But even if they got Dr. Shin out, would the bluff work at the Blue House? He wished he knew more about President Kwak Sung-kyo. It would be interesting to meet him. With only a couple of weeks to go, however, that wasn't likely.
He dialed Duane Elliston's room and set the rescue in motion.
Outwardly, it was a normal day at the Worldwide office. Jerry mentioned casually that Duane Elliston was taking a day off. The new Korean writer, An Kye-sun, reported for work. He was a sharp-eyed young bundle of energy with a squat frame, a cocky smile and a bushy head of black hair. His walk was more like a strut. He reminded Burke of a bantam rooster. Jerry gave him his briefing, got his signature on the employment agreement and Travis Tolliver began going over the office routine.
Burke and Jerry attempted to give the appearance of normality, though neither left the office for any reason. A close observer would have detected an undercurrent of unspoken tension, a tendency to listen expectantly with each ring of the phone.
Just before lunchtime, an air freight courier delivered a package from Washington. Burke knew before the secretary opened it that it would contain the manuscript from Dr. Cabot Lowing. Nate had told him to expect it. Miss Song brought the box and sat it on his desk.
"It looks like you have lots of reading to do, Mr. Hill."
He gave her a perfunctory grin. "Yeah. Ought to keep me out of trouble this weekend."
Besides the fact that he was anxious to find out what the manuscript was all about, he was happy it had arrived now to take his mind off the wait to hear from Duane. He didn't really anticipate any problems, but a lot was riding on this deal.
Dr. Shin Man-ki sat at his table in the spare room at the Hongsansa Temple, pen in hand. The wind had taken a calmer turn outside, but the snow still lay in deep chalky drifts, and a thick gray mass hid the sun. Dr. Shin was not pleased with his efforts to transfer his thoughts onto the sheets of paper in front of him. He had made several starts that morning, then crossed out what he had written. His presentation needed to paint a precise picture when the Coalition for Nuclear Freedom presented him to the international press. One of the monks had offered to bring his lunch, but hunger was the farthest thing from his mind.
He sipped at a cup of tea and turned back to the paper. The single light bulb that illuminated the room winked out, leaving the table half-shrouded in darkness.
The physicist rose from the chair and walked to the window. He saw two heavily-jacketed men heading for a small building across the compound. It was the location of the generator that supplied power to the temple area. On an earlier occasion, someone had let the machine run out of fuel, but the supply had been restocked.
After some twenty minutes, a sober-faced young monk entered his room and bowed. "The generator won't start," he said.
"Has someone been called to repair it?" Dr. Shin asked. "I suppose I'll have to use the lantern."
"We can't call. The radio won't work without electricity."
"Don't you have someone familiar with the workings of a generator?"
The monk nodded. "A mechanic is looking into it."
"Let me know what he finds," Dr. Shin said and watched the young man slog out through the snow.
He took an oil lantern off a shelf, lit it, and placed it on the table. As he took his seat, he began to wonder. With the radio silent, he was out of touch with his protector, Moon Chwa. Moon was to let him know about plans to effect his escape from the country.
He moved back to the window, hoping to see some activity that might indicate success with the generator. He saw no lights around the compound.
After another agonizing fifteen minutes, the young monk hurried through the snow back toward Dr. Shin's building. Shin opened the door and motioned the heavily-breathing man inside.
"What have you learned?" he asked.
The monk's eyes narrowed. "He thinks someone has contaminated the fuel, poured something into the tank. It could have been done an hour or so ago and just now reached the engine."
Dr. Shin had closed the door, but he felt a chill course through his body as though the door stood wide open. "Did he see any indication that someone had been in there?"
"He said it looked like someone had swept the snow in back to cover their tracks."
The nuclear scientist dropped into his chair and lowered his head, a hand clasped around his forehead. The meaning was clear. Agents of the NSP had infiltrated the compound to cut off any contact with the outside. There was only one way out, down the narrow mountain road. He was trapped.
Burke had started reading the manuscript, which contained the byline of Dr. Yo Ku Lee (they had Americanized his name) and Dr. Cabot Lowing, as soon as he opened the box. He was immediately caught up in the account of the Koreans, mostly from the northern part of the country, who had joined with their expatriate countrymen in Manchuria in the thirties to fight the hated Japanese. They had linked up with Chinese communists to form something called the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. He read on about how a Korean communist from the Pyongyang area had changed his name to Kim Il-sung and became one of the partisan leaders.
He was so absorbed in the story that he failed to notice the call that came in around 1:30. It wasn't until his phone rang and he heard the excited voice of Jerry Chan that he realized what was happening.
"Burke, I've got Duane on the line. You want to come in my office?"
"Be right there," he said.
He closed the door behind him and looked expectantly at Jerry. "Did he find Dr. Shin?"
Jerry shook his head and held his hand over the mouthpiece. "It doesn't look good," he said grimly. Then, into the phone, "Let me put Burke on."
Burke perched on the corner of Jerry's desk and took the phone. "What happened, Duane?"
Although the likelihood of a telephone intercept appeared rather remote, they had agreed on some code words, including "manuscript" to refer to Dr. Shin. "I didn't get to see the manuscript," Duane said, using an imaginative metaphor. "Somebody may have beaten me to it. In fact, I wasn't even able to get to the temple."
"How come?"
"I must have been a quarter of a mile away when I was stopped by a roadblock."
"A roadblock? Manned by who?"
"ROK Army Special Forces. I explained I was on my way to Hongsansa looking for a rare Buddhist manuscript, but the soldier said it was temporarily closed, I'd have to come back some other time."
"Did he say why it was closed?"
"His English wasn't too good, but I gathered they had the place surrounded. He mentioned something about a search for somebody. While I was talking to him, a civilian came up and began to quiz me about who I was and what I was doing there. After I told him, he said I'd better get back down the mountain. Under the circumstances, I didn't argue with him."
That was an unusual reaction for Duane, Burke thought. The civilian was probably an NSP agent. They must have surrounded the place with Special Forces troops and sent the NSP in after Dr. Shin. Damn! If that was the case, it really screwed up the works. "Where are you now?"
"I drove down to Andong. Should I wait awhile and try again?"
"Give me the phone number there and then standby while we see what we can find out."
When Burke had hung up the phone, Jerry leaned back in his chair, his brows knitted. "Do you think they got Dr. Shin?"
"I'd say the odds were pretty damned good. How about calling your friend Moon Chwa and see if he knows anything about it."
Jerry dialed the Pulguksa number and asked that Moon Chwa call him back. It was fifteen agonizing minutes later when the call was returned.