The Expediter

by David Hagberg

  “All depends who arrested us and for what,” he’d told her. “Maybe it would be a good-looking meter maid in Paris, because I forgot to pay a parking fine. We’d go back to her place so I could bargain for my freedom.”

  He was laughing at her, and she slapped his chest. “I’m serious.”

  “Let’s deal with that if and when it ever comes up,” he’d said. “Now I’m hungry.”

  Soon joked about almost everything, but now it had come up, and she didn’t know what to do.

  She’d refused to turn on the radio or television, and everything outside seemed normal. But she and Soon had been certain that the assassination of a Chinese general in Pyongyang, apparently by a pair of local cops, would create an international stir.

  She got dressed in a pair of jeans, a light sweatshirt, and flip-flops and let herself out of the apartment. The old woman who managed the building was sweeping the vestibule and she looked up and grinned when Kim came down the stairs.

  “Mr. Huk not back with you?” she asked. “I not see him.”

  “No, he had some more business in Nagasaki,” Kim said, her heart in her throat. She wanted to cry.

  “Maybe best we all get out of here,” the old woman said, but she shook her head and went back to her sweeping.

  Kim wanted to ask the old woman what she meant, but she was afraid she already knew.

  Outside she started down the street toward the market a half block away to buy a packet of cigarettes, maybe a bottle of wine, and something to eat for supper. And a newspaper. The tiny store run by an old man with a long mustache and a tiny black hat was on the corner, newspapers and magazines displayed on racks in front.

  From across the street she could read the blaring headlines: WAR IMMINENT in Seoul’s largest newspaper, the Hankyoreh Shimbun. ALERT! the Gook-Min Ilbo warned, CHINA RATTLES HER SABERS! The headlines were also plastered across the front page of the English-language Seoul Times.

  A small three-wheeled mini-truck, belching smoke, rattled past and Kim crossed to the market, where she stopped in front of the newspaper rack, unable to help herself from staring.

  “Very bad news, Mrs.,” the old man said from the doorway. “You want newspaper?”

  Kim looked up, startled. She hastily picked one of the papers randomly then went inside the shop where she bought a pack of Marlboros, a bottle of Australian Merlot, and one of the rice bowls with noodle soup and fish that the old man’s wife made fresh each morning.

  “Where’s Mister, haven’t seen him for more than two weeks?”

  “He’s still away on business,” Kim said absently, paying for the things.

  “Too bad.”

  Outside she recrossed the street and headed back to her apartment. She wanted to get home so that she could read the newspaper stories to find out if anyone suspected the shooters had been anyone other than North Korean cops.

  It was perfectly clear to her now what Alexandar wanted to accomplish by the assassination of General Ho. But why? It made no sense that the Russians would want to foment trouble between China and North Korea. Only the U.S. could possibly benefit by the hit.

  She was momentarily stopped in her tracks. Soon believed that Alexandar was only a middleman, an expediter, who did nothing more than hire shooters. A freelancer. And the CIA was notorious for hiring foreign talent to do some of its dirty work.

  A C-class Mercedes passed and Kim wouldn’t have paid much attention except that it pulled up and parked in front of her apartment building.

  Her heart skipped a beat and her knees went weak. She crossed to the other side of the street where she sat down at the one small table in front of the neighborhood kimchi shop, as a slightly built Korean woman in jeans got out from the driver’s side. A moment later a tall, somewhat husky man wearing a sport coat and khaki slacks got out from the other side. It was obvious to her, even at this distance, that he was an American.

  They went inside as the owner’s daughter came out of the shop. “May I help you?”

  “I’d like some tea, please,” Kim said.

  The girl went back into the shop, leaving Kim to stare at the car’s license plate. She couldn’t quite make out the numbers and letters, but the plate was slate-gray, federal government.

  The woman was NIS and the man was CIA. She was convinced of it. And now she had no idea what she was going to do.

  TWENTY–SIX

  On the strength of Ok-Lee’s NIS credentials, the old woman who managed the building let them into the Huks’ apartment, although she didn’t like it and she wasn’t shy about letting them know how she felt with a steady stream of Korean.

  “What was she saying?” McGarvey asked when they got inside. He’d drawn his pistol and stood in the entryway.

  “That they’re her favorite tenants,” Ok-Lee said. “That they’ve been away, and if the government was paying attention to business as it should be, we wouldn’t find ourselves in the mess we’re in.”

  “Somebody came home,” McGarvey said pointing to the hanging bag lying on the floor.

  “You’re right,” Ok-Lee agreed. She knelt down and opened the bag as McGarvey cautiously crossed the living room and checked out the kitchen and single bedroom.

  “No one’s home,” he said, holstering his pistol, and coming back to where Ok-Lee had spread the contents of the bag in the middle of the living-room floor.

  “A woman’s clothing, and it looks as if she’s been gone for more than just a day or two, most of it’s dirty. She stuffed all of it in this big plastic bag.”

  “She’s tidy.”

  Ok-Lee was troubled. She shook her head. “Koreans don’t do things that way. We would handwash our things, especially our underwear, every night and hang them to dry.”

  “Maybe the Huks are modern Koreans.”

  “Maybe,” Ok-Lee said, but something about the plastic bag bothered her.

  “Anything else interesting?”

  “No,” Ok-Lee said, getting up and looking around. “Nice,” she said.

  The apartment was very well decorated with Danish furniture, expensive rugs, a large plasma television, and Bose sound system. Library shelves held several hundred DVDs plus a lot of large format art books, as well as a collection of world atlases and country guides. Most of the books were in Korean so Ok-Lee had to translate.

  “They like to travel,” McGarvey said.

  “Let’s see what else they like to do,” Ok-Lee said and she and Mc-Garvey searched the apartment, starting with the living room, moving the furniture around, checking behind wall plates, light fixtures, and inside every book and CD.

  An hour later Ok-Lee came across a laptop computer beneath some sweaters on a closet shelf in the bedroom. “Here we go,” she said, laying it on the bed, but McGarvey stopped her before she could open the lid.

  “If they’re who I think they are, this could be important,” he said. “I don’t want to screw it up by doing something wrong.”

  “Booby-trapped?”

  McGarvey shrugged. “Maybe not to explode, but at least to erase the hard drive. I have somebody who can take care of it for us.”

  Ok-Lee bridled. “These are Korean citizens we’re investigating, not Americans.”

  “And I’m here to help,” McGarvey said. “For now let’s do it my way, okay?”

  “I’m sticking my neck way out here, just on your reputation, Mr. Director.”

  “So am I,” McGarvey said.

  After a moment she nodded. “I was told to cooperate, so I will. But don’t bullshit me, McGarvey, or I’ll cut you off at the knees.”

  “That’s fair,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime did you notice what we didn’t find?”

  Ok-Lee looked around. “No.”

  “Money, passports, letters, bills, credit card statements, checkbooks,” McGarvey said. “This place is too clean.”

  “Safety deposit box?”

  McGarvey handed her a key attached to a plastic tag with Korean figures. “This was in a drawer unde
r some socks. Spare apartment key?”

  “This says nine, the apartment is three,” Ok-Lee said. “This is a key to a storage locker or unit somewhere. See the number inscribed on the key?”

  “Can you trace it?”

  She smiled. “Do you suppose the key is booby-trapped?”

  “No, but the storage locker might be.”

  TWENTY–SEVEN

  It seemed forever to Kim before the man and woman emerged from the building and climbed into the government Mercedes. The only reason they had taken so long was if they had searched the apartment, and Kim was sick at heart by what they had found.

  The man was carrying the laptop that held Alexandar’s encrypted program and the records of all their transactions, including the Swiss bank account and password.

  She forced herself to wait a full five minutes in case they might double back, but finally she paid her bill, gathered her groceries, and crossed the street.

  The old woman came out of her ground-floor apartment, an angry scowl on her deeply lined face. “The government people were here, Mrs. What do they want?”

  Kim’s stomach was churning. She shook her head. “What government people?”

  “They wanted to see inside your apartment. But I told them to mind their own business and take care of the country.”

  “But they went upstairs, and you let them in,” Kim said, her voice stern to hide her fear. With Soon under arrest in Pyongyang everything was falling apart.

  “No choice,” the old woman shot back. “Why did they come here? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Kim said. “But I honestly don’t know why they were here. Maybe it was a mistake.”

  “Yes, a mistake all right,” the woman said, and she watched as Kim went up the stairs. “You better fix it, Mrs.”

  But without Alexandar’s help Kim didn’t know how.

  She ignored the mess in the apartment, and went back to the bedroom to find the key. But the contents of the chest of drawers had been rifled and it wasn’t there. She stood flat-footed in the bedroom staring at the open drawers in despair. The two most important and incriminating things were gone. The NIS had come here with an American and had taken the computer and the key.

  First Soon and now this. But how had they known to come here?

  At that moment her cell phone vibrated against her hip, startling her so badly she jumped. She opened it with fumbling fingers. “Ye?” Yes? she said in Korean.

  “Why have you called?” a man asked in English. It was Alexandar, she had no doubt of it.

  “We have a problem,” Kim said, switching to English.

  “What problem?”

  “Soon was arrested. They took him off the airplane before we could take off.”

  The phone was silent.

  “They have my husband, and now we have to rescue him,” Kim blurted. “I’ll return the money, all of it, but you have to help me.”

  “You made a mistake,” Alexandar said. “You and your stupid husband.”

  Kim’s fear instantly turned to anger. “Listen, you bastard, we’ve kept records. I know enough to see you hang.”

  Alexandar laughed. “Don’t threaten me. If anyone hangs it will be you. But listen to me, I’ll help because you and you husband have done very good work for me, and there’ll be more of it. For now I want you to stay inside your apartment and I’ll come to you tonight.”

  The relief was sweet but it lasted only a moment. “There’s something else. I went to the store and when I got back a man and woman were here. The woman was NIS, it was a government plate on her car, but I think the man was CIA.”

  “How do you know this? Did they see you?”

  “They didn’t see me, but he had the look,” Kim said. “How could they possibly know about me and Soon?”

  “What foolish little secrets did they find in your apartment? Tell me that you and your husband have been careful.”

  “They got the laptop.”

  “That’s okay, they’ll fry the hard drive if they try to open it.”

  “And the key is missing,” Kim said.

  “What key?” Alexandar demanded.

  “To our storage locker where we keep our equipment and other things.”

  Again the phone was silent for several seconds, but when Alexandar came back he didn’t sound angry, or even overly concerned. “You’ll have to clear out of your place right now, and you’ll never be able to come back.”

  “Where should I go?”

  “Check into the Westin Chosun downtown under a work name, and I’ll find you there tonight,” Alexandar promised.

  “Why that hotel?”

  “No American would stay there, it’s too old and inconvenient. We’ll get this straightened out first, and then find a way to get Soon out. I have a few friends up there who’ll arrange something for us. But in the meantime you’ll have to do one thing for me. It’s important.”

  “Anything,” Kim promised.

  “They’ll be back, the NIS officer and the American, if that’s who he is. I want you to hang out somewhere near your apartment, and get a photograph of the man. But you mustn’t be seen. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, but how do you know they’ll be back.”

  “Once they find your locker, they’ll be back,” Alexandar said.

  TWENTY–EIGHT

  At the stoplight three blocks from the apartment, Ok-Lee used her cell phone to pull up an NIS program that accessed a broad range of civilian databases, such as phone books, Web sites, utilities, and business addresses. She entered the seven-digit number from the key and within seconds an address for a storage center came up.

  “That’s impressive,” McGarvey said.

  Ok-Lee smiled faintly for the first time since picking him up at Oasan. “The CIA doesn’t have this capability?”

  “Our privacy laws are a bit stricter than yours.”

  “Yeah, right,” Ok-Lee said. The light changed and she headed down the street, turning left at the corner. “This place is across the river. What do you think we’ll find?”

  “Family heirlooms if I’m wrong,” McGarvey said.

  “And if you’re right and the locker is booby-trapped?”

  “We’ll see when we get there,” McGarvey said. “But the apartment wasn’t rigged, because they’re good South Koreans and they wouldn’t want to hurt innocent bystanders. So, if the locker is in a crowded area where people are likely to be nearby, it should be safe.”

  “You’re guessing,” Ok-Lee said. She was getting angry again. “I think we should call a bomb unit out here.”

  “Is your shop clean?”

  “Cleaner than yours,” Ok-Lee shot back.

  “Look, if anything gets out the whole deal could fall apart. Trust me.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Director, you’re CIA and right now that’s not such a good thing around here.” She reached for her cell phone, but Mc-Garvey put a hand over hers.

  “You asked how I knew that her husband never made it out of Pyongyang,” he said. “A North Korean intelligence officer came to my home in Florida with photographs, and asked that I help prove that the Kim Jong Il didn’t order the assassination.”

  Ok-Lee’s mouth dropped open, but she recovered quickly. “He’s blaming it on the CIA?”

  “That’s right, but no one else believes it,” McGarvey said. “Especially the Chinese who’re convinced that the guy’s totally insane and could push the button at any moment.”

  Ok-Lee concentrated on her driving for a minute. “He would. Beijing would get it, but so would we, and probably Tokyo. He’s made the threats before.”

  “Which is why I agreed to see what I could do,” McGarvey said. “But I need your help, I can’t do it alone.”

  Forty-five minutes later they came onto a narrow street bustling with vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Small shops selling mostly household items such as pots and pans, rugs, bath towels, and soji screens were busy.

  Ok-Lee found a
parking spot half up on the sidewalk across from the storage business, the front of which was covered by a steel accordion fence, closed now. The sign above the fence was in Korean. “This is it,” she said.

  “What’s the sign say?” McGarvey asked.

  “Roughly, it says Mr. Pim’s Handy Storage, with a number to call if you want to rent a locker.”

  Inside the accordion gates a narrow corridor ran to the back of the building, a half-dozen padlocked doors on either side. The key fit the lock in the gate, and McGarvey swung it aside.

  “We’re taking a big chance here, goddamnit,” Ok-Lee said. People streamed past on the sidewalk. “If this place blows, a lot of people will get hurt.”

  “I know,” McGarvey said. It was the mantra of the terrorist who believed that there were no innocent people, but Kim and Soon were not terrorists, they were hired guns, and he understood the difference.

  He headed down the corridor, Ok-Lee right behind him.

  “This one,” she said five doors down on the left. “Ahop.” Nine.

  McGarvey ran his fingers around the door frame, searching for anything that might indicate the presence of fail-safes, something normally unnoticeable that would indicate someone had tampered with the door or had opened it. But whatever tradecraft the Huks used, fail-safeing their storage space wasn’t included.

  “Anyone taking any notice of us?” McGarvey asked as he bent close to examine the heavy-duty brass padlock.

  “Not so far,” Ok-Lee told him. “Is it clean?”

  “Looks like it,” McGarvey said. The lock opened with a well-oiled snap, and when he took it off the hasp and eased the door open, Ok-Lee stepped back a pace.

  The storage room was about five feet wide and twice that deep, six aluminum suitcases along one wall and a couple of cardboard file boxes along the other. A bare lightbulb dangled from the ceiling.

  “Make sure no one comes back here,” McGarvey said and he went inside and switched on the light.

  Starting with the cardboard boxes he found several thick files in Korean, along with what looked like surveillance photographs of men coming out of or going into what might have been office buildings, or in a couple of cases government buildings, getting in or out of automobiles—mostly Mercedeses—or sitting at sidewalk cafés.