“Sure.”
“We’re going into Daejeon and get real food,” Evora added. “We deserve a little reward for all our hard work.”
“I didn’t work very hard.”
“But you deserve a reward anyway,” said Evora, his eyes twinkling.
The reward Evora had in mind was himself. A half-dozen members of the inspection team went to a
Thera was one of two women with the group, and she found herself the focus of most of the attention. Evora kept pouring her drinks and urging her to sing. Six foot two, he had curly black hair and eyes that seemed to tunnel into hers when he spoke. He had a handsome face and wonderful shoulders, and moved reasonably well on the dance floor. Not as good as Ferguson had but almost.
Thera found herself debating whether she should take him to bed. She decided not to, but later, back in her room listening to her roommate’s snores, she fantasized about the Portuguese scientist, wondering what his arms would have felt like around her, imagining his finger brushing her breast.
Sex was an accepted part of spycraft if you were a guy. Someone like Ferg probably had sex all the time when working undercover.
Not that she knew that for a fact.
Things were somewhat more ambiguous for women. Someone like Slott would certainly not approve… Then again he wouldn’t ask, as long as you provided the results.
Evora wasn’t interesting enough to keep her attention, and Thera started visualizing herself retrieving the tags from the site. She began seeing guards everywhere, watching her.
Her mind began to race, unable to stop the permutations of fear multiplying in her brain.
They’d seen her, filmed her already, were waiting to spring it on her tomorrow.
Norkelus knew she was lying about the cigarettes.
She’d be caught in North Korea. She’d be tortured and locked away forever.
Thera tossed and turned in her bed, the sheets and covers wrapped around her, squeezing sweat from her pores. And then the phone was ringing with their wakeup call, and it was time to get up.
10
With the president and some of his key advisors away, the West Wing of the White House where Corrine had her office was relatively quiet. This meant fewer interruptions for Corrine, and by four o’clock she was actually caught up on her work or at least as caught up as she ever was. She called over to The Cube to check on the First Team’s Korean operation.
“This is Lauren,” said Lauren DiCapri, the on-duty mission coordinator. “Who’s this?”
The phone system in The Cube would have already identified Corrine, but she told her anyway. “So what’s going on?”
“Nothing. We’re good.”
There was a strong note of resentment in Lauren’s voice; she belonged to the camp that resented Corrine as an outsider and impediment to their jobs.
It was a big camp, and included Ferguson and CIA Deputy Director of Operations Daniel Slott. The arrangement itself was part of the problem. The lines of authority were somewhat hazy and had been so even before Corrine’s arrival. The CIA people who worked with Special Demands answered to Slott for administrative purposes and had to work with him on mission details. The Special Operations people assigned to the First Team — like Rankin and Guns — had two masters, the military and Special Demands, while the Special Forces detachment and its assorted support units had their own colonel, Charles Van Buren.
Until Corrine’s appointment as the president’s
Or so it appeared. Corrine had had a devilish time figuring out exactly how the chain of command really did run, and her efforts to insert more oversight, while they had had some impact, probably hadn’t changed things all that much. Ferguson and his people still had incredible leeway once given a mission.
She didn’t want to second-guess them, much less hamstring them, but she did want them to stay within the bounds set by the president. Finding the right balance was incredibly difficult, especially when the people she was supposed to supervise resented her.
“Thera’s still in South Korea?” Corrine asked.
“Yes,” said Lauren tersely
“Well, let me know if anything comes up.”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m not the enemy,” snapped Corrine. But it was too late; Lauren had already hung up.
11
Thera got up and went into the shower, not wanting to have to wait for her roommate. She let the hot water pummel her face, then backed off the heat until the water sent shivers through her body, shaking away the fear and paranoia she’d stewed in all night. She saw the tags in her hand, saw herself slipping them under the mattress, moving on. It was going to be easy, easiest thing she’d ever done, a piece of cake.
She’d have to take her roommate to dinner, make sure she was out of the way.
Bring her to karaoke with Evora.
Done with her shower, Thera dressed and headed downstairs to the coffee shop, where the team gathered for breakfast before assembling in one of the hotel conference rooms and starting out. As she stuck her cup under the spout of the coffee urn, Dr. Norkelus tapped her on the shoulder.
“A word, please.”
Thera finished filling her cup, then took a teaspoon and a small amount of sugar, stirring meticulously before placing the cup on a saucer. Norkelus stared at her the whole time, his expression similar to the look a vice principal might give when calling a student out of study hall for cutting up. Finally he tilted his long nose downward, then swung around and walked toward the exit.
Thera followed, sure she was going to be scolded, though she wasn’t exactly sure why. Had someone seen her smoking with the guard? Or was last night the problem? Norkelus had a puritanical streak. He walked with a gait so stiff it reminded her of some of the Greek Orthodox priests who’d taught her religion when she was young, righteous, sanctimonious old bastards who once made a girl spit out her bubblegum and stick it on her head for chewing in class.
Norkelus went into an empty conference room. Thera nearly bumped into him just inside the door.
“Tony is sick. I’ll need you to compile the logs and e-mail them to New York and the Hague,” he told her.
“Tony’s sick?” Thera managed, caught off guard.
“The UN secretary general wants the briefings. Here are my notes.”
He handed her a small flash-memory card, used by the team’s voice recorders.
“OK, sure,” said Thera. “I’ll get to work on it as soon as I get back.”
