5. Good Morning
GOOD MORNING
MARINA
She was hefting her rucksack up on one shoulder when the man from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs descended the steps to greet her.
“Miss Lambert, welcome,” he said in English.
She looked up. It was the serious-but-not-stern man from the briefing, come to life. The Second Secretary himself.
He extended his hand and she shook it.
“Marina,” she said. She was not much for last names or formality.
“Ri Sung-cheol,” he replied crisply.
“Shall I call you Sung-cheol, then?” she asked, and clocked his startle before he could cover it up. He was likely more accustomed to social distance, hierarchy, and propriety than the average European. Destabilizing him was exactly what she’d planned to do.
The brinkmanship had already begun.
From a distance he’d been a typical North Korean official: dressed in a dark, conservative suit of inscrutable origin.
A bright red flag was pinned to one lapel, with a portrait of Kim Jong-un emblazoned over it.
The driver had worn the same. She’d seen it on every person since she had arrived; everyone but her.
Close up, she saw the smoothness of his shave from this morning. Chocolate brown eyes that missed nothing. Dark, expressive eyebrows that would probably answer more questions than his mouth ever would.
Her bag was slipping off her shoulder and she hoisted it back up. She shouldn’t let him affect her like that, and besides, he was Esmee’s crush, not hers.
He smiled. “Most people call me Ri,” he replied.
She shifted her weight back. It was her turn to be startled. Within the first minute of meeting her, he'd quietly admitted something about himself. She hadn't expected that.
The case handle slipped slightly in her other hand. She tightened her grip around it, the handle turning slick. Great. Her hands were sweating already. He was breaking her out in a sweat just by saying hi and telling her his name.
Pull yourself together, Marina.
Maybe Giovanni was single, if she got into a pickle and needed some diversion.
Ri Sung-cheol held out a hand for the Pelican case. “May I?”
She handed him the garment bag. It held the suit and the formal dress that Tobias had insisted she bring with her; therefore, her least important effects.
“If you don’t mind,” she replied, letting him know that she was not going to trust him with carrying a security equipment case straight from the EU.
He seemed to be pleased with this. The faintest crinkle in the corner of his eye, as he walked her into Embassy Row. She realized they might have sent an attractive man like Ri Sung-cheol as a classic wolf-trap.
That was not going to work on her, she decided.
But in the meantime, she could see why a wolf-trap scenario would select him. She told herself that Ri Sung-cheol was like the menu at a restaurant out of her price range: look, maybe admire, but don’t think for a second that you can try anything.
“I speak some French, you know.”
“Do you?” She strove to keep curiosity out of her voice. Of course she knew, but it was better that he thought she knew nothing.
“Oui.”
She snorted. “Pretty good.”
“Je suis content que… vous êtes ici.”
He probably just memorized that one phrase. But still, him telling her that he was content that she was there?
Definitely a wolf-trap.
The wind freshened, autumn leaves on the trees rustled. She was suddenly aware that he was walking upwind from her. She caught the mingled scents of laundry and aftershave, and a third scent, an intriguing one, that was just him.
She shook her head, focusing on the bloom of the flowers as they passed them.
“What kind of flowers are those?” she asked, aware that a phalanx of minders had closed in behind them, listening.
“I don’t know, they’re just beautiful,” he replied.
“So much beauty here,” she said, looking pointedly at the horizon, at the cloud of smog over the city.
“Mmm.”
He started upon the steps of the building, and turned around when she paused.
She pretended that his words had not startled her.
Instead, she took out her phone and one of the people behind her immediately frowned.
She ignored them, typing into her phone and then putting it back into her pocket.
Knowing that unexplained typing and phone communication began the ruse of psyching them out.
That was her revenge for the frowning, and any attempt to control her.
She was going to ignore social disapproval from here on out. Any sign of dissuasion had the opposite effect on a trained security officer: it was like the children’s game, and a frown told her that she was getting warmer, closer to whatever it was that they wanted to cover up.
She took the stairs two at a time, and caught back up to him. His eyes that missed nothing did not disappoint.
The doors to the old East German chancery opened in front of them. An attendant—no, a uniformed guard—stood up as she crossed the threshold.
It was game on—her first chance to assess the security situation.
“Good morning,” she said, and breezed right past the guard, walking towards the elevator bank.
“Excuse me, ma’am!” the guard called after her in English. “Can I see your ID?”
She was not going to hassle him. He passed the test—he was not going to let anyone pass by without security screening. Good.
She turned on her heel and walked back slowly, Ri and the others giving her a wide berth.
This was to be her building more than it was theirs.
In fact, the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no right to know her security checklist, and should not know exactly how she conducted her security assessment.
“Thank you, I’ve got it from here,” she said loudly to them.
Ri Sung-cheol looked both amused and surprised. She’d done something out of the expected playbook.
“We’re happy to stay with you,” he said mildly.
She put her Pelican case down, holding a hand out for her garment bag. “Is the building unsafe?”
“No.” He looked shocked, handing over her garment bag.
She swivelled the garment bag casually over her shoulder. “Thanks, then. I’m good from here.”
He just stood there. They all did.
She harnessed it: “Wait. Are you trying to say there’s something that I should be aware of? Is there something unsafe here?”
“Everything is perfectly safe here,” Ri replied back. His eyes narrowed.
He knew exactly what she was doing.
She almost laughed, but clapped her hands instead to punctuate her point: “Excellent. I am in good hands here in the building. I’m sure that I won’t get lost. Now, please—” get lost, she thought— “I look forward to our next meeting.”
Which she did.
No. She did not. She was fine if she never met him again. In fact, possibly more than fine, as he was a distraction that she didn’t need.
Moreover, he was practically an adversary. She was here to decide if a European Union delegation office could open its doors in Pyongyang.
His job was to keep the status quo in Pyongyang as much as possible.
Hers was to decide if the office could be as un-Pyongyang as possible.
She studied him and he felt her eyes on him.
If she let the world dissolve behind him…
He didn’t look like the opposition, she thought.
She looked back at the security guard, trying to regain her mental footing. This was the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The locals might call it Joseon but she knew it was one of the world’s worst dictatorships. She had to stay sharp, and not let some guy biologically hijack her.
Ri Sung-cheol bowed, and the group of other MOFA staff behind him did the same, the women with their hands clasped demurely in front of them.
They filtered out and stood on the sidewalk in front of the chancery, then slowly crossed the empty drive-up entry and exited through the man-cage turnstile flanking each side of the driveway.
Sung-cheol looked back at her and she waved, flashing him a grin.
She couldn’t help it. She had shaken her North Korean minders in under ten minutes. More importantly, she had established jurisdiction. This was her mission to check diplomatic security, not their mission to see how she did it.
If they wanted her to green light the return of the European Union’s diplomatic outpost, they had to respect the EU's authority over this space.
The guard stood in front of her, and she put her European Union credentials on the entry desk.
He examined her document and she heard the footfall of the host-nation foreign affairs team fade , but she didn’t look at them again.
She was going to focus. She checked security camera angles.
One of the cameras trained on her, and she winked at it.