Op-Center

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The hearse sped south toward the airstrip, traveling highways that were thick with military traffic heading north, away from Seoul.

As he sat in the backseat of the Ambassador's Mercedes, following the hearse, Gregory Donald noticed the increased troop movements away from the city. In light of Bob Herbert's phone call, he could only imagine that things were heating up between the two governments. He wasn't surprised; this close to the DMZ, high alerts were as common in Seoul as pirated videotapes. Still, this level of activity was unusual. The numbers of soldiers being moved suggested that generals didn't want to have too many people in one spot, lest the North attack with rockets.

For the moment Donald felt detached from it all. He was trapped in a cocoon two car-lengths long and too few years wide, locked in with the reality that that was his wife in front of him and that he would never see her again. Not on this earth. The hearse was illuminated by the headlights of the Mercedes, and as he gazed at the black drapes drawn in the back he wondered if Soonji would have been pleased or bothered to be riding in a state vehicle… in that car in particular. He remembered how Soonji had shut her eyes after he told her the story, as though that would somehow close out the truth- The black Cadillac was shared by the American, British, Canadian, and French embassies in Seoul, and was parked at the latter when not in use. Sharing official hearses was not uncommon, though there was almost an international incident in 1982, when both the British and French ambassadors unexpectedly lost relatives on the same afternoon and both requested the official hearse at the same time. Since the French kept it garaged, they felt they deserved first use; the British maintained that since the French Ambassador had lost a grandmother and the British Ambassador a father, the closer relation took priority. The French countered that, arguably, the Ambassador was closer to his grandmother than the British Ambassador was to his father. To defuse the conflict, both ambassadors hired outside funeral homes and the official hearse remained unused that day.

Gregory Donald smiled as he remembered what Soonji said, with her eyes still tightly squeezed: "Only in the diplomatic corps could a war and a car reservation carry equal weight." And it was true. There was nothing too small, too personal, or too macabre to become an international issue. For that reason, he was touched— and felt Soonji would have been too— when British Ambassador Clayton phoned him at the embassy to offer his condolences and to tell him that the embassies would not use the hearse for their own victims of today's blast until after he was finished with it.

He refused to take his eyes off the hearse, though his tired mind roved in a stream-of-consciousness state, thinking of the last meal he had with Soonji, the last time they made love, the last time he had watched her dress. He could still taste her lipstick, smell her perfume, feel her long fingernails on the back of his neck. Then he thought back to how he had first been attracted to Soonji, not by her beauty or poise but by her words— her incisive, clever words. He remembered the conversation she had had with a girlfriend who worked for outgoing Ambassador Dan Tunick. As the Ambassador finished his farewell speech to the staff, the girlfriend said, "He looks so happy."

Soonji regarded the Ambassador for a moment, then said, "My father looked like that once, after passing a stone. The Ambassador looks relieved, Tish, not happy."

She'd hit it on the head in her open, irreverent way. As the crowd drank champagne, he'd walked over to her, introduced himself, told her the hearse story, and was smitten even before her eyes had opened. As he sat here now, out of tears but not memories, he took consolation from the fact that the last time he saw Soonji alive, as she ran back to his side after finding her earring, she was wearing a look of profound relief and happiness.

The Mercedes followed the hearse off the highway and toward the airfield. Donald would see his wife to the TWA flight that was taking her to the States, and as soon as it had taken off, he would board the waiting Bell Iroquois for the short hop to the DMZ.

Howard Norbom would assume Donald had gone around him to get what he wanted, and he felt some guilt over that. But at least the General wouldn't be implicated when he tried to contact the North. Thanks to the phone call, whatever fallout there was would land on him… and on Op-Center.