Fires of War (38 page)

~ * ~

 brought this to many people’s attention. Personally, I took it to General Namgung. Personally. I had worked with him on many special projects, most recently four or five months ago, engineering special shielding for air transport of waste. He understood the hazards, but would he act? He did not act. This is a great shame to our country. Many people will die.”

Ch’o stopped and looked up at Thera.

“You understand what I am saying?” he asked.

“Of course. But you should tell Jiménez this.”

“I will. But you . . . you understand, don’t you?”

Thera nodded.

“Maybe you could write this down,” suggested Ch’o. “To keep a record.”

“I can get Jiménez.”

The scientist shook his head. “I’d rather talk to you now.”

“All right. Let me get a pad and a recorder. Is that OK?”

“That would be very good.”

Four years of college, and I’m back to being a secretary, she thought, leaving the cabin.

~ * ~

22

DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA

Mr. Li had described the trip to North Korea as if it were a junket, but he hadn’t done it justice.

Ferguson went down to the lobby a few minutes before noon, just in time to see a white passenger van pull up to the curb. A young woman dressed in a short, skin-tight yellow skirt hopped from the back and strode toward him, asking in English if he was the Russian businessman Ivan Manski.

“At your service,” said Ferguson.

“Your bag, I take.”

“Is fine,” said Ferguson, laying on his heaviest Russian accent. “We go now?”

“We go, yes.” She led him to the minibus, then stowed his bag in the back.

“Mr. Manski, we are pleased to have you,” she said in a way that suggested any number of double entendres. “We can get you something, yes?”

“I’m fine.”

“Vodka?”

“A little vodka maybe,” said Ferguson.

She slipped back to a refrigerator chest at the rear of the van and took out a bottle of Zyr, an expensive vodka made in Russia, though the company was actually owned by an American.

“Straight,” Ferguson told her. “Just ice.”

“Ice? You are not a purist?”

“It’s still early,” said Ferguson, taking the glass and admiring the scenery.

A few minutes later they entered a residential area of single-family homes and pulled into a private driveway. A short man in a gray suit was waiting. He left his bag for the young woman and climbed into the van. Ferguson introduced himself as Manski, giving him a card and examining the newcomer’s. The man was an electronics salesman interested in opening his own factory up north in one of the special zones set aside for foreign endeavors near the capital. When the door closed and the van was underway, he told the woman that it was too early to drink, but since the other guest had already started, he would have a Scotch to keep him company.

The ritual was repeated four more times as the van made the rounds picking up its passengers. Everyone had a drink. And caviar. And a number of other treats Ferguson couldn’t identify by sight or taste.

When all of the passengers had been picked up, the driver got on the highway toward Seoul. About five miles south of the capital, they were met by a pair of police cars. Lights flashing, the police escorted them to Gimpo, the airport to the west of Seoul generally used by domestic flights. There a private 727, already half-filled with other guests of Park, waited to take them north.

Ferguson circulated as much as he could among the other passengers. All were male, and all had relatively important positions in their respective companies, though none were as wealthy as Park.

Nor did any seem likely buyers for the goods an arms dealer specialized in. Ferguson chatted up the virtues of his supposed company’s instruments just long enough to bore each listener, establishing his credentials before changing the subject to the trip or to the problems of doing business in the North or to Park himself.

The billionaire wasn’t traveling with the rest of the party. He had already boarded a two-engined jet aircraft similar to a 737. Built by the Korea Commercial Aircraft Development Company as a demonstrator a few years before, the plane had the latest technology, from super-efficient engines to a glass cockpit. It rivaled anything made in America or Europe, but because the company had no track record—and because it was primarily a Korean effort—other Asian countries did not place any orders, and the firm switched its efforts to spare parts.

Park, of course, had been the major investor.

“The Americans were the ones most interested in the aircraft,” explained Ha Song, who sat next to Ferguson on the 727. Mr. Ha worked for an investment group with interests in cable television but had represented some aeronautics firms around the time of the project. “This was genuinely a surprise, since usually they look down on us as little brothers.”

“A very
Americanski
attitude,” said Ferg.

“Your government would have done very well to have formed a partnership.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Ferguson. “But I don’t represent the government.”

“Many good engineers in Russia.”

“The best,” said Ferguson. “Except for Korea.”

Mr. Ha’s face shaded slightly. Without prompting, he began telling him the story of his ancestors, ethnic Chinese who had been in Korea for several hundred years.

“Before the Japanese came to our country, my family had many, many shops,” said Ha.

“Did they take them away?”

“Not at first, but, during the bad time, what we know as World War II, that was very trouble-matic.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Many Korean peoples, same story,” said Ha. “Japanese very evil.”

“Good in business.”

Ha made a face. “Their money not worth it. Very evil.”

“It’s too bad,” said Ferguson.

“Russia have war with Japan, too: 1904.” Ha was referring to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which was fought partly over Korea as well as Manchuria.

“Dah
,” said Ferguson. “And we get butts kicked.”

Ha took a moment to translate the slang, then they both started to laugh.

~ * ~

 
line of North Korean officials met them inside the terminal at P’yŏngyang. Ferguson bumped along with the others, nodding and smiling, nodding again. There was no passport check. If the bags were inspected, it was done by whoever had retrieved them; they were collected and sent on to their destination without being reunited with their owners.

As Ferguson was about three-fourths of the way through the receiving line, a short man approached him and asked in Russian if he was Mr. Manski.

“Dah,”
said Ferguson. “I am Manski.”

“I am Mr. Chonjin,” said the man. “I will interpret for you.”

Chonjin’s accent was so unusual that it took Ferguson a few seconds to untangle what he said.

“Your accent. . . Where do you come from?” Ferguson asked.

Chonjin said that, while he was Korean, he had spent much of his life in Vladivostok, a city on the coast of the Sea of Japan where he had been a member of the North Korean Trade Group. Ferguson assumed this meant that he had been a spy there, for surely he was a spy now, assigned to stay close to one of the more dubious members of Mr. Park’s party.

He had the face of a pug—a pushed-in nose, large drooping eyes, a sad-sack mouth—but he was amiable enough, smiling and laughing as they worked their way through the rest of the officials gathered in the hall.

“All hope to do business very soon,” said Chonjin as they reached the end. “We are the new China. Better.”

“Of course,” said Ferguson.

“You would like to open a factory here?”

“I keep an open mind.”

The visitors were herded upstairs for a brief welcoming speech by an official Chonjin said was the local mayor. When the talk was over—”Better Than China” seemed to be the theme of the day—they were treated to a reception table at the far end of the large room. A half hour later, the entourage was escorted outside to waiting buses. A school band, heavy on the tubas but otherwise remarkably tuneful, serenaded them as they walked the few feet to the vehicles.

Another band, this time more balanced instrumentally and composed of older musicians, greeted them when they arrived at what Ferguson’s shadow called a guest house about thirty minutes away. Obscenely lavish by North Korean standards, it reminded Ferguson of a European-style hunting lodge, the sort of place the kaiser would have brought guests to before World War I. The wall at the front was made of large wooden timbers, like a massive log cabin. The sides, however, were smooth stucco. Here and there the shadows of the large stones peeked through thin layers of cement, as if they were fighting their way out from behind the protective covering.

Park was waiting for them inside, standing on a balcony overlooking a large great room just beyond the entrance foyer. There were scores of North Korean officials there as well, along with young waitresses who fanned out with bottles of champagne.

“My friends, I welcome you here on what I hope will be a prosperous and exciting visit,” said Park, raising his glass.

A long round of toasts followed. Park slipped out about midway through, leaving the others to mingle, drink champagne, and ogle the young women.

By the time the group began retiring to their rooms to get ready for dinner, Ferguson had introduced himself to nearly everyone and run out of business cards. Chonjin volunteered to get some made for him.

“That would be great,” Ferguson told him.

The interpreter bowed his head. “Anything for a guest. I will see you at dinner.”

“Can’t wait.”

~ * ~

23

NORTH OF SUNG HO, NORTH KOREA

General Namgung leaned forward and told the driver to stop. Instantly, the man obeyed, pulling to the side of the road.

Namgung ignored the questioning look from his aide, who was sitting next to him in the rear of the Russian-made sedan. He needed a moment to think. The enormity of what he was about to embark upon had settled on him, filling him with a dreadful sensation of foreboding. He knew from experience that he must take a few moments to let the sensation pass. Otherwise, he would not be able to make clear decisions. And the future depended very much on clear decisions.

At the age of fifty-three, Namgung was one of the top commanding generals in North Korea, in charge of the divisions around the capital and several in the northwestern provinces, including those on the Chinese border. Family connections had helped him launch his career, but in the thirty-plus years since he became a lieutenant he had worked extremely hard, out-hustling and outlasting many rivals. He knew the supreme leader, Kim Jong-Il, extremely well and visited him often—or had, until Kim’s recent sickness.

The dictator’s health was a closely guarded state secret—even those of importance, like Namgung, didn’t know exactly how bad off he was. But the general could guess that the supreme leader had perhaps six months to live.