by Larry Bond
“No.”
“You need to talk to me?”
“Dan does. Listen—”
“I’ll call back.”
Ferguson hung up, looked at his watch. Guns wouldn’t be up for several hours. He decided he’d let him sleep; they weren’t supposed to meet until the afternoon anyway.
Ferguson turned off the phone, gathered his gear in an overnight bag, then left. Outside, he took a cab to a hotel near the science museum, checked in, then strolled downstairs to the coffee shop. When he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he went out on the street and caught another cab at random, waving the first one off, and took it a few blocks to a park they’d scoped out the other day where he had a good view of the surrounding area.
He dialed into Slott’s number but didn’t get an answer, so he called back over to The Cube.
“Where have you been, Ferg?” asked Corrigan.
“Hello to you, too, Jack. Where’s Slott?”
“Seoul called me—”
“Yeah?”
“They were supposed to meet you on the train, and you didn’t show up. They thought you were dead.”
“Tell them I jumped out the window.”
“Hang on. Slott’s standing right here.”
“Ferg, what’s going on?” said Slott when he came on the line.
“I was about to ask you the same question.”
“You found bomb material.”
“Lauren didn’t tell you?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“The tags were hot. All of them the first day, one the second. We didn’t find the material itself. I have an idea where it might be, though. I’ll go back tonight.”
“No. I don’t want you going anywhere until you hear from me.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I really don’t feel like discussing this with you right now.”
“Well maybe you better,” said Ferguson.
“At the moment, I don’t want to do anything that will jeopardize Thera.”
“How is this going to affect her?”
“I understand you contacted her—”
“No, she contacted me. Look, Dan, if you want to second-guess me, fine, but I’m a little cold right now, so why don’t we do it some other time?”
Ferguson glanced around, making sure no one was near.
“I’m not second-guessing you, Ferg,” snapped Slott.
Ferguson, realizing he was feeling a little cranky himself, remembered he’d forgotten to take his morning dose of thyroid-replacement medicine. He reached into his pocket for the small pillbox he carried, and slipped out the three small pills.
Amazing how such a small amount of chemical could have so much control over a person.
Ferguson recounted what had happened, essentially repeating everything he had told Lauren before going to sleep a few hours earlier.
“The tag that went red the second night was the one next to the entrance to the low-level waste area,” added Ferguson. “I want to get a look at it. I’ll bring a gamma meter in, look around, take some soil samples, plant some more tags.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet? How long do you want me to wait?”
“Until I decide what I want you to do.”
Ferguson put his head back on the bench and looked at the thick layer of clouds overhead. He exhaled slowly.
As supervisors went, Slott was generally reasonable; Ferguson couldn’t remember being second-guessed, let alone being jerked around like this.
“This is a bad decision, Dan,” said Ferguson finally. “You’re not thinking this through.”
“Why is this a bad decision?” snapped Slott.
“Because they could move the material.”
“I’m not debating this with you.”
“Does Seoul know about all this?”
“Not yet.”
“You telling them?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I don’t think we should get them involved. They sent a couple of rookie bozos down to Daejeon and blew my cover. I don’t think they can be trusted.”
“That’s not really up to you, is it?” snapped Slott, instantly defensive.
“You sure they don’t know about this already?”
“Good-bye, Ferg.” Slott cut the line.
19
P’YŎNGYANG AIRPORT
A gust of wind rushed into the plane as the steward folded the 737’s forward passenger door back. Thera, standing directly behind Dr. Norkelus, hunched her shoulders together under her parka to ward off the cold, watching as a boarding ladder was rolled across the concrete toward the airplane. The metal stairway, a throwback to the 1950s, groaned and shook ominously as Norkelus stepped onto it.
“Come along,” Norkelus said to Thera under his breath. “Let’s look professional.”
Two men in heavy military overcoats stood at the bottom of the steps, their right hands welded beneath the visors of their caps in salute.
Norkelus, who did not speak Korean, addressed them in English. The men apparently didn’t understand what he was saying, for they responded by gesturing in the direction of one of the two large buses that were parked nearby. A short woman in an oversized parka stepped from the bus and began walking slowly toward them, taking tiny steps, her head bowed as if she were a beaten dog.
By now a good portion of the inspection team had come out of the plane and formed a small knot behind Norkelus. Most stared at the nearby three-story terminal building, where a large photo of North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-Il, returned their gaze.
P’yŏngyang Airport was the country’s main international airport, but it typically saw no more than four flights in any given week. No other aircraft were parked on the expansive concrete pad in front of the terminal. A half-dozen old Russian airliners, turboprops mostly, and all showing signs of serious neglect, stood in a row by the taxiway closer to the runway, or the place might not have seemed like an airport at all.
“You will board bus, please,” said the translator, looking at her shoes as she spoke.
“I am Dr. Norkelus,” said the director. “Please tell our hosts we are happy to be here.”
“You will please now board bus,” said the woman.
Norkelus, slightly confused, began shepherding his people toward the bus. Two of the techies stayed behind to supervise the unloading of the equipment. This bothered the two military men, and it took quite a while for Norkelus to explain through the translator that the protocols called for the equipment to remain in the team’s custody and care. The words regulations and our orders seemed to impress them finally, and they stopped complaining. But then came a fresh problem: Some of the gear was too bulky to fit in the bottom luggage compartments of the bus. A pair of military vehicles were finally called to transport the boxes.
During this entire time, the bulk of the inspection team remained on the bus. Thera, whom Norkelus wanted to “chronicle the events of the trip,” was among the handful of exceptions. She stood a few feet from the inspection team leader, shivering in the cold. Finally, with the gear loaded and the military leaders satisfied, Norkelus boarded the bus, and the inspection team rolled out . . . to the terminal building, all of two hundred feet away.
The inspectors were led to a set of tables in one of the large downstairs rooms. Even though they were traveling under special UN-issued passports guaranteeing them diplomatic immunity, the North Koreans insisted on detailed checks of the baggage and personal items being brought into the country. Norkelus decided this wasn’t worth a fight, and the team members queued up with their bags.
Thera took her red suitcase and rolled it behind Julie Svenson, listening as the scientist complained. Submitting to a search set the wrong tone, Julie said. It would make the Koreans think they were in charge.
“Wrong, wrong message,” said the scientist as she hoisted her bag up and then banged it onto the table. “They’ll think they can boss us around.”
One of the engineers
nearby had an American Tourister bag with its red, white, and blue logo on the ID tag. The North Koreans pointed at the logo and began questioning the man closely. In a country still officially at war with the U.S.—and with a museum dedicated to America’s “war crimes”—even such a seemingly innocuous commercial symbol aroused suspicion. The fact that the engineer was from South Africa hardly seemed to matter.
Thera’s stomach began churning as the customs official rifled through Julie’s bag. She saw herself being hauled away, dragged out the large glass doors behind them, and shot on the stained cement.
“OK, Miss,” said the young man, pushing Julie’s bag to the side and turning to Thera. His light tan shirt had ballooned up from his waistline, and he was sweating, despite the fact that the terminal was rather cool. “We check. OK?”
Thera snapped open the suitcase. Four cartons of cigarettes sat at the side of the bag.
The man looked up at her expectantly. Thera, guessing he wanted one of the cartons, nodded. The customs official took one, slit open the end, and poured the boxes of cigarettes onto the table. He chose one pack and opened it, again emptying its contents. Then he selected a cigarette.
I should light it for him, Thera thought to herself, but before she could, he had pushed the cigarette back into the box and began to repack the carton.
He put the boxes back and went through the rest of the things. Thera reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out an unopened pack of cigarettes.
“You could have one,” she said, holding it out to the man. “Sir?”
The custom official’s face turned beet red. He shook his head quickly, then, without even looking in her pocketbook, shoved her suitcase to the side and waved the next person toward him.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Thera.
“Go now,” said the man, without looking in her direction.
20
DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA
After talking to Slott, Ferguson spent a few hours lining up new backup hotel rooms and renting cars under a new set of pseudonyms, erasing any connection with the man the Seoul CIA officers had called on. If he’d been operating somewhere else—Cairo, for example—he might not have gone quite so far; it seemed unlikely that they had been followed. But he didn’t know Korea, and the last thing he wanted was to be blindsided here because he wasn’t careful enough.
Running a bit late, he found Guns in the National Science Museum, puzzling out a historical display of Korean weaponry. The captions were almost entirely in Korean, but the marine had a connoisseur’s appreciation of the tools of the trade.
“Better than rifles, huh?” said Ferguson as Guns bent over an ancient sword.
“Not better exactly, but I wouldn’t mind putting it to the test.”
“Maybe later. You have lunch?”
“Like two hours ago at the hotel.”
“Come on and have some again.”
They found a small, inexpensive restaurant about a mile away, took off their shoes, and sat at a low table. A laminated menu hung on the wall next to them. All of the words were in Korean, punctuated by idealized pictures of the dishes that both men had learned from experience had little to do with what they’d actually end up being served. A gas burner sat in the middle of the table; they ordered steak and grilled the raw strips themselves when the dish was brought over.
Ferguson, who hadn’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours, wolfed the food down as soon as the meat reached medium rare. He also devoured most of the kimchi and rice. Guns, still adjusting to the spicy food, looked on with a mixture of wonder and shock as the meal disappeared into his companion’s mouth.
“So what’s the next move?” he asked when Ferguson came up for air. “We go in and look for the material?”
Ferguson shook his head.
“OK,” said the marine.
That was one thing about Guns, Ferg thought: He always went with the program. No muss, no fuss.
“So what do we do?”
“Talk to a man about a truck,” Ferguson told him, counting out his money to pay the bill.
This is all you got?” said Corrigan after Ferguson uploaded the photos to him.
“What, the driver isn’t smiling?”
“Jeez, Ferg, these are blurry as hell. I can’t even read the logo on the grill.”
“Get some truck expert to look at it. Once you get the make narrowed down, we can talk to the police, get a list of licenses.”
“Even if we could talk to the police, which we can’t,” said Corrigan, “you know how many trucks there are in Korea?”
“Corrigan, stop whining and see what you can find out.”
While they were waiting for Corrigan to come up with something, Ferguson and Guns drove back to the highway near the waste plant and found a spot to plant two video units, hoping they might spot the truck if it came back. The units were outfitted with miniature hard drives; time-lapse photography let them record for thirty-six hours before transmitting their images to The Cube and starting all over.
Ferguson guessed it would be a long shot that the truck would return. He also had no idea if it was important or not. But he couldn’t stand just hanging around with nothing to do.
They were on their way back to Daejeon when Corrigan called Ferguson on the sat phone, greeting him with a question about what truck model was the most popular in Korea.
“Ford?” guessed Ferguson.
“Hyundai,” said Corrigan. “This isn’t that. You know what number two is?”
“Daewoo.”
“Exactly. This isn’t one of those either. It’s pretty rare, Namhan Hoesa Teureoka, South Korean National Truck Company.”
“Very creative. Who owns the truck?”
“I don’t know. They were only made for about two years. This was about a decade back. See, there was this rich guy named Park tried to set up a company to compete with the Japanese and—”
“Whose truck is it, Jack?”
“I told you, Ferg. I don’t know.”
“Have you run the registrations?”
“I can’t just call up the division of motor vehicles.”
“Why the hell not?”
“For one thing, they’d get suspicious. Slott says we’re not supposed to do anything that will tip anyone off, especially the government.”
“Lie to the Koreans. Tell them it’s a drug thing. Just get me a list.”
Ferguson snapped off the phone.
“Problem?” asked Guns.
“Corrigan still thinks he’s in the army.”
Guns laughed.
They passed a Hyundai sedan whose side had been caved in from an accident.
“Hey, back up,” Ferg told Guns.
“What?”
“I want to grab a picture of that banged-up car. Turn around.”
Guns checked his mirror, then jammed the brakes and made a U-turn.
“What are we doing now?” he asked after Ferguson came back with two digital photos of the car.
“Looking for a police station. We just had an accident.”
Ferguson reasoned that he was more likely to find a sympathetic policeman in a small town, and so he and Guns got off Route 19, wandering around the local roads. They finally found a likely looking place just outside of Baekbong, where buildings with curved-tile roofs clustered behind a row of two-story stores on the narrow main drag. After brushing up on his Korean with the help of his handheld translator and a phrase book, Ferguson left Guns up the block and went inside.
“I want to report an accident,” he said in Korean, addressing the squat woman behind the desk at the police station. “Sagoga nasseoyo.”
“Dachin saram isseoyo?” said the woman.
It took Ferguson a second to untangle the phrase, even though he was prepared for it.
“No, no one’s hurt,” he told her in English, “but my car was damaged.”
“Da-majj-ed?”
Ferguson pulled out the camera with the picture of the damaged car. “It
was a little road near Songnisan National Park, about a mile from the highway.”
By now three other officers had appeared. One spoke excellent English and began acting as translator.
“I need to fill out this insurance paper,” Ferguson told him, waving a form from the rental agency. “I need to find the truck.”
“What was the registration?”
“I’m not sure, but I know the kind of truck: Namhan Hoesa Teureoka.”
“Namhan Hoesa?”
“Maybe I’m not saying it right. The words mean ‘South Korean National Truck Company.’ ”
The officer gave him a strange look, wondering how he would know what the words meant if he could not pronounce them properly.
“I have never heard of the truck,” said the policeman. “Are you sure it was not a Hyundai?”
“No, I’m positive. That’s why I figured you could help me track it down. Probably it would have damage on it. Couldn’t we search on the computer?” Ferguson stepped around the desk, pointing to the workstation. “For trucks? It’s an odd model—”
Going behind the desk meant passing over the invisible line separating police from civilians and was a major faux pas. The Koreans reacted quickly and fervently, shouting at Ferguson that he must get behind the desk. Ferguson raised his hands and backed away, trying to cajole them into giving him the information, but it didn’t work, and in the end he retreated, probably fortunate that he wasn’t arrested as a public nuisance.
“Didn’t work?” asked Guns when he got back to the car.
“Fell flat on my face.” Ferguson smiled. Then he reached into his pocket for his synthetic thyroid hormones, which he was due to take.
“Pep pills?”
“Oh yeah.” Ferguson dumped two into his palm, then swallowed. They tasted bitter without water.
“Why do you have to take that stuff, Ferg?”
“I never told you, Guns?”
The marine shook his head.
“I don’t have a thyroid,” Ferguson told him.
“Wow. How’d that happen?”
“Birth defect. Let me see if Corrigan has anything new.”
Corrigan—or rather the analysts working for him back at The Cube—had managed to come up with a list of the South Korean National Truck Company vehicles registered in South Chungchong Province. As rare as the trucks supposedly were, there were nearly three hundred.