Fires of War (35 page)

“People are being poisoned,” said Ch’o.

“And you can stop that.”

Someone pounded at the side of the cabin.

Not now, thought Thera, but the young ensign who’d been assigned to liaison with the First Team people came in anyway.

“Ma’am, the psychologist is in-bound. . . . Uh, you can’t smoke in here,” he said. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

Thera shot the private a look of death. She was about to tell him what he could do—a direction that would have been physically impossible—but then remembered that she was supposed to stay in character for Ch’o.

“I’m sorry,” Thera said meekly, stabbing out the cigarette.

A wave of indignation rose up in Ch’o. “Get out,” he told the man at the door. “Out!”

The ensign ducked away. Ch’o pushed his legs over the edge of the bed and put his arm around the young woman.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “We’ll be all right.”

~ * ~

 told him I have my own cabin and would see him in the morning,” Thera told Rankin two hours later.

“He totally snapped out of it?”

“Whatever shock he was in, he’s out of that. But he’s still wary. Very, very wary.” Thera explained that Ch’o seemed to think that he was protecting her in some way. He was confused by the fact that he had been picked up by the U.S. and not the IAEA.

“The North Koreans think we’re pretty close to devils,” Thera told Rankin. “They have museums devoted to our criminal acts, so he doesn’t understand how the U.S. could be helping.”

“You helped him.”

“He thinks I’m Greek, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“He wants to talk,” she told Rankin. “He has information that will save a lot of people. Thousands.”

“A bomb would kill millions.”

“This isn’t about a bomb. He’s concerned about waste. That’s what he wants to talk about—pollution. Radiation poisoning.”

“A dirty bomb?”

“Pollution. He was going to be put into prison and maybe shot because he tried to alert the authorities. It’s North Korea he’s worried about.”

“That’s what we rescued him for?” said Rankin. “We went through all this trouble because he was worried about
pollution?’’’’

“Sometimes you can be a real jerk, Stephen,” said Thera, storming away.

~ * ~

15

DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA

Jogging was as popular in Korea as it was in the U.S., and an early morning jogger, even a Caucasian one, rarely attracted attention on a college campus. Ferguson waved to the security men at the gate as he came up the university drive; the one paying attention shook his head at him, mouthing words in Korean to the effect of “you’re a crazy nut job.”

Crazy nut jobs could go just about anywhere, and ten minutes later Ferguson entered the parking lot where he’d seen the two trucks the night before. He took a lap around the perimeter, made sure he wasn’t being watched, then stopped to tie his shoe near the first truck.

When he got up, he slipped one of the gamma-ray counter tabs into the back, wedging it into the space near the door. Then he took pictures of the license plates with the small camera he had in his fanny pack; it was easier than trying to remember the numbers.

Ferguson stretched out a cramp, sticking another tab in the second truck. Then he resumed his exercise, taking a lap near the building where the test reactor was being constructed.

Under normal circumstances, such reactors could not produce weapons-grade plutonium, nor could the government research reactor the school was currently using. But that assumed that no one wanted them to.

Large boards of plywood and a chain-link fence ringed the construction area. Curious, Ferguson squeezed beneath the metal chain holding the gate closed. Once inside, he saw that work hadn’t progressed very far at all; at the moment the building consisted of a concrete slab and massive steel pillars, with cladding only on the corner facing the building where the reception had been held the night before. He took some pictures anyway.

Sight-seeing done, Ferguson stopped at a PC bang, a public-access computer cafe not far from the campus. It was early, but already most of the fifty seats were filled. He slid his security dongle into the USB port and pulled up the browser. Then he typed the secretary’s name into a general search engine and was rewarded with six million matches. Nine-tenths of the results, to judge by the first two pages, were of pornographic sites.

Not of her.

“Whoa,” said the teenager sitting next to him, glancing over. “How’d you get past their filter?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Ferguson told him. “I’m looking for a girl’s address, but I don’t do Korean very well. Think you can help me?”

“You American?”

“Russian.”

Ferguson put his hand out. The kid shook it, then wrinkled his nose.

“Yeah, I gotta take a shower. This is the name.”

Ferguson took out the card with the secretary’s name, then got out of the way so the kid could sit down. Barely containing his drool, the teen called up a phone directory and then typed the name into the search box.

“What is her husband’s name?” asked the kid.

“Not married.”

“No phone with this name.”

“Maybe she lives with her parents.”

“Many, many Kims,” he told Ferguson.

“Give it a try.”

The teenager typed the surname into the computer. Sure enough, there were over a hundred pages of results.

“OK for now,” said Ferguson. He reached over and slid the dongle out of the slot.

“Mister?”

“Be my guest,” said Ferguson. When he left the store, the kid was still bent over the computer keyboard, trying to figure out what combination of keys Ferguson had used to conjure porn past the browser filter.

~ * ~

16

DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Corrine saw James Sonjae as soon as he cleared Customs. He looked tired, even more tired, in fact, than he had when she’d met him in the middle of the night.

“Need a ride?” she asked.

“Oh, thank God. I thought I was never going to get out of there. The line was endless.”

“Did you have trouble?”

“Not really. The line was a bit long, but it moved pretty quickly.”

“My car’s this way.”

It had gotten dark and cold since Corrine had arrived at the airport. Her thin sweater did little against the wind.

“It’s all in the bag,” Sonjae told her as they drove. “Computer disks, a big tape, and dirt.”

Corrine said nothing, deciding it would be best if she acted like she knew what the items were.

“How’s Ferg doing, anyway?” Sonjae asked.

“You would probably know better than me,” she said. “You just saw him.”

“No, I mean, with the cancer.”

What cancer? thought Corrine. But she kept her lawyer’s face on.

“I think he’s doing pretty well,” she said.

“I hope so. He looked a little run down. Probably the jet lag and everything.”

“Probably.”

“Shame,” said Sonjae. “I’ve known Fergie since he was a little kid, off and on. His dad and I go back. Long story.”

Corrine nodded. “So you knew him before the cancer?”

“Oh yeah. I only found out about that because I was visiting his father a few years back, before he died. Ferg’s kind of quiet about that. Always kept things to himself. Probably the way he was raised, I guess.”

Sonjae fell silent. Corrine tried to think of something to say to prompt him to continue. His exit was coming up.

“Hungry?” she asked as she took the turn onto the ramp.

“I could use some food, yeah.”

“Come on. I’ll buy you dinner.”

~ * ~

17

DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA

When Ferguson returned to his hotel, he discovered that during his absence the room had been bugged—a very promising sign. He put the bug to good use, pretending to use his sat phone to call a contact in Russian Georgia and telling him that things were going nicely. Then he removed the bug. While it would have better to leave it in place, he wasn’t an expert on them and would need to give it to someone who was to have it identified.

With the room now clean, he called Corrigan to check in and to tell Slott he was going to North Korea.

“Ferg, where the hell have you been?”

“Good morning to you, too, Jack.”

“What are you doing over there?”

“Sight-seeing.”

“Slott is pissed. He wants to talk to you right away. And I mean
right
away.”

“Here I am. Listen, before you get him on the line, I’m going to be out of touch for a couple of days. I’m going north of the border on a business trip.”

“What?”

“Mr. Park is getting up a junket. I’m going as Manski, the notorious Russian arms dealer.”

“Why are you going to North Korea?”

“Park wants to talk about something, but I get the feeling that he doesn’t think it’s safe in the South. I don’t know exactly what he’s up to.”

“Ferg. You can’t go north.”

“I am Russian citizen. I go anywhere.”

Corrigan slapped him on Hold. Slott, breathing hard and talking a mile a minute, came on a few seconds later.

“What the hell are you doing?” Slott asked. “Are you out of your mind? Have you lost your senses?”

“Following a couple of leads. I don’t think so. And no. In that order.”

“You outed a fellow officer. I can’t believe you did that, Ferg. That’s way over the line.”

“When?”

“You blew someone’s cover last night in Daejeon.”

“Jeez, I almost forgot about that.”

“Ferguson.”

“Look, I didn’t blow her cover. I didn’t say anything about her, except that she worked for the trade commission, which
is
her cover, right?”

“Why were you even near her?”

“I was undercover, she was staring at me, her jaw scraping the carpet; I had to do something. I left things vague.” Ferguson, annoyed, sat down in the chair and put his feet up on the bed. “It was a reception that Park went to. Park’s the guy who owns Science Industries.”

“What the hell is Science Industries?” said Slott.

“Science Industries has a guy on its staff who’s an expert in extracting bomb material. Or was an expert—he killed himself a couple of months back. It was a suicide. Suspicious.”