Jin watched the children wave their miniature red, blue, and white flags.
“What arrangements have you made for moving Kim from detention to Pyongyang?”
“He is most eager to assist in the unmasking of the spy,” Yi said. “But I think it is unwise to move him until he has had a chance to review all the documents relating to personnel working in the Second Directorate. He may be able to ferret him out, and only by promising Kim exile will we keep his mind focused on the task. As soon as we move him to Pyongyang, his diligence will wane, and he will think he has found a weakness he can exploit.”
“I see your point: He stays put until we find the spy.” Jin’s gaze returned to Yi. “Have you made progress finding out who the pig of a spy is?”
“Not yet. But I have ordered the arrests of two translators, one of whom is a woman. They may know something because of their former positions close to Kim. If they do know something, anything, I promise you they will reveal what it is before they die.”
“Won’t their arrests force the spy underground?”
Yi smiled confidently. “Underground, Dear Leader? But in the DPRK there is no underground.”
Jin didn’t respond: instead, he got out of the car and greeted the adoring, flag-waving children with open arms.
Fumiko opened her eyes and sat up in bed with a start. “How long?…”
“Four hours,” Scott said.
She saw the remains of greasy chicken and ramen noodles, empty bottles of Coke and Sapporo beer sitting on the hotel room dresser.
“Want something to eat?” he asked.
She was on her feet, dressing, finger-combing her hair. “What? No, not now, we’ve got to get going.”
“Where to?”
“My place, for starters. I want to bathe and change. Plus you need a fresh bandage on your hand.”
He held up his injured hand, turned it over. The dressing was dirty. “Okay, then what?”
She glanced at the mess on the dresser and said, “I get something decent to eat while we come up with a plan.”
“That’s what I’ve been working on while you snoozed.”
She fiddled with her watch. “Jake, look at the time. Tell me about it on the way.”
The fresh air felt good after the tiny, stuffy hotel room. On the Shinjuku JR line, Scott told her he wanted to investigate the unscheduled flight from Tokyo to CKS International in Taipei by the ToriAir 737, with its cargo of switching gear bound for Iran.
Fumiko looked at Scott, puzzled.
“Your instincts are right,” Scott said, “it’s Tokugawa. While you slept I read your report. One of the documents you downloaded from the JDIH secure file says ToriAir is owned by Meji Holdings.”
“Right, I remember.”
“What if that ToriAir flight had more than switching gear aboard? What if Tokugawa hopped a ride on it to Taiwan to meet Wu Chow Fat and the White Dragon, say in Chi-lung? The White Dragon made the round trip to Chi-lung twice during the time the Reno was in the area and we were getting ready to make the insertion.”
It dawned on her, and she stole a look at Scott, clearly embarrassed by her lapse.
“We can check if the plane’s a cargo ship or an executive jet or both. Then we can check with Japanese immigration to see if Tokugawa made a late-night departure to Taiwan aboard that flight. If he did, Radford and the president may be able to force your boss to act.”
“Jake, I don’t know if I can get that information from the Ministry of Aviation and from immigration.”
“The JDIH hasn’t lifted your credentials. Flash them at some overworked sarariman at one of the ministries and he’ll shit his pants trying to help you out.”
She leaned into Scott so other passengers couldn’t hear. “Jake, I told you, you’re not in the States. Besides, I’m not convinced that even if we got the information you want it would prove anything.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
She bit a fingernail and looked away.
They hurried from the station to her apartment in a drizzle. When they reached the top of the stairs on her floor, Fumiko froze in her tracks. Scott looked past her and saw the door to her apartment standing partly open and all the lights on inside.
Scott got in front of Fumiko and eased down the hall ahead of her. When he reached the apartment, he peeked around the door but didn’t see anyone. He reared back and kicked the door wide open, checked it as it rebounded. Inside, the apartment was a disaster: Fumiko’s clothes and personal belongings were strewn everywhere; furniture had been upset amidst smashed kitchen crockery.
She stood in the doorway with both hands to her mouth, looking sick. A door to another apartment opened; a woman peeked out at them, withdrew, shut and locked the door.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Scott said and took her hand.
She stopped short. “No. I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are. They may be back.”
“Who? The JDIH?”
“Doesn’t matter. You can’t stay here, it’s not safe, and we can’t go back to my hotel because they’ve probably got it covered too. We’ll have to find another hotel, then I’ll contact Radford—”
Fumiko pulled her hand away. Her look hardened as she flipped open her cell phone to make a call. “No,” she said, “I have a better idea.”
33
The Red Shark turned south onto a new heading into the Yellow Sea. To avoid contact with PLAN naval vessels or reconnaissance aircraft, Commander Tongsun Park had shaped a course that lay west of the Chinese Shandong Peninsula. Even so, radar emissions from a PLAN Harbin SH-5 flying boat on anti-submarine patrol out of Qingdao appeared on the Red Shark’s ECM. The amphibian lingered beyond visual range for almost a half hour before fading to the north.
Satisfied that they had not been detected, Park commanded, “Comrade Navigator, we will hold this course until south of Shidao, then we will submerge.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Park knew there was absolutely no room in the schedule for slippage; timing was everything, and he’d had drummed into his brain the absolute necessity of delivering the cargo when promised.
His and his crew’s curiosity about the three lead casks loaded aboard the Red Shark at Nam’po had been tamped down by the presence of DPRK Internal Security Forces. Lashed to the deck in the torpedo room, the casks had been viewed by the crew with deep suspicion, if not outright fear. Even Park thought he sensed an aura of evil emanating from them, but he dismissed it as superstition. Meanwhile, provisioning, crew training, and the repairing of a fuel cell leaking hydrogen had kept Park’s mind focused on the potential difficulties involved in such a long submerged voyage in a new submarine, that, while highly advanced, had also proven balky.
Park climbed a ladder to the bridge high atop the Red Shark’s sail and assumed the conn from his first officer. As the submarine steamed steadily south, Park thought about the lead casks: small enough to fit through the submarine’s thirty-inch-diameter hatches, it still took eight men to lug one. Park, after signing the custody documents, had been about to ask one of the officers what was in the casks, but he’d thought better of it. They would report it, and upon his return to Nam’po, he’d be arrested. No, his job was to command the Red Shark and deliver the cargo, not to ask questions.
“Comrade First Officer,” the bridge speaker croaked, “this is the navigator. Please inform the captain that we have crossed the line south of Shidao.”