The boy had been raised in virtual obscurity on the island of Ch’o-do in the East China Sea. It was only when his extraordinary performance at school was brought to his father’s attention that the dictator developed a sudden interest in his forgotten son. At the dear leader’s insistence Kim Jong-sul had been sent to one of the best universities on the Chinese mainland where, in his final year, he had met and fallen in love with a young local girl. He had managed to keep the affair hidden from the girl’s father, but not from the Chinese security apparatus, who had wasted no time seizing the opportunity to turn him. At the time no one had seriously considered him a likely successor to his father, the Chinese included. That had only changed after Rhee was assigned to head up the North Korean end of Project 38.
Rhee’s relationship with the Chinese, and Duan in particular, was really the story of his exposure to the wider world. As a cog in the North Korean military machine he had imposed the same rigid double-think on himself as everyone else. He had risen through the ranks on a mixed diet of exaggerated loyalty and guarded competence, first as a tank commander, and later as the captain of a reconnaissance platoon near the eastern border, where he had learned Chinese as part of his training.
As was often the case, Rhee’s promotion to general had been decided by the supreme leader himself on a whim, and his appointment as liaison to the Chinese had come shortly thereafter for equally unclear reasons.
Rhee had not been immune to what he found during his increasingly frequent visits to Beijing, far from it, but he
had
been particularly good at not letting this show, a failure that had cost his predecessor both his job and his life. Much of this had to do with Commander Duan, his Chinese counterpart, who had gone out of his way to befriend Rhee and assist him in navigating the rocks and shoals of his dying zeal for the Juche Idea. As their bond grew stronger, and Rhee’s disillusionment more pronounced, the idea of replacing the volatile dictator with his illegitimate son had become increasingly appealing to both of them.
Kim Jong-sul’s face lit up as soon as he saw Rhee. When the door was closed and the two of them were alone he said, “How is Da-Xia?”
“She’s fine,” Rhee said. “And so is your son.”
“I want to see them. Why can’t I bring them here?”
“It’s too soon,” Rhee said.
“Then when?”
“We need to secure your position. Those who disapprove of your appointment have powerful friends in the military. If they knew about her, they could still make a case against you.”
“Give me a list of names and I’ll have them all shot,” Kim said defiantly.
Rhee raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Kim let out a long sigh and sat down in one of the chairs by the window. “It’s just frustrating not being able to see them.”
“Give it time,” Rhee said. “We will arrange a state visit to Beijing to commemorate your appointment. In the meantime you need to consolidate your position by showing the leadership you mean business. I’ve instructed your staff to arrange as many public appearances as possible. The more of you the people see, the better. They need to understand that nothing has changed.”
“So you basically want me to visit bicycle factories and wave at military parades for the next month.”
Rhee smiled. “You could always have me shot and do whatever you like.”
Kim laughed. “Then I really
would
be stuck.”
Rhee opened his briefcase and handed Kim a piece of paper. “I need you to sign this.”
“Do I want to know what it is?” Kim asked.
“It’s an order to increase the scope of our cooperation with the Chinese on several joint ventures. Read it if you want.”
Kim barely glanced at the document and held out his hand for a pen. “They can have the whole damn country for all I care.”
“Don’t let anyone else hear you say that,” Rhee said, taking the sheet back.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Kim said.
The woman who had escorted Rhee in appeared in the doorway and said, “The painter is here, dear leader.”
Kim looked at Rhee and rolled his eyes. “I’m having my official portrait painted. Imagine that.”
With the door still open and the woman listening, Rhee said, “Dear leader, I hope to be among the first to adorn my humble walls with your likeness.”
Kim gave him an amused look and said, “You may show him in as soon as the general and I are done.”
When the door was closed again Kim said, “Very impressive, general. For a moment there I thought you’d swallowed your brain and joined the natives.”
Rhee looked at him, frowning. “Be careful. If any word of our understanding with the Chinese were to reach the wrong ears, you and I are finished. Please tell me you understand that.”
Kim nodded seriously. “I do.”
“Good. Because you can’t very well be a husband and a father if you’re hanging at the end of a rope.”
Rhee left him to ponder these words and walked to the door. “I’m flying to Nampo in the morning. I’ll be back in two days.”
Mumbai, India
Monday 11 June 2007
1700 IST
Mohindar turned out to be both a lot younger and considerably more savvy than either of them had expected. He had turned up, unannounced, over thirty miles from the border at a small rest stop outside the town of Badin in a rickety old bus, accompanied by several men – all of whom appeared to be locals hired in for the occasion. Even the colonel seemed surprised to see him. The two of them had conversed briefly as if they were old school friends—which for all Francis and Titov knew they might well have been—then bade each other farewell. The bus had then headed not south toward the border, but north, stopping in short order at an airfield on the outskirts of the town that was really just a long strip of flat ground with a windsock at one end. Several minutes later a plane that looked like it had been stolen from a museum made an unsteady approach and even less steady landing, coming to a stop at the end of the makeshift runway in a cloud of blue smoke.
The flight to Mumbai was a two-hour study in aviophobia, ending in a landing that felt more like a narrowly averted crash. The waiting car had then driven them straight to the local hospital where Francis was admitted with a very infected wound and rushed immediately into surgery. None of this seemed to faze Mohindar in the slightest; he neither made assumptions nor asked questions. When Titov had refused to leave Francis in the hospital, Mohindar had pointed to two men sitting in the hallway outside the operating theater and assured him that both were veteran members of the federal police who were well compensated for their time.
“You can stay if you like,” Mohindar said. “But he won’t be able to leave here for at least a couple of days.”
“And where are we going?” Titov said.
“I’ve arranged for you to stay at a house owned by a friend of mine while he recuperates. My instructions were to have you call in as soon as you arrived.”
The house turned out to be several houses inside a lavishly landscaped compound, surrounded by a ten-foot wall and guarded by a small army.
“This friend of yours,” Titov said as they drove through the gate, “is he a local drug baron?”
Mohindar laughed. “Actually, he’s a musician. One of the most famous in India. He’s on tour at the moment.”
If Titov had doubted the truth of that statement, he was soon set straight. The first thing he saw as they entered the main house were several dozen framed gold and platinum records mounted to the walls among a rich variety of photos and paintings. In one of these a very Indian looking George Harrison was sitting cross-legged on a rug with a sitar on his lap.
“You weren’t kidding,” Titov said.
“It’s a shame you can’t meet him,” Mohindar said. “He could tell you a few stories.”
It took Titov a moment to identify the gratitude he suddenly felt for what it really was: relief. The last few days had been some of the most dramatic he could remember since this crazy part of his life had begun over twenty-five years ago.
Titov was Russian by birth, although he had been raised in Estonia after his father, an infantry colonel in the Red Army, was posted there in the spring of ’58. He had joined his father’s regiment the day after he finished school, achieving the rank of senior warrant officer in an engineering battalion by the time he was thirty-four. After his honorable discharge in 1981, he had returned to Estonia where, seven years later, working as a consultant to the state mining office, he made the formal acquaintance of an American named Peter Bershadsky.
Bershadsky had arrived in the country on the heels of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR’s declaration of political autonomy from Moscow. With an accuracy of foresight that would continue to boggle Titov for the next decade and a half, Bershadsky had set about befriending the people he would need to place his newly-formed foundation at the front of the line when the republic finally gained its formal independence two years later.
That Bershadsky was no ordinary man had been clear from the start, although just how extraordinary was something Titov would only discover when Peter eventually took him into his confidence and made him the only other living person to know of his discovery of Origin.
Titov held no formal position within the Karl Gustav Foundation, nor any of its subsidiaries. His position had been that of confidant, facilitator, and, when required, protector of both Bershadsky and the secrets he kept. In his first decade in this role, Titov had bribed officials, stolen documents, smuggled equipment, solicited the services of several European crime syndicates, and killed three men, including a senior Chinese politician. It was Titov who, through an acquaintance in the military, had first learned of the Isle of Dragons and the vast natural cave hiding beneath it. It was Titov, too, who had proposed the purchase of a decommissioned submarine as a means of accessing the facility and bringing in the material and manpower needed to make it a habitable sanctuary for Aurora, which at the time consisted of three rooms in the basement of a house on the outskirts of Tallinn.
“Are you okay?”
Titov turned to Mohindar, surprised at just how far his thoughts had wandered. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“I was saying that you can use the office upstairs,” Mohindar said. “I’ll come up when you’re ready and show you the rooms the staff have prepared for you.”
“Sure.”
The office was at the end of the hall. It was a lavishly decorated room with a curved balcony at one end that offered a picturesque view of the waterfront and the Arabian Sea.
The number he dialed varied from the last by only a single digit, yet the path the call took could not have been more different. The signal first made its way to one of the largest phone exchanges in the world, which just happened to be located in Mumbai, where it was redirected several times before moving on to one of Skyline’s three dedicated line interrupters. These were specially designed modules which translated the digital signal into light pulses between two internal nodes before re-digitizing it and sending it on, thereby effectively terminating the ability of any form of trace or intercept. The signal was then routed via satellite to the dish on the roof of Skyline’s New York headquarters, where it was encrypted and sent on through Darkstar to either Zurich, Aurora, or the new receiver onboard the Pandora. On this particular occasion the call went through to the latter, where a very relieved Richelle picked it up on the first ring.
“Thank God you’re okay,” Richelle said as soon as Titov gave her the good news. “How is Francis doing?”
“He’s going to be fine,” Titov replied. “Although he may have something to say about the arrangements made in Tehran.”
“What do you mean?”
Titov explained what had happened. When he was finished Richelle remained silent.
“You still there?”
“I’m sorry,” Richelle said at last. If Titov hadn’t known her as well as he did, he would have said she sounded almost on the verge of tears.
“You don’t need to apologize to me,” he told her. “I would have done the same thing.”
“It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Alright, now you’re making me nervous,” Titov said. “I’d be more interested to know how much time we have before that ship arrives in Goa. We still need to get Jasper back.”
“It should be there in about sixteen hours,” Richelle told him. “Mohindar has already arranged to have it searched.”
“Mohindar?”
“He has connections inside the port authority.”
“Why am I not surprised to hear that?” Titov said.
“Customs are going to board the ship as soon as it arrives to carry out a routine drug search.”
“And how will they recognize Jasper if they find him?”
“We’ve sent Mohindar a picture. And don’t bother asking if you can join in. If Jasper recognizes you we’ll have a whole new problem on our hands.”
“And if they
don’t
find him?”
“Then you can both get your asses back here. We’ve got more urgent things to deal with.”
“What do you mean?” Titov asked.
“I’m not exactly sure myself yet,” she said. “Just find him and get back here as soon as you can.”
The Pandora
Monday 11 June 2007
2000 EEST
Richelle returned to the hangar as soon as the call to Titov ended. Heinz was standing in front of a large map spread out across a table near the gangway of RP One.
“I’d be a lot more comfortable if you were in there helping to figure out how to stop this,” Richelle said.
Heinz looked up, but there was no hint of good cheer, much less optimism, on his face. “I don’t think we can.”
Richelle pointed at RP One. “Explain to me how this goddam thing needed our permission to land, and whatever the hell
that
is doesn’t.”
“We didn’t
give
RP One permission to land,” Heinz said. “All we did was emulate the beacon’s transmissions to Origin and modify them until something happened. It was a blind stab in the dark, six years of trial and error.”