Origin - Season Two Read Online Free Page A

We’re just not there yet.”
    Mitch nodded. “We’ll keep at it, boss.”
    “Good,” Richelle said. “Then I suggest we all get back to work.”

Chapter 3
    Jangdan-myeon, North Korea
    Thursday 7 June 2007
    0900 KST
    General Seo-jun Rhee of the Korean People’s Army arrived at the airfield just before noon and lost what little remained of his temper when the young captain in attendance informed him his driver was running late.
    “Then why haven’t you provisioned local transport?” Rhee demanded.
    “Sir, I apologize, but all our vehicles are waiting for parts. I sent a—”
    Rhee held up a hand. “When will the car arrive?”
    “It should be here within the hour, sir. Perhaps you would like to wait inside?”
    “Where else would I wait? Did you think I was going to stand out here?”
    “No, of course not, sir. Please forgive my ignorance.”
    The captain led them to the small, dilapidated building that served as the airfield’s terminal. The two soldiers flanking the door stood to attention and looked straight ahead as the general passed. Behind them the helicopter began to rise, shrouding the makeshift runway in a cloud of fine dust.
    The captain’s office was little more than a room with a desk at one end and a dented filing cabinet at the other. Above the cabinet sat a picture of the supreme leader in an ornate gold frame. Rhee surveyed the room with obvious disgust and pointed at the picture. “That picture is dusty. Is this how you show your respect for our beloved leader?”
    The captain scrambled to his desk, rummaged through the drawers, and finding nothing with which to clean the picture, quickly left the office.
    He returned a minute later with a cloth and began feverishly wiping down the portrait. When he reached the bottom and began again at the top, Rhee shook his head, “Enough! That will do.”
    The car, a model of local manufacture that had clearly been inspired by a Mercedes of the late 1980s—in looks if not build quality—rolled into the compound over an hour and a half late. The driver, a short male in a gray Zhongshan suit and cap, held the door open with an unsteady hand. As they were leaving, the captain came running over, waving several sheets of paper. “Sir, copies of the parts requisitions you asked for.”
    “I’ll see to it these are expedited as soon as I return to Pyongyang,” Rhee said.
    “Thank you, sir,” the captain said, bowing to show his appreciation.
    When they reached the main road Rhee picked up the sheets, crumpled them into a ball and threw it into the front passenger seat. “Burn these. And turn on the damn air conditioning.”
    The driver, already in a state of only partially suppressed panic, motioned to the console and began to stutter something Rhee couldn’t make out. When Rhee looked over the seat he saw why; the car had no air conditioning. He opened the window instead.
    Half an hour later the car pulled off the road onto a dirt track. Any remaining illusion of German pedigree was quickly shattered as the stiff leaf-spring suspension did battle with the uneven terrain. The road wound ever upwards through thick woodland. When they reached the top of the hill the distinct curve of the Imjin River came into view. On the far bank lay the South. It was less than two miles away, although to the people of the North it might as well have been on another continent.
    When the car reached the bottom of the hill they were in a narrow valley occupied by several scattered concrete buildings and two tall, rusting steel silos. A sign proclaiming this to be the Jangdan-myeon Copper Mine dangled from what remained of the old perimeter fence.
    Rhee was greeted by a painfully thin man in his early forties. He wore an olive drab boiler suit covered in dust. The hard hat now hanging from his belt had left a bright red band across his forehead. Rhee told his driver to wait in the car and followed the man.
    “Colonel Ji, do you have anything to report?” Rhee