United States, and all the American people, over the tragic death of Lee’s son.
None of this was particularly difficult information to come by, since his final day’s schedule had been published in the South Korean newspapers. See, the Secretary of State wanted the South Korean people to know what he was doing. He wanted cameras and newspeople cluttered at his every stop. He wanted the world to see the third highest official in the executive branch dining amicably with the South Korean president on his final day, as though a serious breach in relations had been miraculously healed. He wanted the South Korean people to see him make the very Asian gesture of stopping by to apologize and pay respects to the bereaved mother and father.
The only problem was that when he and his security detail had planned and publicized that schedule, they were unaware the alliance’s protocol officer was owned by North Korea.
That, I’d finally concluded, was why Choi wanted Harry Elmore in his stable. Elmore had access to the plans that involved VIP visits. He knew what the security arrangements were. He was one of the two or three guys who controlled access to VIPs. His office printed the passes, and took the requests, and decided who would and who wouldn’t get within spitting distance of the high and mighty. Even if the event was controlled by the State Department, all Harry had to do was call his counterpart, the protocol officer at the embassy, and tell him he needed two dozen passes. I’m sure they talked all the time. They probably horse-traded back and forth like Belgian gem merchants.
“Hey, Harry, I hear the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are coming over for a military morale visit. Think you could slide me thirty tickets under the table?”“Hey, no problem, Bill, but listen, I’ve got twenty Korean buddies climbing all over my ass because they want to be seen in the proximity of the American Secretary of State. How about passes for that?”
Buzz had several guys sitting in a room right now combing over the lists of those who’d gotten passes to be inside the ropes. We knew it was hopeless. Whoever Choi sent to do the dirty deed would either use a false name or a name we wouldn’t recognize anyway.
Thus, we were reduced to what we were doing. Mercer had one of his guys inform the head of the Secretary’s security detail what we suspected, and the rest of us were combing through the crowd, looking for familiar faces or suspicious activities.
Part of the problem was these were North Koreans we were talking about. The same guys who walk around with poison pellets hidden in their teeth. Professional security people will tell you that any assassin willing to end his or her own life has something like a 90 percent chance of success. It’s generally true, too. Remember Lincoln’s assassination? President Garfield’s? Bobby Kennedy’s? John Lennon’s? Those all involved assassins crazy or willing enough to get close, to trade their chances of escape and survival to get their target.
Anyway, we finally ran into Carol and found a spot where we could overwatch the crowd and put our heads together.
Carol’s eyes roamed the crowd. “I’m bothered by something.”
“What?” her boss asked.
“Why would the North Koreans kill the American Secretary of State?”
I said, “Good question. Why would they?”
Mercer said, “Yeah. It would be too stupid for words. Even if it didn’t cause a war, we’d never pull another soldier off Korean soil until North Korea was a distant memory. That’s the last thing they’d want.”
Sometimes, even when you’re not trying, you come to a moment of truth. It just hits you in the face.
The assassin or assassins would have to be somebody you’d never connect to North Korea. But if a South Korean murdered the Secretary of State, the alliance really would be a trashheap.
And wouldn’t you know, just at that moment a large crowd of protesters came streaming around a street corner, headed our way. They were yelling and hollering and moving fast. They were carrying banners, and most of them were wearing white medical masks the way a lot of Asians do to protect their lungs from smog, or to screen their faces from being ID’ed by cops when they’re ready to rumble.
It was ten after nine. The dinner was supposed to be over in five minutes. The protesters had obviously planned their arrival to coincide with the Secretary of State’s departure from the Blue House. They wanted all those television cameras and reporters to see that the symbolic, everything’s-been-healed meal was a farce, that the South Korean people were still furiously angry over the death of Lee No Tae and wanted the lawless American troops off their soil.
On the other hand, it was a known fact that North Korean agents and sympathizers had thoroughly penetrated South Korea’s student and labor movements and could spark a protest or riot pretty much at will.
I looked at Buzz Mercer and he looked at me, and we exchanged a telepathic aw-shit. Somewhere in that crowd of protesters were probably one or two people with passes to get past the police lines.
CHAPTER 45
The Secretary of State chose that moment to stride purposefully out the entrance of the Blue House and begin walking between the ceremonial files of soldiers toward his car.
Whoever planned this thing had an exquisite sense of timing, not to mention a thorough knowledge of South Korean crowd-control methods. Because there’d been no application to the city authorities for this protest, only a small contingent of blue-suited crowd-control troops were on hand.
A platoon, thirty or so men, was loitering by a gray bus. They weren’t expecting trouble, so they didn’t have on their riot gear. Most were hunched over small stoves, cooking rice or noodles and preparing to eat.
Maybe ten uniformed policemen were present – a token force – because the folks crowded around the Blue House were all supposed to be friendly. Then there was the honor guard whose job it was to make a snazzy cordon for the Secretary of State to pass through on his way to the car. They had rifles, but it was doubtful those had ammunition.
The thing that became instantly apparent was that nobody had planned for this. There was no central, controlling authority capable of organizing an orderly response to the unfolding situation. I could see the leader of the blue-suited troops screaming at his men to get their riot gear on and get in line, even as he was yelling into a radio, probably calling for reinforcements. It was a hopeless gesture. Nobody could get here in time.
The army guard did what ceremonial troops normally do. They stayed stiffly in their cordon and held their rifles at the salute position for the distinguished man walking between them.
Suddenly the crowd of rioters lunged forward and began running pell-mell down the block toward the Blue House. They hurtled straight into the crowd of peaceful gatherers and reporters, shoving people aside and carrying others along with their speed and mass. They were yelling and screaming and waving their placards and protest signs in the air. At the same instant, the small group of kids in blue suits rushed out to meet them. They carried their helmets and shields and batons in their hands, in a breathtakingly valiant effort to throw themselves between the crowd and the diplomatic party.
The Secretary’s security detail had a split second to decide. They could turn the Secretary around and shove him back inside the Blue House. Or they could push him forward, toward the bulletproof black sedan waiting at the curb. The car door was being held open by a South Korean soldier. The car was closer.
It did look like the best choice at the time. They literally lifted him off his feet, and began carrying him forward, when suddenly the natty-looking soldier holding the car door flew forward and the door slammed shut. The soldier lay flat on the ground, like he’d been nailed on the back of the skull with a blackjack, or, considering this was Asia, a nunchaku.
At moments like this, a fraction of a second means everything. And I’ll give the Secretary’s security guys credit. They instantly threw him on the ground and two of them piled themselves on top of him, while the other two drew their pistols and turned about and faced the crowd. They instinctively recognized the situation was out of control, and we had warned them there was a grave risk, so they weren’t taking any chances.
Buzz Mercer and I were running toward the Secretary of State when we heard the first loud bang, even over the noise of the crowd, and one of the Secretary’s security men flew backward with a big spray of blood spewing from his head. Then
Then
