'That doesn't mean their hands are clean.'
'No. But he does say that they just received a message from an operative in Seoul. She was requesting information about the possible theft of military boots and explosives from any base in the North.'
'A North Korean agent was asking.'
'Yes.'
'The agent must have learned about the KCIA's suspicions. Inform Director Yung-Hoon there appears to be a leak in the pipeline. Did we pick up the transmission anywhere else?'
'No. I checked with Private Koh at the communications center at the DMZ. The message didn't come through a satellite uplink.'
'Thanks, Rachel. Send the text of the transmission to Bugs.' After hanging up, he looked at Hood who nodded. 'DPRK is checking into the possible theft from one of their depots of the materials used in the bombing. Looks like we all may have been had, Chief, by someone who wants us at war.'
Hood looked from Herbert to the monitor as the President's words returned to haunt him: Whether or not the North was in it before, Paul, they're in it now— up to their necks.
As the breakdowns of troop deployments were merged from the War Games file into the military options paper, Colon used his code to sign off on his section of the document. When he'd switched off, Hood said, 'Bugs, I want that transmission placed up front, and I'd like you to add the notation I'm going to type in. Ask Ann Farris to get on, would you?'
Hood thought for a moment. He didn't have Ann's gift for conciseness, but he wanted a cautionary note to be somewhere in the permanent crisis Task Force file. He made a window that she would be able to read on her monitor, and began pecking at the keyboard.
Herbert rolled to his side and read over Hood's shoulder.
'Mr. President: I share your outrage at the attack on our jet and the loss of an officer. However, I urge restraint from a position of strength. We stand to lose much and gain little fighting a foe who may not be our enemy.'
'Good for you, chief,' Herbert said. 'You may not be speaking for the Task Force, but you speak for me.'
'And me,' Ann said. 'I couldn't have said it better.'
Hood saved the addendum and brought Ann's face on the screen. She was so good at selling ideas to reporters over the phone, he couldn't tell what she was really thinking unless he saw her face.
She was thinking exactly what she'd said. In the six months he'd known her, that was the first time she hadn't noodled with something he'd written.
Herbert left the office, Ann returned to her conference with the White House Press Secretary, and Hood finished reviewing the options update before telling Bugs to fax it over the secure line. Alone and surprisingly relaxed for the first time that day, he rang the hospital where the news was not what he'd expected to hear.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The soldiers in the radio center were joking with Private Koh when the message came from the headquarters of General Hong-koo, Commander of the Forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They were immediately alert, no longer teasing Koh about brown-nosing by taking a second shift; they replayed the coordinates recorded by their directional antennae to ascertain that the message had, in fact, come from just over the DMZ. That done, they checked their computer directory to confirm that the caller was, in fact, his adjutant Kim Hoh. The computer searched its files and, within seconds, had completed a voiceprint identification. Finally, less than thirty seconds after the signal had been received, they radioed back an acknowledgment and started the two- cassette recorder to tape the message and a copy. One man notified General Schneider that a communications from the North was being received. The private was told to bring it to him the instant it was complete.
Koh seemed the most intent of the five men, listening as the message came through:
'To former Ambassador Gregory Donald at Base Charlie. General Hong-koo, Commander of the Forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at Base One, DMZ, returns greetings and accepts your invitation to a meeting in the neutral zone at 0800 hours.'
While one of the men radioed that the message had been received, another ran a copy of the tape and a cassette player to General Schneider's quarters.
Koh said to the remaining two men that he was feeling a bit tired and was going to have some coffee and a smoke. Outside, he walked into the shadows of a nearby truck and undid his shirt. There was an M2 cellular phone strapped to his upper arm: undoing the buckle, he pulled up the antenna and punched in Lee's number.
'There better be a very short and enlightening explanation for this,' Schneider said as Gregory entered, 'because sleepy-eyed firing squads make me nervous.'
The General was dressed in pajamas and a robe and was holding the cassette recorder and headset in his right hand.
Donald's heart quickened. He wasn't worried about General Schneider, but about the North Korean response.
He took the recorder, placed one side of the headset to his ear, and listened to the message. When it was finished, he said, 'The explanation is that I asked for the meeting and I got one.'
'So you really did this dumb-ass thing— illegally, from the radio center for which I am responsible.'
'Yes. I'm hoping we can all be reasonable and avert a war.'
'We? Gregory, I'm not going to sit across a table from Hong-koo. You may think you scored some kind of coup by getting him to a meeting, but he's going to use you. Why do you think he's waiting a couple of hours? So they can plan the whole thing out. You'll be photographed trying to make nice, and the President will look like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth—'
'Doesn't he?'
'Not on this. Colon's office says he's been a tiger from the get-go, as well he should be. The bastards blew up downtown Seoul, killed your own wife, Gregory—'
'We don't know that,' he said through his teeth.
'Well, we do know that they shot up one of our planes, Greg! We've got a body bag as proof!'
'They overreacted, which is precisely what we shouldn't do—'
'Defcon 3 isn't an overreaction. It's good soldiering, and the President was going to stop there, make 'em sweat.' Schneider rose and jammed his big hands into his pocket. 'Hell, who knows what he's going to do after your little love letter.'
'You're blowing it out of proportion.'
'No I'm not. You really don't see it, do you? You might very well put the President in a no-win situation.'
'How?'
'What happens if you hold out the olive branch and North Korea accepts in principle but doesn't withdraw any troops until the President does? If he refuses, it'll look like he squandered a chance for peace. And if he does back down, it'll look like he blinked.'
'Horse shit—'
'Gregory, think about it! And what kind of credibility does he have if it looks like you're running his foreign policy? What do we do the next time a Saddam Hussein or Raoul Cedras makes a power grab, or some nutcase sends missiles to Cuba. Do we send for Gregory Donald?'
'You talk to them, yes— try and reason with them. While JFK was busy blockading Cuba, he was also negotiating like mad with Khrushchev about withdrawing some of our missiles in Turkey. That's what ended the crisis, not sea power. Talking is what civilized people do.'
'Hong-koo isn't civilized.'
'But his bosses are, and there have been no direct, high-level contacts with the North since this morning. Christ, you wouldn't believe that adults would play games like this, but they are. The diplomats are playing chicken. If I can open a dialogue, even with Hong-koo—'
