with stealth mode activated. You are in a secluded part of Mount Kumgang National Park’s north east corner, however it makes no sense to risk being spotted from the ground or air. The small lake you are parked next to provides the cover story for the celebratory party. Once assembled at its shore, I have informed the leaders that you will meet them, their colleagues, and families. I have been suitably vague about their extraction, although I have informed them that it will be unequivocal. They are risking their lives, but they understand that this is the way it must be. To remain in the face of the plot’s demise would be tantamount to suicide for many of them, and present a future of uncertainty for their families.”

“I just hope they all turn up.” 

“That is outside of our control,” The Orb replied. “We must trust in luck; not something that I have used in the past, however in this case it is necessary to embrace. It is important that you wait until the two leaders have delivered their prepared speeches. There will be a moment of shock as the personnel realize that years of work has been destroyed, and that family members who are not aware of the plot’s purpose comprehend what their spouses have been doing. I predict there will be counseling required at Hanawon to rebuild several relationships, in addition to that needed to rebuild their lives. In any case, you will be able to listen to the speeches, and I will record everything for posterity.”

“Posterity?” Gail asked.

“Yes. I feel that this may be something that future generations will want to witness. Many times great events in Earth’s past have been silenced by lack of recognition. What you will do here today may have great repercussions in the world.”

“What about Nathan and Christina?” Gail asked. “Can I listen in to them?”

“Unfortunately not, for the same reason as the enforced radio silence flying through North Korean airspace. We are close enough to the border to want to avoid any untoward detection. In addition, the North has concentrated a vast amount of its scanning capability on PyeongChang. It wants to record everything that happens, but also to make sure that nothing interferes with the plot. I will relay regular updates to you as they progress.”

“Oh ok,” Gail said. “What’s going on now?”

“Nathan and Christina have already arrived at the designated tunneling spot north of PyeongChang, and tunneling by Nathan’s waldos has begun. It will take no more than fourteen more minutes to complete the extraction tunnel. At that Point work will begin in earnest, culminating in the extraction of the bomb and the destruction of the tunnel.”

“And there’s no-one in it, right?”

“The military leader assures me that the tunnel is empty.” 

“Good, Well, then I guess I’ll go inside and wait. It’s not something I’m very good at you should know.”

“Perhaps you should get some sleep,” The Orb said. “I can wake you in time for the North Koreans’ arrival.”

Gail rubbed her eyes and grunted. They had assumed The Orb would provide some sort of jet lag elixir, so were disappointed to learn that even Orbs had not managed to solve this problem. Universal brains were, it appeared, just not designed to be fooled into thinking that time travel was possible. “I’ll try, but if it won’t work we’ll have to resort to re-runs of All Creatures Great and Small.”

“1978 original, or 2020 remake?” The Orb asked. 

“Original of course. Those forty years make a difference to the believability.”

“Of course,” The Orb said. “I have them buffered for you.”

Gail rubbed her eyes again and sniffed the morning air. The warmth felt alien, as if she had walked into a medium sauna. Denmark could be hot in August, but the evenings were cool. This felt like a place where the temperature dropped at night only to let the inhabitants know that tomorrow they would be sweating as soon as they emerged from a shower. She had applied rosemary petal deodorant before leaving. It just would not do to stink like a hormonal teenager when meeting senior North Korean scientific and military personnel. She wondered if they had any idea they were going to meet a seventeen year-old girl. Well, it was to be a day of surprises for these people. Meeting her was going to be nothing compared to being whisked away in a stealth module to the South, and starting a new life. It seemed to her that the newborn baby would have the easiest time of it; no preconceptions, nothing to miss about her former life. She would grow up in the South blissfully unaware of the shackled life she had avoided. 

Gail clomped up the ramp to the cargo bay, her feet also unwilling to accept that they should be doing anything but enjoying cozy-time under her duvet. She hoped she could string together a sensible sentence when the time came. Once she reached the top of the ramp, she pushed the ‘close’ button and it sealed behind her. There was no squealing of servos, or hiss of pneumatics. The ramp’s fingers fitted neatly into the glove of the QT’s roof and daylight ceased. Gail climbed the steps to the cockpit and nested into the chair designed to fit her perfectly. No sooner had her bodyweight collapsed into the chair than the tinkly theme tune began. She was asleep before it had concluded. 

******************

The hole in front of Nathan’s QT3 was suitably impressive. Doubly so, because it’s diameter of two meters had been achieved without any spoil pile. It was literally a spherical hole in the ground. He glanced at the left of the two timers on his control panel. It showed Korean Standard Time, and read 10:59 AM. They were on schedule, and it was time for the waldos to extract the bomb from the tunnel. The Orb had assured Nathan that the hundred waldos at his disposal could lift the weapon, transport it the two hundred meters from its resting place to the tunnel shaft entrance, invert it, and push it up the tunnel to the surface. That the bomb was almost four meters long, and weighed three thousand, four hundred kilograms was not a problem. Nathan would have liked to have tested this theory on something of similar size and weight before the mission, a suitably remote boulder perhaps. But there hadn’t been time, so they were breaking the rule (his father would not be impressed) of always testing new equipment before actually using it. 

The waldos were bizarre instruments. Each was about the size of a shoebox, but without the angularity. Their shape changed according to the function they were performing. During the dig, they had resembled conical drills with caterpillar tracks. Once they breached the concrete tunnel that had birthed the bomb, the caterpillar tracks had disappeared, replaced by over-sized doughnut tires, and their bodies had morphed into anvil-shapes.

Nathan had wanted to go down the tunnel with the waldos to supervise. However The Orb had assured him that it had things under control remotely, and that this would be an unacceptable risk. Nathan was relegated to the role of watching events unfold on whichever waldo’s video feed gave the best view. When he had seen the Mark 15 thermonuclear bomb for the first time, nestled lovingly in a lattice bed and wired up like Clark Griswold’s roof at Christmas, he had shivered with revulsion. His dad had showed him photos of the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Both bombs had the same basic design, but this one was clearly a later development. It’s engineering was more refined, and the stabilizing fins more military. Little Boy had a more comic-book look compared to its sleeker descendant. In yield, there was no contest. Little Boy’s had been measured in kilotons of TNT. The Mark 15 was measured in megatons. If the North Korean plot had succeeded, the effect on PyeongChang, and its surrounding area would have been devastating. 

The waldos had de-wired the bomb with the freneticism of a hyper-active child unwrapping its main birthday present. By the time they had finished, severed and frayed wires of multitudinous colors lay all over the chamber’s floor. The Orb had assured him that, from the North Korean’s Point of view, everything seemed to be normal. The video feeds and detector systems all said that the bomb was present and correct. It was only when Christina destroyed the tunnel that they would know that there was something amiss, due to the unavoidable seismic reaction. And with all the plot’s staff at the lake-side party, even this information would take time to be confirmed. By the time the North Korean government had figured out that the tunnel had been destroyed, the three QTs would be long gone. By the time they realized that the bomb wasn’t in its cradle anymore, the QTs would be back in Denmark and the bomb would be heading towards the sun. 

Nathan watched the waldos position themselves underneath the bomb, inflate their tires and raise it up from its stand. The waldos then rotated their tires ninety degrees and simply rolled it out. Another rotation and the bomb’s spherical front was facing down the tunnel. Nathan switched to a view from a lead waldo, and followed the bomb as it moved smoothly down the tunnel. There was no sense of jostling, the picture stayed smooth. It took the waldos ten minutes to get the bomb underneath the hole in the tunnel’s roof. Now the waldos redesigned themselves again, this time into a hinged grip shape. With the deftness of a gloved minion taking the Super Bowl trophy out of its carrying case, they lifted the bomb until it was at the precise angle needed for insertion into the shaft. Another morphing. Half of the waldos remained at the bomb’s base, whilst the others took up positions around it. Those at the bottom now resembled over-sized boxing gloves. The ones at the sides ballooned like car airbags. Tiny jets fired from behind underneath the bottom waldos. Nathan knew that these jets were powered by micro-reactors. The irony of these power units had not escaped him. The bomb moved into the shaft. He switched to a view from one of the upper waldos and saw the circle of light from the main tunnel receding gradually beneath the bomb. 

Nathan checked the time. It was 11:20 AM. Finally, it was time for him to do something. He was not tired, feeling too excited to let his body acknowledge the jet lag aching inside. He knew he would pay for this later. So be it. He could sleep on the flight back to Denmark. He got up from his bucket seat and descended the stairs to the QT’s hold. Making one final inspection of the bomb’s resting framework, he pushed the button to deploy the ramp. It lowered with ultimate efficiency. Christina, he knew, would be getting updates from The Orb and would be reading her waldo army to deploy to the tunnel. She had the unenviable position of bidding farewell to her miracle troops. None of them would return from their mission. Nathan at least would have a general’s pride of bestowing returning praise on those serving him.

He stepped out into the Korean morning, allowing the sun to warm his face. Christina’s QT2 was parked to his left. He couldn’t see it, of course. When he looked straight at it all he saw was the hillside beyond. The Orb had explained that the stealth technology projected an ultra-high resolution image of whatever was beyond the module onto its other side. The image was good enough to fool any monitoring system on Earth, not least the human eye. Nathan gave a jaunty wave in Christina’s direction. He imagined her giving him the friendly finger in return. She was not good at waiting.

A noise like the one made when he popped his index finger out of his mouth, announced the bomb’s arrival. The nose-cone appeared through the hole, rotating as it emerged like a gun-metal lipstick. This time, gravity aided and abetted. The bomb’s nose dropped as it cleared the shaft, waldos cushioning it all the way to the ground. Within a minute the bomb was moving smoothly up QT3’s ramp. Nathan followed it, and as he did so couldn’t resist the temptation to touch one its fins. The metal had warmed in the sun, disposed from its air conditioned cocoon. So much potential death contained inside, and this was an old nuke, just 3.8 megatons nominal yield. The Orb had told him that the biggest nuclear weapon ever detonated yielded 50 megatons. He took his hand off the bomb and shook his head. That The Orb would risk so much to help a species that had developed such catastrophic weapons of mass destruction was a miracle in and of itself. And then there were biological and chemical weapons. The sun was the best place for the bomb. In fact, the sun was the best place for all of it.

As the waldos lowered the bomb into its cradle Nathan checked the time on his phone. It was set to match the time on his control panel. It read 11:32 AM KST. He looked in the direction of QT2 and gave a thumbs up. Receiving no response (as expected), he walked up the ramp. Hovering his hand over the close button, he checked behind him to make sure that all the waldos were onboard. The ramp was clear. A bird trilled its approval to the bomb’s removal. He took this as a good sign and slammed the button. The ramp closed silently, and the cargo hold was flooded with a sombre red light. The waldos vanished to wherever they went to rest. He returned to the control room. “I’m ready,” he said.

“That was well done,” The Orb said.

“You know that I didn’t do anything,” Nathan replied. “Pushing the open and close buttons for the ramp does not constitute a job well done.” He thought he could hear The Orb smiling.

“It is the principle of the thing. You are there, and I am not. The best leaders are at the forefront of their operations. They can see what is happening, and make decisions in the field. This went smoothly, as I anticipated. However if there had been a problem I know you would have handled it adroitly.”

“Well, I still think the waldos should get the credit. Which basically means you get the credit since they are really just you.” He wiped sweat from his eyebrows. “But thanks anyway.” He looked at his timer, it read 11:33 AM KST. “Let’s go. I’m sure Christina will be swearing at me for not having left already.”

The Orb said, “Her language is quite colloquial at this moment. I would not presume to relay what she is saying. And yes, it is time for you to join Gail at the lake. Are you ready?”

“Yep,” Nathan said. He sat down just in time to see the ground shrink below him. He worried for a moment about the bomb coming loose. But then realized that this was wasted mental energy. The waldos had secured the bomb with titanium straps. It would have required Thor himself to have moved it. QT3 accelerated with the same vigor it had done when leaving Mønsted. As with that departure, Nathan closed his eyes and braced, expecting to be whiplashed back into his seat. But again, there was no sense of movement. Inertia dampeners he knew, from their training sessions. 

The trip to the lake in Kumgang National Park took only one minute. The view screen showed him landing softly in a clearing on the lake’s Northern side. This was the side nearest National Highway 7. They had selected this spot to give the staff and their families the easiest access to the lake. Again, he couldn’t see Gail’s QT, but he knew from the plan that he was parked right next to it. Now he was the person who had to wait, wait for Gail to make her appearance and meet their soon-to-be guests. At her signal, he and Christina would come out of stealth mode. He had about half an hour of down time, so decided to take a fifteen minute nap. He didn’t want to miss the people’s arrival, scheduled for noon, the leaders’ speeches, nor Gail’s meeting the group. He and Christina had the objective side of the mission, Gail’s was the subjective side. He set the time on his phone, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and let his breathing slow.

“Can you play some music?” he asked The Orb.

“Of course. What would you like?”

“How about fifteen minutes of Eine kleine Nachtmusik?” 

Mozart began to play in glorious stereophonic. 

          ************

Christina had started referring to her waldos as the Ultras. Since they were going on a suicide mission, she was pretty sure they wouldn’t object. As soon as Nathan had given her the thumbs up, and The Orb had informed her that QT3 had gone (she couldn’t tell), her Ultras had begun to deploy down the shaft. She gave them a salute from the ramp’s edge as they had swarmed past her. The Orb had said it would take the farthest of them eight minutes to reach its attachment point. This was at the far end of the tunnel, where it terminated near the North Korean town of Kosong. As soon as the far end of the tunnel was mined, she could give the order for detonation. Instantaneously, all one hundred waldos would turn into miniature black holes. The Orb called them singularities, but she liked to be old school about it. Bottom line: North Korean concrete was no match for Orbean black holes. The bomb tunnel would collapse, and the mined shaft would subside to look like a regular sink hole. It would be neat, and it would be surgical. As the last of the waldos disappeared down the hole’s entrance, she checked the time on her watch. It was 11:40 AM KST.

“Christina?”

The Orb’s voice came through loud and clear via a micro earphone in her left ear. “What?” she said.

“We have a problem,” it replied.

“Eh?” She thought she must have misheard it. The Normandy Landings hadn’t had as much planing as this. “What is it?”

“The waldo heading to the Kosong end of the tunnel reports a person ahead of it.”

“Person?” Christina squeaked. “What person? I thought the tunnel was supposed to be empty.”

“That was the information I was given,” The Orb said. “It is a male, approximately twenty-eight years old, in very good health for a North Korean. It is possible that this person is not affiliated with the scientific or military teams.”

“What do you mean, ‘not affiliated’?” A bead of sweat dripped down the right side of her right face. She wiped it, and succeeded in transmitting salty grime into her eye. 

“North Korea is a very paranoid society,” The Orb said. “I estimate a good probability that this person is a member of the Ministry of State Security. It is likely that he is here to make sure that none of the team does anything to prevent the bomb’s detonation.”

“You mean sabotage?” Christina asked.

“Yes. It’s possible that, unknown to the team’s military leader, the North Korean government has placed this operative to prevent any sabotage or non-compliance.”

Christina’s brain had been busy putting two and two together. “You must warn Gail. If there’s an operative in the tunnel it’s possible there’s one on the team as well. And they’re all heading towards her.” Her fingers moved towards the control panel. “I need to leave, now!”

“Wait,” The Orb said. “I have already informed Gail to be wary of undercover operatives. She acknowledged this and said she will be careful. Nothing can hurt her, I assure you. The module’s weaponry is highly advanced.”

Christina couldn’t undo the knot in her stomach, but she did feel better knowing that The Orb was prepared to use force to protect Gail. “What did she say about the man in the tunnel?” 

There was a ponderous pause. Eventually The Orb said, “I have not informed her of the tunnel’s occupant.”

Christina rubbed her eyes. “Why not?”

“I am afraid,” The Orb said, “that the tunnel’s resident is a problem you will need to deal with. We do not have time to re-task the waldos to subdue and transport this man out of the tunnel. And we cannot allow anybody to report on how the tunnel was destroyed. That would lead to questions that could expose me.”

“What are you saying?” 

“I am sorry, Christina. You must decide if this man is to be sacrificed for the mission’s success. I have been able to tap into his audio feed. His name is Gwon Sang-ook. I have checked the records and can confirm that he is a Lieutenant in the State Security Ministry. He is not aware of the bomb’s removal. The final waldo has reached its position without him detecting it. At this moment, he is smoking a cigarette, and reading a Korean translation of The Hunt for Red October. The book seems to be amusing him.”

“I’ll bet,” Christina mumbled. Tom Clancy was one of her dad’s favorite authors. She had been subjected to the complete movie once, and the beginning of it several times in subsequent attempts to wrangle her to re-watch it. 

“It is 11:43 AM KST,” The Orb said. “If we delay detonation, it will put us behind schedule and risk a sunrise breach in Mønsted.”

“The final waldo is in place?” She knew she it was, and that she was procrastinating. The knot that had formed in her stomach had decided it wanted to grow up. It was now a tangle of wet sailing rope.

“Yes. All waldos are in place and armed. They will detonate on your command.”

Christina slumped back in her seat.  and sat on the ramp’s edge. It was damp, and she could feel the moisture seeping into her underwear. Note to self, she thought. Don’t wear jeans on secret missions. More procrastination. Why couldn’t she just make the call and detonate? One guy she’d never met, who would doubtless put a bullet in her brain should he happen upon her in the throes of foiling his government’s plan. He was in the right place at the wrong time. Who would mourn him? 

But she knew who would mourn him. Gail would have to be told, and they would be back to the state they had been in when they’d fought in the Cavern. All that work to patch things up, all for nothing. She would be ‘Christina the murderer’, soiled by the blood of a man who was just doing his job; sat nice and comfy, having a smoke and laughing at the ridiculousness of capitalism. 

F**k. F**k. F**k!

Why did it have to be her? Why couldn’t Nathan have had the destruction part of the mission, and she do the bomb-snatch? 

“Christina,” The Orb said. “I am sorry but we are out of time. The waldos are programmed to respond to your instruction. I cannot do this. It is one of the ways that humanity dictates its own future. This must be your choice.”

She knew it had to be done. What choice did she have? The bomb was out now. If the tunnel wasn’t destroyed this guy would probably be lined up in front of a firing squad anyway. And that only after likely being tortured on the assumption that he must have been in on it. Killing him was a mercy. One blinding flash of pain and all over. Better that than electrode n*****s, then facing the barrels and wondering which, if any, was the blank. She looked at her watch, it read 11:44 am KST. She resolved to burn this time onto her memory; 44, this would become her number. She committed right there to wearing 44 whenever she played in the future. This she would do to honor the memory of this man. 

“Detonate,” she said.

          ***********

“Christina has arrived,” The Orb told Gail. “Her module is parked to the left of Nathan’s, which is to the left of yours. There is a five meter gap between each module.” 

Gail looked at her timer. It was 11:46 AM. “Did all go as planned in the tunnel?”

“The bomb has been extracted, and the tunnel destroyed,” The Orb said.

“Cool.” Gail felt good. Things were going according to plan, and the North Koreans would be arriving in about ten minutes. They were on a bus from Kosong, heading down the AH6 highway. They would turn off into the Park, then backtrack along the road that led to the lake’s carpark. It was a short walk from there to the spot designated for the rendezvous. The sun, approaching its zenith, was baking everything beneath it. Inside QT1, Gail felt excited. She was keen to hear leaders’ speeches. She imagined what she would say in their place. She couldn’t figure out how she would start, and realized that it was pointless to try.