Op-Center o-1

by Tom Clancy

With the nebulizer mouthpiece held firmly between his lips, Alexander made a point of pressing just the Start button. Soon, the room was filled with grunts and sharp slaps as Liu Kang and Johnny Cage battled for supremacy on the video screen.

  For the first time, the elder Hood was beginning to hold his own when the phone rang. At this hour, it could only be a wrong number or a crisis.

  He heard the floorboards creak, and a moment later Sharon poked her head in.

  "It's Steve Burkow."

  Hood was instantly energized. At this hour, it had to be something big.

  Alexander had used the distraction to hit his father's proxy with two quick flying kicks, and as Hood rose Johnny Cage fell backward, dead.

  "At least you don't get to rip out my heart," Hood said as he set the joystick down and headed toward the door.

  Now his wife's eyes were wide.

  "Guy talk." Hood said as he hurried past her, giving her a loving pat on the behind when he was behind the door.

  The bedroom phone was a secure line, not a portable. Hood was on it for only as long as it took for the National Security Adviser to tell him about the explosion and to come to the meeting in the Situation Room.

  Sharon sauntered in. From the bedroom, Hood heard the sounds of combat as Alexander battled the computer.

  "Sorry I didn't hear him," she said.

  Hood stepped from his pajama bottoms and pulled on his pants. "It's okay. I was up anyway."

  She cocked her head toward the phone. "Is it big?"

  "Terrorism in Seoul, a bomb blast. That's all I know."

  She rubbed her bare arms. "By any chance, were you touching me in bed?"

  Hood snatched a white shirt from the closet doorknob and half smiled. "I was thinking about it."

  "Mmmm must've come through in my dream. I could swear you did."

  Sitting on the bed, Hood slid into his Thorn McCanns.

  Sharon sat down beside him and stroked his back as he tied his shoes. "Paul, do you know what we need?"

  "A vacation," he said.

  "Not just a vacation. Time away— alone."

  He stood and grabbed his watch, wallet, keys, and security pass from the nightstand. "I was just lying here, thinking that."

  Sharon didn't say anything; her twisted mouth said it all.

  "I promise, we'll have it," he said, gently kissing her on the head. "I love you, and as soon as I save the world, we'll go and explore some part of it."

  "Call me?" Sharon said, following him out the door.

  "I will," he said as he jogged down the hall, took the stairs two at a time, and flew out the front door.

  * * *

  As he backed the Volvo from the driveway, Hood punched in Mike Rodgers's number and put him on speaker.

  The phone barely rang once. There was silence on the other end.

  "Mike?"

  "Yeah, Paul," Rodgers said. "I heard."

  He heard? Hood scowled. He liked Rodgers, he admired him a great deal, and he depended on him even more. But Hood promised himself that if the day ever came that he caught the two-star General off-guard, he would retire. Because his professional life just wouldn't get any better than that.

  "Who told you?" Hood asked. "Someone at the base in Seoul?"

  "No," said Rodgers. "I saw it on CNN."

  The scowl deepened. Hood himself couldn't sleep, but he was beginning to think Rodgers didn't require sleep. Maybe bachelors had more energy, or maybe he'd made a deal with the devil. He'd have his answer if one of his twenty-year-old girlfriends ever landed him, or when another six and a half years passed, whichever came first.

  Since the car phone wasn't secure, Hood had to couch his instructions with care.

  "Mike, I'm on my way to see the boss. I don't know what he's going to say, but I want you to get a Striker team on the field."

  "Good idea. Any reason to think he'll finally let us play abroad?"

  "None," Hood said. "But if he decides he wants to play hardball with someone, at least we've got a head start."

  "I like it," Rodgers said. "As Lord Nelson put it at the Battle of Copenhagen, 'Mark you! I would not be elsewhere for thousands.' "

  Hood hung up, feeling strangely uneasy about Rodgers's remark. But he put it from his mind as he called night-shift Assistant Director Curt Hardaway and instructed him to have the prime team in the office by five-thirty. He also asked him to track down Gregory Donald, who had been invited to the celebration— and who he hoped was all right.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tuesday, 6:10 P.M., Seoul

  Gregory Donald had been knocked down three rows from where he'd been sitting, but he'd landed on someone who had cushioned his fall. His benefactor, a large woman, was struggling to get up and Donald rolled off, taking care not to land on the young man beside him.

  "I'm sorry," he said, bending close to the woman. "Are you all right?"

  The woman didn't look up, and only when he asked again did Donald become aware of the loud ringing in his ears. He touched a finger to his ears; there was no blood, but he knew it would be a while before he heard anything clearly.

  He sat there for a moment, collecting his wits. His first thought was that the grandstand had collapsed, but that clearly wasn't the case. Then he remembered the crashing roar followed an instant later by the hit in his chest, a rolling impact that knocked him down and out.

  His head cleared quickly.

  A bomb. There must have been a bomb.

  His head snapped to the right, toward the boulevard.

  Soonji!

  Rising unsteadily, Donald waited a moment to make sure he wasn't going to pass out, then hurriedly picked his way down the grandstand to the street.

  Dust from the explosion hung in the air like a thick fog, and it was impossible to see more than two feet in any direction. As he passed people in the grandstand and then in the street, some were sitting in a state of shock, while others were coughing, moaning, and waving their hands in front of their faces to clear the air, many trying to get up or down or out from under debris. Bloody bodies lay here and there, riddled with shrapnel from the blast.

  Donald hurt for them, but he couldn't stop. Not until he knew that Soonji was safe.

  The muffled sound of sirens tore through the ringing in his ears, and Donald paused as he searched for their flashing red lights: that would be where the boulevard was. Spotting them, he half walked, half stumbled through the powdery mist, sometimes stepping suddenly and awkwardly around victims or large pieces of twisted metal. As he neared the street he could hear muffled shouts, see hazy figures in white medical coats or blue police uniforms moving this way and that.

  Donald stopped cold as he nearly walked into the wheel rim of a truck. The massive metal disk was turning slowly, shards of rubber hanging from it like dark seaweed from a galleon. Looking down, Donald realized that he was already on the boulevard.

  He stepped back and looked to the right- No. The other way. She'd been coming from the direction of Yi's.

  Donald tensed as someone grabbed his arm. He looked to his right and saw a young woman in white.

  "Sir, are you all right?"

  He squinted and pointed to his ear.

  "I said, are you all right?"

  He nodded. "Take care of the others," he yelled. "I'm trying to get to the department store."

  The woman looked at him strangely. "Are you sure you're all right, sir?"

  He nodded again as he gently removed her fingers from his arm. "I'm fine. My wife was walking there and I've got to find her."

  The medic's eyes were strange as she said, "This is Yi's, sir."

  As she turned to help someone leaning against a mailbox, Donald stepped back several steps and looked up. The words had hit him like a second blast and he struggled to draw breath into his tight chest. He could see now that the truck had not only been knocked on its side, but blown into the facade of the department store. He squeezed his eyes shut and clutched the sides of his head as he shook it vigorously,
trying not to picture what might be on the other side.

  Nothing happened to her, he told himself. She was the lucky one, they'd always known that. The girl who won door prizes. Who picked winning horses. Who'd married him. She was all right. She had to be.

  He felt another hand on his arm, and turned quickly. The long black hair was flecked with white, and the fawn-colored dress was smudged with dirt, but Soonji was standing beside him, smiling.

  "Thank God!" he cried, and hugged her tightly. "I was so worried, Soon! Thank God you're all right "

  His voice trailed off as she suddenly went limp. He moved his arm to catch her around the waist, and the sleeve of his jacket stuck to her back.

  With a mounting sense of horror, he knelt with his wife in his arms. Carefully shifting her to her side, he looked at her back and choked when he saw where the clothing had been burned away, the flesh and fabric both soaked with dark red blood, white bone peeking through. Clutching his wife to him, Gregory Donald heard himself as he screamed, heard clearly the wail that rose from the bottom of his soul.

  A flashcube blazed, and the familiar face of the medic bent close. She motioned to someone behind her, and soon there were other hands pulling at his, trying to wrest Soonji from him. Donald resisted, then let them have her as he realized that his love was not what this precious girl needed now.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tuesday, 6:13 P.M., Nagato, Japan

  The pachinko parlor was a smaller version of the ones made famous in the Ginza district of Tokyo. Long and narrow, the building was nearly the length of ten railroad boxcars laid end to end. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the clattering of ball bearings as men played the games that lined the walls on both sides.

  Each game was comprised of a circular, upright playing surface a yard high, nearly two feet wide, and a half-foot deep. Under a glass cover, bumpers and metal flippers jutted out from a colorful background; when the player inserted a coin, small metal balls dropped from the top, banging pinball-like against the arms and falling this way and that. The player spun a knob in the lower right in an effort to see that each ball reached the bottom; the more balls that were collected in the slot, the more tickets the player won. When the player collected enough tickets, he took them to the front of the parlor where he was given his choice of stuffed animals.

  Though gambling was illegal in Japan, it was not against the law for a player to sell the animal he'd won. This was done in a small room in the back, small bears earning twenty thousand yen, large rabbits fetching twice that, and stuffed tigers selling for sixty thousand yen.

  The average player spent five thousand yen a night here, and there were typically two hundred players at the parlor's sixty machines. While they enjoyed winning, few men came here to turn a profit. There was something addictive about the way the balls poured through the irregular maze, about the suspense of luck going for you or against you. It was really the player against fate, determining where he stood in the eyes of the gods. There was a widespread belief that if one could change their luck here, it would change in the real world as well. No one could explain why this was, but more often than not it seemed to work.

  The parlors were scattered throughout the Japanese islands. Some were run by legitimate families, whose ownership went back centuries. Others were the property of criminal organizations, principally the Yakuza and the Sanzoku— one a league of gangsters, the other an ancient clan of bandits.

  The parlor in Nagato on the west coast of Honshu belonged to the independent Tsuburaya family, which had run it and its predecessors for over two centuries. The criminal groups made regular, respectful overtures to buy the parlor, but the Tsuburayas had no interest in selling. They used their earnings to set up businesses in North Korea, potentially lucrative toeholds that they hoped to expand whenever unification became a reality.

  Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, Eiji Tsuburaya sent millions of yen to North Korea through two trusted couriers based in the South. Both men arrived on the late afternoon ferry, carrying two empty, nondescript suitcases, walked directly to the back room of the parlor, left with full ones, and were back on the ferry before it turned about and left for the 150-mile trip to Pusan. From there, the money was smuggled north by members of PUK— Patriots for a Unified Korea, a group comprised of people from both the North and the South, everyone from businessmen to customs agents to street cleaners. It was their belief that profit for entrepreneurs and greater prosperity for the North Korean public in general would force the Communist leaders to accept an open market and, ultimately, reunification.

  As always, the men left the parlor, climbed into the waiting cab, and sat quietly for the ten-minute ride to the ferry. Unlike other days, however, this time they were followed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tuesday, 6:15 P.M., Seoul

  Kim Hwan saw Donald sitting on a curb, his forehead in his hands, his jacket and pants covered with blood.

  "Gregory!" he shouted as he jogged over.

  Donald looked up. There was tear-streaked blood on his cheeks and in his disheveled silver hair. He tried to rise but his legs shook and he fell back; Hwan caught him and hugged him tightly as he sat down. The agent pulled away just long enough to make sure none of the blood was Donald's, then embraced him again.

  Donald's words were swallowed by his sobs. His breath was coming in gasps.

  "Don't say anything," Hwan said softly. "My assistant told me."

  Donald didn't seem to hear him. "She she was a blameless soul."

  "She was. God will care for her."

  "Kim He shouldn't have her I should. She should be here "

  Hwan fought back tears of his own as he pressed his cheek to Donald's head. "I know."

  "Who did she offend? There was no evil in her. I don't understand." He pressed his face into Hwan's breast. "I want her back, Kim I want her "

  Hwan saw a medic turn toward them and motioned him over. Still holding Donald, Hwan rose slowly.

  "Donald, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to go with someone. Let them make sure you're all right."

  The medic put a hand on Donald's arm but he wrested it away.

  "I want to see Soonji. Where have they taken my wife?"

  Hwan looked at the medic, who pointed toward a movie theater. There were body bags on the floor, and more were being carried in.

  "She's being cared for, Gregory, and you need care yourself. You may have injuries."

  "I'm all right."

  "Sir," the medic said to Hwan, "there are others—"

  "Of course, I'm sorry. Thank you."

  The medic hurried off and Hwan took a step back. Holding Donald by the shoulders, he looked into the dark eyes, always so full of love but now red and glazed with pain. He wouldn't force him to go to the hospital, but leaving him here, alone, was not an option.

  "Gregory, would you do me a favor?"

  Donald was staring through Hwan, weeping again.

  "I need help with this case. Would you come with me?"

  Donald looked at him. "I want to stay with Soonji."

  "Gregory—"

  "I love her. She needs me."

  "No," Hwan said softly. "You can do nothing for her." He turned Donald around and pointed to the theater a block away. "You don't belong there, you belong with those of us you can help. Come with me. Help me to find the people who did this."

  Donald blinked several times, then absently patted his pockets. Hwan reached into Donald's pocket.

  "Is this what you want?" he asked, handing him his pipe.

  Donald took it, his movements awkward and halting, and Hwan helped him put it in his mouth. When he didn't reach for his tobacco, Hwan took him by the elbow and walked him away, through the settling dust and increasing activity in the square.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tuesday, 5:15 A.M., the White House

  The White House Situation Room was located on the first sublevel, directly below the Oval Office. There was a long, rectangula
r mahogany table in the center of the brightly lit room; there was a STU-3 and a computer monitor at each station, with slide-out keyboards underneath. Like all government computers, the computer setup was self-contained; software from outside, even from the Department of Defense or State Department, was debugged before it was allowed into the system.

  On the walls were detailed maps showing the location of U.S. and foreign troops, as well as flags denoting trouble spots: red for ongoing and green for latent. There was already a red flag in Seoul.

  Paul Hood had arrived at the west gate of the White House and, after passing through a metal detector, took the elevator down one floor. When the door opened, his ID was checked by a Marine sentry, who escorted him to a small table that sat beside a door with no handle. Hood pressed his thumb lightly on a small screen that sat on the table: a moment later there was a buzz and the door popped open. Hood entered, walking past a guard who had checked his thumbprint against the print on file in the computer; if the two hadn't matched, the door would not have been opened. Only the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State were not subject to this security check.

  The door to the Situation Room was open, and Hood walked in. Four other officials were already there: Secretary of State Av Lincoln, Defense Secretary Ernesto Colon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Melvin Parker, and CIA Director Greg Kidd were talking in a corner, away from the door; a pair of secretaries sat at a small corner table. One was there to take notes, in code, in a Powerbook, the other to bring up any data on the computer that might be called for. A Marine was putting out coffee butlers, pitchers of water, and cups.

  The men acknowledged Hood with nods and salutes; only Lincoln walked over as soon as Hood entered. He stood just under six feet, powerfully hewn, with a round face and thinning widow's peak. A former Major League pitcher and Hall of Famer, he moved from the baseball diamond to the Minnesota state legislature to Congress quicker than his blinding fastballs. He was the first politician to get behind the candidacy of Governor Michael Lawrence, and the State Department was his reward; most agreed he lacked the diplomatic skills the job required, loved to treat the obvious like a revelation. But Lawrence was nothing if not loyal.