Directly below the report was a response from Ken Bo regarding the plutonium and its possible origin. Stripped of its many qualifications — and complaints about the “unusual” operation that had found it — was a theory that the material had come from the closed TRIGA Mark-III research reactor in Seoul. The reactor had been used in the 1980s and probably the 1990s to conduct experiments testing extraction techniques from depleted uranium. Other experiments, continuing until 2004, had produced other isotopes.
While not generally known, those experiments had been detected by the IAEA roughly five years
Bo’s contention — he phrased it as a hypothesis — was that the plutonium that had just been discovered was merely waste material left from those activities.
The theory would make a certain sense to a layman; the readings had been found at a waste dump, after all. But Slott knew that wasn’t what was really going on. First of all, the experiments had never been aimed at or succeeded in producing plutonium. TRIGA Mark-Ill had been shut down, and all the material, even potential waste products, accounted for. Slott knew this because it had all happened on his watch in South Korea.
But few other people, even within the CIA, did. Much of the data on the experiments was highly classified and had not been found or reported by the IAEA. Information about the program had not been included in any of the briefing papers on the new treaty, and it was obvious to him that neither Corrine nor Parnelles for that matter was aware of it.
Bo’s theory could get Seoul — and, by extension, Slott — off the hook if they were criticized. By carefully controlling the release of information about the TRIGA experiments, Slott could easily make it seem as if the CIA knew about this material all along and had in fact told Congress and the president.
Bo would never put this in writing, of course. He was counting on Slott to understand and play along.
Slott got up from his desk and began pacing around his office. Five people had known the entire TRIGA story from the Agency’s perspective. Slott was one; Bo was another. A third was now dead. That left the former head of the CIA, now dying of Alzheimer’s disease, and an officer now working in a staff position in what amounted to semiretirement.
He didn’t even have to manipulate the records. If anyone asked, he could say that plutonium had been mentioned but not put in the reports for some reason he no longer knew.
Had it been found?
No. Definitely it hadn’t. Definitely not. They had access to the South Korean documents, and it wasn’t there.
And they were
He knew that, because he’d verified it with the Korean document tracking system. But who in Congress or the administrative branch would know that? Even Parnelles wouldn’t know that.
They could find it out, if they knew the right person to ask, but it would be difficult.
Slott rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t lie. And he wasn’t going to play the CYA games. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. That wasn’t who he was.
Slott stopped in front of his desk, looking at the picture of his wife and kids. It was a year old, taken when they’d moved into their new house. His only boy — they had three older girls — had just lost his first tooth.
If he didn’t play the games, he might very well lose his job. They’d lose their house, have to move. He’d end up selling cars or insurance somewhere out West where no one knew who he was.
Or he could just keep his mouth shut and see what happened. Protect Bo, even though this raised some serious questions about Bo’s competency.
Everyone was entitled to one screwup, wasn’t he? And it wasn’t even clear this was a screwup.
Slott went back behind his desk. He still had his son’s baby tooth in the top desk drawer, an accidental souvenir he’d retained after exchanging it for a gold dollar.
The tooth fairy — a little white lie.
Not even that. His son had brought up the tooth fairy and the promise of money. Slott hadn’t said anything, one way or another.
Would that be better to tell his boy or his girls than:
Slott pushed the desk drawer closed. He told himself he needed more information before he could decide what to do.
It wasn’t true, but it was the sort of lie he could live with.
25
Ferguson stuck his head under the shower’s stream, shaking as the ice-cold water sent shivers through his body. It was a poor substitute for sleep, as was the weak coffee he got in the lobby.
“Corrine wants you to talk to her,” said Corrigan when he checked in.
“What, does she think I’m working for her now?”
“You are.”
“You find anything else out about Science Industries?”
“Thomas Ciello got a list of some of the people who work there,” said Corrigan. “One of them is pretty interesting.”
“Who dat?”
“Guy named Kang Hwan. Wrote a paper on extracting nuclear material using some sort of laser technique. Real technical stuff.”
“Jack, you think a shopping list is technical.”
“Har-har. This is. I can upload a copy of it for you.”
“In Korean?”
“You’re a laugh a minute, Ferg. What if I busted your chops like this every time you called in?”
“You mean you don’t do it on purpose?”
Ferguson laughed, picturing Corrigan fuming at the communications desk in The Cube.
“Post me a file of the open-source information on him that I can access from a cafe,” Ferguson said.
“Anonymously?”
“No, Jack, I’m going to walk in and tell the people there I’m a spook. We lost the laptop, remember?”
“You can get the open-source stuff with a Google search. There’s nothing there. I can’t send the report that way.”
“I don’t want you to,” said Ferguson.
“You can get it at the embassy.”
“Don’t send it to them.”
“Jesus, Ferg. You sound more paranoid by the minute.”
“Yeah, I’m channeling my Irish grandmother. Just do what I say.”
“All right, but…”
After he’d finished with Corrigan, Ferguson called Corrine.
“It’s the Black Prince,” he told her cheerfully when she answered. “What’s going on?”
“Your friend is arriving in Seoul at six p.m.”
“Very nice. He may be returning home a little sooner than I expected with some things I want you to check out.”
“What’s going on, Ferg? Why are you bypassing the usual channels?”
“Insurance.”
“Against what?”
“Against things disappearing. Memories going bad. Interpretations of facts that can’t be trusted.”
“Who don’t you trust?”
Ferguson lay back on the bed in his room. He hadn’t planned on getting into this discussion right now — and,
