Fires of War

1

Corporal Wanju stared at the figure, disbelieving as it seemed to rise directly from the ground. He was manning a guard post about seventy yards south of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

How had he appeared there? A tunnel?

The man ran toward the roll of barbed wire to the corporal’s left.

“An enemy!” hissed the private who shared the corporal’s observation post. “Corporal, look.”

Corporal Wanju had served in the army for more than three years, and had been stationed at this post for more than five months. He had seen North Korean soldiers before, but always at a distance, through binoculars.

What was the man doing? Attacking? He didn’t seem to have a rifle.

Spies attempted to infiltrate South Korea all the time, but never here. Besides, it was the middle of the day; only a fool would attempt to sneak across the border when he could be so easily seen.

“Corporal, we must shoot him! He is attacking!”

“Wait,” said Corporal Wanju.

As he did, one of the machine gunners at the observation post fifty yards to the west began firing.

The figure seemed to pause in midstride, turning slightly as if to begin a dance.

And then his head exploded as if it were a blood-filled gourd.

Corporal Wanju turned aside and threw up.

2

Sitting alone in the back of the SUV, Ferguson watched the countryside pass by. He determined that they were going northwest, but since he had only a general idea of North Korean geography, he had no idea where he was being taken.

There were two men in the truck with him, both in the front seat. While it was tempting to throttle one of the men and try and take his weapon, Ferguson realized that would be foolish; there was another vehicle behind him, and even if he managed to overcome the driver and his companion he’d almost certainly be outgunned.

The fact that he hadn’t been bound or blindfolded seemed significant. The North Koreans were dressed in plain work clothes, not military fatigues. They might be with the internal security force, but if that were the case, why hadn’t the pug-faced interpreter Chonjin come with them? He didn’t even seem to know what was going on.

Possibly this was simply Park’s way of testing him, though Ferguson couldn’t quite see the logic of that.

Had Park or Li realized he’d seen them meeting with the North Korean general?

Maybe, but if so it would have been much easier to dispose of him in the way Li hinted they could.

For the moment, he decided, he’d stay in character, angling to be released to the Russian embassy. That might involve other problems, but he’d worry about them when the time came. His cover was solid; he knew from experience it would check out, even in Moscow.

The SUV pulled down a dirt road lined with spools of barbed wire. It bumped through some ruts, then pulled up in front of a gate. The driver rolled down his window, and a man in uniform approached. After a few words, the guard looked into the back, glared at Ferguson, then waved them through.

The SUV drove past a pair of antiaircraft guns at least twice as old as the soldiers standing in front of the sandbags nearby. The truck rounded a curve, passed a small wooden building, and then stopped in the middle of a large parade ground in front of a large, dilapidated stone building.

The door opened, and a soldier ordered Ferguson out. As he stepped out, the man pulled him by the shirt and pushed him forward.

“СТОЙ!” said Ferguson. “Stop it!”

The man continued to prod him toward the entrance. Ferguson dug in his heels and put out his hands, shrugging the man off. Then he began walking on his own power.

“Inside,” said his escort roughly in Korean. “Go.”

Ferguson entered a small room dominated by a fat coal stove. Red embers glowed behind its cast-iron gate.

A short, balding man in an officer’s uniform asked him his name in Korean.

“Ivan Manski,” Ferguson said. “Hanggungungmai mot hamnida. I don’t speak Korean.”

“That is of no concern to me,” said the man.

“I want to speak to the Russian embassy,” said Ferguson, first in Korean, and then in Russian.

“You will speak when spoken to,” said the man. He told the man who had pushed Ferguson inside to take him to a cell.

“I want to speak to the Russian ambassador,” said Ferguson. He reached for his passport, but before he could he was grabbed from behind and thrown against the wall. Two men held him there while he was searched; they found the passport and the business cards, along with the commercial sat phone Ferguson had purchased in Daejeon, his wallet, and thyroid pills. Ferguson was then pushed into another room and ordered to strip.

He began to undress slowly. This annoyed the man behind him, who pulled down the back of his shirt.

No self-respecting Russian, let alone an arms dealer with a background as unsavory as Ferguson’s, would stand for that. Ferguson spun and planted a fist in the man’s jaw so hard that the North Korean flew back against the wall, stunned. Instantly, the others were on top of him, pounding him with their fists. Ferguson fought back hard, drawing blood and breaking at least one nose, before finally the officer from the other room arrived, yelling that they were fools and to let the Russian pig alone.

Lying on the ground, Ferguson worked his tongue around his mouth, making sure he hadn’t lost a tooth. He rolled onto his knees and felt his face. His nose was bleeding, and he could feel the welts starting to swell around his eyes. His kidneys were sore.

“Much worse will happen if you do not cooperate,” said the man, standing over Ferguson. He pointed to a pair of blue prison pajamas. “Get up and get dressed in those clothes.”

Ferguson didn’t understand all the words, but the meaning was clear enough.

“I need my medicine,” he said in Russian, standing.

The officer didn’t understand.

“Pills.” Ferguson had learned the phrase in Korean but couldn’t get it out. “Jigeum yageul meok,” he stuttered finally. “I need my medicine.”

The officer waved at him to go and take off the rest of his clothes.

“Meokgo isseoyo. Jigeum yageul meokgo isseoyo,” repeated Ferguson.

They were the right words, though his pronunciation was halting. His head was still scrambled from the pounding he’d taken.

The officer said something to one of the men, who disappeared into the other room. Then he told Ferguson to get changed.

Not seeing another option, he did so.

3

Park Jin Tae stepped from the sedan and walked briskly to the ladder in front of his plane. His visit had been an enormous success, but he had much to do at home. He’d waited until evening to leave only because the vice chairman of the Communist Party had invited him to lunch, and it would not have been politick to refuse, much as he hated the ignorant water buffalo.

His assistant, Mr. Li, met him at the top of the steps, just inside the aircraft. He bowed in respect, then told Park that the defector had been shot at the crossing.

“Dead?” said Park.

“Very. There have been no news reports yet, however.”

Park slipped into the leather seat at the center of the cabin. A steward stood near the polished mahogany bar, waiting for him to nod; when Park did so, the man brought him a shallow cup and a bottle of makgeolli, a humble milky white liquor that never failed to ease his cares.

Li, as was his custom, declined the invitation to share the drink.

“Did they find the papers?” asked Park as the steward retreated.

“I have not heard. Should I inquire?”

“Not yet. Wait and see what develops in the morning, and what we learn from our usual sources. This must unfold without our hand being seen.”

4

Without his thyroid pills, most of Ferguson’s vital organs would start to slow down. His body would have trouble maintaining its proper temperature; he’d feel cold even in a room of seventy degrees. His muscles would ache, a by-product of their difficulty removing built-up waste material. His energy would ebb, a pale of lethargy descending over him. Within two or three days he would begin to slide toward clinical depression and acute anxiety, his brain having trouble keeping its serotonin levels stable.

At some point Ferguson’s tissues would begin to swell, and he would develop fluid around his heart and lungs. Along the way his brain would turn to mush, and he’d become psychotic, assuming he was still alive.

But skipping the first dose of T4 pills he took every evening had a paradoxical effect: It made him hyperactive. His heart rate bounded upward, and his mind raced as if maybe he’d drunk one too many pots of coffee.

Unable to sleep, Ferguson spent the night pacing the small cell, one of a dozen in the dank basement block. He was the only one here. Every so often, he stopped moving, straining to hear sounds from outside or above him, but all he heard was silence.

He strode back and forth in the small cell: three and a half strides this way, three and a half that, four to the front, four to the back. He did it for hours, trying to puzzle out the situation and decide what to do.

Rather than getting tired, his energy seemed to grow with each step. So when his interrogator came for him around four a.m., Ferguson was not only wide awake but also fully alert, the opposite of what the North Korean expected.

The man stood outside the bars and introduced himself in Korean, asking if Ferguson spoke the language. Ferguson told him in Russian that he did not.

Chinese?

No.

“I can speak German or English if you want,” said Ferguson, switching between the two languages. “My French might work.”

“We can speak English,” said the man. “What is your name?”

“Ivan Manski.”

“What do you do?”

“I sell scientific instruments for the Redstreak Company of Moscow.”

“That is what you do?”

“Yes.”

“You should not lie to me,” said the man gently. He had a round, sad face with owl eyes that blinked, as if he were missing his glasses. He wore a long gray tunic and pants, civilian clothes.

“I’m not lying,” Ferguson said.

“I have been told that you are an arms dealer.”

“Arms? I don’t understand.”

Owl Eyes blinked. “You sell weapons to outlaws.”

“Never.”

The North Korean reached into his pocket and took out Ferguson’s bottle of pills. “This medicine is important to you?”

“Sure.”

“If you are truthful, you can have it.”

Ferguson shrugged.

Owl Eyes pocketed the pills and walked away.

5

Daniel Slott and his wife had slept together for more than thirty years. In all that time, Slott hadn’t lost his affection for the touch of his wife’s body at night. The weight of her leg against his reassured him somehow, even when he was dreaming.

He felt the weight as he woke, then he heard the chirp of his beeper nearby. It had been buzzing for a few seconds.

The code on it told him to call one of the overnight people at headquarters. He palmed it and got out of bed, gingerly sliding his leg out from under his wife’s. He grabbed his robe but not his slippers, gliding quietly down the steps to the first floor and then to the basement, where he had a small office.

“This is Slott,” he said, dialing into headquarters on a secure phone.

“Boss, Ken Bo has something urgent to tell you in Seoul.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hook me up.”

Slott sat back in the old leather chair, a relic from his wife’s brother, waiting while the deskman arranged for him to talk to Bo. The paneled wall in front of him was lined with photos of old haunts and career stops, most of them in Asia.

There was a particularly amusing picture of him bowing to the statue of the Great Leader in P’yŏngyang on an official visit. He’d taken a lot of ribbing about that when he got back to D.C. Some of his colleagues laughingly suggested he might be changing sides, and the DDO at the time claimed he wanted Slott to bow to him in the same manner.

“Dan, I’m sorry to wake you up,” said Bo when he came on the line.

“Go ahead.”

“The Republic of Korean government yesterday afternoon recovered documents from a DPRK soldier indicating that the forces are to be mobilized within the next few days. The mobilization plan is one that we identified about a year ago as Wild Cosmos, Invasion Plan Two.”

“Wild Cosmos? They’re invading?”

“They’re mobilizing. Supposedly.”

“Was this a plant by ROK ahead of the elections?” ROK was the Republic of Korea, South Korea; DPRK was the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North.

“We’re not sure,” said Bo. “The circumstances are a little… vague. It looks to us like the guy was trying to defect, and the ROK soldiers screwed up. We’re still pulling information out. They haven’t shared it with the news media, and the ambassador wasn’t told. In light of everything else,” added Bo, “I thought you’d want to know personally.”

In other words: I know you think I’m a screwup; here’s some evidence I’m not.

“All right. Stay on top of it. Obviously.”

“Will do.”

An hour later, Slott arrived at Langley and began reviewing the situation with headquarters’ Korean experts, most of whom had been sleeping barely an hour and a half before. They went over the latest satellite and electronic intelligence. There was no indication — yet, anyway — that a mobilization was imminent.

Judging from their actions, the South Korean government didn’t seem to know what to make of the documents. They’d put a unit near Seoul on alert, yet hadn’t notified any of the units guarding the DMZ. And the incident that had led to the discovery of the orders still hadn’t been reported in the media.

When it came to human intelligence north of the border, the U.S. generally relied on South Korean intelligence, which had a good though not stellar network of agents there. Slott had never trusted the South Korean intelligence agency known as the National Security Council. During his days in Korea, he’d found his counterparts consumed by agendas that had nothing to do with the North. Even a simple assessment of the fighting strength of an army division could become a massive political football, with the data skewed ridiculously according to whatever ox was being gored.

In this crisis — or noncrisis, if that’s what it turned out to be — the Agency would have to rely primarily on information from the Koreans.

Except that he had his own officer somewhere north of the border. Ferguson’s observations might be useful, especially since he was with Park, who had access to the highest reaches of the dictatorship.

Assuming Slott could contact him. Alone in his office, he picked up his secure phone and called over to The Cube.

“Corrigan.”

“This is Slott. Is Ferg still north?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“When’s he due to check in?”

“Um, he’s not due exactly. He thought regular check-ins would be too dangerous up there. He’s not supposed to call in until he gets back and gets settled.”

“Where is he exactly?”

“I’m not positive. He’s north of the capital somewhere.”

“Track him on his sat phone.”

“No can do. He left the Agency phone in Daejeon and bought a local unit. He wanted to make sure he was clean.”

Ferguson’s precautions were entirely reasonable. That far under cover, in an extremely hostile environment, the slightest slip or unexpected coincidence meant death.

But they were certainly inconvenient, thought Slott.

“You want me to try calling his phone?” asked Corrigan. “I do have the number.”

Slott weighed the danger of an unexpected phone call against the information they might get.

If he’d done that a few days ago, before sending the Seoul people down to get Ferg, would the op still trust him?

But it wasn’t his fault the Seoul people had been so inept or that Ferguson had overreacted to the situation.

Let it go. It’s past now.

But he couldn’t let it go, not completely.

“Should I call?” repeated Corrigan.

“No,” said Slott. “When is he due back?”

“Sometime soon. The 727 that brought them is still in P’yŏngyang. It hadn’t been refueled the last time the satellite passed overhead. The billionaire’s plane came back this evening. He generally leaves the night before his guests do. But the schedule isn’t always predictable. Could be a few hours, could be a day or two.”

“Let’s get someone to wait for him at the airport. Tell him to call in as soon as he gets back. And I mean the second he gets there. Tell him to go right over to the embassy and get on the line back here.”

“Uh, boss?”

“Yeah?”

“Last time, uh, we used the Seoul office, it didn’t go too well. Ferguson—”

“Well, that’s too bad. I need to talk to him.”

“How about Thera? She’s just killing time offshore with the scientist. We could fly her in, have her wait.”

Slott thought about it. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll call her.”

“What’s going on?”

Slott explained, briefly.

“Should I tell Ms. Alston?” asked Corrigan.

Slott felt instant heartburn.

“I’ll tell her myself when she gets in. Get Thera for me.”

6

Thera typed the notes on what Ch’o had said during their morning session for the CIA debriefer. She’d come to a working relationship with Jiménez, each taking turns listening to him talk.

The scientist was truly concerned about the effects of radiation poisoning on sites throughout North Korea and had provided her with a long list of sites that he said were poisoning people. Ch’o also told her, almost as an aside, that there were no other weapons aside from those that had been announced. Two of the weapons had been assembled without the proper amount of weapons-grade material, a fact supposedly kept from the dictator. It was a critical piece of information, since it could be verified during the inspection process and then used to test Ch’o’s real knowledge of the program.

“Hey,” said Rankin, popping his head into her cabin. “You busy?”

“No.”

“Slott wants to talk to you. Up in the communications shack or whatever the hell name these navy people use for como.”

Thera followed Rankin up to the communications department, where she picked up a secure phone and found Corrigan on the line.

“Stand by,” said the mission coordinator.

“Thera, this is Dan Slott. How are you?”

“Fine, Dan. What’s up?”

“I’d like you to go over to Gimpo Airport in Seoul and wait for Bob Ferguson. We need him to call us right away, as soon he’s back from North Korea.”

“He’s in North Korea?”

Slott explained that Ferguson had gone north with Park, trying to talk to the billionaire because of the possible link to the plutonium.

“This isn’t about that, though,” he added, explaining the situation.

“I realize this is a messenger’s job,” he added. “But it’s important, and for reasons I don’t want to go into, you’re the best person available.”

“Not a problem. I’ll leave as soon as I can say good-bye.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing. I can go as soon as you want.”

“Good. Corrigan will give you the details.”

7

Ferguson found himself running across the desert, going up a dead ringer for a hill he’d ridden over near the Syrian border with Iraq a few months before. Thera was there, running a few yards in front of him. Every so often she would turn around and glance over her shoulder. She had a terrified look on her face.

She wasn’t scared of him, but just what she was frightened of he couldn’t tell.

Metal clanged.

Ferguson fell out of the dream and onto the cot in the North Korean prison.

He looked up. A guard was walking away.

The man had slid a plate through a metal hole at the front of the cell. A half cup of cold rice sat in a mound near the middle.

Ferguson got up and carried the plate back to his cot. His hyper phase was over. He felt as if he’d been up all night and gotten only an hour or so of sleep, which was pretty much the case.

Picking up a few grains with his fingers, Ferguson forced himself to chew as slowly as possible. He was halfway through the dish when footsteps approached down the hall. He steadied his gaze on his food, concentrating on each grain of rice.

“Are you ready?”

Ferguson raised his head slowly. Owl Eyes blinked at him from behind the bars.

“Have you called the embassy?” asked Ferguson.

“Why would I call the embassy?”

Ferguson took another bite of the food. He heard a clicking noise and looked up. Owl Eyes was shaking his pill bottle.

Ferguson went back to eating. When he looked up again, the interrogator was gone.

8

Corrine sat down at her computer, checking her e-mail before leaving for an early-morning meeting at the Justice Department. The first note was from Slott, who’d posted it nearly two hours ago. It read simply:

Call me. First thing. Secure line.

She picked up the phone and dialed. As it connected, she braced herself, expecting he was still mad about her going around him.

Or actually Ferguson going around him, though she’d taken the blame.

“Slott.”

“It’s Corrine Alston, Dan. What’s up?”

“The South Koreans picked some interesting documents off a North Korean soldier who may have been trying to defect. They seem to indicate that a mobilization order has been issued, getting the country ready to invade the South.”

Slott continued, explaining that, if legitimate, the order would be hand delivered to units throughout the country. They would begin mobilizing within a few days.

“The order would seem to set the stage for an attack,” added Slott. “So far, nothing has happened.”

“All right.”

“I’m going to ask Ferguson to report on anything he might have heard when he comes back. I’ve asked Thera to meet him in Seoul to make sure he calls in. Being Ferguson, that’s not always something you can count on. I thought you’d want to know.”

“I do. Thank you,” said Corrine.

“There’s no new information on the computer disk. They’re still working on it. I checked this morning.”

The words sounded almost like they were a challenge, or maybe a question: Is there something else I should know?

“I see,” said Corrine. “If I hear anything myself, I’ll let you know.”

It was a lame reply. She thought maybe she should apologize or at least get him to admit he was mad, but he hung up before she could think of a way to say any of that.

9

Thera got to Gimpo about seven a.m., driving over after landing at Osan Air Base, a U.S. Air Force facility not far from Seoul. She’d had her hair cut before leaving the Peleliu and picked up a pair of glasses to help change her appearance.

Once Korea’s largest airport, Gimpo had been overshadowed in recent years by the larger Incheon Airport, but it was still a busy place, with over a hundred passenger flights every day. Park’s 727 had been directed to use a special gate in the domestic terminal; a Customs officer had already been sent to meet them. A guard stood outside the waiting area, but Thera could see in easily enough by standing in the hallway. She leaned against a large round column, sipping a coffee as if she were waiting for a friend.

The first clump of men off the plane looked seriously hung over, shielding their eyes from the overhead fluorescents. The second and then a third group of men came in, looking even worse. The men were all in their forties and fifties, all Korean.

It was just like Ferguson to keep her waiting, she thought. At any second, she expected him to come sauntering out of the boarding tunnel, a big, what-me-worry grin on his face.

But he didn’t.

As Park’s guests were led through a nearby door to their vans waiting below, Thera slipped into the jetway, walking toward the cabin of the 727.

“Nuguseyo?” said a startled steward, turning around as she entered the plane. “Who are you?”

“Hello?” said Thera in Korean. She glanced down the wide aisle of the jet. “No one aboard?”

“What are you doing?” asked one of the pilots, appearing from the nearby cockpit.

“Just looking for a passenger.”

“They’re gone. All gone.”

Thera craned her neck, making sure. The pilot started to grab her wrist. Thera jerked her hand up and grabbed his instead, pressing it hard enough to make him wince.

“Not a good idea,” she told him in English before letting go.

10

Oh, they were dead, they were dead, they were all dead, bodies leaping out of windows and doors at him, faces contorted, leering, falling with blood and bruises and obscene grins.

I’m not going to die damn it, Ferguson told himself. Not today today today, and who cares about tomorrow?

A snatch of a song came into his head, then a memory of a mission, a flash-bang grenade going off almost in his ear.

He had to push on anyway.

Ferguson got up from the cot, shaking off the nightmare. He began pacing the cell.

He was hungry and cold and his legs hurt like hell, but the thing he couldn’t stand was his brain bouncing back and forth, gyrating with thoughts.

He couldn’t turn it off.

They hadn’t tortured him yet. They must believe that he was someone.

Or else they were saving all their fun for later.

The dank air pushed against his lungs. His body ached where he’d been pummeled. His knee felt as if it had snapped. But the worst thing was that he couldn’t think.

“I need to focus on something,” he said as he paced.

Belatedly, he remembered that his cell was probably bugged.

Better not to show them any sign of weakness.

Ferguson sat back on the cot, willing himself back into control.

He tried thinking of fun times with his dad, but that was no good; within seconds images of missions just came flooding in, the association too strong.

He pictured Maine, thinking of what it would look like now, an early snow on the ground.

Thanksgiving dinner.

That was a safe image, except it made him hungry.

Better to starve than go insane, he thought, picturing himself eating a large bowl of sausage stuffing.

11

Thera took the train to Daejeon. When she got there, she checked the hotel where Ferguson had been staying as Ivan Manski. His room was empty, and he wasn’t in the restaurant or one of the nearby shops.

Needing a place to stay herself, she took a room two floors above where he’d been staying. Then she called The Cube.

“Ferguson didn’t make the flight,” she told Lauren DiCapri. “He’s not in Daejeon, either. Has he checked in?”

“No.”

“He didn’t show at the embassy or anything like that, did he?”

“That would probably be the last place he’d go, knowing Ferg.”

“Check, would you?”

“Of course. Thera, are you sure he wasn’t on that plane?”

Thera laid her head back on the overstuffed chair. What the hell had happened to him?

“Thera?”

“No, he wasn’t on the flight. I thought maybe I missed him.” She knew she hadn’t; it was a wish, not a thought. “Try his sat phone, all right?”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. I’ll wait.”

“It’s off-line,” said Lauren a minute later.

“I was afraid of that,” said Thera softly. She pressed the button to disconnect the call.

12

General Namgung stood at attention as the tanks passed out of the camp, returning the stiff salutes of the crews. Dust and exhaust swirled around him, but he didn’t flinch. His father had taught him long ago that a leader inspired with poise as well as words, and the old man would be proud of his bearing now.

What he would think of his plan to oust Kim Jong-Il was another matter entirely.

The senior Namgung had been a close comrade of Kim Jong-Il’s father, Kim Il-Sung, the father of modern Korea. Kim Il-Sung was a true liberator, a gifted ruler who had save d his people. Kim Jong-Il was a poor shadow of his father, a debauched tyrant who had contracted venereal disease as a youth and was now slowly dying of kidney disease brought on by alcohol abuse.

His son, Kim Jong-chol, promised to be even worse.

Not that he would have the chance to rule.

Namgung dropped his arm as the last tank rolled out of the camp. An American spy satellite should be almost directly overhead, recording the movement. By now, alarms were going off in Seoul, where Park would have delivered the bogus plan by Kim Jong-Il to mobilize and attack. Over the next few days, a variety of North Korean army, navy, and air force units would mobilize.

Then, the unthinkable would happen, and everything would fall into place.

Namgung glanced upward as he got into his car. He smiled at the thought that some intelligence expert back in Washington might get a glimpse of his face.

Let the smug Americans try and guess what was really going on.

13

The black leather miniskirt was a little stiff, but there was no doubt it was effective; the security officer at the gate of Science Industries had trouble getting his eyes back in their sockets before waving Thera and her driver into the complex. The male receptionist was more influenced by cleavage; he stared at her chest as he dialed the managing director to tell him his appointment had arrived.

“But you do not seem to have an appointment,” he told Thera.

“I would think he’d talk to me, wouldn’t you? It has to do with a mutual business acquaintance, a Mr. Manski. The Russian. Would you remember him yourself?”

Thera leaned over the desk. The receptionist, in his early twenties, looked as if he was about to have a coronary.

“No. I wouldn’t remember anything,” said the man. He got back on the phone and persuaded the managing director’s secretary that the boss would definitely want to meet the visitor.

A few minutes later, Thera was escorted into the director’s office. She was playing the role of a jilted business partner, out to find Ferguson because he owed her money. In theory, she was Irish, the redheaded daughter of a one-time IRA member who’d done some business with Ferguson in the past, Deidre Clancy. There was a real Deidre Clancy, but she was presently serving time in an Angola prison after being caught short of bribe money on a deal Ferguson had arranged for her.

Thera told herself to tone down her performance, afraid she was going too far over the top. But it was like trying to stop yourself from skiing downhill in the middle of the slope.

And besides, wasn’t that one of Ferguson’s rules? When in doubt, push it as far as it will go?

The managing director’s secretary said that Dr. Ajaeng was very busy and might not be able to see her before lunch.

“Then perhaps he and I should have lunch,” suggested Thera. She took a seat opposite the secretary, adjusting her skirt.

The managing director’s schedule cleared up within minutes. The secretary personally escorted her, stroking the back of Thera’s fake fur coat.

“How can we help you?” said the managing director.

“I am looking for a friend. Or, rather, a business acquaintance. A special business acquaintance.”

As Thera sat in the seat near his desk, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered it to the managing director. He shook his head. There had been signs downstairs saying that smoking was not allowed in the building, but the director didn’t object as she lit up.

This was a trick she had learned from Ferguson. Breaking rules always had an effect on a subject. Sometimes it annoyed them and made them want to get rid of you. Other times it created an unspoken intimacy, making them a partner in crime. Either way, it gave you something to use.

The effect on Dr. Ajaeng was somewhere between the two.

“I don’t know what friend we might share,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

“Ivan Manski. Call it a business associate, for I’m not feeling very friendly toward him today. He was here some days ago trying to sell…,” Thera paused. “Scientific instruments.”

“Manski. No I don’t recall him.”

His expression indicated otherwise.

“Mr. Manski and I, we have an interesting arrangement. He happens to owe me a spot of money,” said Thera.

She stopped right there. That was enough.

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that,” said the managing director.

“Of course not.” Thera smiled, then rose to go. “Is Mr. Park in?”

“Mr. Park?”

“I believe our friend went to North Korea with him. Perhaps he might know where he has gone to.”

“Mr. Park never comes here.”

“I thought he had an office. My mistake.” Thera started for the door, then abruptly turned back, catching Dr. Ajaeng staring at her. “I’m at this hotel. Ask for me. Deidre. They’ll know.”

Too much, too much, too much, Thera told herself as she left. Even so, she made a point of saying good-bye to both the secretary and the receptionist, and waved at the guard as her driver took her out of the complex.

Are they working?”

“Loud and clear,” Lauren DiCapri told Thera. “What are you wearing, anyway?”

“Well, now, do you think I’d be telling you that?”

Lauren laughed. “They want to jump your bones.”

“I’ll bet.”

“You dyed your hair orange?”

“Kind of an orange red. Goes with the new haircut.”

“It must be a stunner.”

“Thank you.”

“The managing director called someone named Li and told him about you. Li seems to be an assistant to Park; I have Ciello checking it out.”

“Have they called the hotel?”

“No. There’s been no attempt to check out your room, either.”

During her visit to Science Industries, Thera had left bugs under each chair she had sat in. The units transmitted what they heard to a booster station — it looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio — outside the grounds. The booster uplinked to a satellite, which in turn relayed to The Cube. The tiny bugs would work for roughly four hours.

Thera told Lauren she was going to change, then run some errands. “Let me know if anything comes up.”

“What kind of errands?”

“I want to check out the trucks at the university where Ferguson planted the gamma tabs.”

“Be careful, Thera. Really careful.”

“That would take all of the fun out of it.”

Thera had dismissed her driver after the visit to Science Industries, so she had to navigate the clogged and confusing local roads herself in a rented Daewoo. The traffic wasn’t that bad, she decided after a few minutes, as long as you followed the golden rule of international driving: Once moving, don’t stop for anything.

Thera spotted both trucks near a loading dock at the university. She pulled in next to them, ignoring the sign that indicated she wasn’t allowed to park there.

Thera had no idea where Ferguson would have put the gamma tags, and it took quite a while before she finally discovered one in the space near the door of the first truck. Thera rolled up the door and dug it out with her fingernails; it had not been exposed to any radiation.

She was just opening the back of the second truck when a gruff voice asked her in Korean what the hell she thought she was doing.

Two men in overalls with university emblems stared at her from the asphalt.

“What are you doing in the truck?”

“Are these your trucks?” she answered, using English. “The trucks. Oh, do you understand English?”

Her brain spun for a second, trying to translate. The Korean word for truck, teureok, was easy, but she had to gather it into a sentence to show, no, to ask, about possession. By the time she did, the shorter of the two men had told her, in English, that these were the school’s trucks, and by the way, Miss, you’re not allowed to park here.

“I need to have some things moved,” Thera told him, jumping on the pretense as it flew into her head. “And I was wondering if these were big enough.”

“These are school’s trucks, Miss. Teachers can’t use them.”

“Well, yes, of course.” Thera pushed open the door. The tab was on the right side, in the crack at the bottom.

Was the top red?

No.

“Can they be hired?” said Thera.

“What do you mean?”

Thera climbed up into the back. “I have to move some furniture. I’ve been staying in the city, but Fm going to have to fly back to Ireland and I need to ship things. I don’t know what to do.”

The taller man told her in Korean that she was crazy and that she must come out of the vehicle instantly.

“I’m not crazy,” she said. “But I have only a few days.”

“You can rent a truck,” said the shorter man. “There are many places.”

“I was told there weren’t. If you want to ship in an airplane, you have to make special arrangements.”

“Well, that is not always true. They have containers for shipments. We brought one to the airport just the other day.”

He raised his hand to help her down. Thera pretended not to see it, squatting down.

“Yesterday?”

“Two, three days ago.”

The day Ferguson had gone to the airport?

“Which day?” asked Thera.

The man shrugged. “Three days.”

“So you can carry heavy things,” she said quickly.

“Of course.”

“Really heavy?”

“The container was very heavy,” said the man. “So heavy we almost were in trouble.”

Keep the conversation moving, Ferguson had told her. Don’t give them time to realize how truly odd your questions are.

Did he say that, or did she imagine he said that?

“I do have a lot of things that need to be moved,” Thera told him.

“Don’t say anything to her,” said the other man, again in Korean. “She’s a lunatic.”

“But pretty,” said the other man.

“You have air in your head,” his companion told him. “You’re thinking with your privates.”

The other man walked toward the other truck. Thera sat on the edge of the truck, swinging her blue-jean-clad legs.

“Maybe you could rent a truck for me?” she asked. “I love Korea, but sometimes it can be difficult to understand what needs to be done.”

The man seemed willing to help, though he wanted a lot more than just a few thousand won out of it. Thera quizzed him on where he had been under the guise of asking about his truck-driving abilities. Again he mentioned the delivery to the Gimpo airport, where he and his friend had taken a relatively small but very heavy cargo container. He was an extremely careful driver, he said, and had even taken his vehicle to explosive plants.

“To carry explosives?” Thera asked.

“No.”

“Just went there?”

“I go where I’m told.”

Special licenses were needed to transport explosives, and it was not clear whether he was avoiding the question to make himself seem more competent or to stay out of trouble.

His companion blared the horn in the other truck.

“You must move your car. The police will have it towed,” said the man.

“You’re very sweet,” Thera said, touching his shoulder. “Give me your phone number so I can call you.”

14

Shapes and faces and stabs of knives in his head.

No, I want to think of something pleasant, Ferguson told himself. No more missions.

Swallow the radioactive pill and let it kill the poison.

“Far away for death,” Ferguson whispered. “Just far away.”

He forced his brain to roam into the past… to prep school.

Not always pleasant. The Jesuits were a tough crew, toughening up the boys they taught.

Literature? When was it: the American school in Alexandria, the Jesuit school, the Korean school?

He’d never been to a Korean school.

What if they grabbed him now, stuck him in ice-cold water, threatened to freeze him to death if he didn’t talk.

It was freezing here already. Couldn’t get much colder.

“Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home.”

The beginning of Julius Caesar. Brother Mark used to say it to end class.

Now that had been a good year. They’d even done that play. He’d been Anthony.

Antony.

Marcus Antonius.

Anthony.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Ferguson, not praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.”

No good I’ve done.

“Jesus, it’s cold,” said Ferguson, rolling up from the cot and walking to generate some heat.

“ ‘Oh judgment, though art fled to brutish beasts,’” said Ferguson, the words from Antony’s famous speech springing back from some recess of his brain. “ ‘Men have lost their reason!’”

Good God almighty, it was cold.

15

“They went to the airport probably the day Ferguson left,” Thera told Corrigan when she checked in with him after returning from the university. “They delivered some sort of cargo container. It sounded to me like it was the first time they ever did something like that. It was unusual — they were bragging about it — and it was very heavy.”

“A shipping container?” asked Corrigan.

“One of the drivers said it was very heavy, heavy enough that he was worried about having the right license. They’re fined personally if the police stop them and their trucks are overweight.”

“What kind of cargo container?”

“One that goes on an airplane.”

“You’re talking about a unit-load device?” asked Corrigan.

“Like a baggage thing?”

“OK. That’s what it’s called: a unit-load device.” Corrigan typed search terms into one of his computers to get background information. “How could something like that be so heavy he was worried about weight restrictions?”

“You tell me.”

Her room phone began to ring.

“Hang on just a second, Corrigan.”

Thera went to the bed table and picked up the phone. It was the downstairs desk, telling her that someone was asking for her.

“Tell him I’ll be down in fifteen minutes,” Thera told the clerk. “I’m just taking a shower. No. Better make it thirty.”

Thera put the phone down and immediately took out her gun.

“What’s up?” asked Corrigan.

“I’m betting it’s someone from Science Industries. Maybe for Park. Hold on.”

She turned the water on in the bath and stepped back into the room, waiting, half-expecting whoever had come to the desk to try sneaking in while she was vulnerable. But no one came.

“I’m going down,” she told Corrigan finally.

“If I don’t hear from you in ten minutes, I’m calling out the dogs.”

“I’ll need more time than that,” said Thera.

“Don’t take too long. Everybody’s jumpy. Slott wants to send over some of Van’s SpecOps people to shadow you.”

“The last thing I need right now is an audience,” said Thera. She stuck her head in the shower, then wrapped her hair in a towel. “I’ll call back.”

Mr. Li spotted Thera as soon as the elevator doors opened. He rose from the sofa where he had been waiting patiently and walked toward her, admiring her swift stride as much as the trim body that produced it.

“You are Miss Deidre?” he said.

“Just Deidre,” Thera said, holding out her hand.

Li didn’t know whether to shake it or kiss it. Instead, he bowed.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Mr. Li. Very nice to meet you.”

“And I you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You were making inquiries about Mr. Park?”

“He and I have a friend in common.” Thera noticed that Li was uneasy about standing in front of the elevators and talking; she decided to keep him there as long as possible.

“Mr. Park has many friends and acquaintances.”

“This one owes me a great deal of cash.” Too harsh, Thera realized; she tried to backtrack. “On the other hand, Mr. Manski has many positive traits.”

“Mr. Manski. Ah, yes, he accompanied us to North Korea.”

“I see. Why, exactly?”

The question took Li by surprise. “The other half of our country is an interesting place. There is a great deal of history. In the future — not very long from now, I hope — we will be reunited.”

“Mr. Manski has very little use for history.”

“Perhaps it was for the hunting, then.”

“What was he shooting? People?”

“Birds,” answered Li, stone-faced.

“I guess. But he didn’t return with you?”

“He told us he was making other arrangements. He said he had business with some northerners.”

“That’s unusual. Mr. Manski doesn’t ordinarily work in the People’s Republic.”

Li shrugged.

“Perhaps Mr. Park can tell me more,” she told him. “When can I meet him?”

“I don’t know that Mr. Park will be available.”

Thera reached up behind her head to the towel, unwrapping it and drying her hair. The gesture was not overtly sexual, and yet Li stood transfixed, watching as if she were unwrapping a great jewel.

“I don’t know what I should do,” Thera said as her hair fell loose. “Would you advise contacting the police? Mr. Manski does owe me a spot of money. A rather large spot.”

“How much?” said Li.

“Oh, dollars and cents aren’t the issue,” said Thera, realizing that Li thought she was shaking him down. “I just want to find him. I hope Mr. Park can help.”

“Mr. Park is a very busy man.”

Thera smiled. “Give him my regards, please.” She turned and walked back to the elevator.

Li hesitated, then followed. “What exactly are you going to do?” he asked as she waited for the elevator.

“Find Mr. Manski and settle up.”

The elevator doors opened. For a flicker of a second, Thera thought that Li would take out a gun and try to force her to come with him. But he remained motionless, watching as she got into the elevator and pushed the button to go upstairs.

“Thank you,” she told him as the doors closed.

He frowned, then curtly lowered his head.

16

Rankin folded his arms as the ship’s executive officer explained to Colonel Van Buren the difficulties involved in sailing closer to North Korean territory. First of all, they had orders to maintain their position two hundred miles off the coast of South Korea. And second of all, anything they did would attract the attention of the North Korean Navy — not only against their orders, but a detriment to any mission Van Buren hoped to launch.

“Maybe you oughta let the colonel worry about that,” said Rankin, unable to stand the BS any longer. “He’s done this before, you know?”

The ship’s exec and intelligence officer looked at him like he was a cockroach that had just run across the galley deck.

“We need to be within a hundred miles of the target area,” said Van Buren, his voice smooth but firm. “So we need to be further north.”

“You know, Colonel, it would be helpful if you could tell us precisely where the target area is,” said the ship’s captain, who had said nothing until now. “It’s difficult to plan for something when we don’t know where it’s going to take place.”

“I don’t know myself,” said Van Buren. “We’re working on it.”

“Generally, we like to know where the hell we’re going before we get there,” said the exec sarcastically.

“By then it’ll be too damn late,” said Rankin.

“We have only the most general idea,” said Van Buren smoothly. “We’re positioning for a rescue mission. If we knew where we had to go, I assure you we’d be underway already.”

“You don’t even know if there’s going to be a mission,” said the intelligence officer.

He sounded like he was making an accusation rather than stating a fact.

“That’s right,” said Van Buren calmly. “Exactly.”

“Colonel, even if I wanted to accommodate you,” said the captain, “my orders are pretty specific.”

“I’ll take care of your orders. Let’s have another look at that map.”

“You’ll take care of our orders?” snapped the exec.

Rankin had listened to all he could stand and walked out of the meeting. No one tried to stop him, not even Van Buren.

When they found out that Ferguson was missing, Rankin had suggested they launch a search-and-rescue mission immediately. There were two problems with that: First of all, they weren’t exactly sure where Ferguson had gone after landing at the capital, and, second, Slott said there was too much else going on in Korea to risk an incursion, certainly not without hard evidence of where Ferguson might be.

Even if they had evidence, though, at the moment they were too far away to get him. The Little Birds’ range was at best three hundred miles on a combat mission. If word came right now that Ferguson was standing on the double-loop roller coaster at Mangyongdea Fun Fair near the North Korean capital, it would take the Peleliu several hours to get into position to pick him up.

Van Buren at least understood the problem, and had come to the ship personally to get the idiot commanders here to cooperate. Van was an exception to the rule that officers were jerks — the exception that proved the rule. The colonel thought and acted like a noncom, but had the eagle on his collar to back up what he said.

“Giving up making nice to the navy?” said Jiménez when Rankin walked into the officer’s wardroom to see if he could get some coffee. Jiménez was sitting with the translator at a table, going over their strategy for the next interview session.

“The navy’s fine. It’s officers I can’t stand,” Rankin told him. “Where’s Ch’o?”

“Taking a nap.”

“Tell you anything important?”

“Mostly he wants to know where Thera is and whether she’s really OK.” Jiménez smiled. “He has good taste in women.”

“I guess.”

“You don’t think she’s cute?”

“She’d bust you in the mouth again for saying that.”

Jiménez flushed.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody,” said Rankin. “Besides, she’s beaten the crap out of a lot tougher guys than you.”

17

Thera had only just returned to her room from the elevator when the room phone rang. It was Mr. Li, calling on his cell phone.

“Mr. Park would like to invite you to dinner,” he told her. “This evening. A car will pick you up at eight p.m.”

“That would be very convenient,” she said.

Thera glanced at the clock. It was nearly five; she had less then three hours to find a dress suitable for an arms dealer’s first date with a billionaire.

18

Hugh Conners picked up the pint of Guinness Stout and held it in front of Ferguson.

“Look at it, Ferg. Aye that’s a beer,” said Conners, his Irish accent far thicker in death and dream than it had been in real life. “You’ll be wantin’ to drink up now, lad, if you know what’s good for ya.”

“Hey, Dad,” said Ferguson, using the dead sergeant’s nickname. “How’s heaven?”

“Ah, it’s a grand place, Fergie, simply grand. A parade every afternoon, and the taps never run dry. Drink up now.”

“Can’t.”

“Ah, you have to. We have a place saved for you. We’ve been waitin’ a whole long time fer ya, a whole long time.”

“Gotta go.”

“Stay awhile and have a song.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” said Ferguson.

Suddenly overcome with grief, he began to cry.

“Ah, now, there’s a good lad. No savin’ to be done,” said Conners gendy. “Yeh did yer best.”

“You shouldn’t have died. It should’ve been me.”

“A song to brighten your mood.” The sergeant, killed during a First Team mission a year before, began singing “Finnegan’s Wake.”

“Gotta go,” said Ferguson, and the next moment he was awake, back in North Korea, heart pounding and head spinning.

He hadn’t had his drugs now in what?

Twenty-four hours?

Forty-eight?

Longer. And he hadn’t eaten and was run down to start with.

If his hands were this cold, it had to be three days at least, and it felt like twice that, maybe because he hadn’t eaten and had had almost nothing to drink.

Plus, it was cold, cold and damp. So maybe it wasn’t the lack of drugs but just something stupid like lack of sleep and isolation.

Stupid things he could beat. Those things he could beat. He couldn’t get by the lack of the hormones, but thirst and fatigue he could beat. He’d been cold before and hungry plenty of times.

So, really, Ferguson told himself, things weren’t that bad. Because he’d only been off the drugs two or three days, maybe just one now that he really thought about it, now that he decided it was one day, twenty-four hours, and probably, certainly, not even that.

What was that? Nothing. Nothing at all.

He could last for a long time. He’d gone two weeks without them during the worst of the treatments… two whole weeks.

A hell of a two weeks. But he’d made it.

So this was nothing. He could do this on his head. He could last months if necessary.

And when the time came, when he couldn’t do it, he’d make the bastards shoot him.

“Ivan, are you ready for your medicine?”

Ferguson looked up from his cot.

“I don’t need it,” he told Owl Eyes.

“You look tired.”

“I’ve been sleeping like a baby.”

The North Korean took the bottle from his pocket and popped off the cap with his thumb. The white disk rolled across the floor.

The two men locked glares. Owl Eyes raised his hand, then slowly upended the bottle. The pills, large T3s, small T4s, tumbled out to the ground.

The North Korean put the toe of his right foot over the ones closest to Ferguson’s cell. Well in reach if he dove for them, Ferguson thought.

He wasn’t going to; that was what Owl Eyes wanted.

Diving was the same as giving in. Diving was surrender. And he would never ever fucking surrender.

Slowly, the North Korean put his foot down and crushed the pills as if he were putting out a cigarette. He dragged his foot back across the floor, pulling the powder back out of reach.

Owl Eyes systematically crushed the remainder, one by one. When he was done, he motioned to someone down the hall, and had him bring a mop and bucket.

“When you are ready,” Owl Eyes told Ferguson as the floor was mopped, “perhaps we will be able to find replacements.”

“Have you spoken to the embassy yet?” said Ferguson, staring at Owl Eyes.

“I have no need to speak to your embassy.” He started to walk away.

“Then do me a favor and call General Namgung. Tell him the Russian who was outside during his meeting at the lodge hopes to be of use.”

Owl Eyes continued to walk down the hall.

“If the general isn’t around, have him send Captain Ganji,” Ferguson said, his voice just under a shout. “Mention the meeting. It was at the lodge. I was there. Tell him.”

19

Corrine had arranged her schedule today so she could start by going to the dentist. Not among the most pleasant ways of beginning a day, though it had one benefit: She could stay in bed until seven, since her dentist’s office didn’t open until eight So when the phone rang at six, her response was to curse and roll over in bed, trying to ignore it.

Then she realized it was her secure satellite phone that was ringing. She grabbed for it, hoping it was The Cube telling her that Ferguson had just shown up in some bar in South Korea.

But it wasn’t The Cube.

“Stand by for the president,” said the operator.

“Well, dear, I hope I did not get you out of bed too early,” said McCarthy a moment later.

“No, sir.”

“Good. We are on our way to Green Bay this morning to see some dear friends and even more fervent enemies, so I wanted to make sure I caught you early. You have been following the information the CIA has developed out of Korea, I would imagine.”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“Good. What do you make of that bucket of string beans?”

“Twisted and gnarled,” she said. “As your grandmother would say.”

“She put it that way many times,” said the president. There was a faint hint of nostalgia in his voice, as if he were picturing her in his mind. The tone always accompanied that expression, which he used at least twice a week. Corrine had never been able to determine if it was genuine or just part of his shtick. Perhaps it was both.

“I wonder if you would mind doing me a favor today?” McCarthy added.

“Sir?”

“I wonder if you would sit in on a briefing that is being arranged for the Security Council this morning. I believe the time is eleven. You may have to check on that.”

“That’s not in my job description, Mr. President.”

“Well, now, are we going to have the job description conversation again, Miss Alston?”

She could practically see his smile.

“It would be unusual for me to attend,” she said.

“Well now, tongues may wag. That is very true,” said McCarthy before turning serious. “I want you there to consider the implications of our treaty with the North. Officially.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Unofficially, of course, the information may be useful to you in your dealings with our First Team. And as always I would appreciate your perspective. Now, dear, this all may well prove to be a wild rumor,” continued the president. “The timing of it seems very suspicious to me. Consider: the North has been making conciliatory gestures over the past year. The dictator is rumored to be ill. All of this is not a context for planning an invasion. Assuming they are sane, which some might argue is a poor assumption.”

“I’d agree with that.”

“Well, now, of course we must take it very seriously. Very, very seriously, dear. And one of the things that taking it seriously entails…”

The president paused. That was part of his shtick, to make sure the listener didn’t miss what followed.

“… would be not doing anything that would entice action by the North Koreans.”

“Understood, Mr. President. The portion of, uh, the matter in North Korea that might have caused concern has concluded. The results so far appear negative.”

“Very good timing, Miss Alston. And on our other matter, regarding the Republic of Korea?”

“We’re still working on it. Nothing new.”

“Very well. Do your best.”

Corrine put down the phone and got out of bed to start the coffee.

Oh, well, she thought to herself as she headed to the kitchen, at least I don’t have to go to the dentist.

20

Thera had never been much of a clotheshorse, but even she had to admit that the clingy black and silver satin dress reflected in the elevator’s mirror looked stunning on her. She tossed her red hair back and set herself as the elevator reached the lobby, ready for dinner, and whatever else followed.

Park’s Mercedes waited at the curb outside the hotel. Thera slid in, sinking into the leather-covered seat. A passerby gave her a jealous glance as the chauffer closed the door, no doubt believing that the Westerner was living a fairy tale.

Which was true enough, in a way.

Roughly forty-five minutes later, the sedan pulled through a set of gates on the side of a mountain road north of the city and drove up a long, serpentine driveway. The concrete gave way to hand-laid pavers within a few yards of the road. The car’s headlights caught elaborate castings inset among the bricks: Dragons, gods, ancient Korean warriors lay at her feet as the Mercedes drove up the hill toward the mansion.

The house seemed like a gathering of squat, chiseled stones and clay-clad roofs, as if an old village had been compressed into a single building. The scale was deceiving; only as she reached the door did Thera realize that the single-level building was as tall as a typical three-story house.

A butler in formal attire met her at the door. The entry alcove was slightly lower than the rest of the floor, a reminder to guests that they should leave their shoes. A pair of slippers sat on a cushion nearby.

“Ms. Deidre, Mr. Park is waiting inside,” said the butler as Thera slipped off her shoes.

“Thank you,” said Thera.

“You understand, please, that it would be rude to search a guest.”

Thera smiled. Her dress was not so slinky that it couldn’t conceal two holsters, one on each thigh.

“A host should not stare,” Thera told the butler.

It took a second for him to get the hint and turn around. Thera hiked her skirt and removed the weapons, deciding that she would leave both out here. This proved a good call — as she passed through the nearby doorway she noticed a series of LED lights embedded in the molding; the polished wood hid a metal detector.

Park’s servant led her down the hall to a room that looked as if it belonged in a museum. Ancient pottery, small statues, and antique armor and weapons were displayed on boxlike pedestals in the low-lit, moisture-controlled hall. The walls were adorned with paintings and scrolls, all very old.

Park wasn’t here; clearly she was expected to spend a few minutes admiring his taste in antiquities, adding to the suspense of his grand entrance. Thera folded her arms and turned toward a grill she suspected of harboring a video cam, staring at it with her most cynical expression.

“Miss Deidre, good evening.”

“Mr. Park,” said Thera, turning as the white-haired gentleman appeared from the side of the room. He was in his midsixties, not much taller than she was, on the stocky side though not fat.

“I am so very glad you could make it,” said Park. He reached for her hands, grasping them with surprising strength. He kissed them as if she were a medieval princess. “Mr. Li told me that you were ravishing, but he did not do you justice.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Park. You have a wonderful collection,” she added, sweeping her hand around the room. “All Korean?”

“Most but not all. I have some Chinese and even Japanese items. Either for context or because they interest me.” Though accented, his English sounded as if he had lived in America for many years.

Park showed her around the room, talking about the antiquities and where they had been found. Thera let him lead her through, inserting the proper oos and ahs. Just as they were running out of display cases, the butler appeared in the doorway.

“Would you like to eat Western-style or Korean?” asked Park.

“Korean, of course,” said Thera.

Park told the butler in Korean that they would use the traditional dining room. He then led Thera through a door at the side of the room into a large dining room. Scrolls with Korean characters and ink-brush paintings lined the stucco walls. A low table surrounded by mats sat in the middle of the room. Two of his servants stood next to it.

Thera lowered herself to the table, curling her legs under her on the cushions. A stream of food began to appear: small dishes of different kim-chi, then a local fish dish, then another, then a grilled duck. Thera worried that she would split the dress when she got up.

Park did not speak during dinner. Thera remained silent as well.

When they were finished, he led her down the hallway to another room, this one a cross between a study and an artist’s gallery. Park showed her a minbwa, a traditional Korean painting, in this case a landscape that he had been working on. The rustic style was deliberately primitive, meant to evoke a simpler people living in a simpler time.

“You have many talents,” she told him.

He acknowledged the compliment by lowering his head.

“I would not have accused you of liking simple things,” added Thera. Deciding the time had come to push Park, she ran her fingers down his arm.

“The advantage to the style is that one’s lack of artistic skills are assumed,” said Park, ignoring the stroke of her hand.

“Your desk does not look very rustic.”

Thera let go and walked over to the desk, a modern glass and metal table. A computer and a phone sat to one side. A few mementos — a small car, a model airplane, a misshapen glass marble — sat at the front. Otherwise the surface was clear.

“Does your company make these planes?” Thera asked, pointing at the model.

“No,” said Park, amused. “Those are Russian planes, the latest MiG fighter. A handsome design, don’t you think?”

“Very. Are you buying these?”

“I don’t have a need for such a toy.”

“I meant for your business.”

“My venture in aircraft a few years ago ended poorly. One of my firms makes aircraft parts. We may try and make some parts for the Russians. Their designs are good, but the executions are not as dependable as Korean craftsmanship.”

“It depends on the item,” said Thera, a salesman sticking up for her wares.

“A Korean-built fighter would be very potent,” added Park. His voice was almost wistful. “Perhaps some day.”

“I would think it would be an excellent aircraft, especially if you were involved.” Thera put her finger on the tip of the plane, bobbing it on its stand. “I wonder, Mr. Park, what do you think happened to my friend Ivan Manski?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“He was with you in North Korea, wasn’t he?”

“He was with my party. I don’t believe we had a chance to say more than a few words.”

“And where was that?”

“A lodge near the capital where I often go. Very nice hunting. Once, it belonged to my family.”

“He didn’t return with the others.”

Park gave her an indulgent smile, then walked to a large lacquered chest at the side of the room. “Would you join me in a drink, Miss Deidre?”

“Surely.”

“In the past, Korean farmers brewed this,” said Park, handing Thera a small bowllike cup. He filled it nearly to the brim with makgeolli. Park looked at the bowl of milky white liquor as if it were a sacramental offering, bowing slightly and waiting as Thera drank.

The liquor was extremely strong, but the taste very smooth, much smoother than what Thera had sampled as she familiarized herself with Korean customs prior to the mission.

She finished, then handed the cup to Park, filling it for him.

“My friend is still in North Korea?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. You really should find a higher class of acquaintance, Miss Deidre.”

“I already have.”

He answered her smile with one of his own.

“But Mr. Manski and I have certain entanglements,” added Thera. “And I wish to get them unwound.”

“I don’t believe he will be a problem for you.”

“Where exactly did you last see him? Was it in the capital? Or did everyone stay at the lodge?”

“You sound as if you are a police detective,” said Park.

“Just someone anxious to recover what is mine. And to prevent further complications in a… difficult area.”

Park put down the cup. He walked to one of the unfinished canvases, contemplating it. Thera watched him, not sure what he was going to do or say. Finally, she walked over and looked at the painting.

Park took her hand.

For an instant, she thought he was going to make a pass at her, but the pressure he applied to her wrist dispelled that notion. Intense pain shot up her arm to her spine.

“My assistant Mr. Li would be happy to indemnify any loss you suffered from your disagreement with your friend,” Park told her. “Beyond that, it would be most wise to change your associations permanently.”

“Mr. Park, I believe you are threatening me.” Thera struggled to keep her voice level.

“Not a threat. I would not like to see a pretty woman such as yourself harmed.”

Thera jerked her arm upward and then down, breaking the hold, though not easily. As she did, two men in black silk suits appeared in the wide doorway facing the desk.

“Miss Deidre is leaving,” Park told them, turning away. “Please show her to the car.”

21

Corrine was on her way downstairs to the National Security meeting when she heard Josh Franklin’s rich baritone echoing in the hallway.

“This is exactly what I warned about,” said the assistant secretary of defense, standing outside the conference room. “They’re going to attack. We should authorize a preemptive strike. That would be my recommendation.”

The small group of aides clustered around Franklin murmured their approval. Corrine said nothing, hoping to pass by and get into the room unnoticed. But Franklin saw her out of the corner of his eye.

“Corrine, how are you?” he asked.

“Very well, Josh. Yourself?”

She wondered if he would mention the cell-phone call she’d “forgotten” to answer after their nondate date and was relieved when he didn’t.

It figured though, didn’t it? One of the few men who actually followed up on a promise to call, and he turned out to be a frog rather than a prince.

“Are you attending the NSC briefing?” Franklin asked.

“The president asked me to be here,” she told him, “simply to monitor possible developments vis a vis the treaty.”

She struggled to get the words out, then wished she’d said something, anything, more graceful. She sounded like a tongue-twisted freshman law student presenting a case citation for the first time.

“Still pushing the treaty, huh? It’s dead now,” declared Franklin. “No one will vote for it. Which is just as well.”

“I’m just monitoring, not advocating.”

“Josh is right.” Christine Tuttle, the deputy national security advisor for Asia, separated herself from the rest of the group. “We have to be aggressive; we have no choice.”

Tuttle turned toward Franklin. Corrine saw something in her expression as their eyes met.

Oh, thought Corrine. Oh.

“Didn’t you write a briefing paper favoring the treaty?” Corrine asked.

“I changed my mind recently,” said Tuttle, just a hint of her annoyance showing through. “Partly because of Josh’s arguments, I must say.”

“He can be very persuasive,” Corrine said, walking toward the room, “but that doesn’t mean he’s right.”

In the president’s absence, the session was chaired by Vice President Edward Wyatt. Wyatt was from the Midwest, and differed from McCarthy in almost every way, from appearance to temperament. Baby-faced and chubby, Wyatt’s main asset to the administration was the fact that he had been governor of Illinois — a post he’d actually inherited when the elected governor died. He continually deferred to National Security Advisor Stephanie Manzi, who introduced the briefers and labored to keep the discussions on point.

The CIA handled the first part of the session. Parnelles had Korean expert Verigo Johnson present satellite photos showing the troop movements in North Korea and their possible implications. Though large and potent, the North Korean Army was rather ponderous; a full-scale mobilization would take several more days, even weeks. Still, there were enough artillery units in place near the border that a devastating attack could be launched at almost any time, with very little warning.

There was one positive note: The nuclear weapons the North had declared were all present at their missile launching station, and no move had been made to prepare them for launch.

“That would require their being reassembled,” added Johnson. “Which would take several days. We’ll have plenty of notice. We can have them targeted and destroyed at the first sign of preparation.”

“We are also monitoring other sites where missiles might have been hidden,” added Parnelles. “As of yet, we’ve seen nothing to cause alarm. But we’re watching.”

“Any reaction from the Chinese?” asked Wyatt.

“So far, they don’t seem to have picked up on anything,” said Parnelles. “The Russians will have seen what we saw via satellite, but there’s been no action out of Moscow. Neither the Australians nor the Brits have made any comment, though I would assume they will take notice shortly.”

The CIA director said there was a fifty-fifty chance of an attack, which, in his opinion, would be launched because Kim Jong-Il was angry over South Korea’s refusal to provide more aid for heating oil.

“We can expect some sort of ultimatum along those lines when the forces are in place,” said Parnelles.

“There’s been no hint about the seriousness of the oil dispute in North Korean propaganda,” said the national security advisor.

“That’s not Kim’s style,” said Parnelles. “He waits until he has everyone’s attention before making his demands.”

Secretary of Defense Larry Stich had his own analysts provide a briefing on what was going on. It paralleled that delivered by the CIA. Their interpretation, however, differed. The military people were not convinced that this was in fact a prelude to an attack. Stich explained that the North Korean units had been used in the past as pawns in internal power struggles.

“I suggest we put our troops on their highest alert, but reserve further action,” said Stich. “And I would suggest we refrain from anything that could be misinterpreted as a prelude to an invasion. Our bombers are on alert in Okinawa already; we can obliterate the North within a few hours. But long-term, that will create an entire range of problems.”

“Amen to that,” said Secretary of State Jackson Steele.

Josh Franklin fidgeted in his seat, and continued to do so as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff concurred with Stich’s recommendation.

“Josh, did you have a point?” asked Manzi.

Franklin glanced at his boss before speaking. Until the last two or three months, the two men had gotten along very well. Things would probably be different from now on.

So be it.

“Whatever the situation is north of the border,” said Franklin, “whatever their motivation, this gives us an opportunity to deal with North Korea once and for all. If we act quickly, we’ll never have to worry about them again. Strike their nuclear capability, wipe out their artillery at the border, just take them completely down.”

“If we were successful,” said the secretary of state. He ran his ebony fingers through the thick curls of his white hair. “A big if.”

The assistant secretary of defense continued, laying out the case for a preemptive strike in a calm tone, though the action he proposed was anything but. Corrine glanced at Tuttle, wondering if she would come to Franklin’s defense as the others began poking holes in his argument.

She didn’t. Her boss told the group that he agreed with the secretary of defense, and Tuttle sank lower in her seat.

“Are we agreed then?” said Manzi, as the conversation became repetitive. “We go to alert but hold off on aggressive action?”

She looked around the room. “Then that’s the recommendation I’ll take to the president.”

Belatedly, she glanced at the vice president, who nodded.

Corrine took her time packing her things as the meeting broke up. She fell in alongside Parnelles as he walked out of the room.

“Mr. Director,” she said.

“Ms. Alston, how are you?”

“Fine.”

“I’m glad you’re taking an interest in foreign affairs.”

“The president asked me to sit in. In case there was anything of interest regarding the treaty.”

“Yes. He mentioned he would do that. Was there?”

“Not directly. Though if news of this comes out, it won’t help.”

“No. But I would suggest it’s a matter of when, not if.”

Corrine nodded. It wasn’t simply that many people knew about it; now that a decision had been reached on what to do, there was bound to be dissension.

“Any word on Ferg?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not. We think we know now where they stayed during the visit. Park uses a hunting lodge northwest of the city. But the satellite photos show nothing unusual there.”

“Van suggested a mission to North Korea,” said Corrine. “Can we go there?”

“Out of the question.”

“Is it?”

Parnelles stopped, glancing around to make sure they were alone in the hall. His eyeballs seemed to bulge slightly as they moved, before returning to their sockets as he fixed his gaze on her.

“The great problem here, Corrine, is that Mr. Ferguson is entirely expendable. We can’t decide what to do based on the small possibility that we might get him back.”

“I understand that. But—”

“There are no buts,” said Parnelles. “His father was my closest friend. I’ve known Bobby since he was born. Don’t you think I want to save him? Duty comes first. The fires of war, Corrine, they always burn what we love.”

He turned and walked away, a much older man than the one who’d come to the meeting.

22

Thera scanned the room for bugs as soon as she got back to the hotel. Still wearing her slinky dress, she collapsed in the chair and called The Cube to report in.

“Are you OK?” were the first words out of Corrigan’s mouth.

“Of course I’m OK.”

“It’s past one o’clock there.”

“Well, I didn’t get lucky, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.”

“Jeez, Thera.”

“Park tried to buy me off. He claimed Ferg had business with people in the North, but then he tried to buy me off. And intimidate me.”

Thera described the dinner and Park’s house, recalling the conversation almost word for word.

“I want to talk to other people who were on the trip, and I want to bug his house. The security there didn’t look all that difficult to get around.”

“I have to clear that first.”

“Why?”

“I just do. Anything that’s going on in Korea, I have to clear.”

“They stayed in some sort of lodge near the capital and hunted. Park’s family owned it. Can you find it?”

“We already did. Ciello made the connection a few hours ago.”

“Well, let’s go search it.”

“We can’t, at least not until we get evidence that he’s there.”

“Screw waiting. Where else could he be?” said Thera. “We should kidnap the son of a bitch Park and find out what the hell happened.”

“You can’t do that, Thera,” said Corrigan. “Jesus. Don’t do that.”

“We should.”

“Listen. You’re supposed to concentrate on the plutonium now. Slott says—”

“Whose side are you on, Corrigan?” she said angrily. “Ferg is part of the team. I can’t just leave him.”

“We’re not leaving him.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“We’re all on the same side.”

“Then act like it. If we don’t do something, he’ll be dead.”

Thera ended the call, fearing Corrigan might say the obvious: There was a very good chance Ferguson was already dead.

23

Ferguson lay face up on the cot, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the Chaucer he had learned with the Jesuits in prep school.

Whan that Aprille with his schowres swoote

The drought of Marche hath perceed to the roote,

And bathud every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertue engendred is the flour; —

What Zephyrus eek with his swete breeth

What did Zephyrus eek?

Eek, eek, eek. Something, something, “… the tendre croppes.”

Ferguson pictured his teacher, Father Daedelus, saying the words.

Father Daedelus was the only fat Jesuit Ferguson could ever recall meeting. Jesuits as a rule were tall and thin, and most often gray, at least at the temples.

Ferguson went back to the beginning of the poem. Chaucer was harder than Shakespeare because Middle English was almost a different language, so this must have been tenth grade when he learned it.

Tenth or twelfth or college?

Where did you go to college, lad? Do you recall?

Tenth.

Princeton. With summers off to get shot at.

Taking the training and then the mission to Moscow, pressed into service, and almost getting his balls cut off — literally — by the Red Giant.

Now that was a close escape. Seeing the girl cut up before his eyes…

Jesus.

So this is what you do for a living, Dad?

Yet he came back, kept coming back.

The knife against his thigh.

Really he is going to do it.

Jesus H. Christ.

Ferguson forced himself to concentrate on Chaucer, vanquishing the other jagged tatters of memory from his mind.

About midway through the third line of the poem, he heard someone walking down the hallway for him. He remained staring at the ceiling, reciting the poem in his mind as the door was opened.

Expecting Owl Eyes, Ferguson was surprised when he tilted his head and saw two guards in the cell. They ordered him to rise.

Make a break for it? Make them kill him now?

Ferguson hesitated, then gave in, rising slowly and letting himself be prodded, gently, into the corridor.

The guards led him down the hall to a lavatory and shower. There was no soap and the water was close to freezing, but he stayed under the water for several minutes. The chill gave him a rush, pushed him forward.

Onward, Christian soldier!

A towel waited on the rack. There were also fresh prison pajamas and wooden clogs. The two guards who’d come in with him gazed discreetly to the side as he dried and dressed.

Ferguson felt a chill on his damp hair as he followed his minders out of the shower room and back into the hall. They stopped in front of a rusted steel door that was opened to reveal a set of rickety wooden steps upward.

As Ferguson reached the top of the steps, a flood of sunlight blinded him. It was daytime; he’d thought it was night.

He rubbed his eyes open and saw that he was rising in the middle of a very large room, bounded on both sides by floor-to-ceiling windows. A pair of long tables were set up in the middle of the floor to his right; a man in a uniform sat at the table to the right.

Captain Ganji.

Ferguson’s jailers remained behind him as he sat across from the captain.

“Do you speak Korean?” asked Ganji.

Ferguson shook his head.

“I do not speak Russian,” said Ganji, still using Korean.

“Français? Deutsch?” said Ferguson, asking if he spoke French or German. He could tell from Ganji’s expression that he did not.

“We can use English, if you know this,” said the captain.

“English will do,” said Ferguson. The room was cold and seemed to steal his voice. He wasn’t sure if the room was really cold, or if it was a symptom of the lack of thyroid hormones.

He glanced back at the guards. “You should send them away.”

“They do not English speak.”

Ferguson shook his head slightly. “You shouldn’t take chances.”

Ganji stared at him. His English was not very good: He had trouble with word order, which had a significance in the language that it didn’t have in Korean. But the Russian’s warning was clear enough. He looked over at the men and signaled with his hand that they should leave him. They were reluctant; the prisoner was taller than Ganji, and, while depleted by his captivity, still looked considerably stronger. But Ganji was not intimidated.

“Who are you?” the Korean captain asked Ferguson when the men retreated down the steps.

“Ivan Manski. I was to help Mr Park on some small items, but there was a disagreement, apparently, with some of my superiors.” Ferguson paused between his words, as if picking them out carefully. “A business disagreement they neglected to inform me of. Nothing personal. Or political.”

“How does this concern me?”

“It doesn’t,” said Ferguson. His voice was hoarse and cracking. He needed a drink of water, but there was none on the table, and he didn’t want to risk being interrupted by asking for it. “I was at the guest house when General Namgung met with Mr. Park. I felt that the general should understand that I was there and that I would not want to be responsible for what happened, for what I might say if I were tortured.”

“You will not be tortured.”

Ferguson didn’t answer, staring instead at the captain.

“You were not at the meeting,” Ganji said finally.

“The house was down a twisting road a half mile from the lodge and the old barn,” said Ferguson. “There were two men out front, guards. Others were inside, though not in the room with you. You met in the large room on the first floor at the back. When you were almost through, you went out with Mr. Li and gave him envelopes. I assume he gave you money.”

Ganji felt his face flush. The Russian had been there, surely. But why had Park brought him, only to then discard him?

“If you’re thinking of having me shot,” added Ferguson, “that is a solution. But you should know that the people I work for, the people who know where I was, they will not be happy. They had me tape the meeting as a precaution, and they have the tape.”

Ferguson spoke in a monotone, his voice no more than a rusty croak in a dry throat.

“They hold no enmity toward the general,” he added. “They can be incredibly helpful to you if things go as planned. Or, they could be very angry.”

Ganji leaned back in his seat. Park’s aide, Li, had claimed the man was a Russian arms dealer, but the way he held himself, the calm manner in which he spoke — clearly he must work for the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki or SVR.

Namgung did not like the Russians, but angering them was not wise.

“How much do you know?” Ganji asked, trying to decide what to do.

“I’m just a foot soldier,” said Ferguson, staring in Ganji’s face, soaking in his fear. The man had been chosen for his intelligence, not his courage — a good thing for Ferguson.

“I know nothing,” Ferguson told him. “I don’t even know my own name.”

Ganji rose without saying another word.

Ferguson raised his eyes toward the window. He thought it must be morning, perhaps as late as noon, and even though the sun was still out, he noticed that it had just begun to snow.

24

When he had no evening engagements, Senator Tewilliger liked to end his day by riding his exercise bike, taking a shower, and then relaxing with a Southern Comfort Manhattan. Or two.

His staff was not supposed to call him after ten p.m., which gave him a solid half hour to ride, and thirty minutes for a shower and a nice drink before catching the network news and nodding off.

So why was the phone ringing at 10:32, just as he got off his bike?

The answering machine picked up. He heard a male voice he didn’t recognize at first tell him something was up with Korea.

Tewilliger realized it was Josh Franklin. He grabbed the phone just before Franklin hung up.

“You’re working very late, Undersecretary,” said Tewilliger.

“I apologize for calling you at this hour,” said Franklin. “But I wanted to make sure you’d heard: The North Korean Army is mobilizing.”

“What?”

“We had a National Security session on it. It’s still pretty tightly wrapped, but I would imagine word will start to leak out tomorrow or the next day, if not from us then from the Australians or the Brits, whom we’ve been updating. I would have called sooner, but I didn’t get the chance.”

Of course not, thought Tewilliger; Franklin wanted to use a phone whose calls weren’t logged.

“What’s going on?”

“I really shouldn’t go into detail, Senator.”

“Josh. Come on now.”

Franklin told him what he knew, including the administration’s planned response, which he characterized somewhat harshly as sitting around until the peninsula caught fire.

“There have been troop movements and mobilizations in the past,” said Tewilliger. “What makes you think these are different?”

“The timing is suspicious,” said Franklin. “I would bet that they used the treaty as a way of lulling us into complacency.”

“Maybe.” Tewilliger had already begun to discount the information, at least as a harbinger of any sort of attack by the North. Still, it would help torpedo the treaty. “I appreciate the heads-up, Josh. I’ll remember it.”

“Thank you, Senator.”

Tewilliger went across the room to his desk and began flipping through his Rolodex. It was never too late to call a sympathetic reporter, especially with information like this.

25

Ferguson was well into the “Knight’s Tale” in Chaucer’s poem when he was interrupted by two guards who told him in Korean it was time for him to get up from his cot. He had no idea how much time had passed since he’d met Ganji. He’d eaten once, a few fingers’ worth of rice. That had been hours and hours ago.

The guards put iron manacles on his hands and legs, then brought him to the front hall, where he had first entered the prison. A car waited outside. It was dusk.

Ferguson’s clogs crunched through a small crust of snow as he was led into the sedan. Two large, uniformed men slid in on either side of him. The doors closed, and the car sped down the rutted dirt road.

Within a few minutes Ferguson had lost track of the direction. He reverted to Chaucer, going back to the Prologue where the knight was introduced:

A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man,

That from the tyme that he ferst began

To ryden out, he lovede chyvalrye,

Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie,

Ful worthi was he in his lordes werre

The poem sprung up from his unconscious, unraveling from the depths of his memory. His old teacher stood before him, regaling the class. “Great literature, boys. Great lit-er-a-ture.”

Ferguson and his friends would roll their eyes and in the hallway mimic the portly priest’s pronunciation, “lit-er-a-ture.” But he was a good man, a good teacher who’d tried to share some of his experience. Left his mark on the world, however humble.

What mark had Ferguson left?

Well, there were the missions. Saving lives.

Dust scattered on a car window.

“Truth and honor, freedom and courtesy, full worthy was the knight.”

Full worthy, are you.

Lit-er-a-ture boys. Lit-er-a-ture and death, the only real things in life.

After two or three or four hours of driving, the car pulled up in front of a small hut.

“I overplayed my hand,” Ferguson mumbled to himself as the car stopped.

Namgung had decided he was too much of a liability and would simply kill him here, out in the woods, where no trace would be found.

“Good, then. Better this way than other ways.”

He’d pushed the damn thing to its limit. Better to die like that than like a slug attached to the hospital’s death support, everything but your soul pumped out of you.

The North Koreans got out of the car. Ferguson leaned toward the door, debating whether it would be better to make a break for it and be shot or simply to let them do it at their own choosing.

No, he had a better idea, a much better idea. He’d use the chain holding his hands together, take someone down with him.

“Out of the car,” said one of the guards.

Which would it be? Who would get close enough to die with him?

All three kept their distance as he got out. The wooden clogs hurt his feet; he stumbled, almost lost his balance, but the men didn’t help him.

“Inside,” said one, pointing at the dark hut.

Ferguson decided he would wait to be pushed. Then he would twist around into the next nearest man, throw his chain around his neck, throttle him.

“Please,” said the North Korean. “The hut will be warm. There are clothes inside. Go ahead.”

The man’s voice was soft and pleading. He turned and walked to the door, pulling it open.

OK, thought Ferguson. You’re it.

He made his way around the front of the car, trying to catch up to the man. But the chains on his legs and his awkward clogs made it hard to walk fast.

The North Korean stepped aside. Ferguson gathered his energy, ready to spring.

The man smiled.

For some reason, Ferguson found that amazingly funny, hilariously funny: an executioner who would smile at his victim.

The man took a step backward, then another. He was gone, out of reach.

Ferguson tensed, waiting for him to pull a gun from his pocket. He’d lost his chance and now would have to die alone.

All right, then.

“Go ahead,” said the man.

No gun.

Ferguson glanced over his shoulder. The others were back near the car. If they had weapons, they weren’t showing them.

Ferguson stepped into the cottage, spinning to the side to wait for his assassin, but the only thing the man did was push the door closed.

Ferguson stood in the middle of the darkened room, waiting. Gradually, he realized there was no one else inside.

Maybe they were planning on blowing up the house.

He closed his eyes and waited.

After ten minutes passed, Ferguson realized nothing was going to happen. He made his way around the small room, banging into all four walls before determining that there was no furniture here, nothing, in fact, except plain wooden planks and a dirt floor. When he had covered every inch, he dropped down to the ground, took a deep breath, then lay flat to sleep.

26

News of the North Korean troop movements had finally reached the media, and the White House congressional people found themselves talking nonstop to congressmen worried about the treaty. Already there were rumors that the vote would be put off for at least a month.

Just before noon, the Department of Energy called to tell Corrine that the soil tests from Science Industries had been finished ahead of schedule; they were negative. She immediately called Slott and told him.

“Hmphh,” he said. Then he fell silent.

“Dan? What’s going on with Ferguson?”

“Still no word.”

“I can talk to the president about a reconnaissance mission, if you think it’s a good idea.”

“It’d be suicidal under the circumstances. It’s too close to the capital.”

“I see.”

“We had a Global Hawk fly down the coast,” added Slott, referring to an unmanned spy plane. “It was tracked briefly but got away. Even that was a risk I probably shouldn’t have taken.”

“Did it see anything?”

“Nothing out of place. It looks abandoned.”

The spy flight was little more than a gesture, but it was something at least.

“I’ll keep you informed,” said Slott, abruptly hanging up the phone.

27

Thera spent the day doing a lot of nothing, installing GPS trackers in the trucks at the university, poking around Park’s planes and his hangar at Gitmo, even checking on a few more trucks. It was all a waste of time. She was supposed to concentrate on finding the plutonium, not Ferguson.

On their first mission together, an attaché case of jewels had gone missing. She’d become the obvious suspect. Ferguson stood by her — and checked her out at the same time, believing she was a thief and yet not wanting to believe it either.

She’d been so mad at him, so damn mad.

She wanted to take it all back.

God, he couldn’t be dead.

Fergie, you handsome son of a bitch. Come back and laugh at me, would you?

She got back to her hotel around eleven and checked in with The Cube. Lauren was on duty, shuffling time slots with Corrigan.

“What’s going on?” Thera asked.

“Nothing new.”

“Listen, I want to talk to the people who went north with Ferguson. They have to know something.”

“Slott wants you to work on the plutonium angle, Thera. He needs to know what’s going on with that.”

“We need to find Ferguson.”

“We’re working on it.”

“How? Analyzing intercepts? Looking at satellite data?”

“Well, yeah. Things like that.”

“That’s a waste.” Anger swelled inside her. “Let me talk to Slott. Better yet, give me Corrine.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You can get her.”

“I’ll call back.”

Thera turned on the television, checking the local news. So far, there was no word of the troop movements across the border.

A half hour later, Corrine called on the sat phone.

“You needed to talk to me?” Her voice sounded distant and hollow, more machinelike than human.

“I wanted to know what we’re doing to find Ferg.”

“We’re working on it.”

“I want to interview the people he went north with. They may have information.”

“Have you talked to Dan?”

“No. You’re the one who’s really in charge, right?”

“Dan handles the specifics of the mission,” said Corrine coldly. “You have to do what he says.”

“We have to find Ferg.”

“I realize the situation is difficult, Thera. It’s hard for everyone. We all have to do our jobs.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not easy for me, either.”

It’s a hell of a lot easier for you, Thera thought, but she didn’t say anything.

“Do you need anything else?” Corrine asked.

“I’m fine.” She turned off the phone.

28

Ferguson woke to the sound of waves crashing against rocks. At first he thought it was a dream — his mind had tangled through several while he slept — but then he realized his body ached too much for him to still be asleep.

Light streamed through a thin curtain next to the door of the hut. Ferguson got up slowly and went to the window. He saw the back of a soldier ten yards away. Beyond him, the horizon was blue-green: the sea.

A tray of food sat on the floor a short distance away. Ferguson got down on his hands and knees and looked at it. There was rice, some sort of fish stew, and chopsticks. A bottle of water sat at the side.

A short distance away sat two buckets, one with cold water, presumably so he could wash, the other empty, for waste.

Ferguson opened the bottle and gulped the water, so thirsty there was no way to pace himself. He jammed the rice into his mouth with his fingers, barely chewing before swallowing. But as hungry as he was, the fish stew smelled too awful to eat. He left it and began exploring his prison.

Flimsy wooden boards nailed to cross members made up the walls. They were arranged in two separate courses, the top row slightly misaligned with the bottom. The tongue-and-groove joints were mostly snug, but here and there daylight was visible where the edges had eroded away. They were flimsy, no more than a quarter-inch thick.

Someone knocked on the door. Ferguson reminded himself that he was Russian and started to say “come in.”

His mouth wouldn’t cooperate; somehow the word annyeonghaseyeo — Korean for “hello” — came out instead.

The door opened, and a thin man entered. He was a soldier with the insignia of a lieutenant, though he seemed far too young to be one.

“You speak Korean,” said the man.

“Jogeumbakke moteyo,” said Ferguson, admitting that he spoke a bit.

“A little. I see, yes. I was told you can speak English?”

“Yes.”

“You did not eat the stew,” said the lieutenant.

“I need a fork.”

“Fork? Not chopsticks?”

Ferguson could use chopsticks, but a fork would be more useful. He shook his head.

“I will bring you one. And more water. Would you like to read?”

“Sure.”

The man turned to leave. “Where am I?” asked Ferguson.

“Do you know Korea?”

“Not very well,” admitted Ferguson.

“We are on the Bay of Korea. The west coast. A beautiful place.”

“Near the capital?”

“Farther north. South of Unjon. Do you know that city?”

“Chongchon River?” said Ferguson.

Amused by the mispronunciation, the lieutenant corrected him and then told Ferguson that he was correct. Three rivers including the Chongchon came together near Unjon and flowed to the sea. They were a few miles south of that point.

“Do you know where you are now?” asked the North Korean.

“No,” confessed Ferguson. “Sorry.”

But he did know, roughly at least. One of the three emergency caches that were to have been planted for a rescue mission North was located five miles north of the Chongchon along the coastal road. If Ferguson could reach it, he would be rescued.

Just ten miles, at the most, away.

Easy to do.

Easy, easy, easy to do.

Not with the leg chains and clogs.

The clogs were all right — his feet were so swollen he’d never get them off anyway — but the chains had to go. He’d have to swim to get across the river and hike through marshes.

Never. He’d never make it. Not like this, depleted, cold, half dead. His body felt as if it had been pushed into a crevice, squeezed there for days, pounded on.

Ferguson huddled against the wall, shivering beneath the blanket. The lieutenant returned about an hour later, a bag strapped over his shoulder.

“A fork,” said the North Korean proudly, holding it up. “Difficult to obtain. You must hold on to it.”

“Thank you.”

The lieutenant put down his bag.

“Books.” He pulled one out. “Finding things in translation, it is not very easy in our country. No Russian. These are Korean, children’s tales. Perhaps you can work on your language.”

“Yes.”

The man looked at him. “You should take a walk after eating,” he said.

“There’s an idea,” said Ferguson, some of his usual sarcasm slipping into his voice.

“Do you need anything?” asked the lieutenant.

The key for the chains, a plane south — those would be nice.

“I’m cold,” Ferguson said. “Very cold.”

The lieutenant said something in Korean that Ferguson didn’t understand, then said good-bye and left.

When he was gone, Ferguson forced himself to eat the stew. Then he examined the fork. It was made of thin metal, and the prongs were easily bent — just the thing to slip into the lock at his feet. But the prongs were too big to fit the manacles on his hands.

The door opened. Ferguson slipped the fork into his pants and looked up as one of the guards came in, holding a thick winter coat.

There was no way he could put it on properly because his hands were chained, and the guard wouldn’t remove them. Instead, he helped Ferguson drape the parka over himself and buttoned the top button, making it into a cape. It wasn’t exactly airtight, but it was far better than nothing.

“Fresh air?” asked the man in Korean.

Ferguson followed the soldier outside. The muscles in his face seemed to snap as the wind hit them. The air smelled of salt and raw sewage.

Ferguson rolled his head back and forth, vainly trying to stop the muscle spasms in his neck and shoulders. He walked a little way, getting his bearings, taking stock of what was around him.

A path nearby ran along the sea, paralleling the rocks and shoreline. The road zigzagged away to his right.

His escape route.

There weren’t many paved roads in this part of Korea, and this one must eventually go to the coastal highway, a two-lane hardtop road used mostly by trucks and official vehicles. Like all roads in the North, it wasn’t very heavily traveled; if he could get there, Ferguson could follow it to the river, then find a place to get across.

He was guarded by two soldiers. Both had AK-47s. They kept their distance as he sat down on the rocks.

He could get out of here. He could do it. He would do it.

Two guards — that was child’s play.

Not now.

Wait until dark. Use the fork. Undo the lock on his feet, pry off a board, slip away.

They wouldn’t realize until dawn that he was gone. By then he’d be at the cache.

Or home. Probably home. Definitely home.

Wherever that might be. As long as it wasn’t here, anywhere would do.

He felt so tired and cold and dead.

Back inside the hut, Ferguson examined the boards and found two he thought he could push out. He used the fork to help ease them apart, moving slowly so he didn’t make too much noise. When the boards were loose enough, he went down and sat near the window, pretending to read one of the books while he bent the tines of the fork to use as a pick.

The lock was ancient and simple, but it still took over an hour for him to open. Finally it sprang free with a click so loud he was sure someone outside would hear.

Ferguson grabbed one of the books and held it over his lap. When he was sure no one was coming, he fiddled with the other chain and undid the lock, leaving the clamps over his ankles so it appeared he was still confined. He pulled the blanket over his legs.

Dark. When would it be dark?

Hours.

All he had to do now was wait. Ferguson picked up the children’s book again. He hadn’t learned enough written Korean to read more than a few characters, all used on common road signs. His brain was too flaccid at this point to recall even those. But he leafed through the pages anyway, and gradually realized he’d seen the woodblock prints that illustrated the work before.

The story was a version of “The Seventh Princess.” They’d read it in Romanized Korean text during his language class. In the ancient Korean song, a girl — the seventh princess — journeyed to the land of the dead to save her parents and bring salvation to the Korean people.

What was the Korean? He tried retrieving the words from the corner of his brain where they’d fled.

The figures blurred in front of Ferguson’s eyes. The book dropped from his hand, and he fell back against the wall of the hut, fast asleep.

29

“If it’s not a mobilization for an attack, it’s a damn good approximation,” said Ken Bo as the secure conference call wound down. “ROK Army intelligence now thinks it’s for real.”

“Not much of an endorsement,” said Verigo Johnson, the Agency’s chief Korean expert.

Slott cut the conversation off before it degenerated. The evidence remained contradictory. Key elements of the North Korean army were moving toward the border, and the navy was on high alert. But the transmissions from army and air force units in the eastern parts of the country intercepted by the National Security Agency were entirely routine. Johnson interpreted this to mean that they were seeing the early stages of a coup, a significant change in what he had told the National Security Council only a few hours before.

Parnelles wasn’t convinced, holding on to the blackmail theory. Slott was trying to stay neutral: No matter what was going on, the situation was extremely dangerous.

“Ken, I need to have a word with you now that we’re done,” said Slott as the others signed off. He glanced across the secure communications center at the specialist handling the call, waiting for the signal that he and Bo were the only ones on the line.

“What’s up?” asked Bo.

“I’m looking for an update on the South Korean plutonium.”

“Two of our people are going into Blessed Peak today,” Bo told him. “I’ll send a report as soon as I hear from them.”

“Good.”

“Listen, Dan. How much priority do you want us to give this thing? It’s obviously nothing.”

“Why are you dismissing it?”

“You saw my note, right?”

Bo was referring to the theory that the material was the remains of the earlier South Korean project.

“I saw it,” said Slott.

Bo was silent.

“All right,” the station chief said finally. “Ferguson is still working on this?”

“Ferguson went across the border a few days ago and hasn’t been heard from since,” said Slott, deciding there was no sense keeping it from him any longer.

“You’re kidding. He went north?”

“He traveled with Park Jin Tae.”

“About the plutonium? Jesus. He’s off on this one, Dan. I know he has a great reputation, but, honestly, he doesn’t know garbage about Korea.”

“Maybe not,” said Slott.

“You want us to put feelers out?”

“No.” Putting feelers out — asking about Ferguson, even in his covered identity — might inadvertently tip off the North Koreans to his true identity. That would be tantamount to signing a death warrant. A crooked Russian arms dealer was far safer in North Korea than a CIA officer.

“Do you want to give me some information about his cover? Maybe we’ll hear something unusual.”

“Let’s leave it the way it is for now, Ken. Update me on the waste site as soon as you can.”

30

“The plane is prepared,” General Kang told Namgung. “You have only to choose between the two pilots.”

Namgung nodded. He had known the head of the First Air Combat Command since he was six years old; he trusted Kang with his life.

Literally, now, since word from Kang could ruin the plan and brand him as a traitor.

“How will you choose?” asked General Kang.

Namgung had pondered the question for the past several days. Both pilots were highly qualified; both were committed to striking a blow against their ancient enemy. They were so evenly matched that he could have them simply draw straws and be pleased with the result.

But it was his job as commander to decide.

“I will make a decision right before takeoff,” he said. “I will be there personally. One shall go.”

“And the other?”

“He, too, will do his duty.”

“Very good,” said Kang. “As it should be.”

Namgung held out his arms, and the two old friends embraced.

“We will succeed,” said Namgung. “I have no doubt.”

31

The Cube had used a Korean speaker to call hospitals in the area along the DMZ, inquiring about Caucasian patients who had been admitted unconscious. They found one in a small facility northeast of Seoul, and sent Thera to check it out.

She hadn’t realized exactly how much she was hoping she’d find him until she broke into tears when she saw that the patient, who was hooked into life support in the critical center, wasn’t him.

CIA officers weren’t supposed to cry — women CIA officers especially. If a woman wasn’t ten times as tough as a man, she was labeled a liability.

Thera couldn’t help herself, though. She was still sobbing when she boarded the train back to Daejeon.

Thera’s sat phone rang when she was about ten minutes from the Daejeon station.

“Yes?”

“Can you talk?” asked Corrigan.

“A little.” The two rows around her were empty.

“We have something new for you to check out. It’s a real long shot but that’s all we’ve been playing.”

“What?”

“We were checking a list of vehicles that used the Korean waste site where your tabs found the plutonium. There’s a truck used by a medical facility that happens to be owned by Park. It’s down in Jiro, which is a couple of hours from where you are.”

“What’s that got to do with Ferg?”

“You’re not looking for Ferg, remember? You’re looking for the plutonium. That’s our priority.”

“I just came back from the hospital looking for him.” Thera realized she’d spoken far too loudly. “I have to go.”

“Thera.”

“I’ll call back,” she said, hanging up.

32

The pungent smell of the awful fish stew woke Ferguson. The room was dark; he was lying on his side near the wall, the parka still wrapped around him, his book on the floor where he had dropped it when he fell asleep.

Fear shot through him. Had he slept through the night?

He leapt to his feet, chains clanking dully on the dirt, and went to the window. A few faint lines of purple curled around the shadowy outline of the horizon. The sun had only just set.

Ferguson crawled to the food. He wolfed it down, then drank half the bottle of water. He’d save the rest for his journey.

Finished eating, he went back to the window, looking to see if he could spot his guards. One stood about ten yards in front of the door, near the road. He couldn’t find the other man.

If the guard was behind the house, he’d see Ferguson when he came out, but taking that chance was the only way to escape.

Ferguson, his hands still chained, pushed the boards to get them out of the way. The first came off easily, but the next stuck. Frustrated, he lost control for a moment, launching his fist toward the wall. He pulled it back at the last moment and collapsed on the floor, wrestling with his anger.

This is because I don’t have the right hormones.

Do it step by step.

Don’t go weird.

Step by step.

He retrieved the fork and pried at the pair of nails holding the bottom of the board. The wood came loose but then stuck somewhere toward the top. Ferguson pushed, gentiy at first, then more forcefully. Suddenly whatever was holding it gave way, and the board slipped from his grasp, clanking onto the ground outside.

Ferguson froze.

Don’t stop now. Go!!!

He squeezed through feet first, rolling onto the ground. He sprung up, chain between his hands, a weapon, ready to confront the guards.

No one was there. The sound had been too faint to be heard over the lapping waves.

Ferguson propped the board back against the house, then crept to the corner of the building. The two soldiers were together now, standing next to the road a few yards from the front of the cottage.

He gave them a wide berth, circling out about a hundred yards before crossing the road and then going over to the path. His feet had swollen so much that the clogs were now tight. This was an advantage, really; it meant he could trot without worrying about losing them.

The parka flew behind him. He felt like a kid on Halloween, pretending to be a super hero.

“Trick or treat, Kim Jong-Il,” he whispered to the moon over his shoulder as he ran north. “Trick or fuckin’ treat.”

It seemed to take the entire night to get to the mouth of the river. Ferguson jogged as much as he could, bouncing along to keep warm, never stopping. The highway was deserted, but he was too fearful to walk along it for very long. Instead he kept within ten or twenty yards, using paths and fields and occasionally hard-packed roads that led to the sea. Twice he had to backtrack to skirt small villages that lay near the water, then walk along the shoulder of the highway until he was safely past.

Eventually Ferguson found that the land on both sides of the road was too marshy to walk on, and he had no choice but to walk along the main road. He kept looking over his shoulder, prepared to jump into the nearby ditch or a clump of reeds if a vehicle appeared.

After what seemed like hours — the moon had arced high across the sky — Ferguson gave in to fatigue and stopped for a rest. He decided he had gone much farther than a few miles; the Korean who had told him the river was nearby had been lying to throw him off.

Maybe he could steal a boat from the next village he came to, take it north across the mouth of the river, find the cache from the water.

Or go south. It was farther, but he wouldn’t have to wait to be rescued. He wouldn’t have to depend on anyone but himself.

The waters were patrolled, but smugglers made it past all the time; surely he could.

Ferguson got up and started walking again. He began humming “Finnegan’s Wake” to himself, then whispering the lines from Chaucer, whipping up his strength. There was no wind to speak of, and while the prison pants he wore were thin, the parka was relatively warm, even as a cape.

I’m so cold I don’t even know I’m cold anymore, he realized. Then he pushed the thought away.

It was just a matter of time before he found a boat. Maybe the river really was close. He’d steal a boat and paddle across the muddy mouth of the sea, skirting the shallow mud flats.

Make land, keep going, keep going, always keep going.

Keep going.

Keep…

The horizon brightened as Ferguson pushed on. He walked and ran along the road, moving as quickly as he could. His side ached, and his legs stiffened. He didn’t want to stop, fearing that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get back up. But finally he had no choice. He felt his balance slipping. He steadied himself, then took a few steps off the road, slipped down the embankment and let his legs slowly collapse beneath him. He slid onto the ground.

Lying in the damp coldness, he thought how ironic it would be to die here, but then realized that irony and death didn’t really go together; irony was something for the living. Death was just death, and this was as good a place to die as any.

He thought of Chaucer, then of his father, wishing he could have seen the old man one more time before he’d died, have a drink maybe, a lot of drinks, talk to him in ways they hadn’t talked since he was small, about things they’d never had the strength to mention.

Have that chance in heaven. Maybe. If it worked that way. If he got there.

In the distance, a seabird called. His body suddenly felt warmer.

The bird called again.

Dawn, thought Ferguson.

He pushed upright. In the gray twilight, a flock of shadows crossed overhead, descending to his right. As they passed just out of sight, he heard the sound of pebbles being thrown into the water.

Rocks maybe.

Or the birds, landing in a sheltered arm of water.

Ferguson stared in the direction the birds had taken for several minutes, before realizing he had come to the river.

33

Thera spent a restless night at the hotel after talking to Corrigan, then set out just before dawn for Chain, a town southeast of Taegu. She’d been using the rental for a while now; she decided she would change cars in Taegu, just in case someone had developed an interest.

Someone like Park, though he showed no sign of it. Her room hadn’t been bugged, and she wasn’t being followed.

She wished she were. Then at least she would feel as if she were on the right track.

Park had to know something about Ferguson; he simply had to.

As she saw the sign for the highway, Thera had an urge to take the ramp north and head up to Park’s estate. She could see herself grabbing the old bastard and holding a gun to his mouth. She’d make him tell her where Ferguson was, or she’d shoot him.

She’d shoot him anyway.

Gritting her teeth, Thera bypassed the ramp, heading south toward Chain like she was supposed to.

34

One more thing remained to be done — the way had to be cleared for the jet.

Leaking the information to South Korean intelligence was easy; Mr. Li would accomplish it through his usual intermediaries. To get to the Americans, however, required subtlety.

Park glanced at his watch. It was five a.m. — three p.m. in the States. He turned on his computer, waiting while it booted up.

He would supply the final touch himself over lunch with the Republic’s president. It was a pleasure he could not deny himself.

The screen flashed. Park sat and began to type.

35

The boat was longer than a three-man canoe but just as narrow. Flat-bottomed, it was propelled by a long polelike paddle worked from the side. Similar vessels had been made according to the local design for two or three hundred years at least. It was a serviceable craft, more than capable of doing what Ferguson needed.

The wood creaked as he put one leg over the gunwale, pushing off into the soft mud with the other. The boat rocked beneath his weight, its sides giving slightly as he leaned the rest of his body inside and rolled into it. He turned onto his stomach, then knelt upright, half-expecting to feel his leg going through the wood. But the hull held.

The boat shifted back and forth abruptly as Ferguson took up the oar and tried to figure out how to work it. The water was very shallow, making it easier to push than to paddle, and after a few strokes he got a rhythm going.

He’d found the boat near a cluster of houses overlooking an arm of water that was separated from the rest of the bay by a swampy peninsula. To get into the main part of the channel where he could get across, Ferguson had to turn in front of the settlement, rowing directly past the houses.

It was still before dawn, but already smoke rose from several chimneys. There were other boats, bigger, tied to a dock closer to the houses. If someone saw him they would have an easy time coming after him; he was moving at a snail’s pace.

He couldn’t blame them if they came after him. The boat he had stolen undoubtedly represented a good portion of the community’s wealth.

Ferguson thought of the girl he’d stolen the ID from at Science Industries: fired probably, though now he wouldn’t put anything beyond Park.

He’d done things like that a million times. He never thought about the consequences.

He couldn’t. Once he started to, he couldn’t do his job. The girl, the villagers — they had to remain in the background, part of the scenery. If he stopped to think about them, if he focused on the pawns instead of the players, he was done.

Push, he told himself. Push and don’t think. Go. Go!

Go!

No one would think about him as anything but another piece of cannon fodder, ultimately expendable. It was the way it had to be.

The chain that connected his arms clanged against his chest as Ferguson started the turn. He leaned forward, pushing through the muck that lay barely a foot below the boat’s shallow hull.

A gust of wind hit him in the side as he cleared the marshy finger of land. He turned into the teeth of it, poling so hard against the mud that he nearly lost the paddle.

Go, he told himself. Go.

Ten strokes later, the river deepened, and Ferguson once more struggled to figure out how to paddle properly. He barely made headway at first. He finally tried standing up, and after nearly losing his balance two or three times, started stroking steadily across the gaping mouth of water.

The rays of the sun lit the squat white faces of the houses on the opposite shore as he passed the halfway mark. Ferguson tacked to his left, in the direction of the sea, hoping that by staying far enough away from land he would seem just another villager. In truth he had no idea what a villager would look like; the real keys to his survival were the shadows on the water around him and the indifference of people trained by the dictatorship to keep their eyes focused firmly on the ground.

When he neared the other side, Ferguson saw that the land wasn’t really land at all but muddy swamp and wild vegetation. He continued to paddle westward. Perhaps an hour passed before he saw ground solid enough to walk on. As he approached the embankment, he spotted a vehicle moving just beyond the reeds. He ducked down, waiting until it had passed, then landed and abandoned the boat.

A one-lane dirt-packed road ran through the swamp about twenty yards from where he had beached. Ferguson followed the road for roughly a mile before it curved northward. Twice he ducked off the road when he heard bicycles approaching. The marsh on both sides made for plenty of cover.

Shortly after it turned northward, the road joined a paved highway. Ferguson guessed it was the coastal highway. He was no more than five miles, and probably closer to three, from the emergency cache.

He told himself he had less than half that: one mile, a fifteen-minute stroll, an easy jaunt.

It wasn’t a very effective lie, and as the sun climbed higher he felt bad about it. As a CIA officer he lied all the time but never to himself. He’d required brutal honesty his whole career; he was the one person he could count on for an honest assessment.

Honesty became even more important when the cancer was diagnosed. No one — not the doctors, not the lab people, not anybody — told him the whole truth. They thought they did, maybe they even tried, but they couldn’t really face it. In the end they slanted things to make themselves feel better.

Not that honesty changed the thing that counted. The cells mutating out of control cared not a whit for truth.

What had Chaucer said about the knight?

Forget the knight, forget Chaucer, just walk. Just go. Go!

Think of it as two miles, Ferguson told himself, pushing his stiff legs faster. Two miles. A cakewalk.

Ferguson had no idea how far it really was. He started looking for the signs way too early and then when he was near, almost missed it.

The blotch of white was on a rock about five feet from the road. It looked so random that even when he stood over it he couldn’t be absolutely sure.

Because he wanted it, desperately wanted it, to be the sign.

He stood over the rock, found the direction due west, then counted off ten yards, or what he thought was ten yards.

Another splotch.

I’m here, he thought. Here.

He’d planned to circle and scout the area but that was nothing more than wishful thinking. He began looking for the hidden packs. Before he’d taken more than two steps he tripped over something. He got his hands out to protect himself, but he was too weak and they collapsed. The chain cracked his ribs.

Wincing, he saw the packs lying beneath the nearby brush.

I’m here. I am Goddamn here.

Ferguson crawled to them on all fours. He grabbed at the nearest one, pulling it open. He took out a small Russian PSM pistol, then took out one of the bottles of water. He drank so fast his stomach cramped, and he had to lay down on his back for a good half hour, watching the white puffy clouds passing in the bright blue sky until the pain eased.

“Long way to go,” he told himself as he got back up. “Long, long way to go.”