18 Dragons (An Ellie O'Conner / TEAM 99 Ops Thriller Novella, #1)

✍ Scribed by Jack Hardin

• Book ID: 110859280
• Publisher: Salty Mangrove Press
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 274 KB
• Series: Team 99 #1
• Category: Fiction
• ASIN: B07R4Q7Y36

✦ Synopsis

18 Dragons
Blood was congealing behind his teeth. Teeth that now resembled tiny, broken tombstones. He parted his swollen lips, and a long string of red mucus dripped toward the concrete floor. His head sagged painfully toward his naked chest.

The ropes cut into his wrists, keeping him suspended above the floor where the tips of his toes barely reached. It was dark in the small room. For now. Quiet too.

The man was Jonathan Nance. Five days before, he had entered North Korea for the third time in under a year. This time, as he had the previous two visits, Nance had arrived under the name of William Powell, with a cover of a freelance journalist. This trip, he had been treated with the same respect as before. When he had stepped off the airplane at Pyongyang International Airport, he had been escorted to a small, windowless room, where he was questioned about his intent for his visit and where he planned on staying each night. It was a typical course of action for the five to six thousand Westerners who visited the closed country every year.

After the questioning, he was assigned a liaison from the tourism bureau. Nance knew well enough that the liaison was not the DPRK’s way of showing hospitality, although it was always presented in such terms. No, the liaison was a diplomatic babysitter, there to ensure that North Korea’s Western guest did not take any unapproved pictures or visit an area of the country that may not reflect the full glory and wisdom of the Supreme Leader. The country had a GDP per capita of less than $1,000 per year, and Pyongyang went to great lengths to keep anything less than its architectural and artistic glories away from Western eyes.

Nance’s mission had been simple enough. Defectors who had fled the country over the last couple of years spoke of an underground leader who lived on the outskirts of Pyongyang in Kangnam County. Nance’s mission was to shake his liaison and then secure a clandestine meeting with the underground leader who had inside information on the inner workings of the Mansudae Assembly Hall, the seat of the Supreme People’s Assembly.