Fires of War (57 page)

“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
seemed
so . . . not naive but up-front. Honest.

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

CHAIN, SOUTH KOREA

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, passing a number of test suites and arriving at a loading dock at the rear of the building. No one gave her a second look.

Thera slipped down off the loading area and walked around, spotting the two Hyundai transports and looking over the employee cars parked nearby. Then she circled back around to the front of the building, returning to her car to get satellite tracking devices and gamma tabs to put in the trucks.

As she pulled her car around the back, she saw two employees come out on the loading dock for a smoking break. She kept going, passing around the back of the building and following the road to the right, killing time until they were done.

Seven Sisters Medical Treatment Corporation was situated at the front of a commercial park. A long open field sat behind it. Beyond the field, four cement-block buildings were arrayed one after the other. In contrast to the medical testing center, they were old and appeared abandoned, with weeds growing in the lots that surrounded them.

Thera pulled into the second lot to turn around and go back; as she did, she saw there was a large truck parked next to the back of the building. Curious, she continued toward it, realizing as she got closer that it was the same make as the trucks Ferguson had been interested in in Daejeon.

Thera parked at the far end of the lot and got out. The building was definitely abandoned: The rear windows were boarded up, and a pile of scrap wood sat near a rusted steel fire door.

The truck didn’t have a license plate, but it looked drivable. The interior was clean, and the gas gauge read full.

The back roll-up door was secured by a combination padlock. Armed with a pen and pad, Thera began working on cracking the combination lock, a ten-gate device only a little more complicated than the locks high school kids used on their gym lockers. She found the gates, then began working through a list of likely combination sequences based on usual lock patterns. It took her about ten minutes to snap the lock open.

The truck was empty. She stuffed the tab near the door the same way Ferguson had, closed it up and returned the lock to its place.

She’d just climbed down when she heard a car approaching. Thera reached beneath her coat for one of her pistols and started to walk back toward her car.

A white sedan pulled alongside her. She resisted the urge to pull the gun.

“Annyeonghaseyo, manaseo ban-gawoyo,
” yelled a voice from inside the car as the window rolled down.

“Hi, nice to meet you.” A pickup line.

Thera glanced at the man sitting in the passenger seat. He looked about twenty. So did the driver.

“Eodiseo wasseoyo?”
said the kid, asking where she was from.

“Far away,” said Thera in Korean.

“You’re on your own?”

Thera smirked and resumed walking.

The car stayed alongside her.

“You cute,” said the kid, this time using English.

“Yeah,” muttered Thera under her breath.

She walked a few more steps, trying to ignore them. The car slowed, and the passenger jumped from the car.

Thera spun around to face him.

“Get lost,” she said sharply.

The young man laughed.

“I’m warning you,” she told him.

He took a step toward her. Thera, her patience gone and her heart starting to thump, dropped into a combat crouch, pointing her gun at his head.

The man’s grin faded. He put up his hands and began backing toward the car.

“That’s it,” she told him. “Go.”

He made a mad dash for the vehicle as his friend began backing up. Once he was inside, the driver spun the car around and sped away.

Thera ran to her car and got in, driving away as deliberately as she could. When she stopped in the city a short time later, her hands started to shake.

She pulled her things out, wiped down the interior and the door, then left the car in the lot, walking several blocks to rent a new one.

~ * ~

ere they kids or security or what?” asked Corrigan when she checked in.

“Probably ‘or what.’ They seemed pretty young, twenties, like they were cruising and saw somebody they could hit on. Macho shit. You know men.”

Corrigan didn’t say anything.

“I’ll go back tonight and check out the building once it’s dark,” added Thera. “See if you can find out who owns it.”

“Ten bucks says it’s Park.”

“Probably.” Thera looked around the mall where she was sitting.

“We have some good news,” said Corrigan. “Ferg’s OK.”

“He is?”

Thera felt tears coming to her eyes. She brushed them back, took a long breath.

She was sitting on a bench in a park. A little boy and his parents were walking nearby. She waited while they walked to the swings, well out of earshot.

“You there?” asked Corrigan.

“People playing on the swing.”

“Can you talk?”

“Go ahead.”

“When you were with Park, did he say anything about a General Namgung?” continued Corrigan. “According to Ferguson, they had a secret meeting.”

The little boy jumped from the swing, a big smile on his face. Proud of himself, he waved at her. Thera waved back.

“Thera? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” she told him. “What general were you talking about?”

“Namgung. I think I have the pronunciation right. He’s in charge of all North Korean forces in the capital region.”

Hadn’t Tak Ch’o mentioned that he worked with him?

“Corrigan, can you hook me into Rankin on the
Peleliu?”

“Why?”

“Because Ch’o worked with Namgung and did some shielding for air transport.”

“The containers the university truck moved!”

“Just get me Rankin.”

~ * ~

9

ABOARD THE USS
PELELIU.
IN THE YELLOW SEA

Jiménez had already finished the morning session with Tak Ch’o and was about to leave when Rankin arrived, fresh off the phone with Thera.

“I have a couple of questions for you,” Rankin told the scientist. “If you don’t mind.”

Ch’o nodded and lay back on his bed. Not only was it more comfortable to rest while he talked, but it was also practical, since the cabin was so small.

“You helped a general named Namgung on a project recently,” said

Rankin. “He headed the army around Seoul. I wonder if you could tell me about that.”

Ch’o glanced at the interviewer, then back at Rankin.

“General
Namgung
,” said Ch’o, correcting the American’s mispronunciation. “I have worked under his command several times. He is not simply the head of the army around Seoul but an important man in other respects as well. Very influential with the leader.”

“Was he involved in the production of nuclear weapons?”

“Not directly. As I said the other day,” Ch’o glanced at the interpreter, “my role in the weapons program was extremely limited. My field is primarily dealing with by-products. Waste.”

“You had a way of moving waste so it wouldn’t harm people. In airplanes,” said Rankin. He knew he needed to prompt Ch’o to fill in the details, but he wasn’t sure how to get him to do it.

“The project I was doing with the general involved finding a way to move rods of fuel around the country safely,” said Ch’o. “The rods come from reactors. When the operation is stopped and they are removed, first they must cool, of course. After a period of time they can be moved and stored at a facility such as the one where I was working. From there, they would be taken to Russia or somewhere else for processing. The general was interested in doing so in standard jetliners. This would have presented a grave problem without shielding.”

“Airliners with passengers?”

“No,” said Ch’o. “But there would have been danger to the crews.”

Ch’o wasn’t telling the entire truth. While the general had mentioned safety as a concern, shielding the rods would also make them nearly impossible to detect. That was the general’s real purpose. Namgung had never said that; it was understood.

“These rods were for weapons fuel?” said Jiménez.

“It doesn’t exactly work that way,” said Ch’o. “Plutonium can be used for weapons, but the danger has nothing to do with that fact. The radiation—”

“So were these used?” asked Jiménez.

“No. The rods are still in storage.”

“How do you know?”

“When they are removed from the reactor, they’re very hot. They’re placed in pools of water. It can take considerable time for them to cool off.”

“Weeks?”

“Months. In some cases, years. The rods have been accounted for. The UN, the Chinese, the International Atomic Energy Agency—all of the inspections have certified this.”

Rankin remained skeptical. “Maybe some were hidden.”