The Poksu Conspiracy (Post Cold War Political Thriller Book 2)

by Chester D. Campbell

  Thoughts about unification brought the sudden realization that Captain Yun was most likely on his way to the government building where the talks were being held. He had eavesdropped on a party of South Korean delegates last night. Mostly they had gossiped about representatives from the other side, a nervous Nellie who chain-smoked constantly, one with a bulbous, alcoholic nose, and a militaristic hard-liner they dubbed the "Shit General." But he also picked up comments on the changed climate over previous attempts at joint discussions, and the fact that things had gone so well there would be no need to delay the ending beyond today's final session. It would be home to Seoul tomorrow.

  That prospect quickened his pulse and switched his thought processes into fast forward. As soon as he confirmed Yun's destination, he would obtain a necessary piece of information and put his plan into action.

  Conflicted by the uncertainty of what he might face, Captain Yun read the newspaper with little interest, then sat quietly at the edge of the group of police officers in the sparely appointed anteroom. They perched on institutional gray folding chairs with hard metal seats and chatted about more intriguing assignments they had worked, such as providing security for heads of state like Mikhail Gorbachev.

  Only half-listening, Yun reflected that his safest move would be to stick with these officers who had been trained to handle people like Hwang Sang-sol. It would soon be lunchtime. He could go out with them to eat. On further reflection, he realized that would be only a temporary fix at best. He couldn't hang around a group like this for long. If the deadly assassin was after him, his only defense would be to stay on the alert, to remain prepared to counter any threat. It would not be simple, by any means, but he did not consider it outside his range of competence. He had spotted Hwang following him to the building. Hwang had spoken to someone at the reception desk in the lobby, then left. Yun doubted that he would have any problems on the streets of Pyongyang in broad daylight. Actually, he saw his hotel room as the biggest threat. He had left a few "telltales," as they were called in the intelligence business, items placed in precise arrangement whose disturbance would signal an intruder.

  "Is there a Captain Yun in here?" a prim-looking woman dressed in black inquired from the doorway.

  He stood up. "I'm Yun."

  "You have a telephone call," she said.

  She led him into the office that handled details of the conference. It was the busiest place he had seen, with several women typing up transcripts and reports and summaries. She handed him the telephone from a cluttered desk.

  The frown could be detected in his uncertain tone. "Captain Yun."

  "This is Mr. Han from your hotel," said a friendly voice. "There's a man here who says he needs to talk to you, if you can come over. He's here in the lobby. Shall I tell him you're coming?"

  Yun's brows were knitted. Was this a ruse, the voice of Hwang Sang-sol attempting to lure him back to the hotel? He had never heard the man's voice. It did sound a bit like the desk clerk who had sold hm the stamps. Maybe the old partisan, Chung Woo-keun, had thought of something he neglected to mention yesterday. "Can you describe the man for me?" Yun asked.

  "He's an old man. White hair. Said he had some information for you."

  It had to be Chung, Yun thought. Hwang wouldn't know about him. "Tell him I'll be right over."

  He returned to the anteroom in a rush and grabbed his coat off the back of a chair.

  "The commie cops want help with a homicide, Captain?" one of the officers asked with a grin.

  He shook his head without smiling and replied with a curt, "Got to get back to the hotel. Somebody to see me."

  Outside the building, his eyes swept the area carefully for the assassin in the black coat and red scarf. He saw no sign of either his pursuer or a taxicab. They were not nearly so plentiful as in Seoul. The Special Security Group had its own police van, but he had opted to come and go on his own schedule. The hotel was only a few blocks. He started walking at a hurried pace and soon came to a wide, multi-lane intersection with no traffic signal. Looking in both directions, he saw nothing approaching but a military vehicle, apparently a staff car, which was to his right. He moved quickly to the middle of the street and paused to check on the car. It had slowed as if to allow him time to cross the far lanes.

  A cautious man, Yun would normally have waited and waved the car through, but he was anxious to learn what the old soldier had for him and started across. He made a quick glance in the other direction and was startled to hear the car's engine rev up. He looked around to see the vehicle hurtling toward him. He made a herculean effort to throw himself back in the other direction, but it was a futile gesture. The staff car swerved toward him at the last moment. It struck with a bone-crunching blow that snapped his neck, killing him instantly, tossing his body high into the air. The last thing he saw before the murderous bulk of the fender slammed into him was a familiar face with a mustache beneath the military cap of the driver.

  Hwang, alias Tao, held the turn a few moments after swerving into the fleeing figure, then recovered, straightening out on the cross-street. A quick glance around showed a few people along the sidewalks who had stopped to gawk at the crumpled body in the middle of the boulevard. He noted two cars and a truck in the vicinity, none closer than a block away. He turned again at the next intersection. Seeing no one in pursuit, he slowed to a more conventional speed and headed in the direction of the large, nondescript building where the army car had been parked. Following his customary procedure, he had the auto back in its place before it had ever been missed. He tossed the cap onto the seat where he had found it and walked rapidly away from the building.

  After making certain no one was following him, he set a steady course for the hotel. Catching the young desk clerk alone, he explained in his most persuasive manner how he had left something important out of a letter he dropped in the mailbox. While pushing a large bill across the counter, he asked if he could look through the box for his letter.

  The young man gawked at the bill with widened eyes and pointed to a nearby doorway. "Turn left just through that door and it will lead you in here."

  Behind the counter, Hwang found an open wooden box that caught whatever was pushed through the slot in front. He sorted through the envelopes quickly. There was more here than he had expected, particulary with Seoul addresses. Apparently many of the delegates had mailed letters home to have a Pyongyang postmark as a memento of their historic meeting. But none had the name Yun in either the recipient's address or return address. He noted the large envelope going to an English name at a Seoul business but the return address meant nothing. Captain Yun had cleverly written the name and Pyongyang address of the old partisan, Chung Woo-keun. He would never know how he had gotten the last laugh.

  A few minutes after Yun left the conference building, one of the policemen in the anteroom noticed he had left his newspaper behind. As the officer picked it up, the letter addressed to "Yun Se-jin" in Seoul dropped out and fell onto the chair. He glanced at it and turned to the sergeant seated next to him.

  "Looks like the Captain forgot a letter he intended to mail."

  The sergeant shrugged. "Give it to the Superintendent. He'll see that it gets back to him."

  Chapter 51

  When the North Korean police who investigated the hit-and-run accident found they were dealing with a South Korean police officer, they knew immediately they faced the possibility of trouble in major proportions. They rounded up the few witnesses remaining in the area. Most had no desire to get involved and had hastily gone on about their business. As often occurs in such cases, the three people who volunteered to give their accounts differed widely in their perceptions, agreeing only on the description of the vehicle.

  The first was a middle-aged man, a minor bureaucrat who glared through thick glasses with a look of practiced stoicism. "The driver was going much too fast for this kind of weather," he said. "He skidded on the icy pavement and ran right over the man. Then he fled like a frightene
d rat."

  The lieutenant in charge, a tall, beady-eyed policeman named Hae, thanked him and turned him over to one of the other officers to get details of his identification, where he could be contacted later if need be. He was cautioned not to talk about the case because of its possible ramifications.

  In many ways, Lieutenant Hae was not much different from the victim whose death he was investigating. Like the Captain, he was strictly a policeman, with no interest in politics, no burning passion for ideology. He believed in enforcing the law against anyone who ignored it, regardless of his position. Hae had traditional roots in the countryside. Where the two men differed was in Captain Yun's diligent, dogged, almost fanatic refusal to give up a case short of its solution. The Lieutenant was more pragmatic, perhaps fatalistic, accepting that some cases were simply not meant to be wrapped up and tied in neat bundles.

  Hae turned to the small, thin woman who had been ushered before him, clutching a large brown cloth tote bag. She worked at a clothing factory on the outskirts of the capital.

  "I saw what happened," she said in a testy voice. "The poor driver did his best to avoid it. He swerved away from the direction the man was walking. It didn't help. The man jumped right back the same way, like he was being pushed by an evil hand. There was no way the driver could have missed him."

  The last witness was a youth just out of high school. He was a scruffy-looking boy dressed in faded jeans and dirty sneakers, his jacket worn thin at the elbows and his hair too long.

  "And what did you see?" asked Lieutenant Hae, wary of the boy's appearance.

  "I was standing right over there," he said, pointing to the curb opposite the point of impact. "The driver slowed down as if to let the man cross, then sped up and deliberately rammed into him. He was clearly out to kill the man."

  Hae scowled and concentrated on his notes. A government employee and a longtime factory worker would swear that the driver was guilty at most of poor judgement and leaving the scene of an accident. A youth in the best position to observe what happened claimed it was a case of vehicular homicide. This was going to require much more digging.

  The army staff car was located within half an hour, parked a few blocks away outside a building of the Ministry of Transportation. The left front fender was badly dented and shreds of Captain Yun's clothing, plus what appeared to be bits of his flesh, clung to its sharp edges. The driver was found inside at a meeting where he had been closeted for the past three hours. There were a dozen witnesses who would so testify. A quick check of the steering wheel found no fingerprints. The hooligan had likely worn gloves because of the cold. Had someone used the car without authorization, accidentally struck the South Korean, and panicked? Lieutenant Hae wasn't sure.

  Police officers flooded the Transportation Ministry and adjacent buildings, seeking anyone who had seen the staff car being taken or returned. No one came forward to report observing either act. One obvious problem was that the car had been parked at the end of the building, from which it could not be seen easily. This section contained only restrooms and vacant offices.

  While still at the scene, Lieutenant Hae was notified that he had an important call from a high official. He hurried to a nearby office to use the telephone.

  "This is So Song-ku with the Central Committee of the Korean Workers Party, Lieutenant Hae. You are investigating the hit-and-run death of a Seoul police captain, correct?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "What have you concluded?"

  "I haven't completed my investigation," Hae said, "but there are some troubling circumstances. One witness swears the driver deliberately hit the captain."

  "Listen carefully to what I have to say, Lieutenant," So, a.k.a. the Dragon, said. "You will disregard this circumstance and conclude it was a tragic accident. This is vital for your country."

  Lieutenant Hae knew declaring Yun's death a homicide could create a real quagmire, but his job was to call it like he saw it. "But if—"

  "There are no 'buts,' Lieutenant. If you value your career and your future, you will do as I say. If you don't, you can expect dire consequences. Do I make myself clear?"

  The officer had seen the fate of people who defied the orders of high officials. It was not pretty. He barely hesitated. "Yes, sir. I understand."

  The investigation was completed with speed and efficiency up to the point of identifying the hit-and-run driver. It went into the books as a tragic accident perpetrated by an unknown party, most likely a worker from the Transportation Ministry who saw an opportunity to use the car for a quick trip nearby. The senior delegate from the Republic of Korea was informed as soon as Yun's body had been identified and his death certified by a physician. Within two hours, he was handed the final results of the investigation. Lieutenant Hae was brought in to answer questions by the delegates and the commander of the South Korean police contingent, Superintendent Pak. Hae detailed the evidence, reluctantly omitting the youth's contention of obvious intent to kill.

  In the end, everyone seemed satisfied that the North Koreans had done a thorough and professional job on the case. Officially it was left open, in the event a witness should step forward or the unkown driver should give himself away with a careless remark. But, from a practical standpoint, everyone knew it had reached a dead end and this was likely to be the last heard of the matter.

  The government of the Democratic People's Republic expressed its official regret and offered sympathy to the Yun family. President Kwak's government accepted the results of the inquiry and offered its condolences to the Captain's wife and son. Neither side wanted anything to interfere with the salutary results of the bilateral conference, so the incident was downplayed and the meeting ended with congratulations from all sides.

  A ROK Air Force transport was quietly dispatched to Pyongyang and returned Yun's body to Seoul without publicity. The death was covered in a small sidebar item to the main conference story in the following morning's Koryo Ilbo. According to the news report, a traffic accident in Pyongyang had claimed the life of Korean National Police Captain Yun Yu-sop, who was helping provide security for the South Korean delegation to the unification talks. No details were given on the accident.

  Washington, D.C.

  Chapter 52

  Burke glanced at the small brass calendar clipped to his wristwatch band. It was two weeks until Christmas, which was not difficult to determine with the relentless flow of carols from the hidden speaker in the elevator. He was the only passenger, not unusual for 7:30 a.m. Though it was his habit to start the day early with a morning walk, he enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, accompanied by the morning newspaper, and did not normally arrive at the office before eight. But he knew Jerry Chan's call would be coming through shortly, and he was anxious to learn if Captain Yun had returned from Pyongyang. Today's newspaper indicated the conference had wound up successfully Sunday afternoon. It was now Monday evening in Seoul.

  He found the suite of executive offices strangely silent, as though it might be a holiday. Evelyn wouldn't arrive until eight. He left his briefcase on his desk and walked down the deserted corridor to Nate's office.

  "Good morning, Mr. Hill." Toni Carlucci greeted him in her usual good humor. "Coffee's about ready. Shall I pour you a cup?"

  "Thanks, Toni," he said. "I just finished one on my way in. Guess I'd better hold off a bit." He didn't want her to think he preferred to wait for Evelyn's coffee, though, of course, he did.

  "You can go on into Mr. Highsmith's office," she told him.

  Burke found Nate behind his desk with a newspaper. "Did you read about the Pyongyang conference?" Burke asked as he dropped into a chair opposite the desk.

  "Sure did. Also saw where the Japanese are still eating up the news out of Seoul about the language study. Get your family home yesterday?"

  "Yeah. That house has been awfully quiet the past few days. Won't be that way any longer."

  Nate grinned. "I hope you savored the silence while it lasted."

  "I'll have it to
remember later. With Lori just getting home, though, the timing wasn't too good on this trip to California. It'll just be overnight, of course. She took it better than I expected."

  "I've already had a call from Kingsley Marshall this morning," Nate said. "He's laid on a request with NSA to be on the lookout for any calls to Korea from the Korean-American Education Foundation."

  Burke had discussed his idea with Marshall and General Thatcher before leaving Camp David. Recalling Dr. Vickers' nervousness at his innocent questions during their first meeting, Burke planned to stir up enough trouble that the foundation director would feel compelled to call his bosses in Korea if he was involved in something shady.

  Burke's thoughts were interrupted by the distinctive electronic tone coming from Highsmith's private line. It was Jerry. Nate activated the scrambler, then said, "Burke is sitting here dying to know what you've heard. I'll put you on the speaker."

  "Good morning, Burke," said Jerry's voice over the small speaker on Nate's desk. "I presume you're talking about Captain Yun. Haven't heard that first word yet. I saw in the news where the delegation was back, but didn't have time to read the whole story. If he doesn't call tomorrow, I'll try calling him."

  "Okay," Burke said. "Keep me posted."

  "Duane picked up a lead we're checking on. He's become a regular customer at that maggolli house across from the Reijeo headquarters. He and the PR man from over there guzzle like fraternity brothers. He told Duane this evening that they may face a difficult PR situation at the Chuwangsan Plant. He didn't volunteer any more and Duane didn't want to push him too hard."

  "Any idea what it could be?" Nate asked.