Threat Level Black - Страница 15

“Sure,” said Howe, though he didn’t understand precisely what Blitz was referring to.

“Colonel Howe,” boomed the President’s voice from the open doorway. “Take the job yet?”

Howe felt the blood rush from his head as he jumped to his feet. President D’Amici took his discomfort in stride, patting the side of his arm and then pointing with his other hand at Blitz.

“Listen, Professor, I want a briefing on that incident in Moscow,” the President said.

“From me or Anthony?”

“Just you,” said the President. “Before our other meetings.”

“Not a problem.”

“I have to go,” said the President as one of his aides appeared in the doorway behind him. “We’ll talk. Good to see you, Colonel.”

Howe nodded, then turned back to Blitz.

“That was completely off the record,” said Blitz.

Howe, who had no idea what it was anyway, nodded. “I’ve come to a decision about NADT. I’m not going to take the job. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Blitz’s expression went from serious to pained. “Don’t make a final decision yet. Wait to hear from the board of directors. They haven’t even made you an offer.”

“It’s okay. My mind’s made up.” Howe suddenly felt tremendously relieved. “You know what, I don’t really feel like lunch. Is that all right? I’m not insulting you or anything?”

“Well, no-uh.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” said Howe, and pulled his suit jacket forward on his shoulders and walked from the room.

* * *

“Damn it,” said Blitz after Howe was gone.

As he sat down the phone buzzed; he looked at the handset a second, then picked it up.

It was the CIA director again.

“Charlie Weber and Jack Hunter are here with a new e-mail from the Korean scientist,” Anthony told Blitz. “You’re going to want to see it.”

Chapter 4

Dr. Park had not been able to eat since coming back from Moscow, nor had he slept. The hours stretched forward like the sheet of a bed pulled taut, then tauter still. He began to hear buzzing in his ear; he thought he heard whisperings behind his back.

And yet, the director and higher authorities seemed to have accepted the Russian explanation for the incident: that it was a robbery or perhaps intended kidnapping. Dr. Park had agreed with Chin Yop’s version of the attack, which had the security agent fending off several thugs before the police arrived. The men who questioned him seemed skeptical, but Dr. Park stuck to the story, as Chin Yop had advised. To change it would only guarantee disaster.

When he returned to work, no one questioned him and, surprisingly, the director did not send for him. But this provided no relief for Dr. Park. On the contrary, his dread grew. His breath shortened. His palms were so sweaty that he could not hold a pencil, and his fingers jittered when he tapped at the keyboard of his computer. He saw shadows at the periphery of his vision. They disappeared when he turned his head, only to return when he looked straight ahead.

There were moments when Dr. Park managed to step back from himself, or at least from his fears; he wondered when he had become such a different person, wondered at why he had risked so much to get away in the first place. And then inevitably he would answer to himself that he hadn’t risked anything at all: His life here had always been forfeit. The few luxuries he enjoyed — a better bed than most, a better roof, certainly more food — those were the Great Leader’s luxuries, and could be taken away at his pleasure.

Dr. Park knew that the regime was dying; he could see the signs of chaos slowly building around him. Soldiers on the street did not answer the commands of their superiors; this fact in itself was a shock, nearly outside the realm of possibilities, yet it was happening all the time.

When the regime fell, so would he. The only hope was to escape to the foreigners.

That was logical, and logic was supposed to be a scientist’s solace. And yet, these thoughts did not comfort him; fear and dread grew until at every sound he could not think, at every question from a coworker he nearly confessed to his treason.

And so when the director sent for him he felt relieved. Finally he would find resolution. He did not welcome death, much less the torture he assumed would proceed it. But he hated the anxiety roiling inside him even more. He got up and followed the messenger, walking quickly through the black tunnel that surrounded him.

“You are here,” said the director as he was shown inside.

Dr. Park bent his head. He began to tremble, for though he welcomed resolution he was not a brave man.

“Well, after the excitement in Moscow, I am glad to see that you are in good health,” said the director.

He kept his head bowed. It was possible that he would be shot in the lot outside. This had happened some years before to an engineer, or at least was rumored to have occurred; Dr. Park himself had not seen it.

Would the bullets hurt his head, or would death come so quickly that he would not feel it?

A tingling sensation flared at the base of Dr. Park’s shoulders, spreading upward like the licking flames from the bottom of a pile of leaves. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he thought he could feel the bullets that would kill him, striking at the very center of his skull.

“The camp at Dae Ring Son is a good one, though bare,” said the director. “There are not many troops there, no more than a dozen at this time of year. But your needs will be met and the tests will not last long…”

What exactly was the director saying?

Dr. Park could not hear the words through the cloud of pain and fear covering his head.

Tests?

Dae Ring Son? That was a small camp near an abandoned airfield to the north, not a prison.

“You will leave immediately?” said the director. He phrased it as a question.

Slowly, Dr. Park forced his eyes open.

His treachery had not been discovered.

His treachery would never be discovered.

“Dr. Park? Are you all right?”

“Yes, sir,” he managed. “Of course. I can leave at whatever instant is desirable.”

The director smiled indulgently. “Go and gather your things. A driver will accompany you. You are our representative. Remember, your behavior is our honor.”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” Dr. Park bowed deeply.

“You honored us in Moscow,” the director added.

“I did my best.”

Dr. Park could manage to push nothing else from his mouth, and instead retreated from the office.

Chapter 5

“The NSA has a good read on the e-mails,” CIA director Jack Anthony told the President. “We’ve verified that Dr. Park is at the complex. It’s possible that there is a bomb there, or at the airfield two miles away. Getting him and the weapon would be an intelligence bonanza.”

“It would be an important break,” said Thomas Brukowski, the Homeland Security secretary. “Because, from the intelligence we’ve been getting on this E-bomb plot, something’s going to shake out within a week to ten days.”

Blitz closed his eyes. Brukowski was always saying that something was always going to “shake out” within a week to ten days. Blitz had seen the same intelligence that he had, and the prediction was absolutely not justified. In fact, the DIA and Homeland Security team investigating it had been spinning its wheels for more than a week without coming up with anything new.

Now that he had been belatedly informed of the scientist and his offer to deliver an E-bomb — the latest promise — Brukowski naturally assumed that North Korea was the source of the weapon his people were hunting for. He was by far the most gung-ho member of the cabinet, which the President had gathered to discuss the National Security Council’s unanimous vote that the scientist be “rescued.”

“I don’t think that scientist is worth the risk involved in trying to get him out,” said Myron Pierce, the secretary of defense. “Too many lives would be on the line, and the potential for blowback is just too huge over there right now.”

“We have a plan that minimizes the risk,” said Anthony. “We may need some logistical backing, but it would be minimal. We’d use two CIA paramilitary agents, with some Special Forces backup. That’s it.”

“ Korea is way too volatile,” said Pierce.

“I concur,” said Wordsworth Cook, the secretary of state. “We can’t do anything to upset the Korean teeter-totter.”

“What did you have in mind, Jack?” Blitz prompted, trying to get off the negative track.

“Infiltration from the coast. If we could deposit them via a submarine…”

Pierce scowled. “They’ll be picked up before they get a mile from the coast.”

“We have infiltrated agents before,” said Anthony. “The only downside is how long it will take them to get to the target area. I’d prefer using an airdrop, but, given the defenses, it doesn’t seem practical.”

“And how do they get out?” asked Pierce.

“They march back to the coast.”

“You think the scientist can walk that far?”

“No way of knowing unless we try.”

While Blitz was tentatively backing Anthony’s plan as a fallback, he preferred a more direct approach and had already put some feelers out to the military command responsible for Special Operations, as well as to some of the staff people who worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He saw his opportunity now to push for a more aggressive plan.