Op-Center

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

In his long career of crawling through tunnels, Lee had never decided which was preferable: the rank, damp tunnels that filled your lungs with musk that stayed for weeks, and tickled your face with roots, or the dry, airless tunnels like this one, which filled your nose and eyes with sand and left your mouth painfully dry.

This is worse, he told himself. You can get used to a smell, but not to thirst.

At least his labors were nearly at an end. They were in the last section of tunnel with the last of the drums: in just a few minutes they would reach the niche they'd dug on the other side. He would help Yoo up with the drums, and then the rest was up to the Private, carrying them closer to the target and putting them in place before sunup. Yoo had already brought his tools through; they had studied the course through the hills and shadows several nights before, and there was no way anyone could see him.

While Yoo worked, Lee would go back and take care of Mr. Gregory Donald before he could meet with Hong-koo. It was so typical of an American. Those who weren't empire builders were self-righteous meddlers. He hated them for that, and for having stopped short of victory in the war. When they finished helping him destroy the government of Pyongyang, he would work on expelling them at long last from his country.

His country. Not Harry Truman's or Michael Lawrence's, not General Norbom's or General Schneider's. The personality and industry of his people had been kept down and perverted for too many years, and it would stop now.

Despite the pads he wore. Lee's knees were rubbed raw by the crawling and chafing, and his eyepatch was soaked with sweat, his good eye burning. But he could barely keep from rushing through these final yards and minutes as the time of the second and third events neared, the moment they'd been planning since he first approached Colonel Sun with his idea two years before.

He continued to creep forward, balancing himself on his left hand, rolling the drum with his right, his shoulders hunched. His good eye shifted slowly from side to side as he moved ahead, watching the walls of the tunnel. And then the yards were a few feet, and the minutes were seconds, and they stood the drum upright with its three companions.

Yoo took a rolled rope ladder from the niche they had dug, and with his back to the wall of the narrow passageway, he shinned to the top. Attaching the ladder to a rock, he lowered it down and they began bringing the drums up.

Major Lee moved back through the tunnel on all fours. Sometimes his knees didn't even touch down as he kicked off with the balls of his feet, his legs going past his elbows as he raced ahead. He pulled the flashlight from his shoulder and doused it as he neared the passageway on the southern side, then sprang onto the hemp line. He scurried up, hand over hand, then paused just below the rim.

There was no one around. Pulling himself through, Major Lee patted his left pocket, made sure the switchblade was still there, then ran into the night.