by James Church
Chapter One
I didn’t bother to tell Kang I was leaving. After a testy exchange at the airport with a clerk who insisted it was impossible to change the routing on my ticket, I booked the afternoon flight to Beijing and then caught a plane the next day to Pyongyang. When I walked in the door of the hotel, I was greeted with a loud shriek.
“Stay where you are!” A woman was shampooing the carpet, giving the fish a run for their money. “Don’t move. It’s wet. You’ll leave footprints.”
“Inspector?” The bird was on duty. “We didn’t know where you were, and we were getting ready to move your things out of the room this afternoon, not that you have much there. Oh, and there’s a message for you. It came about an hour ago.”
The note was from Zhao. All it said was: “2.” I went upstairs to wash my face and give Kim a call but decided to let him stew. When I came down again a little before two o’clock, the man who never blinked was standing at the front desk. He stared at me.
“I missed you,” I said. “On the plane, I was trying to remember something my grandfather once told me. It’s one of those things that if you think about too long, you can’t remember. But as soon as you stop thinking about it, you remember. Maybe if you went away, I’d stop thinking about it and then it would pop into my head.”
He didn’t have much to say to that, so I went out in front. I only waited for a couple of minutes when the car pulled up. The little man went through his routine.
“Game time,” said Zhao as soon as the door shut and we pulled away.
“What game would that be?”
“Ask Pang, why don’t you.” Zhao laughed his panther laugh. I saw the driver smile to himself.
“Is there a way we could talk, just between ourselves?” We could always get rid of his other ear, I thought. Why don’t we do that?
Zhao pressed a button on the armrest. The driver frowned.
“Is that better?”
“Fine,” I said.
“The last pieces are in place, and we are ready to put the machinery in motion. In case you hadn’t figured it out, the Russians have the northeast. The Japs have everything on the east coast below Chongjin. And I have the west coast. I don’t want anything to upset this arrangement.”
“Pyongyang?”
Zhao appeared to consider this. “You want it? It’s yours.”
“No, thank you.”
“Then stay out of the way.”
“Like Pang?”
The panther’s eyes looked sated. “Shall we mourn Colonel Pang, Inspector? Would you like a moment to grieve? It’s not such a great loss, you know. He had orders to secure the entire northern half of your country. I don’t think he would have tried to get everything all the way down to Kaesong, but one never knows what might happen in these situations. He was on the verge of sending in the stable of your sniveling defector generals he had been holding in reserve. They’ve been well treated, every need attended to. In return, they were going to help Pang stuff your country back under the imperial wing, exactly where the mandarins in Beijing think it belongs. Who can say? Pang might even have been appointed governor-general. I’ve saved you from that, and more.”
“So far, I feel no stirrings of gratitude.”
Zhao growled softly. “I told you not to go to Macau, but I know you went anyway. And then you disappeared. I don’t like that, but I’ll let it go this time if you give me what I want.” There was sweat on Zhao’s upper lip.
“And what would that be?”
“Keep an eye on Major Kim for me. He isn’t your friend. He doesn’t have your interests at heart. If he has his way, you’ll be licking his boots.”
“I doubt it. That would ruin the shine.”
Zhao reached over and touched my chest. “We have a lot in common, Inspector. We both hate to be bossed around; we both want to preserve what is best about the old ways. And neither of us gives a damn about politics. This is the time when we need to work together.” He pushed me back against the seat. “I know, you don’t think that is possible. But I do. I think we are the perfect couple.”
I slipped sideways. “You might be right,” I said. “But I need some time to think it over. You see what I mean?” I put his hand in his lap.
Zhao moved away, his face twisted in rage. He stabbed the button on the armrest. “Pull over,” he said. “Get this bastard out of my car.”
We swerved to the side of the road. The little man jerked the door open. “Get the fuck out,” he said. “Get the fuck out of the car right now.”
“Very good,” I said. “You’ve been studying.”
“Take a deep breath.” He grinned at me. “Go ahead, take a couple, while you’re at it.” He slammed the door, and the car sped away.
2
After getting out of the car, I went back to my hotel, hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on my doorknob, and tried to sleep off the memory. At six o’clock, the doorbell rang.
“Room service.”
“Go away. Look at the sign.”
“That’s for the room-cleaning staff. I’m not cleaning. I’m checking the minibar.”
Sleep was impossible, so I had the hotel arrange for a taxi to take me to Kim’s office. Under blazing lights, both tanks followed the taxi as soon as it emerged from the tunnel. The duty officer at the entrance to the building almost wouldn’t let me in. I wasn’t in the mood for barriers. I bared my fangs. Duty officers don’t like trouble; it makes for work. He waved his pencil at the stairs. “Try not to have a heart attack on your way up.”
“You don’t look so good, Inspector. Did Zhao make a pass at you?” Major Kim stood up and walked around the desk to greet me.
“If you won’t do something about Zhao, maybe I will.” I sat down in the green chair.
Kim didn’t seem pleased. “Zhao’s a Chinese citizen. If something happens, our friends in Beijing will be unhappy. They will say we are endangering their countrymen, and that they must send in protection. They’re waiting for an excuse. Stay away from him.”
“Me stay away from him?” I laughed; it sounded like a cypress tree in a forest fire. “Zhao murdered Colonel Pang. That Beijing doesn’t mind?”
“So, you know about Pang’s demise. Word gets around, I guess.” He pointed out the other chair where he wanted me to sit, the brown one. “Everything is calculus, Inspector, a matter of mathematics, of complex equations. For example, according to the etiquette of nations, Pang was not supposed to be here. He was here illegally, you might say, skipped the normal entry procedures, so his death has no standing. He was running operations that never officially existed, using people without faces to obtain results that were never written down. Zhao, on the other hand, is a legitimate businessman representing the best interests of his country. He has documents. And he has money.”
“He rips out the lungs of people who get in his way.”
“A businessman, like I said.”
“He’s an animal. Worse than that, actually.”
“Yes, worse than that. And if you care to go to the east coast, I can introduce you to his Japanese counterpart. I won’t list the body parts that are his focus.”
“What about the Russian in the northeast?”
“Him we can handle, for the moment anyway. My big fear is that he will get himself eliminated and then we’ll have to deal with someone who has more brains than muscle.”
“Out of curiosity, how did Zhao get Pang?”
Kim studied my face, looking for clues. How much did I know? “Lack of attention, I guess. A momentary lapse, that’s all it takes. You might say it was a surprise. He was lying in bed, listening to music on his earphones. Maybe dozing. When the killer left, the CD player was set on continuous loop. A macabre touch. It would probably have gone on forever if we hadn’t broken the door down and found him there. The machine had been plugged into a wall socket. Him, too, as a matter of fact.”
“Did you look to see what CD it was?”
Kim shook his head. “I didn’t l
ook, but from what I heard, it sounded like Chinese opera.”
What a bunch of sadists. “He hated Chinese opera.”
The television in the corner of Kim’s office was on, and the 8:00 P.M. news was ending. Kim started to say something more, but I shushed him. The announcer read a report about “unfavorable days” due to “geophysical factors” and warned that those afflicted with high blood pressure or other maladies needed to take precautions on November 1, 4, 9, 12, and 15. I took a scrap of paper out of my pocket and made a note to myself.
“You don’t believe that stuff, I hope, Inspector.”
“No, but you’d better. It’s what you told me to figure out.”
“Which was what?”
“The SSD code. They’re using the television, right under your nose.”
“Impossible.” Kim moved back to the safety of his side of the desk.
“Absolutely impossible. But they’re doing it anyway. I worked on it while I was traveling. Something to pass the time.”
“You only went to Macau.”
“True, but even a short flight can sometimes seem long. At the end of every month, the television announces what days in the coming month are bad for health. It’s a regular feature. No one thinks twice about it. Only old ladies pay attention, them and doting mothers.”
“And?” The major finally sat down.
“And the bad-health days are apparently the days that are bad for your health, literally. Those are the days of the SSD operations, or maybe when they pass around the plans for the next set of moves. Go back and look at those dates. Take the first date in the series, and apply it to the announcement of the lectures at the Grand Study Hall each month. If the first unfavorable day is the third, for example, you look for lecture number three.”
“Are you crazy? That’s unbelievably complicated.”
“No, it’s pretty simple. Ask me when we have more time, I’ll tell you about complicated operations.”
“So, I look through the records, then what? What does it tell me?”
“That you’ll have to figure out yourself. I didn’t even try to get that far—too many possibilities. If I had to guess, I’d guess it’s something about the lecture, or the lecturer, or the room where the lecture is being held.”
“Or something else entirely.”
“Could be. Meantime, you’d better hurry. The new series of lectures begins tomorrow.”
“It’s too simple. It’s too complicated, and that’s what makes it too simple. That’s how everything is up here. Madness, pure madness.” He gave me a wary look as he reached for the phone and pressed a button. “Get me the domestic radio transcripts for the last day of every month.”
Television, too, I mouthed.
“Television, too,” he said into the phone. “I want everything here in thirty minutes. . . . What? Go back six months; no, wait, go back a year.” He hung up. “You’re sure about this? Not pulling my string?”
“When I do that, you’ll know.”
A half hour later, a man brought in a folder. “You want it, you got it.”
“Sit.” Kim waved the man into one of the plastic chairs near the wall.
I stood up to leave. “No, you stay, too, Inspector.”
Kim went through the transcripts. He used a pencil to make marks here and there, but mostly he bit on the end of it.
“You can get lead poisoning that way,” I said.
“You can get lead poisoning from a bullet, too. Only I don’t think anyone in the Grand Study Hall will be armed tomorrow. Let’s hope not, because no one on our team will be. I’m not handing out firearms until I know who is doing what to whom.” He looked at the transcripts again. “I don’t know if I see a pattern or not. Cracking codes is not part of my job description.”
“You’re supposed to be in Paris, eating fine food and recruiting college girls.”
“Don’t remind me.” He put the transcripts to one side. “I hope you don’t have a picnic already planned for tomorrow, Inspector.”
“Not at all. As a matter of fact, I think I’m coming down with the flu.”
“Well, drink plenty of fluids tonight, because you lead the team tomorrow afternoon to the lectures to find out what is going on. There isn’t time for a long investigation, so we might have to jump from gathering facts to shooting people in a hurry.”
I coughed. “With what? You said no firearms.”
“Not tomorrow. Maybe the day after that.”
“Ever have the flu that makes your joints ache? That’s what I’ve got. Most likely, I’m in the most contagious period right now.”
“Tough for you and your joints.”
“We’d better be careful. It could be the start of a pandemic. Maybe I picked up something in Macau eating monkey parts. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Forget it, Inspector; I’m not giving you sick leave tomorrow. I don’t care if you infect the whole country.”
I coughed in Kim’s direction. “How can I lead a team I’ve never met? It’s not even assembled yet. We need at least a couple of days to get to know each other’s quirks.”
“Your quirks alone could take years to explain. Besides, a team of strangers doesn’t bother me. I’m not worried about people not knowing each other. I’ll go through the files tonight, and we’ll notify the ones we pick at the last minute. It’s much better that no one has an inkling about this operation until the last possible minute. If the first they know about it is when they get to my office at the crack of dawn tomorrow, there’s no chance someone will mention it to someone else on the phone. That should cut the possibility of SSD picking up a reference to the plans to zero. You,” he pointed to the man who had brought in the files, “shut up if you know what’s good for you. And you,” he turned to me, “I know won’t talk to anyone. You don’t have anyone to talk to.” He looked at his watch. “Get some rest. I don’t want you falling asleep during the lectures. See you in the morning, early. Think about the operation overnight while you feverishly toss and turn. There will be a car in the usual place, at four A.M. If the night clerk asks where you’re going so early, tell him you have a business meeting with an Egyptian investor. Everyone thinks the Egyptians are crazy anyway.”
“I’m not on your payroll, Major. Don’t forget that.” My joints really were aching. I sneezed twice on the way out.
3
Not counting Kim, there were four of us standing around the table pretending to be awake. Dawn wasn’t for another hour, and it was raining hard. The others were already there when I came through the door. That made me uneasy. I don’t like walking into a group that has already bonded. If this hadn’t been about SSD, I would have stayed in the hotel and sipped tea all day. There was a stand on Yonggwang Street not far from the hotel where they sold special tea. The doorman said he could get it brought to my door if I was too sick to walk over there, but it would cost me. To deliver a cup of tea? I told him to forget it.
“This is Inspector O,” Kim said to the group. “It’s his operation. You follow his orders. If you don’t, you’ll live to regret it. Or maybe you won’t live that long. Don’t try pushing the envelope.” Kim turned to me. “You know these guys?”
I looked at each one of them carefully. “No. All from where?”
“What do you care?” Kim said. “They’re here, and I picked them. That’s what matters.” This was going to be an unpleasant morning all around. My joints ached, my head ached, and Kim was a pain in the ass.
“Their pedigrees don’t interest me,” I said. “I really don’t care if they’re all hicks from the hills of Kangwon. I need to know what organization spawned them. Training differs; skills differ; operating philosophies differ. In some organizations, they’re taught to duck behind a woman if shooting starts.”
“You kidding me?” Kim sounded alarmed. “Up here? I thought you people chewed barbed wire for snacks. Who teaches ducking?”
“That would be SSD.” I watched the other three. Two of them smiled. I smil
ed back. It was the third one, the one who smirked, who worried me.
“Well, go ahead; introduce yourselves. You,” Kim pointed at a short man, “tell the Inspector something about yourself. Not much, just enough to give him a sense of who you are. Then the rest of you do likewise. For the next few days, maybe longer, you’ll be like brothers.”
“Maybe some of us don’t get along with our brothers.” The man from SSD looked at me. “Isn’t that right, Inspector?”
“Off to a good start,” I said.
The short man shook his head. “You want me to talk or not?”
“Sure I do; go ahead.” So the SSD man knew who I was; he knew that my brother and I didn’t get along. He probably knew plenty more. As far as I was concerned, this operation had died before it got out the door.
“You listening?” The short man raised his voice a notch. “Because if you’re not interested, I’d as soon save my breath.”
“You’re right. I’m all of a sudden uninterested. It’s better if no one knows anyone else. Instead, we’ll use the time to go over the operation.” I didn’t have a clue what Kim thought we were going to do. Not that it mattered. “There are lectures today at the Grand Study Hall. The first one starts at one P.M. Lecture Room Six. We go in and sit.”
“What are we looking for?” The SSD man took out a notebook.
“No notes!” Kim nearly leaped across the table. “You listen, that’s all.”
“Actually,” I said, “that is the interesting part of this whole thing. We don’t know what we’re looking for. Most of the time, the lectures start at four o’clock. Someone needed this one earlier, and we need to figure out why the hurry.”
“Can we take notes when we get in the room, or what?”
“On the lecture? Sure.” I looked at the list from the radio. “If you’re interested in ‘the application of technology to take care of the boiler water and heat net supplementary water through the separate lime softening method,’ or how about ‘the relevance of nanotechnology to self-replicating systems’? I don’t know for sure which one of those we’ll get.”
The short man looked glum. “How long do we have to sit there?”
