28. Skiff SCIF
SKIFF SCIF
The wind was stronger on the river.
Marina pulled her jacket closed at the throat as Esmee settled onto the bench opposite her. The little boat rocked beneath them, sufficiently that Marina reached automatically for the gunwale.
There were no life vests. She'd clocked that before she'd even stepped down into the hull — the boathouse attendant hadn't offered any, and she hadn't asked, because asking would have meant admitting she cared.
She measured the distance back to the bank instead, out of habit more than fear.
Two hundred meters. Cold water. A current she couldn't read from here.
Her mind built the contingency without her permission, the way it built one for every room she walked into, and she let it run and said nothing.
Marina leaned back and sighed, crossing her arms. “I’m not rowing.”
Esmee pulled the oars. “I’ll row. I don’t think you should. Consider this a skiff SCIF.”
Marina huffed a laugh in spite of herself. “Didn’t know that intel officers liked puns.”
“Not as much as security officers like buns, apparently.”
Marina let that one slide. “Do you know how to row?”
“How difficult can it be? More importantly, do you know how to swim?”
“Esmee.” Marina’s voice had a warning note to it.
Esmee pushed one oar into the water, then the other, producing a lurch that turned them toward the bank they had just left.
Marina looked back at Miss Wu and Miss Park onshore. They were already becoming smaller. The wind was strong enough to drown out their words, and they were far enough to make it impossible to use the directional microphones that the regime used for snooping on its own citizens.
Esmee corrected their direction. The boat swung around and began moving properly out onto the river.
It was an oddly breathtaking end of the day.
The wind had chased most of the haze from the sky, leaving Pyongyang in sharp relief around them: buildings along the river, trees along the banks.
She spotted a small waterworks building along the river’s edge.
An overhanging rock face was next to it, its sharp edges cast dark shadows across the rippling surface.
Farther downstream, another boat traversed the river slowly.
The sun was sinking behind the skyscrapers and into the Taedong, disappearing languidly, painting them with streaks of bright orange and pink.
Marina tipped her face into the breeze. She hadn't realized how much she missed open space.
No walls. No ceilings. No vents. No electrical outlets. No leadership portraits of dead dictators looking down at them.
The boat rocked beneath them.
“I brought you out here to talk.”
The pleasure drained out of the afternoon. Marina glanced automatically toward the shore. Too far for ordinary conversation. Wind over the water. No one nearby.
“You improvised a SCIF in the middle of Pyongyang,” she said, and made a two-fingered salute.
Esmee rested the oars across her knees. “Marina. What in God’s green earth are you doing?”
Marina's heartbeat changed. Esmee knew.
Marina also knew better than to answer a question that broad.
“You're going to have to be more specific.”
“Ri Sung-cheol.” Esmee’s voice was quiet. “Host-government intelligence services cultivate foreign officials.”
Marina's eyes returned to hers. “I know.”
“They identify vulnerabilities. They establish relationships. They create opportunities for access. Sex is one of the oldest and most obvious means of recruitment and coercion on earth.”
“I know.”
“And somehow”—Esmee's voice remained remarkably quiet—“a North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs employee has been inside our secure area.”
Marina said nothing.
“More than once.”
The boat drifted.
Marina could hear water tapping softly against the hull.
“You checked the logs.”
“Of course I checked the logs.”
“They don't show him entering.”
“No.” Esmee's gaze sharpened. “They show you entering.”
Marina looked away.
“And I know he was in the building.”
Silence.
“You circumvented your own access controls.”
“I didn't circumvent them.”
Esmee stared at her.
Marina sighed. “Fine.”
“You are the Regional Security Officer. You were sent here to determine whether this building can be operated securely.”
“Yes.”
“You have spent weeks telling everyone else where they can stand, which doors they can use, which devices they can carry, which rooms they can enter, where the cameras need to point?—”
“I understand the irony.”
“I don't think you do.”
Marina's jaw tightened. She fixed her eyes on the far bank, on a single figure walking a bicycle along the embankment path, and made herself breathe at the pace she'd have used to steady a hand on a rooftop line.
Esmee leaned toward her: “Has he asked you for information?”
“No.”
“Has he asked you about our security procedures?”
“No.”
“Personnel? Communications?”
“No and no.”
Esmee sighed, like she couldn’t believe it. “Schedules?”
“No. And I’ve been meaning to ask, how do you afford French designer scarves on a government salary?”
“Stop deflecting. You can run your own insider threat investigation after I’ve run mine. Has he asked for diplomatic traffic?”
“No.”
“Has he asked you to bring anything into or out of the mission?”
“Zero.”
“Has he asked you to introduce him to anyone?”
“Come on! No.”
“Has he asked you for access?”
“No.”
Esmee stopped.
Something shifted in her expression.
Marina saw it happen.
“He hasn't asked you for anything.”
“Correct.”
“Then why are you giving him access?”
Marina looked at her. She could have constructed an answer. She could have given Esmee six technically accurate sentences that collectively meant nothing.
She was suddenly too tired.
The oar in Esmee's hands had gone still. The boat had stopped turning. For a moment the only motion on the whole river was the current pulling quietly at the hull, and Marina thought, absurdly, that this was the stillest she had felt since she'd arrived in this country.
Esmee closed her eyes. The boat turned slowly in the current.
When Esmee opened her eyes again, she looked toward the sky. “You’ve fallen for him.”
Marina hung her head.
“You cannot possibly be this stupid.”
“I am aware it's not ideal,” Marina said.
“Not ideal?”
“I don't need the briefing, Esmee.”
“Not ideal…” Esmee stared at her for several seconds. “Marina. Are you pregnant?”
Marina’s heart dropped. Her face went pink, and she buried her face in her hands. “How can I know without a test?”
For the first time ever, Esmee looked shaken.
“I’m sorry,” Marina said helplessly.
“But we brought condoms—oh. I see. You either never used them or stopped using them.”
Marina leaned towards her. “Have you no heart? Have you never been in love before? I couldn’t leave him here.”
Esmee picked up the oars again. “I knew you shouldn't row,” she said.
“Wait. I am going to help you.”
“With what?”
“You know with what.”
“No.”
“MOFA.”
Marina stared at her.
Esmee kept rowing, but her face in shock. “You are going to help me plant a device?”
“Yes. And then you’re going to help me take him out of the country—sealed under diplomatic pouch. I will take all responsibility in Brussels.”
An oar slipped into the water and Marina grabbed it, handed it back to Esmee.
“Holy… No. No way.”
“It’s the only way, Esmee. And you know it. You need my help to plant that thing, and I need your help with the pouch. If you don’t help me and I get caught, you as a member of the delegation will still get into trouble here in Pyongyang.”
Esmee gave her a look. “You’re blackmailing me.”
Marina folded her arms. “Negotiating.”
“It’s my turn to be impressed. Jesus.”
They heard a faint, disembodied voice: Miss Wu was waving at them from the shoreline, Miss Park frowning beside her.
“Deal?” She held her hand out.
“We can’t shake on something out here, they’re watching. They will know we’re up to something.”
Marina retracted her hand slowly, and buffed the edge of the boat awkwardly, like that had been her plan all along.
“You will just have to trust me,” Esmee said.
“Yeah,” Marina replied. “I know.”