the group at thirty-six. This mission was all about her, and that meant Kim and Nam’s job was to keep her alive, even take a bullet for her if it came to it, because Won Jang-Mi was a leading North Korean scientist, and she was a well-trained intelligence asset, which meant she was precious to the government of the DPRK.
Won had served as a deputy department head at the Pyongyang Biological Technology Research Institute, a dual-use organization that claimed to develop pesticides and herbicides for the North Korean agricultural community but in truth served as the center of the Hermit Kingdom’s robust chemical and biological weapons program.
Her specialty was pneumonic plague and hemorrhagic fever, and tonight was the beginning of the mission North Korean intelligence had been grooming her for for seven years when they started teaching her Western languages and South Korean customs, while at the same time fortifying her programming in the divine supremacy of the Dear Leader of North Korea and the assuredness that the West was scheming to destroy her nation.
Won was a true believer; she planned on following all orders from North Korean intelligence to the letter, and she was certain her actions would help save her tiny nation from the threats it faced from the rest of the world.
Minutes after stepping onto dry land the three moved through the Oshima Beach Resort, a simple campground and cabin complex in the trees, within sight of the coast. There were a few tents set up, presumably with campers sleeping inside, but the three of them walked directly to cabin number four.
Upon entering they saw luggage left for all three of them, and inside the roll-aboards, the briefcases, and the large purse, they found all the clothing, accessories, papers, computers, and phones they would need to turn themselves into three innocuous-looking South Korean business executives. Three sets of passports, driver’s licenses, and credit cards lay on a bed, alongside three more sets of clothing, one for each of the infiltrators.
The IDs and other documentation belonged to the three who just climbed aboard the dinghy. These were sleeper agents who’d been planted years ago in South Korea to establish their legends, and each possessed a passable resemblance to Won, Nam, and Kim.
There were three envelopes on the table in the kitchenette. Inside each one was a plane ticket from Osaka to Athens, along with a visa to allow entrance to Greece.
Won, Kim, and Nam changed, then packed their own clothes in a laundry bag left for them, and within twenty minutes of their arrival they headed back outside.
Parked next to the cabin was a Kia Rio, a four-door South Korean car with a hatchback. The keys were behind the fuel door cover, left there, like all the other items at the cabin, by the three North Korean sleeper agents who were now on their way home. They put their luggage and the laundry bag in the vehicle, Nam took the wheel, and Kim climbed into the front passenger seat after making sure Won Jang-Mi was comfortable in the back.
At five forty-five in the morning they began driving south towards Osaka. Along the way they tossed the laundry bag over a bridge and into a swiftly moving river.
* * *
• • •
They parked the car at Itami International Airport, just north of the city center, brought their luggage through security, had their documents thoroughly checked by customs and immigration, and by eleven a.m. were slipping into their seats in the main cabin.
Greece was not their destination but rather a way station; from here they made their way to Tehran, Iran. Won spent the next six months working in the biological warfare research field, exchanging her expertise with the top scientists in the Islamic Republic and in turn learning from them. She concentrated her research on coming up with new and potent ways to alter plague spores to increase their lethality, and to weaponize the diseases via aerosol to maximize their impact.
From there she and her protectors moved to Syria, again studying the aerosol distribution of bacteria and viruses, although the Syrians themselves concentrated their efforts on the chemical agent sarin. Still, the Syrians had become experts at spreading the chemicals quickly and efficiently via bombs and rockets for use in their brutal civil war, and Won received “on the ground” training in the techniques and technology.
After Syria she was ordered by her control officer in North Korea to go to Russia. Pyongyang and Moscow had worked out a joint