The Expediter (11 page)

“We didn’t do it, and of course no one believes us, so I’m here to ask you to help prevent a nuclear war.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re a man of honor, whose word the Chinese respect, especially after the incident in Mexico City last year. If you were to prove that we didn’t carry out the assassination, you would be believed.”

“Your premier is crazy enough to have ordered it, especially if General Ho was there to try to talk him out of his nuclear program.”

“Yes, he is just that crazy, but it wasn’t us.”

“The South Koreans wouldn’t have done it either,” McGarvey said. “They know damn well that if the situation ever got out of hand the first nuke would hit downtown Seoul before they could do anything about it.”

Pak hesitated for a moment. “You’ve heard something.”

“Just a rumor that it could have involved a South Korean shooter.”

“A pair of them, freelancing for an ex-KGB agent with deep pockets living in Tokyo.”

“No reason for the Russians to get involved,” McGarvey said.

“Not officially, we agree with that much,” Pak said. “But they were South Koreans, ex-NIS, husband and wife. We managed to arrest the husband intact, but the wife is back in Seoul.”

“Ask for the South’s help.”

Pak managed a slight smile. “Dear Leader believes that South Korea is behind the hit, at the direction of the CIA. He’s ordered me to find the proof.”

“So you came here,” McGarvey said, intrigued despite his natural skepticism. “You’ve got balls, Colonel, I’ll give you that much.”

“Will you help?”

“I’ll hear you out,” McGarvey said. He picked up the files then led the North Korean back to his study, which looked out across the backyard. Katy was still seated at the table waiting for him.

He drew the blinds and motioned for Pak to have a seat across from him as he spread the files and photographs out on the desk.

“That’s outside the Chinese Embassy,” Pak said. “A car came to take General Ho to a meeting with Dear Leader, and the assassins knew the precise time it would be arriving.”

“Someone in your government must have leaked the schedule.”

“That’s possible,” Pak conceded, “but not likely.”

“They got the intel from somewhere.”

“That’s only part of our problem. We’ve had the South Korean in our custody long enough for the Chinese to distrust anything he might tell them if we handed him over.”

“This him?” McGarvey asked, studying the photos of the man in prison garb.

“His name is Huk Soon, his wife Kim. But that’s all we know about them. They don’t show up on any of our databases. And neither does the Russian Soon says hired them. All he knows is the name Alexandar and an old e-mail address, which when we checked didn’t exist.”

“How’d they get past your security?”

“They flew in as tourists, and on the last night they snuck out of the hotel, killed two policemen, dressed in their uniforms, and used their weapons to kill not only General Ho, but the chauffeur and two Chinese Embassy employees.”

McGarvey put the last photo down. “There’s no reason for the kill except to destabilize your relationship with China. And the only countries who might benefit are South Korea and us.”

“Exactly,” Pak said. “Mr. McGarvey, I went to U.C. Berkeley, and I think I know the U.S. well enough to believe that no one in your government is stupid enough to engineer something like this. Nobody would win.”

“Obviously someone thinks so.”

“Only a madman.”

“Kim Jong Il,” McGarvey said.

“We’ve tried to assassinate him, but he’s surrounded himself with impregnable security. Sooner or later he’ll die, like his father, only there will be no replacement. When he’s gone we can begin rebuilding our country, and someday reunite with the South.”

“You’ll have to survive until then.”

“We need your help.”

McGarvey turned away. The North Koreans had every reason to lie, and it was not unlikely that Kim Jong Il was crazy enough to pull off a stunt like killing a Chinese intelligence officer and blaming it on the South Koreans and the CIA. The only motive that made any sense was if the Chinese had tried to pressure North Korea to drop its nuclear program once and for all. It was possible that General Ho had threatened Kim Jong Il and the madman had ordered the assassination.

The one loose straw that didn’t fit was an ex-KGB officer by the name of Alexandar living in Toyko who had hired the killers. It was so fringe that it had the ring of truth.

He turned back. “Go home, Colonel.”

Pak got up, took a pen from his pocket, and wrote a New York telephone number on the back of the manila envelope. “You can contact me in Pyongyang through this number. It connects us with our U.N. delegation’s secured communication section.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to do anything about this,” McGarvey said, and yet he didn’t know how he could possibly stay out of it. If China attacked North Korea the U.S. would almost certainly be sucked into the mess, and a great many people, maybe millions, would be incinerated.

“We can pay you—”

“This isn’t about money,” McGarvey shot back. “But if it were you wouldn’t be able to afford me.”

“I understand,” Pak said.

“I would have to come to Pyongyang.”

“That could be arranged.”

“And I would need the freedom of access to any place or any person, including Kim Jong Il.”

Pak hesitated. “You can’t know how dangerous that would be.”

“More dangerous than a nuclear war?”

Pak shrugged. “Please hurry,” he said, and he went back to the vestibule and let himself out.

McGarvey watched the security camera image in his cell phone as the North Korean got in his car and left, never once looking back.

McGarvey telephoned Otto Rencke at his office in the OHB, the Old Headquarters Building at Langley. His official title was Director of Special Projects, the only one anyone could think to give the computer and mathematics genius, who most of the time was in a cyberworld of his own.

His slight frame topped with an overlarge head and long, out-of-control, frizzy red hair marked him as an odd duck, and his generally sloppy appearance—unlaced sneakers, torn jeans, and dirty T-shirts— convinced most people who met him for the first time that he was probably a street person rather than one of the most powerful and feared men inside the Company.

Fact was that the entire national intelligence computer system, from the CIA and NSA to the Defense Intelligence Agency and FBI’s mainframe, was by and large Rencke’s creation. He was the only man on the planet who completely understood how the vastly complicated networks actually functioned, and how with a few strokes on his keyboard he could bring the entire system to a screeching halt.

“Oh wow, Mac, did Liz call you this morning?” Rencke gushed.

“About a half hour ago,” McGarvey said. “She wanted to know if we’d talked about what’s going on. Sounds like panic on the seventh floor.”

The DCI’s office was on the top floor of the OHB just down the hall from the Watch, where five analysts plus a watch commander kept tabs on everything happening in the world in real time, 24/7. All the doors were kept open up there because Dick Adkins and most of the directors before him wanted to know what was happening at all times. Adkins
was in the habit of wandering up and down the hall, peering into the various offices and centers, especially the Watch.

If there were any hint of trouble up there, everyone would feel it.

“No one knows what’s going on. Bob Snow says he’s working the problem, but so far his people are coming up empty-handed and the prez is making noises.” Snow was the Deputy Director of Intelligence, the directorate that was supposed to figure things out.

“I’m coming up to Washington this afternoon, I want you to set up a meeting with Dick, and with Carleton Patterson and Howard McCann.” Patterson was the CIA’s general counsel and McCann was the Deputy Director of Operations.

“You know something, kemo sabe?”

“I’m not sure,” McGarvey said. He glanced up as Katy came to the door, but she didn’t say anything. “I want you to track down a Russian, ex-KGB supposedly working out of Tokyo. All I have is the name Alexandar and a dead e-mail address. He may have hired a husband-wife team of shooters—former NIS—who did the hit. Apparently he’s got money, which means he’s probably a player.”

“Holy shit,” Rencke said quietly. “You got their names?”

“Huk. Soon and Kim.”

“A little bird’s been whispering secrets in your ear?”

Katy turned and disappeared around the corner.

“I’ll explain when I get up there,” McGarvey said. “I don’t think that you’d believe me if I told you over the phone. In the meantime see what you can come up with.”

“Most of my programs have been pretty quiet lately,” Rencke said. “Which direction do you want me to go?”

“The shooters are freelance, so maybe they’ve taken other jobs,” McGarvey said. He was thinking on the run, but the moment Pak had denied North Korea’s involvement, he’d had the odd thought that somebody might be taking a run at Kim Jong Il’s regime from the outside, though he couldn’t think why.

“I’m on it.”

“Look for a pattern.”

Rencke was silent for just a moment. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “I can think of a couple of possibilities right from the get-go if the idea is to completely isolate the bastards, if that’s what you had in mind.”

“Exactly,” McGarvey said.

“Bad stuff, Mac,” Rencke said. “They might actually bring the Dear Leader down, but it’d be the biggest mess since the Nazis invaded Poland. All of us would be in it.”

“Yeah,” McGarvey said. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Can you get up to Sarasota within the hour?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll book you on the flight leaving at quarter after eleven. You’ll have your e-ticket on your cell phone by the time you get there.”

Upstairs in the bedroom Katy had pulled out his hanging bag and was packing. She was brittle. “How long will you be gone this time? I need to know so I can pack for you.”

“A day or two,” McGarvey said.

There’d been plenty of other moments just like this one. In fact early in their marriage she’d given him an ultimatum—her or the CIA. He’d chosen neither and instead had run to Switzerland where he’d hid from everyone, including himself, while their daughter had grown up without a father because he’d been too stupid to know when to shut his mouth, when to bend with the wind, and when not to overreact.

“Right,” Katy said. “Warm or cold climes?”

“For now, just Washington.”

She looked up, her lips compressed, a flinty expression in her normally soft eyes. “Is it the thing between China and North Korea?”

McGarvey nodded.

She glanced toward the door to the stair hall. “He didn’t stay long. Was he one of ours asking for your help?”

The other thing he’d learned the hard way with Katy was not to try
to protect her by lying. Her life had been in jeopardy more than once because of what and who he was. She deserved to know what might be coming her way.

“He was a North Korean intelligence officer. They want me to prove they didn’t order the assassination.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re joking,” she said. But then she shook her head. “But you never joke about things like that.”

She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, he could read it in her tone of voice and her body language.

“I wish I was.”

“Kirk, you can’t seriously believe those people. Kim Jong Il is nuts and his finger is on the actual nuclear trigger.”

“I don’t know what to believe yet, sweetheart, that’s why I’m going up to Washington to talk it over with Dick.” He went across the room and took her in his arms. She was shivering. “And that’s all I’m going to do.”

“For now,” she said, parting. “But whatever happens take care of yourself and come back to me. I don’t look good in black and I’m too young to be a widow and anyway there’s only ever been you.”

Washington