Yun sipped at the brew of ginseng root, dried jujubes and pine nuts, sweetened with a bit of sugar, waiting for Chon to take the initiative.
"No doubt you want to know what I have remembered about the vengeance symbol," Chon said.
The Captain's face softened. "It had crossed my mind."
The old man's eyes rolled in a faraway look, as though peering back into the depths of his past. "It was in the forties, during the Japanese occupation. As I remember it, there was a small band of Korean guerrillas. The Japanese called them 'bandits,' of course. They used the name poksu. When they committed some act of sabotage, they would leave their mark on a wall or in the dirt. A square with poksu inside."
"Did the Japanese hunt them down?"
Chon grinned at the memory. "They tried. How they tried. But mostly they could only curse and wail and fly into a rage."
"You mean they never caught them?"
"As far as I know, the guerillas were never captured. Nor do I recall ever learning any more about them. When the war ended, they simply vanished."
Yun had no idea what significance this might have to his case. Poksu was a vendetta against the Japanese. Was he headed in the wrong direction with his anti-American theory? Could Yi In-wha have had some hidden connection to the Japanese? Now he would have to view the entire record from a different perspective.
Chon saw the subtle change on his face. "I am sorry if I have brought some new complication to your life, my friend. Perhaps I could be of help in some other way?"
Yun quickly adopted a more normal look, one of consummate indifference. "You cause me no problem, Mr. Chon. But I do have another request." He pulled an envelope from his jacket and handed it across. "This contains two drawings of men seen by witnesses. Actually, they are drawings of the same man, with altered features."
"And you wish to know if they are Hwang Sang-sol."
"Yes. I also wish to know if Hwang was in Seoul on the twenty-sixth of March. It would be knowledge worthy of very high-priced oranges."
Yun watched the old man's face as his request was considered. What he saw was a look as impassive as a rock in a stream. Only the eyes failed to reflect that dispassion. It was a reaction that took him by surprise, something he had never before seen in Chon's face. But what he detected in the eyes seemed neither defiance nor acquiescence. Then what was it… fear?
"I don't want to put you in any unnecessary danger, Mr. Chon," he said. "If you think this would be too risky, I can look for the information another way."
Chon stilled him with a gesture of his wrinkled hand. "There is no other way, my friend. Do not worry about me. One who deals in matters as I do always lives close to the edge."
It was true. Yun felt a bit better knowing of the old man's ability as a survivor. Chon was nearly eighty but in excellent mental and physical shape for one of that age. In earlier years, he had earned a reputation as a fearless fighter. He was a master of t'ai chi, the ancient martial art in which yum and yang were balanced to channel one's life force through concentration that freed the mind and body to perform as separate though coordinated elements. As lethal weapons, if the circumstances demanded. The Captain had heard Chon explain how he learned through mushin to concentrate his mind outside his body, so that his movements were completely natural and unfettered. This also allowed him to virtually banish pain, regardless of its source. T'ai chi taught that respect for, not fear of, an adversary allowed you to analyze his strengths and weaknesses and exploit them to your advantage. Yun, himself, was no stranger to the martial arts, as yudo proficiency, known in the U.S. and Japan as judo, was required of all Korean National Police officers. He only hoped that age had not diminished Chon's ability to concentrate.
Chapter 14
Jerry Chan hadn't been in the capital long enough to get over the sheer awe that it inspired in a country boy from the South, as he liked to call himself. He had spent several of his more formative years in the slow-paced town of Clinton, an enclave of fewer than five thousand souls nestled among the knobbed green hills of East Tennessee.
As the taxi swung around the White House and headed down Seventeenth Street past the Old Executive Office Building, an imposing structure that looked somewhat like a rambling, multi-layered birthday cake, Jerry craned his neck to take in as much of the historic view as possible.
"I've been like a high school kid at spring break," he said, grinning. "Took in the Washington Monument, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, National Archives, about half of the Smithsonian buildings."
"I know how it is," Burke said. "I first came here right out of high school, to work as a clerk at the FBI. It took me a long time to quit staring at these massive office buildings."
A long, black limousine whizzed past in the other direction, headed toward the White House. "There must be a million of those things around here," Jerry said.
"Maybe we'll talk Nate into buying us a fleet for Worldwide one of these days. Say, I haven't had a chance to really sit down and visit with you. How did the language tutoring go?"
Jerry threw up his hands. "I spent eleven years with the Drug Enforcement Administration, much of it on extended assignments in the Far East, but I still have a lot to learn. My parents taught me Chinese, and I picked up a fair knowledge of Korean while working undercover with a Korean organization in Japan. I think I know enough to hold my own. Hopefully I won't make too many grammatical faux pas. I'll sure feel a lot better with you along to handle the financial end."
Burke had read Jerry's personnel file, noting his DEA career that had been interrupted by a gunshot wound, giving Worldwide Communications Consultants an opportunity to recruit him. One point that impressed Burke was Jerry's high scores on his management profile. "You'll do okay. I don't plan to be there very long, anyway. Just enough to get you in full swing. I've got to be back here before Christmas. My wife's expecting around then."
"I heard about that. Congratulations. I'm afraid I've spent too much time knocking around the back alleys and backwoods of the Far East the past few years. I haven't even thought about a wife, much less kids."
"No girlfriends to leave behind?"
"Afraid not."
Just as well, thought Burke. He'll have his hands full in Seoul with this atomic nightmare. He looked capable of handling the situation, though. Jerry was slightly shorter than Burke, lean and lithe, with muscles that appeared as solid as a chunk of brass.
"I noticed in your file that you came from around the same neck of the woods as I did," Burke said. "I spent five years up in the Smokies, out from Gatlinburg."
"The hell you did. Man, that's God's country."
"I'll buy that. But tell me how a Chinese family came to land in Clinton, Tennessee?"
Jerry laughed. "Sounds a bit odd, huh? My dad was a nuclear physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. He had the peculiar idea that my sister and I should be reared with the more down-to-earth values and simple approaches to life you'd find in a small rural town. "
Jerry said the alternative to Clinton was a house among the hills and valleys around Oak Ridge, the Atomic City, that were home to more PhD's, high-powered physicists, chemists and engineers, along with their wunderkind, than an ordinary mortal could imagine. Dr. Chan was inordinately proud of his adopted country. He was determined that his children should be exposed to plain everyday Americans, those pretentiously referred to as "common folk" by the self-declared elite.