by Larry Bond
“I need to focus on something,” he said as he paced.
Belatedly, he remembered that his cell was probably bugged.
Better not to show them any sign of weakness.
Ferguson sat back on the cot, willing himself back into control.
He tried thinking of fun times with his dad, but that was no good; within seconds images of missions just came flooding in, the association too strong.
He pictured Maine, thinking of what it would look like now, an early snow on the ground.
Thanksgiving dinner.
That was a safe image, except it made him hungry.
Better to starve than go insane, he thought, picturing himself eating a large bowl of sausage stuffing.
11
DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA
Thera took the train to Daejeon. When she got there, she checked the hotel where Ferguson had been staying as Ivan Manski. His room was empty, and he wasn’t in the restaurant or one of the nearby shops.
Needing a place to stay herself, she took a room two floors above where he’d been staying. Then she called The Cube.
“Ferguson didn’t make the flight,” she told Lauren DiCapri. “He’s not in Daejeon, either. Has he checked in?”
“No.”
“He didn’t show at the embassy or anything like that, did he?”
“That would probably be the last place he’d go, knowing Ferg.”
“Check, would you?”
“Of course. Thera, are you sure he wasn’t on that plane?”
Thera laid her head back on the overstuffed chair. What the hell had happened to him?
“Thera?”
“No, he wasn’t on the flight. I thought maybe I missed him.” She knew she hadn’t; it was a wish, not a thought. “Try his sat phone, all right?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. I’ll wait.”
“It’s off-line,” said Lauren a minute later.
“I was afraid of that,” said Thera softly. She pressed the button to disconnect the call.
12
NORTH OF P’YŎNGYANG, NORTH KOREA
General Namgung stood at attention as the tanks passed out of the camp, returning the stiff salutes of the crews. Dust and exhaust swirled around him, but he didn’t flinch. His father had taught him long ago that a leader inspired with poise as well as words, and the old man would be proud of his bearing now.
What he would think of his plan to oust Kim Jong-Il was another matter entirely.
The senior Namgung had been a close comrade of Kim Jong-Il’s father, Kim Il-Sung, the father of modern Korea. Kim Il-Sung was a true liberator, a gifted ruler who had saved his people. Kim Jong-Il was a poor shadow of his father, a debauched tyrant who had contracted venereal disease as a youth and was now slowly dying of kidney disease brought on by alcohol abuse.
His son, Kim Jong-chol, promised to be even worse.
Not that he would have the chance to rule.
Namgung dropped his arm as the last tank rolled out of the camp. An American spy satellite should be almost directly overhead, recording the movement. By now, alarms were going off in Seoul, where Park would have delivered the bogus plan by Kim Jong-Il to mobilize and attack. Over the next few days, a variety of North Korean army, navy, and air force units would mobilize.
Then, the unthinkable would happen, and everything would fall into place.
Namgung glanced upward as he got into his car. He smiled at the thought that some intelligence expert back in Washington might get a glimpse of his face.
Let the smug Americans try and guess what was really going on.
13
DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA
The black leather miniskirt was a little stiff, but there was no doubt it was effective; the security officer at the gate of Science Industries had trouble getting his eyes back in their sockets before waving Thera and her driver into the complex. The male receptionist was more influenced by cleavage; he stared at her chest as he dialed the managing director to tell him his appointment had arrived.
“But you do not seem to have an appointment,” he told Thera.
“I would think he’d talk to me, wouldn’t you? It has to do with a mutual business acquaintance, a Mr. Manski. The Russian. Would you remember him yourself?”
Thera leaned over the desk. The receptionist, in his early twenties, looked as if he was about to have a coronary.
“No. I wouldn’t remember anything,” said the man. He got back on the phone and persuaded the managing director’s secretary that the boss would definitely want to meet the visitor.
A few minutes later, Thera was escorted into the director’s office. She was playing the role of a jilted business partner, out to find Ferguson because he owed her money. In theory, she was Irish, the redheaded daughter of a one-time IRA member who’d done some business with Ferguson in the past, Deidre Clancy. There was a real Deidre Clancy, but she was presently serving time in an Angola prison after being caught short of bribe money on a deal Ferguson had arranged for her.
Thera told herself to tone down her performance, afraid she was going too far over the top. But it was like trying to stop yourself from skiing downhill in the middle of the slope.
And besides, wasn’t that one of Ferguson’s rules? When in doubt, push it as far as it will go?
The managing director’s secretary said that Dr. Ajaeng was very busy and might not be able to see her before lunch.
“Then perhaps he and I should have lunch,” suggested Thera. She took a seat opposite the secretary, adjusting her skirt.
The managing director’s schedule cleared up within minutes. The secretary personally escorted her, stroking the back of Thera’s fake fur coat.
“How can we help you?” said the managing director.
“I am looking for a friend. Or, rather, a business acquaintance. A special business acquaintance.”
As Thera sat in the seat near his desk, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered it to the managing director. He shook his head. There had been signs downstairs saying that smoking was not allowed in the building, but the director didn’t object as she lit up.
This was a trick she had learned from Ferguson. Breaking rules always had an effect on a subject. Sometimes it annoyed them and made them want to get rid of you. Other times it created an unspoken intimacy, making them a partner in crime. Either way, it gave you something to use.
The effect on Dr. Ajaeng was somewhere between the two.
“I don’t know what friend we might share,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“Ivan Manski. Call it a business associate, for I’m not feeling very friendly toward him today. He was here some days ago trying to sell . . . ,” Thera paused. “Scientific instruments.”
“Manski. No I don’t recall him.”
His expression indicated otherwise.
“Mr. Manski and I, we have an interesting arrangement. He happens to owe me a spot of money,” said Thera.
She stopped right there. That was enough.
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that,” said the managing director.
“Of course not.” Thera smiled, then rose to go. “Is Mr. Park in?”
“Mr. Park?”
“I believe our friend went to North Korea with him. Perhaps he might know where he has gone to.”
“Mr. Park never comes here.”
“I thought he had an office. My mistake.” Thera started for the door, then abruptly turned back, catching Dr. Ajaeng staring at her. “I’m at this hotel. Ask for me. Deidre. They’ll know.”
Too much, too much, too much, Thera told herself as she left. Even so, she made a point of saying good-bye to both the secretary and the receptionist, and waved at the guard as her driver took her out of the complex.
Are they working?”
“Loud and clear,” Lauren DiCapri told Thera. “What are you wearing, anyway?”
“Well, now, do you think I’d be telling you that?”
&nb
sp; Lauren laughed. “They want to jump your bones.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You dyed your hair orange?”
“Kind of an orange red. Goes with the new haircut.”
“It must be a stunner.”
“Thank you.”
“The managing director called someone named Li and told him about you. Li seems to be an assistant to Park; I have Ciello checking it out.”
“Have they called the hotel?”
“No. There’s been no attempt to check out your room, either.”
During her visit to Science Industries, Thera had left bugs under each chair she had sat in. The units transmitted what they heard to a booster station—it looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio—outside the grounds. The booster uplinked to a satellite, which in turn relayed to The Cube. The tiny bugs would work for roughly four hours.
Thera told Lauren she was going to change, then run some errands. “Let me know if anything comes up.”
“What kind of errands?”
“I want to check out the trucks at the university where Ferguson planted the gamma tabs.”
“Be careful, Thera. Really careful.”
“That would take all of the fun out of it.”
Thera had dismissed her driver after the visit to Science Industries, so she had to navigate the clogged and confusing local roads herself in a rented Daewoo. The traffic wasn’t that bad, she decided after a few minutes, as long as you followed the golden rule of international driving: Once moving, don’t stop for anything.
Thera spotted both trucks near a loading dock at the university. She pulled in next to them, ignoring the sign that indicated she wasn’t allowed to park there.
Thera had no idea where Ferguson would have put the gamma tags, and it took quite a while before she finally discovered one in the space near the door of the first truck. Thera rolled up the door and dug it out with her fingernails; it had not been exposed to any radiation.
She was just opening the back of the second truck when a gruff voice asked her in Korean what the hell she thought she was doing.
Two men in overalls with university emblems stared at her from the asphalt.
“What are you doing in the truck?”
“Are these your trucks?” she answered, using English. “The trucks. Oh, do you understand English?”
Her brain spun for a second, trying to translate. The Korean word for truck, teureok, was easy, but she had to gather it into a sentence to show, no, to ask, about possession. By the time she did, the shorter of the two men had told her, in English, that these were the school’s trucks, and by the way, Miss, you’re not allowed to park here.
“I need to have some things moved,” Thera told him, jumping on the pretense as it flew into her head. “And I was wondering if these were big enough.”
“These are school’s trucks, Miss. Teachers can’t use them.”
“Well, yes, of course.” Thera pushed open the door. The tab was on the right side, in the crack at the bottom.
Was the top red?
No.
“Can they be hired?” said Thera.
“What do you mean?”
Thera climbed up into the back. “I have to move some furniture. I’ve been staying in the city, but I’m going to have to fly back to Ireland and I need to ship things. I don’t know what to do.”
The taller man told her in Korean that she was crazy and that she must come out of the vehicle instantly.
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “But I have only a few days.”
“You can rent a truck,” said the shorter man. “There are many places.”
“I was told there weren’t. If you want to ship in an airplane, you have to make special arrangements.”
“Well, that is not always true. They have containers for shipments. We brought one to the airport just the other day.”
He raised his hand to help her down. Thera pretended not to see it, squatting down.
“Yesterday?”
“Two, three days ago.”
The day Ferguson had gone to the airport?
“Which day?” asked Thera.
The man shrugged. “Three days.”
“So you can carry heavy things,” she said quickly.
“Of course.”
“Really heavy?”
“The container was very heavy,” said the man. “So heavy we almost were in trouble.”
Keep the conversation moving, Ferguson had told her. Don’t give them time to realize how truly odd your questions are.
Did he say that, or did she imagine he said that?
“I do have a lot of things that need to be moved,” Thera told him.
“Don’t say anything to her,” said the other man, again in Korean. “She’s a lunatic.”
“But pretty,” said the other man.
“You have air in your head,” his companion told him. “You’re thinking with your privates.”
The other man walked toward the other truck. Thera sat on the edge of the truck, swinging her blue-jean-clad legs.
“Maybe you could rent a truck for me?” she asked. “I love Korea, but sometimes it can be difficult to understand what needs to be done.”
The man seemed willing to help, though he wanted a lot more than just a few thousand won out of it. Thera quizzed him on where he had been under the guise of asking about his truck-driving abilities. Again he mentioned the delivery to the Gimpo airport, where he and his friend had taken a relatively small but very heavy cargo container. He was an extremely careful driver, he said, and had even taken his vehicle to explosive plants.
“To carry explosives?” Thera asked.
“No.”
“Just went there?”
“I go where I’m told.”
Special licenses were needed to transport explosives, and it was not clear whether he was avoiding the question to make himself seem more competent or to stay out of trouble.
His companion blared the horn in the other truck.
“You must move your car. The police will have it towed,” said the man.
“You’re very sweet,” Thera said, touching his shoulder. “Give me your phone number so I can call you.”
14
OUTSIDE CHUNGSAN, NORTH KOREA
Shapes and faces and stabs of knives in his head.
No, I want to think of something pleasant, Ferguson told himself. No more missions.
Swallow the radioactive pill and let it kill the poison.
“Far away for death,” Ferguson whispered. “Just far away.”
He forced his brain to roam into the past . . . to prep school.
Not always pleasant. The Jesuits were a tough crew, toughening up the boys they taught.
Literature? When was it: the American school in Alexandria, the Jesuit school, the Korean school?
He’d never been to a Korean school.
What if they grabbed him now, stuck him in ice-cold water, threatened to freeze him to death if he didn’t talk.
It was freezing here already. Couldn’t get much colder.
“Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home.”
The beginning of Julius Caesar. Brother Mark used to say it to end class.
Now that had been a good year. They’d even done that play. He’d been Anthony.
Antony.
Marcus Antonius.
Anthony.
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Ferguson, not praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.”
No good I’ve done.
“Jesus, it’s cold,” said Ferguson, rolling up from the cot and walking to generate some heat.
“ ’Oh judgment, though art fled to brutish beasts,’ ” said Ferguson, the words from Antony’s famous speech springing back from some recess of his brain. “ ‘Men have lost their reason!’ ”
Good God almighty, it was cold.
15
DAEJEON, SOUTH
KOREA
“They went to the airport probably the day Ferguson left,” Thera told Corrigan when she checked in with him after returning from the university. “They delivered some sort of cargo container. It sounded to me like it was the first time they ever did something like that. It was unusual—they were bragging about it—and it was very heavy.”
“A shipping container?” asked Corrigan.
“One of the drivers said it was very heavy, heavy enough that he was worried about having the right license. They’re fined personally if the police stop them and their trucks are overweight.”
“What kind of cargo container?”
“One that goes on an airplane.”
“You’re talking about a unit-load device?” asked Corrigan.
“Like a baggage thing?”
“OK. That’s what it’s called: a unit-load device.” Corrigan typed search terms into one of his computers to get background information. “How could something like that be so heavy he was worried about weight restrictions?”
“You tell me.”
Her room phone began to ring.
“Hang on just a second, Corrigan.”
Thera went to the bed table and picked up the phone. It was the downstairs desk, telling her that someone was asking for her.
“Tell him I’ll be down in fifteen minutes,” Thera told the clerk. “I’m just taking a shower. No. Better make it thirty.”
Thera put the phone down and immediately took out her gun.
“What’s up?” asked Corrigan.
“I’m betting it’s someone from Science Industries. Maybe for Park. Hold on.”
She turned the water on in the bath and stepped back into the room, waiting, half-expecting whoever had come to the desk to try sneaking in while she was vulnerable. But no one came.
“I’m going down,” she told Corrigan finally.
“If I don’t hear from you in ten minutes, I’m calling out the dogs.”
“I’ll need more time than that,” said Thera.
“Don’t take too long. Everybody’s jumpy. Slott wants to send over some of Van’s SpecOps people to shadow you.”
