by Larry Bond
He paused for effect. The kids and their teachers were practically breathless, waiting for some pearl of unexpected wisdom.
“Never bring a frog to school,” mimed Corrine, edging toward the door as the auditorium erupted with laughter.
Fred Greenberg, the president’s chief of staff, was standing just inside, a cell phone pressed to his ear. One of the Secret Service people opened the door, and Corrine slipped into what turned out to be a cafeteria.
“He’s running late,” said Jess Northrup, McCarthy’s schedule keeper. “You’re going to have to talk to him in the car.”
“Here we go,” said someone else, and Corrine heard the auditorium erupt in one last thunderous round of applause. The small group of aides began filing toward the rear; McCarthy was suddenly alongside her, joking with one of the local congressmen about how he had to be careful not to give students too accurate a picture of his childhood, lest he be accused of leading them “down the crooked path.”
“Hello, Counselor, glad you could make it all the way up heah from Washington,” said McCarthy, tapping her arm. “You know Mark Caren, don’t you?”
“Congressman.”
“Josh Franklin is outside, and Senator Tewilliger,” said McCarthy. “Come ride with us to the hospital.”
Tewilliger? Corrine wanted to ask what he was doing here; New Hampshire was a good distance from Indiana.
Unless, of course, you were planning on running for the presidency in three years . . . against McCarthy.
Corrine put on her courtroom face as she walked to the limo and SUVs. Secret Service agents flanked the procession, aides scurried to the vehicles, and the national press corps sauntered toward their bus, trying to pretend they didn’t like looking important in front of their local brethren.
Corrine couldn’t talk in front of the others, so she simply followed along as they walked to the limo. Franklin and Tewilliger seemed to have just finished sharing a private joke and were smirking like schoolboys as they got in. Congressman Caren gave the president a pitch for more funding in a highway appropriations bill, mentioning that the road they were to take was one of those that would be improved.
“And there are plenty of potholes in it,” said Caren. “I have to warn you.”
The president winked at Corrine as he got into the limo.
Though in theory there were six passenger seats in the back, three facing front and three facing rear, the president generally sat without anyone next to him. Corrine found herself sandwiched between Tewilliger and Congressman Caren, her arms folded.
“Senator, I was surprised to see you in New Hampshire,” said Corrine.
“My Senate subcommittee is holding a hearing on the coast guard,” said Tewilliger smoothly. “This afternoon as a matter of fact. I made my plans before I knew the president was coming.”
“The Senator joined me at the state party dinner last night,” said McCarthy, grinning. “It was quite a night.”
“They put on a good party,” said Caren, oblivious to the president’s irony.
Tewilliger, of course, had arranged to be in New Hampshire specifically to attend the dinner, where many of the state’s top politicos could be glad-handed at the same time. It was hardly an accident that he’d shown up when the president did, nor was it likely that he had made his plans before the president. Everyone in the car knew it, though general political etiquette kept them from contradicting him.
“Are we making progress on Korea?” asked Tewilliger as the sedan began moving toward the president’s next appointment.
“I think we are,” said McCarthy.
“The Undersecretary seems to think North Korea is holding out,” said Tewilliger, turning to Franklin, “if I’m reading him correctly.”
“I just think it’s a possibility, not necessarily a fact,” said Franklin. “What do you mean?” asked Caren.
“I think it’s very possible that they have nukes we don’t know about.”
As a general rule, First Team missions were kept secret from the cabinet, and neither Franklin nor his boss had been informed of this one. The president gave nothing away now, his manner still pleasantly accommodating. Talking to children always charged him up; he had dozens of schoolboy stories and loved to tell each one. Chatting with the kids, even from an auditorium stage, made him feel as if he were breaking out of the bubble that surrounded the presidency.
“If the international organizations do their jobs, we won’t have to trust North Korea,” Caren said.
“Assuming the North Koreans cooperate,” said Tewilliger.
“A difficult thing to assume,” said Franklin.
Corrine had not realized that Franklin was so skeptical. Defense Secretary Larry Stich was a proponent of the agreement, partly because he believed the North Korean regime was on its last legs and the agreement would not only freeze developments but also avoid the possibility of the weapons disappearing if a successor took over. But Franklin clearly had a different opinion; he began speaking about increases in the size of the North Korean army recently, mentioning improvements in the forces around the capital and the pending purchase of new Russian equipment. Details rolled off his tongue. There was a program to replace the type 63 light tank and another to update the North Korean version of the Russian type 85 armored personnel carrier, equipping it with better armor and fire-and-forget missiles.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to monopolize the conversation,” said Franklin, suddenly cutting himself off midsentence. He turned to Corrine. “Ms. Alston, what do you think about the Koreans? Can we trust them?”
“I don’t really have much of an opinion on trust,” she said. “And in any event, my opinion would be the same as my client’s.”
McCarthy started to laugh.
“What brings you to New Hampshire, Ms. Alston?” asked Congressman Caren.
“I have a few things to go over with the president,” she said, “and since he couldn’t come to me, I came to him.”
Caren nodded. He suppressed a smile, as if he were afraid his oval egg of a face would crack.
“I haven’t been to your state in a long time,” added Corrine. “It’s beautiful in the fall.”
“You should have seen the trees a few weeks ago. It is pretty, though. But chilly, very chilly.”
He could have been describing the temperature in the limo for the ten minutes it took to reach the hospital where the president was scheduled to meet with staff and patients before meeting with a doctor who had won a humanitarian prize for helping wounded children in Iraq. McCarthy picked up the phone just as the limo arrived; the others, sensing not only that the president wanted to be alone but that they would have a chance at giving exclusive interviews to the media, got out quickly.
“Just a second, Corrine,” said McCarthy. He asked the person on the other end to connect him to Senator Freely, then looked at her. “Assistant Secretary Franklin is here to accept an award from his alma mater this evening. I thought it would be useful to have him nearby; hold your enemies closely, as the philosopher once said.”
“Josh Franklin is an enemy?”
“Only of late and only with respect to Korea,” said McCarthy. “A slight difference of opinion. We can tolerate that. Sometimes I even disagree with you.”
Senator Freely picked up on the other end. McCarthy asked him how he was, how his family was, how his grandchildren were, how his constituents were.
“Now by and by, Lawrence, are you coming back to Washington for the treaty vote? It will help us get a great many other things done, both in that region and elsewhere. . . . Well I do appreciate that, I do. Yes, I share your concerns. They are serious concerns. Nonetheless . . .”
Corrine watched the president listen to the senator. Like all the great politicians, McCarthy had a remarkable ability to make the person he was speaking to believe that he or she was the only person in the world he wanted to be with at that moment.
“Senator Tewilliger and I have been discussing your very po
int this morning,” the president told Freely. “Your very point. We both have concerns, but we feel they can be dealt with. Yes, Senator Tewilliger, though I can’t pretend to say I know which way he’ll vote. . . . Yes, he is a very accomplished senator in that regard.”
McCarthy bantered for a few more minutes, then hung up the phone.
“Still on the fence. They’re probing for weakness,” McCarthy told her. “Freely was in favor of the treaty six months ago.”
Corrine nodded.
“I would like to see what treaty they could obtain, that would not cost us any blood or gold, but they don’t see the big picture,” added McCarthy. “Now, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“We’ve found nuclear material in South Korea. The same isotopes that we were looking for up North. Plutonium weapons-grade material.”
The president stared at her for a few seconds, genuinely surprised.
“Do they have a bomb?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know, Jonathon. It’s a possibility. We’re trying to track it all down.”
McCarthy folded his arms and stared straight ahead. “Not the best timing, dear.”
Corrine couldn’t argue with that.
“Has the IAEA inspection team found it?” added the president.
“No. It was at the waste site, near or in an area where low-level waste is ordinarily stored. They didn’t take samples from that area, and we don’t believe that what they did take will detect it. But of course we won’t know that until they get back and run their tests in a week and a half,” said Corrine.
“Right before the Senate vote.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you think North Korea would do if they found out that their brothers on the other side of the border had their own nuclear weapon?”
“The State Department would be in a better position to answer that.”
“Oh, I don’t think we need the State Department to know that the hound dog will bark when the fox slithers into the barnyard. Do you, counselor?”
Corrine shook her head.
McCarthy frowned, then reached for the door to the limo.
“What do you want me to do, Mr. President?”
“I want you to find out what’s going on, dear. If South Korea has a weapon, I want you to find it. I want you to be very quiet about it, but I want you to proceed very quickly. Very, very quickly,” said McCarthy, getting out of the car.
ACT II
Walls of iron
Rise to the sky.
Demons surround her
On the road to the Dead.
—from “The Seventh Princess,”
traditional Korean song for the dead
1
P’YŎNGAN-PUKO (NORTH P’YŎNGAN) PROVINCE, NORTH KOREA
After taking them on a brief bus tour of the capital—the giant statue of the Great Leader was a special highlight—the North Koreans escorted the inspection team some ninety miles northward, installing them in a school dormitory about three miles from the waste plant.
The accommodations were not exactly deluxe; even the senior scientists found themselves sharing rooms barely big enough for the bunk beds that dominated them. Their hosts did not intend this as a slight; the quarters were the best available in the area. The military leaders who had met them—General Namgung, the commander of the armed forces in the capital area, and General Woo-suk, an official with the strategic weapons division—hosted a lavish dinner that lasted well past midnight, as toast after toast was offered to the visitors and their mission.
The next morning, the inspection team was presented with an elaborate breakfast featuring a variety of foods from around the world. Besides fried eggs and Korean-style pancakes filled with fruits, vegetables, and even meat, there were Western-style dishes, including bacon, potatoes Dauphine, and cheese Danishes. For a country where perpetual famine was a fact of life, the spread was obscenely impressive.
The provincial governor and some of his deputies sat at the head table with Dr. Norkelus. Thera, sitting across the room with her roommate, Lada Rahn, watched for a while as he tried to make conversation with the help of the translator. It clearly wasn’t getting far, but it was better than she was doing with Lada, who spoke English fluently with noticeable haughtiness; the syllables practically had ice dripping off them.
Thera’s adventure with the cigarettes in South Korea had given her a new status as the team’s bad girl, eliciting the interest of not only Evora but also many of the other male inspectors. This was charming in a junior-high-school kind of way: About midway through breakfast Evora came over to check on her coffee, asking if she needed a refill. She had no sooner given him the cup than another man, this one arguably the world expert in uranium isotopes, sprung up and galloped across the room, pointed at her plate of half-eaten toast, and asked if she would care for a fresh piece. She turned him down as politely as she could; as he left the table he shot Evora a glance several times more radioactive than anything they were likely to find today.
The attention continued as the team loaded up for the trip out to the site. Thera turned down several offers of rides and got into her usual truck with Julie Svenson, about midway in the pack.
“You’re awful popular today,” said Julie.
“They’re all looking for free smokes,” said Thera, buckling her seat belt.
Thera’s light mood held all the way up the twisting, rutted road to the waste plant. Then at the gate panic grabbed her by the throat. Foreboding welled inside her. She couldn’t shake the thoughts of what would happen if she were captured, as if the idea of being tortured was fluid choking her lungs.
She knew, absolutely knew, she would fail.
Four or five men with submachine guns watched the bus and trucks pull to a halt in the center of the compound.
They were going to shoot her.
Thera forced herself to her feet. She started to slip as she came down the steps. A man extended his arm outside the bus. She reached forward and grabbed it, holding tight, supporting herself, afraid that were she to let go she would melt into the ground.
“OK?” said the man. His English surprised her.
“I guess.”
“Nervous because you are in North Korea?”
“No. Just need a cigarette.” She looked up at him and smiled.
He smiled back. In his late forties or early fifties, he was about her height though considerably heavier. His temples had turned silver, and he had a perfect smile, his teeth radiant in his mouth.
“Cigarettes are bad for your health,” he told her.
“Everyone needs some bad habits.”
He smiled and wagged his finger at her, as if he were a kind uncle.
His finger brushed away enough of her fear to let her walk again. The paranoia retreated to her chest, hiding in some secret chamber of her heart as she joined the others for the introductory tour.
The layout of the plant was almost meter for meter the same as that of the site in South Chungchong Province, South Korea. There were fewer video cameras and slightly more soldiers outside the gate, along with a pair of very old tanks near the fence, but the buildings themselves were in precisely the same locations. The vegetation was browner, but the buildings were just as bright.
The North Korean officials were more long winded than their counterparts in the South, perhaps because they felt it necessary to insert the praises of the Great Leader into every other sentence. Thera found herself struggling to stay awake as the tour of the administration station proceeded in slow motion.
The man who had helped her from the bus stepped forward to speak. She’d thought he was simply one of the army of assistants, but he turned out to be a scientist responsible for “supervising precautions against pollution of the workers,” as the translator put it, reading from a prepared vitae. “Ch’o Tak has studied in Russia and France and is one of the world’s top experts in waste handling. A very important scientist for the People, who takes his duty most seri
ously.”
Dr. Ch’o kept his eyes fixed on the floor as she spoke, the tips of his ears turning bright red. When she finished, he raised his hand in a half wave.
“I have been blessed with good fortune,” he said, speaking in Korean and then immediately translating his words to English. “Korea’s Great Leader has directed us to answer any questions you have and to lay ourselves bare. I humbly pledge myself to cooperate fully. You may ask whatever you wish, and I shall answer.”
Norkelus glanced toward the rest of the group. When he realized no one was going to ask a question, he put up his hand, rose, and asked whether it had been difficult to install necessary safeguards. It was an extremely obvious attempt to be polite, but Ch’o took the question very seriously, saying that there had been great concern about expenses “and other considerations” among officials at different levels, but the directives of the Great Leader himself had prevailed and focused the actions of all. Money had been found and state-of-the-art precautions installed.
Norkelus thanked him. Ch’o, relieved, gave way to another official.
“What a ham,” whispered Julie as they passed out of the hall.
“He seemed sincere,” said Thera.
“Right. And Kim Jong-Il deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”
2
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
A long sleepless night followed by a morning and afternoon filled with meetings had only increased Daniel Slott’s anxiety over the South Korean plutonium. He did his best to control it, but it was a losing battle. By midday he was wound so tight that when his daughter called him from college to say hello he nearly hung up on her.
Corrine Alston had called from New Hampshire to tell him what the president had said. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. Slott resented Corrine, but he thought it was probably better that she had told the president what was going on rather than Parnelles. This way, he figured, Parnelles looked as bad as he did.