Jerry put an arm around her shoulders and she snuggled closer. He felt like a schoolboy again, unable to think of anything to say that wouldn't sound inane. And then he realized that feelings could be communicated by touch as well, if not better, than by words.
He tilted her face toward him and kissed her. Tentative at first, then more passionate as she threw her arms around him. They clung to each other as though fearful that the magic of the moment might suddenly dissolve into nothingness.
At around 9:30, Jerry reluctantly told her he had to meet Burke in the office at ten.
"But don't go away," he said. "Stay right here. I'll be back as soon as I can."
She promised to be there when he returned. Actually, Jerry, like so many men in pursuit of countless women before him, had unknowingly moved at the precise pace that Song Ji-young had set for him.
Chapter 42
Nate Highsmith noted that Toni Carlucci had, with her usual efficiency, changed his desk calendar to December. Since she had yet to arrive this morning, obviously she had done it before leaving the night before. He had returned late from a speaking engagement in Chicago, driving home directly from the airport. He stood by the windows looking out over Sixteenth Street, watching as the brisk wind whipped the flags furiously in front of a building across the way. The leaden sky hung above the city as an opaque gray curtain. With the weekend coming up and the temperature expected to hover around the freezing mark, he thought it would be a good time to relax at home by the fireplace and read. He had a biography of General Douglas MacArthur he had been intending to get into. With this HANGOVER operation moving toward the critical stage, it seemed a good time to review the old general's perspective on Korea.
The ring of the telephone interrupted his thoughts. It was his direct line, the one used by the few people who possessed the number to reach him outside normal office hours.
He answered it with a clipped, "Hello."
"Morning, Nate. It's the Burke and Jerry show."
He recognized Burke Hill's droll voice and replied with an equally flippant, "Isn't it a little early for a double feature?" Then he added, a bit more businesslike, "I presume this is a 'Sierra' call?"
"Correct," Burke said, and gave him the scrambler code.
With the designated floppy mounted and the scrambler activated, Nate asked, "Did you locate your man, Jerry? Burke told me about him yesterday."
"Yes, sir. And I got a real earful."
"You'd better get ready to call Kingsley Marshall and General Thatcher," Burke broke in. "I'm afraid it's about to hit the fan."
Nate didn't like the sound of it. "Fill me in, Jerry."
After Jerry Chan had given a blow by blow description of his meeting with Dr. Shin Man-ki, there was a long pause while Nate digested what he had heard. He agreed completely with Burke's assessment. Marshall and General Thatcher would be his first two calls of the day.
"I'll see what Kingsley and the General want to do about Dr. Shin," he said. "My recommendation would be to get him out of there as soon as possible. As easy as you found him, Jerry, I'd think the NSP could nail him pretty quickly. Surely they have that temple at Kyongju bugged or wiretapped by now."
"It wasn't really as easy as it sounded, Mr. Highsmith. Moon Chwa, who called himself the temple PR man, is a pretty sharp character. He's either been around the intelligence business or read a lot of spy novels. He said he had established my bona fides."
"I can confirm that," Burke said. "He called here to check on you."
"I got the impression he didn't make his phone calls from the temple," Jerry continued. "My guess is he went down the road to some place like the Kolon Hotel, or the Kyongju Youth Hostel. He had me walk with him across the courtyard when we talked about Dr. Shin."
"Let's hope you're right. But I wouldn't count on him being able to ward off the bad guys for too long," Nate said. After a thoughtful pause, he added, "This may take me awhile. There's no point in you guys staying around there half the night. Since Jerry doesn't have a scrambler at home, I'll call you at the hotel when I have something, Burke."
As soon as he got off the phone to Korea, Nathaniel Highsmith called Langley. Kingsley Marshall was getting ready for his morning briefing.
"I just talked to Seoul," Nate told him. "We have definite confirmation on the nuclear program. It appears worse than what we had imagined."
"Worse? In what way?"
"They should be ready to test a weapon by the first of January."
"Stay on the line, Nate," Marshall said, "while I put through a call to the White House."
Nate checked his watch, then gazed out the windows as he waited. The sky was becoming a steadily darkening gray. The forecast was for possible snow, and it looked like the possibilities were improving by the minute. At the sound of a knock on his door, he barked, "Come in!"
Toni stuck her head in, saw the phone at his ear and gave a loud, hoarse whisper while making a drinking gesture, "Coffee?"
"I'm holding for Kingsley," he said. "Bring me a cup, please."
She had just set the coffee on his desk when the CIA Director came back on the line.
"We have an appointment in the Oval Office at 10:30. Come in the back way so you'll avoid the press."
It was spitting snow on the White House lawn. If there was ever a morning to sit by a crackling fire in the marble-sided fireplace of the Oval Office, this was it. The President had agreed to a meeting instantly on getting General Thatcher's brief report. He wanted to hear all the details from the horse's mouth, and that meant inviting Nathaniel Highsmith. Ever since the inception of HANGOVER a little more than two months ago, the President had dreaded the day when his worst fears would be confirmed. He greeted the three men and invited them to take the high-backed chairs arranged in a semicircle around the warm glow from the fireplace.
"This gives the serious business of the country a little homey touch," the President said with a thin smile. "You want to kick off the discussion, Kingsley?"
"Thank you, sir. I'll let Nate handle the news from Seoul. Before he gets into that, though, our latest satellite sweeps picked up what the analysts say is definitely a new missile. It was at the South Korean training site we've been keeping an eye on. They literally had it under wraps. We hit it lucky with a real strong wind, though. It blew the canvas or nylon or whatever so tightly against the bird that we were able to make some pretty accurate measurements. That showed it's not a missile we've seen before."
"How large?" the President asked.
"Equivalent to our Tomahawk. It would accommodate a good-sized nuclear warhead."
The President scowled. "What the hell are they up to?"
Marshall looked around. "Nate?"
"That's the one question we haven't answered yet," Highsmith said. "But there's no doubt left that Israel, among others, furnished them enough fissile material, equipment and technology to put together their first bomb. It's to be ready for testing January first."
The President leaned forward and stared into the flames. Funny, he thought, how one fire can be so soothing and peaceful, while another, touched off by a small ball of enriched uranium, held the prospects for a cataclysm. "What's your proof, Mr. Highsmith?"
"My people made contact with a dissident physicist who's been working on the project. They're using a plant hidden beneath Mt. Chuwangsan. He says they have everything in place to start a weapons production line."
"What did you mean by 'Israel, among others?'"
"It looks like we contributed indirectly," Nate said and explained about the reported presence of American-trained scientists.
The President pushed his lanky frame up from the chair, took a step toward the fireplace, then turned to face his visitors, holding his hands behind him to savor the warmth of the fire. He could only sit for so long while troubling thoughts tumbled through his mind. He was not a static person. Given the choice, he would always take movement, action. When it came to recreation, he preferred the outdoor variety. He liked to roam the woods at Camp David, work up a good sweat on the tennis court or wrestle with the tiller of a sailboat. Standing, he felt better already. It got the juices flowing.