Katherine spun around; her face was bitterly scrunched up. “Who else could it possibly have been? Don’t bullshit me, Drummond. It’s obvious who did it.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “By parading yourselves in front of the media so much, you painted bull’s-eyes on your chests.”
“Bull’s-eyes for who?”Allie asked.
“One of those anti-American student groups you always see rioting on TV. Or some group of South Korean soldiers who’re pissed off at having one of their brothers in arms murdered and raped. The one thing we’re not short of over here’s enemies.”
“Drummond, you are so full of shit,” Katherine said, with a positively barbaric stare.
“No, I ain’t. Now, I’m going to give you a little lecture. Maybe my timing sucks, but you better listen to me, for once.”
Katherine slunk over from her corner and I finally had all their undivided attention.
“Korea,” I explained, “is technically a nation at war. I’m not saying South Koreans are perfect, but they’re pretty damned good people. There’s an army of some three million men just twenty-five miles from where we’re sitting. There’s North Korean infiltrators and agents running all over this country. Only a few years ago, a North Korean sub got grounded on a sandbar off the eastern shore and out spilled ten commandos. Remember that incident? It was all over the news the entire week it took the South Koreans to chase them down and kill them. The only reason they were detected was because the sub commander screwed up and got his boat beached. Any of you want to hazard a guess at how many other boats and subs have landed agents and commandos that didn’t get caught?”
Maria had a disbelieving grimace, or maybe it was just her natural facial set, but when her lips came apart I cut her off with a quick slice of my arm through the air.
“Don’t talk. Listen,” I rudely ordered. “These people have been living like this since 1953. You got any idea what that’s like? Every year, there’s ambushes and shootouts on that border. This hotel room we’re sitting in is within artillery range of North Korea’s guns. In a split second this whole country could get pulverized. That has an effect on your psyche. This ain’t like America. Stop thinking it is.”
Katherine said, “Nothing justifies this!”
“I’m not justifying any damned thing,” I told her with a stern glare. “Stop being so damned argumentative. Listen. And for God’s sakes, don’t go holding another of your idiotic press conferences and start blaming the South Korean government. Maybe they did it; maybe not. Hell, it might’ve just been some band of pickpockets, and he caught ’em, so they tossed him.”
“You know better!” she said.
“I don’t know any such damned thing. Neither do you. All I do know is that you embarrassed the South Korean people last night, and today one of our co-counsels ends up in the hospital. You can build a case on circumstantial evidence, but you can’t build a case on coincidental evidence.”
I got up and stood over Katherine. She was looking at me like she’d pay anything for a ticket to my funeral.
“This isn’t the United States, Carlson. Remember what that big goon warned you yesterday? Learn to respect the rules around here. It goes better for everybody.”
She started to open her lips and I held up my hand. “Look, I’ll see what I can find out. Just don’t hold another meeting with your press buddies while I’m gone. And skip those sessions with NBC and ABC I heard you planning yesterday. They won’t do any good for our client, not to mention our health.”
I left them in the room to stew. I can’t say I was friends with Keith, since I barely knew him, but on general principles alone I was just as shocked and furious about what happened to him as they were, and I sure as hell hoped he wouldn’t die. The problem was Katherine and her buddies had no idea what they were messing with here. I’d tried to warn them. They hadn’t listened. Thomas Whitehall, guilty or innocent, was a symbol for all kinds of extremist groups with fiery views, and when you’re standing next to a lightning rod, don’t act surprised when a stray thunderbolt lands in your lap.
When I got back to my room, I called Spears’s office and told that colonel with the world’s snappiest salute that I needed to meet with Buzz Mercer. He said okay and hung up.
Twelve minutes later, the phone rang. It was a woman’s voice. She told me to hurry downstairs and wait by the entrance of the hotel. So I did.
When I walked outside, a gray sedan was already idling under the entrance and a Korean woman stepped out. She peered around till she spotted me, then waved for me to come over.
“You’re Drummond, right?” she asked when I got within earshot.
“That’s me,” I admitted.
“Please get in.”
I climbed in, then briefly studied the cut of her jib. She was slender, conservatively dressed, probably in her late twenties or early thirties, and was somewhat attractive, but in a buttoned-down, stern, wintry sort of way. Her hair was cut short and was clearly unstyled. She wore gold wire-rimmed glasses that made her look like an academic who’d somehow gotten lost outside the ivory tower.
“So what’s your name?” I asked, wondering who the hell she was.
“I’m Kim Song Moon. My friends call me Carol.”
“Carol? How does Kim Song Moon get you to Carol?”
“It doesn’t,” she admitted. “I’m American. My real name is Carol Kim. Here in Korea, I use Kim Song Moon.”
“No kidding? And you’re with that same company that employs Buzz Mercer?”
“Buzz is my boss.”
“Let me guess. You were raised in California, went to Stanford, or maybe Berkeley, got recruited there, and you’ve spent the last three years doing skullduggery here?”
“Oh my God, am I that obvious?” she asked with a shocked look.
“I’m throwing out stereotypes. Besides, telepathy is one of my strong suits.”
“Actually,” she said, “I grew up in Boston and went to Middlebury College, which was where I learned to speak Korean, then I spent a few years at Duke getting a law degree. And I wasn’t recruited. After law school, I sought out the Agency and convinced them my language skills and Korean looks might come in handy. I’ve been here less than a month.”
“Ah, so I got most of it right.”
“Which part did you get right?”
“You went to college, right?”
She ignored that. “So you’re a lawyer?” she asked. “You don’t look like a lawyer.”
“No? Well, what do lawyers look like?” I asked, fishing around for a compliment.
“They’re usually very intelligent-looking.”
“Oh.”
“And they’re usually very chubby, or very skinny and undeveloped.”
“Ah,” I said, perking up a bit.
“And the good ones, the really good ones, they usually have chewed-down fingernails and a perpetually nervous look about them.”
“But you don’t get that sense from me?”
She glanced at me again. “No. You seem far too confident, maybe even cocky.” She let that sink in, then followed with: “I should tell you I’m the case officer for your trial. I was brought here to keep an eye on things for the Agency.”
“And what nice eyes they are,” I said, flirt that I am.
She gave me a weary look as she pulled the sedan into a parking place in front of the officers’ club. We got out and she started walking in a way and at a pace that indicated she did a lot of speedwalking in her spare time. I followed her like a panting poodle up some steps and through a set of double doors into a small, comfortable lobby. She led me through a dining room that was completely barren of customers, then through another set of double doors and into a back room.
Buzz Mercer sat there, feet up on a table, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, talking on a mobile phone that was far too big and clunky to be a commercial model. It had to be a secure phone. The moment I entered, he lowered his voice, murmured a few things, then uttered a swift good-bye and hung up.