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Authors: Mark Dawson
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had been such a success. They wanted to learn from it so that future attacks could be made even more effective. It had been so successful that great prestige had attached to the RGB, and now officials from across the National Defence Commission wanted to be associated with it. Some would no doubt seek to claim credit after the event.
The list of officials attending was impressive.
Two of the four vice-chairmen of the NDC.
The director of the RGB.
The assistant directors of each of the RGB bureaus.
No doubt the plan was to take them down to the palace for the conclusion of the parade.
Some of them would not be able to keep that appointment.
He waited, keeping still, breathing low, clearing his mind. He tuned out every possible distraction: the night from the morning, the dust in his lungs, his surroundings. He was aware that Su-Yung was waiting behind him, but she, too, soon faded away into nothing.
It was just him, his rifle, his targets.
He concentrated on that.
Him, his rifle, his targets.
Nothing else mattered.
Time.
The attendees started to take their seats.
Milton nudged the rifle half an inch to the left and acquired his first target.
He flipped the kill switch, making the rifle live.
Breathe in, hold it.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Now.
He pulled the trigger.
Chapter Seventeen
KIM RUSHED between the opening doors of the elevator car and, shouldering aside the attendants who were guarding the door, tumbled into the offices of the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Yun had telephoned ahead with news of the threat, but, as he had breathlessly relayed to Kim as the major sped across the city, the security officers had dismissed his fears with supercilious disdain. There was, they said, nothing that a single man could do to threaten the leadership of the People’s Army. To suggest otherwise was ridiculous. The building’s security had never been breached and was considered to be impregnable, but to humour him, it would be checked. In the absence of better evidence of the threat—the narcotic ramblings of a man whose mind had been broken were not sufficient—the meeting could not possibly be cancelled. Kim knew why: no one would want to admit to the generals that there was the possibility that they might be fallible.
He ran to the conference room where the meeting was to be held, angrily presented his credentials for inspection and went inside. Proceedings had already commenced. The opening address was being given by Lieutenant General Kim Yong-chol, one of the vice-chairmen. He was praising the computer programmers who had executed such an audacious attack on the Imperialists and their southern lackeys. They were, he opined, in the vanguard of a new kind of war, the kind of war that would send the enemies of the Fatherland back to the dark ages. The usual nonsense, but this audience was primed for it. The room was large, and Kim had entered at the rear, the disturbance kept to a minimum. He took it all in quickly: there was no sign of the Englishman, not that he expected to find any. It was a bomb, surely. He had smuggled a bomb into the country, hidden it here and rigged it to explode. He was going to take out as many of the generals as he could.
“Excuse me!” he shouted. “Comrades! My name is Kim Shin-Jo. I am a major in the Ministry of State Security. I must ask you—”
His eye caught something out of the window, and the words caught in his throat: he didn’t know what it was. A flash of light? The quickest glint of something? A reflection? He glanced across the cityscape to the half-finished Ryugyong Hotel, the only building in the city that was taller than this one. It was half a mile away. Time slowed down. He saw it again, definitely coming from the hotel, that huge tapered arrow pointing straight up into the lowering sky.
People had turned to look at him.
He saw another tiny bloom of light, a different kind of flash against the dark concrete of the hotel’s bare skeleton, and then heard a
The list of officials attending was impressive.
Two of the four vice-chairmen of the NDC.
The director of the RGB.
The assistant directors of each of the RGB bureaus.
No doubt the plan was to take them down to the palace for the conclusion of the parade.
Some of them would not be able to keep that appointment.
He waited, keeping still, breathing low, clearing his mind. He tuned out every possible distraction: the night from the morning, the dust in his lungs, his surroundings. He was aware that Su-Yung was waiting behind him, but she, too, soon faded away into nothing.
It was just him, his rifle, his targets.
He concentrated on that.
Him, his rifle, his targets.
Nothing else mattered.
Time.
The attendees started to take their seats.
Milton nudged the rifle half an inch to the left and acquired his first target.
He flipped the kill switch, making the rifle live.
Breathe in, hold it.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Now.
He pulled the trigger.
Chapter Seventeen
KIM RUSHED between the opening doors of the elevator car and, shouldering aside the attendants who were guarding the door, tumbled into the offices of the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Yun had telephoned ahead with news of the threat, but, as he had breathlessly relayed to Kim as the major sped across the city, the security officers had dismissed his fears with supercilious disdain. There was, they said, nothing that a single man could do to threaten the leadership of the People’s Army. To suggest otherwise was ridiculous. The building’s security had never been breached and was considered to be impregnable, but to humour him, it would be checked. In the absence of better evidence of the threat—the narcotic ramblings of a man whose mind had been broken were not sufficient—the meeting could not possibly be cancelled. Kim knew why: no one would want to admit to the generals that there was the possibility that they might be fallible.
He ran to the conference room where the meeting was to be held, angrily presented his credentials for inspection and went inside. Proceedings had already commenced. The opening address was being given by Lieutenant General Kim Yong-chol, one of the vice-chairmen. He was praising the computer programmers who had executed such an audacious attack on the Imperialists and their southern lackeys. They were, he opined, in the vanguard of a new kind of war, the kind of war that would send the enemies of the Fatherland back to the dark ages. The usual nonsense, but this audience was primed for it. The room was large, and Kim had entered at the rear, the disturbance kept to a minimum. He took it all in quickly: there was no sign of the Englishman, not that he expected to find any. It was a bomb, surely. He had smuggled a bomb into the country, hidden it here and rigged it to explode. He was going to take out as many of the generals as he could.
“Excuse me!” he shouted. “Comrades! My name is Kim Shin-Jo. I am a major in the Ministry of State Security. I must ask you—”
His eye caught something out of the window, and the words caught in his throat: he didn’t know what it was. A flash of light? The quickest glint of something? A reflection? He glanced across the cityscape to the half-finished Ryugyong Hotel, the only building in the city that was taller than this one. It was half a mile away. Time slowed down. He saw it again, definitely coming from the hotel, that huge tapered arrow pointing straight up into the lowering sky.
People had turned to look at him.
He saw another tiny bloom of light, a different kind of flash against the dark concrete of the hotel’s bare skeleton, and then heard a
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