Diplomacy: kick their ass first, then negotiate with your foot on their neck. And he remained convinced that Op- Center would be more effective, respected, and feared if it stuffed its intelligence into a.45 Magnum instead of a Peer-2030 computer.
'I don't have to tell you to watch yourself,' Hood said, 'and good luck. If anything happens, no one can help you.'
'We know. I'll tell the men you wished them well.'
Rodgers signed off and Puckett was up in a flash to collect the radio.
Squires fished out an earplug. 'Anything, sir?'
'Plenty.' Rodgers reached under the seat and pulled out his grip, plunked it in his lap. 'We may get to use our swords before the boss makes them rust.'
'Sir?'
'Henry Ward Beecher. You know what he said about anxiety?'
'No, sir. Not offhand.'
'He said, 'It's not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy. Worry is rust upon the blade.' Paul worries too much, Charlie, but he told me that if a Nodong so much as raises its pointy little head, we're free to do more than just assess the situation for Op-Center.'
'Sweet,' Squires said.
Rodgers unzipped the bag. 'Which is why it's time I showed you how to use these babies.' He removed two spheres a half inch in diameter, one lawn-green, the other dull gray. 'The EBCs. I've got twenty in here, half of them green, the other half gray. Each one has a range of a mile.'
'That's great,' Squires said, 'but what do they do?'
'Just what the bread crumbs were supposed to do in 'Hansel and Gretel.'' He handed the orbs to Squires, reached back into the bag, and withdrew a device the size and shape of a small stapler. He opened it at the hinge: there was a tiny liquid crystal display on top and four buttons underneath, one green, one gray, one red, one yellow. There was an earplug attached to the side of the device and Rodgers removed it. He touched the red button and an arrow appeared, pointing to Squires and beeping loudly. 'Move the balls up,' Rodgers said.
Squires did, and the arrow followed him.
'If you move farther away, the beeping will grow fainter. Matt Stoll worked these up for me. Simple, but brilliant. As you make your initial incursion through an area, you put the balls down— green in a wooded region, gray in rocky terrain. When you have to make your way back, you just switch on the tracker, put the earplug in so the enemy doesn't hear the tones, and follow it from ball to ball.'
'Like connect the dots,' Squires said.
'You got it. With these things and our night-vision goggles, we can move like a goddamn mountain lion.'
'Electronic bread crumbs' — Squires laughed, handing them back to Rodgers— ' 'Hansel and Gretel.' This isn't a business for grown-ups, sir, is it?'
'Children love to fight and rarely think about death. They're the perfect soldiers.'
'Who said that?'
Rodgers smiled. 'I did, Charlie. I did.'
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Gregory Donald learned of the attack on Sariwon an hour before, after completing another surveillance sweep for Op-Center, and he still couldn't believe it. General Schneider had been wakened and told, and had passed the word to him: with relish that Donald found repugnant.
Another person had died, a life had been ended so that the President of the United States could look tough. Donald wondered if Lawrence would have been as willing to take a life if the airman had been standing three feet away, staring at him along the barrel of a gun.
Of course he wouldn't. A civilized person could not.
What was it, then, that made that same civilized person kill for a jolt in the polls, or to make a point? Lawrence would argue, as had presidents in the past, that casualties like these prevent greater losses in the future. But Donald maintained that dialogue prevented more losses still, if only one side or the other wasn't afraid of looking weak or conciliatory.
He looked into the distance, at the conference building straddling the borders, each side brightly lit and guarded to prevent anyone from trying to sneak through. The flags of the North and South hung limply at the end of their surreally tall flagpoles, the South's most recently capped with a spire instead of a ball to make it five inches taller than the North's. For now. No doubt a six-inch spire had been ordered and was on the way. At which point the South would put a taller one on top. Or maybe a weather vane or radio antenna. The possibilities were absurd and endless.
All of their problems could be solved within those four walls, if only the participants wanted them to be. Soonji had once given a speech on that subject to a meeting of Koreans and Blacks in New York in 1992, when tensions between the groups were at their peak.
'Think of it as a chain letter,' she'd said. 'If only one person from each side wants peace, and can convince another person on their side to want it, and those two can convince two more people, and those four, four more, we will have the beginning we need.'
A beginning? not an end. Not more blood spilled and more resources squandered, not more hate branded into the psyche of a new generation.
Donald began walking away from the border, away from the compound. He turned his eyes toward the stars.
He was suddenly very tired, overwhelmed by hurt and a deep sense of despair and doubt. Maybe Schneider was correct. Maybe the North Koreans would use him and he'd do more harm than good trying to bring about 'Peace in our time.'
He stopped, sat down hard, and lay back, his head on a patch of grass. Soonji would have encouraged him to go ahead with this. She was an optimist, not a realist, but she had accomplished most of what she set out to do.
'I'm a pragmatist,' he said, tears in his eyes, 'and I always have been. You know that, Soon.' He searched the skies for a familiar constellation, for a hint of order. There was only a jumble of stars. 'If I back down from what I believe, then either I've lived a lie? or I'll be living one from now on. I don't think I've been wrong, so I have to go ahead. Help me, Soonji. Give me some of your confidence.'
A warm breeze drifted over him, and Donald shut his eyes. She would never come to him again of course, but he could still go to her, if not in life, then in sleep. And as he lay in the dark, in the silence, lingering between wakefulness and dream, he no longer felt unsure or afraid or alone.
Two miles to the west, and a few feet underground, the last drum of death was inching its way to the north, carrying sleep of a different kind
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
'What's the weather outside?' Hood asked as he walked into Matt Stall's office.
Stoll hit Shift/F8, then 3, then 2. 'Sunny, seventy-eight degrees, wind from the southwest.' When he was finished, he returned to the keyboard, inputting instructions, waiting, then inputting more.
'How's it coming, Matty?'
'I've got the system cleaned out, except for the satellites. I should have those back in about ninety minutes.'
