A Corpse in the Koryo

4

On Tuesday morning I was out at the airport as the plane taxied in front of the terminal building. I watched each passenger walk down the stairs and fixed on a short brown-haired man, about sixty, as my Finnish policeman. There was supposed to be an interpreter from the Foreign Ministry, but he hadn't arrived, and I had to hope the Finn and I had enough Russian between us for the greetings, getting the bags past customs, and then some small talk on the drive to the hotel.

The brown-haired man turned out to be a German agro-specialist.

There were no Finns on the plane. As I went in search of a phone, the Foreign Ministry liaison man came running up to me, his face perspiring even though it wasn't warm in the building.

"What happened to our Finn?" The liaison man and I had worked together before. It probably wasn't his fault, but something about him irritated me whenever I saw him. Maybe it was his smile. It sat on his face like a fly on a rotting peach.

His eyes went toward my lapel, searching for the pin that, after years of working with me, he knew wouldn't be there. Some people stare in silence for a moment when they can't find it, then pick up the conversation.

The liaison man wasn't one of them. He would always look away furtively, as if it were the first time he had ever encountered such a thing, then start to stutter slightly before he got hold of himself again.

"The F-F-Finn couldn't make the f-f-flight. Visa problem."

"You mean the consulate in Beijing screwed up? Someone's head is going to roll and it's not going to be mine."

The liaison man wiped his face with a blue silk handkerchief, the sort they sell by the box at the Beijing airport. "The authorization never arrived. We called the c-c-consulate to make sure they would issue the visa. They said it would be no problem, as soon as they got the f-f forms." He paused a few seconds; it seemed to help him calm down.

"The code clerk said there was a transmission at the right time, but nothing came through, so he thought it was just the normal equipment problems. Then he looked again and saw that the send-number was valid. We double-checked it against our records."

"It was blocked?"

The liaison man swallowed hard and lowered his voice. "I d-d-didn't say that."

"No, you didn't say that. So, what about the train? Get him his visa tomorrow, put him on the train at Beijing station. He'll show up here a few days late, cranky and tired, but it won't be anything we haven't faced before with other official visitors, thanks to your ministry." I could see the liaison man was forcing himself not to look at my lapel again. "Don't worry." I leaned over and whispered in his ear. "They don't put it in your file if you stand near me."

"R-r-real funny." He took a step back and, as he always did, started mentally running through excuses for breaking off our conversation.

I decided to help him out. "We done?"

He nodded and looked relieved but then hesitated. "When the Finn found out he'd flown all the way to Beijing and there was no visa waiting at our consulate, he was pretty upset. Han, the guy at the visa desk, told me he asked him to stay an extra day while things were straightened out, but the Finn grabbed his passport, said he had better things to do with his time, and stomped out the door. We called his hotel room to offer the train-sometimes we can come up with ideas on our own, you know. You cops aren't the only ones who can think."

"Swell. You can think. What happened?"

"He had already checked out. There's a Finnair flight from Beijing back to Helsinki at 2:00 p.m. He's probably at the airport right now, waiting to board."

At the edge of the crowd, near the front door to the terminal, I spotted a familiar profile. "We'll be in touch," I said to the liaison man, just as he dropped his hankie. When he knelt to pick it up, the pin fell off his lapel. "Not your day, pal," I said. "Welcome to the club."

Kang gestured for me to follow him outside. As I walked into the parking lot, he was climbing into an old, dusty blue car, the Nissan I'd heard start up outside my hotel in Kanggye. I got in the passenger's side. Kang glanced in the mirror, adjusting it so he could see what was behind us without having to make it obvious. "Airports are exciting places, don't you think, Inspector? You never know who you'll see. Or who will see you."

"You know who played this stupid game on the visa for the Finnish policeman?"

"I can't say for sure, but we do a little of this and a little of that in Beijing. A while ago we rented an apartment overlooking the back of the consulate. We haven't shared either this or that with Kim, incidentally.

From the apartment window we can see everyone who enters and leaves the consulate. A full three-man Military Security team was there the other night, late."

"How late?"

"Two in the morning. The lighting isn't so good around there at that hour, and we don't have enough night scopes, but we could see one of them was carrying a small bag, probably tools. They let themselves in-which they aren't supposed to do-and thirty minutes later they came out again. I figure they jiggled a few wires on the commo equipment."

"Why didn't the Chinese guards stop them?"

"They had some sort of identification papers. Maybe the Chinese service is working with them. I don't trust the Chinese, not one of them." Kang turned on the engine. It coughed, just like it had at two in the morning in Kanggye. "No sense in hanging around here. Let's go back to the city."

"Wait, I've got my own car."

As I started to open the door, Kang accelerated past a minibus and out onto the road. "Leave it. Get a new one."

"Are you crazy? Pak will bounce me on my head if I leave that car here. I'm not even supposed to be driving it half the time."

We were speeding past the first set of nondescript concrete apartment buildings beyond the airport, and Kang showed no sign of turning around. "Don't worry about Pak. I told him you need a new car. It's banged up anyway. What did you do, drive into a ditch?" We braked suddenly, crossed over the center line, and slid off onto a dirt side road, past a traffic policeman who was standing at a checkpoint. The policeman looked blankly at Kang and then put his face back toward the main highway. Kang drove to a small stand of trees, pulled behind them, and turned off the engine. From the direction of the airport, two black Mercedeses sped past. The second slowed for a fraction at the checkpoint, but when the traffic policeman waved in the direction of town, the car accelerated again.

"I'm guessing you didn't want that Finnish detective here." I watched Kang slump down in his seat and pretend to relax once the two cars were out of sight.

Kang's lips toyed with smiling, then dropped the idea. "Well, I'm guessing neither did you." He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "It would have been one more person I'd have to keep safe from snakes. Anyway, the two of you might have stumbled onto something that doesn't concern your investigation. But, no, I didn't stop him. And I never tamper with Foreign Ministry communications."

I opened the door. "See you around, Kang. I've got to get back to my car and then tell Pak I don't have to babysit for the next three days."

"Sometimes you don't listen very well, Inspector." When Kang reached over to pull the door shut, I saw he was wearing his shoulder holster, which was a surprise. The number of people authorized to wear concealed weapons in the capital is limited, very, very limited. "Your car is not where you want to be right now. I don't think it would have been a big explosion when you turned the key. They wouldn't have wanted to injure a lot of foreigners. But you might have needed the cuffs on one of your pant legs brought up several centimeters, like maybe to your knee. And any passenger in the car would have had his eyebrows singed." He rolled down his window to let in some air. "Now they're going to have to figure out what to do with your car. I hope the tank wasn't full. Waste of gasoline. I'll bet they drain it."

It took a minute before I felt like speaking. "Thanks. I owe you. I thought you said you couldn't help me here in the capital."

"I can't help you on the case, but Finland is important to my operations.

I can't afford to have the Finns mad at us and tightening up on regulations."

"So why didn't you want that Finnish detective here?" Kang's fingers were drumming the steering wheel again. "Don't tell me he works for you."

This time Kang smiled. "Okay, I won't tell you that. Next subject.

We need to talk."

"I doubt it. If Pak wants to work with your department, that's his business. If you and I can work out a deal on our own, that's fine. Like I said, I owe you." I could feel my blood pressure rising, and from the way Kang glanced over at me, my voice must have been following suit.

"But I draw the line, a thick black line, at working with my former brother. I'll save us some time. Don't bother raising the idea."

"Believe me, Inspector, I don't like your brother. We've tangled more than once. He and his comrade friends get in my way. When it's only a nuisance, I can ignore them, but every so often they threaten my people by compromising an operation. Your brother is right on the verge of doing that. He is still your elder brother, incidentally."

I meant to laugh cynically, but the sound got stuck in my throat.

"So you think I'm going to talk to him again? Have a fraternal chat?

You must be kidding."

"Inspector, there are several threads here. I'd say you are starting to realize they come together in an odd way. You might actually reach some conclusions before it is too late. Meantime, your brother is about to cause me serious trouble. If you think that by keeping him off your investigation you've accomplished something, you're wrong. But that's your problem. If you rile him up, he'll get in my way. That's my problem.

See what I mean?"

"I scared the piss out of him."

"Bravo. Not good enough. We need him neutralized." Kang paused.

"Don't worry, I'm not talking about anything physical."

"Too bad."

"Wow!" He sat back. "A pair of scorpions. Do me a favor, put it aside for now. Whether and why you dislike him is not my business.

But I need him off my back, and I need you to help me figure out what will make him crawl back into his hole on his own."

"Rat poison."

Kang sat still for a moment, took a deep breath and exhaled, and then turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered once and came to life. "Pak said you were unreasonable on this, but I said you'd help. I guess not." He ignored the traffic policeman's salute as we passed, turned onto the highway with a squeal of the car's old tires, and drove with bored, silent concentration the rest of the way into town.

When we got to the bridge across the river from my apartment, Kang pulled over and reached into the backseat for a small package. All he said was, "I think this is for your picnic." Then he got out of the car and walked to the riverbank.

I wasn't sure what he meant. The package was bulky, wrapped in plain brown paper. Inside was a hand-knit sweater. There was no note, but there didn't have to be. Maybe there was still a trace of her perfume on it, or maybe I only imagined it. The sweater looked like it might be too big. But it was blue.