surface-to-surface rockets for the first time ever. Like the fact that North Korea’s resident chief lunatic Kim has given the Soviets overflight rights and access to his naval bases — something that he’s refused to do for more than thirty years.”
“Oh, come on, guys.” Voorhees laughed, a bit nervously. “You can’t tell me you’re going to try feeding everyone the old ‘the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming’ bullshit. No one’s going to buy it. What kind of confirmation do you have? I mean, couldn’t this stuff just be rumors spread around by the NSP to keep us backing the South Korean government?”
Fowler decided it was time to intervene. “Some of it may be. But not all of it. Our satellites have caught glimpses of new equipment being fed into the North, and we’ve spotted increasing numbers of Soviet warships and planes in and around North Korea.”
He paused for a moment. “So we know for sure that North Korea’s engaged in a sizable military buildup. What we can’t get is solid data on what they plan to do with all that hardware. And in a way, that makes the situation we face worse. We can estimate the North’s capabilities but we can’t guess their intentions. That means we’ve got to plan for the worst case.”
He looked over at Dolan. “Your people haven’t been able to get anyone inside North Korea, have they?”
Dolan shook his head. “No. We don’t have a single agent on the ground up there. The damned place is too regimented, too paranoid to infiltrate. We’ve worked with the NSP for decades to try to plant somebody. It never works. They go in … and they don’t ever, ever come out.”
Scott agreed. “Yeah. The only human intel we can get from inside Pyongyang comes from some of the Japanese companies that do business there. And we can’t confirm much of that.”
Time to bring it home. Fowler looked straight into Voorhees’s eyes. “So what we’ve got, Alan, is a country that’s already militarized beyond all reason. A country that’s certainly acquiring even more weaponry. And a country that has a forty-year-old track record of aggression, assassination, and terrorism. Just how do you suggest we should interpret those facts?”
Fowler studied Voorhees’s face carefully. He looked less sure of himself than he’d been before. Good. They had to convince him that there could be an increased military threat if the Barnes troop withdrawal provisions went into effect. If they didn’t, Voorhees might talk his boss, the Secretary of Commerce, into disapproving the Working Group’s report. That wouldn’t please George Putnam one little bit. More importantly, it would set the stage for still another disjointed administration response to half-baked congressional legislation.
Fowler caught Dolan’s eye. “Maybe you could let Alan take a look at your latest assessment of North Korea’s military capabilities.”
Dolan nodded back slowly, a barely perceptible smile on his face. “Sure thing.” He turned to Voorhees. “I’d be happy to messenger over the file anytime you want to see it.”
Voorhees looked around the table. He obviously knew he was outnumbered, and Fowler had offered him a face-saving way out. He nodded. “Okay. I’ll take a look at it. If what you say about the Soviets’ boosting North Korea’s military capabilities is true …” Voorhees paused. “Well, I’d have to say that would show that an American troop withdrawal could cause some problems.”
Fowler fought hard not to smile. They had him. Voorhees might not be completely convinced, but he wasn’t going to oppose the group’s analysis.
He glanced down at his watch again. God, it was getting late. It was time to declare victory and get back to his word processor.
He shuffled his notes back into order. “Does anyone have anything else they want to go over for now?” There was silence from around the table.
“Right. Okay, I’ll finish putting together a draft position paper on the bill. I should have something to send around for comment by tomorrow night.”
Carlson spoke for the others. “When do you need it back?” He looked unhappy. He was probably worried about missing the next Redskins game. Fowler knew he had season tickets.
“Frankly, as soon as possible. Sorry, Ted, but Putnam’s really breathing down my neck on this one. And with the bill going into markup, he might not be so far off base. Maybe you can take it to the game with you.” Carlson laughed.
Fowler stuffed his papers back into his briefcase. “Seriously, I’ve got a feeling the clock’s running on this one, guys. And we’d better get our playbook written and approved before we get stepped on by Congress.”
The other members of the Working Group nodded, gathered up their own notes, and filed out of the room. Fowler headed back to his office.
The meeting had gone pretty well. Unless he’d completely misread the signals, the others agreed that the Barnes bill should be vigorously opposed. There’d be the usual back-and-forth tussle over the exact wording, but in the end he should be able to get them to approve a clear, concise paper recommending that course to the President.
Fowler knew that might prove vital. From what he could gather from the nightly news and in shoptalk around the office, the Barnes Korean sanctions bill was gathering support left and right — though mostly from the left. Unions, church and human rights groups, so-called public interest organizations, and activists of every stripe were out beating the drums, sending in postcards, and holding press conferences. One of the farmers’ groups had even come out in support of the Barnes bill. They’d been pissed off by South Korea’s refusal to open its markets to American agricultural products. It was beginning to look as if it were open season on South Korea.
It also looked as if he and his trusty computer were among the few standing in the steamroller’s path. He stopped in the hallway, stifled a yawn, and laughed to himself. Talk about delusions of grandeur. He must be catching the “Washington disease” — the curious belief that everything everywhere depended on one’s own actions.
He’d have thought he was immune to it, but perhaps it stole quietly into the brain — drawn in from the long, echoing marble corridors, from the flags, the statues of great men long dead, and from the tingling, ever present sensation of power that you felt from the very first moment you wore a security badge.
He walked on, idly fingering the badge hanging from a chain around his neck. It didn’t matter. He had a policy paper to write, regardless of whether the importance he attached to it was real or imagined.
Fowler didn’t get home until well past midnight.
He came in the door as quietly as he could. The town house they rented in suburban northern Virginia seemed well enough built, but it was small and sounds carried far at night.
He left the hall light off and felt his way along past his daughter’s bedroom. He stopped for a moment at her door, listening for a change in her breathing. Part of him almost hoped she’d wake up. Kary was five, growing up fast, and he’d scarcely seen her for the past several months. But he kept moving. She was in school now. She needed all the sleep she could get.
Mandy had left the window blinds in the master bedroom open — letting in a soft white glow from the moon that gave him just enough light to avoid stumbling into the furniture. He undressed hurriedly, draping his suit pants, shirt, and tie over a chair. Fowler shivered. The August heat wave had finally broken only a couple of weeks ago, but the nights were already turning colder.
He laid his glasses, watch, and security badge on the nightstand by the bed and slid under the covers. A warm hand came up to gently stroke his face. He opened his eyes to see his wife propped up on one elbow. She smiled and bent down over him. “Hi, there. Glad you’re home.”
God, she was beautiful. The moonlight gleamed in his wife’s corn-silk-fine, blond hair and illuminated her pert, freckled nose, delicate, oval face, and baby-blue eyes. His heart turned over with a thump, and he felt a sense of childlike wonder that it still did that whenever he saw her. Even after seven years of marriage.
He and Mandy had met as graduate students on a summer studies tour of Japan, and he’d fallen head over heels in love with her in hours — bowled over by the combination of beauty, intelligence, and a husky, Southern voice. He still didn’t know exactly what she’d seen in him.
He just thanked God he hadn’t completely lost whatever it was, despite the constant strain imposed by the hundred-hour workweeks his job often demanded. And it wasn’t just a strain on him, he thought guiltily. He never seemed to be around when Kary was sick or Mandy needed his help. They’d exchanged some cold words over times like that. But so far they’d both been able to find their way back into love out of the cold. So far. Still, there were a lot of days when he regretted the pride and ambition that had made him forsake a quiet, university teaching career for the “glamor” of an NSC staff post.
