Fires of War (60 page)

“Ferg, remember the airstrip A5?” asked Slott.

“More or less.”

“It’s south of Kusŏng. You looked at it as a possible evac base, but we couldn’t be sure if it was inactive.”

“Yeah, OK.” Ferguson didn’t remember it at all.

“It’s only about fifteen miles from where you are,” said Slott. “The satellite passed over it a few minutes ago, and there was nothing on the strip. But if the aircraft is in an underground hangar, it might be there.”

“Why do you think there?”

“We have coordinates that indicate something will take off from that area pretty soon. We’re arranging a Global Hawk surveillance flight with ground-penetrating radar, but it’s going to take about two hours at least for it to get up and get over there. If you were able to use the bike that’s in the cache kit, you’d get there in half the time. You could at least tell us if the runway’s clear.”

“Yeah.” Ferguson got up and started pulling the bike together. “Did you find the plutonium?”

Neither of them answered.

“All righty then. Hook me up with Corrigan so I can get a road map.”

~ * ~

18

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

The National Security briefing had already broken up by the time Corrine and Slott finished talking with Ferguson. They followed the president and a knot of aides up to the Oval Office. Corrine felt almost sheepish, as if she’d snuck out of class to meet a boyfriend and gotten caught.

Slott felt as if he were in the middle of a painful dream. He still wasn’t sure he believed Park and the North Koreans were actually aiming at the Japanese. It was a wild theory but too dangerous to ignore.

Parnelles, who was with the president, saw them in the corridor. The CIA director whispered something to McCarthy, and the president’s voice suddenly boomed through the hall.

“I require a few minutes to discuss something with my attorney,” McCarthy told the others. “Miss Alston, if you could meet me upstairs please. Tom, why don’t you and Dan stand by, and I’ll take you right after her. Everyone else, please have a very good dinner.”

When they got to the president’s office, Corrine insisted that Slott and Parnelles come in and then made Slott say what they had found. McCarthy leaned back in his leather chair, one foot propped against the drawer of the desk.

“It is an
incredible
theory, Mr. Slott. Very incredible,” he said when Slott 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

SOUTHWEST OF KUSŎNG, NORTH KOREA

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

ABOARD THE USS
PELELIU,
IN THE YELLOW SEA

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

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

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

SOUTHWEST OF KUSŎNG, NORTH KOREA

The engineer who designed Ferguson’s bicycle had spent considerable time making it light and easy to take apart. He’d given much less thought to making it easy to pedal and probably no thought at all to making it comfortable.

Ferguson’s legs felt as if they would fall off after about five miles. By the eighth, he’d lost all sensation in his lower back. There was barely enough light to see the road in front of him, and though he’d put on extra clothes, he was so cold his bones felt like ice.

But he kept pedaling, and the closer he got to the airstrip—he estimated the distance using his watch—the more confident he felt.

It’s delirium, he told himself. Then he started to laugh.

About three guffaws later, the front wheel of the bike hit a pothole, and he found himself flying through the air.

~ * ~

23

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Corrine had left her office and was about to set out for The Cube when Jess Northrup flagged her down in the parking lot.

“President wants to talk to you,” said the assistant to the chief of staff. “I was calling to you. I guess you didn’t hear.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t hear,” said Corrine.

“Mustang’s almost ready,” added Northrup as they walked back inside.

“Still going to give me a ride?”

“Soon as I get an engine.”

~ * ~

ou are doing a superb job on this, dear,” said McCarthy when she reached his office. The president had ordered his military aides to wait outside so he could talk to her alone. “I have a few questions I was hoping you could answer before I go downstairs to monitor the situation.”

“OK.”

“Is Park doing this himself? Or is the government involved?”

“I don’t know.”

McCarthy ran his fingers through his hair. “I think there is a strong possibility that the government is helping or at least turning a blind eye. I would like to know definitively.”

“How?”

“If you want to know who all the hens are, you’d best grab the rooster.”

“You want us to get Park?”

“If we don’t, I can only assume the South Koreans will. And I would be very surprised if he were able to be candid under such circumstances.” The president folded his arms. “The Japanese, for one, will not trust what he says if he is in Korean custody. It would be best for all concerned if he turned up here. A job for Special Demands, if ever there was one,” added McCarthy.