Jerry saw no sign of activity about the place and first thought it had been abandoned. He parked his car in a clump of tall oaks at the side of the road and climbed out, only to be greeted by an inhospitable blast of frigid air. With the increase in altitude had come a considerable decrease in temperature. He made his way up the steep stone steps, taking his time with the taxing climb that led to a closed gate in the high compound wall. Despite the exertion, he felt no lessening of the sting from the sharp wind that wrapped itself around him like the coiled lash of a bull whip.
A small bell hung beside the gate and he rang it briskly. Moments later the wooden barrier swung open to reveal a thin monk of uncertain age. Possibly fifties, Jerry speculated after a closer look. The monk beckoned him into the bare, brown dirt courtyard which was flanked by Hongsansa's weathered buildings. It was obviously a much simpler, more earthy shrine than Pulguksa.
"Mr. Chan?" the heavily robed man inquired.
"Yes. I'm here to see Dr. Shin."
The monk escorted him to a smaller building away from the main prayer hall, where he was ushered into a small, spare room. A stocky man with thin white hair and a wisp of chin whiskers sat behind a simple wood table. An open book, a pen and several sheets of paper were spread before him. Recalling stories of remote monasteries where monks had kept the flame of knowledge burning during the Middle Ages, Jerry could imagine the scientist as an ancient scholar bent on preserving the wisdom of the centuries. He rose to his feet, intense gray eyes considering Jerry with the wary look of a man haunted by the risk of betrayal.
"I'm Jerry Chan," Jerry said with a head bow and an outstretched hand.
"Dr. Shin Man-ki," said the stocky man, accepting the handshake. "I'm sorry you had such difficulty locating me, but you aren't the only one who's been looking. I'm afraid the others didn't have my best interests in mind."
"You certainly found an obscure enough hiding place," Jerry said, looking around. "I hope I haven't compromised it for you."
A quick shake of Dr. Shin's head dismissed the thought. "My friends would have warned me if you had been followed. Please have a seat and tell me about this Coalition for Nuclear Freedom."
Jerry took the lone straightback chair that sat next to the desk and was promptly served the customary welcoming cup of tea. Walnut flavored, it provided a pleasant change, though its warmth was its most welcome quality.
"The Coalition is a group of organizations concerned with lessening the threat of nuclear catastrophe," Jerry said, citing the story he had concocted earlier. There were any number of anti-nuclear groups, of course, though each had its own agenda and would not likely be happy operating under a single umbrella. But coalitions had proved quite effective in the lobbying arena where a single problem cut across various lines of endeavor. It was not so far-fetched an idea, and Jerry made it sound quite plausible. "The organization gets letters from around the world, people reporting activities they believe pose a threat to peace and stability. Someone here wrote about suspicious developments at the Reijeo Chuwangsan Plant. The letter said a scientist named Dr. Shin had been fired for his objections."
Dr. Shin took a swallow of tea, then twirled the cup between his fingers. "Must have been someone from the plant. I know several others who feel as I do, though for whatever reasons, they haven't chosen to leave their jobs. I attempted to change things, of course, to no avail."
"What's going on at Chuwangsan?"
In an emotional voice, a bit louder than intended, he blurted, "They're building atomic weapons!"
Jerry stared across in genuine alarm. The statement was only verification of what he and the others had suspected, but the stark, unambiguous way Dr. Shin put it highlighted the depths of its potential for tragedy. "You mean they're building weapons now?"
"The goal was to have a device ready for testing by January first. Other weapons could be ready at any time after that."
"You know this for an absolute fact?" Jerry realized that some unspoken longing inside him had been secretly hoping all of this was just the result of some monstrous coincidence.
"I'm positive. I was a member of the team from the very start."
Punctuating his words with animated gestures that helped vent his frustration, Dr. Shin described the plot from its inception. A nuclear physicist, he had been recruited in the eighties as part of a group chosen to put together a new study on what would be necessary for the Republic of Korea to aquire an atomic arsenal. It came at a time of heightened tension between Pyongyang and Seoul. It was also a time of periodic defense-bashing in the U.S. Congress, with senators and representatives from budget subcommittees hot on the junket trail to South Korea, issuing provocative statements about the pressing need for troop cuts. The Soviet Union was funneling a steady supply of improved weapons into North Korea, and an eventual nuclear capability for the highly militarized communist regime had to be considered a probability.
"We knew there was nothing we could do to alleviate the immediate threat," Dr. Shin explained. He spread his hands to illustrate an ever widening gap. "Nuclear programs by their very nature are stretched out, long range programs. Nobody really thought the Americans would pull out then, but we believed the time would surely come, and we'd have to be ready."
At the time, Shin Man-ki was in his middle forties, in the prime of his career as a researcher in the field of nuclear science. His particular area of interest was nuclear medicine. With his father a respected physician in Seoul, he grew up in a household where nothing was considered more vital than the effort to cure the illnesses that plagued mankind. The younger Shin had decided to pursue a career in research rather than follow his father's footsteps through medical school in the belief that it would allow him to multiply the impact of his work.
The ink was hardly dry on his PhD from Seoul National University when he was hired by Reijeo's Special Projects Division. He was assigned to work on a number of projects dealing with the health aspects of nuclear radiation. The director of his laboratory, a Dr. Jong, had attended graduate school in the United States and had several classmates, also close friends, involved in the American nuclear weapons program. The subject fascinated Jong and he had studied all the available open literature. Impressed with young Shin's knowledge and ability, Jong had used him as a sounding board for his theories and conjectures on the design and production of nuclear weapons.
"When Dr. Jong was chosen to head the study group back in the eighties," Shin recalled, "he naturally wanted me to be a part of it. I had always considered nuclear weapons barbaric, although I enjoyed the theoretical discussions. It was a difficult decision to take a part in the project, but the director was very persuasive. He convinced me that our country's survival was at stake."
While Jerry listened in silence, peripherally aware of the nearby sound of a moktak, the wooden clapper used to accompany the chanting of sutras, he became increasingly restless. As intriguing as Shin's tale had become, the answers the White House sought remained as nebulous as a hwadu, the simple but pointless questions Buddhist monks pondered during periods of meditation. Jerry had read of a noted Korean Zen master who had once meditated on the hwadu "No!" while walled up in a tiny cell for eighteen months.