Brink of Chaos

  The only problem had been the North Koreans’ repeated refusal to allow Red Cross inspections, until, that is, an idea was hatched: they would use Joshua as bait. When the idea was slipped to Louder through the inside double-agent, encouraging him to make a request for a visit by Joshua, and when he then voiced that demand to his captors, the North Korean military command reversed their decision. They said that the Red Cross could come — but only on the condition that Joshua Jordan joined them.

  Ethan was right, of course, about one thing. And Joshua knew it. By the end of the briefing, Major Chung made it clear that the North Koreans would have no intention of releasing Joshua once they had him. His knowledge of his own RTS system, and the revenge the North wanted for the nuking of its ship, were reasons enough. There was only one chance for a happy ending — not just for Louder’s rescue — but also for Joshua to escape arrest by the North Koreans who wanted to subject him to a quick show-trial followed by torture and a painful execution: the mission would have to be executed flawlessly.

  “And your diet, Captain Louder,” Gavi continued, “the Red Cross would like to know about your meals. What kind of food have you been eating?”

  Louder paused for a second.

  One of the armed guards shifted slightly in place, narrowing his eyes and then staring directly at Joshua.

  Joshua stared back. When he did, he gave a half-smile to the North Korean guard.

  “Your diet, Captain?” Gavi asked nonchalantly.

  But there would be no answer. In an instant the room was plunged into darkness. An alarm sounded, and a red light began flashing in the hallway, which cast a sliver of red light under the door.

  At first, Joshua could only hear the attack, grunting and muffled groans, but then in the dim, red flashing light coming from under the door, he could see, in broken frames of light, like an old-fashioned movie, Gavi’s arm striking out like the arm of a pitching machine. He was sending a series of blows to the throat of one of the guards. Rivka kicked the other guard in the groin, and then a high-wheeling kick to his face. His machine gun clattered to the ground as he collapsed.

  Joshua tapped the “illumin” feature on his Allfone. A thin beam of light shot out like a miniature high-beam flashlight. He trained the light on the two disabled guards. They were out. Gavi and Rivka dragged the bodies behind the desk.

  In the room lit only by his Allfone, Joshua made his way around the table to Louder, who had a startled look on his face, but he was already on his feet, instinctively ready for whatever was next. Grabbing Louder by the arm, Joshua said, “We’re here to bring you home, son.” Louder gave a garbled gasp. He was fighting back tears. Then, just as suddenly as the lights had gone out, they blinked once and came back on. Everyone squinted in the stark illumination. Then a knock on the door. Gavi calmly went over to the door and opened it.

  A tough-looking North Korean guard with sergeant’s stripes stood in the doorway with an electronic com-pad in his hand. This next step was critical. Joshua knew that. He found himself holding his breath. It had to work perfectly. No room for error.

  This sergeant, who was the inside source for this prison mission, spoke in fairly good English. “The guards?”

  “Behind the desk,” Gavi replied.

  “Then follow me,” the sergeant said. “And stay close.”

  SIX

  The sergeant strode down the hallway with Louder in handcuffs, followed by Gavi and Rivka. Joshua, a step behind, brought up the rear. He was already wondering whether Louder, in his yellow prison garb, could get past the sentries who would be posted at each door. He knew the plan — from his distant location, Yung Tao, the IT genius, would hack into the prison’s computer system and insert a new directive ordering the transfer of Captain Louder, under the custody of the sergeant, and to another facility for questioning. Once out of the prison, a local agent, posing as a police officer, would pick them up and take them to a rendezvous point by the river.

  As the group walked, a few North Korean officers passed them in the hall. The sergeant held his electronic clipboard in his hand. He tapped it, swooped his hand over the screen, then touched the corner. “Got to check the daily orders for this facility.” But as he did, his head bobbed down just a fraction to read what it said, and when he did, his jaw clenched. He slowed his pace and turned to look at the foursome behind him. Joshua could see the tight lips and the stress on his face. Something was wrong.

  The hallway was momentarily clear. The sergeant touched his right ear where the tiny combination earbud/AllFone was located; then he tapped the External Line icon on the screen in his hand. He began to speak softly in Korean. “This is the sergeant.”

  Yung Tao, located somewhere in the North Korean capital, responded.

  The sergeant got right to the point. “Got a problem.”

  The group could see the sergeant listening through his earbud to Yung, but the sergeant wasn’t satisfied with the response. He shot back a hoarse whisper to his colleagues as they walked. “The MIS — master information system — hasn’t been updated with our implanted information — doesn’t say anything yet about allowing Captain Louder to be transferred out of the building …”

  The sergeant was at the point where the hall intersected with another corridor. Before turning right, he stopped. Louder followed his lead. Gavi, Rivka, and Joshua caught up to them from behind. The sergeant muttered something in Korean. To Joshua, it didn’t sound pleasant.

  The sergeant waited another few seconds, checked his digital clipboard again, but shook his head in disgust. Then, in English he addressed his group. “We can’t wait any longer.” Then another message in his earbud. The sergeant bent his head to listen, then said, “Yung Tao says he is rebooting, refreshing the system, says the new orders should appear on all the digital clipboards in a few minutes.” Then he added. “He’d better be right — or we’re all dead.”

  The sergeant motioned for the group to follow as he turned the corner into the intersecting hall. Now they could see a security desk with armed guards a hundred feet away. As he walked, the sergeant glanced down at his e-clipboard and gave a half shake of his head with a grimace. His jaw was still clenched. As he walked, the sergeant dropped his left hand to his side, close to his side-arm. Yung Tao’s hacking job might not happen in time.

  Four guards stood at the table ahead. Two of them, standing behind the desk, had patrol rifles, which to Joshua looked like the Chinese version of the Ak-15. Though they were slower firing than a full automatic, they could still fire a full thirty-shot magazine with blazing speed. More than enough to take down their whole group.

  The other two guards had clip-loaded pistols. One of the guards was already standing, while the other, even more mean-looking, remained seated at the desk in front of a laptop. Soon he too started to rise.

  The sergeant slowed as he approached the security desk, still glancing down at his digital clipboard, still frowning.

  Joshua had a single thought. Oh man, this is getting close.

  The guard who had just stood up shouted something in Korean and gave a quick wave for them to hurry up.

  As the sergeant stood at the table, he and the guard in charge began to talk. Another guard threw him a questioning look and a scowl. Then he motioned for the sergeant’s digital clipboard. Then he snatched it up and stared at it. The angry guard bent down to his own laptop, tapped on the screen, and began comparing his data with the sergeant’s e-clipboard. Then he straightened up. His face relaxed slightly as he picked up the sergeant’s electronic clipboard, took out his digital pen, and quickly signed off on the bottom.

  The sergeant bowed and then roughly pushed Louder ahead of him, playing the part of a military jailer, followed by the other three, as they all moved past the guards. Joshua could see the end of the corridor about thirty yards ahead. There was a doorway to the right. It looked like some kind of utility area. It had a red sign on it. To the left was another hallway. Now Joshua’s group was about ten yards from the turn
. The electronic pad was now flashing some kind of red warning message. The sergeant half-turned, picking up his pace as he did, and spoke in a tone that cut like razor wire. “We have been detected. MIS now reports our computer hacking. All orders suspended.”

  Behind them, an angry guard was shouting. The group was at the end of the hallway, and the hallway to the left led to one more security desk with armed guards, and beyond that, Joshua could see the streets of Pyongyang.

  The sergeant turned to the utility door with the sign to his right. He pulled out an electronic card and swiped the card-box next to it. The heavy metal door clicked open. Once he swung the door open he reached around and swiped another card into the slot to jam the electronics. The door began buzzing and an alarm sounded. The group ran through the open entrance, and the sergeant slammed the door behind them with another loud click. They could hear the muffled sound of gunshots and the metallic ping as the bullets struck the other side of the heavy door.

  They raced along a metal catwalk. “Hurry, hurry,” the sergeant yelled. They sprinted along the walkway, down several flights of stairs, taking several steps at a time. When they got to the ground floor the sergeant led them to yet another heavy metal door that had large red and yellow warning signs. He swiped the door again with his card, and he swung it open.

  Daylight and a blue sky above. A pathway led through a grassy yard outside, between two tall, windowless buildings with a concrete wall at the end, just a short distance away, perhaps forty feet. Inset in the wall was a single door. They could hear the car horns and street sounds of the capital just beyond the wall. It all looked too easy.

  The sergeant unlocked Louder’s handcuffs and swung around quickly to face the rest of them. But his face was now telling a frightful story. “This yard is a minefield,” he said. “You must follow me — exactly.”

  He carefully inched out into the grassy pathway. The rest of them were close behind in a tight, snaking line, with Joshua at the end. The sergeant moved slowly to the right until he was three feet from the adjoining building and he reached out his arm until he could barely touch its bricks, as if to measure some invisible point. Then he stopped and half-turned his head but kept his torso and legs perfectly still.

  “This way. Follow exactly.”

  Gavi, Louder, Rivka, and then Joshua followed the leader, walking with deliberate speed, with bodies hunched and tensed, careful not to let a foot stray to the side. When they were fifteen feet from the door in the wall, they heard it. A little snap, like a tiny twig breaking.

  “Oh” was all that the sergeant said. He froze and looked down at his right foot, which was immobile on the spot where he had just depressed the trigger on a high-explosive land mine. There was silence for a second or two as the line halted behind him. The sergeant slowly waved them to pass him on his left.

  Gavi led the way, stepping one foot in front of another, until he was even with the sergeant, who cautiously removed his handgun, which dangled gingerly from his fingers. “Take it,” he said to Gavi. “Go, straight-line now, to the door. Use gun to blow lock on the wall.” Then he added, “Save the bullets. Use them if you get caught. Better that way …”

  When all of them had arrived at the locked door, Joshua turned to survey the sergeant’s desperate situation. He was still frozen in place, halfway down the grassy path. Joshua said to Gavi, “We can’t leave him.”

  “We have to, Colonel Jordan,” Gavi snapped. “No choice. Besides, he’s got a plan.” Gavi then peeled off his shirt and pants, revealing another outfit underneath, and he gave the clothes to Captain Louder to cover up his prison garb.

  Gavi fired a shot at the key lock, blowing it open, and stuffed the handgun in his pocket. After swinging the door open, they quick-stepped out onto the sidewalk along the busy boulevard. Gavi turned to the group. “We’re looking for a police car.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. A North Korean squad car, driven by a man dressed in a police uniform, stopped at the curb. Gavi jumped in the front, the rest in the back. As they pulled away, Joshua leaned over the front seat and said to Gavi with a voice full of pathos, “What kind of plan could he have had?” But before Gavi could answer, everyone in the squad car flinched as the sound of an explosion reverberated from the grassy yard on the other side of the wall.

  For a long time they drove through the city traffic of Pyongyang without saying a word. Joshua was the first to speak. His voice broke.

  “What was the sergeant’s name?”

  SEVEN

  Gavi explained they were heading to the industrial harbor of the Taedong River, past the Nampho Cargo Terminal and the dry-dock shipping yard. The driver pulled up to an old loading dock on the river, and the group piled out. Gavi led them to a pier that stretched about thirty feet over the water. A half mile down the harbor, Joshua could see a few trucks unloading cargo from a ship. Other than that, the area was clear.

  “Taedong’s deep,” Gavi said, leading them to the end of the pier. “Hopefully deep enough …”

  Joshua asked, “For what?”

  “You’ll see.” He motioned for them to follow him down a flight of rusty stairs to a wooden landing below, slimy with green algae, at the surface of the water. Gavi glanced at his watch. “A few minutes to spare.”

  Now they would wait. Joshua turned to Jimmy Louder, who had been quiet during the rescue mission.

  “You okay, pilot?”

  “Roger,” Louder said with a struggling smile, and added, “Thank you, Colonel Jordan. For everything. Man alive, I can’t believe you’re really here … and I’m out of that hell-hole …” His voice started to quiver. His eyes filled with tears.

  “We still have a few miles to go,” Joshua said, patting his shoulder. “But things are looking good. God willing, we’ll get you back to your family.”

  Louder smiled. “Oh, I can’t wait to see Ginny … my wife. And my two daughters. I’ve wondered what’s been going on out there in the world. I’ve been so cut off. Haven’t heard any news. What’s happening in America? Who won the World Series? What are gas prices at? Let’s see … I guess Virgil Corland is still president …”

  “Not anymore,” Joshua replied, his face tightening.

  Jimmy Louder studied him. “What happened? Something bad?”

  “President Corland had some serious health problems. Had to resign. His vice president, Jessica Tulrude, is in the White House now.”

  Louder looked down at the ground, like he was thinking back, searching his memory. “Oh,” he groaned, “Tulrude. You’re kidding?”

  Joshua shook his head. “But that’s just the beginning. So much has changed. A single, unified international power is growing. Spreading. Infiltrating like a cancer. God’s clock seems to be speeding up. The light beginning to fade. Darkness coming. World events rushing up to the final climax. The return of Christ. Jimmy, I really believe we’re getting close.”

  With a shake of the head, Jimmy Louder said, “Josh, I never took you to be a guy who’s into that stuff.”

  “I wasn’t. Not always,” Joshua replied, “but one day God had me surrounded. He got my attention.”

  “You sound just like my grandfather, Eddie March,” Louder said with a smile. “He was a pretty good guy. Backwoods sort of fella from West Virginia, who played guitar and sang in this little church. Always full of jokes. But serious about God. He used to talk to us about the Bible all the time when we were kids.”

  Gavi had stepped over to them and interrupted. “Excuse me, Captain Louder, but for this next phase, I’ll have to calculate your weight.”

  Leaving Louder to be prepped by Gavi, Joshua walked over to Rivka. He asked, “How long till something happens?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  Looking out to the opposite bank of the river, Joshua noticed something. A line of willow trees gracefully swayed in the breeze. Suddenly he was somewhere else — recalling the willow tree in the backyard of his family home when he was a boy. Funny, he thought, how that ho
use, a simple ranch-style with shutters painted an ugly neon green, had slipped out of memory for so long, tucked underneath everything else in his mental attic, long forgotten until a few days ago — when he had that powerful dream the night before delivering his message to the Junggye Gospel Church.

  He was still studying the willows when Rivka stepped closer. “Why’d you do it … the mission? You didn’t know him, did you?” Rivka motioned toward Louder, who was talking with Gavi.

  “Oh, I knew him,” Joshua said. “Air Force pilots tend to be a pretty close-knit group. But there’s something else too. A personal commitment that I made to somebody once.” Rivka studied Joshua as he went on. “You see,” he said, “I’ve been rescued myself. Once that happens, it’s natural to try and rescue others … because you know the feeling. Going from imprisonment to freedom.”

  “You mean the Iranian incident? The jailbreak?”

  Joshua took a moment to reflect, then said, “Yeah, I was saved from an Iranian torture cell by some brave Americans, and your partners in the Mossad helped. But there’s another part too, another kind of rescue I’m talking about. The kind that only God can orchestrate.”

  Rivka hesitated for a second. Joshua noticed that. It was as if her next question had a certain risk, a calculated danger to it — ironic for an iron-willed, take-no-prisoners member of Israel’s famed spy service. But Joshua understood the look in Rivka’s eyes. He had been there himself. Finally, Rivka asked, “So, what’s the other part you’re talking about, Colonel Jordan?”

  Joshua thought back to that turning point in an ugly blood-stained cell in Iran. “I met a Christian pastor in that jail in Tehran who told me something I’ll never forget … he said there are different kinds of prisons, and they don’t all have walls you can touch. At that point in my life, I was locked inside two kinds of prisons, but only one had bars on the door …”

  At that moment Joshua heard something — the sound of rippling water, like the rush of a wave hitting the pilings under the pier. He scanned the surface about ten yards away. The water seemed to be parting. The plan became clear. He now knew how they would escape the greater Pyongyang area — and North Korea.