Seawolf Mask of Command by Cliff Happy Page A

apparently, the latest leadership’s skepticism regarding his loyalty was waning.
    “Good evening, Comrade Doctor,” one of his guards greeted him politely. They were soldiers. Part of the security regiment assigned to guard the Musudan-ri facility. “How are you feeling?”
    The standard question. Even the lowly privates and corporals assigned to keep an eye on him were aware of his ailments. A heart transplant had been considered the previous year. Arrangements had even been made for him to be taken to Beijing, China where a hospital and a competent set of surgeons would have performed the operation. But he’d been too weak, and the doctors had decided he wouldn’t have survived the procedure.
    “I am fine,” he answered as usual. One led the way while the other followed Choi out of the hardened office complex. The administrative building at Musudan-ri where Choi worked was made of heavily reinforced concrete to help protect the valuable research being conducted there in the event the United States or the traitors in the South launched an attack to cripple the Republic’s rocket program. At the exit, he paused long enough to don a heavy winter coat and felt hat.
    Once appropriately dressed, Choi stepped out into the cold before pausing long enough to hear screeching as the heavy steel door was slid back on rusting rollers. He almost laughed, knowing that if the United States wanted to destroy the facility, the three-foot thick concrete walls would be no impediment.
    Unlike the dank, stale air in the administration building, the air outside was quite refreshing. Choi took a few deep breaths while the door behind him was sealed. He always loved this time of night. After twelve hours locked away in his office and labs, it was nice to smell the sea air and imagine it was free air, too.
    As with the previous evening, and every evening since he’d returned to Musudan-ri after his doctor’s prognosis had been made a year earlier, he turned toward the sea for his daily allotted exercise. In his youth, the long walks had helped stimulate his thoughts and he’d developed some of his best ideas during his nightly excursions. But like his lost virility, he’d run out of new ideas. Despite the years of work, efforts at foreign espionage, and the purchase of rockets from abroad, the latest round of tests were not hopeful. The reasons were legion, but none more so than a complete lack of resources. Whereas western democracies might use ten to twenty test rockets before fielding a viable prototype, the People’s Republic could afford no such waste. One rocket had to equal success. Then, even if said rocket failed, the results had to be successful. Propaganda was, after all, about managing the truth, not speaking it.
    He buried his hands in his pockets, wondering briefly as he smelled the salt air if this might be the night…
    “Good evening, Doctor,” came a familiar voice.
    Choi turned and saw General Cheong-In, head of the DPRK’s strategic rocket program, and Choi’s superior. Choi paused, wondering just what the general’s unexpected presence might mean. Choi knew he was under suspicion. Why else was he being guarded wherever he went? Was the general here to arrest him? Doubtful. Despite the regime’s concerns regarding Choi’s loyalty, they still needed him, which was saying quite a bit considering how frivolously the regime squandered the lives of its citizens.
    Choi had seen the dead on the streets of Pyongyang, the capital of the “Great Worker’s Utopia.” Most had literally collapsed from starvation. Others had frozen to death during the long winters. As a young man, Choi had assumed such incidents were normal, and he hadn’t considered it anything to be alarmed about. He’d been a good, loyal worker struggling to advance the revolutionary goals. But then had come the need for him to travel, and with that, the exposure to the other world; the world outside the DPRK. It had been, to say the very least, an