1000 Yards

15

Kim looked at his watch: nearly half past eleven. He paced the observation room, the large two-way mirror looking into the interrogation suite where Yun was continuing to supervise their efforts with the traitor. There was nothing else he could do, except what he was engaged in at the moment: futile recriminations, coupled with the more practical step of contacting his deputies at Kumsusan Palace and ordering them to redouble their efforts to find the Englishman.

The prospect of failure and disgrace was very real now. The Parade was about to start and, whatever Kun said, it had to be the target. A bomb? A sniper? Perhaps there were more of them than just the Englishman. And what could he do? There were already tens of thousands of people there, a crowd so dense that it would be perfect for one man to hide within. Kim certainly couldn’t ask for the Parade to be stopped. He had nothing to suggest that was necessary, nothing except the dull, sickening ache in the pit of his gut.

The doctor’s drugs had ruined the man’s mind now, flipping him into a deep unconsciousness from which he emerged only now and again, generally babbling incoherently. Yet they persevered, Yun asking the same questions over and over and over again.

Who is the agent?

What was smuggled into the country?

What is his target?

And still nothing! Kim felt the bitter, selfish anger of a man who sees a bounty turn to ashes in his hands. His promotion, his position in the Ministry, in the Party, his whole life; his foolishness had put everything was at stake. He had chided himself for allowing the man to pass into the country in the first place, but, until now, he had never failed to believe that he would be able to find him and end the threat that he posed. Each answer, each potential source of knowledge, had crumbled between his fingers. He felt trapped.

Yun suddenly shot to his feet and dashed to the intercom. He thumbed the channel open.

“Comrade Major, I have it.”

“What is it?” he practically yelped, his heart catching.

“He does not know the man’s name, nor does he know what was brought into the country, but he says that he knows what it is that they intend to attack.”

“What is it, man? Speak!”