“It has to go out by noon, our time.”
“Noon?”
Norkelus tilted his head slightly. He didn’t comprehend her question, or rather why she was asking it. The secretaries weren’t needed on the inspections for anything more than running errands; here was real work that needed to be done.
And besides, she was a secretary; he was the boss.
“It has to be out of here by noon, or they have to get it by noon their time?” asked Thera.
“Our time.”
“In New York, it’ll be, say ten at night.”
“You have an objection?”
“No, of course not.”
“When you’re done, you can help make sure everything is ready for the trip North. We should be back by three.”
“I can go out to the site to help break down the equipment.”
“Unnecessary,” said Norkelus. “Thank you, though.”
Thera tried to think of an excuse, any excuse, to get out to the site, but nothing would come.
“Is there a problem?” asked Norkelus in his coldest you-better-not voice.
“It’s only that it may not be enough time,” said Thera. “To have the report done by noon.”
“I’m afraid it will have to be.”
12
Ferguson spread the Asian edition of the
The editorial writer made a few valid points about the limits of the testing protocols, though it was clear from his overall tone that, in his opinion, nuking North Korea was the only viable way to deal with the country.
Ferg’s sat phone began to ring as he turned the page.
“Batman speaking,” he said, hitting the talk button.
“Ferg, something’s up,” said Jack Corrigan, the desk man on duty in The Cube. “Can you talk?”
“I can always talk, Robin. The question is whether anyone listens.”
“We got a problem, Ferg. Our friend just sent an e-mail to her grandmother telling her she has to stay inside today and work.”
“That’s it?”
“More or less.”
“Don’t tell me more or less,” snapped Ferguson. “Read me the message, Corrigan.”
“But—”
“Read me the message.”
“You want it in Greek or English?”
“Now you tell me, Jack, do I speak Greek?”
“I don’t know what you speak some days,” said Corrigan. “Gram: Hope you’re well. Having a challenging and exciting time in new job. Going to all sorts of places and getting plenty of exercise — I think I’ve lost all the weight your chicken soup put on. Yesterday I got to go out, but today it’s desk work. Even though the sun is shining, I’ll be in all day. Lots of unfinished business. Then there’s a frowny face.”
“Cute. What else?”
“That’s it. What do you think—”
“We’re on it.”
Ferguson slapped off the phone and got up, leaving the newspaper spread out on the table.
“Gotta go,” he told the approaching waiter. He unfolded a five-thousand-won note from his pocket and let it flutter to the table. “
Ferguson had just hailed a taxi when his sat phone rang again. It was Rankin.
“Something’s up. Thera didn’t get in the trucks with the rest of the team at the hotel,” said Rankin.
“Yeah, something’s goin’ on,” said Ferguson, stepping onto the curb as a cab veered across traffic to pick him up.
“You want me to go in?”
“No, hang back. She’s OK. Where’s Guns?”
“Sleepin’. He watched her hotel all night.”
“All right. I’m pickin’ you up. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
The typically thick city traffic made it more like fifty. Rankin, who’d been watching Thera’s hotel from a parking garage across the street, had been standing outside the whole time and felt like a penguin with frostbite. When he grabbed the taxi’s door his finger nearly froze to the metal.
“Cold, huh?” said Ferguson as he slid in.
“No, it’s fuckin’ July.”
“Get warm soon,” said the driver helpfully from the front. “This unusual weather.”
Rankin frowned at him. He hated nosey taxi drivers.
Ferguson leaned across him and bent over the front seat. “Driver, take us to Hard Rock Cafe. Yes?”
“Hard Rock, yes,” said the man. “Good place for party.”
“That’s what I like.”
Ferguson tucked a thick wad of won notes in the driver’s hand when they got to the restaurant. Both men walked silently to the right of the entrance, ducked down a set of stairs they had scoped out the day before, and crossed to the back of the building. Five minutes later they were standing at the counter of a rental car agency three blocks away, reserving a Hyundai.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” Rankin said as they walked to the car.
“I didn’t think you were interested.”
“Don’t be a prick, Ferg. I didn’t want to ask questions while people were around.”
“Thera can’t pick up the tags. Her work assignment must’ve changed. You and I are going to go take a closer look at the site and figure out what we’re going to do.”
“We’re going in? How?”
“See, that’s the problem with explaining things to you, Skip. Every time I do, you ask more questions. Sooner or later I’m going to run out of answers.”
Generally the best and easiest way to get into a highly secure facility was through the front gate. But Ferguson decided that wasn’t going to work in this case. The South Koreans had upped their security to impress the IAEA inspection team, and any work crew, especially one with an out-of-place Caucasian or two, would draw close scrutiny. Presenting themselves as members of the inspection team wouldn’t work, either; that was too easily checked, and, besides, they didn’t want to do anything to draw any suspicion to the inspectors.
The next best option was to come in from the extreme northern perimeter, which bordered a nature preserve and was guarded only by razor wire and infrared cameras. It was a long way around: Rankin estimated that simply getting to the perimeter fence from the entrance to the nature reserve would take two hours, and it would take another hour and a half to hike from the perimeter fence into the compound.
“There’s another problem,” said Ferguson as they scouted the fence line from the park. “The security cameras overlap pretty well. I don’t think we can get over without blinding them.”
Rankin took Ferguson’s binoculars, peering over the crest of the hill toward the fence. The cameras were well hidden; he only knew where to look because they had prepared a map of the security layout for the mission. An
