Op-Center

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The sound truck looked like a gutted avocado, blasted panels peeled back by the force of the explosion, with only scraps and slag in the center.

For over an hour, Kim Hwan's team had picked over those scraps, looking for any leads. There were traces of plastic explosives stuck to the bottom of what used to be the sound panel, and those had been sent to the laboratory for analysis. Other than that, there was nothing. Nothing but the increasing numbers of victims being moved from the ranks of the injured to the list of the dead. The men on the rooftops had seen nothing unusual, one of the two video surveillance cameras they had placed on a rooftop was destroyed by shrapnel, and the other had been trained on the podium, not the crowd. TV cameras were being collected, their tapes studied, to see if they had recorded anything unusual. Hwan doubted they would help, since it seemed as though all of them had been facing in the same direction: away from the truck. And his computer expert doubted that any of them had caught a useful reflection of the truck in a window, one large and complete enough to be enhanced and studied.

While he worked, Gregory Donald stood close by with his back against a charred streetlight, his unlit pipe still clenched in his teeth. He hadn't said a word and hadn't looked up from the ground; he was no longer crying and he didn't seem to be in shock, though Hwan couldn't begin to imagine the thoughts that had to be going through his mind.

"Sir!"

Hwan looked up as his assistant Choi U Gil came trotting over.

"Ri thinks he's found something."

"Where?"

"In an alley beside the Sakong Hotel. Shall I radio the Director? He asked to be told everything."

Hwan stepped down from the chassis of the exploded truck. "Let's wait and see what we've got. I'm sure he has his hands full." Explaining the corner-cutting to the President, no doubt.

Hwan followed Choi toward the National Museum on the southern side of the Palace, surprised to see Donald walking after them slowly. Hwan didn't wait for him: he was happy that something was getting through to his friend, and he didn't want to put any pressure on him. Staying busy was all that kept Hwan himself from dwelling on the shattering loss they had suffered.

The wide-W ripple pattern in the dry dirt belonged to a North Korean army boot. There was no doubt about it. "Professor" Ri had suspected as much, and Hwan had confirmed it.

"They lead away from the abandoned hotel," the slight, white-haired chemist said.

"I've sent a team inside," Choi told Hwan.

"The perpetrators appear to have drunk from this" — the Professor pointed to the crushed and empty water bottle on the floor— "and then walked toward the sound truck."

The dirt in the alley was dry, but the hot air was still and the residue hadn't moved. Hwan knelt and studied the four complete prints and two partial ones.

"Has everything been photographed?" Hwan asked.

Choi nodded. "The footprints and the bottle. We're photographing the hotel basement now, as there seems to have been some activity there."

"Good. Send the bottle over for prints, and also have them check the mouth for any kind of residue— saliva, food, anything."

The young assistant ran to the car, removed a large plastic bag and metal tongs from a case, and brought them over. Lifting the bottle carefully, he placed it in the bag and marked the time, date, and place on a white strip at the top. Then he took a work order form from the case, filled it in, put both items in the case, and climbed into the window where a military policeman stood guard.

Hwan continued to study the boot prints, noting that the impression wasn't heavier in front, which meant that the terrorists hadn't been running. He was also trying to determine how much wear there had been on the soles and whether the markings belonged to one boot or many. There seemed to be at least two different right feet, and it struck him as odd that neither showed any wear in the ripples. The North Koreans tended to issue new boots after the winter, when they took the most wear— hot during the summer.

"If the bottle was used by the terrorists, you won't find any fingerprints."

Hwan looked up at Donald. The voice was a barely audible monotone; his pipe was unceremoniously stuffed into his vest pocket and his flesh was the color of chalk. But he was here and he was alert, and Hwan was happy to see him.

"No," Hwan said. "I don't expect we will."

"Is that why they didn't take the bottle with them? Because they knew it couldn't lead you to them?"

The Professor said, "One would so conclude."

Donald took a few steps into the shadowy depths of the alley. His arms hung limp at his sides and his shoulders were rounded beneath his awful burden. Watching him move with such pain, Hwan had never felt so helpless.

"This alley, so near to the hotel," Donald said. "I would imagine it's picked clean by the poor. A clean bottle like that was sure to be noticed in your sweep— and, seeing it, you would also see the boot prints."

"I was thinking that myself," Hwan said. "We'd recognize the pattern and would jump to a conclusion about who was behind it."

"This is possible." The Professor shrugged. "But it's also possible that an inconsiderate jogger threw it there and the perpetrators never even noticed it."

"In which case someone's fingerprints will be on it," Hwan said.

"That is correct," said the Professor. "So I had best get to the matter. I'll see if there's anything to look at in the hotel, and then I'll return to the laboratory."

When the diminutive Professor left, Hwan walked to Donald's side.

"Thank you for what you did back there," Donald said, his voice tremulous, his eyes on the ground. "I heard you, but— I couldn't get a grip."

"How could you?"

"I'm not sure I have, even now." Tears spilled from his eyes as he looked around the alley. He breathed heavily and wiped his eyes with his fingers. "This thing, Kim— it isn't their way. They've always used incidents at the DMZ or assassination to send us messages."

"I know. And there's something else."

Before Hwan could continue, a black Mercedes with diplomatic plates screeched to a stop in front of the alley. A clean-cut young man got out on the driver's side.

"Mr. Donald!"

Donald stepped from the darkness. "I'm Gregory Donald."

Hwan moved quickly to his side. He didn't know who else might be a target today, and was taking no chances.

"Sir," said the man, "there's a message for you at the Embassy."

"From?"

"'An enemy of the Bismarck,' I was told to say."

"Hood," he said to Hwan. "I was expecting that. Maybe he has some information."

As the men approached the car, the young Embassy official reached down and popped the electric door lock.

"Sir, I was also told to see to Mrs. Donald. Is there anything she needs? Perhaps she'd like to come with us?"

Donald pressed his lips together and shook his head; then his knees gave out and he fell against the side of the car, his arms folded beneath his chest.

"Sir!"

"He'll be all right," Hwan said, and waved for the young man to sit. He put an arm around his friend's waist and helped him up. "You will be, Gregory."

Donald nodded as he stood.

"I'll notify you there when we come up with something."

A somber Hwan opened the door and Donald slid into the car.

"Do me a favor, Kim?"

"Anything."

"Soonji loved the Embassy and she admired the Ambassador. Don't— don't let her go there. Not the way she was. I'll phone General Savran. Would you see that" — he breathed deeply— "that she gets to the base?"

"I will."

Hwan shut the door and the car drove off. It was quickly swallowed by the confusion of honking cars, buses, and trucks, the thick evening rush hour made worse by vehicles detoured from around the Palace.

"God be with you, Gregory," he said, then glanced toward the red sun. "I can't be with him, Soonji, so please— look after him."

Turning, Hwan walked back into the alley and looked down at the footprints. The shadows were more pronounced now in the slanting rays of the setting sun.

But there was one thing more, and it bothered him more than the too-convenient presence of the bottle and boot prints.

After telling the guard at the basement window to inform Choi that he'd gone to his office, Hwan hurried back to his car, wondering just how far Director Yung-Hoon would be willing to go to break this case

As soon as he was in his car, Hood phoned Op-Center and told his Executive Assistant, Stephen "Bugs" Benet, to start the countdown clock at twenty-four hours. That was something Liz Gordon had suggested: studies showed that most people work better with deadlines, something to shoot for. The clock was a constant reminder that although you had to run a marathon, really pour it on, there was an end in sight.

It was one of the few things on which Hood and Liz agreed.

As Bugs was telling Hood that Gregory Donald had been located and was being brought to the Embassy on Sejongno, just two blocks from the Palace, the Director's personal cellular phone rang. Telling Bugs he'd be there in fifteen minutes, Hood hung up and answered the phone.

"Paul, it's me."

Sharon. He heard a ping in the background and muffled voices. She wasn't at home.

"Honey, what is it?"

"It's Alexander—"

"Is he all right?"

"After you left, he started wheezing worse than I've ever heard him. The nebulizer wasn't helping, so I brought him to the hospital."

Hood felt his own chest tighten.

"The doctors have injected him with epinephrine, and are watching him," Sharon said. "I don't want you coming here. I'll call as soon as we know something."

"You shouldn't have to do this alone, Sharon."

"I'm not alone— I know that. And what would you do here?"

"Hold your hand."

"Hold the President's hand, I'll be fine. Look, I want to call Harleigh and make sure she's all right. I think I scared her out of a year's growth when I went running through the house carrying Alex."

"Promise you'll beep the minute anything happens."

"I promise."

"And tell them both I love them."

"I always do."

Hood felt like hell as he drove through the early-morning traffic to Andrews Air Force Base, home of Op-Center. Sharon had had to shoulder a lot in seventeen years of marriage, but this was the capper. He could hear the fear in her voice, the trace of bitterness in her remark about the President, and he wanted to go to her. But he knew that if he did, she would only feel guilty for having pulled him away. And when she felt like that she got angry at herself, which wasn't what she needed now.

Unhappy as he was, there was nothing to do but go to Op-Center. But it was ironic, he thought. Here he was, the head of one of the most sophisticated agencies in the world, able to eavesdrop on hostages a mile away or read a newspaper in Teheran from Earth orbit. Yet there was nothing in the world he could do to help his son… or his wife.

His palms were damp, his mouth dry, as he swung off the highway and raced toward the base. He couldn't help his family because of whoever was behind the explosion, and he fully intended to make them pay.