know what happened.”
Brewer didn’t like it. If she saw Anthem on the street on her way home to her house this morning, her first inclination would be to run her over and end this debacle. But she said, “I’ll give the description to FBI. They’ll get it to local authorities. We’ll find her.”
Hanley nodded. “That’s not all we need to do. We need to find the mole.”
“That’s not Operations’s role.”
“True. Not officially. But Operations is paying the price for a leak in the building. We had two ops burned hard tonight. Add that to the list of compromises over the past few months. First thing tomorrow we’re going to come up with a new strategy to figure out who is wrecking these Agency operations.”
“But . . . how?”
“We do it off book. There are a finite number of people who’ve had access to all the intelligence that has been leaked. We ID all of them, and then go to work on each one.”
“Waterboarding?” Brewer joked.
But Matt Hanley did not smile. “If it comes to that,” he said, and Suzanne Brewer silently cursed the day Hanley had manipulated her into working for him.
CHAPTER 7
FOUR YEARS EARLIER
The sail of the submarine broke the black surface of the Sea of Japan twenty-five minutes behind schedule. It was after four a.m. now, which meant the infiltration would have to be expedited if it was to be completed under cover of darkness.
Japanese shore defense radar operators saw no trace of the small sail on their screens. North Korea’s Yono-class miniature subs were only twenty meters long, and they were exceedingly stealthy, which was exactly the reason this vessel had been chosen, even though it was designed for coastal operations and not the water it had just crossed.
The Yono was armed with torpedoes and capable of delivering up to six special forces troops or other personnel on intelligence missions, but there were drawbacks to the vessel. Submerged, the sub only made an average of 10 kilometers an hour, which meant the 445 kilometers of open ocean between the North Korean port of Wonsan and this stretch of Japanese coastline had taken two full days of arduous travel.
This submarine and its crew of four had been given the mission of delivering three passengers to the Japanese mainland, and as it now bobbed in the water five kilometers from shore, four dark silhouettes climbed out of the sail hatch and onto the deck. One man quickly inflated a small black boat with a compressor, an outboard motor appeared from the sail and was placed at the stern of the boat, and in seconds the four were churning through the night towards twinkling lights in the distance.
They carried no weapons; in fact, they brought with them nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
As they approached the sandy beach they saw a flash of light, and the sailor piloting the boat adjusted his course to point the bow at the signal.
This was Ishikawa Prefecture, in the center of the mainland on Japan’s west coast, and one of the closest points to North Korean waters. There were cities and towns all over this part of the mainland, but this small stretch was particularly rural, known for white sandy beaches and forests of black pine trees dotted with campgrounds popular with weekenders from as far away as Osaka and Tokyo.
Forty minutes after setting out from the submarine, three of the four climbed out of the raft and into the low water, then began walking through the gentle surf.
They saw movement in front of them: three other dark silhouettes stepping off the sand and into the water. The trio of new arrivals from the submarine continued walking, and soon all six converged in ankle-high seafoam. They bowed to one another without speaking or breaking stride, and then the three from the shore pushed on towards the dinghy and the three from the submarine headed ashore.
The dinghy returned to the submarine while the new arrivals walked to a road ahead, barely visible as thick clouds drifted in front of the fingernail moon above.
Two of the three were men, sent on this mission as a small but well-trained protection detail for the woman between them. Kim Dong-Woo and Nam Jun-Ho were security officers of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the intelligence directorate of North Korea, and in addition to speaking English fluently, they also had nearly three decades of military and intelligence experience between them.
The woman was Won Jang-Mi, and she was the oldest in