finished.
“It’s out there, sir.”
“And we’re checking it out?”
“We have an officer nearby. A coincidence.”
But maybe it wasn’t much of a coincidence at all, Slott thought as he said that. Ferguson always managed to get himself in the middle of whatever was going on.
“Lucky for us, Mr. Slott. Can we stop this aircraft?”
“I can try and get it on the ground, Mr. President,” Slott said. “I have the Special Forces component of the First Team offshore. I can get them into position to make an attack. With your permission.”
McCarthy did not want to accidentally start a war between South and North Korea, but even that paled against the possibility of Japan being attacked with a nuclear weapon.
“If the aircraft is there, do it. In the meantime, alert the air force.”
“Jon, if this is a defector,” said Parnelles, “we don’t necessarily want to shoot him down.”
“Better to shoot him down than risk Tokyo being obliterated.” McCarthy picked up his phone. “Jess, run and get Larry Stich before he leaves for the Pentagon, would you? And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Round him up as well. And the secretary of state and Ms. Manzi. Tell them I have some new developments that require their input.”
19
As tired as he was, as dead-dog beat tired as he felt, riding the bike made Ferguson feel incredibly better. It was something to do, a goal. He could turn off the rumbling in his brain and just push down on the pedals, pump up the road Corrigan said would take him directly to the airstrip.
Fifteen miles. That was about an hour’s ride at a decent, moderate pace.
I’m going to do it in less, he told himself, pushing. Much less.
Less.
20
Rankin raced into the gym his men were using as a ready room.
“Saddle up! We got a mission, let’s go,” he shouted through the doorway. “Let’s do it. Get aboard the choppers. Come on, let’s go.”
The men snapped to immediately, grabbing their gear and trotting in the direction of the flight deck.
“We getting Ferguson?” asked Michael Barren, the Special Forces’ first sergeant.
“No. We’re going to neutralize an air base. The Marines are going to back us up.”
“An air base?”
“I’ll lay it out in the helicopter. Come on.”
21
Corrine kept a low profile, sitting at the side of the Oval Office and saying absolutely nothing. Reactions to the theory that Park had made or helped make a bomb that would be used in an attack against Japan ranged from incredulous to… incredulous. Neither the secretary of state nor the secretary of defense thought it possible. Nor were they willing to accept that the South Korean government — let alone one of its citizens — had been working on a bomb.
“They have done such work before,” said Slott, referring to the extraction experiments a decade before. “They only came clean when the International Atomic Energy Agency caught them.”
“We can shoot the aircraft down,” said Defense Secretary Stich. “They know that. Their airplanes are ancient.”
“The North Koreans have purchased at least two new MiG-29s in the past few months,” said Parnelles. “Those are formidable aircraft.”
“We’ll still shoot it down.”
“There is at least a theoretical possibility that the aircraft could escape detection,” said Parnelles, “once it is in the air.”
Slott, impatient to get back to work, tapped his foot as a technical discussion continued about how exactly the aircraft could escape detection and whether the Japanese Self-Defense Force could stop it.
He could tell from the looks he was getting that the others thought he’d lost control of the Agency if not his mind. They were probably thinking of suitable replacements right now.
This was one part of the job he wasn’t going to miss, the meetings, the posturing, the backstabbing. Backstabbing, especially.
Slott passed a note to Parnelles saying he wanted to leave. Parnelles nodded. Slott waited for a lull in the conversation, then rose and excused himself, saying he had a few things he had to stay on top of.
“By all means, Daniel. You get back to work,” said McCarthy, rising. “We all should. I believe we’ve discussed this as far as it can be discussed at the moment.”
Corrine slipped out as well, ducking down the hall toward her office. Slott, momentarily detained by the chief of staff, followed behind her. She glanced at his face as she went into her office. It looked drawn and tired. Corrine felt as if she needed to say something encouraging to him.
“You’re doing a good job,” she told him.
“We can’t continue this,” he snapped.
Corrine stopped and stared at him. The remark seemed almost bizarre, as if they were continuing an affair.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind,” he said, brushing past.
“No. What do you mean?” she insisted, going after him and grabbing his shoulder.
Slott stared at her. She was not quite young enough to be his daughter, but it was close.
“What experience do you have?” he said. “You’re a lawyer. You’ve only worked in Washington.”
“If you have some problem with me—”
“You bet I do.”
Slott’s voice was loud, too loud for the narrow hall. He glanced over his shoulder; the cabinet members were spilling out of the president’s office.
“I don’t need this now,” he said, turning to go.
“We can work this out.”
“Right.” He walked away.
Suddenly aware of the people behind her, Corrine clamped her mouth shut and went back to her office.
22
