CHAPTER 45

The Secretary of State chose that moment to stride purposefully out the entrance of the Blue House and begin walking between the ceremonial files of soldiers toward his car.

Whoever planned this thing had an exquisite sense of timing, not to mention a thorough knowledge of South Korean crowd-control methods. Because there’d been no application to the city authorities for this protest, only a small contingent of blue-suited crowd-control troops were on hand.

A platoon, thirty or so men, was loitering by a gray bus. They weren’t expecting trouble, so they didn’t have on their riot gear. Most were hunched over small stoves, cooking rice or noodles and preparing to eat.

Maybe ten uniformed policemen were present – a token force – because the folks crowded around the Blue House were all supposed to be friendly. Then there was the honor guard whose job it was to make a snazzy cordon for the Secretary of State to pass through on his way to the car. They had rifles, but it was doubtful those had ammunition.

The thing that became instantly apparent was that nobody had planned for this. There was no central, controlling authority capable of organizing an orderly response to the unfolding situation. I could see the leader of the blue-suited troops screaming at his men to get their riot gear on and get in line, even as he was yelling into a radio, probably calling for reinforcements. It was a hopeless gesture. Nobody could get here in time.

The army guard did what ceremonial troops normally do. They stayed stiffly in their cordon and held their rifles at the salute position for the distinguished man walking between them.

Suddenly the crowd of rioters lunged forward and began running pell-mell down the block toward the Blue House. They hurtled straight into the crowd of peaceful gatherers and reporters, shoving people aside and carrying others along with their speed and mass. They were yelling and screaming and waving their placards and protest signs in the air. At the same instant, the small group of kids in blue suits rushed out to meet them. They carried their helmets and shields and batons in their hands, in a breathtakingly valiant effort to throw themselves between the crowd and the diplomatic party.

The Secretary’s security detail had a split second to decide. They could turn the Secretary around and shove him back inside the Blue House. Or they could push him forward, toward the bulletproof black sedan waiting at the curb. The car door was being held open by a South Korean soldier. The car was closer.

It did look like the best choice at the time. They literally lifted him off his feet, and began carrying him forward, when suddenly the natty-looking soldier holding the car door flew forward and the door slammed shut. The soldier lay flat on the ground, like he’d been nailed on the back of the skull with a blackjack, or, considering this was Asia, a nunchaku.

At moments like this, a fraction of a second means everything. And I’ll give the Secretary’s security guys credit. They instantly threw him on the ground and two of them piled themselves on top of him, while the other two drew their pistols and turned about and faced the crowd. They instinctively recognized the situation was out of control, and we had warned them there was a grave risk, so they weren’t taking any chances.

Buzz Mercer and I were running toward the Secretary of State when we heard the first loud bang, even over the noise of the crowd, and one of the Secretary’s security men flew backward with a big spray of blood spewing from his head. Then Bang! The other standing security guard grabbed his gut, sank to his knees, and fell over.

Then Bang! Bang! Bang! – three more shots were fired. But by this time, Carol and I were there. So were seven or eight South Korean uniformed policemen with their pistols drawn.

You sometimes wonder about the difference two seconds would make. Or what would’ve happened if Clapper hadn’t called and woken me up. Or if I hadn’t been so bored that I’d been channel-surfing through Korean newscasts. Things would’ve turned out quite differently, because I was probably the only guy in the crowd who would’ve recognized him and the threat he posed.

He was holding up his police shield and pointing his pistol, and you could’ve sworn he had every right to be there, that he was just doing his job. He even had the proper security pass pinned to his lapel.

Choi Lee Min, experienced policeman that he was, blended right in with the other cops.

I ended up right next to him. I looked at him, and he turned his head and saw me, and there was one of those shocked milliseconds that seem to last forever.

Then he spun his body to shoot me, and despite all those years of hand-to-hand training I’d had in the outfit, I knew in that instant I didn’t stand a chance. I saw the pistol aimed at my stomach and I instinctively knew that no matter how fast I moved, it wouldn’t be fast enough.

But before he could pull the trigger a hand crashed down on his forearm and knocked the weapon loose. It landed on the cement at his feet and we both turned to see who’d smacked him. Allie stood right next to him, glaring at his face.

Choi’s eyes turned to the ground; just as he started to bend over to retrieve his pistol, Allie threw her stiffened fingers straight into his throat. An explosion of pain must have raced through his synapses. She’d hit him hard. She’d meant to. She’d driven his Adam’s apple right into his larynx, like a nail jabbed into a balloon. His head drove forward and a sickening gurgling, choking sound came from his mouth. He buckled to his knees and his hands flew to his throat, trying to get some air into his lungs.

I threw myself down on the ground and scrambled around for his pistol. In one way, that proved to be the right thing to do. But in another way, it wasn’t.

Because here’s what happened: I looked up just in time to see a Korean rioter pushing his way through the crowd. In his hand I saw a black metal ball that an experienced soldier like me would recognize immediately as a hand grenade.

He was so close that even with my awful marksmanship I couldn’t miss. I didn’t even think. I just picked up the pistol and shot him. Right in the forehead. And since I was firing up from the ground, the bullet lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backward.

Then there were two loud booms. The first was not nearly as noisy as the second. In fact, it was hardly more than a quick pop. I mean, it sounded loud to me, but that first one was only a pistol shot. The second boom was the one that got everybody’s attention. It was so loud it was deafening. That was the hand grenade going off in the middle of the crowd.

Here’s what they figured out later. Choi had gotten his security pass from Harry Elmore. He’d used that pass to get past the barriers and blend in with the other Korean cops. None of the other cops remembered him being there throughout the evening, so he probably hadn’t risked showing his face until right before the assassination was supposed to go down. He was there to run interference and see that everything went down right.

It was probably Choi who used his pistol butt to clobber the Korean soldier at the Secretary of State’s car door, and then slam the door closed in front of him.

The protester was armed with a grenade because that was the weapon of choice for their plan. Say Choi hadn’t been able to get the car door slammed in the Secretary’s face, then he would’ve been shoved into the backseat by his guards. But the car wasn’t going anywhere, because protesters were cluttered in front of it, and even an American Secretary of State, oddly enough, isn’t allowed to run over a dozen or so foreigners inside their own country. Therefore his car would’ve been stranded by the curb and the protester would’ve flung the armed hand grenade underneath it. Now, here’s a fact: Bulletproof cars aren’t invulnerable to large explosions on their undersides. That’s where the gas tank is located. Also, the undersides of those behemoths don’t have all that thick armor plating. There would likely have been a huge explosion.