By the second or third day, she would be thoroughly exhausted, degraded, bored out of her wits, physically miserable, and, hopefully, ready to tell all. Even a Zen Buddhist who was nuts for meditation couldn’t withstand more than two or three days of this.

I walked to her front and studied her. She didn’t say a word. She just gave me a sharp, haughty look, but her expression did nothing to hide one simple, irreducible fact. The woman was utterly, breathtakingly beautiful. She had classically high cheekbones, large, alluring eyes, full, sensuous lips, and an exquisitely shaped face. Her hair was so thick and shimmery it almost looked artificial. Her body was an athlete’s fantasy, broad-shouldered, hard, sinewy muscles, and a washboard stomach. If there was an ounce of body fat on her, I couldn’t see where she hid it.

I felt uncomfortably like a voyeur, but my interest in studying Bales’s mate was purely professional. I had a theory bouncing around inside my head, and she was a vital piece in that puzzle.

I stared at her face, and she glared back defiantly. Faces can betray a lot about people. You can hide a lot of things about yourself, but a lifetime of expressions and attitudes eventually work themselves into a mask. Her mask spoke of supreme self-confidence, even arrogance. She had the face of someone who was used to commanding people. Well, sure, you might say, because beautiful women are often spoiled women, but this woman’s haughtiness wasn’t from being mollycoddled or indulged. She was an unusually disciplined, tough specimen, and her body didn’t get that way from lying around the house munching on bonbons and ordering the servants around.

I finally nodded at Mr. Kim that I’d seen enough, and we quietly slipped out.

Once we were back in the waiting room, Kim lit up another cigarette and asked, “What do you think?”

“I think you’re right. She’s going to be a bitch to break. She’s superbly conditioned, so the sleep deprivation will take much longer than normal. Plus she’s got an ego like a rock, so the humiliation’s going to roll off her back.”

He looked painfully unhappy to hear that, although I suppose I was only voicing what he and his technicians had already surmised.

I said, “Have you checked her teeth?”

“Of course. We found a cyanide pellet in the number three molar in the back.”

“No, I mean the quality of the dental work.”

“Yes, that too. Steel fillings, shoddy, coarse work.”

He seemed impressed that I would know to ask that. The one thing Communist spymasters nearly always overlook when they’re building camouflage for their spies is how truly lousy the dental work is in their own societies. If this woman had been born and bred in Chicago, she’d have silver or porcelain fillings and the work would reflect the level of craftsmanship demanded by a vain society that likes even repaired teeth to look like jewelry.

I leaned against the wall. “Why do you think North Korea would send a female agent that looks like her down here to work with Bales and Choi? And why would they position her in Bales’s house?”

“That’s what we’re hoping she’ll tell us.”

I glanced over at Carol, who was seated at the table playing the demure Korean girl who knew her place in this macho society.

“Did you hear her speak?” I asked her.

“I stood over her shoulder and listened to her most of the luncheon.”

“What’s her English like?”

“Excellent. Native quality, in fact. So were her manners. She used the fork and knife, even though the other American wives were using chopsticks. I thought that was interesting.”

I looked at Mr. Kim. “Maybe she’s one of those kids who were raised in that American village you mentioned?”

“Maybe.”

I turned back to Carol. “Any other thoughts?”

“I think it’s strange that she didn’t arrive here until five years ago.”

“Yeah, a little after Bales got assigned here.”

Kim quickly suggested, “A honeypot?”

“The timing would fit, I guess,” I admitted.

She certainly had the exquisite looks and body to be a honeypot, which to those uninitiated in the wormy arts of espionage is a woman who is used to lure a target into an affair, like bait, to entangle the target in an embarrassing predicament that can be exploited for blackmail.

Then I said, “But Bales wasn’t married back then, was he? And he wasn’t in a sensitive position with a high security clearance and access to valuable information?”

That seemed to obviate the way most honeypot ploys work. If the target is married and engaging in an affair, that makes him vulnerable. If the target has an important job and knows lots of important secrets, at some point the bad guys deliberately let him know the girl he’s sleeping with is a foreign agent, and that can also make him vulnerable to blackmail. Bales fell into neither category. If the bad guys told his bosses he was sleeping with a North Korean spy, his bosses would simply shrug and say, “Yeah, what’s she look like? Is she a great lay?”

I said, “You know, the other intriguing thing was the way Bales referred to her when he called Choi this afternoon. He called her a bitch. And when Choi told him to forget about her and run, he didn’t argue or sound the least bit upset. Doesn’t sound like much of a marriage.”

The other two were nodding, because the prisoner tied to that white chair was gaining significance. And an added layer of mystery.

But I had an advantage over them. I’d been thinking about Michael Bales for many days. And I had met him under several different sets of circumstances, so I had a greater window into his dark nature than they did.

I said, “How do you think Choi got Bales on his side in the first place?” I looked over at Carol. “Did your people have the FBI run a check on him?”

“Of course.”

“And?”

She looked at a wall and began reciting the facts. She had the lawyer’s gift of great recall, and it came pouring out crisp and factual.

“Bales was born in Warrenton, Nebraska, where his father owns a dairy farm. He joined the Army in 1987 when he was eighteen, right after graduating from high school. He enlisted in the MPs, did well, and made warrant. Never previously married, no money problems surfaced, no bad habits. He’s been background-checked for his secret clearance and there were no signs of trouble. The checkers talked to some of his old teachers and schoolmates, and one former girlfriend. Everybody said he was a great guy, honest, reliable, an all-American boy. No previous arrests, no scandals.”

I said, “So here’s a guy who gets to Korea five years ago with an impeccable record and a great future ahead, then suddenly he decides to start working for North Korea. Doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Kim said, “Money. It’s easy to hide it. When it comes to Americans, always follow the money.”

You might think he’d watched too many American movies and was starting to sound like a grade-B actor. Or you might say to yourself that he was a foreigner, so what the hell did he know. But you have to remember that Kim’s agency had recruited its share of American traitors – both discovered and undiscovered – so he did have a certain claim to expertise.

I looked at my watch; it was after 11:00 P.M. I nodded at Carol and she got the message, so she stood up and began getting ready to leave.

I turned to Kim. “Thanks. If we come up with anything we’ll call.”

He said, “I hope you do,” then sat back down.

I had the impression his punishment for letting Choi murder one of his men and slip away was to sit here and wait until the gorgeous, tough-looking lady in the other room finally started babbling. In other words, he was also sentenced to sleep deprivation.

Now that I’d looked at her, and at him, my money was on her.