it?” answered the Admiral. “The mother of all splashes.”
2
1500, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
East Coast Highway, North Korea.
T HEY WERE JUST NORTH of the seaport city of Wonsan, and the Chinese-built off-road military juggernaut was rumbling up the strangely deserted road. To the right stretched a long expanse of jagged coastline guarded from the great rollers off the Sea of Japan only by a few tiny islands that could be seen in the distance.
This was rugged country, the “highway” cleaving its way north for 200 miles, into the extreme northeast where China, North Korea, and Russia converge, some 80 miles south of Vladivostok.
The Hamas General in the front passenger seat was accompanied by his personal bodyguard, brother-in-law, and veteran Hamas major, Ahmed Sabah, who sat quietly in the rear seat cradling a fully primed AK-47. The General stared through the windshield without speaking. The language was just too damned strange, the people too odd, the country too foreign for any attempt at social chat with the Korean Army driver.
THE “PRIVATE” NUCLEAR MENACE AROUND THE YELLOW SEA; NORTH KOREA‘S WEAPONS FACTORIES; CHINA‘S SUBMARINE BASE
Ravi Rashood was numb with boredom. Here in what might be the world’s most secretive country, a police-state throwback to the dark ages of communism, he felt so out of place, so utterly estranged from anything he had ever known, that he was at a loss for perspective. He looked over at the driver, whose uniform was without military insignia save for a small metal badge showing a portrait of the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, presumed insane by most of the Western world, but a God-like presence to the residents of North Korea. A red rim surrounded the driver’s badge, signifying his military rank.
His father, the late Kim il-Sung, was believed to be the Greatest Leader Ever in the history of the world, including the likes of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Washington, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Mao, Gandhi, and Churchill. North Korean children had to learn a hymn to Kim, and sing it daily, “The Greatest Genius the World Has Ever Known.” Huge portraits of him littered cities, towns, villages, and parks. His words were still regarded as the Will of Heaven.
Kim’s fat little son, Kim Jong-il, quickly matched his father’s near immortality, and loudspeakers proclaimed his undisputed family Greatness on the streets, in cities and towns throughout the land. Undisputed, that is, unless you didn’t mind jail or even execution. The twenty-first-century regime of Kim Jong-il did not tolerate dissent in any form whatsoever. Which at least simplified the issue— Love the Dear Leader or else…
The Army truck driver was a true and faithful representative of a terrorized population. And behind his enigmatic half-smile there was the zombified blank expression of a people whose morale had been shattered, whose self-respect was gone, and whose only chance of survival was to toe the line and worship the earthly god Kim—always making certain there was a large portrait of him in the house, ready for inspection, as laid down by the law.
North Korea was an Orwellian nightmare, forever on the borders of outright famine, with hundreds of thousands already deadof malnutrition. This was Russia in winter a half-century ago, Stalinesque in its procedures. And still the populace thronged the streets, cheering the Dear Leader, as the tubby little monster drove past, the living Tsar of one of the worst-run sovereign nations since the Dark Ages. And every day, all day, and all night, if you were listening, the Government of Kim Jong-il broadcasted the “true knowledge” that this country was intrinsically, ethnically superior to any other.
General Ravi was appalled by North Korea. And he really hated doing business with them. But in his game, there were very few places to do business at all. For part of his job made him an international arms dealer, and one of a rare
2
1500, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
East Coast Highway, North Korea.
T HEY WERE JUST NORTH of the seaport city of Wonsan, and the Chinese-built off-road military juggernaut was rumbling up the strangely deserted road. To the right stretched a long expanse of jagged coastline guarded from the great rollers off the Sea of Japan only by a few tiny islands that could be seen in the distance.
This was rugged country, the “highway” cleaving its way north for 200 miles, into the extreme northeast where China, North Korea, and Russia converge, some 80 miles south of Vladivostok.
The Hamas General in the front passenger seat was accompanied by his personal bodyguard, brother-in-law, and veteran Hamas major, Ahmed Sabah, who sat quietly in the rear seat cradling a fully primed AK-47. The General stared through the windshield without speaking. The language was just too damned strange, the people too odd, the country too foreign for any attempt at social chat with the Korean Army driver.
THE “PRIVATE” NUCLEAR MENACE AROUND THE YELLOW SEA; NORTH KOREA‘S WEAPONS FACTORIES; CHINA‘S SUBMARINE BASE
Ravi Rashood was numb with boredom. Here in what might be the world’s most secretive country, a police-state throwback to the dark ages of communism, he felt so out of place, so utterly estranged from anything he had ever known, that he was at a loss for perspective. He looked over at the driver, whose uniform was without military insignia save for a small metal badge showing a portrait of the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, presumed insane by most of the Western world, but a God-like presence to the residents of North Korea. A red rim surrounded the driver’s badge, signifying his military rank.
His father, the late Kim il-Sung, was believed to be the Greatest Leader Ever in the history of the world, including the likes of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Washington, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Mao, Gandhi, and Churchill. North Korean children had to learn a hymn to Kim, and sing it daily, “The Greatest Genius the World Has Ever Known.” Huge portraits of him littered cities, towns, villages, and parks. His words were still regarded as the Will of Heaven.
Kim’s fat little son, Kim Jong-il, quickly matched his father’s near immortality, and loudspeakers proclaimed his undisputed family Greatness on the streets, in cities and towns throughout the land. Undisputed, that is, unless you didn’t mind jail or even execution. The twenty-first-century regime of Kim Jong-il did not tolerate dissent in any form whatsoever. Which at least simplified the issue— Love the Dear Leader or else…
The Army truck driver was a true and faithful representative of a terrorized population. And behind his enigmatic half-smile there was the zombified blank expression of a people whose morale had been shattered, whose self-respect was gone, and whose only chance of survival was to toe the line and worship the earthly god Kim—always making certain there was a large portrait of him in the house, ready for inspection, as laid down by the law.
North Korea was an Orwellian nightmare, forever on the borders of outright famine, with hundreds of thousands already deadof malnutrition. This was Russia in winter a half-century ago, Stalinesque in its procedures. And still the populace thronged the streets, cheering the Dear Leader, as the tubby little monster drove past, the living Tsar of one of the worst-run sovereign nations since the Dark Ages. And every day, all day, and all night, if you were listening, the Government of Kim Jong-il broadcasted the “true knowledge” that this country was intrinsically, ethnically superior to any other.
General Ravi was appalled by North Korea. And he really hated doing business with them. But in his game, there were very few places to do business at all. For part of his job made him an international arms dealer, and one of a rare
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