The Invitation-Only Zone: The Extraordinary Story of North Korea's Abduction Project by Robert S. Boynton

Author:Robert S. Boynton [Boynton, Robert S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374712662
Google: h-b1CQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0374712662
Barnesnoble: 0374712662
Goodreads: 25774175

13

TERROR IN THE AIR

Korean Air Flight 858 departed Baghdad’s Saddam International Airport at 11:30 p.m. on November 28, 1987. The Boeing 707 was filled with South Korean laborers returning to Seoul, with stops in Abu Dhabi and Bangkok, after months of working on construction projects throughout the Middle East. Also on the plane were the Korean consul general in Baghdad and his wife. Two Japanese tourists, Shinichi and Mayumi Hachiya, a seventy-year-old father and his stunning twenty-five-year-old daughter, occupied seats 7B and 7C. They checked no luggage, placing their few packages in the overhead locker.

At 2:04 a.m., the pilot radioed Rangoon International Airport. “We expect to arrive in Bangkok on time. Time and location normal.” One minute later, as it passed from Burmese to Thai airspace, the plane exploded, killing all 115 passengers and crew, brought down by a Panasonic radio packed with plastic explosives.

A quick check of the passenger list showed that the Japanese father and daughter had disembarked at Abu Dhabi, and on further inspection it was discovered that their passports were fake. In the meantime, the Hachiyas had flown on to Bahrain, where they were awaiting a flight to Rome. The Bahraini police detained them and escorted them to security for questioning. Before entering the office, Mr. Hachiya asked permission for him and his daughter to have a smoke. Immediately after putting the cigarette to his lips, he collapsed and died. Seeing this, a quick-witted police woman knocked Mayumi’s cigarette from her mouth and wrestled her to the ground. The cigarettes were laced with cyanide, but Mayumi’s only caused her to lose consciousness. “The pitch blackness enveloped me like a comforting blanket. Everything was over,” she recalled.1

Mayumi awoke in a Bahrain hospital, the inside of her mouth covered with blisters from the poison. She insisted she had had nothing to do with the bombing and was interrogated for two weeks before being taken to South Korea, where the questioning continued. One afternoon, the interrogators took her on a drive through downtown Seoul. “There was a flood of automobiles. Not even in Western Europe had I seen so many cars, jostling in the broad streets. Shocked, I studied the drivers. They were Koreans, not foreigners,” she recalled. “The spectacle was so different from what I had expected that I didn’t know what to say.” She confessed the next day. “Forgive me, I am sorry. I will tell you everything,” she said.

Her name was Kim Hyon-hui, and she and her “father” were North Korean agents. The bombing was a direct order from Kim Jong-il, intended to discourage people from attending the upcoming Seoul Olympics. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Kim Hyon-hui had been training for this mission all her life. At sixteen, she was singled out for her intelligence and beauty, and given special language training. At eighteen, she entered espionage school, where she underwent seven years of grueling training, mastering martial arts, knife combat, shooting, swimming, and code breaking. In one exercise, she infiltrated a mock embassy, cracked the safe, and memorized the message it held.

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