Korea Strait (19 page)

“Actually that's getting to be old news. Attention moves on fast… So, how's the SATYRE going? I don't hear much from Korea. That's the Far Eastern desk.”

He'd thought about how to bring it up over the steak, and decided finally just to come right out with it. But first he looked around to make sure no one was listening at the other tables. They didn't seem to be. “Well, the word is the administration's considering more force reductions.”

She didn't look up. “We're always looking at those. We BRAC'd the shit out of the stateside establishment. You remember I spent practically all year before last on that.”

“Yeah.”

“Now it's time to look overseas. We just spend way, far too much on these garrisons. We've got to transform. Having tens of thousands of guys sitting on their cans, basically stationary targets—that doesn't deter anymore. You know there's a hundred and five separate U.S. bases and installations in South Korea?”

“Huh. That many?”

“If we could get that down to twenty, we'd save serious money. Reduce our friction with the local population too. Whenever one of these kids goes apeshit—well, you just can't leave young troops in
the middle of a population like this.” She told him a horror story about a rape-murder the year before by a soldier from Camp Casey. “Every time that happens, the leftist students organize demonstrations. Sooner or later Seoul's going to do something about it. Then we won't have the choice. They'll hand us our walking papers. Just like the Japanese, in Okinawa. In some ways we're our own worst enemy.”

“Guess we don't see much of that side of it in the Navy,” he admitted.

“I guess you don't.”

“Still, they've got to balance that against the threat. At least with that infrastructure, you've got surge capacity. You can ramp up, reinforce, mount a major counteroffensive.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Maybe her answer wasn't meant to be dismissive but that's what he heard in her tone. Instead of reacting with his first impulse, he took the last bite of his steak and chewed. Remembering a dark, echoing, musty-smelling hull. The steady hiss of compressed air. The smells of burned powder and hot blood. And the contorted face of a fanatical believer.

“You know… these people are facing real enemies. I'm not sure they always remember that, back in DC.”

She glanced up. “Which means what? The president's going to throw them to the wolves?”

“I doubt he'd do that. It's just that—”

“We're facing challenges all along the arc of crisis. If we try to maintain forces anywhere we can be attacked, guess what? We'll go as broke as the Soviet Union did. That's not a winning strategy.” She dabbed at her lipstick with her napkin, and sketched a rapid end-around on the tablecloth with a fingernail. “A mobile force we can deploy where we need it, in days or hours—that's what we need to iterate toward. The Koreans have to understand that. The era of big forward-based divisions is over.”

It made analytical sense. It made budgetary sense. But it also left him uneasy. He kept thinking of all those guns and tanks along the DMZ. How for forty years Kim II Sung and now his weird son with the Eraserhead haircut had vowed to “reunite” Korea. Hwang's warning that an ally that came too late was no ally at all. A submarine that
had no business where it'd been discovered. And the hatred he'd glimpsed in a human being's eyes moments before he'd slugged her.

He watched his wife sip wine and tried to let go of it. Not his decision. Not his watch.

But when he reflected on the people he'd worked with and for in the National Security Council, and the way policy got made in DC, his confidence factor in the right decision coming out the delivery end of that sausage grinder wasn't high. It wasn't absolutely accurate to say whoever came in with the highest payment bought the decision. But money talked and it talked loud. The special interests kept squeezing the toothpaste tube of the budget their way. And whatever didn't have a paying patron, no matter how important that issue was in and of itself, got left out.

And really, why should he have been surprised that in a country whose business was business, that everything, absolutely
everything,
should be for sale?

She put her hand on his. “Deep thoughts?”

He shook himself back to where he was: a nice hotel, with his beautiful wife, whom he really didn't see that often, on a free night before he went back to sea. “Not really. How about it? Want to go out and paint the town?”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

THE next morning was cloudless and still. He stood at the base of a starkly modern tower built of what looked like concrete pipes. They emerged from the grass, bent upward, and met to support a great bronze globe. Around its perimeter the flags of many nations drooped in the breezeless heat. Beside him Blair stood in a white lace dress, adorned with one of the corsages a bowing official had distributed to the ladies in the official party.

Which was slowly breaking up, now that the final benediction had been said. The ceremony had been unmercifully long. One Korean had ranted for nearly forty minutes. Dozens of veterans, war widows, and their families had sat in the audience, many blotting away tears as generals and ambassadors from the coalition nations, in many different languages, had invoked the memories of the fallen. Then each had stepped forward to lay his or her wreath.

He felt out of place uniformwise. The other military were in whites. Gold braid and aiguillettes sparkled. All he'd brought, not expecting formal occasions, was khakis. But the Koreans were also in khakis, or a service dress green he thought was the equivalent. He'd cleaned up his shoes, gotten a close shave, and made sure his ribbons were straight. So far no one had said anything.

But now it was over, and the reception line on the carefully manicured grass was moving. He shook hands with an elderly American in a gray double-breasted suit. Blair said, “Ambassador, I'm Blair Titus.”

“Of course, Blair. I know your boss very well.” He turned his expressionless gaze to Dan and she introduced him. “My husband, who's currently serving with the ROK Navy.”

“How interesting. Nice to meet you, Mr. Titus.”

The ambassador looked past them and Dan pulled Blair along, though she seemed to want to stay. “You could do his job,” she told him under her breath.

“Me? His job?”

“In your sleep. What's one of these guys do anyway? Nothing I've ever been able to figure out.”

Dan nodded to Carol Owens, in crisp whites. The attache narrowed her eyes and looked closely at him, then at Blair, before nodding. She inclined her head to a U.S. Army general's at her side. Then brought him over, towing him through the throng. Dan caught the glare of four stars on his shoulders. The matching dazzle of shaven temples beneath his cap, a Ranger patch, and incongruous horn-rimmed glasses. Dan recognized him as one of the speakers—one of the brief ones.

“Dan.”

“Captain. Blair, meet Captain Carol Owens, naval attache to the Republic of Korea.”

They shook hands. Owens introduced Mark Harlen, U.S. Army, Commander, Combined Forces Command, and Commander, U.S. Forces Korea. Which made him both the senior U.S. officer in theater and the representative of the UN Command. As a civilian appointee in the Department of Defense hierarchy, Blair was a four-star equivalent. She and the general were equals, but they were on Harlen's turf. It felt like the Field of Cloth of Gold, two high potentates, wary, surrounded by their subordinates.

“I know General Harlen,” Blair said. “I think we met briefly last time you were in the building to brief the SecDef.”

“And I know of the Honorable Ms. Titus.” Harlen chuckled, but there was no humor in his eyes. He glanced at Dan, returned his salute, then stuck out a hand to him too. “And if this isn't your aide, it must be your husband.”

Too late, Dan realized that if Nick Niles had sent him to TAG to get him out of the sights of the U.S. Army's senior commanders, this might not be the wisest venue to show himself off. Blair's warning glance told him she was thinking along the same lines. But he couldn't deny his identity when he was wearing his name tag. “Uh, pleased to meet you, General,” he said, and caught himself just before he bowed.

“Take it easy, Commander,” Harlen said, but he didn't say what Dan was to take it easy from. “Ms. Titus. Time for a quick tour of the DMZ? As long as you're on the peninsula?”

“I could check with my aide. The schedule's not all that flexible, though. I have to be back in DC Tuesday at 09.”

“Three or four hours. An hour up from Pusan to Osan or K16 in Seoul, thirty minutes by helo to the DMZ, an hour on the ground, thirty minutes back. Most of our DVs leave from Osan. I'd like to bend your ear on a couple of personnel issues.”

“I'd like very much to have your views.”

“And perhaps we could discuss the transfer of wartime control of South Korean troops.”

“That would be a Joint Staff issue, I believe.” Blair deflected Harlen so smoothly Dan barely caught it. “I'm aware of the question, but we'd need to study it thoroughly before floating anything concrete. The United Nations would be involved too—your UN Command hat. But I'd be glad to discuss it with you, unofficially. If, as I say, we can make the time.”

Dan felt left out, out of place. He glanced around and found himself face-to-face with Min Jun Jung. The commodore was in whites and it took a moment to recognize him. His PhotoGrays were black in the bright sunlight, and his eyes were totally invisible. They shook hands.

“Why, Dan. I didn't expect to run into you here. You do get around, don't you?”

“Good afternoon, Commodore. Nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you too. This is your wife, I understand?”

“I'll introduce you as soon as she's done with General Harlen.”

“I hadn't really understood. She is the secretary of defense?”

“No, no! Just the undersecretary for manpower and personnel.”

“Still, that is news to me.” Dan watched Jung mull it over, then look at him again. “I thought I'd ask you your opinion. On getting under way tomorrow.”

“The typhoon?”

“Exactly. It's moving slowly just now, but the forecasts show it passing south of us.”

“They're not always predictable,” Dan said. “Or at least I've found it to be that way. Both typhoons and hurricanes. And they tend to turn north. This side of the equator, anyway.”

“As we all know,” Jung said drily.

“Sorry, sir.”

“So you counsel caution?”

“Sir, in this case, I don't counsel anything. This really has nothing to do with conduct of the exercise. You're the OTC. You're the host country commander.”

“The North takes advantage of heavy weather to slip their infiltration teams in. When we fought them, defending our fishing fleets, they attacked at night, in bad weather. I believe we need to be ready to fight in bad weather.”

“I can't argue with that, sir. But you have to balance it against prudence.”

“That's what the Australians said.”

“Are they in?”

“They're out. Left last night.”

“No guidance from Higher?”

Jung made an expression Dan couldn't interpret. “COMROKFLT left it up to me.”

“Well then—that's good. If you're satisfied there's enough warning time to get into port, if it hooks toward us—”

Jung nodded, pursing his lips. He muttered, “And of course there is the question of what Commodore Leakham will decide. So far his cooperation is… spotty. If I order him to go out and resume exercise play—will he?”

“That's up to him,” Dan told him. “Just do what you think is right.
I don't have any fucking idea where Leakham's coming from on anything, if that's what you're asking me, though. Sir.”

He looked toward Blair again. Her conversation with Harlen seemed to be winding down. He was moving up again, getting ready to introduce Jung, when a heavily bemedalled Korean Army aide pushed his way through the crowd toward them. Harlen bent to him, cupping his ear.

The general turned to Blair. “If you'd step this way, ma'am, I'll present you to the defense minister.”

“Should I come?” Dan asked her. “Or wait here?”

“Sure, come on,” she told him. “I want you to. Come on.”

He smiled apologetically back at Jung. The commodore looked disappointed, but smiled back and shrugged.

The defense minister, a small man in a dark blue suit, turned out to be the guy who'd ranted for forty minutes. He was smiling and bowing to Blair. Dan and Harlen bowed back. They were exchanging stilted small talk about the ceremony, how pleasant the weather was, and so forth, when someone behind him clamped a hand on Dan's shoulder.

He turned to confront the tallest, strackest Korean he'd ever seen. The guy was in starched fatigues, gleaming black battle helmet, and gold armband. A lanyarded pistol was holstered at his belt, and his face was coldly, absolutely hostile. He jerked a thumb behind him. “Commander Lenson? Is this your man, sir?”

Dan leaned to see around him. To where, at some distance, Rit Carpenter, hands shackled behind him, was standing beside a jeep. Korean troops with unslung rifles surrounded him.

“Excuse me,” he said, bowing first to the minister and then to Blair. She glanced from him to the jeep, and a line appeared between her brows, but only for a moment; she turned back to the politico, smiling and nodding, and moving ever so slightly—to mask what was going on from his view, Dan realized.

He followed the guy toward the vehicle. “What the hell's going on?” he snapped.

The military police officer said stiffly, “This man was found with a Korean woman. Among the gravestones.”

“So what? They were walking among the—”