Threat Level Black - Страница 2

“I heard what you did with that Cyclops case.”

Fisher shrugged. He’d just about single-handedly broken one of the most far-reaching, diabolical conspiracies ever to rack the American military and political establishments. The President had personally thanked him. Even better, Hunter had avoided him for forty-eight hours after the busts were made public.

That and five bucks would get him a pack of cigarettes. Two packs if he got it through his Indian friends online.

“You got to help us,” said Macklin. “We could be facing a major terrorist operation here.”

“No offense, but all you have to go on is a three-sentence report from the DIA and one intercepted e-mail that the NSA says could be either about an E-bomb plot or the opening of a new pizza restaurant. Not a hell of a lot to go on,” said Fisher. “I will say one thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“The kid who wrote that simulation program’s got a real future. I like what he did with Yankee Stadium.”

“Jeez, Andy, if you don’t help me, I have to rely on the DIA.”

“That’s kind of an ugly threat, Mack.”

“What if I asked Hunter to permanently assign you to Homeland Security? You’d love it over here. Get your own expense account, nice car. We have our pick of impounds. I can probably hook you up with a drug dealer’s condo or something. You should see our office up in New York. Out in the suburbs, on the water. Tell you what: Come by around noon tomorrow and I’ll set up lunch with the big cheese himself.”

“I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“When you join Homeland Security, do they make you go through a behavior modification program to learn to call the boss ‘big cheese’? Or do they do it with drugs?”

“Shit, Andy.” Macklin sighed. “Can I have a cigarette?”

Fisher reached into his jacket for the pack and shook one out. “You owe me a nickel.”

Chapter 2

Dr. Park Syoun Ra-ha took a deep breath and rose from his workstation, trying to appear no more nervous than any other scientist might be when called to the director’s office. The two men who had come to fetch him waited stiffly a short distance away — not out of respect but because the work done at Nyen Factory was top secret, and anyone who looked at the wrong computer screen might be accused of a crime. Inadvertent or not, merely gaining top secret information was punishable by death in North Korea. Disseminating it was a crime beyond all imagining, and giving it to the Americans must surely be ten times worse.

Park felt his fingers trembling as he followed the men into the hallway. The complex’s name meant “kite,” but that was a convenient cover, for the items constructed here were not a child’s toys. The factory buildings nestled against a hillside north of Kujang hosted a weapons development facility that had few rivals in Asia. There were at least three different research areas, and most likely a full dozen; even Dr. Park wasn’t sure how many there were. He was personally responsible for the creation of a weapon that could send a modern city back to the Stone Age in a heartbeat.

Dr. Park did not want to see that weapon used. He also had decided he must leave North Korea. He had combined these two goals and, after considerable debate, taken steps to fulfill them. But now as he walked to the director’s office he worried that he had acted too rashly. He worried that he would forfeit his life in a most painful manner.

Worse, his attempt had been completely ignored by the Americans. He’d sent the e-mail nearly a week before. There had been no response.

Dr. Park could reconcile himself to that. But he had thought that if he were going to be caught, he would have been caught nearly right away. When no one sent for him by the end of the second day after he’d sent the message, he had concluded he was safe.

One of the guards stopped Dr. Park when they reached the director’s outer office. He knocked on the door and went inside. When he did not immediately reappear, Dr. Park wondered whether this was a good or bad sign. If they thought he was a traitor, wouldn’t they deal with him swiftly? But, on the other hand, where was the need to be swift? Letting him sweat out his guilt would be part of his punishment.

While death would naturally be the outcome, the end would not come swiftly. On the contrary, the process of punishment would be long and slow and painful. This went without saying. He had heard stories about cattle prods and special beatings, terrible things done to a man’s privates.

The muscles in Dr. Park’s thighs began to vibrate as he walked into the office. A pain began to grow at the back of his head on the right side, spreading quickly toward his eyes, pressing his skull the way a vise might.

“Dr. Park,” said the director. “Welcome. You know General Kuong Ou?”

Dr. Park felt a shock in his chest that forced the air from his lungs. Kuong was the head of the Military Research Institute, the bureaucracy that ran this plant. He commanded an army division and was related to the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, North Korea ’s father and commander in chief. He was one of the most important people in North Korea.

Kuong’s visit here had not been announced, and to find him in the corner of the director’s office — what else could this mean but great, great distress for Dr. Park?

Horrible distress.

As the director began speaking, Dr. Park could think only of torture. The one happy thought that occurred to him was the fact that he had no family: His parents both had died some years before, and he had never found a wife. At least his humiliation and pain would belong only to him.

The director’s words seemed more like stones than sounds, pelting the sides of his face, pummeling him without meaning.

Vacation.

Rest.

Moscow conference.

Reward.

What was he saying?

Kuong was smiling.

Smiling?

“Your unit has done brave work,” said Kuong. “In the current situation, it is most admirable — beyond admirable.”

Was this part of the torture: to tell him that he was being rewarded and then send him to prison?

But why so elaborate a ruse?

No, they were smiling. He was… free.

Free!

“Our Russian comrades are hosting a conference on power generation similar to the ones you’ve attended in China,” added the director. “There’s unlikely to be anything new there, but you will have to make a full report.”

Dr. Park looked at the director and then at the general. He struggled to return their smiles.

“Enjoy yourself,” said the director. He began telling him of the arrangement details: An aide would accompany him as a guide and translator. Though the director did not say so, the aide would actually be a minder from the security service, prepared to report him for any infraction and willing to kill him if necessary. But typically such men were corruptible; it was a question of finding their price.

Dr. Park had never been to Moscow.

There were trains, connections to other cities.

Or perhaps if he simply went to an embassy…

Yes.

Would the Americans take him? There had been no answer to his e-mail.

“You do want to go?” asked the director.

He made it sound as if Dr. Park had an option, which the scientist knew wasn’t the case. In North Korea, even recreation was mandatory.

“You do want to go, don’t you?” added the general when he did not respond immediately.

“Of course,” Dr. Park said, bowing. “Of course. I welcome the opportunity.”

“Good,” said the director. “Very good.”

Dr. Park smiled weakly, then left the office.

Chapter 3

William Howe stared at the shadows on the ceiling, turning over on the thin mattress of the Hotel Imperium in Parkland, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. He knew it wasn’t quite five A.M., but he also knew it made no sense to lie here any longer. If by some miracle he managed to actually fall asleep, he would be woken by the alarm in an hour anyway. Early in his Air Force career, Howe had adopted a rule about sleep: If he couldn’t get at least two hours, he wouldn’t bother.

He got out of bed and went into the bathroom to shower and shave. Now that he thought about it, he’d made up that rule in college, which predated the Air Force. But he’d been in the service so long, everything in his life seemed to originate there.

Howe wasn’t in the service any longer. Three months before, he’d turned down a promotion and a Pentagon posting, arranging instead to resign his commission. His decision had followed a wild sequence of events that had simultaneously made him a hero and left him disillusioned about everything from love to government.

Disillusioned. One of his commanders had used that word, trying to figure out why Howe — a full bird colonel — wanted to walk away from a career that could have led all the way to the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Disillusioned. It was an interesting word, but Howe decided it wasn’t exactly right. He wasn’t disillusioned. Being disillusioned implied that he had been naive. William Howe, former fighter pilot, former project liaison officer of one of the most revolutionary war-fighting systems ever, had not been naive.

Trusting, perhaps. Too ready to assume that others held to the standards of honesty and duty and responsibility that he himself held dear. But not naive.