7.
THE EXECUTION
Kang Soo and Park Yon were taking great care settling in, especially Soo who would be based at the nuclear power station, with its extra high security. He would only be working in the canteen, sweeping the floor or whatever else they found for him to do, but all strangers were treated with suspicion anywhere in the country. If either of them acted suspiciously, or were thought to be officials from the Workers Party sent to spy on the others, they would be shunned and learn nothing of any value.
It was unusual for them to be working together and yet so far apart. They were more used, in Afghanistan for instance, to working as a pair, and sticking together for support. Here, it was different. They had the same objective, to establish contact with Dr. Choi Shin and to offer him help and support if he decided he needed it, with the secondary objective of gathering as much intelligence as they could. This was particularly important for Kang Soo, who was within the security boundary of the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Facility, although only on menial tasks in the accommodation complex. Nevertheless, he was well placed to pick up idle chatter and gossip about what was going on.
The pair was able to keep in touch with one another discreetly, through a miniaturised satellite communications system, which they could also use to keep in touch with their Headquarters in Hereford. So far as anyone knew, it was far more sophisticated than anything available in North Korea, but they still had to take special precautions to avoid the equipment being found, tiny though it was. The digitally encrypted messages were transmitted by agile variable frequency signals on a bandwidth not normally used for any form of communications network, so it was reasonably secure.
Both men knew who they were looking for – they had seen him in Oxford and at the airport when he left for home.
Kang was the first to spot him, one lunchtime, sitting with colleagues, a week or so after they had arrived. He was able to get quite close as he cleared tables in the senior canteen – there was no doubt about who it was.
For Park it was a more difficult job to spot the target, since his job as a labourer on the farm meant that his movements were quite restricted, initially at least. After a week or so, the farmer sent him in to town to the market to deliver produce to the stall which he ran with his son. He went on his old bicycle. Nobody took any notice of him. His task completed, he set off again, but instead of heading straight back to the farm, he decided to find the apartment block where Dr. Choi lived. It was not far; walking distance in fact and he found it quite easily. Choi was no doubt at work, he thought; there was no sign of him at the flat.
The people of North Korea were expected to work long hours for six days of the week, so Sunday was a day off for most people, and a day for relaxing, seeing friends and so on. Park decided he would need to come in to town again on Sunday if he was ever to make contact with the Doctor. The farmer’s son and perhaps even the farmer himself would be at the market stall – Sunday was a good trading day. It could be his first chance to catch a glimpse of his target, so Park volunteered to help on the stall.
At the end of the day, there had been no sign of Choi Shin. Park told the farmer he would take some of the produce from the stall and try to sell it on his way back to the farm. He climbed on to his ramshackle bicycle, and made for Choi’s apartment. He called at a few flats in the block on his way, but made no sales.
Choi Shin opened the door when he knocked, but went to close it almost immediately when he saw a stranger standing there.
“I have fresh produce,” said Park Yon, almost putting his foot in the door.
He offered a small package of eggs and fruit.
“Mr. Lee Cooper said you liked fresh eggs.”
Dr.Choi looked at him suspiciously, through the half closed door. How could this total stranger know about Lee Cooper?
It must be a trap, he thought immediately.
“Very cheap,” said Park.
“How much?”
“Only 50 won, but I will take Euros if you prefer.”
Choi reached for his wallet in his hip pocket, and extracted a 50 won note.
“I will call again in case you need anything, or if I can help in any way.”
Choi took the package, and the man left.
Choi was worried and perplexed as he shut the door behind the man. How would a perfect stranger be able to help, even if he needed any? What sort of help? He watched the man as he called at the flat next door, but left without making a sale.
Could this man possibly be the contact Lee had promised, when he left England? Is that what he meant by ‘help’? Help in defecting? Or help in getting information back to England?
Surely not! He was a local man, who spoke perfect Korean. This was plainly some kind of trap being set by the authorities, he concluded. If only nephew Yong was here to ask about it. Perhaps the goods had been stolen and he should not have bought them. And yet the man had mentioned Lee Cooper. How could he possibly know that he had met and befriended Cooper while in England?
He went into the kitchen deep in thought, and idly unpacked his purchases.
The eggs were wrapped in a crumpled photograph of himself and Lee Cooper taken during his visit to Aldermaston.
***
It was a few days later.
Kang Soo was sweeping the canteen floor, and once again spotted Dr. Choi. This time, he had been eating alone. Soo made his way carefully towards the table, bending occasionally to sweep litter into his dustpan. He did so again when he reached the Doctor.
“Excuse me,” he said, as he bent to sweep beneath Choi’s feet. As he did so, Soo slipped a piece of paper into Choi’s shoe, and unhurriedly moved to the next table to clear the floor beneath that.
Choi looked at the man. He had seen him working in the canteen before, but had taken no notice. Once again, he was bewildered and not a little frightened. He bent to retrieve the piece of paper, and slipped it in to his pocket as he rose to leave the table. If anyone had noticed this extraordinary behaviour, both men would be asked for an explanation.
Choi did not have one.
When he had returned to his laboratory, he opened the piece of paper.
It was another photograph of him with Cooper at Aldermaston. On the back was a scribbled note, written in Korean Chŏsongŭl script – ‘If you need to renew contact, let me know.”
Two men had now made contact with him, using the same means of identification; the Aldermaston photo.
Ingenious.
But had they really been sent by London; by Cooper? Or was this some form of trap set for him by the authorities, to test his loyalty?
He needed time to think – to try to work things out. Who were these men? How had they found him? If they were from London, how had they got in to the country? Choi knew it was virtually impossible for visitors to get in without official sponsorship, even as tourists and they all needed official guides to escort them all the time. And how had they got work, one at the centre of the country’s nuclear power complex?
Nothing made sense, except that they had been sent to spy on him by a paranoid government. They obviously needed reassurance that his recent visits to the West had not in any way affected his loyalty to the state.
That’s what it was, he decided.
The photos must have been provided by their tour escort, Moon Pak. There was no other explanation.
They knew how tempting life was in the West for people who were in high positions but who lacked the freedom that the West had to offer.
That was it. He was being tested.
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became, not least because neither man had given him their name or said how he might make contact with them if he ever did decide he needed the ‘help’ they had offered.
And yet, Cooper had told him that if he thought he might want to get information to England at some time, then he would put in place a means for him to do it. Perhaps that’s what he had done. How he could have done it escaped him, but perhaps after all they really were there to help him rather than to spy on him.
The more he thought about it the more confused he became.
Were they friend or foe?
If only Yong was here to talk it over – to help solve the mystery. Thinking about it, though, perhaps Yong would not be of much help, since he had never travelled out of the country, so knew nothing about how other people were so - well - different. But at least he would see his nephew again before he went on his visit to England. It was fortunate, in the end, the way the timing of their travels had turned out.
Meanwhile, there was no one to turn to. He and only he had to decide.
In the end, he decided to do what he had often advised others to do – trust no one.
He would not respond or react in any way to either of the two men, but watch carefully for any further attempt to communicate with him. They only had a couple of days to do so before he went to Punggye-ri for two weeks
That would be the test. He did not believe that anyone, even Lee Cooper, could infiltrate his men into that complex.
He noticed the cleaning man in the canteen again before he headed north, but he made no further attempt to make contact – not even eye contact. The other man, selling eggs, did not appear again. He would not appear again after Choi’s return, either.
He had been arrested.
***
Dr. Choi Shin had been thinking about the life he led, and the country in which he led it. It was the first time he had ever done so. Until now, or rather until he had seen a different world during his visits to the West, he had taken everything for granted. He had accepted the endless propaganda without question, and therefore believed there was little he could do about the conditions within which he lived and worked.
Now he was beginning to ask questions of himself.
Sometimes, however, he had wished that he was not the great expert that he was acknowledged to be. Otherwise, he would have been left alone to carry out his research work at the country’s first major nuclear site, 90 miles north of the capital Pyongyang.
The town of Yongbyon was pleasant enough, and not that far from the sprawling nuclear complex which took its name, and which was the home of many institutes related to nuclear energy. The site of the country’s first Magnox nuclear reactor, now old and only used to produce power and heating for the local district, there was a fuel manufacturing plant, an experimental reactor, a spent fuel storage resource, a plant designed to reprocess spent fuel and a research establishment, where Shin normally worked.
Choi Shin was happy there. He had a good life, with a nice, if small apartment, and enjoyed his fascinating work at the research complex, developing nuclear energy for peaceful uses.
Punggye-ri could not be more different.
Shin did not enjoy visiting Punggye-ri, any more than he enjoyed the work he was involved in while he was there. Strictly, that wasn’t true – he enjoyed the challenging research he was doing, but dreaded the thought of what the end result could be. That’s what he didn’t like. That, and the place itself.
The nuclear test site was in a remote and mountainous area in the north of the country. It had borders on the Sea of Japan to the east, or East Sea of Korea as his country chose to call it, as well as China to the north, and a small border with Russia.
Beautiful though the mountainous countryside was, including the seven-thousand feet high peak of Mantapsan, the place itself was ugly; and dirty; and evil; and dangerous.
Shin did not know everything that went on there, but he knew that there was a vast complex of tunnels under the mountains. He had seen at least three tunnel entrances in different parts of the extensive site, and knew that a fourth was being excavated. Three test explosions of nuclear weapons had already taken place deep beneath the mountains.
There was no town as such, although there was a railway station, and he had been told that there was extensive development work taking place to upgrade the line. It had occurred to him that the work must be related to the project in which he was involved. If it went as planned, there would be a need for extensive building work and heavy industrial machinery to be installed in the months ahead.
It was a miserable place to work, not least because it was so remote and desolate. Shin knew that there was a rocket launching site not that far away – he had seen missiles arching in to the sky. Even more depressing was the fact that the Hwasong concentration camp was a little over a mile away. He had been told that thousands of the political prisoners from what was officially known as ‘Penal Labour Colony No.16’ had been used in the construction of the tunnel complexes and underground facilities, and he knew that many of them must have been exposed to lethal levels or radioactivity. It was no consolation either that these political prisoners never had any chance of being released from the camp, and that they and their families, who were deemed guilty by association, were there until they died.
He realised that he was lucky not to be in one of these places himself, with his brother and nephew. But he had been too valuable to the State for them to lock him away, so he had escaped the ultimate penalty, and managed to save Yong at the same time. They were both lucky.
Until now, he had accepted all this as a normal part of life. The state propaganda machine made sure of that. Now though, since his glimpse of freedom, he was beginning to have doubts.
His work at the nuclear test site did not help. It was a fascinating venture which was putting all his skills to the test, but he knew that in reality it was a Chinese research project which was extremely dangerous. He knew that there had already been several disasters surrounding the work within China, which was why they had now moved the development and construction of the revolutionary new uranium enrichment experiment to North Korea, where labour was freely available and life was cheap.
Choi Shin knew that the successful conclusion of the work would have deadly consequences, possibly with world-wide repercussions, but he could do nothing about it. Until now, he had barely given it a thought, but since meeting fellow research scientists overseas, he had begun to realise the true nature of what he was helping to create.
He was not a happy man, as he sat in his room in the accommodation block which was part of the research centre. He worried about his brother, who he now knew he would never see again, and he was sad to think that he would soon be without his beloved nephew for four months.
He also now knew that he was a sick man.
He had been diagnosed with radiation sickness, which he knew was often fatal.
He had been exposed to too much nuclear radiation for too long during his career, and there had plainly been too little monitoring of the levels to which he had been exposed and too little protection provided for individuals at the establishments where he worked. He reflected that, at almost any level in the country, life was cheap.
As he sat in his room, pondering his future, he was idly watching the only channel on the state-run TV network, with its never-ending flow of propaganda. At the beginning of the news programme however, was a story which caught his attention, not least because of the flood of vitriol which it had aroused and which was being directed at America, but also because the news-reader had mentioned Yongbyon. Not that anti-American propaganda was anything new, but this looked different. The story alleged that an American spy had been caught red-handed in the town which was the home of North Korea’s major nuclear installation. He was apparently intent on trying to infiltrate the site, to provide America with secrets surrounding the nuclear development work which was the envy of the western world, thanks to the brilliant and enlightened guidance of the Supreme Leader.
Suddenly, Choi was interested. An American spy caught trying to infiltrate the place where he worked? Now that was news. It took time for all the facts to emerge from the news item, if that’s what it really was, as there was so much anti-American propaganda contained in it, as well as attacks on the West in general. There was the usual high praise for the Great Leader who had uncovered this traitor, and for the brave and brilliant men who he had led, and who had eventually caught and trapped him.
It did seem as if the man was a traitor, too, if the news was to be believed. He was apparently a defector from North Korea who had been sent back to the country by the Americans with the sole intention of spying on it. Thanks to the diligence of our security police however, he had been caught before he could do any harm. His papers had been badly forged by the Americans, and he had been found with large sums of Dollars and Euros in his back-pack.
Through all the endless stream of vitriol directed at America, Choi eventually gathered that the man had initially aroused suspicion, and then been arrested, for illegal trading. He had been seen going from door to door in Yongbyon selling fruit and eggs without a licence. In North Korea, it was illegal to buy and sell for private gain, and the man was plainly a traitor to the Korean people, whatever his intentions.
Dr. Choi Shin was immediately alert and horrified.
Surely not the man who had called on him a week ago? The man with the photograph of himself at Aldermaston with Lee Cooper?
Choi’s mind was in a whirl. What if it was the same man? What if he had after all been sent as a contact between him and London? Worse still, what if he had been caught with more photographs of Cooper and Choi together?
Choi himself could now be in mortal danger. In the past, he had largely ignored this kind of event, accepting them as part of life. Things were different this time. He had been to the West and knew that this was anything but normal in a civilised society. It was also far too close to home for his comfort. For the first time he could remember, Dr. Choi was frightened.
And what about the man in the canteen?
He anxiously watched the television all that evening, a thing he had never done in his life before, waiting for further developments. But there was nothing new by the time the TV station closed down, when the electricity supply to the transmitter was cut off.
It was not until the following evening that his worse fears were realised.
The TV newsreader was almost hysterical, as instructed by her superiors, in describing the American acolytes who had sent this defector back to spy on the hard working and innocent people of the Republic. He was an enemy of the Korean People who must be punished, in the same way that the people of America would also be punished by the Supreme Leader. He had already decreed that the retribution would be terrible but totally justified, and there was even talk of war between the two countries, starting with an attack on the treacherous people of South Korea who were such devoted allies of the western filth who lived there.
It was claimed that the traitor had been stealing the produce he had been seen selling from a local farm, without the knowledge of the farmer or any of the hard-working and loyal men who laboured there. They had never seen him before, so they said, and this was further evidence of his guilt – he had hidden away to avoid being punished for his anti-state behaviour.
The farmer and his son who ran their stall, as well as everyone who worked on the farm, were among those who were forced to attend a rally in the market square. It served as an example to all decent people in the country that the Supreme Leader must be obeyed without question.
The battered and bloodied man was dragged to the front of the Hall of the Korean People’s Working Party. This was not the first event of its kind in this suburban village square, and neither would it be the last.
The traitor was forced against a wall, already pocked with bullet marks from similar previous events.
The shouting and cheering crowd, gathered together and marshalled by the authorities, was baying for blood and waving portraits of their Great Leader.
The traitor and enemy of the Korean people was publicly executed by firing squad in front of them all.
***
Dr. Choi Shin was horrified by the scenes on the small TV screen.
He knew the place well. It was not far from where he and nephew Yong had enjoyed tea only the other afternoon. Even then, Shin had watched ragged children scavenging scraps of discarded food from the gutters beneath the stalls, as he had done so often before. He had never taken much notice. It was a fact of life, and he knew no other.
Until his recent visits abroad, that is.
Now he knew that he could no longer accept this as normal. Now he knew that there were better ways, better lives, and better places.
What he had seen on his TV screen at Punggye-ri proved to be a huge distraction to his work on the project there. He was desperate to get back to his apartment in Yongbyon where this tragedy had unfolded and to talk to nephew Yong again before he went to London. He needed to find out whether the man in the canteen at the nuclear plant was still there, or whether his last chance of maintaining contact with his fellow scientists in London had gone for ever. For the man’s sake, he hoped he had gone before he too was caught, but for his own sake, Choi Shin hoped beyond hope that he was still there and that he could pass a message to Lee Cooper.
Dr. Choi Shin had finally decided that he must help to prevent even further tragedy and misery being inflicted on his country, and possibly on others around the world. The civilised world had to know what his work involved.
He needed to get information about his project to his new-found friends,. Even during his last few days at the nuclear test site project, before he returned to the relative comfort of his apartment at Yongbyon, he had started to collect and copy sensitive information in the hope that he would somehow be able to get it to Lee Cooper before it was too late.
Not just too late for humanity, but too late for him.
He did not have long to gather together all the information they would need.
He now knew that he had little time to live. It was not just radiation sickness any more.
He had cancer.
***
On his return to the plant at Yongbyon, Choi Shin went straight to the canteen for tea. There was no sign of the man who swept the floor and who had slipped the crumpled photograph into his shoe.
He was not there at supper, either, or at breakfast the next morning, or lunch.
Choi could not ask.
He had gone.
So had Choi’s last chance of ever making contact again with the people in London. They were unlikely to send anyone else – ever. He had twice ignored their approaches, and indirectly been responsible for the capture and death of one of the brave men who had been sent by London to help him.
They would not send anyone else.
He now had no means of making contact again, but the more he thought about it, the more he resolved to keep collecting the information which he knew they wanted.
Just in case.
He cursed the fact that he had trusted no-one, not even the people who had been sent specially to keep him in touch with Cooper and his colleagues in London. But it could just as well have been a trap, as he suspected. He was not to know. Even now he could not be sure.
But now he had started, he would continue to copy the secret information he had at his disposal. If he was caught, so what? He was dying anyway, and did not know how long he had to complete his project.
But he no longer had any means of getting his secrets to London. He could not take them himself, any more than he could go to the compound at Munsu-Dong in Pyongyang, and simply had them over to the people at the British Embassy.
He soon realised, however, that there was only one, but dangerous, option.
The more he thought about it, the more risky it became, but it was his one and only chance.
He eventually concluded that it was risk worth taking.
***
Choi Shin and Choi Yong were having a special supper in the town square, not far from where the American traitor had been executed. It was Yong’s last night before he departed for London.
The place had more or less returned to normal, although the State TV channel was still pouring out the vitriol against America, and threatening dire consequences for their action. The latest threat had been a missile attack again the American lackey State of South Korea, and indeed Shin wondered if such an event had already taken place. He had seen missiles being launched from the site near Punggye-ri just before he left there.
There was no longer any doubt that the paranoid leadership was capable of doing anything.
So their supper together was a sombre affair. Not only were uncle and nephew parting for a few months, but, after much soul-searching, Shin had decided that he had to tell Yong about his illness.
“I am sure I shall still be here when you return,” Shin tried to console his nephew. “The prognosis is not that bad, and I shall be able to keep working for a bit longer.”
He looked closely at Yong.
“But I have a favour to ask you. A great favour.”
“Anything,” replied Yong. “Simply ask, and it shall be done.”
“It will be dangerous for you,” warned Shin.
“For you uncle, anything,” insisted Yong.
“We have discussed this before,” Shin reminded his nephew, “but recent events have led me to decide that I must no longer keep my secret work to myself.”
He looked at Yong.
“The man who was shot across there,” he gestured, “was not an American spy. He had been sent here from England specially to help me.”
Yong looked at him in disbelief.
“It is true,” Choi Shin nodded, “but I was too slow to believe him. I trusted no-one, not even him. There was a second man as well, working at the nuclear plant. He has gone - disappeared. So now I have nobody to help me get this information to my contacts in London.”
He looked closely at Yong.
“Only you can help,” he said. “You are going there.”
Yong nodded.
“Of course. But how, exactly, can I help?”
“It will be dangerous for you, but you are my only hope.”
Yong nodded again.
“I don’t mind, uncle. For you I would do anything. Just tell me.”
“I only ask because I trust you.”
“I shall not let you down, I promise.”
Dr. Choi Shin reached into his pocked, and produced a crumpled piece of paper. He flattened it on the table between them.
It was the photograph taken at Aldermaston.
“Find this man,” commanded Shin, pointing. “His name is Lee Cooper. Tell him I shall have all the information he wants in a few weeks, but he must arrange to collect it.”
Without a word, Yong took the paper, put it in his pocket, and left.
***