One Chef!

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Captain Rang Jin-ho stood on the bridge of the North Korean ship Chong Chon Gang and shifted his weight to keep it off his artificial leg; it itched horribly. The problem was that it itched in a place that was now made of steel.

But he wasn’t going to go below and rest it. They had permission to be in port for three hours and he’d never looked out on American soil before, not once in his twenty years at sea.

I wish you were here to see it with me, Su-jin. His wife would have enjoyed the moment, but even trusted families of Office 39 were not allowed to leave North Korea together, for fear of defection. One or the other always remained behind.

He’d taken command of the hundred-and-fifty meter ship a decade ago. Perhaps he’d done it a little brutally, but it had succeeded with no one the wiser which was all that counted. He and the Chong Chon Gang had been Office 39’s number one cargo and smuggling vessel ever since.

But they were known—you couldn’t hide the purpose of such a large ship forever. So why did the Americans agree to let the premier vessel of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s most secret and powerful government agency arrive in Red Hook terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey?

Were Westerners really so soft-hearted that they’d allow a spy vessel in their harbor under the pretense of being a U.N. food aid delivery?

Perhaps.

Jin-ho would not be so foolish. No CIA ship would ever be allowed into Wonsan harbor.

He had been granted three hours to take aboard and stow one hundred shipping containers. The big cranes were making quick work of the task. But only ninety-one of the containers were in the stack they were loading.

It had been two hours. He had less than an hour left before the hovering Coast Guard cutters would escort him once more to sea, when he spotted the delivery trucks.

Nine trucks bearing nine containers.

No customs inspections on those.

They were under the seal of the People’s Republic of China diplomatic pouch. Each door lock seal was checked as the trucks arrived, but nothing more.

He knew the contents of five of the containers, all of it forbidden goods specifically against the U.N. sanctions: two containers of RPGs and other ground-fire weapons, two containing the various parts from which a Bell Cobra attack helicopter might be assembled, and a Tesla roadster to assuage the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.

As long as the vicious bastard had his occasional new toys, he would leave Office 39 alone. And if he didn’t, he would find out exactly who truly ran the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea just as his father Kim Jong-il had before him.

In his first two years of power, Kim Jong-un had executed the four men his father had appointed to train him; every general in the military who had been one of his father’s cronies, and even his uncle. He had his uncle, the man’s family, and most of his relatives machine gunned down, or fed to starved dogs—the reports varied; over a hundred people were rumored to have gone down in a that single purge.

The Supreme Leader had not touched a single family member of Office 39 which proved he was not stupid, just vicious.

Jin-ho kept an eye on the “loading mix-up” that caused one of the containers to be rejected by his First Officer only after it was lowered down into the cargo hold.

P’yo was very smooth.

The lifting tackle was switched in mere moments to a different container which bore the same identifying numbers and seal.

Jin-ho watched from his eagle’s eye perch on the command bridge.

No inspectors were any wiser for the exchange.

A quarter of a billion dollars in supernotes, counterfeit US hundred dollar bills, would be returned via the PRC’s diplomatic pouch to the embassy and be spread out through the gangs of the Chinese Ghee Mun Tong. A very simple p*****t for the contents of the nine containers.

Office 39’s supernotes were the best on the planet and they distributed billions of dollars per year. Yet one more way that the Office kept the DPRK’s economy afloat. He’d been told that the American gambling casinos’ machines accepted them every time, which was apparently the ultimate test.

Jin-ho watched the replacement container as it was reloaded onto the truck which then departed back out through the gate.

He eased his leg again.

The last four containers’ contents were unknown to him. They were labeled for the Council of Five, the leaders of Office 39. A Council on which he still intended to sit one day.

His wife Su-jin had instructed him at length on how to spot opportunity when it came.

These four unknown containers? he asked his wife’s image in his mind.

He didn’t know. So for now?

Wait and see, Jin-ho. We remain always patient.

But those last containers gave him an ache in his missing knee that he didn’t like at all.

What could possibly be inside them?