entree to SSD, and if I had to pay him one more compliment I was going to throw up. “It’s good for the circulation to get out in the fresh air like this, but I’ve got to hurry over to see Major Kim. I’ll pull out first, but I’ll drive so you can catch up. Spit whenever you feel like it.”
“Thanks for nothing.” He stripped a few leaves off one of the branches and put them in his mouth. “Sort of medicinal, you know? Good for headaches, that’s what they say.” He spit out the leaves. “Tastes like crap. Don’t forget, keep close.”
“Don’t forget.” I said it softly enough to make him slow down to catch my voice as he walked to his car. “Don’t forget who’s in the bull’s-eye.”
4
I kept my speed down. The thin man trailed by about thirty meters, which meant every time I went through an intersection I had to make sure he didn’t get stuck on the other side. I pulled over once or twice to let him catch up and then decided to hell with it. He knew where I was going.
There was a line at the tunnel. The guard was looking closely at everyone’s ID. Normally, the numbers on the plates would be enough, but not today. When I pulled up, the guard walked around the car. “You ought to get this thing cleaned, don’t you think?” He wrote down the license number. “Or maybe you should junk it. Pull around the side, behind one of the tanks, will you? We don’t want to drag down the tone of today’s meeting.”
“What meeting?”
The guard stepped back onto his platform. “Well, well, guess who wasn’t invited. Move it; there’s a line of cars behind you.”
When I started down the hallway to Kim’s office, a burly figure stepped in front of me. “Wait in the waiting room. That’s what it’s for.”
“I need to talk to Major Kim.”
“Good for you.” He gave me a little push. “In the waiting room. We’ll call you. Take a number or something.”
Two men, well dressed but with worried faces, hurried past us and disappeared into Kim’s office. “What if I told you I was with them?”
“Last time.” He drew himself up to his full height. “The waiting room. Shut the door behind you; it’ll be nice and cozy.”
An hour later, the door opened and the burly man pointed a finger at me. “The major wants you in his office.”
“The other meeting is over?”
“Let’s not have a long conversation, all right? Major Kim says you’re to get into his office. Do it.”
I stood up and stretched. “How come everyone is giving orders all of a sudden? It’s like all the imperatives are falling out of the bag at one time. You know, if you use them all up, there won’t be any more to go around.”
The burly man scowled. “You want me to tell you where I’m about to put an imperative?”
“Not necessary.” I walked into the hall. “Leave it to my imagination.”
The furniture in Kim’s office had been shifted around so that there was room for ten or fifteen people to sit in a semicircle. They all looked at me when I walked in. I didn’t recognize any of them. From the look of their shoes, it was a good bet that they were Kim’s people.
“Good morning, Inspector.” Kim was standing near the window at the back of the room. He pointed to the chair next to his desk, the brown one, and indicated I should sit down. “This is Inspector O, gentlemen. I’ve been telling you about him and about how busy he is. Fortunately, he can join us for a few minutes, is that right, Inspector?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m at your disposal.”
“That’s good, because we have some questions, and then we’ll need your thoughts on a few ideas we’ve been discussing.”
This struck me as a bad idea. I had nothing to say to this group. And they couldn’t possibly have anything in their heads that I wanted to hear.
“These gentlemen are all aware of the case we’ve tried to resolve. You want to tell them your progress to date?”
A little clarity edged into my brain. This wasn’t a group of Kim’s subordinates. These were senior people, and they were nervous. Kim hadn’t accomplished what he was supposed to accomplish, and they wanted to know why. Maybe this was connected with why Luis wanted to see me, to warn me.
“Progress has been slow because of the need for coordination between police forces with somewhat different procedures.” A few heads nodded, but mostly I got blank stares, blank bordering on hostile. “Procedural delays are the price of doing business globally, as you know.” Apparently, they did not know and, judging from their expressions, they did not care. What they wanted was some signs of progress because-it didn’t take a genius to figure out-the case Major Kim told me to fix was very important to them. Very important. It was so important that this group had traveled all the way to Pyongyang to find out what was holding things up. If these were Kim’s superiors, they must be under a lot of pressure. Good, now we understood where we all stood.
“Inspector?” A man in a blue suit stood up. He had a self-satisfied air about him, which instantly put my teeth on edge. “That is your title, isn’t it? What do you inspect?” The others smiled. “Because if you can’t do this job for us, we’ll get someone who can. We’re not going to carry you people on our backs, you know.”
I looked at Kim, but he cut in before I could say anything. “This is a complicated situation, Inspector.” His eyes pleaded with me not to articulate what he knew I was about to articulate. “Perhaps you could mention something about your trip to Macau and your discussions there. That would give the group some context.”
The man in the blue suit was still standing. “I’ll be succinct,” I said, “because I know you all must be very busy.” That seemed sufficient abasement on my part, because the man sat down and the others shifted happily in their chairs. “The Macau trip went very well. The authorities were completely cooperative. All records and files were opened for my inspection. We believe that the work can be wrapped up in a week or so, at most. We did encounter some procedural delays, which I noted to you, but those are behind us. I’m only waiting for a final report and for the inter-governmental agreement to be signed in order to wrap things up.”
There was the deadly silence that comes when self-important people are at a sudden loss for words. Finally, a man sitting on the edge of his chair spoke up. “Did you just say something about an inter- governmental agreement?”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course, you knew that my government has no agreement covering the transfer between police authorities of information pertaining to political, economic, or capital crimes. Simply a formality, naturally.”
A wave of relief made its way around the semicircle.
“Once the papers are submitted for the agreement,” I waved airily, “it only takes around eight months, a year at most, for the legal documents to be drawn up, signed, and ratified.”
A deep silence ensued, very deep, deep enough to swallow a lot of careers.
“Well,” I said. “I hope that answers all your questions.” A couple of men looked up numbly, as if trying to remember how to swim.
5
