Operation Storm (2)
Higher-ups occasionally visited the Development Group.
They came to encourage the men who sweated and bled through training for special missions.
But a visit under the current Code One alert was not something anyone could treat lightly.
Lee Woo-hyung entered the director’s office with a vague, gnawing unease.
Knock, knock.
No sooner had Lee Woo-hyung stepped inside than he snapped to attention and saluted Minister of National Defense Seo Seong-guk.
“I hear you’re the most senior instructor among them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve also been up north a few times.”
“Three times.”
During his fifth year at the Development Group, Lee Woo-hyung had gone across into North Korea with his seniors to carry out his first mission.
The first mission was to assess the scale of the hydroelectric plant scheduled to be built in Dancheon, Hamgyongnam-do.
The second was to infiltrate the office of the nuclear physics department at Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang and install a hacking program.
The final mission had been to abduct the family of Choe Mun-seok, a Reconnaissance General Bureau major who had defected under the guise of a North Korean refugee, and move them to Dandong, China.
During that third mission, they were discovered by North Korean troops near the Yalu River.
Gunfire broke out, and Lee Woo-hyung lost three comrades that day.
Afterward, he left the operations team and was assigned as an instructor.
“There’s a top-secret operation coming up soon. Seven men. Pick me the sharpest ones you’ve got.”
“By when, sir?”
“As soon as possible.”
The Information Command had once maintained a separate operations team dedicated to infiltration missions against the North.
But after a civil servant leaked classified Information Command material earlier that year, the organization had been pushed into a sweeping restructuring that was little short of dissolution.
The list of the North Korea operations team had leaked as well, and it was obvious they were being watched in every move by North Korean agents inserted in the South.
In the end, they had no choice but to form a new team from people who had never been publicly connected to the operation.
Countless faces Lee Woo-hyung had encountered in the Information Command drifted through his mind.
But most of them were dead or had grown too old.
In the end, only two faces remained clear.
Na Kang-hae.
And Kim Ha-jun.
Those two could probably infiltrate as far as the Workers’ Party First Building in Pyongyang.
No—they could.
He had made sure of that.
But the two of them were due to be discharged in a week.
That bothered Lee Woo-hyung.
“As soon as possible. We’re out of time. The day after tomorrow is the moonless window, so everything has to be ready before then.”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
“Get out.”
Lee Woo-hyung saluted again and left the office.
* * *
Through a human intelligence source that had not yet been exposed, the National Intelligence Service learned that Ri Yong-sik would be visiting a subordinate unit of the 98th Coastal Defense Regiment in Ryongyon County, South Hwanghae Province, at dawn the next day.
What followed was a fierce debate between the presidential staff and the military brass.
The question was how to kill Ri Yong-sik.
Several options were floated.
The generals brought up drone strikes, which had been used repeatedly in the Middle East since 2020.
With the new drone developed recently by the Agency for Defense Development, it was entirely feasible.
But the presidential staff opposed it.
They feared artillery fire could escalate the conflict.
Another proposal was to eliminate Ri Yong-sik with a firearm used by Syrian or Pakistani troops friendly to North Korea.
But that, too, was shelved, since it could cause diplomatic trouble.
Presidential Chief of Staff Yoo Jeong-hun understood that removing Ri Yong-sik was a point of no return.
This was an operation President Kim Jin-cheol himself had already signed off on.
That meant it had to proceed with as little blowback as possible.
In the end, they decided to go with the original plan: Information Command agents would infiltrate and carry out the kill.
The weapons would be the K14 sniper rifle and the KS-7, a new assault rifle developed by the U.S. firm KAC and the Agency for Defense Development.
The KS-7 had not yet been unveiled to the public.
It was issued only to the 707th Special Mission Group and the Information Command.
After that, Information Command operations officers put their heads together and worked out the details.
And at that very moment, one Cosmos-class submersible operated by the Information Command began its descent off Taean County, South Chungcheong Province, heading toward the waters off Ryongyon County, South Hwanghae Province in North Korea.
* * *
Once the submersible crossed the NLL, Lee Woo-hyung briefed the team on the mission.
“Our objective is to eliminate Ri Yong-sik, commander of the Fourth Corps, who will be visiting the coastal defense regiment under the Fourth Corps in Ryongyon County tomorrow morning. Our insertion point is the waters off Monggumpo Beach in Ryongyon County, South Hwanghae Province. Estimated arrival time is 1500 hours today. Hold there until 2000. After that, infiltrate toward Ryongyeon Mountain. From there on, we’ll move according to the GPS coordinates.”
No one said a word.
Lee Woo-hyung looked over each member of the operations team in turn.
Choi Woo-seok.
Jang Jin-woo.
Kim Soo-hyun.
Lee Chang-geun.
And Na Kang-hae and Kim Ha-jun.
It had been a hastily assembled team, but everyone except Na Kang-hae and Kim Ha-jun had spent more than ten years grinding away in the Information Command.
Some of them had not been on the operations team, but they had spent years on the standby team—the unit that waited at the extraction point for the return of an operations team.
There was more confidence than tension on their faces.
Everyone except Kim Ha-jun.
Lee Woo-hyung called him over.
“Hey, Kim Ha-jun.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You nervous?”
“No, sir.”
“Then are you pissed because you got picked for an operations team a week before discharge?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why the hell do you look like that?”
“Well… I really need to take a shit.”
At that, the entire team burst out laughing.
“Ah, why are you all just laughing? Chief—instructor, I mean—team leader, can’t you tell us to hurry up a little?”
“Hold it.”
“I’m really about to shit myself.”
“I said hold it.”
“Team leader.”
“Hold it.”
“I’m honestly a little shocked. Didn’t expect you to join the operation yourself.”
“Got a load in your gut or something?”
At Kim Ha-jun’s remark, everyone turned to look at Lee Woo-hyung.
Their eyes were full of respect.
None of them had expected Lee Woo-hyung to take part in the operation himself.
But thinking about it again, there was no better man for the job.
He was nearly fifty, yet he had the kind of stamina that could overwhelm younger men, and he possessed experience they did not.
“Our training was always more dangerous than the real thing. It was for a day like today. So don’t get tense.”
“Yes, sir!!!”
The team’s booming reply filled the submersible.
“We’ve still got time, so get some sleep if you can.”
The men lay down at once.
Na Kang-hae followed the seniors and lay down too.
Then he touched the necklace around his neck.
Set in the pendant was a capsule that gleamed blue like a diamond.
It was a cyanide capsule.
If the operation failed and he ended up in enemy hands, he was to swallow the necklace without hesitation.
It would take the stomach acid less than thirty seconds to dissolve the soft gelatin capsule.
Maybe I’ll have to swallow it after all.
Just before being selected for the operations team, Na Kang-hae had been summoned to the instructors’ office along with Kim Ha-jun.
Lee Woo-hyung told them he would pull them from the team if they wanted.
It was consideration for two men who had only a week left before discharge.
But Na Kang-hae said he wouldn’t do that.
Kim Ha-jun said the same.
They knew the danger, but neither of them wanted to dump that danger onto their comrades.
To Na Kang-hae, who had lost his family, the Information Command troops were no different from a new family.
They had filled the void left by the family he had lost.
And because he knew his comrades had families waiting for them, he could not bring himself to do it even more.
Of course, there was another reason too.
Patriotism.
No one is born with patriotism.
It is something acquired later in life.
Na Kang-hae himself had not been especially patriotic before enlisting in the Information Command.
But after becoming part of the Development Group, he had come to feel it.
Or perhaps it was less patriotism than a shred of responsibility as a man of the Information Command.
He did not want to dishonor the reputation the agency’s seniors had built with their lives over the years.
Thinking like that, Na Kang-hae forced himself to sleep.
* * *
Monggumpo Beach lay only ten kilometers from Jangsan Cape, the place where, according to legend, Sim Cheong threw herself into the sea.
The Jangsan Cape area was famous for its stunning scenery as well as its rough swells and fast currents.
It was difficult to infiltrate, but the risk of being spotted by the enemy was just that much lower.
After nightfall, the operations team left the submersible and began the infiltration.
Once ashore, they detoured around the civilian homes and climbed Ryongyeon Mountain, which rose to a height of about 1,600 meters.
And at that same time, at the heavy machinery factory in Daean County, South Pyongan Province, Ri Yong-sik was inspecting the facility with his subordinates.
Above Daean County, a reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle developed by the Agency for Defense Development was keeping watch over Ri Yong-sik.
The live feed was being transmitted in real time to a giant monitor in the basement bunker of the Ministry of National Defense.
President Kim Jin-cheol, his staff, and the military brass sat in the underground bunker, staring at the screen without blinking.
“The target has now left the heavy machinery factory in Daean County, boarded a vehicle, and begun moving.”
If the vehicle Ri Yong-sik was in entered the Nampo–Pyongyang Expressway, everything would be for nothing.
Fortunately, the vehicle entered the road leading to Ryongyon County.
Everyone watched Ri Yong-sik’s movement in complete silence.
After thirty minutes, it was confirmed that he was indeed heading to Ryongyon County.
“I’ll transmit the coordinates to the operations team.”
The operations officer seated in front of the monitor sent the coordinates to the team.
At the 600-meter elevation point on Ryongyeon Mountain, Lee Woo-hyung felt the vibration of the GPS watch on his wrist.
After checking the coordinates, he immediately ordered the team to move.
As they moved, he ran the scenario through his head.
They would hold at a point within a 1.5-kilometer radius of the independent platoon Ri Yong-sik was visiting.
Then they would carry out the snipe.
But if sniping proved impossible, they would shift to an annihilation assault.
Since Ri Yong-sik was visiting an independent platoon, it wasn’t impossible.
At most, they would need to neutralize roughly forty men, including the officers escorting Ri Yong-sik.
Of course, some of the team might be killed or wounded in the process.
But the most important thing was not the lives of the men—it was mission completion.
* * *
Entrance to the subordinate unit of the 98th Coastal Defense Regiment.
Colonel O Ji-tae, commander of the 98th Coastal Defense Regiment of the Korean People’s Army, stood in front of the unit and waited for Ri Yong-sik.
The day before, when the call came from Pyongyang saying Ri Yong-sik would be visiting, O Ji-tae had taken it as a gift from heaven.
O Ji-tae, who had not graduated from Kim Il-sung Military University, had risen to colonel rank for only one reason: he had chosen the right patrons.
He always kept a close eye on Pyongyang.
Thanks to that, he noticed more quickly than anyone which star was rising and which was falling.
For O Ji-tae, whose backing had dried up, Ri Yong-sik was a lifeline lowered straight from heaven.
He vowed to make sure Ri Yong-sik remembered him this time.
A moment later, headlights appeared in the distance.
Soon after, a vehicle came to a stop in front of the unit.
It was a Mercedes bearing a plate that began with 727.
727 referred to July 27, 1953, the date the Korean War armistice was signed, a day North Korea celebrates as Victory Day.
Kim Jong Un reserved Mercedes cars with 727 plates for only the aides he trusted most.
Ri Yong-sik had arrived in that car.
Seeing the Mercedes emblem, O Ji-tae made yet another silent vow.
He would not let this chance slip away.
So the instant Ri Yong-sik got out of the car, O Ji-tae raised his voice and saluted like a low-ranking soldier.
“Colonel O Ji-tae, commander of the Korean People’s Army 98th Coastal Defense Regiment!”
After returning the salute, Ri Yong-sik took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
O Ji-tae quickly struck a match and held the flame for him.
“Appreciate it, pal.”
“It’s nothing, sir!”
“Listen here, regiment commander.”
“Colonel O Ji-tae, sir!”
“Ever caught a mole before?”
“A… mole, sir?”
“Something fun’s going to happen in a little while.”
“Something fun, sir…?”
“You’ll see soon enough. Lead the way.”
“Yes? Y-yes, sir, I’ll lead the way!”
Hearing Ri Yong-sik say that something fun was about to happen, O Ji-tae felt a nameless sense of foreboding.
But he could not ask carelessly.
If he said the wrong thing, he might fall out of Ri Yong-sik’s favor and be dragged off to a prison camp.
In any case, one thing was clear: whatever fun Ri Yong-sik was talking about, O Ji-tae had the distinct feeling it would not be fun for him.
Swallowing his unease, O Ji-tae escorted Ri Yong-sik inside.