“I won’t pretend that I’m happy with this,” Schneider concluded, “but I won’t stand in your way now.”
“Were you going to before?”
“I was leaning strongly in that direction, yes. I still plan to go on record as being opposed to conciliation, but it takes all kinds to make a world.” Schneider
headed back to the car. “Get in. I’ll give you a ride back.”
“I think I’ll walk. Clear the head a bit.”
Schneider didn’t look back as he climbed into the jeep. His orderly swung it around and drove off, dust and diesel fumes hanging in their wake.
Donald walked after them, puffing with contentment, knowing that Soonji would be surprised and proud of how things had gone.
As he walked, he felt a prick at the back of his neck. He reached back to scratch it, touched steel, and froze.
“Ambassador Donald,” said a familiar voice as the knife traced a sharp path from his nape to just beneath his chin.
Donald felt a trickle of blood slip down his neck and under the knot of his tie as he saw Major Lee’s face burning a dull red in the glow of the pipe.
SIXTY-NINE
Tuesday, 5:30 P.M., Op-Center
As Ann Farris entered Matt Stoll’s office, the operations Support Officer snickered.
“Gee, folks,” Stoll said, “don’t put too much pressure on me or anything.”
Paul Hood was sitting on a small leather couch in the back of the room. There was a twenty-five-inch TV screen in the ceiling and a video-game console on a shelf, and Stoll retired to the well-worn piece of furniture whenever he needed to relax and think.
“Not trying to pressure you,” Hood said. “Just want to know the instant you get the satellites back.”
“We’ll be quiet,” Ann said as she sat down. She looked at Hood, her eyes full of sadness. “Paul, I can’t lie to you. We’re going to get murdered on this, even if we’re right.”
“I know. Donald meets with the North in a half hour, after which the world press chews the President and Seoul to pieces for escalating when we knew Pyongyang might be innocent. Result? Lawrence has to hold his horses.”
“Or look like a warmonger.”
“Right. And if it turns out that Major Lee wasn’t behind this, then the North has the ears of the world to apologize, punish the guilty party, and clean house themselves. Or if Pyongyang authorized the bombing, they can regroup and attack again. In any case, the President ends up helpless.”
“You’ve pretty well summed it up,” Ann said. “I hate to agree with Lowell, but he thinks you ought to tell Donald to postpone the meeting. The North will make PR hay of that too, but we can deal with it. Say he was acting alone.”
“I won’t do that to him, Ann.” He looked at Stoll. “Matty, I need those satellites!”
“You said you weren’t going to pressure me!”
“I made a mistake.”
“What will reconnaissance do for you now?” Ann asked.
“There are soldiers looking for Lee, but no one’s searching for the men who may have gone after the No-dongs. Mike and the Striker team will be there soon. If we can find evidence of an incursion, and Mike can stop them, we prove that we were right-and the President gets a sexy military action that makes him look awfully good. The North will bitch that we sent men in, but it’ll blow over like when the Israelis went into Entebbe.”
Ann’s eyes were wide. “That’s brilliant, Paul. That’s very good.”
“Thanks. But it only works if I have-”
“You have!” Stoll said, pushing his chair back and clapping his hands once.
As Hood ran over, Stoll punched the button to ring the NRO. Stephen Viens came on at once and Stoll put it on speaker phone.
“Steve-you’re back on-line!”
“I thought so,” he said, “when I saw that old Soviet battleship vanish from the Sea of Japan.”
“Steve, this is Paul Hood. Let me see the Nodong site in the Diamond Mountains. Close enough so that I can see all three missiles.”
“That’d be about two hundred feet up. Inputting coordinates now and … she’s responding. Night-vision lens in place, the picture has been taken, and the camera is digitizing the image now. Starting to scan on the monitor-”
“Send it over here while it’s scanning.”
“Will do, Paul,” Viens said. “Matty, you did a helluva job.”
Stoll put the computer on the receive mode and Hood bent down to watch the monitor as the image came. It appeared in swift strokes from top to bottom-like a lightning-fast Etch-A-Sketch he always thought. Ann stood behind him and gently lay a hand on his shoulder. He ignored the arched-eyebrow look he got from Matty, was less successful ignoring the electricity from her touch as the black-and-white terrain materialized rapidly.
“The missile on the top is pointed south,” Hood said, “the missiles on the left and right-”
“Jesus,” Stoll cut in.
“You can say that again.”
Ann bent over Hood. ‘ The two on the sides are pointing in different directions.”
“One to the South,” said Stoll, “the other-”
“East,” said Hood. “Which means someone’s gotten in there. “He straightened and hurried to the door, not meaning to throw Ann’s hand off but managing to anyway.
“How can you tell?” Ann asked.
Hood said over his shoulder as he hurried into the hall, “Because not even the North Koreans would be mad enough to aim a Nodong at Japan.”
SEVENTY
Wednesday, 7:35 A.M., the DMZ
“Major Lee,” Donald said quietly. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”
“I am.” Lee pushed the knife harder into the flesh under Donald’s chin. “I thought I would be about my business by now. Instead, I’m here with you.”
“And your business is to kill innocent people and start a war.”
“There’s no such thing as an innocent person-”
“You’re wrong. My wife was innocent.”
Donald raised his hand slowly. Lee pressed the knife deeper but Donald continued to lift his arm.
“Your wife and you, Mr. Ambassador, made life easier for those who abandoned their country. You are as corrupt as the rest, and it’s time for you to join-”
Donald moved so swiftly that Lee hadn’t time to react. The bowl of the pipe in his left hand, Donald swung the stem around, hooked the knife from above, and pushed it to the left. The bowl was facing Lee and, thrusting it forward, Donald pressed the hot tobacco against his right eye. Lee screamed and dropped the knife, which Donald hurried to recover.
“No!” Lee yelled as he turned and ran into the deep blue of the morning.
Donald ran after him, still holding the knife.
Lee was headed into the area where the North Koreans had been known to have tunnels. He wondered if the Major were leading him away from the South-side base intentionally. Was that where he was planning to use the gas?
Not likely, he thought. Lee was dressed in his own ROK uniform. He was going to the North, almost certainly to release the gas in some way: if he was spotted, the South would be blamed. Donald briefly considered stopping to alert Schneider, but what would the General do? He wouldn’t follow him into the North.
No. Donald knew that he was the only one who could go. His breath came in painful wheezes as he half ran, half stumbled after the shrinking figure of the Major. Lee was putting more and more distance between them, at least two hundred yards, but he was running east. As night gave way to the blue morning, Donald might lose ground on Lee but at least he could still see where his quarry was headed.
And then Lee disappeared.
Donald slowed to catch his breath. It was as though the earth had swallowed Lee up, and Donald realized that he must have dropped into one of the tunnels. He noted the area, a thicket some twenty yards across, and walked swiftly toward it, counting the steps to take his mind off of how much his lungs and legs hurt.
Just a few minutes after Lee vanished, Donald was at the entrance to the tunnel. He didn’t wait, figuring that if Lee had had a weapon he’d have used it back in the field. Folding the knife into a pocket and dropping to his knees, Donald grabbed the hemp line and lowered himself along the passage, bumping his back repeatedly as he tried to walk himself down. He reached bottom, nearly exhausted, and listened. There were shuffling and clawing sounds somewhere up ahead. He struck a match, saw the tunnel, and knew where Lee had gone.
If something happened to him, he wanted Schneider to know where he’d gone. Turning and setting the hemp line on fire, he dropped to his belly as thick smoke filled the passageway. He crawled into the tunnel, hoping that the General would see the smoke and flames. He also hoped that he himself could reach the other side before he choked to death … and getting there, that he could find Lee before he was able to realize his insane vision.