Op-Center

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The brand-new, modern, four-story, steel and white brick building was set back from Kwangju, gleaming brightly behind a long, rectangular courtyard. Except for the high iron fence surrounding the courtyard, and the drawn shades behind the windows, a passerby might think the building was the office of a corporation or university. It was unlikely anyone would suspect that it was the headquarters of the KCIA and housed some of the most delicate secrets in the East.

The KCIA building was protected by video cameras on the outside, sophisticated motion detectors at every door and window, and electronic waves to prevent eavesdropping. Only upon entering the brightly lighted reception area and encountering the two armed guards behind bulletproof glass would one get a hint of the delicacy of the operations that went on inside.

The office of Deputy Director Kim Hwan was on the second floor, down the hall from the office of Director Yung-Hoon. Right now, the former police chief was having dinner in the fourth-floor café with friendly contacts in the press to try to find out what they knew. Hwan and Yung-Hoon had very different but complementary methods of working: Yung-Hoon's philosophy was that people had every answer investigators needed, as long as the proper people were asked the proper questions. Hwan believed that, intentionally or not, people lied— that facts were best learned through scientific means. Each admitted that the other's approach was perfectly valid, though Hwan didn't have the stomach for the smiles and chatter Yung-Hoon's work required. Back when he'd been a smoker, his attention span for bullshit was roughly an unfiltered Camel; now it was less.

His small desk stacked with papers and files, Hwan was studying the report that had just come in from the lab. He skipped the Professor's analyses of "hybridized sp-orbitals" and "direction of electronegativity" — details not required by the KCIA but by the courts, if the evidence were ever used in trial— and went right to the summary:

Analysis of the explosives reveals them to be standard North Korean plastique: composition typical of production facility in Sonchon.

There are no fingerprints on the water bottle. There should at least have been partial fingerprints of a store clerk. We conclude that the bottle was wiped clean. The traces of saliva found in the drops of water that remained are unremarkable.

The soil particles themselves tell us nothing. The principal components, sandstone and bauxite, are common throughout the peninsula and cannot be used to locate the point of origin.

However, a toxicology study reveals concentrated traces of sublimation of the salt NaCl (Na+ from the base NaOH, Cl- from the acid HCL). This is commonly found in petroleum products from the Great Khingan Range of Inner Mongolia, including diesel fuel used by mechanized forces of the DPRK. The concentration of 1:100 NaCl in the soil seems strongly to preclude the possibility that particles blew from the North. Computer simulation suggests that such a ratio would have been 1:5,000.

Hwan let his head flop back on the chair. He let the cooling waves from the ceiling fan wash over his face.

"So we have bombers who were in the North. How could they not be North Korean?" He was beginning to think that there was only one way to find out for certain, though he was reluctant to play a card as important as that.

As he reread the summary, the intercom beeped.

"Sir, this is Sgt. Jin at the desk. There's a gentleman who wishes to see the officer in charge of the Palace bombing."

"Does he say why?"

"He says he saw them, sir. Saw the men who ran from the sound truck."

"Keep him there," Hwan said as he leapt to his feet and tightened his tie. "I'll be right there."