He shrugged. “What we guess was there was another car and some accomplices waiting for Bales in the tunnel. We haven’t got a clue who the guy was who drove his car out of the tunnel. He didn’t have any ID, but he obviously worked for Choi. I guess that was plan B. As for Choi, he somehow figured he was being followed. After Bales called him, he must’ve taken precautions. Maybe he had some of his own people tail him and they detected the KCIA guys.”
“He didn’t waste a minute. He’s really good,” I remarked, which was as revoltingly obvious as anything I’d ever muttered in my life.
“Yeah,” Mercer said, looking even more glum.
I hooked my cane on the front of his desk and fell into a chair. “You’ve got people going through their offices and homes?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Bales’s wife?”
“Carol arrested her at the luncheon. That’s the only fuckin’ thing that went right.”
“Where’s she now?”
“The KCIA’s got her.”
“What? You turned her over?”
“Yeah.”
“How come?” I asked. “You arrested her on a military base. She’s a military wife. You have jurisdiction.”
His eyes shifted a little, like this wasn’t something he was particularly proud to admit. “ ’Cause the KCIA has a bit more latitude than we do.”
That was a nice way of saying that the KCIA could rip her fingernails out and flood her veins with truth serums.
I wasn’t passing any judgments, though. I might’ve done the same thing if I were in his shoes. Hell, I might’ve done the same thing if I was in my shoes. Lots of innocent folks had been murdered, and Bales’s wife was probably somehow connected to it.
“Besides,” he continued, “they know how to handle North Korean stooges better than we do.”
“Is there some trick to that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Ah, yeah. They’re a breed apart. Know how Carol took her down?”
“How?”
“Drugged her tea. The second she saw her getting drowsy, she slipped up behind her and jammed a steel plate in her mouth so she couldn’t bite down, while two other agents rushed over, threw ropes around her body, and pinned her in place.”
“Sounds pretty extreme.”
“There’s a reason for it. Lots of these North Koreans have those poison pellets inside a tooth. No shit. Remember that KAL plane that got a bomb planted on it by a North Korean couple? The KCIA caught them, but the guy reached up, twisted a molar, and plunk! The bastard was dead before he hit the floor.”
“Think the KCIA’ll get her to talk?”
“Depends how tough she is. Usually they start getting results within seventy-two hours.”
“That’s too long, though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Choi and Bales will assume she’s been taken. They’ll hide someplace she can’t compromise. They’ll alter their plans.”
I rubbed my chin and gave him a full dose of the look people say makes me look just like a Lebanese rug merchant. “So, you got any ideas?”
He shrugged. “Maybe Bales’s wife will tell us something helpful. Maybe we’ll find something searching through their belongings.”
“You don’t sound hopeful.”
“I’m not. These guys were trained agents.”
“Choi maybe was. Bales wasn’t.”
He looked over his coffee mug. “You got something you wanna share?”
I kept rubbing my chin. “I thought maybe if I joined in the search, I might catch something you’ll miss.”
Mercer was no dummy. “You mean you’d like to go through their shit and see if you can find something to get Whitehall off.”
I smiled. “I suppose if I came upon something that helped my client, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
He shook his head and rolled his eyes. He’d obviously had a hell of a day. “Look, Drummond, you wanna go through their crap, just say so. I owe you, and I always pay my debts. Feel free.”
“Could you loan me Carol Kim?”
“Think I’d let you go through their shit without somebody looking over your shoulder? Take her.”
He had a good point. I started to get up.
“One other thing,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Remember when Bales called Choi?”
“Of course.”
“Think back. Remember what he said just before they talked about that plan B thing?”
“He wanted to know about his wife?”
“Nah, after that.”
“I don’t remember anything after that,” I admitted.
“Bales asked him about phase 3.”
“What in the hell’s phase 3?”
Mercer looked sadder than any man I ever saw. “That’s what we’d like to know.”
CHAPTER 38
I asked Mercer to have Carol meet me at the snack bar on base. I hadn’t eaten since the day before, and it looked like another long night ahead. I was halfway through my second overcooked burger and was noisily slurping a watery chocolate milkshake when Carol walked in.
How could I tell? Because when she entered, the snack bar was jammed with soldiers loudly bitching about what a lousy week they’d had, or making empty boasts about how they were going to get laid this Friday night, when suddenly everything came to a stop. The room just froze – the opposite effect of throwing a pebble into a still pond. See, Carol wasn’t bad in ye olde looks department, but she wasn’t any great shakes either – only these troops had been penned up on base ever since Whitehall’s arrest, and anything with boobs that walked upright looked damned good to them at that moment.
There was an almost universal gasp of surprise when she wafted across the room and landed at my table. I still looked pretty ravaged from the beatings. And when a hundred or so young minds think exactly the same thought, at exactly the same moment, the psychic echo can be almost deafening: Jesus, what’s she doing with that busted-up hulk? Friggin’ officers get all the luck.
I looked around the room and proudly acknowledged their universal envy, because I’m a guy, and guys don’t really care if jealousy is built on a false foundation. At least I don’t. I take it anywhere I can get it.
“Congratulations on capturing Mrs. Bales,” I said, after she’d sat down.
“Thanks,” she offhandedly responded, like, You know, no big thing; just another day in a secret agent’s life. Not even worth an entry in my diary.
“Hungry?” I asked, munching away on my burger.
She looked at the burger with disgust. “No, I, uh, I’ll get something else to eat. Later.”
“You sure? It might be a long night.”
She was still staring at the greasy thing in my fist. “Quite sure.”
“Okay, have it your way. Here’s what I’d like to do. Can you get me in to see Bales’s wife?”
“If you’d like. Why?”
“Curiosity. I just want to see what she looks like.”
