“And me,” Ann said. “I couldn’t have said it better.”
Hood saved the addendum and brought Ann’s face on the screen. She was so good at selling ideas to reporters over the phone, he couldn’t tell what she was really thinking unless he saw her face.
She was thinking exactly what she’d said. In the six months he’d known her, that was the first time she hadn’t noodled with something he’d written.
Herbert left the office, Ann returned to her conference with the White House Press Secretary, and Hood finished reviewing the options update before telling Bugs to fax it over the secure line. Alone and surprisingly relaxed for the first time that day, he rang the hospital where the news was not what he’d expected to hear.
FIFTY-TWO
Wednesday, 1:45 A.M., the DMZ
The soldiers in the radio center were joking with Private Koh when the message came from the headquarters of General Hong-koo, Commander of the Forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. They were immediately alert, no longer teasing Koh about brown-nosing by taking a second shift; they replayed the coordinates recorded by their directional antennae to ascertain that the message had, in fact, come from just over the DMZ. That done, they checked their computer directory to confirm that the caller was, in fact, his adjutant Kim Hoh. The computer searched its files and, within seconds, had completed a voiceprint identification. Finally, less than thirty seconds after the signal had been received, they radioed back an acknowledgment and started the two-cassette recorder to tape the message and a copy. One man notified General Schneider that a communications from the North was being received. The private was told to bring it to him the instant it was complete.
Koh seemed the most intent of the five men, listening as the message came through:
“To former Ambassador Gregory Donald at Base Charlie. General Hong-koo, Commander of the Forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at Base One, DMZ, returns greetings and accepts your invitation to a meeting in the neutral zone at 0800 hours.”
While one of the men radioed that the message had been received, another ran a copy of the tape and a cassette player to General Schneider’s quarters.
Koh said to the remaining two men that he was feeling a bit tired and was going to have some coffee and a smoke. Outside, he walked into the shadows of a nearby truck and undid his shirt. There was an M2 cellular phone strapped to his upper arm: undoing the buckle, he pulled up the antenna and punched in Lee’s number.
“There better be a very short and enlightening explanation for this,” Schneider said as Gregory entered, “because sleepy-eyed firing squads make me nervous.”
The General was dressed in pajamas and a robe and was holding the cassette recorder and headset in his right hand.
Donald’s heart quickened. He wasn’t worried about General Schneider, but about the North Korean response. He took the recorder, placed one side of the headset to his ear, and listened to the message. When it was finished, he said, “The explanation is that I asked for the meeting and I got one.”
“So you really did this dumb-ass thing-illegally, from the radio center for which I am responsible.”
“Yes. I’m hoping we can all be reasonable and avert a war.”
“We? Gregory, I’m not going to sit across a table from Hong-koo. You may think you scored some kind of coup by getting him to a meeting, but he’s going to use you. Why do you think he’s waiting a couple of hours? So they can plan the whole thing out. You’ll be photographed trying to make nice, and the President will look like he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth-”
“Doesn’t he?”
“Not on this. Colon’s office says he’s been a tiger from the get-go, as well he should be. The bastards blew up downtown Seoul, killed your own wife, Gregory-”
“We don’t know that,” he said through his teeth.
“Well, we do know that they shot up one of our planes, Greg! We’ve got a body bag as proof!”
“They overreacted, which is precisely what we shouldn’t do-”
“Defcon 3 isn’t an overreaction. It’s good soldiering, and the President was going to stop there, make ’em sweat.” Schneider rose and jammed his big hands into his pocket. “Hell, who knows what he’s going to do after your little love letter.”
“You’re blowing it out of proportion.” .
“No I’m not. You really don’t see it, do you? You might very well put the President in a no-win situation.”
“How?”
“What happens if you hold out the olive branch and North Korea accepts in principle but doesn’t withdraw any troops until the President does? If he refuses, it’ll look like he squandered a chance for peace. And if he does back down, it’ll look like he blinked.”
“Horse shit-”
“Gregory, think about it! And what kind of credibility does he have if it looks like you’re running his foreign policy? What do we do the next time a Saddam Hussein or Raoul Cedras makes a power grab, or some nutcase sends missiles to Cuba. Do we send for Gregory Donald?”
“You talk to them, yes-try and reason with them. While JFK was busy blockading Cuba, he was also negotiating like mad with Khrushchev about withdrawing some of our missiles in Turkey. That’s what ended the crisis, not sea power. Talking is what civilized people do.”
“Hong-koo isn’t civilized.”
“But his bosses are, and there have been no direct, high-level contacts with the North since this morning. Christ, you wouldn’t believe that adults would play games like this, but they are. The diplomats are playing chicken. If I can open a dialogue, even with Hong-koo-”
“And I’m telling you that talking to them won’t do any good. He’s somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan and as God is my witness, he’ll snooker you.”
“Then come with me. Help me.”
“I can’t. I told you, these people know their propaganda. They’ll use grainy film, black and white, and shoot me looking like I’m sniffing horse apples, like I’m a POW. The doves in Washington will go berserk.” He popped the tape from the recorder and slapped it gently in his open palm. “Greg, I was sad for you when I heard about Soonji. But what you want to do isn’t going to stop anyone from dying. There are still more than a billion Communists right around the corner, and a billion other radicals, religious fruitcakes, ethnic cleansers, cult psychos, and Jesus knows who else. It’s me and mine who look after the other three billion, Gregory. All a diplomat is ever good for is buying time-sometimes for the wrong side, like Neville Chamberlain. You can’t reason with sickos, Gregory.”
Donald looked at his pipe. “Yes … I see that.”
Schneider looked at him strangely, then glanced at his watch. “You still have about six hours. I suggest you sleep, wake up with a stomachache, and call this off. In the meantime, as far as this base is concerned, your original broadcast no longer exists. We erased your message from storage, took the coordinates you used out of the log.” He held up the tape recorder. “This is the first any of us heard about a meeting-when they contacted you. If the North Koreans say you radioed first, we’ll deny it. If they produce a tape, we’ll say they faked it. If you contradict us, we’ll tell the press you were crazy with grief. I’m sorry, Greg, but that’s the way it’s got to be.”
He looked down at his pipe. “And if I convince Hong-koo to withdraw?”
“You won’t.”
“But if I do?”
“In that case,” Schneider said, “the President will take full credit for having sent you, you’ll be a goddamn hero, and I’ll personally pin the medal on you myself.”
FIFTY-THREE
Wednesday, 2:00 A.M., Yanguu Village
Kim slid into the car, hugging the small radio to her to protect it from the light rain.
Hwan watched her carefully. A captive, his hands cuffed behind his back, had once used the spring in the seat-belt latch to pick the lock and get away. But he wasn’t watching Kim because he feared an escape; she would have tried that before, when they were alone. He was watching her because she fascinated him. Patriotism and humanism rarely existed in perfect harmony, but Kim had that balance. He strove for that in his own life, and usually fell short: one couldn’t dig into the darker side of people’s lives without getting into the dirt-
His thoughts were cut off by a sudden movement to his right, the flashlight moving crazily, followed by a crippling pain in his side. He gurgled loudly as the sharp punch emptied his lungs, followed by another that caused his right leg to shake and fall out from under him. He tried to grab the open car door to brake his fall. He missed, twisted, and fell against the side of the car seat, on his back. As he fumbled to get to the .38 in his shoulder holster, he looked out at Cho.