One of Mercer’s guys handed him a cup of coffee and he stood sipping from it as he proudly surveyed the operation. I went and found myself a cup, too, then found a chair, because my damaged and dented body was tired of standing up.

The basic idea was to let Bales get to the airport, buy a ticket and make his way to the departure gate, then arrest him. The original plan hadn’t envisioned Bales calling Choi and thus had been built on the premise that there would be no evidence of his involvement in the plot. But Bales was a soldier; if he bought a ticket and attempted to flee, he was trying to desert, and that would put a nail in his coffin. Even now, he could make up some excuse about why he called Choi, but he couldn’t do the same about trying to flee from Korea.

I thought it was a bit extravagant, and frankly didn’t see why they didn’t just arrest him, but Mercer insisted it was critical to have something tangible to hang on Bales. The first step in breaking a traitor is forcing him to implicate himself. Mercer was the spymaster; what the hell did I know? Besides, it wasn’t my business.

About thirty minutes passed. After a while, surveillance operations get tedious, because all you’re doing is following a car, and you can get lulled into complacency. I don’t know if that’s what caused it, but suddenly the radio operators started screaming into their mikes and Mercer looked like somebody had stuck a burning match into his shoe.

What we quickly pieced together was that Bales had driven into a long tunnel. The chase cars didn’t want to stay too close to him, because they didn’t want to make him suspicious. When his car emerged from the tunnel, they followed him as usual, which meant that every three minutes a chase car passed his auto to get a visual on the driver. The first pass after the car came out of the tunnel, it was no longer Bales driving. It was a Korean.

Mercer yanked a microphone away from a communicator and screamed at his chase teams to force the car to pull over. They did. The Korean driver immediately jumped out. He leaped directly in front of a passing car and was splattered all over the roadside.

CHAPTER 36

You know that old saw about how when things get bad, they almost always get worse? Without hesitating, Mercer picked up the phone and called Kim, his KCIA partner. He hastily explained what happened and told him to pick up Choi immediately. Kim calmly explained that everything was under control, that Choi and three of his fellow cops were at that moment having lunch inside a kimchi restaurant in the heart of Itaewon. A KCIA agent had followed them inside, and four more agents were planted outside, observing the front of the restaurant. Good, Mercer told him. Don’t waste another minute. Send them in to get him.

Kim called back ten minutes later. The team had gone into the restaurant to get Choi, only Choi and his boys were nowhere to be found. They did find the agent who followed them inside. His corpse was propped up on a toilet inside a stall in the men’s room. His throat had acquired a nasty new gash that ran from earlobe to earlobe. While the surveillance team had kept watch on the front of the restaurant, Choi and his goons had fled out the back.

Kim was terrifically embarrassed by this, but Mercer was equally abashed about losing Bales, so it came out a wash. This was somewhat of a blessing. It spared me from having to witness the normal nasty catcalling and finger-pointing that would certainly have occurred if only one side had committed a gaffe. When it comes to government agencies, there’s always a lofty comfort found in a joint failure. The fact was, Choi and his colleagues were obviously trained agents and both Mercer and Kim had underestimated them.

But Mercer and Kim were pros, too, and rather than rehash their mistakes, they immediately instigated a nationwide search to catch the bastards. They started arguing about whose job it was to ransack Bales’s and Choi’s offices and apartments but soon, after a few terse exchanges, they decided to form joint teams so both sides would have firsthand looks at every clue and piece of evidence. I sat and listened, but it didn’t concern me, so I thought of other things.

Things like how Eddie Golden’s case had just gotten the floor pulled out from under it. The walls were still standing, but they were teetering and maybe ready to collapse. Two of his prize witnesses had just gone on the lam, and that was going to pose fairly intriguing challenges for Eddie. As soon as he learned of this, he’d be calling Carruthers to ask for a postponement while he tried to rebuild the state’s case.

Which reminded me: It was already after two-thirty, so I went to Mercer and told him I had other work to do, since I was still part of Whitehall’s defense team, and we still had a trial that started at eight the next morning. He scratched his head and tried to think of a reason to keep me around, but couldn’t, so he excused me, after making me swear not to tell a soul what had happened.

I said I wouldn’t, as long as he’d call Judge Barry Carruthers and inform him that two of the prosecution’s key witnesses had just disappeared and were wanted in connection with whatever plausible cover crime Mercer wanted to invent. He said okay, so I left.

By the time I got to the HOMOS office, Mercer had obviously already called the judge, and Carruthers had just as obviously called Katherine to break the news. Everybody was doing a war dance. Bad news travels fast, but catastrophic news moves like lightning bolts. Of course, what was catastrophic news to Eddie’s pearly ears was manna from heaven here.

Imelda gave me a funny look when I came in, like she just knew I had something to do with this, although she wasn’t sure exactly what. Nobody else seemed curious or suspicious. The general mood was that God must really love gay folk because he’d just done a mighty big service for the cause.

I went back to Katherine’s office and poked my head in. She was seated at her desk, swiveling back and forth in her chair, looking quietly elated.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, the picture of ignorant innocence.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Bales and Choi disappeared. A nationwide search has been initiated.”

“No kidding? Disappeared, huh? Just like that, poof?”

“Weird, isn’t it? Carruthers called to tell me.”

“Yeah?”

“He wants to meet with me and Golden in his office in thirty minutes.”

I stepped in and dropped some papers on her desk. It was the voir dire strategy. I said, “Great news. Here’s what you asked for.” Then I turned around to leave.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“To the bar in the hotel.”

“What?”

“Lady, my day’s done. I busted my ass on these. I’m tired as hell, and I’m thirsty. I’m going to get roaring drunk and then climb into bed.”

A quizzical, perplexed look popped onto her face. “You don’t want to accompany me to see Carruthers?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Aren’t you at least curious?”

“Not the least bit.”

She stood up and came around to face me. She leaned against the front edge, butt backed against the desk, legs and arms crossed. “You think I can handle him myself?”

“You? You were first in the class. I’m just some second-place dunce who never got over it.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said, taking a step toward me. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“And you probably didn’t mean that part about no more meetings with the judge? No more strategy sessions? No more talking to the client?”

“Drummond, I was angry. Don’t you ever say things you regret when you’re angry?”

I ignored that. “Look, it’s no big thing. Really. I figure we’ve got, what – two, maybe three weeks of trial? I’m gonna treat it like the vacation you ruined. There’s plenty of good bars in this town, and some of those Korean women are gorgeous.”