Operation “Stray Dog”. Chapter 7

Tentacles of Strategic Purpose

13:10 EST (02:10 Pyongyang time). Pyongyang. Underground Strategic Command Bunker

The bunker was permeated with an atmosphere of organized, disciplined looting. The sirens weren’t wailing (the electrician had sold the old wiring for scrap a week ago, and the new wiring had never arrived), but anxiety hung in the air, thick and sticky like the gravy in the officers’ mess. Generals who just an hour ago had been frothing at the mouth swearing loyalty to the ideals of Juche and readiness to die for the Party were now dragging the most valuable items into their personal, highly secured compartments.

Asadollah Alavi, also known as Comrade Lee, stood in the corridor, his back pressed against a life-size portrait of the Great Leader, watching soldiers run past him carrying crates.

“What is this?” he asked a lieutenant buckling under the weight of a cardboard box labeled “Top Secret.”

“French cognac, Comrade Lee! 1995 vintage! For export!”

“And this?” He nodded at the next one hauling a sack.

“Iodine tablets and dried squid!”

“And that?” He pointed at a colonel personally clutching a stack of plastic cases to his chest.

“A DVD collection of German educational films on anatomy! The Beloved Leader’s personal archive! The nation’s golden fund!”

Alavi sighed. A nuclear-powered missile was flying to hell and gone, the world was teetering on the brink of World War III, and these idiots were saving pornography, alcohol, and snacks. However, Alavi thought with the cynicism of a man who had survived three regimes, if nuclear winter did come, these three things would become the hardest currency. More valuable than gold or uranium.

Alavi himself had no intention of sitting in a concrete crypt waiting for the cognac or oxygen to run out. He needed to bail. Right now. Before the missile crashed somewhere in Siberia or Iran, and a real mess started—one where foreign consultants would be shot first as “undesirable witnesses.”

He walked into General Kim’s office. Kim was sitting under a massive oak desk, finishing off his second cheeseburger and looking around nervously.

“General,” Alavi said calmly. “I need a helicopter.”

“What for?” Kim chomped, dropping crumbs onto his medals. “We are safe here. Ten meters of concrete! Lead! We can survive even a direct hit of democracy here!”

“I need to… uh… supervise the delivery of humanitarian aid. From Japan.”

“What aid? We have rice; I checked.”

“Strategic aid,” Alavi lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The freshest crabs from Kanazawa. And a new batch of… visual materials. Japanese. Uncensored.”

Kim’s eyes lit up in the semi-darkness under the table so brightly they could have illuminated Pyongyang during a scheduled power outage.

“From Kanazawa?” he asked breathlessly. “The ones with the roe? King crabs?”

“Precisely. But the Japanese refuse to load them onto a ship. They fear radiation and provocations. They demand the personal presence of… a specialist. Me. I am the only one who can distinguish a crab from a CIA agent.”

“And the materials?” Kim licked his lips. “The ones where… there are many tentacles?”

“Oh yes. Very many. Tentacles of strategic purpose. Full penetration behind enemy lines.”

Kim struggled out from under the table, brushing off his trousers.

“Take my personal Mi-8. It’s on Helipad No. 3. The pilot knows the route.”

“Which route?” Alavi clarified.

“The smuggling route,” Kim winked. “We use it to bring in sushi for Central Committee banquets and spare parts for Mercedes. Flies low over the water, under the radar. The Americans think it’s a flock of seagulls. Pilot’s call sign is ‘Octopus.’”

Alavi left the office, feeling cold sweat trickle down his back. “Octopus.” He knew who that was.

It was Takeshi-san. A legend of the East Asian shadow world. A man who in the 90s transported used right-hand drive Toyotas to Vladivostok, in the 2000s smuggled Iranian oil past sanctions via Malaysia, and now delivered Japanese porn and crabs to the North Korean elite. Alavi knew him from his days in SAVAK. Takeshi was the only Japanese man who could drink vodka with Russians, haggle with Persians, and lie to Koreans simultaneously, all while quoting Basho haikus.

Ten minutes later, Alavi was climbing the ramp of a helicopter parked under a camouflage net. The rotors turned lazily.

The pilot, a bald Japanese man in harem pants and a bright Hawaiian shirt with parrots worn over a Kevlar vest, turned around. Japanese city pop from the 80s—Plastic Love—was playing in the cockpit.

“Alavi-san?” he asked in surprise, pushing his aviator sunglasses up onto his forehead. “Long time no see. I thought you were shot in Iran. Or hanged. Or became an Ayatollah.”

“I thought so too, Takeshi. Start your hurdy-gurdy. We’re flying to Kanazawa.”

“For crabs? Or for geishas?”

“For freedom, Takeshi. For freedom. And if you have whiskey with you, pour it. It’s going to be a long night.”

The helicopter, coughing smoke, lifted into the air, leaving behind panic-stricken generals, a nuclear button smeared with grease, and a country preparing for the end of the world by saving its most precious asset—a hentai collection.

Alavi looked out the porthole at the receding coast, which looked like a black hole.

“I survived the Islamic Revolution,” he thought, taking a sip from the flask Takeshi handed him. “I survived the war with Iraq. I survived the Fordow bunker. If I survive in a helicopter with a pornography smuggler under the guns of three nations’ air defenses… I will believe in Allah. Or in Elon Musk. I don’t know which one of them is on duty for the planet right now.”

Chapter 8. A Call from the Underworld →
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