That was both the problem and the strength of a no-notice inspection. Because the base staff had no idea they were going to receive a visit, they had neither the chance to conceal their errors or omissions, nor the opportunity to ensure that their normal documentation was correct. What Lieutenant-Colonel Yershenko now had to decide was whether he was looking at sloppy paperwork or something much more serious.
He had no queries about the two interceptors. All the documentation the 524 IAP squadron staff had supplied for these aircraft was in order, as far as Yershenko could tell. The problem was that there should be
According to squadron records, the two Foxbats had flown to the Zaporizhia state aviation maintenance plant in the Ukraine some two months earlier, which was certainly plausible. But when Yershenko had contacted Zaporizhia by telephone, nobody there could confirm the date when the interceptors had arrived there or, more worrying, even if they had arrived at all. In fact, the administrative officer Yershenko talked to could find no trace of the side-numbers of the two MiGs anywhere in his records for the last six months.
But the two aircraft had certainly taken off from Letneozerskiy, so they must have landed
What paper trail there was started with the air traffic control records in the tower nearby. As were all aircraft movements, the departure of the two interceptors had been logged, and their recorded destination was Zaporizhia. It was then things started getting foggy. ATC didn’t record the names of the pilots, and the squadron records revealed that neither man had subsequently returned to Letneozerskiy. Both had been approaching the ends of their tours with 524 IAP, so had apparently proceeded to join their new squadrons once they’d delivered the Foxbats to the maintenance facility. Yershenko had already initiated a search to identify the current location of each pilot, but that was of secondary importance to finding the aircraft themselves.
One advantage in conducting such no-notice inspections was that the man in command of the team had the authority to compel officers of a much more senior rank to obey his instructions. He had scheduled a second interview with the station commander in a little over an hour, and the man should have found some satisfactory answers by then, or else Yershenko had the power to remove him from his post pending a full on-site investigation into the missing aircraft.
When he’d polished off the homogenous mush that served as his lunch, Yi Min-Ho resumed his scrutiny of the airfield spread out below him.
Though he wasn’t sure if it had any significance, he had earlier noticed that only two of the six aircraft shelters he was studying appeared to be in use, and the doors of the four new ones had remained firmly closed the whole time he’d been watching. At first he’d assumed they might be empty, until he noticed a two-man patrol was guarding each one of them, a level of security not evident outside any other buildings on the base. That had to suggest there were items of some importance inside them.
One other thing also puzzled him. In the foothills beyond the new hangar entrances, and a short distance from the few administrative buildings, a three-storey structure had recently been erected. With curtained windows on all three floors, it looked residential, but that didn’t make sense because people didn’t normally live on an active airfield. Perhaps it was accommodation for the guards, but the building itself seemed far too big for that. He noted this down in his book as another oddity.
One set of the older hangar doors opened suddenly and a tractor backed out, towing another F-5 which Yi hadn’t recorded before. He looked carefully at the fighter’s side number and scribbled it in his notebook, together with the current time. The tractor halted and the driver unhitched the F-5, then drove back to the hangar. Two ground engineers appeared, pulling a low cart that maybe held tools, and stopped next to the fighter. One of them lifted an inspection panel on the fuselage below the cockpit, and both men got to work on the aircraft. Yi watched them with vague interest, simply because there was nothing else to do.
On the hillside about five hundred metres above and behind the lone NIS agent’s observation point, a North Korean lieutenant stood staring down the slope. He could just see his quarry, or rather the man’s head and his hands, holding a pair of binoculars, as he studied the airfield.
The patrol leader now had to ensure that the spy’s focus remained fixed on the scene below, while he and his men attempted to make their approach unnoticed. The orders received from the official in Pyongyang might help them achieve that, so he raised the radio to his mouth and murmured a brief report, informing his superior officer that they were ready in position. Then he hand-signalled for his men to begin their approach. They’d already been briefed to halt a hundred metres away from the spy’s position and await the lieutenant’s command to move in for the kill.
Yi Min-Ho suddenly tensed and shifted his gaze. Three uniformed men had emerged from one of the few administration buildings and were heading briskly along the taxiway towards the four mystery hangars that were so carefully guarded. As they approached the nearest one, the two sentries outside it snapped to attention and saluted, then led them towards a side door.
Perhaps, Yi wondered, they would now open the main doors and he’d finally discover what the North Koreans had stored inside. And moments later his unspoken wish seemed about to come true, as the two massive hangar doors began to slide slowly apart.
The lieutenant had halted his men behind a low rise, gesturing them to keep out of sight while he himself moved forward to a position where he could more clearly overlook the spy’s observation point. He too could see the airfield below, and he watched just as carefully as the officers approached the hangar. Everything was going as planned.
He paused another minute until the main doors began to open, then slid back down the slope and ordered his men forward, as quietly as possible. Though he was certain the South Korean’s full attention was directed at the activity below, there was still the possibility that, despite outnumbering him six-to-one, if he heard them coming he could somehow escape down the hillside. The lieutenant’s orders were specific: the man must be taken alive if possible, or else killed. His escape would not be tolerated. So they readied their weapons and moved carefully down the slope towards him.
Yi Min-Ho hadn’t taken his eyes off the hangar since he’d watched the officers approach it, and at last both the doors were wide open. The problem was that he still couldn’t discern what was inside because the interior lay in deep shadow. But that might not be a problem, because a towing tractor was now approaching the building. So Yi watched and waited.
On reaching the hangar, the tractor drove straight inside. For a couple of minutes there was no further movement, then the tail of an aircraft began to appear, which the tractor was clearly pushing. But the aircraft Yi now saw emerging from the hangar was completely unanticipated.
He had expected an F-5, which is a fairly small aircraft with a distinctive single rudder carrying horizontal stabilizers, but instead found himself staring at two enormous jet exhausts, topped by massive twin rudders. For a few seconds he had no idea what this huge aircraft might be, then, as realization dawned, he reached for his Kyocera satellite telephone. This news couldn’t wait for his formal debriefing, so he switched it on, punched in a number, and waited for the connection to be completed.
Yi’s dedication and focus often received favourable comment at headquarters, but unfortunately this time he had become rather
Just then a T’ae’tan soldier stepped silently onto the ledge beside him and pressed the muzzle of a Kalashnikov AK47 into the middle of his back. Yi reacted instantly. He dropped the phone and binoculars, and twisted away, knocking aside the barrel of the assault rifle as he simultaneously reached for his pistol. The guard stepped back, momentarily taken by surprise.
This brief moment was enough for the South Korean agent. He grabbed up the satellite phone and vaulted off the ledge, running for his life down the slope towards the airfield, all the time dodging and diving from side to side.
