Devil's Fork (5 page)

“
You mean you’re asking me
to become a spy?”

“
That’s correct. We think
you have the right profile to be a deep cover officer, or illegal,
in North Korea.”

“
Illegal? What’s
that?”

“
We will train you and
send you into North Korea. You will live and work as a citizen
there. Your task will be to recruit contacts, or assets, and get
information for us.”

“
How do you just send
someone in there? I heard you can’t live in that society unless you
and your family have a verified ideological history.”

“
We have ways to get
people into that system. That will be part of your
training.”

“
How long would I spend
there?”

“
A long time. You need to
establish an identity, get a job, rise within your job, recruit
assets, and start getting information. That all takes years. We
will tell you more in training.”

“
What kind of training
will I get?”

“
We will supplement your
military training with traditional intelligence, psychological, and
social training so you can be effective. This type of work can only
be done by people like you.”

After a pause, 2135 had made his
decision.

“
I accept.”

“
Great. You may go home as
planned. But instead of coming back here like you were told, report
to the place on this piece of paper. This is the compound where you
will be trained. Your commanding officers know and will not expect
you back here.”

The man had handed him a piece of paper with
a location.

“
How long will I get
trained for? Before I go in?”

“
Two years. Have a good
break. Enjoy your training. You will learn skills few know. By the
way, no one, not even your parents can know what we discussed,
OK?”

The man had left as suddenly as he came.
That locker room conversation was what started all this, 2135
sometimes thought.

He now was sitting on his bed, holding his
Samsung phone, which was out of its plastic bag and powered up. He
was required to check it once a day for messages that Command might
send him. The messages might be purely informational. Or they could
be instructions. He could also send messages back whenever he
wanted to. He sometimes sent mission updates but usually he was
sending through information he had collected. This evening, he saw
a new message from Command:

2135: Determine whether nuclear materials
are going in or out of the port in your city.

Officer 2135 stopped to
think. This was an odd mission. His broad objective for the last
fifteen years had nothing to do with nuclear weapons. He worked as
the manager of the railway station in the city. He had access to
the information on where regime members were traveling to and from,
since rail was an important mode of transport for them. He sent
back information on the movements of the regime insiders. But
finding out if there were
nuclear
materials
? This seemed like a sudden change
in direction. He had never even heard of nuclear materials
mentioned by any of his contacts, ever. But 2135 had a contact, an
asset, who he thought he could even meet with tonight. He could try
to get some information from this man, he thought.

Officer 2135 walked to his small kitchen and
opened a cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of soju. He put the soju
in a bag, turned off his lights and left his apartment.

He walked down the usual five flights of
stairs and stepped out into the quiet city. Few people were
outside. There was never much to do. A couple of homeless kids were
sleeping on the street. The dark, overcast evening sky hung over
the quiet city like a blanket. 2135 started making his way to the
small hut his contact from the port lived in. Even though his
training was well ingrained, 2135 always ran through some of the
things he had learned fifteen years ago. Extracting information
from an unsuspecting person was challenging. Extracting it in a way
that the person never knew you sought the information was the
highest challenge. That is what he had trained to do. That was what
he knew he needed to do tonight as he walked to the house of his
port contact, Choi.

The first lesson he learned at the compound
where he received his training was the most elemental fact about
human nature. Everything he had learned afterwards was built upon
that foundation. In fact, everything else seemed like a footnote.
He felt that he could have gone into North Korea having just
learned that first lesson.

After he arrived at the compound, he soon
realized he was the only trainee there. He learned that every
illegal was trained alone. There were no other students at that
facility. There were a number of instructors, but he was the only
one there to learn. The facility itself was a complex that housed
the instructors and their families. He realized he was to live with
his instructors. Soon after he arrived, he sat in the small
classroom alone as the first of his instructors walked in and asked
if he was ready for his first, and most important lesson. 2135,
remembers looking around awkwardly at the empty room, and replied
that he was ready to learn. The instructor introduced himself as a
psychologist.

“
I will now teach you the
most important lesson you will learn here. It will be the basis for
all of your training going forward.”

“
I’m ready.”

“
What do you think is the
one main driver of human behavior?”

“
I’m not sure I understand
the question.”

“
If there was one aspect
of human nature that drives the majority of how one acts, how one
behaves, how one responds to others, what would you think that
is?”

“
I’m not sure. I’ve never
really thought about it. I didn’t even think such a concept
existed. Aren’t different people driven by different
things?”

“
So here is lesson one and
always remember this. John Dewey, an American philosopher and
psychologist made a profound statement during the last century. He
said the ‘deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be
important’. Never forget this. We go to work, meet people, talk,
debate, dine together, buy luxuries, go out with friends and engage
in many other activities because we want people to pay attention to
us. We want people to be interested in us, in what we are doing, in
what we are thinking, and especially in what we have to say. Have
you heard of Dale Carnegie?”

“
I’m not sure. Sounds
familiar.”

“
He wrote
How to Win Friends and Influence People
based on this concept. When you satisfy someone’s
desire to feel important, you are providing a nourishment as
important as food and water. You can make someone feel important in
a number of ways. First, listen to others as they talk about
themselves, and importantly drive any conversation towards them.
People love talking about themselves. Praising people works as
well. Showing admiration is highly effective. When you satisfy this
desire for importance, you create a bond with other people. You
open them up to where they can potentially be recruited as assets
or sources of information. When you are in North Korea, you will
not parade around, trying to recruit people by announcing you are a
South Korean spy in need of information. Recruitment is a subtle
art. By creating special bonds with people, you can quietly start
influencing them so that they will want to help you. That’s how
assets are recruited. Sometimes just by making someone feel
important and creating that friendship, you might be able to get
your intended information by asking innocuous questions. Your asset
does not need to even be recruited. He will just think he’s saying
something interesting about work to a friend.”

Now as 2135 walked towards the edge of the
city, almost two decades later, he thought about how he had
contacted Choi and developed him as an asset using that first
lesson. He initiated contact five years ago when he realized he
needed someone at the port. He had walked there one day and
observed. Some men were working in groups but Choi was working by
himself by a building. He seemed to be taking inventory. 2135
walked up to him and offered a cigarette. As they smoked together,
2135 mentioned how hard he and his colleagues at port were working.
He then asked about Choi’s family. They struck up a friendship and
soon were having drinks or cigarette breaks several times per
month.

As 2135 approached Choi’s house that night,
he thought that tonight should be much like those other meetings.
But somehow he needed to figure out the question of nuclear
weapons. He knocked on the door of the small hut. Within a minute
Choi was standing there, smiling.

“
Choi, I brought us some
soju. Let’s sit outside and share some.” 2135 started.

“
Wow. Thanks.” Choi
replied.

“
Do you want a
cigarette?”

“
I would love one. What
brings you over here tonight?”

“
I just wanted to celebrate
my birthday with my best friend.”

Choi smiled, then asked, “How are you?”

“
Doing well. How about you?
How is your family?”

Officer 2135 spent the next several minutes
asking questions about topics that 2135 knew interested Choi,
including his family. He carefully directed the conversation
towards Choi, and watched as Choi opened up and became more
talkative. When the moment felt right, 2135 started indirectly
probing for his desired information.

“
You guys seem busy at
port,” 2135 mused.

“
Yes, well you know we’ve
had a few ships come in this week so we are dealing with a lot of
crews and cargo.”

“
That’s strange that there
are so many ships coming into port.”

“
It’s actually interesting
to tell you the truth. We’ve seen new ships come in this week.
Ships I have never seen before.”

“
I can’t imagine that. I
would have thought you would have seen everything by
now.”

“
Well I actually thought so
too. But this week I was surprised to see a new ship with a crew I
have never seen before. Nobody at the port had seen them before. We
did not want to approach them and ask, because we were afraid of
getting in trouble.”

“
The ship’s flag must have
been strange. The crew must have looked strange too,” 2135 mused
again. He had been trained to make musing statements rather than
ask questions directly.

“
I did not see the flag.
Yes, the crew looked – strange. I’ve never seen men like that
here.”

“
I’m sure someone as smart
as you can figure out where they were from.”

“
Maybe I could. Maybe I’ll
ask them when I’m loading their cargo tomorrow.”

“
What cargo do they
have?”

“
I’m not sure. My inventory
sheet just says to note how many containers they take.”

“
I wonder what’s inside
those containers.”

“
Actually you know what’s
interesting? What is really interesting is who brought them their
cargo.”

“
Why is that?”

“
It was
our
army. Several groups of them
drove over in trucks. One of the men in the back had a special suit
on.”

“
What kind of
suit?”

“
I don’t mean a worker’s
suit like I wear. This guy was wearing some kind of protective suit
with a mask. He tried to quickly take it off in the back of the
truck but I saw him.”

“
Your job seems so
interesting. Can I come for a cigarette break with you tomorrow
morning?”

Choi smiled, “let’s do that. I’ll tell the
other guys at the dock to find me if they see you.”

2135 made a mental note in his head to show
up to the port the next day to see for himself who these people
were. Command had figured something out, he thought. They were
right to suspect that some kind of dangerous materials were passing
through the port. Officer 2135 then refocused on his conversation
with Choi. He directed the conversation back to Choi’s family.

CHAPTER 6

MONDAY

Langley, Virginia

Sara was at Matt’s desk. He sat in an open
bullpen, amidst a sea of other such desks. It created a sense of
openness among analysts, but took away all privacy. They were
getting ready to send the message to PACOM through the military’s
secure email messaging system, the Defense Message System. Matt was
loading it on his computer.

“
So what’s with the mission
codename – Devil’s Fork?” he asked

“
Haven’t you heard of
it?”

“
Not really. What is it
again?”

“
A devil’s fork is a
paradoxical object. It’s an object that can’t exist. It’s a fork
that looks like it has three points at one end, but the base looks
like it only has two points coming out. Here, google it and take a
look”

They searched for an image and pulled up a
devil’s fork.