Bamboo and blood

4

It wasn't a long drive back to the office, but I needed some time to think. I could think in my office, except for Pak coming down and asking if everything was fine. I couldn't think when he did that; I couldn't think once he left because I knew he would be back. If I drove around my sector, I could keep the car heater on. There wouldn't be much to see, the streets were almost deserted, but at least it would be warm.

No one had mentioned the subject of the Swiss visitor again, a silence that had nothing good to recommend it. No one at the Ministry raised it when I went by to look for a file on an old case. The special section team stayed away from our office, though every day we expected them to pay another call. Pak was sure so they'd be back, he gave me explicit orders not to clean the cups. Most disquieting of all, during our brief meeting at the Sosan Hotel, Mun hadn't raised the subject even once. Out on the street, he had hinted he knew quite a bit about the visitor, but at the Sosan, he clammed up. He'd repeated the warnings about how much trouble I might be in, but didn't let on any more about what he knew. From the way he had asked me if I still had contact with anyone from our operational days, I didn't think that's what he really wanted to know. It seemed more like he was trying to figure out what I remembered from the past, and what I was willing to talk about. I told him I didn't remember anything, and hadn't seen anyone, which was mostly true. I didn't like his sneer, but paid for his drink anyway. I figured if he went away and never came back, it was worth the investment. Not that I thought he'd go away. It wasn't, as I'd told Pak, a good bet that we wouldn't see him again.

That still left one burning question mark hanging over us-why the Swiss visitor had become a nonsubject. Pak seemed to think that the subject was something being discussed somewhere else and that it would eventually crash down on our heads again. This wasn't like Pak, to be so jumpy and off-key. Pak was the polestar, the fixed point. If he started to wobble, there was no telling what would happen to the rest of us. I didn't blame him. The situation was bad. Pyongyang was awash in rumors, most of them true, about how conditions in the countryside had fallen apart. We were ripe for something, I just didn't know what.