“That was ago.”
He looked at her curiously.
“Fifteen minutes ago.”
Donald’s eyes fell. He ran a hand through his silver hair. “Sorry. Kim and I got to comparing horror stories and deeply held personal philosophies.”
“Many of which turned out to be the same thing, ” Hwan noted.
Soonji smiled. “I had a feeling that after two years you would have a lot to talk about.” She looked at her husband. “Honey, if you want to continue talking or fence with other utensils after the ceremony, I can cancel that dinner with my parents-”
“No, ” Hwan said quickly. “Don’t do that. I’ll have the post-event analysis to do, and that will run till late in the evening. Besides, I met your father at the wedding. He’s a very large man. I’ll try and come to Washington soon and spend some time with you both. Maybe I’ll even find myself an American wife, since Greg took the best woman in Korea for himself.”
Soonji gave him a small smile. “Someone had to show him how to lighten up.”
Hwan told the bartender to put the drinks on the KCIA tab, then retrieved the knife, laid it on the bar, and regarded his old friend. “Before I go, though, I do want to tell you this: I’ve missed you, Greg.”
Donald gestured toward the knife. “I’m glad.”
Soonji smacked him on the shoulder. He reached around and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.
“I mean it, ” Hwan said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the years after the war, when you looked after me. Had my own parents lived, I could not have had a more loving family.”
Hwan bowed his head quickly and left; Donald looked down.
Soonji watched him go, then placed a slender hand on her husband’s shoulder. “There were tears in his eyes.”
“I know.”
“He left quickly because he didn’t want to upset you.”
Donald nodded, then looked up at his wife, at the woman who had showed him that wisdom and youth are not mutually exclusive… and that apart from it taking a helluva long time to stand up straight in the morning, age really was a state of mind.
“That’s what makes him so special, ” Donald said as Hwan stepped into the bright sunlight. “Kim’s soft side, hard outside. Yunghil Oh used to say that was armor for every eventuality.”
“Yunghil Oh?”
Donald took her hand and led her from the bar. “A man who used to work at the KCIA, someone I’m beginning to wish I’d gotten to know a little bit better.”
Trailing a thin tester of smoke behind him, Donald escorted his wife onto broad, crowded Chonggyechonno. Turning north, they strolled hand-in-hand toward the imposing Kyongbok Palace, at the back of the old Capitol Building, first built in 1392 and rebuilt in 1867. As they neared, they could see the long blue VIP grandstand, and what promised to be a curious blend of boredom and spectacle as South Korea celebrated the anniversary of the election of its first President.
TWO
Tuesday, 5: 30 P. M., Seoul
The basement of the condemned hotel smelled of the people who slept there at night; the musky, liquor-tinged scent of the poor and forgotten, those for whom this day, this anniversary, meant only a chance to get a few extra coins from the people who were coming to watch. But though the permanent boarders were gone, begging for their daily bread, the small brick room wasn’t empty.
A man lifted the street-level window and slid in, followed by two others. Ten minutes before, the three had been in their own hotel suite at the Savoy, their base of operations, where each man had dressed in nondescript street clothing. Each man carried a black duffel bag without markings; two handled their bags with respect while the third man, who wore an eyepatch, took no care. He walked to where the homeless had collected broken chairs and torn clothing, placed his bag on an old, wooden school desk, and drew open the zipper.
Pulling a pair of boots from within, Eyepatch handed them to one of the men; a second pair went to the next man, and Eyepatch kept the third.
Working quickly, the men removed their own boots, hid them among a pile of old shoes, and slipped on the new pair. Reaching back into the bag, Eyepatch removed a bottle of spring water before stowing the duffel bag in a dark corner of the room. The bag wasn’t empty, but right now they didn’t need what was inside.
Soon enough, Eyepatch thought. If all went well, very soon.
Holding the water in his gloved hand, Eyepatch returned to the window, raised it, and looked out.
The alley was clear. He nodded to his companions.
Squeezing through the window, Eyepatch turned and helped the others out with their bags. When they were back in the alley, he opened the plastic bottle and the men drank most of the water; with nearly a quarter of a bottle still remaining, he dropped the container and stepped on it, splashing water everywhere.
Then, with the two bags in hand, the men crossed the dirty alley, making sure they walked through the water as they headed toward Chonggyechonno.
Fifteen minutes before the speeches were to begin, Kwang Ho and Kwang Lee-K-One and K-Two, as they were known to friends at the government press office- were making a final test of the sound system.
Tall and slender, K-One stood at the podium, his red blazer a stark contrast against the stately edifice behind him.
Three hundred yards away, behind the grandstand, the tall and large K-Two sat in the sound truck, hunched over a console and snuggled beneath earphones that picked up everything his partner was saying.
K-One stepped before the leftmost of the three microphones.
“There’s an extremely fat lady sitting on the top of the grandstand, ” he said. “I think the seats may collapse.”
K-Two smiled and resisted the urge to put his colleague on loudspeaker. Instead, he pressed a button on the console before him: a red light went on under the microphone, indicating that the microphone was on.
K-One covered it with his left hand and moved to the center microphone.
“Can you imagine what it would be like making love to her?” K-One said. “Her perspiration alone would drown you.”
The temptation grew stronger. Instead, K-Two pressed the next button on the console. The red light went on.
K-One covered the middle microphone with his right hand and spoke into the third.
“Oh, ” said K-One, “I’m terribly sorry. That’s your cousin Ch’un. I didn’t know, Kwang. Truly.”
K-Two punched the last button and watched as K-One walked toward the CNN truck to make sure their feed from the press truck was secure.
He shook his head. One day he’d do it. He really would. He’d wait until the esteemed sound engineer said something really embarrassing and-
The world went black and K-Two slumped over his console.
Eyepatch shoved the big man to the floor of the sound truck and stuffed the blackjack in his pocket. While he began unscrewing the top of the console, one man gingerly opened the duffel bags while the third stood inside the door, a blackjack in hand in case the other man returned.
Working quickly, Eyepatch lifted the metal faceplate, leaned it against the wall, and examined the wires. When he found the one he was looking for, he looked at his watch. They had seven minutes.
“Hurry, ” he snarled.
The other man nodded as he carefully removed the brick of plastic explosive from each duffel bag. He pressed them to the underside of the console, well out of sight; when he was finished, Eyepatch removed two wires from the duffel bags and handed them over. The man inserted the end of a wire into each brick, then handed the other ends to Eyepatch.
Eyepatch looked out the small one-way window at the podium. The politicians had started to move in. The traitors and patriots both were chatting amiably among themselves; no one would notice that anything was amiss.
Punching off the three switches that controlled the microphones, Eyepatch quickly knotted the end of the plastique wires to the wires of the sound system. When he was finished, Eyepatch replaced the metal plate.
His two men each grabbed an empty duffel bag and, as quietly as they had entered, the three men departed.
THREE
Tuesday, 3: 50 A. M., Chevy Chase, MD
Paul Hood rolled over and looked at the clock. Then he lay back and pushed a hand through his black hair.
Not even four. Damn.
It didn’t make sense; it never did. There was no catastrophe in the offing, no ongoing situation, no crisis looming. Yet most nights since they moved here, his active little mind had gently nudged him from sleep and said, “Four hours of sleep is enough, Mr. Director! Time to get up and worry about something.”