by Larry Bond
Especially when they’re women, Thera realized. She decided she wouldn’t mention the slap; it would only complicate things further.
“I’m sorry about the cigarettes. It won’t happen again.”
“Yes. That would not be good.”
Thera left her things in the plastic bag until she got to the hotel. When her roommate Lada Rahn went to dinner, she poured everything out on the table. The fact that she wasn’t allowed to smoke inside the complex took away her easiest cover for planting the bugs. Hopefully they wouldn’t be as strict or as health conscious in North Korea.
The dummy cases were intact; it didn’t seem as if any had been opened. Thera decided she would examine them anyway. She slipped her fingernail beneath the tab of the first unit, pushing gently. The top popped off and shot across the table to the floor.
As she got up to get it, she heard her roommate putting her card key into the door. Thera scooped everything into her pocket just as the door hit against the sliding dead bolt Thera had secured to keep her out.
“Sorry, I locked it,” said Thera, going over. “I was just going to take a shower.”
The roommate was a chronic giggler and reacted with one now. Thera let her in, then retreated to the bathroom to sort things out. As she was replacing the device she’d opened, she noticed that the edge of the chip had turned red.
As had all of the others.
7
DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA
Ferguson had just taken a seat at the restaurant when his satellite phone rang. He smiled at the waitress, who was handing him a menu, then took out the phone, expecting it to be Jack Corrigan, the mission coordinator back at The Cube, whose timing was impeccable when it came to interruptions. But instead he heard Thera’s hushed voice tell him that she needed to talk to him.
“Cinderella, why are you calling?” Ferguson glanced up at the waitress who was approaching with a bottle of sake.
“I need to talk to you,” repeated Thera.
“You need out?”
“I need you to meet me.”
“Where and when?”
Two hours later, Ferguson walked into the lobby of the Daejeon Best Western carrying a suitcase. He went up to the reservation desk and checked in as a German businessman, carefully starting his conversation with a small amount of German—nearly all he knew—before switching to a pigeon English. When the clerk took his credit card, he turned and looked around the marble-encased lobby. The balcony above was empty. Aside from the doorman, the place seemed empty, which, Ferguson hoped, it wasn’t.
The clerk returned his card and gave him a key. The room was right down the hall.
“Actually, I’d like something on an upper floor. Above,” added Ferguson. He put his thumb up.
“Above?”
“As high as you got.”
Perplexed, the clerk started to explain that he had given the gentleman one of the best rooms in the hotel.
“It’s not the best if it’s not what I want,” said Ferguson.
The clerk conceded and found him a room on the twenty-third floor. Ferguson thanked him very much, assured him that he could carry his own bag, and headed for the elevator. The car arrived instantly and began to glide upward.
It stopped on the third floor. Ferguson took a step back as the door opened. Thera stepped inside, practically out of breath. Neither of them spoke until the door closed and the car began moving upward.
“What’s going on?”
“The sensors found plutonium at the waste site today. I don’t know where.”
“Is that all?”
“Ferg, this is serious. All of the tags were red. I was only there for a few hours. There is a lot of material there.”
She handed him a small manila envelope.
“All of them?”
“All of the ones I had with me. They’re all red.”
“Maybe there’s a leak in the recycling storage area,” said Ferguson.
“No.”
Thera explained what had happened.
“The tags were put in a plastic bag along with the rest of my stuff. They were taken out to Norkelus, who was over by the rail cars at the time. He came straight to the administrative building. They never got near the stored rods.”
The elevator stopped. Thera stepped back against the wall, eyeing the short American who came into the car. He gave her a goofy smile, then turned and poked the button for twelve.
Ferguson stared at the bald spot on the back of the man’s head, trying to will some sort of identity out of his brain. Finally as the car started upward, he asked if the man knew where the party was.
“Party?” The man turned around. “What sort?”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were Alsop, Yank friend of mine.” He shoved his hand out toward the man and introduced himself as Bob Jenkins, an Australian in the city on business. “Alsop’s around some place, sniffing out the party.”
The shorter man shrugged.
“Alsop, Mr. Party,” said Ferguson. “You one of the teachers?”
“Teacher?”
“The English-language teachers. Convention down the street.”
“No, I’m just a technician for a machinery company,” said the man.
He started to explain that he’d come to Korea from the States to check on an instrument the company had sold the Koreans some months before.
“Software has to be tweaked every few weeks,” said the man as the door opened. “Gets old real fast, I’ll tell you.”
“If I find the party, I’ll let you know,” promised Ferguson.
The door closed.
“Seemed legit,” Thera said.
“Probably.” Ferguson leaned against the back of the elevator. This was the one contingency they hadn’t planned for: finding nuclear material in South Korea.
“What are we going to do?”
“Did you leave a set?”
“No.”
“Do it tomorrow,” said Ferguson.
“All right. I’ll leave them overnight, then pick them up on our last day. How will I get them to you?”
“Leave them under your mattress when you get back and go out for dinner. We’ll get them. If something goes wrong, send an e-mail to your mother back in Greece and tell her you’re having a lovely time.”
“OK.”
“Don’t call, Thera. And do not come looking for me.”
“This was important.”
“Yeah, I know. Listen, this could just be a screw-up in the gadgets. They all went red? Sounds like a mistake.”
“You really think that, Ferg?”
Ferguson shrugged.
The door opened. Ferguson picked up his bag. Thera put her hand out to stop him.
“What if I have to talk to you again?”
“Don’t.”
Thera took the elevator back to the fourth floor. As the doors opened she took a breath, then plunged out into the hallway, walking quickly to the stairs a few steps away. Five minutes later, she was back on the street, wending her way to the bar where she was to meet Julie Svenson and some of the others from the inspection team.
“There you are!” said Julie as she slipped into the booth near the back. “We called your room, and Lada said you had gone out. That was an hour ago.”
“I got a little confused on the street,” said Thera. “Then I asked for directions.”
“Your first mistake,” said one of the scientists.
“True,” said Thera. “Very true.”
8
DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA
“Where’ve you been?” Rankin asked when Ferguson slid in next to him at the bar.
“Visiting the temples. I’m thinking of becoming a Buddhist.”
“You’d have to give up meat. And booze.” Rankin took a sip of his Coke. “Corrigan was looking for you. You didn’t answer his call.”
“Oh, gee. Must’ve forgotten to turn the phone on again. Tsk, tsk.”
Rankin smirked. He liked Corrigan even less tha
n Ferguson did.
“There’s a complication,” said Ferguson.
The bartender came over. Ferguson leaned on the bar, eyeing the bottles of Western liquor. “Scotch,” he said finally. “Let’s try the Dewar’s, on the rocks.”
“He doesn’t speak English, Ferg.”
“Dewar’s,” said Ferguson. “That’s Korean.”
“So what’s going on?” asked Rankin.
“The sensors say there’s plutonium somewhere in the waste site.”
“What, here?”
“Maybe it’s a screwup, maybe not.”
Ferguson glanced across the bar. There were about a dozen other people, all Japanese businessmen, gathered in different knots, all stooped over their drinks and conversations.
“So what do we do?” Rankin asked.
“Hang tight. Thera’s planting some more tags. She’ll pick them up day after tomorrow; we’ll get them from the hotel and fly them home.”
“You tell Corrigan?”
“No sense telling him yet.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t want to be wrong on this. Washington’ll freak.”
“That’s it?”
“Uh-huh.”
Thera had let the tags get out of her possession. Because of that, the results were automatically suspicious; she really had no way of knowing where they had gone. If he told The Cube, Ferguson would have to explain what had happened. It wasn’t a major screwup, given the circumstances, but he didn’t trust Corrine or the CIA’s deputy director of operations, Dan Slott, to know that. Corrine especially.
The bartender brought over a glass and the bottle of Scotch. Ferguson took the glass and handed it to Rankin.
“What’s this for?”
“In Korea, you always fill the other guy’s glass.”
“I don’t like Scotch.”
“You should’ve thought of that before I ordered it.”
9
SOUTH CHUNGCHONG PROVINCE, KOREA
The Korean security guards accompanying the inspectors called Thera “Cigarette Queen,” snickering among themselves as she tagged along behind a group of technicians setting up monitoring equipment at the reception building. She acted like she didn’t understand the jokes, helping the techies lug the gear over and unpack it. It was gofer work, but it suited her just fine.
On her third trip back to the truck, she veered in the direction of the embedded rail line used to ferry material to the recycling holding area. Thera slipped her hand in her pocket and took one of the tags from the shielded envelope she’d hidden there. Then she got down on one knee and pretended to tie her shoe. As she did, she slid the thin tag into the narrow furrow next to the rail.
Thera took a breath, then started to rise. All of a sudden she had a premonition: The guards were about to arrest her.
She sensed—she knew—that they were right behind her and that in the next second would grab her. The sensation was as strong as anything she had ever felt in her life. Thera held her breath, but nothing happened.
She took a step. Nothing. Another step. Nearly trembling, she continued on her way to the truck.
It’ll get easier as it goes, she told herself, walking back with the bag she’d been sent to retrieve. She made a show of being cold, stamping her feet and rubbing her hands. One of the engineers took the hint.
“You ought to go over to the administration building and warm up in the lounge,” he suggested.
“Good idea.”
Thera had always despised the helpless-female routine, but the role came in handy now; her shivers were so convincing she almost fooled herself. She did the shoelace trick again, this time with the other foot, planting a tag in another track, then presented herself at the door of the administration building, where the two young guards were happy to let her inside.
Yesterday she’d been a prisoner, now she was a princess; the male engineers in the monitoring station practically tripped over themselves as they rushed to show her to the lounge. They found tea and some cookies, telling her in halting English that it was unusual to have such beauty in a person so intelligent. They thought she was one of the scientists; Thera didn’t correct the mistake.
She was just getting up to go back outside when one of the guards from the day before appeared in the doorway to the lounge. With a stern face, he beckoned her out into the hallway, then smiled, opening his palm to reveal a pack of cigarettes. He gave them to her, then motioned with his head for her to follow him outside.
Thera sensed a trap.
“Gomapjiman sayanghalkkeyo,” she told him. “No thank you. I really can’t; we’ll get in trouble.”
“No trouble. Ssssh,” said the man, putting his finger to his lips.
Trust him or not?
Fear swept over her again. Thera forced herself to nod, forced herself to go with him.
The guard practically bounced his way outside, leading her around the corner of the building and out toward the yard, where some empty train cars were parked.
“Here,” he said, sliding a cigarette into her hand. He cupped one as well.
Thera waited until he lit up, then did so herself, puffing with her hands hiding her face.
The spot was perfect, out of range of any of the surveillance cameras but strategically located. She had no trouble planting a tag as they finished their cigarettes, partners in crime.
And so it went. By the time the inspection team broke for lunch—a catered affair in the administration building—Thera had planted all of the sensors. She spent the rest of the day doing odd jobs for different members of the team, trying to get a feel for the plant’s routine so that she would have no trouble picking up the tabs tomorrow.
The ride back to the hotel was unusually quiet, the scientists and engineers feeling the effects of jet lag. Thera stared out the window, going back over the site’s layout in her mind, comparing it to North Korea’s. There’d be more guards there, but the video coverage would undoubtedly be poorer.
The cigarette trick would work.
What if it didn’t?
She needed a new gimmick.
“You must be thinking of a statue,” said Neto Evora, leaning forward from the seat behind her. Evora headed the ground sampling team; he and his crew had spent the day in the recycling area shoveling random half-kilogram piles of dirt into boxes.
“Why a statue?” said Thera.
“Because your eyes seem to see beauty,” explained the Portuguese scientist.
“Thank you.”
“Maybe you’ll have dinner with us.”
“Sure.”
“We’re going into Daejeon and get real food,” Evora added. “We deserve a little reward for all our hard work.”
“I didn’t work very hard.”
“But you deserve a reward anyway,” said Evora, his eyes twinkling.
The reward Evora had in mind was himself. A half-dozen members of the inspection team went to a noraebang or Korean karaoke joint, a bar with small soundproof rooms and karaoke machines where groups could sing, party, and dance.
Thera was one of two women with the group, and she found herself the focus of most of the attention. Evora kept pouring her drinks and urging her to sing. Six foot two, he had curly black hair and eyes that seemed to tunnel into hers when he spoke. He had a handsome face and wonderful shoulders, and moved reasonably well on the dance floor. Not as good as Ferguson had but almost.
Thera found herself debating whether she should take him to bed. She decided not to, but later, back in her room listening to her roommate’s snores, she fantasized about the Portuguese scientist, wondering what his arms would have felt like around her, imagining his finger brushing her breast.
Sex was an accepted part of spycraft if you were a guy. Someone like Ferg probably had sex all the time when working undercover.
Not that she knew that for a fact.
Things were somewhat more ambiguous for women. Someone like Slott would certainly not approve . . . Then again h
e wouldn’t ask, as long as you provided the results.
Evora wasn’t interesting enough to keep her attention, and Thera started visualizing herself retrieving the tags from the site. She began seeing guards everywhere, watching her.
Her mind began to race, unable to stop the permutations of fear multiplying in her brain.
They’d seen her, filmed her already, were waiting to spring it on her tomorrow.
Norkelus knew she was lying about the cigarettes.
She’d be caught in North Korea. She’d be tortured and locked away forever.
Thera tossed and turned in her bed, the sheets and covers wrapped around her, squeezing sweat from her pores. And then the phone was ringing with their wakeup call, and it was time to get up.
10
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
With the president and some of his key advisors away, the West Wing of the White House where Corrine had her office was relatively quiet. This meant fewer interruptions for Corrine, and by four o’clock she was actually caught up on her work or at least as caught up as she ever was. She called over to The Cube to check on the First Team’s Korean operation.
“This is Lauren,” said Lauren DiCapri, the on-duty mission coordinator. “Who’s this?”
The phone system in The Cube would have already identified Corrine, but she told her anyway. “So what’s going on?”
“Nothing. We’re good.”
There was a strong note of resentment in Lauren’s voice; she belonged to the camp that resented Corrine as an outsider and impediment to their jobs.
It was a big camp, and included Ferguson and CIA Deputy Director of Operations Daniel Slott. The arrangement itself was part of the problem. The lines of authority were somewhat hazy and had been so even before Corrine’s arrival. The CIA people who worked with Special Demands answered to Slott for administrative purposes and had to work with him on mission details. The Special Operations people assigned to the First Team—like Rankin and Guns—had two masters, the military and Special Demands, while the Special Forces detachment and its assorted support units had their own colonel, Charles Van Buren.