'Good man,' Hood said. 'Hold on while I make sure things are set on this end.'
As he waited, Hwan ignored the questioning glances of Hongtack. Even if war was averted, what a monstrous tragedy this day had already been. And for what? The kind of military and political machinations that Gregory had always hated.
Talk, he said. Talk and art are all that separate us from the other animals. Use them and savor them fully
It was so unjust. And worst of all was the fact that the man to whom he would have turned for consolation was no longer here.
'Kim?'
Hwan pressed the phone to his ear and struggled against the lingering effects of the anesthesia that threatened to drag him back to sleep.
'I'm here, Paul.'
'Kim, there's a problem—'
Over the crackle of static, a frantic voice cut Hood off.
'They're threatening to shoot me!'
Hwan was instantly alert as he recognized Kim Chong's voice. 'Kim, this is Hwan. Can you hear me?'
'Yes—!'
'Who's threatening you?'
'There's a helicopter— and two motorcycles are on the way. I'm parked on a mountain? I can see them below.'
Hwan's eyes fastened on Hongtack. 'Are they ours?'
'I don't know,' said Hongtack. 'Director Yung-Hoon said there were too many agencies involved to—'
'I don't care if God himself is involved. Call them off.'
'Sir—'
'Hongtack, you get on another telephone and tell Director Yung-Hoon that I accept full responsibility for Ms. Chong. Tell him that now, or tomorrow you join the U.S. team doing radio surveillance in McMurdo.'
After hesitating, appearing to weigh his dignity against a tour in Antarctica, Hongtack left the hospital room.
Hwan returned to the phone. 'I've taken care of it, Kim. Where are you?'
'I'm in the mountains of Sorak-san National Park. I've pulled under a ledge where the helicopter can't land.'
'All right. You're to go see my uncle Zon Pak in Yangyang. He's a fisherman; no one likes him, but everyone knows him. I'll phone ahead and he'll get you safely where you need to go. Now, did Mr. Hood explain our problem?'
'Yes. He told me about Major Lee.'
'Can you help? Will you help?'
'Yes, of course. Stay on the line and I'll radio Pyongyang.'
'Will you plug in the headset so you can hear Mr. Hood and me without them hearing us?'
Kim told Hwan she would, and he listened as the hos-pital-to-Op-Center-to-Sorak-san link took on one more participant: Captain Ahn II at 'Home,' which Hwan knew was the North Korean Intelligence Agency's headquarters in the capital, located in the subbasements of the Haebangsang Hotel on the west bank of the Taedong River.
'Home,' Kim said, 'I have received incontrovertible evidence that a cell of South Korean soldiers, and not— repeat, not— the government or military in Seoul, was behind today's bombing and the attempted gassing at the base. Major Lee, the officer with the eyepatch, is the person behind the entire operation.'
There was a moment of silence, then: 'Seoul Oh-Miyo, what man with the eyepatch?'
'The man who was handling the poison gas.'
'No such man was involved.'
Paul said, 'Ms. Chong, please tell him to wait. I'm going to try and find Major Lee— and if I do, they'll have to act quickly to stop him.'
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Paul Hood put Kim Hwan on hold and rang Bob Herbert.
'Bob, do we have a photo of Major Lee?'
'It's in his dossier—'
'Scan it over to NRO fast, then come here with Lowell Coffey, McCaskey, and Mackall.'
Hood called over to Stephen Viens at NRO.
'Steve, you've got a photo coming in from Bob Herbert. The man may still be on the North side of the DMZ in Panmunjom: I need to find and track him. Check the area near the conference center first— give me two satellites on it.'
'Secretary Colon has authorized the second eye, right?'
'He would if he knew about it,' Hood said dryly.
'That's what I figured,' Viens said. 'The mug shot's coming through now. Will the subject be alone?'
'Most likely,' said Hood, 'and in a ROK uniform. I want to watch as the pictures come in.'
'Hold on.'
Hood listened as Viens ordered a second satellite camera turned on the area, and ordered it to look down from a relative height of twenty-five feet. Then he had Major Lee's photograph fed into the satellite computer: it would search the area for anyone with those features and outline him in blue.
The roof of the conference center appeared; he wasn't there, or the watchtowers on both sides would have spotted him. Then, 4.4 seconds later, staggered with images from the first, the second satellite gave them a photograph of the area in front of the building— the small caravan and the jeep with what was probably General Hong-koo.
Bob Herbert came wheeling in, followed by Martha, Coffey, McCaskey, and Ann Farris. Hood had a feeling she'd come, not so much to check on the crisis but to look after him. Her mothering made him both uncomfortable and strangely content, though he let the discomfort go for now. He'd liked how her hand felt on his shoulder before.
'Darrell,' Hood said, 'why is Hong-koo just sitting there? He has to know by now what's happened.'
'It wouldn't matter,' Martha answered for him. Darrell shot her a look. 'The North Koreans would still have a party even if the birthday boy was shot dead. They like being unflappable. A holdover of President Kim Il Sung's ideology of juche— self-reliance.'
Ann said, 'He'll probably use the forum to make a political statement of some kind.'
'How they've been attacked and have exhibited enormous self-control by not responding,' Martha said.
Darrell threw up his hands and sat down.
Hood watched intently as the pictures continued to come in, on the upper left and lower right of his computer, respectively. The arrival of each one was marked by a second-long whir of the hard disk as it stored the images; a code number in the bottom right of each picture— the sequential number followed by a '1S' for 'First Sweep' — would allow it to be brought back instantly. The computer could also enhance the images with greater clarity, brightness, and even change the angle from directly above to head-on by extrapolating from information in the picture.
'Hold 17-1S,' Hood barked, sitting up in his chair. 'The lone figure standing behind the tree one hundred and something yards from the caravan—'
Bob and Darrell came around to look.
'His face is hidden by leaves,' said Viens. 'Let me move the camera over a bit.'
A bit meant thousandths of an inch that, magnified by the satellite's distance from the Earth, would give them a different angle by a foot or more.
The new picture came in and it immediately began to shine with a faint blue line.
