He felt like a heel. "I told you I was a nasty man. I apologize."
"Never mind. Oh, there is one problem."
"Like what?"
"The kitchen faucet acts like a nose with a cold."
He grimaced. "Seems like it hasn't been anytime since I put new seals in it."
"Shall I ask Will if he'll come over and fix it?"
"I hate to bother him, but I guess you should. It'll only get worse if you don't. Tell Will I'll owe him one."
"He'll love that," she said with a chuckle.
It was true. Will Arnold liked everyone to be in his debt. He should have been a banker, Burke thought. The difference was that Will resisted being paid back. Burke was determined to make up for any favors when he got home, though right now that seemed a long way off. It also paled to insignificance when matched against the task that awaited him here, a task he had hardly begun to face as yet.
That led to the crucial question nobody had dared to ask. Just how much time did he have? Thinking about the information he had gleaned from briefings and reports, it was clear the Koreans would have several years of hard work ahead if they had just started an effort to go nuclear. But, obviously, that was not the case. What could only be guessed at was how much know-how they had accumulated back in the seventies and how long they may have been secretly preparing for the current all-out effort. Was there a ticking time bomb hanging over HANGOVER?
Chapter 27
"If you have such convincing evidence of who murdered Yang Jong-koo and Yi In-wha, bring it to me and let's get a warrant for his arrest." Prosecutor Park's voice sounded as caustic as lye.
Captain Yun held the phone away from his head to prevent damage to his eardrum. He knew it was dangerous to call Park first thing in the morning. If he'd been partying half the night, he'd roar like the bear he resembled. Apparently there had been some sort of drinking bout.
"I need no arrest warrant at the moment," Yun said. "I have to locate him first."
"Put out an all-points bulletin. Send his picture to every damned police station in the country."
"It isn't that simple. The man is a highly skilled assassin. He's a man of many disguises. He isn't—"
"You identified him, didn't you?"
"Yes, but through my most knowledgable informer," Yun said, knowing he had to maintain his patience. He did not want to stir any more of Park's ire than was already obvious. He was trying to buy time. "Now he has killed my informer, leaving me with no further link to him."
"Captain Yun," said the prosecutor, the sound of his breath exhaling like a windstorm over the phone, "I am assured you are a highly skilled investigator."
Yun caught the irony in having his words thrown back at him. "I do my best, sir."
"Then find your damned assassin and let's get these cases closed out."
"I have set a trap which I hope will snare him by this weekend. It's a gamble, however, and may not work. It depends on how much he learned about me before he killed my informer."
"And if it doesn't work?"
Yun stared at the pile of papers on his desk. The only other recourse he could see at the moment would be to ask the help of the NSP. As much as he hated to admit it, it just might come down to that. "I have one more avenue to pursue, which we can discuss at that time."
"Call me." Park's voice was a growl, followed by the slamming of his phone.
The Captain's eyes swept the stacks of material on the desk. One contained what he called the "conspiracy" file. Another held the evidence gathered on Mr. Chon's murder. A smaller one was marked "Dr. Lee." He took out his note pad, ripped out the pages of information he had copied from the old Chosun Ilbo files at the Seoul National University Library yesterday afternoon and put them in the "conspiracy" folder.
He had found several short items about the Vengeance guerillas starting in 1942, plus a much longer account in August of 1945, which detailed the slaying of two members of the "bandit gang." Obviously the Japanese had forbidden publication of most of the group's activities. The stories he found dealt only with assassination of Koreans, probably collaborators, Yun thought, and raids on Japanese installations that had not been entirely successful. The final item, just before the bombing of Hiroshima, listed the names of the two who were killed at a Taejon post office and reported two men remained at large. One was the leader of the group identified as Young Tiger Lee, obviously not his real name. The hangul characters for poksu bordered by a square appeared with one of the articles. It was identical to the symbol in his file.
What was the tie-in? The most likely explanation was that Hwang Sang-sol had copied the symbol to use for his own purposes. But where did he find out about it? And if that were the case, why hadn't he used it with Yi In-wha and Mr. Chon? Why only the hotelman, Yang Jong-koo, chairman of the Korean-American Cooperation Association? Could it really relate to the Vengeance guerrillas of the forties? If he could only come up with some way to identify those last two members of the team.
He pushed the overstuffed folder aside and opened the file on Dr. Lee. The son had appeared genuinely distraught over the professor's death. Captain Yun had questioned the ajumma-tul separately and was assured by both that the young man had revered his father. He had a well-paying job with a good company. No apparent financial problems. Yun could detect no possible motive for him to have wanted his father dead.
The missing coin display was quite valuable, containing more than a dozen rare gold Russian rubles from just after the turn of the century.
They bore the likeness of Czar Nicholas II on one side and were in uncirculated mint condition. They had been obtained many years ago by Dr. Lee's grandfather, a large landowner, in a sale to a representative of the Czar. They were a part of history, made rare by the communists' diligence in obliterating anything with a link to the czars. The Soviets had melted all they could find into bars of bullion. Being a history professor, Dr. Lee thought they should be on display rather than hidden away in a bank vault. He had made no secret of their existence. As a result, many people had knowledge of the framed coins. Since they would have passed to the son anyway, there was no reason for him to take them.
Sergeant Kim and Patrolman Han had found no obvious clues on the premises and the task force's questioning of neighbors had turned up but one interesting fact. A man returning home early that morning had noticed a car parked beside the wall of Dr. Lee's compound. It had sat beneath a limb from a tree inside that overhung the wall. Because of the darkness, the witness was not certain what kind of car. He thought it might have been a Pony cab. It was not seen after daylight. When they looked around the tree, they found evidence of small broken twigs, possibly done by someone crawling onto the limb and dropping to the ground. No footprints showed on the hard ground. It was the dry season.
Though the identification had been far from certain, Yun had his people check all of the taxi companies. It turned up no runs to that area beween midnight and dawn. There was one report of a taxi inexplicably out of service during the early morning hours. The company had finally located it parked on the west side of town, the driver unconscious, smelling like a brewery, empty liquor bottles on the floor. Drinking had been a perennial problem among many of Seoul's 35,000 cab drivers. Captain Yun had called the man's home to talk to him, but his wife said he was nursing a major league hangover, had taken a strong sedative and was out again. It was not terribly surprising, considering the taxi company worked its drivers on twenty-four-hour shifts. By the end of a shift, they might be expected to do most anything. Yun knew that pursuing it further would be taking a ridiculously long shot and likely a waste of time.