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“My dear Kang, how good it is to see you! And looking so well!” Kim Jong-Il, the plump, cherub-faced son of the Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung, bustled out of the washroom smiling from ear to ear.

Kang was astonished. This pleasant greeting was not at all what he had expected. He stood hastily and bowed to the man known throughout North Korea as the Dear Leader.

Kim moved around his desk and waved Kang down into his chair. “Sit! Sit! My dear Kang, this is no time for formality. This is a working meeting. A meeting of two old friends and comrades who’ve worked hard to preserve our Revolution, eh?”

Kang sat slowly, thinking fast. What did the man want? Aloud he said carefully, “Dear Leader, I am honored by your kind welcome.”

Kim settled himself ponderously in his own chair. He’d inherited his father’s stocky build, but unlike his father, he’d never been forced by trying circumstances to forgo the delicacies that could add pounds.

Kang found the contrast between the North’s wiry, undernourished farmers and this bloated man who would one day rule them interesting. But he was careful to leave the thought there. Irony could be a swift road to oblivion in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — especially for a man in Kang’s position.

“Tell me, Comrade Kang, you’ve been following recent events in the South?”

“Yes, Dear Leader.” What did the man think that he did all day? Read film magazines?

“Excellent. Then tell me, Comrade, how you would analyze these events. Specifically, these massive student protests in Seoul.” Kim folded his hands over his stomach and rocked back in his chair.

Kang couldn’t read anything in the man’s expression. He took refuge in the time-worn language used in official propaganda and shrugged. “It is the old story, Dear Leader. The summer Olympics and orchestrated elections bought the Seoul regime a small measure of peace, but the progressive elements are once again trying to pressure the imperialist-controlled puppet government for significant reforms.”

“And their chances of success?”

Kang shook his head. “Nonexistent. Uncoordinated street protests are of little use against an entrenched fascist occupation.” What was the man driving at?

Kim Jong-Il sat forward in his chair. “Why then are we not doing more to assist these progressives in their cause? Surely you see these demonstrations as an opportunity. As a chance to bring these students into a united front against the American oppressors and their lackeys.”

Oh, oh. Kang wondered which of his rivals had been filling Kim’s head with such nonsense. Too many carefully placed agents had already been “blown” in futile, wasted efforts to control South Korea’s seasonal student protests. He’d better squelch this dangerous line of thought while he had the chance. “Naturally such a development would be welcome indeed. Unfortunately, most of these students have not reached the proper level of revolutionary consciousness. They want reunification with us, but they’ve been unwilling to accept the discipline needed to make that happen. As a result, several of our best networks were compromised during the last round of demonstrations. The benefits do not yet outweigh the costs, Dear Leader.”

Kim’s smile faded into an impassive, unreadable expression, and Kang thought it best to temporize. “Naturally, we continue to reevaluate each opportunity as it arises.”

Kim’s smile came back. “I am delighted to hear that, comrade. I have always known you to be a man of great sense.” He gestured airily. “But of course I shall accept your advice on this matter as the last word. We’ll leave these Southern students to their own devices.”

Kang dipped his head in gratitude. It was a rare thing to be able to so easily persuade the Dear Leader to abandon a pet proposal — even one so cautiously advanced.

“Tell me, how is the Scorpion Project proceeding?”

For a moment the rapid change of subject took Kang by surprise. He looked at Kim carefully. This must be what he had really been summoned to discuss. The talk of aiding South Korea’s rioting students had been a blind, a way to ease into something much more important to Kang and to the Research Department — the Scorpion Project.

In a way the Scorpion Project was Kang’s special pride and joy. It had occupied him for most of his career, and in fact, it had carried him to the upper echelons of the Research Department.

Scorpion was an agent — a deep-cover agent planted in South Korea in 1950, during the confusion caused by the North Korean invasion. Beria, Stalin’s feared KGB chieftain, had first suggested it to Kim Il-Sung as an insurance policy against military failure. He believed that it should prove comparatively simple to build an airtight “legend” or cover for such an agent amid the ongoing devastation, slaughter, and chaos.

He had been right. The man known by the code name Scorpion had been recruited, carefully trained and indoctrinated, and then sent south through the enemy lines — armed only with the identity of an anticommunist long since dead in a North Korean prison camp. Surviving members of the real man’s family had been rounded up and liquidated to ensure absolute security. No one was left alive to dispute Scorpion’s authenticity.

In the nearly forty years since, the agent Scorpion had risen steadily through the ranks of South Korea’s bureaucracy. And Kang had been his controller since the 1960s.

“Scorpion goes well, Dear Leader. Our man has attained a high position in the fascist internal security force.”

Kim interrupted him. “Excellent, Comrade Kang. Perfect in fact. Then he is ideally placed to carry out the task I have in mind.”

SEPTEMBER 6 — THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

The man known as Scorpion in North Korea stood by his office window. From there he could see faint, whitish-gray wisps of tear gas rising above the city skyline. Another student protest that had turned into a riot. Good. It would make things easier. But not any safer — not for him at least.

He thought over the emergency signal that had arrived from the North. What possessed those fools? Had they lost all ability to reason? He’d spent years worming his way into this position, and now they wanted to risk it all on a single throw of the dice. He turned away from the window.

Should he refuse to carry out the order? The thought tempted him, but he dismissed it. That would be viewed as disloyalty and Pyongyang had a long arm. Better to risk detection by his colleagues in the South Korean security service than to risk death at the hands of his comrades in the North’s Research Department.

Besides, there was a certain charming subtlety to the mission he’d been ordered to carry out. A careful word here. A thoughtful suggestion there. And all of them would be in character. He’d established his credentials as a hardline anticommunist with years of dedicated service and fierce talk. No one would be surprised by investigation that would certainly ensue if he was successful.

He stopped pacing by his desk. So be it. He’d evaded South Korea’s counterespionage probes for four decades. Let them try again and he would outwit them yet again.

The man called Scorpion picked up the phone. “Get me the minister.”

He would light the fuse.

CHAPTER 2
Opening Round

SEPTEMBER 8 — NEAR THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

General Jack McLaren leaned forward and rapped sharply on the divider. “Stop the car right here, Harmon. I want to see what the hell’s going on up ahead.”

His driver grinned back over his shoulder. “Anything you say, General. This is about the end of the line anyways. Looks like a doggone parking lot up there.”

McLaren snorted and popped the car door open — and started to sweat as Seoul’s hot, sticky summer air rolled into the air-conditioned limo. It was worse out on the pavement. Heat waves shimmered and danced along the mass of stalled cars now backed up all along Sejong-Ro — Sejong Street — the wide, multilane boulevard cutting north to south through Seoul.

McLaren shoved his heavy uniform cap squarely on his head and leaned back in through the open door. “Doug, you’d better get on the horn to their high-and-mightinesses and tell ’em I’ll be late … but do it diplomatically, of course.”

His aide nodded and reached for the command phone on the seat beside him.

McLaren turned away and began working his way up the street through the crowds. He frowned. Street vendors along the sidewalks were hastily packing away their goods, and department store clerks swarmed alongside them hurriedly unrolling steel mesh screens to cover display windows showing the latest Western fashions. Other drivers had gotten out of their cars and stood trying to see what had caused the tie-up.

By the time he’d gone just a couple of hundred yards, the reason for the traffic jam was obvious. Several hundred helmeted South Korean riot police had blocked off the whole multilane boulevard. Some were putting up crowd control barricades while others started waving cars off onto some of the smaller east-west roads feeding into Sejong-Ro. Bulky armored cars mounting water cannon and tear gas grenade launchers were parked behind the police line. McLaren could see the walled U.S. embassy compound several hundred feet past the barricades.

It’s like damned clockwork, he thought. It’s September in Seoul, so it must be time for another friggin’ student demonstration. Another few months of tear gas, rocks, and a bunch of puppydog kids yelling their heads off for “democracy” and “economic rights” — things they had heard about but didn’t really understand. There had been three already, all in the week since classes started. Each had been large and well organized, and each had been bigger than the one before.

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