Op-Center

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

The first shot hit Gregory Donald's left leg and brought him down, while the second rifle shot hit the top of his right shoulder as he fell, boring diagonally through his torso. As soon as he hit the ground he was pushing with his left arm, trying to get up. When that proved impossible, he began clawing with his hand, trying to pull himself ahead. The knife tumbled from his dead right hand as he scratched forward, inches at a time.

The soldiers came running over.

"Air…" Donald gasped in Korean. "Air…"

Donald stopped moving, fell on his side. He felt a slight burning sensation in his left leg, waves of pain that ended at his waist. Above that, he felt nothing.

He knew he'd been shot, but that was in the back of his mind. He tried to crane his head around, tried to lift his arm to point.

"The air con… condi—" he said, then realized that he was probably wasting whatever breath remained. No one was listening. Or maybe he wasn't talking loud enough.

A medic came rushing over. He knelt by Donald's side, examined his throat to make sure it was clear, then checked his pulse and examined his eyes.

Donald looked up into the man's bespectacled face. "The barracks," he said. "Listen to me… air-conditioning—"

"Rest," the medic said. He threw open Donald's jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. He used gauze to wipe away the blood and made a cursory examination of the entrance wound in the shoulder and the exit wound to the left of the naval.

Donald managed to get his left elbow under him and tried to rise.

"Keep still!" the medic snapped.

"You don't… see! Poison… gas… the barracks…"

The medic stopped, regarded Donald curiously. "Air… con… dition…"

"The air conditioners? Someone is trying to poison the men in the barracks?" Understanding and sadness crossed the medic's features simultaneously. "You were trying to stop them?"

Donald nodded weakly, then fell back, struggling for breath. The medic relayed the information to the soldiers standing around him, then resumed working on his patient.

"You poor man," the doctor said. "I'm sorry. So very sorry."

Behind him, Donald could hear shouts, men running in the direction of the barracks. He tried to speak. "What…?"

"What's happening?" the medic asked an aide.

"The soldiers are leaving the barracks, sir."

"Do you hear?" the doctor asked Donald.

Donald heard but couldn't move his head. He blinked slowly, looked past the medic at the bluing sky.

"Don't let go," the doctor said as he called for a stretcher. "I'm going to get you to the hospital."

Donald's chest was barely moving.

"What's happening now?" the medic asked as he straddled Donald's chest.

His aide turned back. "There are soldiers around the air conditioner. They're checking the other barracks now. Now the lights just went out— it looks like the electricity's been shut off."

"You're a hero," the doctor said to Donald.

Am I? he thought as the blue sky went gray and then black.

There were shots, but the doctor paid no attention to them as he pressed his mouth to Donald's, pinched his nose shut, and gave him four quick ventilations.

He felt for his cartoid pulse, found none, then repeated the procedure. There was still no pulse.

Sliding from Donald's chest, the medic knelt beside him and put the middle finger of his right hand on the notch where the sternum meets the bottom of the rib cage. Then he placed the heel of his left hand on the lower half of the sternum beside the index finger and pressed, counting out eighty pushes each minute. His assistant held Donald's wrist, checking it for a pulse.

Five minutes later the medic sat back on the balls of his feet. The stretcher lay beside him and he helped his aide place Donald's body on it. Two soldiers carried it away as an officer walked over. They ignored the soldiers from the South who were looking on.

"Does he have any identification?"

"I didn't check."

"Whoever he was, he deserves a citation. Someone had rigged valved drums of gas to the air conditioning systems of the four barracks on the east side. We caught him as he was about to turn them on."

"Just one man?"

"Yes. He probably wasn't alone, though he won't be telling us anything."

"Suicide?"

"Not exactly. As we closed in, he tried to spill the gas. We were forced to shoot." The officer looked at his watch. "I'd better inform General Hong-koo. He's on his way to meet that American Ambassador, and this may change things."

Tucked behind the trunk of a large oak, he watched as the small convoy of three jeeps neared the northern entrance of the conference building. They had come from the far northern side of the base where the General had his headquarters, and would park right beside the door of the structure, wait for the contingent from South Korea to arrive, and not exit until then. At least, that was probably the plan.

But if Lee had seen what he thought he had— Donald gunned down as he ran toward the barracks— there would be no contingent from the South. It also appeared that there would be no gas attack on the barracks. Those other shots, the lack of excitement at what should have already occurred— it was obvious the plan had gone seriously wrong.

His palm was dry, his grip on the pistol sure. If only he had used that against Donald, instead of the knife. It would have attracted attention, but he could have fled- No matter. Fate had handed him another opportunity, one that was almost as rich.

The cars stopped, and Lee's eyes came to rest on General Hong-koo, a small man with a wide mouth like a snake and, he'd heard, a disposition to match. The General would wait no more than twenty minutes before entering: when no one showed up, he would announce to the world that the North wanted peace, the South did not, and he would return to his headquarters.

That was surely the plan, he thought again. For Lee didn't intend to give him the chance to do either.

Roughly 150 yards separated Lee from Hong-koo's convoy. The General was sitting stiffly in the back of the middle jeep, a poor target now but not for long. As soon as he emerged from his jeep, Lee would run over, gun him down, and shoot as many of the six other men as he could before running back toward the tunnel.

Yet he was prepared to die, if he had to, emerge as either a leader or a martyr. All of them had been ready to give their lives for this cause, for even if the bombing, the assassination, and Sun's attack against Tokyo didn't start a war, their acts would strengthen the hearts of those opposed to reunification.

Hong-koo's driver looked at his watch, turned, and said something to the General. The General nodded.

It was almost time… time for the United States to be driven from the South, for patriotism to flourish, and for a new militarism to rise, making South Korea the most powerful, prosperous, and feared nation in the region.