“Ah, Vin,” said Howerton, glancing up as I entered. “Take a seat.”
I took the one opposite Norman.
Howerton continued. “You've already met or know everyone here, but just in case …” He went through the introductions. I learned that Major First-Name-Nigel's surname was Overton, and that the staff judge advocate went by General William Weildon.
There weren't a lot of smiles going round the table.
The heavy entrance door slid open again, accompanied by a rush of air. It was Bradley Chalmers, accompanied by his crutches. His arrival was not acknowledged, which led me to believe either he'd arrived earlier and pleasantries had already been exchanged, or he was unimportant. I tried to think charitably about which might be the correct answer, and failed.
“Bringing you up to speed, Special Agent Cooper,” said Howerton, “Butler and Boyle have been found, along with Dortmund. News came through an hour ago. CIA located them in Seoul.” Howerton glanced at Norman, who looked like he would have preferred to be somewhere else. “CIA found them yesterday, and then lost them,” added Howerton. That explained Norman's discomfort.
“Something that hasn't been determined,” said Norman, “is whether Boyle is in Butler's company reluctantly; whether he's being held against his will. We're assuming the worst—that they've become partners and that North Korea is top of their shopping list.”
Christ! North Korea!
“Just so I've got this straight,” said the SecDef, leaning forward, “our radar system the South Koreans use, the, ah… the…”
“The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, sir,” said Howerton, helping the guy out.
“Do we know for sure it's vulnerable to this, er, technology, Henry?”
“We believe so, sir,” said Howerton grimly.
I wondered if I was perhaps the only guy in the briefing who didn't officially know what this technology was. As if reading my mind, General Howerton cleared this throat and stood. He then gave a halting overview of the project developed by Professor Boyle at Moreton Genetics for the DoD. That explained Howerton's discomfort.
When he'd concluded, there was silence while everyone let it all sink in. As if things weren't bad enough, North Korea was hoping to arm itself with a weapon that could knock out South Korea's defenses, negating the very latest deterrents we had on the ground there. And the North was just nutty enough to try it.
“Vin,” said Howerton, once again catching me off guard, “I want you on the ground in Seoul, ASAP, in the event these three turn up again. A CIA operative, handpicked by Assistant Deputy Director Norman, will join you there.”
I hoped like hell the person picked wasn't Chalmers.
“Bradley?” said Norman, gesturing at Chalmers with his chin.
I held my breath.
Chalmers said, “You'll be working with Special Agent Haiko Rossi…”
Exhale.
“… Italian American father, Japanese mother. She spent five years in the Marines developing the skill set we need, speaks Japanese—and English, of course—as well as Korean and a couple of European languages, including Italian and Portuguese …”
Hmm, Portuguese, I thought. That's sure to come in handy.
“By the time you meet up with Special Agent Rossi in Seoul, Agent Cooper, we should have a lead on the targets. I'll accompany you to Seoul for a joint briefing on the ground with Rossi when we get there.”
Christ, I hoped he didn't expect us to actually sit together on the plane over. I had to hand it to Chalmers, though; he was a smooth operator when he wanted to be. Watching him work the table, full of cautious confidence, I could see why he'd gotten so high in an organization that truly embraced bullshit.
I knew why I wanted in on this mission. What I didn't know was why Howerton wanted me involved. There were other federal agents around in better shape than I was. I could only assume the people above me wanted to keep the circle as small and as tight as possible to avoid leaks. I wasn't complaining.
Howerton spread it on a cracker for me. “Cooper, your role will be to keep Boyle and Butler under surveillance until we can determine exactly who is in the market for the NLW “
There was that term again—NLW, nonlethal weapon; in this instance a genetically engineered neoform that allowed one side to kill potentially millions of people on the other side without the fear of immediate retaliation and retribution. There was enough irony in calling the death bug an NLW to swing a compass needle.
“Anyone got anything to add?” asked Howerton.
I hoped not. I wanted to leave, get some air. Heads were shaking like they were at a game of tennis with everyone watching a different ball.
Brigadier General Wynngate, my CO, said, “Colonel Wayne has a hard copy of your orders, Major.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, standing. I had to take a moment to think who Colonel Wayne might be. Arlen—the “colonel” bit still hadn't sunk in.
General Howerton followed me to the door. He pressed a button on the wall and the door came ajar with a hiss. “A moment, Vin,” he said as I stepped into the hall. “I read your interim reports on the Tanaka case, and the Wright inquiry. Good work on both.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The general hesitated, then asked, “Is it true what I heard?”
“I'm not sure, sir. What did you hear?”
“About you falling twenty thousand feet and landing in the cargo chute canopy as it collapsed. Did that really happen?”
I'd given plenty of thought to that Houdini-like escape of mine. Whatever I hit knocked me unconscious, so all I could do was speculate on what had saved me from digging my own grave in the snow. “Sir, the truth is I'm not sure, but it can't have been anything else,” I said.
The general shook his head. “You're one lucky SOB, Vin.”
“I'm expecting a call from the Guinness Book of World Records anytime now, sir.”
FIFTY
Chalmers and I didn't sit together on the plane. We didn't catch the same bus from Incheon Airport to the city. We didn't stay at the same hotel. So I was happy. I believed I'd finally figured Chalmers out. He was involved in the mission in such a way that if it turned out well, he could grab a hefty measure of credit. If not, he was far enough away to avoid any career-lethal shit from sticking.
As for the flight itself, I ate the food, watched the movies, and, like most other passengers, tried to get some sleep. No sweats, no tingles, no fear—just the apparently far more normal searing boredom. I made myself a mental note to write to the publishers of Have a Nice Flight and give them another surefire method for overcoming aviaphobia.
Like just about everywhere else in the world, it seemed, it was snowing in Seoul, and about twenty-five degrees. There was no wind. That had apparently been and gone, leaving the place rattled, a vicious Siberian squall that had moved on to Japan to terrorize the island of Kyushu.
I took a cab from the bus terminal to the Hilton. I'd been to Seoul once before, but only for a few days and it was quite a few years back. My memory of the place was that the people ate a lot of pickled cabbage called kimchi, and not enough breath mints. They were also excruciatingly polite, mostly went by the name Kim, and used writing symbols that reminded me of crop circles.
Night had fallen, though the city's love of neon was doing a good job of keeping things lit up. The cab pulled into the hotel drive. I signed into my room and received an envelope with a message inside. I tore it open. It was an address and a time and an offer to meet up. The note was signed “Rossi.” The clock on the wall told me I had an hour and ten to get to the address.
An hour and five later, my cab pulled up outside a Korean BBQ joint in a relatively quiet street. I paid the driver his fare and went inside. The place smelled like the foyer of my apartment back in D.C. The restaurant was way too hot, around eighty degrees, causing a burning sensation on the tips of my ears. The lighting was on the moody side of dark. Most of the male customers seemed a lot older than the women accompanyi
ng them, which probably accounted for the lack of watts.
“Cooper?” said a voice behind me. I turned and a woman held out her hand to shake. “Haiko Rossi.”
We shook. Her hand was small, but the grip was firm. It was like shaking hands with needle-nose pliers. “You hungry?” she asked.
I looked around, searching for some sign in English. “They do bulgogi here?”
“Specialty of the house.”
“You eat here a lot?”
“Never been here before.”
“How do you know it's a specialty?”
“It's a specialty of every Korean restaurant.”
I followed Rossi to a booth. I couldn't place her accent. Midwest, probably, but the edges had been ground away by a long absence. Haiko Rossi was petite, maybe five six, anywhere between twenty-five and thirty. She wore tight, low-slung faded jeans and a fitted top with some kind of graphic on it that looked like an ink stain. Her boots were black polished leather. Her straight black hair was almost blue in places, except where she'd had it dyed dramatically blond. It was cut in layers and short enough on top so that it stuck almost straight up. Down the back, it was layered so that it followed the curve of her neck. There was a diamond stud in her nose, and one high up on the left ear. Her features were Asian, but European at the same time, her makeup expertly applied. Rossi was attractive, if the whole Eurasian/ exotic-beauty thing worked for you.
“Want to eat something?” Rossi asked, as I took the seat opposite, squeezing into the narrow booth.
“Sure. I'll have whatever, just as long as it's not tofu.”
“Don't worry; tofu's a dirty word in this place.”
“My kind of restaurant then,” I said, as a waitress appeared with menus. Rossi waved them aside and instead spoke rapid-fire Korean. The waitress scribbled and disappeared.
I felt Rossi's eyes appraising me. She said, “Your file photo doesn't do you justice, Special Agent. They either spent a lot of money on retouching it or the light here isn't doing you any favors.”
“Thanks,” I said. The light had nothing to do with it. My left hand was bandaged and the skin around both eyes and left cheek was alternating between purple and yellow. At least most of the stiffness and soreness from my forced stay in Pakistan had left my body. Basically, I looked worse than I felt. The waitress arrived with a couple of plastic bottles. “What's this?” I inquired.
“Beer,” Rossi announced. “This is the way the locals like it. Doesn't look like beer. Come to think of it, doesn't taste much like beer, either.”
I took a mouthful. Rossi was right on both counts.
“So, what happened to you?” she asked.
“I fell out of a plane without a chute.”
She looked at me, took a sip of her beer, and said, “Don't want to say? Sweet, I can dig it.”
I noticed she also had a silver stud in her tongue. “What's with all the body piercing?”
“The ones in my nose and my ear were for me. And this one,” she said, poking out her tongue and rolling the stud back against her teeth, “this one's for my boyfriend.” This seemed to quell our curiosity about each other, or maybe it was the arrival of the food that did it. The waitress slid the steaming bowls onto our table. “So, what about Chalmers?” I said. “Will he be joining us?”
“No, don't think so.”
“Because?”
“Because something's come up.”
“You wanna spare me the twenty questions, Ms. Rossi?” I said.
“We got confirmation twenty minutes ago. The package has turned up in Bangkok. The Company is working with the Thais, keeping them under surveillance. We have to leave.”
“When?” I asked.
She looked at her watch, then said, “Put it this way. Forget dessert.”
FIFTY-ONE
I was wrong about the world having frozen over. In the town of Mae Sot, a flyspeck up on the western border Thailand shares with Burma, the night air was hot, moist, and heavy, like inhaling soup. It had rained earlier, a rain so heavy it could have been a shower of polished nickels. Now the rainwater was evaporating, the eternal cycle on the upswing. I took a deep breath and caught the scent of lemongrass. I gave my eyes a rest from the monochrome picture presented by the SpecterIR scope and glanced up at the night sky. It was the color of black coffee and starless except for a constellation of flickering orange stars that reminded me—if I was to get poetic about it—of a snake coiling languidly.
“Beautiful, aren't they?” said Rossi, putting a bowl of something on the table, which explained the smell of lemongrass in the air.
“What are?”
“Those lights. They're candles carried up there by bags of hot air. The adults send them up as a tribute to Buddha,” said Rossi. “The kids do it for fun.”
I made a noncommittal noise in the darkness that surrounded us. In this business, I found it was sometimes easy to forget that most people actually did lead normal lives.
We had around ten minutes of moonlight left. Once it set, darkness would be total. I turned the scope back on the villa across the valley. If Mae Sot wasn't the last place on earth you'd expect the fate of the world could be decided, there weren't too many below it on the list. “Do you have any thoughts on why here?” I asked.
“Why here what?” she replied.
“Why would they choose this place to make the exchange?”
Rossi thought a moment before answering. “It's not really so unlikely. Not far from here is the Freedom Bridge. Across it, over the Moei River in the Burmese town of Myawadee, I'm told several high-ranking North Korean army officers have estates given to them as payment for helping Rangoon modernize, train, and arm their military. Our intel says one of these North Korean officers might be brokering the deal.”
“Okay, but why couldn't it be hammered out in Bangkok, or Seoul, or even Pyongyang?”
In the receding moonlight, Rossi was rapidly becoming no more than a faint gray shape. I could imagine her shoulders rising and falling with a shrug, but I couldn't see them. “Maybe Butler or Boyle or one of the Koreans doesn't like Bangkok. Or maybe it's not suitable for the same reason Seoul isn't—too many agents from the wrong side hanging around. And as for Pyongyang—if I had something the North Koreans wanted badly, I wouldn't go anywhere near the place, at least not until the terms of the deal had been thrashed out. Those North Koreans don't play fair. And then there's the fact that this area is famous for gem and drug smuggling. People here don't see a thing and haven't done for years, if you know what I mean. Or maybe I'm wrong on all counts. And why ask me anyway? I just work here.”
In my opinion, Rossi had made fooling people into believing she didn't know much into an art form. It was an effective disguise. I warned myself not to take her for granted.
“Well, I believe it's time for my watch,” she said. “And I bought you some food. Any movement over there?”
“No,” I replied. “Do we know yet who owns that villa?”
“Some big-shot local fisherman has his name on the paperwork—rented out two weeks ago to a dummy company in Bangkok owned by a South Korean import/export corporation, which is probably a front for North Korean interests.”
“Sounds sketchy,” I said.
“Yeah,” agreed Rossi.
The reality was that we weren't sure who was in that villa. The local CIA station believed it had spotted Boyle, Butler, and another Westerner, who could have been Dortmund, at a Muay Thai tournament in Bangkok two days before. But supposedly positive identifications of Boyle, Butler, and Dortmund had also since been made in Belfast, Rio, Mexico City, and Hong Kong.
“What does the colonel want to do?” I asked.
“Storm the place. Or bomb it. Or maybe bomb it then storm it.”
Colonel Samjai Ratipakorn from the Royal Thai Airborne Regiment was ostensibly in charge. It was his country, after all. But he'd been leaned on heavily to take advice from CIA—Rossi and Chalmers. Ratipakorn didn't like it, especially given that Ross
i was a woman and Chalmers was an asshole, but he didn't have much choice. At least Chalmers hadn't made the car trip up from Bangkok—according to Rossi, Chalmers was strictly a rear-echelon jackass.
Colonel Ratipakorn headed up the Thai antiterror forces. He stood about five and a half feet tall in his boots and had less fat on him than a Thai free-range chicken. I knew this because his uniform fit like a seventies body shirt. He never removed his Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses, even at night. I hadn't seen him smile, either, and he didn't so much talk as yap. Like most Thais, he was Buddhist. Maybe in a former life, he was a chihuahua.
The hut Rossi and I were occupying was one of half a dozen scattered around the valley. It wasn't the closest to the villa we were staking out, but not the furthest away, either. It was small with an enclosed veranda, a bedroom with a double bed and two singles, a kitchenette, and a bathroom barely big enough for a generous Western-sized butt. A squad of Ratipakorn's heavily armed antiterror specialists was standing by, suited up and ready to roll three hundred yards up and over the ridge be hind us.
“Hang on,” I said. “Movement.”
“What you got?” asked Rossi, moving catlike across to the other side of the window and settling behind the thermal camera.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“Do what.”
“Move without making a sound?”
“I float,” she said.
I watched as a huge Asian guy in a shiny suit opened a shutter on a double window, and scoped the trees from left to right. Behind him, I caught a glimpse of another sumo-sized guy, also in a polished suit.
“Shit,” I said. “There he is.”
“There who is?”
“The man seated with his back to us. You ever seen a worse haircut in your life? That's Sean Boyle.”
Rossi answered by reeling off a couple of dozen snaps for the CIA photo album, and then said, “Jesus, that's really him, isn't it?”
“Yup.”
“You sure?”
“No doubt in my mind.”
A Knife Edge Page 34
