Military Orders (A Brother Half Angel Thriller)

Prologue

Yellow Sea, North Korea

As the tiny speedboat edged nearer towards the shore, the man known as Brother Half Angel again felt that powerful surge of inner peace telling him he was not alone.

So far the whole operation had been a complete success. All was proceeding exactly to plan. The girl had done well. In just a few hours they would be back home at Prayer Mountain, north of Seoul, tucking into an early-morning snack of rice and kimchi. Surely they were all being watched over.

Yet over several decades of clandestine missions, Brother Half Angel had learned never to let down his guard. Inner peace or not, watched over or not, he was taking nothing for granted.

It was his plan that Sister Sunhee be sent to bring out the pastor. A couple of the governing elders were opposed.

It’s not a woman’s job, they said.

Or, "She should be at home making kimchi for her husband. If she had a husband, that is."

Or simply, She’s too beautiful.

He had been obliged to point out that she probably possessed greater fighting ability, a sharper intellect and more headstrong courage than any man in the church. Her success would be a success for them all.

Just a couple of hours earlier he and the skipper, his trusted comrade Brother Kang, had set off in their mother vessel. This was a small, antiquated wooden fishing boat, designed for just a couple of people, but fitted with a Volvo Penta sports diesel engine for high-speed acceleration. And it was disguised with North Korean markings.

In calm night seas they sped up the Yellow Sea undetected. A crescent moon, a sliver in the clear sky, provided just enough visibility. They moored a couple of miles off the coastline and then Brother Half Angel transferred to the speedboat.

He had set off towards the shore, and, at exactly the designated time, had spotted the brisk flashes of light that confirmed the girl and the pastor were waiting. And then, just as he came nearer the seacoast, a cloud had providentially passed across the moon, blotting the dim light and making it even less likely that they might be spotted.

But now came the most perilous phase of the operation.

He maneuvered the boat into the bay. He had been here just twenty-four hours earlier, to drop off Sister Sunhee. Now he was picking her up again, together with the pastor, the object of this rescue mission.

A light wind was blowing, but without the chill he had experienced the night before. He brought the boat as far into land as he dared without running aground, and as he did so he thought he could perceive in the darkness some movement, out in front of him on the beach. Yes, it was almost certainly a couple walking slowly across the sand. The pastor was an old man. He would not be running.

If they had been spotted, then, about now, they could expect helicopters, spotlights and a heavily armed militia. So he breathed a small prayer of thanks for the stillness, while remaining vigilant. This operation was still far from complete.

He waited. Soon the couple were at the seashore. They waded into the water, and then clambered aboard. Brother Half Angel handed them life preservers. He turned the boat and began slicing through the water, back to the mother vessel.

He glanced at the man. He could discern little in the darkness, although it was clear that Pastor Jeon, like so many of those they helped flee North Korea, was skinny and under-nourished. He looked like some kind of third-world refugee, which in a way he was.

Yet Brother Half Angel also knew that this man was an heroic saint of the church. For years Pastor Jeon had been traveling clandestinely through North Korea, encouraging the tiny and secret house church movement. He supplied Bibles, he led prayer and worship, he brought encouragement from fellow believers around the world.

Several times he had even made the hazardous crossing across the border into China to rendezvous with Brother Half Angel and other members of his church. They had urged him to seek sanctuary in the South, but each time he insisted on returning to the privations of the North.

My work is there, he always told them.

But now he had been fatally compromised.

Just two days earlier the church learned that the North Korean authorities were on his trail. Clearly, someone in his circle had betrayed him. He had to be brought out.

In normal circumstances he could flee using their established escape channels, making his way north to the Chinese frontier, taking advantage of the church’s network of helpers. But it was clear that the network had broken down. Somehow the North Koreans had infiltrated it. Pastor Jeon would never make it to the border.

Brother Half Angel knew that, once in the hands of the efficient North Korean guards, their torture would break him. No one could resist. It wasn’t just the physical torture. They would round up a few secret Christians and their children, and would torture the infants - babies even - before their parents and before Pastor Jeon. No halfway normal human could withstand that. And Pastor Jeon knew more about the underground church in North Korea than anyone. He knew too many secrets. He could never be allowed to fall into the hands of the North Korean authorities.

As they neared the mother boat the moon reappeared, providing a faint glimmer of light to help them climb abroad. Brother Kang secured the speedboat to the back, and they set off, heading south.

Brother Half Angel ushered the pair down into the cramped cabin. No problems?

Couldn’t be better, said Sunhee. Pastor Jeon was waiting at the house. I just had to bring him to the right spot on the beach and wait for you.

A couple of anxious moments when we spotted the citizens’ patrols, said the pastor. His voice was harsh and shaky. But I’m used to them. It’s easy to hide from them.

It was all the waiting, said Sunhee. That was the only problem.

Brother Half Angel looked at the pastor. Just one hour, he said. Then you’ll be in the South. A free man.

It was at that instant that a round of gunfire rang out, and then another. They were being pursued.

Brother Half Angel peeked out. As best as he could tell in the dim moonlight, it was just one patrol vessel that was after them.

Brother Kang gunned up the motors and they began moving at high speed. More gunfire raked across their boat.

Then, We’re on fire!

Brother Half Angel seized an extinguisher from the front of the boat, but before he could even activate it he knew they were in trouble. Their engine was spluttering. Then more gunfire, and an explosion rocked the vessel.

We’re going down, shouted the skipper. Into the speedboat.

He unclasped the smaller boat, then with a cry fell backwards into the sea.

Brother Half Angel scrambled out of the cabin and dived into the water. He dragged himself and the skipper into the tiny boat and started the motor. He then maneuvered to put their rapidly sinking fishing boat between himself and their attackers.

Jump into the water, he screamed at the girl and the pastor. Help him. Help him. He knew that numerous North Koreans can’t swim.

The lady seemed unable to move, paralyzed with fear.

Jump into the water. Now. You’re wearing life preservers.

The woman didn’t move. The bewildered old man seemed to be staring at her.

Jump! Jump!

Another hail of bullets took the pastor directly. He jerked and lurched, then crumpled into the sea.

Brother Half Angel moved the boat to retrieve the lifeless body.

But the lady seemed transfixed, unable to move as the boat sank under her. She screamed as she went into the water. Brother Half Angel grabbed her and helped her into the boat.

Then he accelerated and sped away.

Chapter 1

Dharamsala, Northern India

Dr Jeremiah Raphael Harel, Professor of Spiritual Art, braced as the minibus swerved to overtake a mother and child on a motor scooter then veered back across the road in the face of an oncoming lorry, the horn aggressively blaring like an enraged elephant. In the adjoining seat the hippie screamed in jubilation and high-fived her friend, in apparent celebration of once again cheating death. They had been doing this all the way from the airport at Kangra. In front of them, the driver, a short, dark man with oily hair, a twisted nose and fearsome mustache, continued his cellphone conversation.

They were speeding up Major District Road 44. In defiance of the vehicle’s noisy air conditioning, Harel had shoved open one of the side windows to escape the musty cigarette smell that permeated the interior. He could feel the air outside cooling as they raced ever upwards. He stared blankly as they passed a huge brown cow with ponderous humps - almost like a camel’s - ambling downhill. And once again he thought about how he did not want to be on this journey. He did not want to be going to Dharamsala. He most certainly did not want to be sitting next to the hippie.

Where are you headed? she suddenly asked. It was the first time she had even acknowledged his existence. He twisted in his seat to face her. She was a striking young blonde, no doubt about that, with a ring in one lip, tattoos of flowers and snakes on her upper back and an impressive collection of bracelets on both wrists. She and her companion, an equally attractive brunette with a hint of Asia in her bronzed skin and gently rounded oval face, were both scantily clad in colorful, low-cut blouses and skimpy denim pants. It was as if they were heading to a Malibu surf beach, rather than to one of India’s holy sites.

Dharamsala, he answered, then added archly, I believe the bus only goes that far.

Not so many people go there nowadays. She spoke with a broad mid-Western twang. Not any more. Not since the Dalai Lama died.

The minibus jolted as the driver changed gears in order to navigate a hairpin bend, briefly forcing an end to his phone conversation. Below them the verdant northern Indian landscape stretched to a horizon of heavy clouds, carrying with them the suggestion of impending monsoonal rains. Up ahead, surely just minutes away now, was the former British garrison town of Dharamsala. This had become, since 1959, the home-in-exile of the Dalai Lama. With its Buddhist temples, worship centers, prayer halls and legions of crimson-robed monks, the place was popularly known as Little Lhasa. The Dalai Lama’s peaceful death, two years earlier, had sparked grief around the world - such was the universal love for this seemingly gentle and radiant man - and a lengthy period of mourning in Dharamsala.

I’m not interested in the Dalai Lama, said Harel. He gazed back out the window at the steep, twisting road and at an old, wiry man in a tank top inexplicably pushing an empty wheelbarrow uphill. He wanted to end the conversation. But the girl was persistent.

So why are you coming to Dharamsala?

He turned again to face her, and stared with disapproval at her tattoos. Having been raised in a Southern Baptist environment, where tattoos were generally regarded as somehow of the devil, Harel still felt disdain for their wearers, even though he now lived in anything-goes California and increasing numbers of his own students sported them. Sometimes it was all he could do to stop himself from marking down their essays for it. He reflected, not for the first time, that you can take the boy out of the Baptist Church but it’s a lot more difficult to take the Baptist Church out of the boy.

He didn’t want to answer the girl’s query. He knew it would lead to innumerable other questions. He also felt that his lingering Christian conscience might prod him into asking this girl - almost certainly a spiritual seeker - why she was going to Dharamsala, before leading her towards a talk about her need for Jesus.

My brother Matt was living there, he said simply.

Was?

The driver was now shouting on his cellphone, clearly enraged about some issue. One hand clamped the device to his ear, and for an instant he seemed to be about to shake a fist in the air, as if in remonstration. The bus was skirting the side of the road by inches. If the driver lost concentration the passengers could expect a dizzying plunge into the valley below. Harel waited until the man was calm again, then he spoke. He died.

Died? That’s awful. What happened? Some disease?

Again Harel was silent for a while. It seems that someone killed him?

Wow.

Harel looked back out the window.

I mean - wow - that’s murder, said the girl. How did it happen?

Harel knew more questions were coming. He was a missionary. He…

A Christian missionary?

Yes, he…

A Christian missionary? The girl laughed, a high-pitched, melodic sound like Christmas bells. Here in Dharamsala? Where the Dalai Lama used to hang out. And all the Tibetan priests. That’s a pretty thankless job.

Yes, you could put it like that, thought Harel. Matt wasn’t thanked. Quite the opposite. He was murdered.

The girl seemed to be about to speak again. But then she pulled from around her feet a grey canvas travel bag and unzipped it. From inside she retrieved an English-language newspaper. I read about him on the airplane, she said. Look. She turned to an inside page and pointed. That’s him?

With reluctance Harel glanced at the newspaper. Under the headline, Police Hunting Killer of US Missionary was a grainy black-and-white photo of his younger brother. It showed a handsome, wide-eyed young man with freckles, blonde hair and a toothy, chipmunk grin. A news service had apparently lifted it from Matt’s college yearbook. Yes, that’s him.

She skimmed through the short article. It says here that he was part of a gang that was smuggling art treasures from temples out of India. She looked up at Harel. A missionary smuggling artworks. I guess that’s better than being a pedophile. The smirk on her thin lips said it all.

He was not smuggling artworks, objected Harel. Actually, he could not be sure about that. In recent years he had not enjoyed a lot of contact with Matt, or with anyone else in his family. But he absolutely refused to believe that his brother was involved in smuggling art.

He recalled the anguished phone call from his mother, begging him to fly immediately to Dharamsala to investigate. The Indian police are telling us hardly anything, she said. It’s your summer vacation. We’ll pay. I know you still hate your dad, but please do it for me. And for Sue.

I don’t hate Dad, he wanted to say. I just don’t want to be in the same half of the country as him.

But he knew it was not the occasion for an argument. I can pay, he said. Harel enjoyed a professor’s salary, and since the bitter divorce was living alone. Money was hardly a problem. And, with Matt’s wife Sue about to give birth to the couple’s second child, she would not be able to make the long journey.

But he resented the imposition all the same. It might be the summer vacation, but he had a book overdue with his publisher, on top of a couple of journal articles that he still hadn’t even started writing. Meanwhile, his department head was berating him for not publishing enough.

Are you a missionary too? asked the girl.

He sighed at the question. I used to be. And my parents before that, he almost said. It’s the family trade, you know.

He braced for further interrogation, but then he glanced out the window and realized that the bus was arriving in the township of McLeod Ganj. This was Upper Dharamsala, the actual place where the Dalai Lama had lived and died. And, when he thought about it, this was also the place where his younger brother Matt had lived and died.

The hippie was no longer interested in murdered missionaries. She and her companion were looking excitedly out at a vivid kaleidoscope of rickety, multi-colored buildings that were jammed into narrow, winding streets, lines of washing dangling from verandahs, gaudy Tibetan prayer flags flapping from roofs.

The base of the buildings held rows of shops, and Harel’s heart sank as he surveyed these - the internet cafe, the organic, vegetarian pizza store, the celestial cosmic souvenir stall, whatever that was. Billboards promoted yoga classes, fortune tellers, courses in herbal medicines and meditation sessions. The fake-Rolex and pirated-DVD outlets were presumably lurking just around the corner.

But he was a professor in California, and could handle all that. He even knew that as a professor of spiritual art he should be excited about this first-ever trip to Little Lhasa. However, he had been to the real Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, now occupied by China, and had been privileged to view many of the magnificent treasures there. He doubted that anything was about to stimulate his intellect in this outpost of hippie colonialism. He planned to make his visit as short as possible.

No, it was something else that sent Harel further into despondency. He stared at the buildings. Most looked as if a strong wind would knock them down. It was the monsoon season, and small streams ran down the streets. He looked at the people walking through the mud - many were bent and bowed, as if they were carrying a load of rice on their backs.

Then he imagined the homes. Already he could see the pale brown water that emerged when you turned on the taps, the lavatories that didn’t flush properly, the neighbors in the apartment above yours who drank and played mah jong - or whatever the local equivalent was - all night, and the kids outside your front door who were skilled in picking your pockets.

This place screamed out two words: Mission Field. It reminded him of his upbringing and of his early adult life, until he went native, as the saying went, married a local girl and became a professor instead. To be followed by the bitter divorce and the abject humiliation in his father’s church, at the hands of his own father. But he knew how attractive this place would be to his parents, and how excited Matt undoubtedly felt at coming to live and work here.

There was indeed a time when he relished all this, took pride in living in towns like this. But now he preferred a comfortable California duplex, gourmet cooking, a glass of wine and some soft music. He didn’t want to be a missionary any more. This town transported him to his past. And that was a place he no longer wished to visit.

Chapter 2

Dharamsala, Northern India

The minibus lurched to a halt at what was apparently the terminal - a shack little bigger than a phone booth. The driver was still talking on his cellphone. Harel let the other half-dozen passengers alight, then exited. The crumbling pavement was awash with mud puddles. The air was refreshingly cool for the middle of summer, though distinctly humid. He walked to the back of the vehicle to retrieve his suitcase.

Where are you staying? asked the hippie. Harel decided that he was not surprised when he realized that her luggage consisted of an expensive-looking Italian leather bag with ornate silver buckles.

Chonor House. He smiled at the girl. It was a deliberate, smug smile. Chonor House, opposite the late Dalai Lama’s residence, and run by a group dedicated to preserving traditional Tibetan culture, was the swankiest place in town. It was where Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn and other celebrity Buddhists sometimes used to stay when they came for an audience with the Dalai Lama.

Stay cool, she said, and she and her companion tripped off in the direction of the narrow streets and shops.

Stay cool? What sort of talk was that? He was about to raise two fingers in a peace sign, but refrained. He knew that his problem - one of his problems - was his biting sarcasm. Another was his terribly judgmental attitude - an asset more than a failing, of course, for a university professor, but not a welcome trait in a Christian, as his parents had never tired of informing him.

He grabbed his suitcase out of the back of the minibus. He had packed lightly, a legacy from missionary days. With luck, he thought, he would be out of this town in just a couple of days. Then, depending on flight availability, he could fly across to see the Ajanta caves, with their superlative Buddhist paintings and sculptures. Or he might try to contact some art historian colleagues at the universities in New Delhi or