13.
THE BRIEFING
The Head of the Joint Intelligence Organisation was getting a bit fidgety – nervous, almost. He should have been full of confidence, given his position, and the fact that he was used to briefing, and being briefed by, the top security, intelligence and military figures in the country. But today was a bit different. Today, they were all together, and he was the only briefer.
The Joint Intelligence Committee was there, except for a few members who did not need to know and had no interest in his briefing. People like the International Development Department and the one that dealt with Business and skills and such like – nothing to do with them. Others, like the armed services Chiefs of Staff had been called in specially, in spite of the fact that the Chief of the Defence Intelligence Staff was there – he was a member of the JIC anyway, and they weren’t, except by invitation. They had all been called in because of the gravity and importance of what he was about to tell them, and he knew that he had to be sufficiently convincing in what he said and what he proposed, to get them all behind his audacious and risky plan, without exception. Unless he was able to convince every one of them about the need for action along the lines he was about to propose, he believed there could be a considerable risk of nuclear conflict.
By nature, Jack Salisbury was not terribly self-confident. His demeanour was almost apologetic. It was obvious to listen to him that he knew what he was talking about and was on top of the job, but his manner was almost hesitant, as if he was afraid of lecturing to his betters. But in his field, there were no betters. His CBE was recognition of that, but he had no Knighthood, like most of his peer group. Offered but refused. He did not want the limelight; just to be left alone to get on with his job.
He was the first to admit that he had been a rather odd choice. Not so long ago, the Cabinet Secretary was automatically Chairman of the JIC, until that unfortunate time when they discovered that a recent incumbent was working for the Soviets (read ‘Spy People’). That had caused a hell of a rumpus and a major re-organisation. It had also severely upset the Americans, who were now understandably not so keen to share information with us as they had been. With any luck, he could change that.
But now, the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Organisation was also Head of the JIC and Professional Head of Intelligence Analysis. So he had three jobs really, all based in the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Secretary was a member of the JIC still, but no longer in charge. Jack Salisbury was. An odd choice, many had thought, but his background included years in the Secret Intelligence Service and in military intelligence, so there was no question about his professional qualifications for the post. But he was far from the polished civil servant who many would have expected to take that sort of post.
His background was in science rather than the arts, unlike most of his classical trained colleagues. That almost explained his appearance. He was not a tall, imposing figure, but a bit, shall we say, on the heavy side. He never admitted to being overweight, simply four inches too short. In a scruffy sort of way, he was always smartly dressed, but not in the pin-stripe sense of the word. Shirt and tie – yes. But an old tweed jacket was his preferred choice, and it was a long time since his trousers had been blessed with a crease. Being a bachelor probably had something to do with that.
But there he stood, before the nation’s great and good and powerful, waiting for the last invited member to take his seat.
He preferred to stand. He wanted the freedom to wander around the oval conference table in one of the Cabinet Office briefing rooms, and he had to draw attention to special features on the slides he was about to show them, in any case. And he preferred to wave a pointer about rather than use one of those modern electronic gadgets that threw an illuminated arrow on to the screen.
Eventually, his audience was assembled and seated. In spite of the fact that he reported directly to the Prime Minister, no Ministers or politicians had been invited. They would panic, cause dissent and disagreement, and chatter afterwards, putting security at risk.
Salisbury looked around those at the table. Cabinet Secretary, Heads of MI5 (‘M’) and MI6 (‘C’), Chief of the Defence Staff and Chief of the Defence Intelligence Staff, Permanent Secretaries from the Foreign Office and Home Office, and so on. The Military were in uniform. Come to that, he thought, so were the civil servants, two of whom were in identical pinstripe suits. Marks and Spencer, he had no doubt.
The Cabinet Secretary invited him to begin.
Head bowed slightly, as if in thought, he started to amble around the large table, scratching his head of thinning hair. He shoved his round spectacles back from the end of his nose. No need for introductions; he knew them and they knew him.
“First of all I must ask you, on no account,” he glared around the table, “to share any of the information I am about to give you with any Ministers or politicians or even civil servants outside this room, even in your own Department.”
He brushed his hand across his sparse hair.
“We cannot afford any breach of security by their chattering and twittering, whatever that is. After the discovery made about a recent predecessor of yours,” he looked directly at the Cabinet Secretary, “we cannot be too careful. That is why you were all – um – asked to leave your phones and other paraphernalia outside. I hope I make myself absolutely clear.”
They all signified agreement.
He turned to face his audience from one end of the table.
“Gentlemen, I am here to tell you about a very disturbing and potentially extremely dangerous series of developments which have been taking place over the past few months. As some of you will know, we in the Security and Intelligence Service have been watching these developments very closely indeed, and – um – have now decided that it is time we shared our concerns with you. I do so because most of you are in a position to do something about our – shall we say – understanding of recent events, and because we now believe that we have the ability to take appropriate action.”
He walked towards the far end of the room, where there was a large back-projection screen. He picked up his beloved pointer, and looked closely at the Chief of Defence Staff, who sat in front of him.
“Before I even begin to go into any detail, I know that there are many in this room who will say ‘mission impossible’ the moment I mention North Korea.”
The Chief of Defence Staff and one or two others in uniform turned to face him, frowning and nodding in agreement of his forecast of their reaction.
“I can reassure you,” he continued, “that I do not have in mind any form of military action. At least - um - not yet.”
He again scratched his head and attempted to adjust his glasses once more.
“What I have in mind initially involves civilian members of the Government,” he said, looking again at the Cabinet Secretary.
He finally reached the screen and turned to ask some dis-embodied official somewhere, “Can I have the first …”
The first slide appeared on the screen as if by magic.
“Ah,” he said, waving his pointer at it.
“What you see here is a recent high-definition satellite picture of an area of North Korea. This,” he pointed, “is roughly the Chinese border. Pyongyang is way down here in the south,” another wave, “and this is one of the notorious concentration camps. Between the two...”
He turned to the official again.
“Could we have…”
“Ah! This enlargement shows an area between the two. This, gentlemen, is the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in Kilju County, near the town of Mantapsan, where underground tests were carried out in 2006, 2009, and again, we think, in February 2013. Nobody is quite sure about the 2013 - um – explosion.”
He looked about him.
“The blast,” he continued, strolling down the table behind the seated dignitaries, “was certainly large enough to have been a nuclear weapon, but it could also have been a conventional explosion designed to imitate a nuclear weapon; designed to frighten the West, in fact, and especially the Americans. This – how shall I put it – ‘theory’ – is explained by the fact that, two days after the explosion, no nuclear radiation had been detected by either the Chinese, the Japanese or the South Koreans, or anyone else.”
He looked again at the screen at the far end of the briefing room, and waved a finger in the air.
“However,” he continued, “in April that year, South Korea reported activity at Punggye-ri suggesting that preparations were being made for a fourth underground test. Our own observations led us to the same conclusion, but in the end, no test took place. This activity has recently increased, and we have concluded that the tunnelling which we observed was for a long term development project.”
He turned to face the assembled delegates.
“We now know what that is,” he said, for him, slightly dramatically.
He ran his fingers through his hair, and pointed to the screen ahead of him. A new slide appeared.
“That activity has continued since it was first reported, and, as you would expect, we have been monitoring progress closely, by satellite, and – um – other means at our disposal. This is the latest satellite image. You will see the signs of recent activity. New roads,” his pointer tapped the screen, “new buildings, and what appears to be the entrances to several additional tunnels.”
He turned again, but before he could ask, a further slide appeared on the screen, showing the work in greater detail.
“Over here,” he pointed again, “we see the beginnings of a new railway line being built into the site. This will connect to the existing system near Punggye-ri station,” he again tapped the screen, “which eventually links into China. The existing infrastructure is being modernised – in many places rebuilt and upgraded – to cater for what is obviously expected to be an increase in traffic, which will probably be considerably heavier than at present. A good deal of freight, we imagine, on an otherwise lightly used passenger line. Bearing in mind the mountainous terrain, remarkable progress is already being made.”
He turned away from the screen.
“I need hardly tell you,” he paused and smoothed his hair again, “that the labour force for much of this construction work, especially the railway, comes from – um - the nearby concentration camp at Hwasong. It is a penal-labour camp.”
He moved away, head bowed slightly, as if seeking inspiration from him shoes. He had no notes.
“Camp 16, in fact. Home, if I may call it that, to some 20,000 souls, who are imprisoned for life with no chance of ever being released.”
Another thoughtful scratch.
“All this is reminiscent of the Burma-Siam railway built by prisoners of the Japanese during the Second World War.”
He looked back at the screen.
“In this case, however, the bodies of those who die are taken by fellow prisoners, under guard, to be burnt. The ashes are collected, and – um – used as fertiliser.”
He looked round at his audience.
“These prisoners have committed ‘anti-revolutionary and anti-party’ crimes. They and their families, who are probably innocent of anything at all apart from being related to a prisoner, are exploited on hard, dangerous and deadly work like mining, logging and agriculture, and, according to defectors, have been forced in the past to dig tunnels and underground facilities in areas exposed to nuclear radiation. I digress, Gentlemen, only to remind you of the brutal dictatorship we are dealing with.”
He turned back to the screen, waving his pointer vaguely towards it.
“I invite you to look closely at these photographs,” he said, beginning yet another circuit of the conference table. “What we believe you are seeing, Gentlemen, is one of North Korea’s newest nuclear establishments, under construction, on the old test site.”
Jack Salisbury turned and walked slowly back towards the end of the table, adjusting his glasses. He turned to his audience.
“Except that we don’t believe.”
He paused for effect.
“We know!”
He looked around the table.
“What we do believe, however, is that this new facility is specifically designed to test a new means of enriching Uranium 235, and build nuclear weapons – all on the same site.”
“What makes you think that?” asked Sir Len Watkins, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence.
“Several things,” he replied. “As you would expect, the place is alive with Chinese people. Not just building or construction engineers and others of that sort, or even nuclear experts, although there are plenty of both it seems. We have information, however, which suggests that many of the Chinese people at the site are also weapons experts. Reliable information, I have to say. We even have the names of a few of them.”
“How on earth did you get that?” asked the Home Office man.
Salisbury looked around, fidgeting with his hair again, seemingly to assess whether or not he could trust them all. He supposed he could, or they wouldn’t be there.
“We have available to us in the SIS access to some of the most modern technology in the world, especially the world of espionage. I will give you no details. Those of you who need to know about it already do so.”
He looked at the Head of MI6.
“I will simply say that, for some time now, we have been able to monitor - um - several sources of communication. Around the world. Not just tapping mobile phones or e-mails. We have available to us the output from several highly sophisticated and sensitive satellites. Not all those satellites are ours, by the way, but GCHQ is getting quite good at - er - how shall I put this; cyber warfare, I believe is the popular description.”
He scratched and began another circuit of the table.
He looked again at the screen, still showing the last slide.
“We have far better images than this,” he waved his pointer. “And we have listened in to conversations taking place on the ground.”
He looked around at his audience, sitting in stunned silence.
“So I am reasonably sure of what I am talking about.”
He rested his hands on the back of the chair taken by Sir William Forsyth, Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office.
“We all know, I am sure, that North Korea is said already to possess a few viable nuclear weapons, and some short range delivery systems. We believe the weapons to be of Chinese origin, and we also believe that North Korea’s allies across the border are helping with the construction, at other sites, of the facilities needed to enrich uranium. Once those facilities are complete, North Korea will be able to construct its own nuclear weapons.”
He stopped at the head of the table.
“Perhaps I could briefly explain, for the benefit of those who may not know, the difficult, expensive, lengthy and technically challenging process of uranium enrichment by the use of centrifuges, which, until the advent of inexpensive, high-precision computer-controlled machining equipment, were out of the reach of most countries.”
He adjusted his glasses, and, head bowed slightly, set off on another stroll behind his attentive audience.
“Uranium oxide contains two isotopes of uranium: U-235 and U-238. What you need if you want to make a bomb or fuel a nuclear power plant is U-235, but this forms only about one percent of the oxide. The rest is U-238, which is no use. So you need to increase the amount of U-235 somehow and separate it from the U-238, which is slightly heavier than the other isotope. The process of concentrating the U-235 is called enrichment, and centrifuges are a central part of that process.”
Salisbury looked around at his audience, as if to seek encouragement to continue.
“The first step is to turn the oxide in a gas called uranium hexafluoride. This is then spun at very high speed in the centrifuge, which creates a force thousands of times more powerful than the force of gravity. The heavier U-238 atoms tend to move out toward the walls of the centrifuge, and the U-235 atoms tend to stay more toward the center of it.
“Although it is only a slight difference in concentrations, when you extract the gas from the center of the centrifuge, it has slightly more U-235 than it did before. This process is repeated thousands of times, until a gas that is highly enriched in U-235 is created. At a uranium enrichment plant, thousands of centrifuges are chained together in long cascades. At the end of this, you have uranium hexafluoride gas containing a high concentration of U-235 atoms. It is a relatively simple process to turn the uranium hexafluoride gas back into uranium metal.”
“The creation of these centrifuges is a huge technological challenge, until recently, as I said, out of the reach of most countries They must spin at a rate of 100,000 rpm, which means they must have very light, yet strong and well-balanced rotors, spinning on high-speed bearings, usually magnetic to reduce friction.”
He stood behind the Head of MI6.
“I have bored you with this technical diatribe because we all need to have some understanding of the enrichment process, if we are to understand and appreciate the importance of what I have to say next.”
He reached across the table between the Chief of Defence Staff and the Head of MI6, who were seated next to one another.
“May I?” he asked.
He took a glass of water and sipped thoughtfully.
“Centrifuges are expensive and slow,” he said. “You may be forgiven for thinking that there has to be a better way.”
He replaced the glass.
“Well. There is.”
He looked around.
“China has developed it, and means to exploit it. At Punggye-ri, in North Korea.”
He shouldered his pointer, rather like a rifle, and meandered slowly back towards the screen at the end of the conference room.
“I can no longer bore you with technical details, because we do not – as yet – have access to them. Suffice it to say that the Chinese equipment consists of large pressure vessels of some kind, encased in very high powered electro-magnets, rather like those used at CERN in Switzerland where they discovered the Higgs Boson. The flasks contain gaseous uranium hexafluoride again, which is bombarded by a concentration of high-energy fiber laser beams.
“By some combination of particle physics and nuclear chemistry, the Uranium 235 is much more quickly concentrated and more easily extracted.”
He paused and glanced at his audience.
“In very large quantities.”
By now, the panel of experts before him was looking increasingly concerned.
“The Chinese, we know, have built at least two prototypes of these – um – machines,” continued Salisbury.
“The first was tested in a remote area of the country, and exploded, killing and injuring many hundreds of workers and local villagers, and spreading radioactive waste for some hundreds of miles downwind. The second prototype was more successful, in that it did not blow up. But it seems to have failed in other ways, similarly spreading clouds of radioactive waste into the atmosphere. However, our understanding is that before doing so, it did manage to produce a limited amount of enriched U 235.”
He stabbed at the screen, still showing the view of the Punggye-ri.
“It is planned to construct a further prototype here. If it fails, the prisoners of camp 16 will suffer even more than they do at present – together, no doubt, with a few Chinese experts.”
He turned away from the screen.
“Hence the new roads, the new tunnels and the extended and modernized railway link to China, which will carry the equipment needed to build the new processor. This will not be completed in a hurry. It is mountainous and difficult terrain, as you can see,” another stab at the screen, “even for – er, um - slave labour.
“If it succeeds, however, as the Chinese confidently expect, it will be put into full productive use, to supply both the North Korean and the Chinese nuclear programs.”
He looked around at his audience.
“I leave you to judge the consequences of that, gentlemen.”
Some shook their heads. All of them looked increasingly concerned.
“Do the Americans know about this?” asked the Foreign Office man, Sir William Forsythe.
“I shall be very surprised if they do not,” replied Salisbury. “But they will not have the details of how the new system of enrichment works. They would give a King’s Ransom to find out.”
“As we would, I am sure,” said Sir William.
“If we could discover the details and brief them,” said Salisbury, looking at the Cabinet Secretary, “we could immediately undo the enormous damage done to our relationship by the - um- unfortunate behaviour of your predecessor.”
Salisbury looked around him.
“And we can get those details, gentlemen. Indeed, we almost have them already.”
“How can that be possible?” asked the Chief of the Defence Staff.
“Because,” he almost whispered as if even he could hardly believe it, “we have a man on the ground, at the site.”
“WHAT?” There was a murmur of disbelief.
“The agent, shall I describe him, is effectively a defector, although he has declined our offer of asylum. He is an English-speaking North Korean nuclear physicist who has become so disillusioned with the state of affairs in his country, that he is willing, it seems, to put at mortal risk his own life and that of all his family to share with us the information to which he has access.”
He turned again, looking at those seated at the table in front to him, smoothing his hair as he began yet another circuit of the oval table.
“Which brings me, gentlemen,” he looked around him, “to the point of my briefing.”
He stopped and lent against the chair at which the Head of MI6 – ‘C’ – was seated.
“You will all know that there is no such thing as freedom of movement in North Korea. Our man, who is in a senior managerial cum technical position at Punggye-ri, has in his possession the plans of the site, and detailed technical drawings of the new Chinese enrichment plant which is being built. He is so fearful of the international consequences of this project should it eventually succeed and which his research is helping to develop, that he has decided to give this country the details so that we may – with our allies, of course – produce effective counter-measures. He has started to copy this technical information in detail, mostly on to 4-terabite USB memory sticks.
“They are for us.”
He paused, and rested his hands on the back a chair opposite Sir Geoffrey Sefton.
“The problem is that he cannot get them to us,” he said.
“If you all agree that they are worth having,” he looked around him, “then we have to collect.”
There was no dissent.
He looked directly at the Head of MI6.
“One for you then, I think, Geoffrey, as we have discussed.”
“Collecting our trophy, if I may call it that, will not be an easy operation, gentlemen. As you will have gathered, both the planning and execution will be difficult, but if we do not make the effort, then the information currently available to us will be passed to another. Probably the Americans. Frankly, I believe this country should get there first if humanly possible. After all, we have a head start.
“I should tell, you, however, that we have already suffered what some colleagues regard as something of a setback. I regard it however, as a success.”
He looked at ‘C’.
“I took the liberty, as I hinted, of discussing this all this with Geoffrey at an earlier meeting, since the planning of our recovery operation will be down to him, and the execution also, no doubt, will fall to his people.”
“I must tell you, gentlemen, that we have already made one attempt to make contact with our – um – informant. This was in an attempt to show our resolve and, shall I say, support for his endeavours. We were successful in making contact with him, but he was not sufficiently trustful of our team to pass on any information, which by then he had not even seriously started collecting for us.”
Salisbury looked at those before him.
“I am sorry to tell you that we have lost contact with one of our people, although we believe the other – there were two of them – is successfully making his way home. If anything, this emphasises the difficulties which we face. We must now make a renewed effort.”
“Could this be a job for our Special Forces?” asked the Chief of the General Staff. “We have had SAS people there in the past, for various reasons.”
The Chief of the Defence Intelligence staff shuffled uncomfortably.
“I have to admit, General, that it was our special forces who we sent in a short time ago. It is one of them who is missing.”
“But I knew nothing of this,” protested CDS, enraged.
“This was a Top Secret mission,” said Salisbury, “and it was on my instructions that very few people indeed knew about it. I take full responsibility for not having briefed you.”
“We have discussed the possibility of sending them in again, to collect the information,” said ‘C’, “but concluded not. I still have people there as well, in various guises, and we shall not be operating totally without local help, either. Using military resources in many ways would add to the difficulties. There are two major problems, as I see it. One is getting the team in, and the other, far more problematic, is getting them out again with the - er - trophies, I think you called them, Jack.”
Salisbury nodded.
“So we shall not be sending in a team,” he said. “This will be a one-man operation.”
Salisbury looked around at the people seated at the table, and briefly caught Northcot’s eye, sitting with a few other officials behind the oval table. They did not acknowledge one another.
“He is our most experienced field officer, who has travelled, shall I say, far and wide on similar missions. He has been fully briefed, and absolutely understands and accepts the risks he will be taking. We are confident that he will succeed.”
“It could be a suicide mission, I hope he realises that,” said Sir William Forsyth from the Foreign Office. “The North Koreans take no prisoners.”
“He knows. He has the advantage of speaking and reading the language, and there are not too many people around who can say that,” said Sefton.
“There is one major factor in our favour,” added Salisbury, “and that is that there is no real urgency in terms of the nuclear development itself. The project, which is just starting, will take many years to complete, so we have time on our side to get the information, analyse it, and plan for whatever action we deem to be necessary.”
He paused to adjust his uncomfortable tie, looking carefully at his audience.
“On the other hand,” he continued, “we must get on with the utmost urgency. Our defector and benefactor, if I may call him that, has contracted radiation sickness, which has recently developed into cancer. He is dying.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I agree that we simply must get hold of this information while there is time and before the Americans do if that is at all possible,” said Forsyth. “It could make a real difference to the success of this mission if they ever get a whiff of what we’re doing. In that case,” he turned to Watkins, “we may very well need to call on some of your SAS people to help out. If you can do so without in any way endangering security, I suggest a bit of contingency planning might be in order, just in case.”
“Agreed,” replied Watkins, turning to the Chief of General staff, who nodded his consent.
Jack Salisbury stretched.
“Some of the planning we did to get your two fellows in there recently will be a good start.”
“But I must warn you, gentlemen,” said ‘C’, “that the Americans are already sniffing around. They sent one of their top CIA men over here only last week following the execution of what the Koreans claimed to be one of their spies.”
“We shall make sure that those of you who need to know are kept in touch with progress,” said Salisbury, winding up his briefing. “Meanwhile, Geoffrey and I will turn our attention to ways and means of retrieving the information which will soon become available to us.”
He looked again at the assembled meeting.
“Finally, please let me emphasise once again and in the strongest possible terms the importance of keeping politicians out of this loop for the time being. At some stage, I suppose I shall probably have to brief one or two Ministers, but we simply must leave that for as long as possible. In the meantime, the slightest whiff of a leak could put this whole operation into jeopardy.”
He looked around him. “Are we all quite clear about that?”
They were.
They collected their mobile phones on the way ou