Fighting Pax

The room where these weekly meetings were held was located in the northernmost section of the base. It was one of the most secure areas, where intelligence was gathered via spy satellites, and row after row of computers were manned round the clock by teams of hackers leaching data from foreign security systems. Neither Gerald nor Martin saw any of that. They were always guided from the jeep to the meeting room without deviation and, once inside, weren’t allowed to leave, not even to use the toilet. Once the meeting was over, they were shepherded straight back to the jeep again.

Gerald always found this journey interesting. The installation was constantly bustling with activity and the ting-a-ling of bicycle bells. He wondered what everyone did, and why they were in such a hurry the whole time. Whatever it was, they were very serious and intense about it. Sometimes he tried to make the guards laugh, but the most he had achieved was a triumphant grin when they checkmated him.

The jeep came to a stop before a set of red double doors, blocked by two hefty sentries bearing the familiar Kalashnikovs.

“A wandering minstrel I,” Gerald sang softly to himself as he got out, waving a hanging wisp of exhaust fume away from his face. The ventilation system had broken down again in this tunnel. That was the third time since September.

The soldier next to Eun-mi took her place behind the wheel and drove off. The girl spoke to the sentries and they stood aside to let the three of them pass.

“And I shouldn’t be surprised if nations trembled,” Gerald continued in a low, lilting murmur. “Before the mighty troops, the troops of Titipu!”

The meeting room was another space designed to impress. It was what every supervillain’s war room should look like: oval in shape, with low-level lighting around the walls that accentuated the texture of the roughly hewn rock. A print of a vibrantly colourful, highly idealised and flattering painting of the three presidents, from Kim Il-sung to his grandson, hung in the centre of the longest wall. Sticking with his Mikado theme, Gerald called them the Three Little Maids and, whenever he saw one of these paintings, which were all over the place, sang a line from the song that seemed appropriate.

“Nobody’s safe, for we care for none.”

A large, elliptical table, made from cherry wood, dominated the centre, with a massive TV screen at one end. At least it was warmer in here than out in the tunnels. Three incongruous electric fires, the old-fashioned sort often found in pensioners’ front rooms back in the UK, had been brought in to lift the temperature and all their bars blazed brightly orange.

The Vice-Marshals and Generals were already gathered and waiting; they rose from the table when the two Europeans came in and bowed.

Martin and Gerald returned the bow and cast their eyes over who was present. These fourteen middle-aged men were the most powerful in the country, under the Supreme Leader. The Chief of the General Staff was here, as was Eun-mi’s father, General Chung Kang-dae, who made no acknowledgement of her presence. Then there was Marshal Tark Hyun-ki or, as Gerald called him, Tark the Shark. His sour face was half hidden behind large mirrored sunglasses as usual. He never attempted to disguise his hostility towards the English refugees. Martin despised him.

When they first arrived and Lee’s incredible ability had been thoroughly discussed, Marshal Tark Hyun-ki had demanded they send the boy into Mooncaster, strapped to an atomic warhead. Upon its detonation, everyone on the planet who was under the book’s spell would be wiped out, leaving only this glorious nation in command of a depopulated earth and finally safe from foreign aggressors.

Some of the other officers supported this efficient method of genocide and were only dissuaded when the practicalities were debated. The sudden death of entire populations would have serious consequences. How could they make safe and maintain every nuclear facility, chemical plant, gas field, oil refinery, pipeline and the innumerable other toxic industries around the globe? It would be physically impossible. And what pestilence would billions of unburied human corpses produce? What guarantee did they have that the monsters from Dancing Jax would also be killed?

Marshal Tark Hyun-ki refused to listen to the counter-arguments. He was adamant it was the perfect moment to settle accounts with the hated West. The time of empty rhetoric was over and they would be triumphant.

Lee’s reaction, when he heard what they’d been planning, was nuclear in itself. In ferocious language he yelled that anything he took to Mooncaster was only a copy; the original objects always remained with his unconscious self in this world and so any bomb would blow up in both places. In spite of this raging outburst, it took a phone call from Kim Jong-un himself to dissuade the Marshal. After that, there was no more talk of sending Lee to Mooncaster and the boy had been chained to four guards, day and night, to keep him anchored here.

As a consequence, at these meetings, Tark the Shark’s bow was always the curtest and he showed his displeasure further by never facing the two Englishmen. Ever since his grotesque proposal had been rejected, he had brought his aide along and communicated only through him.

The aide, a good-looking twenty-year-old called Du Kwan, was the one person who smiled when Martin and Gerald entered, but the friendly greeting was not for them. Over the preceding months he had grown to admire the beauty and composure of Eun-mi. He longed to speak to her privately, but such contact was forbidden. He was anxious to declare his affections, but how could such a thing be? Was she even aware of his existence? Her lovely eyes never strayed in his direction; she was focused solely on her duties as interpreter and kept her gaze fixed on the centre of the table. It was making Du Kwan despondent. Just one look from her would bring him joy.

Also present in the room that morning was Doctor Choe Soo-jin, clutching an overstuffed folder. She was due to deliver the report on her findings so far and the results of the tests she had been running. She cast a quick, sly glance at Martin. She also had certain recommendations to make that she would instruct Eun-mi not to translate.

“Good morning,” Martin said in his no-nonsense schoolteacher’s voice.

Gerald scattered friendly smiles left and right. He was always amused by the oversized hats the top brass wore here. They all looked like army pillar boxes and the medals that studded their jackets were like magnified milk-bottle tops.

Everyone sat down and those with briefcases placed them on the table as they took out laptops or files or sheaves of paper. The Chief of the General Staff chaired the meeting and he called on General Chung Kang-dae to relate the most recent intelligence.

Eun-mi’s father opened a file. He was a smallish man and marginally younger than most of the others in there. Under his hat the hair was thinning, but his eyebrows were thick and black like caterpillars. It was not an unpleasant or harsh face, but laughter had been an infrequent visitor to his lips since the death of his wife, soon after the birth of Nabi.

Before he could speak, Martin interjected.

“I need to know what’s being done about the Ismus!” he said firmly. “Where is he, what is he doing and why haven’t we come up with a plan of action to deal with him?”

The officers glowered in surprise and anger. How dare he interrupt? He was only here out of courtesy. He had nothing to contribute. They stared at Eun-mi and waited for her to translate.

The girl did so dutifully. She was also angered by Martin’s outburst. Her role as interpreter meant that she too had interrupted her father and the colour rose in her cheeks as she felt his disapproval.

“All this time and you’ve done nothing!” Martin continued. “Every day you hesitate it gets worse and worse out there. God knows what abominations are crawling through the streets now. If you allowed me access to the Internet, at least I’d be able to see for myself. The one thing I do know is that Austerly Fellows has something far more evil planned than anything we’ve seen yet. The last I heard he was writing a second book, a sequel to Dancing Jax. He may have even completed it by now. When that gets published, what’s happened already will pale in comparison!”

He paused as the girl repeated his words in Korean. When she finished, she dared to raise her eyes and saw the icy fury on her father’s face. She looked away quickly and caught sight of Du Kwan. The aide was smiling shyly at her, giving her gentle encouragement. The unexpectedness of that flustered her. She snapped her attention back to the centre of the table and her cheeks burned redder.

“And then there’s the items the kids brought with them from England,” Martin pressed on, before they could stop him. “Where are they? The wand and the skull? What did you do with them? They should be monitored constantly. And what about the kids in those camps set up in other countries? Why haven’t you done anything to help them escape? There must be hundreds if not thousands of them out there, suffering God knows what, and nothing’s been done.

“Look, you’ve got this boy, Lee, who has this miraculous power to enter the world of that book and not be taken over by it. The Ismus is terrified of him. That lad is the one thing that can turn his madness against him. You should be thanking me for bringing him to you. Using him to our maximum advantage should be our top priority and I don’t mean as a method of bomb delivery. But all you’ve done is kept him chained up like a veal calf since he got here. What sort of a strategy is that?”

The Chief of the General Staff slammed his hand down and called for silence, flecks of spit flying as he yelled.

“You listen, you learn,” Eun-mi translated rapidly. “You have no voice here. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea shows you kindness and good will. You nothing, you Western beggar. This emergency the blame of imperialist weakness. Your peoples dirty and corrupt. You spread sickness over whole world. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will find solution. Wisdom of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un will protect us.”

Martin slumped back in his chair. It was no use: he couldn’t make them understand the urgency. Austerly Fellows was going to inflict something new and unimaginable upon everybody and here they were building sandcastles, believing they could withstand the tide.

The Chief of the General Staff bowed to General Chung Kang-dae. Eun-mi’s father took up his files once more and began his report.

Gerald folded his arms and listened politely. He’d had no idea Martin was going to blow up like that. He should know by now it would be a waste of energy. Nobody could comprehend the horror of Dancing Jax until they had witnessed its effects first hand on people they knew.

General Chung Kang-dae listed the fresh information gathered that week. The poorer African countries were now completely under the influence of the book and powdered minchet was being added to baby-milk formula for the remote villages where missionaries were spreading the words of Austerly Fellows. From the smallest fishing communities in Greenland, to the nomadic tribes of Afghanistan, Dancing Jax was supreme. All fighting, all disputes over territory, drugs, race or religion had been forgotten. For the first time in history, the world was at peace.

A murmur of sneering distaste rippled round the table.

The General continued. Many major cities were being abandoned. Satellite images disclosed streets empty of traffic as people sought a more rural, simpler existence to match the one in the book that they believed to be their true lives. Fires were raging out of control in Sydney, Berlin and Tokyo, while pollution clouds over Chinese factories producing components for iPads and Samsung tablets had increased to extremely toxic levels. In spite of the global desire to live medieval, Mooncaster-themed lives, the production of such electronic devices was at a record high. Of more immediate concern, however, was the fact that more and more footage of unnatural creatures was coming to light on CCTV across the world.

Flame-throwers and chemicals were being deployed near the border with South Korea to sterilise the ground so that the minchet plant could not take root and citizens had been commanded to be vigilant. Any sighting of the invasive shrub had to be reported immediately. They were forbidden to approach it themselves.

Gerald’s concentration wandered. It was pretty much the same report as last week and the week before that. He wasn’t sure why he was required at these meetings. They never asked his opinion on anything. He gazed distractedly about the table and pined wistfully for a tall gin and tonic.

Marshal Tark Hyun-ki hadn’t taken any notice of Martin’s tirade. The Shark sat there with his face turned resolutely aside, palms down on his briefcase. Gerald couldn’t begin to guess how much blood was on those hands. He suspected that man had overseen the torture of many. Brutality was graven into his face, with its cruel, downturned mouth, framed by deep creases. It was a blessing those pitiless eyes were concealed behind sunglasses. He was too sinister to be given any name from The Mikado, even ‘the Lord High Executioner’ wasn’t adequate, as that was a comic role and the Shark was anything but funny.

Gerald’s attention shifted to the young aide.

Gerald’s people radar was highly developed. Not much got past him; he could read the intricacies and dynamics of strangers’ relationships with just a few moments’ study. People interested him; his talent for observation had been put to expert use during his former career as an entertainer and then as the proprietor of the most select guesthouse in Felixstowe. He knew the main reason Eun-mi pushed herself so hard was to earn her father’s admiration and he also knew that she would always be disappointed. The General favoured his younger daughter, Nabi, over her and the more Eun-mi tried to get him to notice her, the more he found to praise in her sister. Family troubles were the same the world over.

For some time now Gerald had been perfectly aware of Du Kwan’s feelings towards Eun-mi, and that it was a futile infatuation. But now, suddenly, that granite maiden had noticed Kwan, and Gerald was fascinated to see the bloom on her cheek and how often her eyes flicked back across the table.

“Here’s a pretty how-de-do,” he told himself. “This is a story that can only end in tears.” But his estimation of Eun-mi thawed a little. She wasn’t just a robot of the party; there was a flicker of human feeling in there after all.

With a final disparaging word about the progress of the full-scale replica of the White Castle of Mooncaster that was being built in England, General Chung Kang-dae came to the end of his report and the Chief of the General Staff bowed to Doctor Choe Soo-jin.

The doctor rose from her seat.

“Medical analysis of juvenile group now complete,” Eun-mi translated. “Or complete as possible within restriction. When arrive, health poor, malnutrition. Physical and mental stress level high, test result not reliable not consistent. Good diet, good rest, thanks to generosity of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, they improve. Now final result ready.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Martin said impatiently. “This phenomenon isn’t something you can explain away with science. You can’t point a microscope at it and understand what’s going on. Don’t you think others haven’t tried? Every country I’ve been in since this thing started has had their top people on it, with better technology, better scientists than you have here! They found nothing because this is bigger… it’s older than that.”

The doctor ignored him as she consulted her notes.

“It my conclusion,” she declared, “nothing unique in any aberrant. Abnormality in blood – none. Immunology studies say no antigens present.”

“Ha!” Martin said.

The doctor carried on as if he wasn’t there.

“DNA profile: chromosomal analyses inconclusive. Cannot rule out they carry homozygous recessive trait, need more positive control tissue samples. Neural activity, cognition, ECG – also inconclusive and compare to People’s Army subject volunteer test group. Nothing to suggest medical reason for resistance to influence of book. None I can find, under restriction. Further examination of immunity not possible under restriction. Search for viable vaccine against book influence therefore not possible under restriction.”

The Generals and Marshals muttered in disappointment while Martin and Gerald wondered what on earth she meant by “under restriction”. What restriction?

“Male subject sixteen year, Lee Charl,” she continued. “Subject continue experience nightmare, but it normal and consistent with psychological trauma. No biological reason for remarkable ability. Further study necessary. Most strongly recommend lifting of restriction only way forward.”

She looked directly at Eun-mi and told her to stop translating. Then she made a direct appeal to the Chief of the General Staff.

“What was that?” Martin asked when nothing was repeated in English. “What did she say?” He hated it when they shut him out like this.

“Business of state,” Eun-mi had been instructed to reply and she did it with cold finality and controlled relish.

Gerald regarded her. The stony mask was back in place, but he thought he had marked the slightest tremble in her eye when the doctor said a certain word and then when the Chief of the General Staff said it again. He made a mental note of it and wondered what they were talking about. Doctor Choe was beginning to lose her cool, professional manner. It was turning into a bit of an argument. The Chief of the General Staff was refusing to agree to her request and she was brandishing her notes at him in frustration.

Presently he slapped the table and practically screamed at her. The doctor collected herself and sat down, defeated.

Martin and Gerald exchanged glances. Whatever she had been insisting upon, they were relieved it had been rejected.

But now Du Kwan had been invited to speak.

The young aide rose and bowed. With a hesitant, secret smile in Eun-mi’s direction, he explained that Marshal Tark Hyun-ki had been making a nine-day tour of inspection in the three provinces divided by the demilitarised zone. He had also overseen the destruction of the incursion tunnels leading to South Korea that were excavated by the People’s Army underneath the border during the 1970s.

“People near zone are afraid,” Du Kwan said. “They hear of monsters breaching fences. They hear of farmers finding book out in fields and whole families fall under its spell.”

“Is this true?” the Chief of the General Staff asked.

The young man bowed. “Soldiers of Marshal Tark Hyun-ki discover seven farms where families think they live in fairy-tale land. Marshal Tark Hyun-ki order families shot. They no in fairy tale now.”

The Chief of the General Staff nodded with satisfaction. Martin and Gerald turned away.

“Border guards also need be shot,” the aide continued. “Many loudspeakers across checkpoints; many bad Korean brothers and sisters read from book beyond fences. Border guards, they listen and believe in fairy tale. They shoot at soldiers of Marshal Tark Hyun-ki. We lose twelve men in battle. Now new guards at checkpoints wear ear defenders. Reinforcements needed. Marshal Tark Hyun-ki demand three thousand men go to south with tanks.”

The Chief of the General Staff laced his fingers together and considered this.

“Marshal Tark Hyun-ki also find monster,” Du Kwan added quickly. “Spider big as dog making nest in thorn tree. Marshal Tark Hyun-ki shoot and kill. Marshal Tark Hyun-ki most brave.”

“Where is spider?” Doctor Choe asked. “Why you not bring here?”

Du Kwan bowed to her. “Monster on way to medical centre,” he explained. “Marshal Tark Hyun-ki gave order when we arrive.”

The doctor wrote something at the top of a sheet of paper. An examination of this creature could be invaluable. She wanted to race off now and start working on it.

Du Kwan was about to say something more when the Shark stirred at his side. The young man turned to him in some surprise. It wasn’t like the Marshal to speak to him during one of these meetings. Everything that was to be said was planned in advance. The aide listened to a whispered command then sat down sharply.

The mirrored shades of Marshal Tark Hyun-ki reflected everyone around the table as he shifted to address them.

In the locked darkness of a steel box, inside a metal vault, behind one of those forbidden doors of the medical centre, a pale amber glow began to glimmer. A pulse of light flared within the star on Malinda’s wand.

“Gangle not all I find,” the Marshal announced, removing his palms from the briefcase and flicking the catches open. “I find also – blessed truth.”

Reaching inside, he brought out a book covered in plain green paper. With an expression of ecstasy on his face, he began to read aloud from it and rocked backwards and forwards in his chair.

“Beyond the Silvering Sea,” Eun-mi translated, puzzled by his actions.

Martin and Gerald sprang up.

“Stop him!” Martin yelled. He threw himself across the table and tried to snatch the book out of the Shark’s hands. But the Marshal slid sideways out of the chair and carried on reading.

The other Generals had leaped up and were shouting in fear and confusion. Suddenly the room was full of noise as four shots exploded. Marshal Tark Hyun-ki was catapulted backwards in a grotesque ballet as the bullets ripped through him. Three in the head, one through the heart. He was dead before he crashed to the floor and his mirrored sunglasses went skittering across the carpet.

Everyone’s ears were ringing. The gunshots were deafening. Gerald looked away from the Shark’s body and down the table. Pistol in hand, General Chung Kang-dae stared dispassionately at what he had done. Then he turned to the young aide.

Du Kwan was stammering with shock. A speckled mist of the Marshal’s blood was sprayed across his face. He raised his eyes, aghast. Then he saw how everyone was looking at him.

“I… I did not know!!” he protested. “Marshal Tark Hyun-ki said nothing of this to me – I swear it. I did not know. I have not read the book! I swear – I swear!”

“What are you doing?” Martin cried when he saw General Chung’s grim face. “The lad hasn’t been affected. Look at his eyes. They’re normal! He’s not a Jaxer!”

He rounded on Eun-mi and begged her to translate. The girl wavered. Then she hurriedly beseeched her father to listen.

The pistol fired two more bullets and the handsome young man joined the Marshal on the floor.

Eun-mi gave a horrified gasp.

“Animal!” Martin bawled at the General. “That poor lad was one of us! He wasn’t any threat. You just murdered an innocent boy!”

General Chung didn’t understand what he said. He merely smiled and gave a little bow as he returned the pistol to its holster.

The meeting was over. A short while later, an ashen-faced Eun-mi drove Gerald and Martin back to their section.

“They’re all innocent, Martin,” Gerald reminded him gently. “Don’t forget that. Even the Shark, vile devil though he was, wasn’t responsible once the book got hold of him. If you start thinking the Jaxers are anything but victims then what does that make you? Think of Carol and Paul: they’re innocent too.”

Martin Baxter said nothing. He was sick to the stomach by what had just happened, but there was something more. Gerald’s words had touched upon a very raw nerve and he couldn’t think about it right now.

Back in the meeting room, the Chief of the General Staff had just taken a phone call. The entire meeting had been transmitted via webcam to the palace in Pyongyang. The order from the Supreme Leader was very plain.

“Tell Doctor Choe Soo-jin the restriction is lifted – with immediate effect.”