3. The Mission
THE MISSION
Tobias put the pen down and looked at his watch—not her. “Didier will do a fine job covering for you.”
“I see.”
She took a deep breath. Didier was going to take over her job?
She opened her handbag beside her and pulled out her migraine medication.
Tobias clicked his mouse and a presentation filled the screen, Esmee’s face in a small square beside it.
Exploratory mission to the DPRK. Mission objectives. Timeline. Host-Nation Counterparts.
“Could we go back to the mission objectives?”
“Sure. They’re simple: assess physical security, emergency medical care and medevac, secure communications, safe movement and transportation, host-government staffing and access, and finally, host-nation security commitment.”
A pause.
“In that order? Not host-nation security first?”
“It doesn’t have to be in a particular order, or one after another. You can assess more than one item at any stage,” Tobias said.
“This doesn’t sound simple…” Marina muttered.
Esmee leaned forward. “I know it’s hard because we can’t take notes in a classified briefing, but do try to keep up, Marina.”
Tobias cleared his throat before Marina could retort.
“Now. We requested biographies from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said. “Assume these are accurate enough for professional purposes, and incomplete in every other respect.”
The first photograph appeared.
A silver-haired man in a dark suit, his expression a study in how to not give anything away.
Vice Minister Jung Il-shim
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Head of European Affairs
“He'll be the senior political counterpart for the delegation,” Tobias said. “Most formal meetings will go through him.”
Click.
The next photograph filled the screen.
A younger man.
Dark suit. Dark tie. Dark hair neatly parted. Serious without appearing stern.
Ri Sung-cheol
Second Secretary
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Marina studied the photograph a beat longer than the others. Something in the set of his jaw read as deliberate, a man who had learned early that stillness photographed better than a smile. She filed the observation away without knowing yet what she'd do with it.
“Mr. Ri will act as your day-to-day liaison.”
Marina glanced at the screen. “Why him?”
“Let me scroll down,” Tobias said, going down the page.
“Languages: Korean, English, French,” Marina read aloud.
“He attended boarding school in the French-speaking part of Switzerland,” Esmee said. “His French must be excellent.”
Marina lifted a brow. Esmee was practically purring about Second Secretary Ri.
“He will probably sound more Genevan than Parisian,” Esmee noted ruefully.
“Well,” Marina said, “that would be a nice bonus.”
Esmee scoffed.
“Political desk... protocol... previous assignments in Geneva.” Marina shrugged. “Useful. At least we won't spend two weeks talking through interpreters. Now, can we go back to the mission objectives?”
Tobias clicked back. “The DPRK unofficially asked the European Union to return to Pyongyang and re-open the Mission. If we decide it’s safe to do so, it would enable us to track and monitor aid shipments and normalize relations, open another diplomatic channel, and reduce the risk of hostilities.
However, it remains to be seen if the Mission can be re-opened. ”
“They have probably bugged the shit out of the building."
“Yes,” Tobias allowed. “They probably have.”
“Anything else, sir?” Esmee asked.
Esmee was back to fidgeting with her scarf again.
“The managing director is awaiting both of your travel authorizations to come through his desk within the hour.”
Marina sat back, dumbfounded. On his desk within the hour? The very idea rattled around her skull. MD Wieland signed off on postings for ambassadors, not regional security officers on exploratory missions. Whatever this trip actually was, it outranked its own paperwork.
“The director general is waiting? DG Wieland is waiting for my travel authorization?”
Tobias nodded amiably. “The travel authorization will only take a few minutes. I had Charlotte make a copy of the rest of the delegation’s travel onto your travel profile.”
Then she sat up. “What rest of delegation? Who else is going?”
Her eyes cut to Esmee.
“Giovanni from the EEAS, Aya from humanitarian aid, and of course Esmee for liaison work.”
"Liaison? That's a wonderfully elastic job description."
“It covers a multitude of sins,” Esmee added in.
Tobias frowned. “We all do other duties as assigned, and you know that.”
“I need to know if a spook is going—no offense, Esmee.”
Esmee opened her mouth to answer.
Tobias cut her off: “Esmee, I’ll take this. Marina, she has liaison work to do there. Thank you.”
Marina blinked. “Just a moment, Tobias. I just realized something.”
She was logged into the other laptop on the conference table. She pulled up her work calendar. “My contract ends in…” She paged forward a few months. “Ah yes, I have it pulled up now: it ends in five months and three weeks from today, on the dot.”
She didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Esmee, but this was her moment of maximum leverage.
Tobias nodded.
"Personnel won't issue me an official passport that outlives my appointment."
Another nod.
"Which means I don't have sufficient passport validity for the assignment."
Silence.
“So I can’t go.”
He frowned. “It’s just for a month or so. You can go with your current passport.”
She capped her water bottle, not meeting his eyes. “Alas, I cannot. All over the world you need at least six months’ validity on the passport to get through immigration.”
Tobias sat up straight.
Esmee made a tutting sound. “She’s right, you know.”
Marina smiled. “Luckily Didier’s here. He’s got more than six months left on his contract. He could go.”
Tobias sat back, steepling his fingers. “You know as well as I do that Didier would be out of his depth there.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “I’m not sure, but if you think so highly of my work, I think we have a solution.”
“Go on.”
“Convert my contract into a permanent job of undetermined duration. And as the only regional security officer in-country, that level of responsibility warrants a promotion of at least one grade.”
Tobias tapped his fingers together. In her peripheral vision, Esmee covered her mouth like she was either considering this, or smiling privately about it.
“Or send someone from Brussels, or wherever. I hear good things about Pekka.”
“Pekka’s in Lithuania."
“Mmm.” She toyed with the water bottle on the table.
“Fine. Turn in your travel authorization, and I will work on getting a contract with no end date. Promotion? We’ll see.”
“I’ll work on my travel authorization, but the contract has to be signed before I go. I will need an emergency-issued official passport by the weekend. Anything else?”
Tobias smiled. “You run a hard bargain.”
“Nothing of the sort, Tobias. I just follow the rules.”
“I have nothing else, Tobias,” Esmee said.
“Then we’re adjourned,” he replied. “Can you close the meeting for me? I have a meeting to get to next.” He turned off his laptop and rose.
Marina nodded.
She sat back, seeing her image on the screen. A promotion and job security, instead of just a temporary job?
She’d asked for the moon and the stars, and got the moon. It was a classic negotiating tactic.
She stood up to leave.
Esmee was still watching her all the way from New York, a calculating look on her face. Marina wondered, not for the first time, which one of them the calculation was actually about.
She closed the meeting.
Esmee disappeared.
Marina remained seated.
The room was suddenly very quiet without Tobias tapping his pen or Esmee talking over the Atlantic. The blue flag behind Tobias’s abandoned chair hung perfectly still.
Five minutes ago, she had desperately wanted out of this assignment.
Now she had just made damn sure she could go.
Marina stared at her water bottle.
Well. That was interesting.
She’d seen an opportunity, that was all.
Her contract had been bothering her for months.
Five years of temporary appointments, renewals, extensions, promises that something permanent would open eventually.
She was good enough to send into North Korea but apparently not good enough to know whether she'd still have a job six months from now.
Of course she had used it.
Anyone would have.
Probably.
Her laptop chimed.
CHARLOTTE WEBER — TRAVEL AUTHORIZATION CREATED
Marina opened it.
Her name appeared at the top, followed by her title, passport information, dates of travel, emergency contact information. A red triangle next to her passport, noting that the passport validity was less than six months.
Her contract ending was the impetus for both job security and a mission trip to one of the world’s worst totalitarian states.
Then:
Destination: Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
She stared at it.
That looked different.
North Korea was something Tobias said in a conference room. The DPRK was something that appeared in threat assessments. Pyongyang was a city she could point to on a map.
Destination: Pyongyang meant she was going there.
The chat program on her laptop chimed.
Didier
Tobias says I’m covering your calendar. Where are you going?
Of course he had asked.
Marina looked toward the windows. Somewhere above her, Charles would still be on the roof. The contractors would still be working their way down the Triangle Building. Didier was probably back in his office, where everything was exactly where it had been this morning.
She typed:
Work trip.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Didier
Where?
She considered telling him.
Then deleted the answer before sending it.
Marina
You know that I can't tell you.
The three dots vanished.
She smiled despite herself.
Then she looked back at the travel authorization. There was a new page on it, one that she’d never seen before: danger pay authorization, and an acknowledgement in the most bureaucratic of legalese that the location was risky.
The smile faded, but she didn’t want to think about the risks. The trip would be over soon, a quick in and out.
She clicked submit.