The candidates enter this camp as babies and never set foot out of it afterward, until they take up duties as agents. They eat American food, are taught in replicated American classrooms, even watch American TV on satellite cable. An American author named DeMille wrote a novel called
“And you think Choi might be a graduate?”
Mercer said, “Look, Drummond, we’re not even sure the place exists. Over the years, we’ve heard rumors from a couple of high-level defectors. Supposedly it’s staffed by some of the American POWs who were never returned after the war ended. Of course, some of these damned defectors’ll tell you any goddamned thing. Who knows?”
I said, “Okay, so Choi looks like a guy who reverse-immigrated back to Korea when he was seventeen. What about his sister, Bales’s wife?”
Kim scratched his head. “What sister?”
I said, “Chief Warrant Officer Michael Bales is the CID officer who worked the Whitehall case with Choi. He’s supposed to be married to Choi’s sister.”
Kim lifted up a folder and glanced through it, searching for something. He said, “We have no record of a sister.”
“So who’s Bales’s wife?”
Mercer said, “We’ll do some checking.”
Then I said, “So what’s with this screening you mentioned?”
Kim said, “Our biggest problem is that before 1945 we were under Japanese rule and were administered by Japanese civil servants. In the last days of the Second World War, they destroyed their files, effectively eradicating our historical record of citizenry. Then between 1950 and 1953, thousands of our villages and cities were destroyed, and with them, even many of our municipal and regional records were lost. Millions of people lost their homes. There were massive internal migrations and millions of northerners fleeing south. The entire Korean race was on the move. It was like our country was stirred in a huge mixing bowl.”
Mercer said, “That’s why it’s so damned hard to figure out who’s workin’ for who down here.”
Kim nodded that this was so. “About three years ago, we developed a computer program to help us sift through large populations. We call it the Communist Screening Program, or COMESPRO. Admittedly not a very elegant name, but it works. The program employs special profiles to tell us who we might want to examine more closely, much like the one your immigration service employs to screen for likely drug mules at your customs points. For example, if we can’t trace a citizen’s family back three generations, it sends up a flag. If the citizen immigrated from a third country, that’s another flag.”
I said, “Then wouldn’t Choi have popped up on your program?”
“Yes, except we’ve only used it to screen our armed forces and intelligence services, some of our more sensitive ministries, and our foreign service. We frankly hadn’t considered using it on our police forces. They’re not involved in national security, so why should we?”
I pointed at the stacks of folders. “Is that what happened when you screened everybody who works at the Itaewon station?”
He pointed at the larger stack. “These were the ones COMESPRO screened out.” Then he pointed at the smaller stack. “These are the ones we would call suspect profiles. There are twenty-two in all.”
So I said, “Then you could have a big nest of spies in the precinct house?”
Kim smiled condescendingly. “I don’t want to sound dubious, Major, but a fifth of all populations we screen come up as suspects. There’s nothing unusual about these numbers. A lot of these aren’t going to pan out… probably none. Besides, we’ve never had anything like that before. Spies and agents operate in singles. They may be part of a larger cell, perhaps under a single controller, but they’re quarantined from one another. It’s good spycraft. If one gets caught, he can’t compromise the others, because he doesn’t know who they are. The controller usually has an alert system in place in the event one of his people is picked up, and a well-planned escape route he uses at the first sign of trouble.”
“So you think I’m barking up the wrong tree?”
“Frankly, it’s wildly implausible. You have a client you want to vindicate. Your imagination is in overdrive.”
I looked over at Mercer. “What about you?”
Buzz looked up at his counterpart. “There’s something here, Kim. Might not be as big and dramatic as Drummond thinks, but it’s something.”
Kim gave us both a skeptical shrug. I wondered what he really thought. The thing is, the South Koreans would find it awfully shameful if it turned out one of their police stations was riddled with North Korean termites. Of course, maybe this was my “ overdrive” imagination at work again.
Anyway, Mercer looked at his KCIA ally and said, “Look, we’re gonna try a little bait-and-flush here. What I need your guys to do is lock down the escape hatches.” He handed Kim a photograph of Michael Bales that had been retrieved from Bales’s personnel file earlier that morning.
“This is Michael Bales,” Mercer continued. “If he tries to take a plane or ship out of Korea, I want him stopped. He’s a smart boy. He’s also a trained cop. He might be wearing a disguise and he might have a false passport, so have your guys alter this photo to show what he’d look like with a beard or mustache, or dressed as a woman, or with glasses and his hair dyed blond. I know all us White folks look alike to you Koreans, so make sure you distribute composites of what he’d look like if he took precautions. This is a no-fuck-it-up, Kim. Don’t let me down.”
Kim nodded. “No problem.” He picked up his stacks of folders and prepared to leave.
Mercer said, “One other thing. Can your people put a watch on Choi?”
Kim smiled graciously. “Consider it done, Buzz.”
“Good. If we break this thing, I’ll make sure my boss back in Langley tells your boss here you were the man who broke it. I was mystified by some funny things going on, so I went to you for help, and you figured it all out.”
Kim smiled even more broadly. “That would be very kind of you, Buzz.”
Then the two of them shook hands and Kim left. I had to give Mercer credit. As embarrassing as it would be for the Koreans to discover this spy ring working right under their noses, it would be doubly humiliating if the credit went to the Americans. This way, the Koreans could save some face. And this way, Kim had a strong personal incentive to help us in every way he could.
CHAPTER 35
I stopped by the judge’s front office to pick up the list of potential court-martial board members. Then I went to the hair parlor for a brief visit so Katherine wouldn’t think I’d been kidnapped, or maybe murdered and buried in some grove of woods. That’s probably what she was hoping happened, so why not show my face and disappoint her?
The place was a hive of wild activity. The trial was set to start in less than twenty hours, and Katherine, Allie, Imelda, and all her worthy assistants were going through the last-minute frantic sweats any well-oiled law office goes through before the big show.
A stack of neatly typed motions lay on a table, and I shook my head as I stopped and riffled through them. Katherine obviously planned on filing them with the judge at 1559 hours, one minute before closing time. It didn’t matter that Carruthers had warned her – Katherine was intent on pissing him off with a juggernaut of last-second requests for judgments. She couldn’t resist. Eight years of legal habit wasn’t going to be washed away just because some judge threatened to rip off her head and “poop” down the cavity.
When I stuck my head in her office she was chattering with somebody on the phone. She looked anxious but lovely. She glanced up and shot me the bird. It wasn’t a casual gesture. She meant it.
I then went over to Allie’s side office. I said, “How’s things?”
She gave me a surprisingly cold look. “Where have you been? We’re up to our ass and could use help.”
I grinned. “I’ve been running around checking some last-minute details.”
