by Larry Bond
“We need to angle down this way,” he told Guns, pointing.
Within a few yards, the soil became extremely loose. Afraid that they were going to send enough down to alert the patrols, they backtracked again and looked for sturdier ground. They went over a steep stretch, finding handholds in the thin vegetation, finally arriving at a ledge about thirty feet from the ground.
Once again, Ferguson consulted the photos. They hadn’t made enough of a correction and were a good five hundred yards farther east of the spot where he thought they would come out. But that wasn’t necessarily bad. The ledge was out of sight from the compound, and though the ledge was narrow—maybe eight inches—following it would save them considerable time. Ferguson eased out slowly, keeping himself flat against the wall. After what seemed like forever, he reached a large boulder. He hugged it, spun his legs around, and landed on the side of the hill.
“Downhill from here,” he whispered to Guns, who was just starting across.
The marine grunted. He kept fighting the temptation to look down, narrowing his view to the rocks in front of his face. As far as he was concerned, the problem wasn’t that the path was narrow; the problem was that there were no handholds. He had to keep his weight pitched in toward the wall, which was difficult not only because he was carrying a backpack but because the ledge was angled the other way. He found himself sliding across on his tiptoes the way he imagined a ballet dancer would move.
Guns’s foot hit against the side of a rock he hadn’t seen. Surprised, he jerked his weight forward, then twisted to see what he’d hit. The shift in momentum threw him off balance, and the next thing he knew he was falling straight down.
Ferguson, barely two yards away, dove forward to grab his companion.
He caught the top of his shirt. Instead of stopping Guns, Ferguson was yanked downward with him, somersaulting around before losing his grip. He slid a good twenty feet before managing to snare himself on a rock.
Guns stopped about eight feet below him. He’d smacked the side of his head on a stone and gotten a mouthful of dirt. Much worse, he’d banged and twisted his knee as he fell.
The pain held off for a second. Guns felt as if he’d been plunged into a cold lake, totally numb. Then a hatchet seemed to chop the side of his kneecap. The pain reverberated up and down his leg, and he felt incredibly hot, sweat pouring from his forehead.
“Ferg.”
“Hey, Guns, I’m here,” said Ferguson. Gingerly, he made his way down to the marine, retrieving his night glasses as he went.
“Hurt my leg. I can’t tell if it’s my knee or what,” said Guns. “The right one.”
“No compound fracture,” said Ferguson, gently running his fingers above and below it.
Guns sucked air and bit his lip to keep from screaming. “This hurts like a mo-fo.”
“If we slide down a little way, we can get to the base of the ravine we used to come in. See it?”
“Can’t. Can’t see anything, Ferg.”
Guns’s glasses were attached to his face, held there by elastic at the back of his head; Ferguson wasn’t sure whether they malfunctioned or if Guns was losing consciousness. He pushed the glasses down so they fell around Guns’s neck, then wrapped his arm around his.
“All right, let’s go down together,” Ferg told him. “I know it’s gonna hurt, but we gotta get out.”
“It’s all right.”
Ferguson tucked his leg under Guns’s to cushion it. “On our butts. Ready?”
“Go.”
Guns ground his teeth together to keep from crying out. Ferguson kept his arm around his, but Guns’s leg jerked to the side and smacked against some of the rocks as they went down.
“All right, let’s get the hell out of here,” said Ferguson, standing a little awkwardly. He checked their gear, making sure they hadn’t lost anything.
“Leave me, Ferg,” croaked Guns.
“Yeah, right. Like that might work.” Ferguson laughed, barely able to keep his voice down. “Hang on, Gimpy.”
He dipped down, maneuvering his shoulders to get leverage, then lifted Guns up and onto his back.
“You’re going to have to go on a diet if you plan on doing this again,” he grunted, starting back in the direction of the fence.
Guns insisted he could pull himself over the fence. Though doubtful, Ferguson preferred climbing to cutting a hole, and agreed they would try it. To his surprise, Guns was able to pull himself up hand over hand, all the way to the top.
“Nothin’ compared to boot camp,” grunted Guns.
Guns had trouble getting over the Teflon blanket covering the razor wire, scraping his good leg on the sharp knife point next to it. He straddled the fence top, hyperventilating.
“All right, that was the hard part,” Ferguson told him.
“Yeah. Downhill from here.”
With Ferguson’s help, Guns managed to get reasonably close to the ground before letting go, hoping to land on his good foot. But he collapsed immediately, falling backward in a swell of pain.
“Wow,” he said, looking up at the dark sky. “Imagine what being shot feels like.”
“Piece of cake compared to this,” said Ferguson, standing over him.
He meant it as a joke, but Guns took it seriously. “Gotta be ten times worse.”
Ferguson got the blanket and the clips, then pulled Guns onto his back and began hiking toward the exit. It was slow going; by the time they made it outside and to the car a halfmile away, dawn had broken.
“I’m sorry, Ferg,” muttered Guns as they drove back to Daejeon. “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just rest for a while. We’ll get you cleaned up, then take you to a doctor and get that knee fixed.”
“I’m really sorry, man. I’m really, really sorry. I screwed up.”
“You didn’t screw up. Somebody must have tipped them off. And I have a pretty good idea who it was.”
12
NORTH P’YŎNPAN PROVINCE, NORTH KOREA
Thera took out the pack of cigarettes, pulled two out, then pointed one in the direction of the North Korean soldier. The man—he looked more like a teenager, with dark peach fuzz above his lip—blinked his eyes, then looked left and right before taking it. Thera smiled and gave him her matches; he lit up furtively, turning from the wind.
In the six or seven seconds it took him to get the cigarette lit, Thera slipped the last tab into the slot between the metal panels of the reception building.
She was done. It had been easier to plant the devices here than in South Korea.
Her relief lasted about as long as it took her to light her own cigarette; she saw Tak Ch’o approaching from across the complex. The scientist had a big smile on his face, nodding and laughing as he caught her glance.
The young soldier stiffened and started to move away. Ch’o told him something Thera couldn’t understand. Though it was meant to put the young man at ease, the guard barely relaxed.
“You like our cigarettes then?” Ch’o told her in English. He immediately translated into Korean for the soldier.
“Oh, yes,” said Thera. “Very good.”
“And interesting?”
“Very interesting.” Thera stared into his eyes. If there had been any doubt that Ch’o had given her the message, his gaze erased it.
“So, you are Greek?” he asked in English.
“Yes.”
“From where?”
Thera described the town, adding that it was near Athens. Ch’o nodded, then turned to the soldier and told him what she had said. He clamped the young man on the shoulder and turned to her.
“My young friend comes from Hamhun, in the east,” Ch’o told her. “His father is an important and brilliant general.”
Before Thera could respond, the scientist continued, “It’s good to see two young people getting along. Scientists are not blind to matters of the heart.”
The soldier looked on quizzically, clearly not understanding what w
as going on.
“I—I’m probably too old for him,” said Thera.
“Old? You are so beautiful I couldn’t guess how old you are,” said Ch’o.
He turned to the soldier and told him enough of what he had said that the young man turned beet red. This made the scientist laugh.
“Well, then, I will see you both at lunch,” said Ch’o. He started away, then turned back quickly, pulling a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket. “I almost forgot . . . another present for you. I see you are low.”
Thera took the package.
“Save some for your trip. You will want to share with friends, no doubt,” said Ch’o. He laughed again, turned toward the soldier, then with a sideways glance as if he suspected someone were watching, took another pack from his pants pocket and pressed it into the young man’s hand.
“Haeng-uneul bireoyo,” he told the soldier, glancing at Thera. “Good luck.”
13
DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA
Guns had torn several ligaments in his knee, damaged his kneecap, and broken the top of his tibia. The knee was splinted so it couldn’t be moved until some of the swelling went down and he arranged to see a specialist. This meant he had a large cast and a pair of crutches that were awkward to use.
Ferguson decided—over Guns’s protests that he was starting to feel much better—that Guns should go home immediately, taking the dirt back with him for analysis. Corrigan arranged a military flight and even got an army driver to pick him up at the clinic where he was examined.
“I don’t want to leave, Ferg,” said Guns. “You need backup.”
“I got plenty of backup,” Ferguson told him as they waited for the car.
“I feel like a quitter.”
“What are you going to do, chop off your leg and march on?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Ferguson laughed, but Guns was serious.
“Give it a rest, Guns,” Ferguson told him. “That dirt has to go back anyway.”
Guns shook his head, but there was nothing he could do. Ten minutes later, he grimaced as he pulled himself into the van that had come for him.
“Don’t forget to take those painkillers,” Ferguson told him as he closed the door.
“I will.”
“Two every six hours.”
“I only need one.”
Two hours after packing Guns off, Ferguson walked into Ken Bo’s office in Seoul.
“Why’d you tip off the waste site?” said Ferguson, pulling over a chair.
“Tip them off to what?”
“They were waiting last night when I went back. I couldn’t do what I had to do.”
“You went there?”
“Yeah, I went there.”
“We—” Bo stopped midsentence, trying to collect his thoughts. He’d been ambushed and was talking from the hip, not a smart thing to do.
“You what?” demanded Ferguson.
“I thought you were going to work with us,” said Bo angrily, turning to the attack. “You were going to keep us informed.”
“What does that have to do with you telling the South Koreans what’s going on?”
“We didn’t tell them. They don’t know anything.”
“Then why were they waiting for us last night?”
“We needed a way to go in, a cover story. So we came up with one.”
“Why?”
“What do you think, we’re sitting on our hands?” Bo’s eyes were pinpoints in the tunnel created by his furrowing brows. “Slott told us to get this figured out. We’re pulling out all the stops.”
“Slott told you what was going on because he didn’t want you messing it up. This is my gig, not yours.”
“Bullshit, Ferguson. Just because you’re the golden-haired boy around headquarters doesn’t mean you’re the only one who’s working around here.”
“My hair’s black.”
Ferguson folded his arms. He told himself that as long as he remained in his seat, he could be calm. As long as he didn’t mention Guns getting hurt, he could control himself.
“Start explaining,” Ferguson said.
“I don’t work for you.”
“Be damn glad of that. Now what the hell did you do there?”
Reluctantly, but realizing there was no point in not telling him, Bo explained that they had invented a story about having intelligence claiming that the North Koreans would try and infiltrate the waste site “to cause problems.” They had offered to conduct a security analysis to counter the threat.
“We needed a way to get in legitimately,” said Bo, “without tipping them off.”
“And what did you find?”
“We haven’t found anything yet. We’re going in next week.”
“Next week? Next week?”
“I need time to get our specialists in place.”
“You gave them a heads-up that something was going on, and then you gave them a week to get rid of whatever they’ve got there. Jesus F. Christ, Bo. How the hell stupid are you?”
Bo leapt to his feet. “Get out of my office, Ferguson. Out.”
“No, I want a fuckin’ answer. How the hell stupid are you?”
“We’re watching the facility. Nothing goes in or out without us knowing about it.”
“Oh, that’ll work.”
Ferguson got up from his seat. Bo leaned across his desk, his face red.
“You should have told us you were going in,” said Bo. “You were going to work with us. You screwed up, not me.”
“I screwed up?” Ferguson gave him a half laugh. “I screwed up? I screwed up. Yeah, that’s it. I screwed up. Oh, boy, did I screw up.”
“You think you’re a one-man show, Ferguson. That’s your problem. The Agency doesn’t revolve around you.”
“No shit.”
Ferguson’s father had taught him a great deal about life and the espionage business, but one of the most important rules the son had learned was one his dad failed to follow: Don’t get screwed by your own people.
In the early nineties, Ferguson Senior had been sent to Moscow to retrieve a high-level Russian agent from the Kremlin. Unbeknownst to his father—but probably not to the CIA’s deputy director of operations at the time, who felt they owed it to the man to try and get him out—the Russian agent had already been betrayed. Ferguson’s father walked right into a trap.
The thing was, Ferguson Senior was too good an operative to be blindsided. He turned the tables on the KGB team that was watching him, shot them, and got the spy out anyway.
Except it wasn’t the spy.
The KGB had replaced the agent before Ferguson Senior got there. Two people in Moscow supposedly knew the agent’s real identity; Ferguson Senior went to both after the gunfight for help. For reasons that never became clear, neither one said anything to alert him. It wasn’t until he got to Berlin that Ferguson Senior realized he still had a real problem on his hands. Once again, though, he managed to turn the tables on a KGB ambush.
That was his dad. Always pulling a rabbit out of his hat.
But the roof caved in anyway. Ferguson Senior was injured in the attack, and a bystander was killed. The German police got involved, and within a few days there was talk of a congressional investigation to “rein in the CIA cowboy.”
Ferguson Senior was cut loose by the Agency. The only person who stood up for him was his old friend and fellow officer Thomas Parnelles, the General. But Parnelles, who’d essentially been exiled to a meaningless headquarters job for his own supposed indiscretions, had little influence within the Agency and none outside of it. Ferguson Senior was forced to retire; he was told he was lucky he wasn’t going to jail.
Maybe it was his family history, but Ferguson couldn’t help but feel he’d fallen into a snake pit here in Korea. Even if he accepted Bo’s story at face value, which meant that Bo was a dope, how could the South Koreans have produced plutonium without the local CIA people finding out about it?
In some ways, it
was an unfair question. The CIA operation was designed to spy on North Korea, not the South. Besides, intelligence agencies were historically more notable for their failures than their successes. This wasn’t quite on the scale of Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
Still, by definition it was an intelligence failure. And it seemed to Ferguson that something else was going on here that he didn’t know about. Slott had never directly interfered in an operation before.
If he’d been in the Middle East or Russia, Ferguson would have felt much more sure of himself, but Korea was very foreign. He needed some sort of backup, a check on his superiors just in case they were gaming him.
The sole possibility that came to mind was Corrine Alston.
A measure of his desperation, that.
But he needed some sort of insurance, just in case.
In case what?
He stared out the window of the train, not wanting to answer his own question.
14
NORTH P’YŎNPAN PROVINCE, NORTH KOREA
Thera was walking with Julie Svenson toward the lunch buffet in the reception building when Dr. Norkelus stormed up, an angry look on his face. She looked at him expectantly, trying to think what she would say if he asked about the package of cigarettes she’d just been given. She knew there’d be another message in them, though she hadn’t had a chance to look for it.
She had the first pack, which was almost empty. She’d give that to him.
“I need a message sent to the secretary general’s special committee,” said Norkelus, practically shouting at her. “It’s absurd.”
“You want me to help prepare it?” said Thera, trying not to let her relief show.
“Yes.” He took a voice recorder from his pocket. “The details are there. It must go out by one p.m., our time.”
“One?”
“I know. It’s ridiculous. Bureaucratic fools,” replied Norkelus, turning on his heel and stomping off.