Koreans believed that drinking parties were meant for one purpose, to get drunk. Pak had laid in a goodly supply of soju, the potent national beverage, along with a few pork dishes garnished with green onions, garlic and sesame leaves. He invited two close friends, and the party began early. As the evening wore on, the men took turns pouring each other cups of the clear liquor distilled from sweet potatoes. In the accepted tradition, the drinkers would hold their cups in both hands while the host poured. They would down their drinks quickly, sometimes in a single gulp, then the bottle would change hands.
Well before midnight, the thoroughly drunken celebrants sprawled inert on their sleeping mats. They might be said to have achieved that treasured Korean goal of balance and harmony in the extreme. Gradually they stirred enough to burrow beneath their thick blankets and slept.
Sometime around two o'clock in the morning, Pak awakened at the sound of a motorcycle moving slowly through the alley. He lay there for a few moments, debating whether to turn onto his back or roll over to the other side. Then he concluded the pressure on his bladder would not allow him to get back to sleep in either case. Struggling to his feet, he carefully picked his way through the rice paper door. Steadying himself with shaky hands feeling for the sides of tables that would hold mounds of fabric come daylight, he reached the entrance and was about to step out into the alley when an odd sight brought him to a halt. He blinked bloodshot eyes and stared. Someone, dressed in black, appeared to be unloading crates from a motorcycle trailer at the front of Mr. Chon's. A fruit delivery in the middle of the night, in the dark? A few breaths of the cold air helped to clear his vision. He saw the man reach into the trailer and lift out something obviously quite heavy. As the figure struggled with its burden, Pak observed...arms? Legs? They disappeared inside the stall. Pak knew that Chon always kept an iron grating pulled across the front and locked at night. Obviously it had been opened. Then the indistinct figure returned, jumped on the motorcycle, and headed off down the alley.
It struck Pak immediately that the man had not closed the iron grating. He had heard no sound, and the grating made an unmistakable clatter when pulled. Waiting a moment to be certain the motorcycle would not turn back, he scurried across to the front of Chon's stall. A fresh splotch of blood on the ground where the trailer had sat stopped him cold. It also produced instant sobriety. Heart pounding as he became seized by a sense of fear and foreboding, he rushed for the nearest telephone.
In the dream, Captain Yun stood before a panel of four prosecutors, an unlucky number in Korea. Each bore the full-faced scowl of Prosecutor Park, and each in turn berated him for wasting their time with absurd theories about conspiracies. The final one snarled. "This has the obvious look of satanism. You must answer for it to the NSP." Then the telephone rang on the table before them. The first Park picked up the phone, listened, then said with a sinister grin, "It's the NSP." Oddly, the phone rang again, while Park was still speaking into it.
Yun roused himself from the warmth of the ondol floor beneath his sleeping mat as he realized the telephone ring was for real. He always left the phone on the floor nearby at night. He grabbed it and said, "Captain Yun."
"Sorry to disturb you, Captain. This is Lieutanant Rhee."
Yun blinked his eyes in the darkness and squinted at the clock. The red LED numbers glowed 2:30. Rhee was assigned to a patrol unit at the Namdaemun Station. His men responded to calls received on the 112 emergency phone number.
"What is it, Lieutenant?" He was hoping for some simple explanation that would quickly return him to the warmth of the ondol, under-the-floor brick flues that carried the warmth from a wood fire in the kitchen. Maybe his dreams would strike a happier note the next time around.
"A short while ago, we received a call from the Namdaemun Market area. The caller reported unusual activity around one of the stalls. He had seen a man on a motorcycle with a trailer attached unloading crates."
"What's so strange about that?" Yun asked, irritated. That sort of thing went on all the time, though admittedly not so much at this hour of the night.
Rhee ignored the interruption. "It seems he also unloaded something that appeared to have arms and legs. When the caller investigated, he found evidence of blood in front of the stall."
Yun was now wide awake, a quickening beat in his chest. "Lieutenant Rhee, was it Mr. Chon?"
The surprise was obvious in Rhee's voice. "You expected it? It was Chon all right. His body had been dumped inside the stall. It's a bloody mess. I knew he was one of your contacts, so I—"
"Did anyone disturb anything? Have you sealed off the area?"
"Of course, Captain. My men are well acquainted with the procedures for handling homicides. Nothing has been touched. We have three men guarding the scene."
"Yes, of course. Thank you, Lieutenant. You did the proper thing." He was hoping to smooth over any slight the officer might have felt. "I'll be there as quickly as I can."
For a moment, he sat in the dark and shook his head. I sealed his death warrant, he thought. I should have told him to forget it.
"What is it?" Sun-ok asked, one elbow propped on the hard pillow.
He got up and reached for his clothes. "I have to go. It's a homicide. Nothing to do with Se-jin." Whenever one of the infrequent night calls came, his wife would immediately start worrying about their son, now a police lieutenant. Yun wondered if she still worried about him, also. She had been an obedient wife and a good mother. There was no great burning desire between them as the young people seemed to think necessary these days. But they were comfortable together and respected one another. By Korean terms, certainly, and perhaps by any other, it was a good marriage. "Go back to sleep, yepo," he told her, stifling a yawn. "I should be back in time for breakfast."
Lieutenant Rhee directed the broad beam of his battery lantern down at the disheveled mass of butchered humanity. It was even worse than Yun had imagined. There were fingernails missing, one eye gouged out, ugly cuts on different parts of the body, signs of a smashing blow to the head. That was probably what killed him, Yun decided. This could have been the work of only one person, the man known as Hwang Sang-sol.
"Are you ready for me, Captain?" asked a voice behind him.
He turned to see the police photographer, a lanky, youthful officer with a bored expression, camera about his neck, tripod with lights slung under one arm, an aluminum case like a small carry-on bag in his hand.
"Go ahead," Yun said, glancing back at the tragic figure sprawled in his favorite corner. He would miss the old man.
While he waited for the photographer to complete his series of shots taken from various angles, Captain Yun questioned Lieutenant Rhee and the officers who had found Mr. Chon. He was told about Pak Tong-hui and his friends in the market stall across the way, the sight Pak had witnessed in front of the fruit stand. Where had the old merchant been slain, he wondered? Hwang must have been the man on the motorcycle.
"I think that should do it, Captain," the photographer said, gathering his equipment together.
"You'll have prints on my desk this morning?" Yun asked.
"Bright and early."
"Thank you." Yun turned back to Lieutenant Rhee. "Shine your light down here again and let me get a closer look, please."
He turned the old man's pockets inside out and found them empty.
"Everything taken? It looks like he resisted the robber a bit too vigorously, doesn't it?" Rhee said.
Yun replied in an icy tone. "It looks like he encountered a brutal murderer." He added silently, his eyes fixed on the wounds, by someone adept at torture.
When he turned the body to one side to check Mr. Chon's back, he noticed something protruding from the collar of his shirt. Leaning closer, he saw it was a piece of folded paper. Yun pulled out the paper and opened it to find a note. He read:
For he who asks questions, this is the answer.
If there had been any doubt before, the note eliminated it. The message was meant for him. He
felt sure it was from Hwang Sang-sol. The only thing he couldn't be sure of was whether Hwang had learned the identity of "he who asks questions." He had no doubt that was the reason for the torture. Had Mr. Chon begged for mercy? From the looks of the body, he had found none. Had he cracked in the end? Yun felt an involuntary chill ripple down his spine.
"What did you find, Captain?" Rhee asked.
Yun shrugged. "Only a receipt," he lied. "Probably fell from one of the crates." He gestured toward the stack of wooden boxes against which Chon's body was crumpled. He was not interested in answering any more questions, nor did he see any benefit to sharing details of the troubling investigation with Rhee. Unobserved, he slid the note into his pocket as he stood up. "We'd better get this wrapped up, Lieutenant. Some of the merchants around here get started quite early."
"How well I know. And I don't want to get a lot of rumors running around the market. We'll catch enough hell as it is about not protecting against robbers."
"It would probably be best not to mention the butchered condition of the body," Yun said.
"Sure. The less said the better, as far as I'm concerned. I'll caution all of my men."
Yun was not interested in any more pressure on himself, either, until he had been able to sort this out. He felt even more certain now that Hwang was the hit man of the conspiracy. But he had just lost his only link to the assassin. He had no idea who Chon's contact had been. A previous check of the National Police computer had turned up nothing. If Hwang had run afoul of the South Korean criminal justice system, it had been under a different name. The same was true of Interpol. Of course, he could have used any of various names according to the time and place. There was still another possibility, however, one the old man had mentioned in their first conversation. The NSP likely had a file on Hwang, may even have used his services in the past. To get anything out of them would take a request directed through the Minister of Home Affairs, who was responsible for the Korean National Police. From the standpoint of proper police procedure, he knew that was what he should do. But professional pride and personal prejudice swayed him away from it. He was reluctant to concede the necessity for going outside the police bureau, and he had no desire whatever to become involved with any machinations of the Agency for National Security Planning.
As he drove back home through the sparsely traveled streets, he returned to the critical question, the one that had been weighing most heavily on his mind. Had Mr. Chon revealed his identity? He was aware that t'ai chi taught ways to resist the crippling effects of pain. But considering the appearance of the body, it would seem to have required a superhuman effort. He had to accept the possibilty was quite strong that Hwang would know a police captain named Yun was looking for him. So what would he do? He would start looking for the policeman. And he wouldn't waste any time doing it. He had certainly moved quickly enough to eliminate Mr. Chon.
Yun parked his car and looked around the street with its small houses crowded together in rows like so many peas in a pod. Maybe it wasn't as modern as the newer high rise apartments that stretched endlessly nearby, but he abhorred the institutionalism they represented. It would be like living in an office building or, worse, in a prison. He would keep his small house and the sense of independence it afforded. Then it occured to him that it might also provide an opportunity to pick up the trail of Hwang Sang-sol. If Hwang should come looking for him, it would be here at his home, not at the police bureau. Yun decided to arrange for a twenty-four-hour surveillance of the neighborhood. He might have to expand his task force, but it shouldn't take more than a week. If Hwang were bent on tracing down the man "who asks questions," he should make his move by that time.
Flying West to the Far East
Chapter 19
Burke Hill and Jerry Chan took a Saturday morning flight out of Dulles International to San Francisco, where they would connect with a direct flight to Seoul. Adding up all the time zone changes, it would put them in Korea late on Sunday. That would give them time to get settled in before the reception at the U.S. Embassy Monday evening. The bulk of the business travelers, including congressmen, staffers and upper-level bureaucrats, didn't dawdle when it came to the dawning of a weekend. Most had managed to escape Washington the previous evening, so the plane was well shy of a full load. Thanks to Lori's efforts, Burke and Jerry acquired a three-seat row for themselves. They left the middle seat vacant to make room for briefcases, reading material and assorted paraphernalia after they were airborne.
Jerry looked around as the big jet poked its probing nose through a high, thin overcast. "What did you bring along to read?"
"A manual," Burke said, reaching into his briefcase.
Jerry frowned. "What kind of manual?"
"This." He held up a paperback spy novel by Tom Clancy.
Jerry laughed. "He's too high-tech for an old country boy like me. I go for the down-to-earth, blood-and-guts stuff." He reached into his carry-on bag and pulled out the latest Robert Ludlum thriller, a tome that would cost a fortune if sold by the pound.
"Let's hope we don't run into anything like either of them," Burke said, rumpling his forehead. "Did you have a chance to spend some time yesterday with your new office staff?"
"Yeah. I told them to be packed and on standby. I'll call as soon as we find a place to hang our hats."
The captain's voice interrupted with word that they had reached cruising altitude, and Burke relaxed, leaned back to sip his drink and reflect on the three staffers who would be joining them in Seoul. Brittany Pickerel had made a strong impression on him. She was drawn from Worldwide's research department, a talented young woman with experience in opinion polling and demographic analysis, the usual areas of interest for public relations practitioners. But she also possessed experience in other fields more suited to the Amber Group's interests. She had come to Worldwide via a short trip down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, where she had worked the past few years for the National Security Agency. NSA had sent her to school at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, where she learned to read, write and speak Korean. Well versed in the art of subject research, she was skilled at locating the most arcane references.
A small girl in her late twenties, Brittany was rather soft-spoken, hardly the pushy type, but there was an intensity about her that made people stop and listen to what she had to say. "When she gives you a report or an analysis," one of the account supervisors had told Burke, "you're sure she knows what she's talking about." There was nothing wrong with the way she looked, short, dark hair, slightly upturned nose, dark eyes that might have been brown or black, it was hard to tell which. The only downside Burke heard about was her perfectionist penchant for correcting people's grammar and minor factual inaccuracies. It gave those who lacked complete confidence in themselves a sense that she was ridiculing them. Some men were turned off by her.
Duane Elliston would serve as account executive for the American Council for Business in Korea and Bartell Engineering, a firm in the final phase of work on the Taesong nuclear power plant. Burke respected Nate Hightower as much as any man he had ever known, but in this case he thought Nate was letting his relationship with an old friend cloud his judgement. But there could be only one man at the top, and Nate was the man. Burke had agreed to do his best to get along with Duane, and that was precisely what he intended to do. But he would keep a sharp eye on him. The eternal vigilance principle had served him well up to this point.
Although Duane's weird outlook was what immediately came to mind when Burke thought of him, he was aware that the ladies had a different impression. Duane was an average size young man with considerably better than average looks. He had a darkly handsome face that girls obviously found attractive, despite a bad habit of looking down his nose that some took for condescension and Burke thought pure snobbery.
The last member of the Seoul office staff was Travis Tolliver, though his co-workers usually called him "Mr. Tolerable." When anyon
e asked "how're you doing, Travis," his reply was always "tolerable." He was a media specialist, adept at handling both broadcast and print. A lanky, laconic Texan, he preferred cowboy boots and a Stetson, but he had reluctantly agreed to adopt a more traditional style in Seoul. He had put in several years on a Dallas daily newspaper before switching to television. After a stint in the newsroom, he had moved to the production side, getting Worldwide's attention with an award-winning documentary. He would be the lone Seoul staffer with no link to the Amber Group. He was also the only one married and would be accompanied by his wife, Zo. Where she got that name, Burke had no idea. He only knew she was a rather plain looking woman with long, brown hair and a reputation as a cook who could outdo some of the famous TV chefs. Travis said she was looking forward to learning the secrets to Korean cooking.
At San Francisco, crowds of travelers moved in both directions through the endless corridor that linked the concourses. As they rumbled along one section on the rubber tread of a moving walkway, Burke saw a young woman up ahead struggling to keep up with a large suitcase and a small boy and girl. The suitcase was not much of a problem. The boy was something else. He seemed unable to cope with the idea of standing still and letting the traveling tread do all the work. He could picture Lori in that position a few short years from now.
Burke and Jerry stopped in a coffee shop to kill some of the hour before the boarding call for their Seoul flight. Though they had already eaten lunch on Mountain Time, hungry passengers coming from other directions or making shorter flights were crowding into the restaurant. They found a corner table beside a row of windows overlooking the flight line. Both ordered coffee. At one side, they could see several large aircraft linked to telescoping jetways like huge winged insects hooked up for transfusions.
The Poksu Conspiracy (Post Cold War Political Thriller Book 2) Page 12