The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 Read Online Free

large public square, where hundreds of Young Pioneers, soldiers and paramilitaries were practicing for the parade, a spectacle of robotic choreography perfected by hundreds of hours of drill. From the sides of buildings and on enormous billboards were the faces of the Great and Dear Leaders: Generalissimo Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, both of them dead and gone but impossible to forget.
    The newest pictures were of the young and untested Kim Jong-un, the scion of the line.
    Milton had read all of the ridiculous rhetoric that had flowed from the DPRK since Kim had succeeded his father. “Seas of fire.” “Merciless vengeance.” It was bluster and braggadocio for the most part, but the Koreans had nuclear weapons to back up their threats, and now the country was developing other, more insidious, ways to hurt the West. Milton did not know, nor did he need to know, the political calculus that had led to his being there, sitting in a taxi as it delivered him to the heart of Pyongyang. But as he looked at a row of fresh portraits of Kim Jong-un, Milton knew that the games of brinksmanship that the North had perfected had been played out for too long.
    No, Milton did not need to know why the message had suddenly become necessary, only that it was.
    He was just the postman.
    His job was to deliver it.

Chapter Five
    THE HOTEL Yanggakdo, a thousand-room monster that was reserved for foreign guests, sat on the prow of an island in the Taedong River. Westerners called it the Alcatraz of Fun for its revolving restaurant on the roof and its basement of decadent delights: a casino, a swimming pool, a bowling alley and karaoke bars. Milton wheeled his luggage into the reception and checked in. One of the black tail cars had parked near the entrance. Milton noticed that the dark-suited man in the passenger seat had disembarked and followed him into the lobby.
    While he waited for his room to be assigned, he made a lazy scan of the foyer. Two others were waiting for him: a man reading his newspaper as his shoes were buffed by a shoe-shine boy and, at the bar, a man who was drinking a cup of tea. The operatives were relaxed and easy, yet they were not experienced enough to hide their purpose from someone like him. If, and when, he left the Yanggakdo, one or both of those men would follow. There would be a car outside, ready to tail him should he avail himself of a taxi. The polite, smiling receptionist would also be in the employ of the secret police, as would be the bellhop who helped him with his luggage. The cleaners, the waiting staff who delivered room service, all would report back to the Directorate of the MPSS that had been assigned the file for Mr Peter Douglas McEwan, the known smuggler from Great Britain.
    The room was clean and tidy, pleasant enough. Double-glazed windows behind thin net curtains offered a wide view of downtown Pyongyang. Milton sat back on the bed and took off his shoes. The TV in his room was switched on, looping a series of important events: “Kim Jong-un provides field guidance at the Pyongyang Hosiery Factory,” said one report. The next showed the young leader astride a large chestnut horse, inspecting troop movements near the demilitarized zone. Milton took up the remote control and switched through the channels: the BBC, CNN, an anonymous football match with teams that he did not recognise. The room would be rife with bugs, but Milton made no effort to find them, nor even to adapt his behaviour to take them into account. He wouldn’t have been able to neutralise them even if he had been able to find them. And he had no way of knowing whether the mirror that faced the bed was two-way.
    None of it mattered.
    He wanted them to watch.
    He took off his shirt and went through to the bathroom to wash his face. The light fell over the tattoo across his shoulders and back, the angel wings tipped with razor claws. He dunked his head in the sink, scrubbing the cold water into his pores, trying to excise