Threat Level Black

by Jim DeFelice

  Fisher hadn’t heard the expression drop a dime since his days as a nugget agent investigating the Mob. It had a nostalgic feel which he couldn’t help but admire.

  According to both the NSA and the CIA, the Russians believed that they had broken up a robbery by a group of mafiya, a story supported by the versions of the incident supplied by Dr. Park and his security agent bodyguard. The Korean government had apparently accepted that explanation. But Fisher wasn’t about to point that out to Hunter, who clearly wasn’t in the mood to accept anything short of ritual suicide as an apology for the mission’s failure. For some reason known only to Hunter, the fact that the CIA had taken over the project failed to mollify him; he considered a screwup a screwup. Fisher thought this an unusually altruistic opinion for one so committed to advancing in government service.

  “You’re off the case, Fisher,” said Hunter.

  “What a shock,” said Fisher.

  “I’m not putting up with your sarcastic back talk any longer.”

  “Does that mean I can hang up?”

  Hunter was silent. Fisher thought he heard him murmuring to himself. It sounded as if he was counting to ten, though Fisher knew for a fact that Hunter couldn’t count that high.

  “Homeland Security has requested you be assigned to them,” said Hunter finally. “I’m granting their request.”

  “What?”

  “Work with Macklin on his task force.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I don’t kid, Fisher.”

  “Where exactly am I supposed to report?”

  “Macklin is up in New York somewhere. Use your alleged detecting skills and find him,” said Hunter. “I swear, Fisher, if it were up to me, you’d be on a Coast Guard cutter in the Bering Strait, guarding icebergs.”

  Roughly twenty hours later Fisher arrived at National Airport in Washington, D.C., bedraggled, grouchy, and in need of a shave—pretty much top form for any special agent. Technically he was off duty, en route to the special Homeland Security–DIA task force in the New York Metropolitan area. But Justice took no holiday. So he wasn’t surprised to find her screaming when he walked through the lobby at National Airport.

  “Fisher. FBI,” he said, flashing his credentials at the two airport cops holding Justice by the arms. “What’s up?”

  “We caught her smoking,” said one of the officers. “Then she went ballistic.”

  “I did not. You grabbed me—”

  Fisher pointed at her. “You got cigarettes?”

  “That’s a federal offense?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is,” said Fisher. He turned to locals. “You have an interview room, right?”

  “Well, uh, yeah, but usually we just give a citation and confiscate the smokes.” He held up an entire carton of cigarettes.

  “I’ll take them as evidence,” said Fisher. He recalled now that the interview room was down the corridor behind the plain white door marked Private to his right, and took a step toward it.

  “I’m not going with you,” said the woman.

  Fisher turned and looked at her. He knew her type well; all he had to do was squint slightly and hold up the carton of Salem Lights—no accounting for taste in a felon—and she shut up. The airport cops, however, began burbling about procedures.

  “Not a problem. It’s my case,” said Fisher as he nudged the suspect along, heading down the corridor and into the interview room.

  Where he pulled out a chair, sat down, and lit up one of his own cigarettes.

  “You really have to watch yourself,” he told Justice, whose full name was Maureen Justice and whom Fisher knew, albeit vaguely, as the traffic helicopter pilot for WKDC, a local AM radio station. “Salem Lights? People have been shot for less.”

  “At National Airport?”

  “Damn straight. I mean, granted, most of the people around here who have guns are federal employees, so odds are that they wouldn’t hit you even if they emptied their magazines, but you never know.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Maureen. She took the carton and removed the top pack, which she’d opened earlier. “I owe you one, huh?”

  “Big time,” said Fisher. “And don’t think I won’t collect.”

  “Anytime, Andy,” she said, blowing a perfect circle into the air. “Anytime.”

  Chapter

  3

  Blitz had somehow managed to forget that he had invited Howe to have lunch with him Monday until the Secret Service people called up to his office. He decided to have him come up, even though going out for lunch would be impossible: The NSC had scheduled a meeting on Korea at one, and he was supposed to go over to the Intelligence Council immediately afterward. And he was just about to take part in a phone conference with the head of the CIA and the field agent who had managed to botch the snatch of the E-bomb scientist in Moscow.

  In fact, he was deep in conversation with the CIA people when Howe walked into the office.

  “Sit, sit,” he told him, waving him into a nearby chair as he listened to a report of the botched mission. “Mozelle will have something sent in.”

  Howe shrugged and sat down.

  “He was attending the sort of conferences that you would attend if you were interested in disabling electrical systems on a wide-scale basis,” said Madison, the CIA officer in charge of the operation. He’d been asked whether the scientist was really in a position to know about E-bombs. “We have some blanks on his background, but he could have helped design a weapon. Whether he would know about its distribution or not is an open question. And we haven’t turned up anything on delivery systems related to this.”

  One of the CIA desk officers picked up Madison’s thread, recounting NSA intercepts related to the scientist. The North Koreans had accepted the Russian explanation that a rogue mafiya group had tried to hold up the foreigners and the local militsiya had saved the day, thanks to a phone tip from the restaurant, which the Korean bodyguard claimed to have made but which the U.S. had been unable to trace. Nonetheless, there were sure to be repercussions for the scientist as well as the security people.

  “What about the DIA reports?” asked Blitz. “Do we have anything new?”

  He glanced over at Howe on the chair nearby. The colonel was wearing the same suit he’d worn the week before. More than likely it was the only suit he owned.

  “We’re working on a new batch of intercepts,” one of the NSA people said over the conference line. “We should have them in time for the afternoon NSC session.”

  “But we’re agreed there’s a threat?” said Blitz.

  “There is a threat. The question is how severe.”

  “Where would they use the weapon?” he asked.

  “Drop it over Seoul and the place goes dark for six months,” said one of the CIA experts.

  “And if they can smuggle it over here?” asked Blitz.

  “Same thing. But we have nothing to indicate that they have, beyond the DIA’s suspicions.”

  Blitz frowned and leaned back in the seat.

  Howe shifted uneasily, waiting for Blitz to get off the phone and consciously willing himself not to listen to the conversation.

  He’d made up his mind Sunday that he wasn’t taking the job. And it had nothing to do with the money.

  He’d taken a long walk around the National Mall on Saturday. Nearly deserted because of the late-winter cold, it had helped remind him of the importance of what happened in Washington. The memorials to Lincoln and Jefferson, the stark Washington Monument, the FDR Memorial, the sleek sadness of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—duty had a somber weight here, an importance beyond the lunches and VIP tours.

  Standing in front of the Reflecting Pool, gazing at the Lincoln Memorial, he had asked himself why he was hesitating to make a decision. Ordinarily he made decisions quickly and firmly. It was partly natural inclination, partly training as a pilot. You set your course and then proceeded.

  And yet, he had hesitated over this. He had to admit it: Even tho
ugh he knew he didn’t want the job, the lure of the money and the trappings of power were enticing.

  As was the sense of duty.

  Howe watched Blitz on the phone. The national security advisor alternated between frowning and nodding his head, until finally he signed off from the conversation.

  “Very well,” said Blitz. “Get back to me then.”

  Blitz swiveled around and slapped the button on the panel behind his desk, killing the connection. Then he jumped up and extended his hand to Howe. The effect was comical, and Howe felt himself smiling despite his best effort to maintain a serious demeanor.

  “How are you, Colonel? Have a good weekend?”

  “It’s been fine,” said Howe. “How about yourself?”

  “Going crazy,” said Blitz. “Korea has us shaking our heads. One second it looks as if it’s going to implode; the next it seems ready to launch World War III. We’re trying to stay on top of the situation.” He paused, and Howe thought he had decided he’d said too much. But then he continued: “The question is how much risk to take in retrieving information. How to make it proportional to the payoff.”

  “Sure,” said Howe, though he didn’t understand precisely what Blitz was referring to.

  “Colonel Howe,” boomed the President’s voice from the open doorway. “Take the job yet?”

  Howe felt the blood rush from his head as he jumped to his feet. President D’Amici took his discomfort in stride, patting the side of his arm and then pointing with his other hand at Blitz.

  “Listen, Professor, I want a briefing on that incident in Moscow,” the President said.

  “From me or Anthony?”

  “Just you,” said the President. “Before our other meetings.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “I have to go,” said the President as one of his aides appeared in the doorway behind him. “We’ll talk. Good to see you, Colonel.”

  Howe nodded, then turned back to Blitz.

  “That was completely off the record,” said Blitz.

  Howe, who had no idea what it was anyway, nodded. “I’ve come to a decision about NADT. I’m not going to take the job. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  Blitz’s expression went from serious to pained. “Don’t make a final decision yet. Wait to hear from the board of directors. They haven’t even made you an offer.”

  “It’s okay. My mind’s made up.” Howe suddenly felt tremendously relieved. “You know what, I don’t really feel like lunch. Is that all right? I’m not insulting you or anything?”

  “Well, no—uh.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot,” said Howe, and pulled his suit jacket forward on his shoulders and walked from the room.

  “Damn it,” said Blitz after Howe was gone.

  As he sat down the phone buzzed; he looked at the handset a second, then picked it up.

  It was the CIA director again.

  “Charlie Weber and Jack Hunter are here with a new e-mail from the Korean scientist,” Anthony told Blitz. “You’re going to want to see it.”

  Chapter

  4

  Dr. Park had not been able to eat since coming back from Moscow, nor had he slept. The hours stretched forward like the sheet of a bed pulled taut, then tauter still. He began to hear buzzing in his ear; he thought he heard whisperings behind his back.

  And yet, the director and higher authorities seemed to have accepted the Russian explanation for the incident: that it was a robbery or perhaps intended kidnapping. Dr. Park had agreed with Chin Yop’s version of the attack, which had the security agent fending off several thugs before the police arrived. The men who questioned him seemed skeptical, but Dr. Park stuck to the story, as Chin Yop had advised. To change it would only guarantee disaster.

  When he returned to work, no one questioned him and, surprisingly, the director did not send for him. But this provided no relief for Dr. Park. On the contrary, his dread grew. His breath shortened. His palms were so sweaty that he could not hold a pencil, and his fingers jittered when he tapped at the keyboard of his computer. He saw shadows at the periphery of his vision. They disappeared when he turned his head, only to return when he looked straight ahead.

  There were moments when Dr. Park managed to step back from himself, or at least from his fears; he wondered when he had become such a different person, wondered at why he had risked so much to get away in the first place. And then inevitably he would answer to himself that he hadn’t risked anything at all: His life here had always been forfeit. The few luxuries he enjoyed—a better bed than most, a better roof, certainly more food—those were the Great Leader’s luxuries, and could be taken away at his pleasure.

  Dr. Park knew that the regime was dying; he could see the signs of chaos slowly building around him. Soldiers on the street did not answer the commands of their superiors; this fact in itself was a shock, nearly outside the realm of possibilities, yet it was happening all the time.

  When the regime fell, so would he. The only hope was to escape to the foreigners.

  That was logical, and logic was supposed to be a scientist’s solace. And yet, these thoughts did not comfort him; fear and dread grew until at every sound he could not think, at every question from a coworker he nearly confessed to his treason.

  And so when the director sent for him he felt relieved. Finally he would find resolution. He did not welcome death, much less the torture he assumed would proceed it. But he hated the anxiety roiling inside him even more. He got up and followed the messenger, walking quickly through the black tunnel that surrounded him.

  “You are here,” said the director as he was shown inside.

  Dr. Park bent his head. He began to tremble, for though he welcomed resolution he was not a brave man.

  “Well, after the excitement in Moscow, I am glad to see that you are in good health,” said the director.

  He kept his head bowed. It was possible that he would be shot in the lot outside. This had happened some years before to an engineer, or at least was rumored to have occurred; Dr. Park himself had not seen it.

  Would the bullets hurt his head, or would death come so quickly that he would not feel it?

  A tingling sensation flared at the base of Dr. Park’s shoulders, spreading upward like the licking flames from the bottom of a pile of leaves. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he thought he could feel the bullets that would kill him, striking at the very center of his skull.

  “The camp at Dae Ring Son is a good one, though bare,” said the director. “There are not many troops there, no more than a dozen at this time of year. But your needs will be met and the tests will not last long….”

  What exactly was the director saying?

  Dr. Park could not hear the words through the cloud of pain and fear covering his head.

  Tests?

  Dae Ring Son? That was a small camp near an abandoned airfield to the north, not a prison.

  “You will leave immediately?” said the director. He phrased it as a question.

  Slowly, Dr. Park forced his eyes open.

  His treachery had not been discovered.

  His treachery would never be discovered.

  “Dr. Park? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir,” he managed. “Of course. I can leave at whatever instant is desirable.”

  The director smiled indulgently. “Go and gather your things. A driver will accompany you. You are our representative. Remember, your behavior is our honor.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” Dr. Park bowed deeply.

  “You honored us in Moscow,” the director added.

  “I did my best.”

  Dr. Park could manage to push nothing else from his mouth, and instead retreated from the office.

  Chapter

  5

  “The NSA has a good read on the e-mails,” CIA director Jack Anthony told the President. “We’ve verified that Dr. Park is at the complex. It’s possible that there is a bomb there, or at the airfield two miles away. Getting him and the
weapon would be an intelligence bonanza.”

  “It would be an important break,” said Thomas Brukowski, the Homeland Security secretary. “Because, from the intelligence we’ve been getting on this E-bomb plot, something’s going to shake out within a week to ten days.”

  Blitz closed his eyes. Brukowski was always saying that something was always going to “shake out” within a week to ten days. Blitz had seen the same intelligence that he had, and the prediction was absolutely not justified. In fact, the DIA and Homeland Security team investigating it had been spinning its wheels for more than a week without coming up with anything new.

  Now that he had been belatedly informed of the scientist and his offer to deliver an E-bomb—the latest promise—Brukowski naturally assumed that North Korea was the source of the weapon his people were hunting for. He was by far the most gung-ho member of the cabinet, which the President had gathered to discuss the National Security Council’s unanimous vote that the scientist be “rescued.”

  “I don’t think that scientist is worth the risk involved in trying to get him out,” said Myron Pierce, the secretary of defense. “Too many lives would be on the line, and the potential for blowback is just too huge over there right now.”

  “We have a plan that minimizes the risk,” said Anthony. “We may need some logistical backing, but it would be minimal. We’d use two CIA paramilitary agents, with some Special Forces backup. That’s it.”

  “Korea is way too volatile,” said Pierce.

  “I concur,” said Wordsworth Cook, the secretary of state. “We can’t do anything to upset the Korean teeter-totter.”

  “What did you have in mind, Jack?” Blitz prompted, trying to get off the negative track.

  “Infiltration from the coast. If we could deposit them via a submarine…”

  Pierce scowled. “They’ll be picked up before they get a mile from the coast.”

  “We have infiltrated agents before,” said Anthony. “The only downside is how long it will take them to get to the target area. I’d prefer using an airdrop, but, given the defenses, it doesn’t seem practical.”