Fires of War (33 page)

Dropping the name of the most notorious Russian black-market arms dealer in Asia of the past decade didn’t hurt either. Ajaeng didn’t know it, but if Park had truly been interested in the weapons March 1 had tried to obtain, he or his people surely would.

Dechlov had been one of the most successful black-market arms dealers in Asia and the Middle East until just two years before, when an operation run by Ferguson rolled him up.

Literally.

The Russian mobsters who thought he had double-crossed them decapitated his body and rolled the torso in an Iranian rug. A few weeks later it turned up in Tehran. It wasn’t entirely clear what had happened to his head; Ferguson’s bet was that it had been served to pigs at a dacha on the Black Sea.

Dechlov’s demise had never been reported or acknowledged by Western or Russian security forces, and he was well known in all the wrong circles throughout Asia and the Middle East.

Sure enough, within two hours of Ferguson’s arrival at the hotel, the front desk phoned to say that a man wanted to meet with him.

The man was dressed in a tan suit and stood iron-spine straight in the middle of the lobby when Ferguson emerged from the elevator. Ferguson greeted him as Ivan Manski; the man bowed very formally and presented a business card. Ferguson took it with both hands, spewing in Russian that he was very pleased to meet Mr. Li. To his surprise, Li responded in very good Russian that the pleasure was his.

Li told him that they had many mutual acquaintances, though he mentioned none of them by name. Ferguson was very happy to hear this, and suggested that they discuss these friendships in the hotel bar nearby.

For the next forty minutes, Li quizzed Ferguson on his bona fides, dropping a variety of names, including several that Ferguson had never heard of and guessed were phony, though he answered diplomatically that the earth was a big place and it was impossible to know everyone worth knowing on it. The men Li mentioned ranged from the Russian defense minister, whom Ferguson had actually met in his cover identity, to a shady Chinese soldier of fortune whom he knew only by reputation, a fact he admitted.

At last satisfied, Li told him that he had come because his employer was interested in meeting him.

“And your employer would be who?” Ferguson asked.

“Park Jin Tae, of course.” ’

“Of course,” said Ferguson, lifting his glass.

~ * ~

12

ABOARD THE USS
PELELIU
, IN THE YELLOW SEA

Thera hopped out of the helicopter and trotted head down toward the assault ship’s island, following the lead of a sailor who’d come to escort her. The man clamped his hand onto her forearm and wouldn’t let go until they were at the side of the ship. Annoyed, she flicked her arm and finally got rid of his hand just as Rankin appeared from the nearby door.

“Hey,” said Rankin.

“Hey, yourself. What’s up?”

“We have a situation with your guy. Come on downstairs.”

Thera followed through a maze of hallways. Rankin, abrupt and taciturn as always, didn’t bother to introduce the two men escorting them.

It seemed funny to Thera that Rankin and Ferguson worked together. They were almost exact opposites: Ferg always talking everyone up, BSing with them, and busting; Rankin typically as talkative as stone. It wasn’t surprising that they didn’t get along, but what amazed Thera was that Ferguson, who could have anyone on the team he wanted, chose someone whom he didn’t like.

Did that mean Ferguson always tried to choose the best, or that he just liked conflict?

Rankin turned the corner and entered a small compartment that would have made a good broom closet on land. The two sailors stayed behind as Thera entered.

“They tell you what the deal was?” Rankin asked.

Thera shook her head. “They didn’t tell me anything except that you needed me here. My mother supposedly died in Greece. I’ve been traveling ever since.”

“We picked the scientist up the night you took off from Korea. He was soaked, cold, but OK. Told me his name, that he was involved in nuke research, like that. Now he won’t talk. His brain’s frozen or something.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Thera’s question took Rankin by surprise. “You know him, right?” he told her. “Maybe he’ll talk to you.”

“He thinks I’m a secretary. He gave me cigarettes.”

“Yeah, OK. Go with it.”

“I’ll try talking to him, but if there’s something wrong with him, I don’t know that I can help.”

Rankin couldn’t understand why Thera didn’t understand what she had to do. It seemed pretty straightforward to him.

“Physically he’s fine,” he repeated. “It’s gotta be some sort of stress thing. Take a shot.”

~ * ~

h’o lay on his back, his mind completely blank. He neither thought nor felt anything, floating in a gray swirl beyond emotion or intellect.

Gradually, he became aware of a buzz at the side of the room, a swirling noise that he couldn’t comprehend. He turned his head slowly. A face appeared from a white cloud, a face he knew was familiar, though he couldn’t precisely place it.

The face spoke.

“Dr. Ch’o. Are you OK?”

The voice was foreign and yet familiar. Ch’o struggled but could not recognize it.

“Dr. Ch’o, are you OK?” repeated the voice, a woman’s voice, a gentle, friendly voice.

It spoke English. Did he know English?

“I wanted to thank you for the cigarettes,” said Thera.

She got down on her knees and took hold of the scientist’s hand, as if she were a supplicant.

“I can help you if you need help,” she told him. “These people are good. They’ve sent for a doctor to help you.”

Ch’o pursed his lips. The voice was extremely familiar, yet he couldn’t quite make the connection. He closed his eyes.

Thera stayed on her knees for nearly ten minutes. Ch’o seemed to be sleeping, though she couldn’t be sure. Finally she decided it would be best to let him rest.

“I’ll be back,” she said, rising.

Rankin met her outside.

“Well?”

Thera shrugged. “Got any cigarettes?”

“Cigarettes?”

“Yeah.”

“You smoke?”

“It was part of the cover. He gave me a pack. Maybe it’ll make a connection.”

“Let’s see if we can find some.”

~ * ~

13

DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA

The sedan—a Mercedes, though not the same one that Park used—arrived at the hotel for Ferguson at precisely eight-thirty. The driver spoke no Russian and didn’t appear to know English. After making sure that “Mr. Manski” was in the vehicle, he took his seat behind the steering wheel and silently began to drive through the city.

Ferguson had pretended to be an arms dealer so often—sometimes Russian, sometimes as a former member of the IRA—that the role was part of his personality, no more foreign than the doting nephew he might become when visiting one of his great aunts. He could do it in his sleep, or at least in bed, and in fact had.

The problem with this, though, was that often his thoughts tended to wander, his mind drifting from the very real dangers of his covert job to other things, some trivial, others not. Looking out the window at the well-lit city, he saw a massive crane in a cramped, tiny alley and wondered how it had been positioned there. He also thought of the cancer count and the fact that his body was gradually turning against him.

How would he go out? Die of thirst in a hospital bed? Plug himself with a Glock or a PK pistol when the end was in sight?

Maybe that had been Kang Hwan’s problem; maybe he’d chosen to hang himself rather than drain away. Working around radioactive materials could cause any number of cancers, including thyroid cancer.

The doctors talked in percentages, possibilities, never in absolutes. Ninety percent chance of survival.

Which was great, unless you were in the ten percent that didn’t make it.

Fifty-fifty chance of one-year survival.

Twenty-two percent possibility of breathing the fresh air of Maine two Christmases from now.

Was it twenty-two or eighteen? Thirteen?

Was the air fresh in Maine anymore?

The car whisked up the driveway of the Daejeon Science & Arts University, where Park was due to attend a gala reception announcing the construction of a new physics laboratory. Work had already begun on the building: Dump trucks and bulldozers and cranes were lined up in the lot. Ferguson looked at them, then saw the sign announcing the project. The main words were in Korean and English: “Home of a new nuclear research reactor.”

Had the reactor been built already, the dots would have connected perfectly.

“Whoa,” said Ferguson, spotting a pair of trucks in the parking lot. They were the same type he’d seen at the waste-processing area and at Science Industries.

Ferguson leaned forward and tapped on the driver’s shoulder.

“That lot,” he said in English. “Can you go there?”

The man gave him an odd look.

“Jeogi,
” he told him, pointing. “There.”

The man replied in Korean that the reception was in the main administrative building, dead ahead.

Ferguson waved his hand and settled back, telling him to never mind.

Mr. Li was waiting at the door with two large bodyguard types behind him. Their black suits blended into the night.

“I am very glad you made it,” said Li in Russian as Ferguson climbed the concrete steps.

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“I have to ask—”

“Yes, of course,” said Ferguson. He reached beneath his jacket and pulled out the two Clocks he was carrying—what was a Russian arms dealer without weapons?

Li turned to one of the bodyguards, who took the weapons.

Ferguson saw a gun detector in the foyer. “You want this, too,” he told Li, reaching down and taking the last Glock from the holster near his ankle.

“More?” asked Li, looking at the other leg.

“I dress very light in Korea. A very civilized country.”

“Thank you very much,” said Mr. Li, handing over the gun to one of the guards.

“My pleasure.”

Inside, they took an elevator to the top floor. The reception was already in full swing. Guests, the majority of whom were male and over the age of sixty, milled around a large ballroom, replete with crystal chandeliers and a floor so polished Ferguson could see his reflection.

“Dance a big major here?” Ferguson asked Li as they made their way toward the bar area.

“The room is often used for receptions.”

“I can see why.”

“Mr. Park paid for its construction.”

“Generous man.”