6
“This is a wonderful present, Mr. Park,” said Yeop Hu, studying the jeweled hilt. “I am quite honored to receive it.”
“It’s a small token of friendship.” Park nodded to the president.
“We’ve never been very good friends,” admitted South Korea’s president. He smiled at his staff members.
“This is true,” said Park, “but there is the future, and perhaps we will find our way then.”
“Certainly.”
The president placed the knife back in its scabbard and returned it to the wooden box Park had presented it in.
“I have something else for you,” the billionaire told the politician. “Given the present crisis, it may be of use.”
“It’s just another bluff by the dictator to show that he is alive,” said Yeop. “In a few days, it will blow over.”
“Perhaps.” Park reached inside his jacket and took out two large envelopes. “A friend asked me to deliver these personally. I do not know what they contain.”
“A friend?”
“An important man in the North. General Namgung.”
At the mention of the North Korean general, the president reached for one of the ceremonial letter openers on his desk. This disappointed Park; he had hoped the president would use the knife.
One of the envelopes contained detailed orders similar to those that had been carried by the “defector” who’d been shot at the DMZ a few days before. The second was a brief, handwritten letter. The letter stated that the author would do whatever he could to preserve peace between the people of Korea.
“It’s not signed,” said the president, holding it up for Park to see.
“As I said, I haven’t looked at the letters. They were not addressed to me.” Park nodded again. “But perhaps the general thought it unwise to put his signature to anything.”
The president handed both documents to his chief of staff, directing that they be sent to the National Security Council immediately.
“You know Namgung well?”
“Our families were in business together many years in the past,” said Park. “Before the barbarians raped our people in the world war.”
The president’s mood had deepened considerably. “Let us have lunch,” he said. “We can discuss this further.”
Park bowed. As they left the room, he shot a glance back toward the ancient knife he had brought as a present. How long would it take the president, he wondered, to learn that the man for whom it had been made, a thirteenth-century traitor to one of the great lords of Korea, had used it to commit suicide after his crime was discovered?
7
To get beyond the crisis, Slott knew he had to put his personal feelings aside, but it was difficult, very difficult.
He took a deep breath, then used the secure line to call Corrine Alston.
“This is Corrine.”
“The e-mail you sent over, we’ve translated it,” he told her. “It has flight coordinates, not an actual base. But we have a reasonable idea where it would have had to start from.”
“It’s a real e-mail?”
“It appears so. The course here would take the aircraft to Japan. As it happens, it’s almost precisely the course a North Korean defector took a decade ago, bringing his MiG-27 west.”
“Did the message come from North Korea?” Corrine asked.
“Ultimately? It’s possible. We’re not sure.”
The National Security Agency had intercepted a similar e-mail to someone in the Japanese consulate in Seoul a few hours ago. Tracing the e-mails’ origin was not as easy as people thought, however, since someone who knew what he or she was doing could employ a number of tricks to disguise the true path. There were enough arguments for and against authenticity in this case that the NSA had held off on an official verdict. At the very least, it was an elaborate fake — so elaborate that it had to be taken seriously.
“Can I ask where this came from?” said Slott, trying his best to keep his voice level.
“Gordon Tewilliger got it from a constituent. He called me over to his office about a half hour ago.”
“Why you?”
“I don’t know. He wanted me to give it to you — to the Agency — and to alert the president. He’s opposed to the treaty, though. So I don’t know his angle precisely. It’s political, obviously.”
Slott wasn’t convinced that the e-mail had simply dropped into her lap. But there was no point in pursuing it. If Corrine Alston — if the president — was running some sort of backdoor clandestine service, he wasn’t in a position to stop it.
“We should share this with the South Koreans and the Japanese.”
“By all means.”
“Who is it who’s defecting?” asked Corrine. “Does it say?”
“It’s not just that they’re going to defect,” explained Slott. “This mentions financial records of the leader. Presumably, those are foreign bank accounts belonging to Kim Jong-Il. That’s immensely valuable information. Far more valuable than any aircraft the pilot will take with him.”
“That’s good.”
She didn’t sound like someone making an end run around him, thought Slott. That was what was so damn annoying about her. She
The best liars were like that.
“I’m going to attend the National Security Council meeting this evening,” said Slott. “There may be more information by then.”
“I’ll see you there.”
“Yup,” he said, hanging up.
8
The Seven Sisters Medical Treatment Corporation provided diagnostic services to local doctors and hospitals. Patients went there for everything from old-fashioned X rays to elaborate positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Radioactive materials — technically referred to as radiopharmaceuticals — were used in many of the tests, and the facility generated a small but steady stream of waste each week. Special trucks were used to transport the waste to the disposal site.
Thera had no trouble finding this out. She simply joined the flow of patients going in the front door and then, before taking a seat in the large reception area, picked up one of the four-color brochures printed in Korean and English explaining the lab and a few of its more “popular” tests. It even contained a photo of the trucks — Hyundais.
When she was done reading, Thera headed down a back hall where the restrooms were and kept going,
