Tom Clancy's Op-center_ Op-center Part 19

"Tell Paul that I spotted the oak."

"Okay, but why?"

"Because if our Director ever finds out that his Environmental Officer couldn't see a tree two feet in front of him, he'll kick my a.s.s."

"Done deal," Stoll said as he sat back, folded his arms, and waited for the disks to be delivered.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX.

Tuesday, 12:30 A.M., outside of Seoul

The highways leading from Seoul to the DMZ were still crowded with military traffic, and Hwan had told his driver Cho to stick to the back roads. They followed Kim Chong's directions, a fine drizzle falling as the car headed north from the city. Cho switched on the defroster and it breathed smoothly; Hwan wished his own insides were as well tuned.

As he sat in the backseat beside Kim, Hwan wondered if this was a good idea-- ignoring the fact that for the time being, it was the only idea. Cooperating with Kim went against everything he'd been trained and raised to believe: he was going to trust a North Korean spy about matters pertaining to DPRK security. As he sat next to the young woman who gazed silently from her own window, he began having serious doubts about what he was doing. He wasn't afraid that she would try to lead him into an ambush or a nest of North Korean vipers. Hwan had made a point of sitting with his coat open, so she could see the.38 in his shoulder holster. If anything happened, she'd get a part of it. But Kim had surrendered to Bae rather than take a bullet. She wanted to live.

He was concerned that she might mislead him-- it was possible, despite her apparent sincerity-- and he would help set his nation's military up for a fall. He was even worried that she might not mislead him. If everything worked out, if her information were accurate and a conflict was averted, he could still be accused of collusion with the enemy. Whatever good might come of this would be outweighed by the shame of being charged with treason.

He resisted the urge to talk to her, to try to find out more about her. He didn't dare show weakness or doubt, or she might try to take advantage of it. Hwan's driver Cho apparently had no such concerns as he kept glancing into the rearview mirror. Beneath the sharp brown edge of his snap-brim hat, there was concern in Cho's eyes. Each time Kim gave them a new direction they headed farther into isolation, deeper into the hills of the northeast, and with every turn Cho would fire a glance toward the radio set in the bottom of the dashboard, pointing with his eyes, quietly urging Hwan to let him radio headquarters with their location.

Hwan would just shake his head once, slowly, or break eye contact.

Poor Cho, he thought. Three months before, he'd taken a bullet in his right hand and had been moved from fieldwork to driving. He so very much wanted to get back into it, to rack 'em up and break a few heads.

But no. No backup, no reinforcements, and no doing anything to cause Ms. Chong to doubt their sincerity. They were in for the whole ride-- in it with a woman who knew that if she didn't escape, she was going to prison or perhaps the gallows. Hwan only hoped that her sense of duty was as strong as his.

"May I say something?" Kim asked, still staring out her window.

Hwan looked at her with barely concealed surprise. "Please."

She faced him now, her eyes softer than before, her mouth less rigid. "I've been thinking about what you're doing, and it's very courageous."

"An intelligent risk, I think."

"No. You could have stayed where you were-- there's no shame in that. You don't know where I'm leading you."

Hwan felt Cho let up on the gas and fired him a look. The car got back up to speed.

"Where are you taking us?" Hwan asked.

"To my cottage."

"But you live in the city."

"Why do you say that? Because your agents followed me there? The woman who doesn't like to drink, and the man who changed his disguises but not his bad breath?"

"Those were trainees. You were supposed to see them."

"I understand that now. So I wouldn't suspect that Mr. Gun was the one who was watching me. But he never took me home. You had to be getting some of your information from the cadets."

Hwan said nothing.

"It isn't important. I had a motor scooter in the back, and I would come out here to send my real messages. Make a right onto the dirt road," she said to Cho.

Cho looked at Hwan in the mirror. This time Hwan ignored him.

"You see," Kim went on, "you weren't the only one engaging in a deception. We've known for years that you were watching the bar, and I was sent there to tie up your personnel. My code was real enough, but the people I was playing them to-- the people who came in, who you would follow home-- had no idea what I was doing. They were all South Koreans I hired for the night to sit for an hour or two at the bar and then leave."

"I see," said Hwan. "a.s.suming I were to believe you-- which I'm not entirely prepared to do-- why are you telling me this?"

"Because I need you to believe something I have to say, Mr. Hwan. I did not come to Seoul because I wanted to. My brother Han broke into a military hospital to get morphine for our mother. When the police came, I helped him to escape-- and they arrested my mother and me. I was given a choice: we could remain in prison, or I could go to the South and gather intelligence."

"How did you get here?"

Kim's eyes flashed. "Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Hwan. I'm not a traitor. I'll tell you only what you need to know, and no more. Shall I continue?"

Hwan nodded.

"I agreed to come here, provided my mother was taken to a hospital and my brother was pardoned. They consented, though I was unable to find Han after that. Since then, I've learned that he made his way to j.a.pan."

"And your mother?"

"She had stomach cancer, Mr. Hwan. She died before I came here."

"Yet you still came."

"My mother was comfortable until the end. The government had kept its word, and I would keep mine."

Hwan nodded. He continued to ignore Cho's eyes, which were s.h.i.+fting like Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s.

"You said you wanted me to believe something, Ms. Chong. Your story--?"

"Yes, but also this. You'll die at the cottage without my help."

Cho eased the brake to the floor; the car skid slightly on the muddy road before coming to a stop.

Hwan regarded his pa.s.senger, angrier at himself than at her. The doors were locked, and he was prepared to use his gun if he had to.

"And you'll die in Masan Prison without my help," he said. "Who's at the cottage?"

"No one. It's b.o.o.by-trapped."

"How?"

"There's a radio inside the piano. If you don't play a specific melody before raising the lid, a bomb will explode."

"You'll play the melody for us. You don't want to die."

"You're wrong, Mr. Hwan. I'm willing to die. But I'm also willing to live."

"Under what conditions, Ms. Chong?"

A single headlight appeared in the rearview mirror, and Cho rolled down the window to wave the motor scooter by. The woman waited until the puttering engine had faded.

"I have nothing but my brother--"

"And your country."

"I'm a patriot, Mr. Hwan, don't insult me. But I can't go back. I'm twenty-eight and female. I'll be rea.s.signed, not to the South but to some other country. Perhaps this time I'll be expected to use more than my skills at the keyboard."

"Patriotism has its price."

"My family has paid it, many times over. Now I want to be with what's left of that family. I will do what you ask, but then I want you to leave me at the cottage."

"So you can make your way to j.a.pan?" Hwan shook his head. "I would be dishonorably dismissed, and I would deserve it."

"You'd rather risk your country going to war?"

"You seem ready enough to let thousands of young men like your brother die."

Kim looked away.

Hwan glanced at the dashboard clock. He motioned for Cho to drive on, and the car got under way with a squirt of mud.

"I'm not going to let anyone die," Kim said.

"I hoped you wouldn't." He watched her face, which was brightened dimly now and then by candlelight from huts and cottages they pa.s.sed. The shadows of the rain-soaked window played on her face. "I'll do what I can for you, of course. I have friends in j.a.pan perhaps something can be worked out."

"Prison, there?"

"Not a jail. There are low-security facilities, like dormitories."

"It would be difficult to find my brother-- even from a comfortable cell."

"I can help with that. He can visit, or maybe we can work something else out."

She looked at him. The dark rivulets on her cheeks resembled tears. "Thank you-- that's something, I suppose. If it can be done."

She seemed open and vulnerable for the first time, and he felt drawn to her. She was strong and attractive, and he thought, and almost said, that he could always marry her and really complicate the South Korean legal system-- but as tempting as the idea was, it seemed unfair to tease her with freedom or threaten her with him.

But it was on his mind as they drove through the increasingly slippery road to Kim's home in the hills. Had he not been thinking of Kim, it is still unlikely that Hwan would have noticed the scooter that had pa.s.sed them earlier, as it sat off to the side of the road, its headlight off, engine idling

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN.

Tuesday, 10:50 A.M., Op-Center

Phil Katzen b.u.mped into Hood on the way to his office and followed him in. He told the Director what they'd discovered, and that Stoll was already going through the first of the ROK diskettes.

"That would dovetail with what Gregory Donald told Martha," Hood said. "He and Kim Hwan at KCIA don't think it's North Korea, either." Hood felt good about having seen his son, and about the boy's prospects. He allowed himself a little grin. "How's it feel to get away from oil slicks and rain forests?"

"Strange," the Environmental Officer admitted, "but invigorating. Getting to use muscles that are a little atrophied."

"Spend too much time here, and that isn't all that'll atrophy."

Ann Farris strode into the room. "Paul--"

"Just the person I want to see."

"Maybe not. Do you know about the ROK files?"

"I'm the Director. They pay me to know those things."

"My"-- she frowned-- "we're feeling festive. Must've had a good meeting with the President."

"Not really. With my son. What about those files? I thought requisitions from the archives were privileged information."

"Sure. And by noon, the Was.h.i.+ngton Post'll know. It's pathetic what good people will do for money or Super Bowl tickets. But that's not the problem we have to solve right now. Do you have any idea what kind of PR nightmare we'll have if word gets out that we suspect our allies of being behind this?"

"Can't you spin it?"

"Like a top, Paul. But mistrust is s.e.xy, and that's what everyone's going to play up."

"Whatever happened to truth, justice, and the American way?"

"It died with Superman, friend," Phil said. "And when they brought him back, they forgot about the rest."