Текст книги "1000 Yards"

Автор книги: Mark Dawson

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4

Milton had to wait five minutes for a taxi. Eventually, one turned up: an old Yugo, battered and dented, probably a hangover from the days when the Russians propped up the North Korean economy. “The Yanggakdo Hotel, please,” he said once his luggage was deposited in the back. The car pulled away and, as they paused to turn onto the deserted highway that would lead into the heart of the capital, Milton allowed himself a brief backwards glance. Two tail cars were behind them.

That was good. He wanted them to follow him.

The main route into the city was known simply as Road Number 1. It was so broad it could easily have accommodated six lanes of traffic, but the restrictions on private ownership of cars meant that there was never anything in the way of congestion. The landscape was barren and sparse, wide expanses of dusty flatlands with the occasional ramshackle habitation becoming more frequent as they passed into the outskirts of the city. As the taxi travelled into the capital proper there came the large plane and acacia trees, the lower part of the trunks painted white. Milton had overheard locals discussing the reason for this during a previous visit: it was, variously, to keep away insects, protect the tree from harsh temperatures or, most likely, to denote that the tree was government property and must not be chopped for firewood. As they travelled onwards they came across more and more of the familiar red signposts with propaganda slogans and, behind them, soaring streetlamps that were seldom switched on. The pavements in the central district were as broad as the Champs-Élysées, a grand boulevard that was intended to remind the citizenry of the power of their government. Many of the locals chose to walk in the road since the traffic was so spare. There were no traffic lights, with uniformed police monitoring the few cars and lorries with the aid of glowing batons. All things considered, downtown Pyongyang provided a reasonably positive first impression. It was only on closer inspection that it became clear that chunks of concrete had fallen off the buildings, that the streetlights all tilted precariously in different directions and that the trams were all cratered with dents.

He still felt off-balance. The dream had passed, leaving tiny gossamer webs of memory that reminded him that he had had it. One thing was for sure: it was bad timing. He would have been nervous without it. This kind of deception was not unusual for a man in his line of work but there were very few places were the consequences of discovery would be as severe as in the DPRK. There would be no official protest, no consular activity to get him back. As far as the Group was concerned, as soon as he was in the field he was a totally deniable asset. That rule was rigid; men and women had been lost before, swallowed up into the penal bureaucracies of some of the world’s most inhospitable states, never to be seen or heard from again. The prospect of a life spent in a North Korean gaol was not a pleasant one. Nervousness, even for an operative as experienced as Milton, was not an unreasonable response in the circumstances.

The nerves would return again, but he had passed his first inspection. It was important that he had attracted attention and Peter McEwan was precisely the sort of man to do that. Milton had read his file cover-to-cover. He was a wanted man in several countries. Flouting international sanctions was just one of the crimes of which he was guilty. His main income was derived from smuggling and, to that end, he had extensive links with criminal concerns all around the world from the Ndrangheta in Sicily to the Los Zetas cartel in Northern Mexico. Drugs, luxury items, arms, counterfeit currency, even people; McEwan was not burdened by conscience and there was very little that he was not prepared to trade. The man had been chosen because of his reputation and because he was known to the MPSS officials, but the benefit of his notoriety also carried its own burden: Milton had to play a part already known to his watchers. He had to hit all the minute beats of a man for whom there was already a voluminous file somewhere deep in the secret police’s vast bureaucracy.

There were imperfections in the plan, of course. If they compared the photographs of Milton with that of McEwan, the deception would not hold for long. Milton had altered his appearance as far as was possible in order to mimic McEwan – the expensive glasses, the slicked back hair, five days’ worth of stubble, the way he walked and held himself – but none of it would hold up under proper scrutiny. It was an approximation, barely more than a sketch, and, just as he had made an attempt to capture the man’s oleaginous manner, that overbearing arrogance and the air of seediness that accompanied him like a bad smell, any kind of inquisition would strip the falsehoods away just like sunlight burning through early morning mist.

British intelligence had its eye on plenty of men and women like McEwan, individual operators who plied their trade in some of the world’s most unpleasant places. Whenever unobtrusive access for a cleaner was required – as now – then the Group would lay its finger on the person who would best allow an agent a means of ingress. The mark would be removed from circulation and replaced. It was a simple ruse and the moral turpitude of those who made it possible meant that the human cost was more easily ignored. Milton’s conscience was not troubled by the cost of his deception.

Outside the window, Pyongyang rolled by. Parts of it were even pretty, with all the blossom and the flowers. They passed the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery and the Schoolchildren’s Palace. They followed the road as it bisected a large public square where hundreds of Young Pioneers, soldiers and paramilitaries were practicing for the Parade, a spectacle of robotic choreography perfected by hundreds of hours of drill. From the sides of buildings and on enormous billboards were the faces of the Great and Dear Leaders: Generalissimo Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, both of them dead and gone but impossible to forget.

The newest pictures were of the young and untested Kim Jong-un, the scion of the line.

Milton had read all of the ridiculous rhetoric that had flowed from the DPRK since Kim had succeeded his father. “Seas of fire.” “Merciless vengeance.” It was bluster and braggadocio for the most part, but the Koreans had nuclear weapons to back up their threats and now the country was developing other, more insidious, ways to hurt the West. Milton did not know, nor did he need to know, the political calculus that had led to his being there, sitting in a taxi as it delivered him to the heart of Pyongyang. But, as he looked at a row of fresh portraits of Kim Jong-un, Milton knew that the games of brinksmanship that the North had perfected had been played out for too long.

No: Milton did not need to know why the message had suddenly become necessary, only that it was.

He was just the postman.

His job was to deliver it.

5

The hotel Yanggakdo, a thousand-room monster that was reserved for foreign guests, sat on the prow of an island in the Taedong River. Westerners called it The Alcatraz of Fun for its revolving restaurant on the roof and its basement of decadent delights: a casino, a swimming pool, a bowling alley and karaoke bars. Milton wheeled his luggage into the reception and checked in. One of the black tail cars had parked near to the entrance. Milton noticed that the dark-suited man in the passenger seat had disembarked and followed him into the lobby. While he waited for his room to be assigned, he made a lazy scan of the foyer. Two others were waiting for him: a man reading his newspaper as his shoes were buffed by a shoe-shine boy and, at the bar, a man who was drinking a cup of tea. The operatives were relaxed and easy, yet they were not experienced enough to hide their purpose from someone like him. If, and when, he left the Yanggakdo, one or both of those men would follow. There would be a car outside, ready to tail him should he avail himself of a taxi. The polite, smiling receptionist would also be in the employ of the secret police, as would be the bellhop who helped him with his luggage. The cleaners, the waiting staff who delivered room service; all would report back to the Directorate of the MPSS that had been assigned the file for Mr Peter Douglas McEwan, the known smuggler from Great Britain.

The room was clean and tidy, pleasant enough. Double-glazed windows behind thin net curtains offered a wide view of downtown Pyongyang. Milton sat back on the bed and took off his shoes. The TV in his room was switched on, looping a series of important events: ‘Kim Jong-un provides field guidance at the Pyongyang Hosiery Factory,” said one report. The next showed the young leader astride a large chestnut horse, inspecting troop movements near the demilitarized zone. Milton took up the remote control and switched through the channels: the BBC, CNN, an anonymous football match with teams that he did not recognise. The room would be rife with bugs but Milton made no effort to find them, nor even to adapt his behaviour to take them into account. He wouldn’t have been able to neutralise them even if he had been able to find them. And he had no way of knowing whether the mirror that faced the bed was two-way.

None of it mattered.

He wanted them to listen and watch.

He took of his shirt and went through to the bathroom to wash his face. The light fell over the tattoo across his shoulders and back, the angel wings tipped with razor claws. He dunked his head in the sink, scrubbing the cold water into his pores, trying to excise the last somnambulant effects of the dream.

He picked up the telephone and dialled a Chinese number. He held a brief conversation with the man at the other end of the line, checking that the transporter with the eight luxury cars had crossed the border successfully. It had, and it was due to arrive in the city tonight, around nine, right on schedule.

He took off his jacket and tie and made himself a gin and tonic from the minibar. Cheap Chinese gin, tonic that barely retained any fizz. He took the drink to the window and looked down from the thirteenth floor. The roads were virtually empty. The sky, usually so full of the vapour trails from passing jets, was clear. He stared, for a long time. Moranbong Park was half a mile away and Milton remembered it from his last trip: its host of pagodas, clouds of blossom and the people spreading picnics, drinking rice liquor and singing sentimental folk songs. Red flags fluttered at road junctions. Statues of the Kims could be seen in public places, arms raised aloft in victory that was so pyrrhic as to be a horrible joke. The enormous, clawed finger of the Ryugyong Hotel, designed as the tallest in the world when construction started twenty years earlier, still stood unfinished. An attempt to trump the upstart South, it stood instead as a permanent reminder of the North’s failure.

He allowed his thoughts to wander a little. He had an appointment to keep. Two people that he did not know would be waiting for him in the Park. His instructions were to leave the hotel after dinner. He was not, under any circumstances, to lose his tail. All he had to do was to be certain to arrive at eight.

6

John Milton took a single table in the restaurant and ate pansanggi, a collection of small dishes including grilled beef, brined fish and boiled cabbage. He ate at a leisurely place, flicking through a translated copy of the Workers’ Newspaper that he had collected from a rack in the lobby. There were no obvious signs of surveillance, but Milton was sure that the staff were keeping an eye on him. He thanked his waitress and left a ten euro note as a tip, collecting his overcoat and walking brusquely across the foyer and straight for the exit. He knew that he would leave confusion in his wake; foreigners were not generally allowed to wander the streets without a chaperone. He emerged into the chill air and set off quickly at a fast walk.

It was busy outside: workers went on and off shift at the hotel, factory hands hurried for the busses that would take them to their flats on the outskirts of the city, a few cars and lorries made their way along the roads. Milton did not look back but he knew that he would immediately be followed. He looked in the window of a small department store and saw one man, hurrying after him determinedly. He did not see the large black Mercedes detach itself from the hotel’s parking lot, but he heard its engine as it accelerated and overtook him. He turned to see the man in the passenger seat staring at him through the window of the car and, for a moment, he had the grim premonition that he was about to be detained. He had considered the possibility and had decided that he would run, but the chances of successfully making his appointment would be remote. Most likely he would be captured and swallowed up into the vast bureaucracy of the intelligence service, eventually emerging into a gulag – a kaolin mine, a re-education camp – from where he would never escape.

He crossed the road at the entrance to the park, his muscles twitching and his gut watery with nerves, but the order for him to stop did not come.

The park contained many significant monuments, including the Pyongyang Arch of Triumph where he was to make his rendezvous. The broad avenues were sparsely populated, the occasional jogger passing by or couples strolling towards him, arm-in-arm, idling the evening away. Milton had no need to check his tail. He knew they were there and that they would stay with him for as long as he let them. There would be a panic if they were to lose him, and that was something he could not afford. He needed them there to see the show that they were going to put on for them. If they lost him, and flooded the area with agents until they found him again, the plan would not work.

He maintained a careful balance of speed: fast enough to stay ahead of them and yet not so fast that they might panic. He wanted them to think that he was a tourist, taking in the sights.

He glanced at his watch: seven-thirty.

He concentrated on maintaining his sense of calm but it became harder and harder to do that. He was alone, in a hostile country, travelling under a flimsy pretence. He was fooling himself if he thought this was easy, as simple as his last job in Manila, or the one before that in South Africa. The wind had dropped a little and he could hear the men on his tail now, footsteps striking the pavement, unhurried and assured. How far were they behind him? He dared not look. He was frightened. He thrust a hand into his trouser pocket and rubbed a coin between his thumb and forefinger, turning it over so that he could feel the striated edge.

A road crossed the park and as Milton traversed it he saw the Mercedes again. It slowed to a halt, drawing in at the kerb, the tinted windscreen revealing nothing. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to eight. He heard footsteps quickening a little behind him. Two pairs. Were they going to take him now?

Finally, he reached the Arch. It was tall, sixty metres at its apex, a larger facsimile of the Arch in Paris. The white granite blocks looked ghostly in the moonlight. A second road, reserved for park officials, was nearby and, parked along it, was a Volvo 144. Four vaulted gateways were decorated with azalea carved into their girth and it was from the western-facing one that Milton saw the two figures emerge.

A man and a woman.

They moved towards him.

The woman moved ahead and spoke in quiet, accented English. “Mr McEwan?”

“Yes.”

“How many followed you?”

“Two on foot. Another couple, at least, by car.”

“Where is the car?”

“It was parked by the road. The men on foot – what are they doing?”

“Waiting,” the woman replied.

The second man spoke in urgent Korean.

“There’s another,” the woman said. “Three now. They’re coming. We must be quick. Are you ready, sir?”

Milton nodded.

The man made to strike him on the head with a billy club. The blow missed, although it would not have been obvious from distance and in the deepening gloom. Milton made a show of falling forwards, the man grabbing him beneath the arms and dragging him towards the Volvo. The rear door opened and he flung him inside.

7

Milton allowed himself to be half-pushed, half-pulled inside the car and pressed himself down against the seat. The English-speaking woman got in beside him, her companion going around to the passenger seat.

The tyres squealed as the Volvo pulled away.

“Stay down, please,” she said.

Milton did as he was told.

“Your papers.”

Milton reached into his pocket and handed over his passport and his visa.

The car accelerated, speeding away from a sudden shrill blast of whistles as the three MPSS officers sounded the alert. The blacked-out Mercedes quickly reversed, bumping across the rough ground as it sought the service road. The Volvo had a head start and the driver quickly took advantage, swinging off the road and barrelling at high speed along the broad path that cut between two neighbouring stands of trees. Joggers stood and gaped as they roared by, the Mercedes giving pursuit but already five hundred yards behind them.

The driver spun the wheel to bring them back onto a main road and took a hard left until they reached a built-up area of the capital again. He slowed, slotting them behind a truck carrying a consignment of water melons beneath an unsecured tarpaulin that flapped in the wind.

The woman paused to look out of the rear window. Satisfied, she turned back to Milton. “My name is Su-Yung Jong. I will be with you until you have completed your objective.”

“The man in the front?”

“My brother, Kun. If you need anything, you must ask me. For now, our objective is to get you away from here.”

The driver took a sharp right into a quiet alleyway and parked. It was peaceful for a moment, just the restive background sounds of the city as they collected themselves. Su-Yung did not wait for long. She reached into her bag and withdrew a package of documents, including a German passport. She pressed them into Milton’s hands.

“Study these. Your name is now Alexander Witzel. You are a German tourist staying at the Pothonggang Hotel. They are looking for an Englishman, remember, not a German. They said you speak the language.”

“I do.”

Milton checked through the papers. The passport was an impressive fake, bearing his own photograph on the second page. Another new identity, he thought, a little wryly. He had lost count of them all by now.

“Is it in order?”

“It’s very good,” Milton said.

“I am pleased.”

“What happened to McEwan? The real one?”

“He was shot. The authorities will find his body in the car once it has been set alight. His passport will be on his person. They will not be able to identify him from his likeness but they will be able to confirm that it is him from his finger-prints or his teeth.”

“How will they have access to that?”

“Mr Milton, my country might be backwards in almost everything else, but one thing that it is extremely good at is discovering information. Mr McEwan has a criminal record in your country. Finding that is a matter of child’s play for the Ministry of Information.” She shook her head in what might have passed for an expression of grimly patriotic satisfaction. “The police will believe that he is dead, the victim of a smuggling deal that has gone wrong. They will be distracted by a murder hunt and you will be free to go about your business.”

Kun interrupted his sister in hurried, tense Korean.

“My brother is concerned that we are taking too long. We must go, Mr Milton. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then follow me, please.”

They walked quickly onto the main street, Milton allowing Su-Yung to extend a lead of ten metres. They reached the entrance to Ragwon Metro Station. It was a squat, curved building with a large clock fixed to the roof above the entrance. A clutch of schoolchildren, dressed in identical white blouses, blue socks and red neckerchiefs, gambolled down the steps and onto the wide forecourt beyond. Su-Yung disappeared into the crowd and Milton caught his breath for a moment; he was tall enough to see over the people in his way and he quickly spotted her again. He hurried inside; he had an impression of ornamental decoration, a mixture of Soviet functionalism and oriental opulence, before he was borne forwards onto the escalator that would take them down to the tracks. Milton concentrated on looking as inconspicuous as he could, his eyes glancing across the brightly lit, sombre marble walls as they were ferried downwards. It was as striking as he remembered; only the Moscow Metro came close. With its grandiose architecture, austere cleanliness and cool atmosphere, Ragwon reminded Milton of a museum.

The platform was crowded. Milton stood away from Su-Yung, not even looking in her direction. A mural was painted on the wall, Kim Il-sung holding a book aloft and flanked by two rifle-wielding soldiers, a demure housewife and a worker. The national flag billowed behind them.

The red-and-green painted train arrived and they both climbed aboard.

Milton gazed around at the faces in the compartment. It could have been a tube train anywhere in the world. The people wore the same closed expressions, avoiding eye contact as if they were in London or New York. Framed portraits of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader were fixed to both ends of the carriage. The train hushed into another brightly lit strip of platform and Milton saw the name slide past his gaze: Samhung. They were heading west, away from the centre of the capital.

The woman who had been to his left disembarked and Su-Yung slid across until she was alongside. Milton waited for the female guard to raise her signal.

“Did you see anyone?”

“No,” Su-Yung said. “I do not believe that we were followed. But we must be careful – the police are everywhere.”

“Where are we going?”

“Away from here,” she said as the train crept forwards into the tunnel. “You must trust me.”