General Namgung stood at attention as the tanks passed out of the camp, returning the stiff salutes of the crews. Dust and exhaust swirled around him, but he didn’t flinch. His father had taught him long ago that a leader inspired with poise as well as words, and the old man would be proud of his bearing now.
What he would think of his plan to oust Kim Jong-Il was another matter entirely.
The senior Namgung had been a close comrade of Kim Jong-Il’s father, Kim Il-Sung, the father of modern Korea. Kim Il-Sung was a true liberator, a gifted ruler who had saved his people. Kim Jong-Il was a poor shadow of his father, a debauched tyrant who had contracted venereal disease as a youth and was now slowly dying of kidney disease brought on by alcohol abuse.
His son, Kim Jong-chol, promised to be even worse.
Not that he would have the chance to rule.
Namgung dropped his arm as the last tank rolled out of the camp. An American spy satellite should be almost directly overhead, recording the movement. By now, alarms were going off in Seoul, where Park would have delivered the bogus plan by Kim Jong-Il to mobilize and attack. Over the next few days, a variety of North Korean army, navy, and air force units would mobilize.
Then, the unthinkable would happen, and everything would fall into place.
Namgung glanced upward as he got into his car. He smiled at the thought that some intelligence expert back in Washington might get a glimpse of his face.
Let the smug Americans try and guess what was really going on.