The Poksu Conspiracy (Post Cold War Political Thriller Book 2)

by Chester D. Campbell

  It was early afternoon when Burke got around to calling the number for Yun Se-jin.

  "I was really shocked to hear about your father," he told the Lieutenant. "We had become very good friends in the short time I knew him."

  The young man seemed strangely distant. "Did you know what my father was doing in Pyongyang?"

  "Yes. He had asked me to help him out on a few of the cases he was working. I had managed to get him a copy of a missing book manuscript co-authored by Dr. Lee Yo-ku, one of the murder victims. I'm a former special agent with the FBI, and we found we had a mutual friend in Quantico, Virginia."

  "You were with the FBI?" Lieutenant Yun's voice sounded perplexed and uncertain.

  "Yes. It's been some years back. But your father seemed to feel the need to confide in someone. For whatever reasons, he chose me. I know he was reluctant to tell his prosecutor everything he knew. Actually, I guess I talked him into discussing some of the critical points with the guy. What was his name, Park? Now I'm not so sure I did the right thing."

  "Why do you say that?" Se-jin asked.

  Burke debated a moment whether he should go any further. It was like dipping a toe into a swimming pool and wondering whether to take the plunge. Finally he decided to dive in. The young man deserved to know the shady circumstances surrounding his father's death. Maybe he could do something about it. "He mailed me a photograph and a note from Pyongyang, disguised with the return address of an old World War II soldier who apparently gave him the picture. I can't imagine him doing that unless he had reason to believe someone might interfere with his plan to bring it back here."

  There was a long pause before the young policeman replied in an apologetic tone. "I think I have done you an injustice, Mr. Hill."

  "What?"

  "I believed you had something to do with my father's death, because of a letter he wrote me from Pyongyang. Now I understand what he meant. I think we had better meet somewhere and talk."

  A letter to Se-jin. He hadn't thought of that. What had Yun said? "When will you be avaiable?" he asked.

  "This evening after I get off duty. Should I come to your office?"

  Burke doubted anyone would be watching him at this juncture, but he decided to take no chances. "No, I'd rather make it some out-of-the way place. Could you hold on a moment?"

  He called Miss Song into the office.

  "Do you have a key to Jerry's apartment?" he asked.

  Her face colored slightly as she stammered, "He thought...he said I should have one in case..."

  Burke smiled. "No explanations needed. I have a man I'd like to meet somewhere private. I thought that might be a good place."

  "I'm sure Jerry wouldn't mind," she said.

  "Thanks." He waved her out. "Lieutenant, could you meet me at our manager's apartment, not in uniform, say around eight?"

  Yun Se-jin said he would be happy to and asked for the address.

  Burke arranged to visit Jerry Chan at the hospital early in the evening with Brittany Pickerel. An undauntable young lady with an iron constitution, she had bought a car and was gamely learning to do battle with the Seoul traffic. On leaving the hospital, he instructed her in the slippery ways of shaking off surveillance. Although it was hardly a performance worthy of the CIA limousine driver in Washington, it was good enough for the task at hand. He had her deliver him to the Hyatt Regency on the slopes of Mt. Namsan. After a careful check of traffic in the area, he caught a cab outside the hotel and had the driver let him out a block from Jerry's apartment. He stood a few minutes in a sheltered doorway but found nothing unusual either in the street or along the sidewalk. Then he hurried through the frigid evening down to the apartment building, arriving shortly before time for the appointment.

  The knock at the door sounded precisely at eight. Punctuality always made a good first impression on Burke. He found the young man's face almost an image of his father. Like Captain Yun, he was compactly built but perhaps a bit taller. And he lacked the metal framed glasses and the slowly receding hairline. Those would probably come with age.

  When Burke noticed how stiffly Lieutenant Yun sat on Jerry's sofa, he realized he had already forgotten his Korean manners. A little softening up, get acquainted talk was needed. He told the young officer a bit about Worldwide Communications Consultants and the reason for his rather sudden return to the States after Captain Yun's departure for Pyongyang.

  "You have a new set of twins?" Se-jin said in obvious surprise.

  Burke grinned. "Even old men get lucky sometimes."

  "I didn't mean—"

  "Don't worry, I'm not sensitive about it." It was not entirely true, though he made a point of shrugging it off whenever the subject of age came up. "We've only been married a couple of years. I understood from your father that you're engaged to a young policewoman."

  Yun nodded. "Lieutenant Han Mi-jung. My father was not too happy about it, though. He held to the old ways of arranging marriages."

  "I know. He told me about it."

  Yun had a slightly puzzled look. "Frankly, Mr. Hill, I am quite surprised at the way he confided in you. It wasn't at all like him."

  "I suspected as much. But we thought a lot alike. And I was someone unaffected by the politics over here, a complete neutral. By the way, what did he say in that letter he wrote you from Pyongyang?"

  Lieutenant Yun took a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it across.

  Burke glanced at the sheet and shook his head. "Sorry. I don't know your language."

  "It says, 'If anything should happen to me, look to Burke Hill for the answer.' That's all."

  "So you thought it meant look to me as the murderer?"

  Yun's eyes narrowed. "You think he was murdered?"

  "One man, Dr. Lee, had already been killed to keep the information he was after in Pyongyang from getting out. And he had been trying to track down a professional assassin involved in the murders. Judging by his letter to you and the photograph mailed to me, he must have seen something that really worried him. That hit-and-run accident looks like a bit too much of a coincidence."

  "You mentioned the prosecutor," said Se-jin, his face suddenly a mask of steel. "Are you sure my father told him what he was doing?"

  "Yes. He called me afterward about something the prosecutor had said."

  Se-jin's eyes narrowed. "I have learned that Prosecutor Park departed for a leave of absence the day after my father went to Pyongyang. They said he suffered from 'nervous exhaustion.'"

  Burke's face became pinched in thought. "Captain Yun told me that Colonel Han Sun-shin of the NSP had made Park very nervous. I wonder if Colonel Han might have been responsible for the sudden leave of absence?"

  When they had finished talking, Lieutenant Yun drove Burke back downtown. Saying he had some thinking to do, Burke asked to be dropped off a couple of blocks from the Chosun. He turned up his coat collar against the biting wind and walked rapidly along the broad sidewalk. What had been a lively, bustling promenade during the day now appeared as a pale, anemic concrete strip beneath the yellow glow of the streetlights. It was not so crowded now, although an occasional Christmas shopper still hurried past, burdened down with a heavily laden bag. A flurry of snow began to swirl before the headlights along the street. It was a damned cold night to be out, he thought, particularly for shopping. Then he remembered Evelyn's offer to do his gift-buying for him. He would go up to his room, make out a list and call her. It would soon be eight a.m. in Washington.

  He wasn't sure how clearly he would be able to concentrate on the subject of shopping, considering what he now knew about Captain Yun's fate. He had become totally convinced that Yun had been murdered. He was also convinced the NSP had a hand in it. And that did not auger well for the future of his stay in Seoul.

  Lieutenant Yun was assigned to a quick response unit whose cars were dispatched in answer to calls received on the 112 emergency phone line. It had been a hectic morning, allowing him little time to think about his meeting with Burke
Hill. However, he had sat up late the night before, attempting to puzzle out just what was going on. His girl friend, Mi-jung, who lived in the next apartment building, had spotted his light still blazing and called to see if he might be ill. He was taking her to dinner tonight and promised to explain all about the problem that had caused him such concern.

  When he took a break for lunch, he decided to call the head of his father's division, Superintendent So, and find out if it would be possible to take a look at the files of the cases Captain Yun had been working on. From their conversations, he knew his father had collected quite a store of information. Burke Hill's theory that the Captain's death was related to his investigations had a certain logic to it, though there seemed to be too many loose ends. The files should help clear that up, he thought. And if Hill's supposition had merit, the files would give him something to take to the higher-ups in the bureau.

  His question drew a quick response from the Superintendent. "You'll have to contact the office of Prosecutor Park Sang-muk. They called and wanted to review the files. Somebody from over there came by and picked them up."

  "When was that?" Se-jin asked.

  "Let's see, it must have been Monday."

  That was odd, the Lieutenant thought. Park had gone on leave of absence the Friday before. He called the prosecutor's office and got the assistant who had told him about Park's leave.

  "Who will be working with the files from my father's cases?" he inquired. "I understand someone from over there took them for review."

  "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but you've gotten some erroneous information. Nobody from over here has asked for the Captain's case files."

  Se-jin hung up the phone and stared at it. What the hell was going on here? Nearly a year's worth of his father's investigatory efforts had just disappeared down a black hole, and he hadn't the slightest idea where in the governmental galaxy to start looking for it.

  Chiangmai, Thailand

  Chapter 61

  As the Boeing 737 made its approach, Burke saw Chiangmai spread out across the flat plain like a trinket-laden picnic blanket tucked against the foot of Doi Suthep, the mountain that soared to some 4,000 feet on the west toward the Burmese border. He could see the outline of the old city, a square kilometer formed by a moat and walls that had crumbled away in places and were restored in others. But the town had spread far beyond its original borders, with the business section mostly to the east, along both sides of the Ping River.

  The van brought him in past an array of motley looking shacks, lumberyards, a supplier of spirit houses, with models in virtually every size, "instant antique" factories, tree-shadowed wats, Buddhist temples, where bells and chimes could be heard, and more substantial homes surrounded by flowering shrubs. They finally turned into a narrow side street, inside the old city near the wall, and suddenly there was the guest house nestled among the palm trees, an L-shaped three-story concrete building that resembled a rather plain American motel from the era when motels first came into vogue. The rooms opened off a balcony that ran the length of the building.

  Burke checked in and was given a second-floor room in the short end of the L, which faced the restaurant, an open-air pavilion featuring small tables covered with plastic tablecloths. Casement windows opened on front and back sides of the small room, furnished with two single beds. A large ceiling fan provided cool air. The bath consisted of a toilet flanked by a sink and a shower head that projected from the wall. Beneath it lay only the bare concrete floor and a drain. Rather spartan, he thought, but he had never paid so little for a room. Only a few dollars American.

  After freezing in the frigid streets of Seoul, he found the warmth of Chiangmai a pleasant change. He had brought a lightweight jacket, which Jerry assured him would be quite adequate at night. After a quick meal of something that tasted like barbecued chicken but had a name sounding oddly Chinese, he picked up a map and directions, provided in halting English, to the Chiangmai Night Bazaar.

  Lights were on in the shops, though it wasn't quite dark as yet. Walking toward the business section, he saw a procession of noisy tuk tuks buzzing through the streets. He found the bazaar easily enough. It had a large, brightly illuminated sign with "Chiangmai Night Bazaar" in both Thai and English.

  As he strolled along the crowded corridor, he found stalls featuring Thai dolls, silk, laquerware, jewelry, every kind of clothing from shoes to dresses to jeans, some of it designer brands made in Thailand. There was a variety of hill tribe handicrafts, and on the second level he found the gem shop that traded in precious and semi-precious stones. A young Thai with bushy black hair and a thin mustache approached him with palms together prayerlike, a gesture of greeting called wai.

  "I'm looking for Yves Caron," Burke said.

  The man smiled. "Monsieur Caron be here soon. You like look at stones?"

  "Thanks," Burke said, nodding. He knew little about gemstones, except that some of them looked beautiful mounted in rings and bracelets.

  He was closely admiring some sapphire rings when a slightly accented voice spoke behind him. "Ah, my friend, you like the sapphires, oui?"

  Burke turned to see a slender man with dark hair slicked straight back, his upper lip adorned with a more classic mustache than the young Thai's. He had a wordly look about him, a penetrating gaze at once intimate and dispassionate, almost clinical. It made Burke feel he had just been dissected, categorized, pigeonholed and left to dry out like an insect in an entomological collection.

  "You must be Yves Caron," Burke said.

  He smiled. "And you are the unknown farang my young colleague said had asked about me."

  "Farang?'

  "It is what the Thais call us round-eyed, fair-skinned Westerners. Europeans and Americans. Are you interested in gemstones, Mr...?"

  "Hill. Burke Hill." He reached out to shake the Frenchman's hand. "I'm interested in gems, but not stones."

  Caron raised an eyebrow. "And what kind of gem would you be looking for?"

  "A friend of mine named Jerry Chan said you might be able to put me in touch with Ahn Pom-yun."

  "Ah, Mr. Chan. It has been a few years. But I disappoint myself. I did not take you for one interested in the poppy business."

  Burke grinned. "You were right the first time. I'm not the least interested in the drug trade."

  "As Jerry Chan well knows, Monsieur Ahn is a central figure in the narcotics traffic through this area."

  "How did a Korean manage to achieve such prominence here?" Burke asked.

  "The most powerful drug lord, as you Americans like to put it, the top man in the Golden Triangle is the head of a Shan army just across the border in Burma. He controls the movement of opium and operation of the jungle refineries. He wholesales the heroin out of Thailand. His sister is married to Ahn Pom-yun.

  "Who are the Shans?"

  "They are a Burmese tribe from the Shan Mountains. The army leader is actually half-Shan, half-Chinese. Various Chinese factions have been competing in Northern Thailand for years. If you're not interested in drugs, Monsieur Hill, why did you want to meet Ahn Pom-yun?"

  "I was hoping Mr. Ahn might lead me to an older man with a similar name, Ahn Wi-jong."

  Caron crossed his arms and reconsidered Burke with a wary expression. "You know, of course, that Ahn Wi-jong is Monsieur Ahn's father."

  "I suspected as much. I understand he's here in Chiangmai. I'd like to talk with him."

  "Very few people are aware of Ahn Wi-jong's presence. He has been here only a short time, and it has been kept quite confidential. Would it be an imposition to ask how you knew?"

  Burke considered it for a moment. If it would help pave the way to an audience with Ahn, why not? "I received the information in a roundabout way from a man in Pyongyang."

  "Pyongyang," Caron repeated thoughtfully. "Yes. I have heard there might be efforts to send heroin to North Korea with the changed climate there. But you are not interested in the drug trade."

  "Correct. And while we're about it, ho
w did you happen to know about Ahn Wi-jong, if it's so confidential?"

  "I deal in gems other than stones, Monsieur Hill. Information is a gem, n'est-ce pas?"

  Burke nodded. "Indeed, it can be. Right now, the information I need is can you set up the contact with Ahn?" He was tired from the long flight and getting a bit weary of playing games.

  Caron gave Burke his price and told him to go to a bar located a couple of blocks away, buy a drink and wait. Someone should contact him shortly.

  "If you wait an hour and no one comes for you, I will return half of your money," said the Frenchman in a businesslike voice.

  "Damned decent of you," Burke said. "Why not return all of it?"

  "I do the same amount of work whether you are contacted or not. Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee the results."

  Burke paid him and headed off toward the bar, a place called The Watering Hole. He found it dark and smoky with colored lights flashing overhead. The juke box played country music, of all things. He thought he was back in Tennessee. In fact, the place was awash with farang. There were several Americans seated at the bar, a bevy of bar girls stuck to them like Garfield dolls suction-cupped to a car window.

  Burke took a table and ordered a glass of wine, drawing a strange look from the waitress. Evidently it wasn't a big seller here. A couple of bar girls came over but he waived them off. "I'm waiting for someone," he said. He wasn't sure they understood, but they went looking for greener pastures.

  He had been there almost an hour and was beginning to despair of anything happening when a large, stocky Chinese came through the door, swept the room with a cold stare and walked toward his table. He looked like he should have been the bar's bouncer. He pulled the chair out opposite Burke, planted a large foot in it and leaned forward.