Fires of War (40 page)

The other guests were led back to the great hall for a reception that consisted of several rounds of drinks followed by several more rounds of drinks, topped off by many more drinks. The businessmen poured glass after glass for their companions, drinking and passing them on.

The Korean style of drinking, with companions essentially supervising one another into a stupor, made it hard to stay sober, and Ferguson finally retreated to a chair and pretended to nod off. When Chonjin woke him and suggested that he go to bed, he protested, but within a few minutes he had nodded off again, this time on a fellow guest. When a North Korean official sat down next to him, Ferguson flopped in his direction, his chin landing on the man’s shoulder.

“Mr. Manski?”

“Oh, yeah.” Ferguson roused himself. “Bedtime, I think.”

“Yes.”

Chonjin helped him up to his room. Ferguson’s energy grew with each step.

“Open the window,” he proclaimed as he entered the room. “Air, we need good cold air! All windows!” He flopped face down on the bed, mumbling a Russian drinking song.

Chonjin and the attendant opened the windows, threw a blanket on him, and retreated.

Ferguson had no intention of spending the rest of the night sleeping, let alone singing. He’d staged his little act so he could go exploring, but to do that he needed to come up with a proper finale.

Ferguson started another drinking song, this one an obscure lament about the darkness of crows’ feathers. As he sang, he studied the lamp where the bug was, considering how to best muffle it. Raising his voice ever higher and further off-key, he stumbled around, went to the bathroom, fell, got up, and finally knocked over the lamp.

The shade flew to the middle of the floor. Cursing, Ferguson stumbled around some more, left arm flailing while his right separated the bug from the shade. He left it on the floor near his bed and continued to sing, repeating the song over and over again, hoping to lull anyone unlucky enough to be listening into an autistic state.

Climbing into bed, Ferguson’s lyrics gave way to snores. These slowly decreased in volume, until after a few minutes he began breathing normally. He wadded the blanket on top of the bug, grabbed his shoes, and tiptoed to the window.

Ferguson was on the third floor, facing the back of the compound. The window formed a small dormer similar to those in the Cape Cods he knew from Maine. Getting out as quietly as possible and climbing up onto the roof was more an exercise in nostalgia than a physical challenge.

The problem was to get down without being seen or breaking a leg. The front side of the lodge would have been easy to climb because of the logs, but the two guards at the front of the building meant this was out of the question. Besides being too smooth to offer any obvious handgrips, the opposite side featured the great room’s large window as well as windows looking out from the kitchen and staff room. Likewise, the southern side, where Ferguson’s room was, had far too many windows with light shining through them.

The north side had no windows above the first floor, but the only thing to climb on as he went down was the gutter at the corner. Ferguson had had bad experiences with gutters in the past, but it seemed his only option.

He worked his way down the peak and tested the metal by putting his right leg on it. The gutter groaned but didn’t collapse.

Ferguson swung around, hung off the top, and then began pushing down the corner, using the downspout the way he would use a rope to climb down a mountain. By the time he reached the top of the second floor, the leader had pulled out several inches. Then, when he was just above the first floor he heard a loud and ominous creak from above.

There was no other option but to let go.

~ * ~

26

NORTH OF SUNG HO, NORTH KOREA

“The aircraft is the most advanced available,” General Namgung told Park. “It can elude anything the South Koreans have. Or the Japanese, for that matter.”

“What about the Americans?” asked Li.

“The Americans, too,” said Namgung. He turned to his aide, Captain Ganji, who nodded quickly. “It does this partly by flying very low. And, of course, our spies have provided the radar profiles. We know just where the aircraft must go to avoid detection.”

Park studied the general. He was a good man, a warrior of solid intention and dependability. Like many North Koreans, he had many relatives in the South, and believed as Park believed, that the country must be reunited.

But he had a warrior’s hubris, a tendency to be overly optimistic. The MiG aircraft was formidable, but it was not invincible. They could not assume that it would triumph.

Park rose from his seat and walked to the french doors at the back of the cottage room. He studied his reflection in the glass, surprised to see that he looked much older than he felt. Then he pushed the glass door open, breathing the crisp air as he gazed at the waterfall to the left of the patio.

There was just enough moonlight to dapple the surface of the water with rippling white light. The sight was auspicious.

Before the division, this land had belonged to Park’s grandparents. Among their businesses was a pottery factory, one of the finest on the continent, with more than a hundred skilled craftsmen. The main lodge up the hill had been built with its profits as a retreat for the family. The cabin where he and Namgung were meeting had been used as servants’ quarters.

Much had changed in seventy years. The servants’ quarters would be considered a palace by all but the most high-ranking North Korean party member. Even Namgung admired it.

Partition was difficult for most Korean families, and compared to many, the Park family had managed very well. They had held on to a great deal of their wealth, partly because so much of it had been concentrated in the South. Park hated the Communist principles that the Russians had imposed on the first Korean leader, Kim Il Sung; they were nothing short of theft, even though Kim at times mixed in true Korean ideas to make them seem more logical.

The dictator’s attitude toward the people was, in many ways, more understandable. Park did not condone the police state, but it was natural that a strong leader would have to take a strong hand. History made this evident and not merely in Korea.

The dictator was irrelevant. As General Namgung himself had said a few minutes before, the government would soon collapse. The time was ripe to bring the Koreas together.

Park closed the door and turned back to his guests.

“I have studied the MiG,” said Park. “You’re surprised, General. You shouldn’t be. My companies were involved in projects to build other aircraft. It is a very admirable aircraft, but it will be vulnerable. All aircraft are.”

“On the ground, certainly,” said the general. He was not one to retreat. “Once in the air it can avoid radars by flying low. By the time it is perceived as a threat, it will have reached its launch point. The enemy has no defenses in that sector.”

Park looked at Li.

“We have a plan to make sure that it is not attacked,” said Li. “It involves a certain amount of risk, but no more than if it were to proceed as you propose.”

~ * ~

27

NORTH OF SUNG HO, NORTH KOREA

It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for Ferguson to hit the ground.

When he finally did, time seemed to make up for the deficit. He flew backward so quickly he knocked his head with a fierce, welt-raising rap.

Ferguson lay on his back a moment, collecting his wits. Surprisingly, the gutter was still in one piece and attached to the building.

No way it would hold him on the way back. But that was a problem for later.

Scrambling to his feet, Ferguson trotted toward the nearby barn. A group of bored soldiers stood talking in the front, near where the buses had been parked. Ferguson circled around and found a window at the back. All he could see inside were a few Jeeplike trucks, parked up toward the doors; about three-fourths of the large interior looked empty.

A road ran on the other side of the barn. Curious, Ferguson paralleled it for about fifty yards downhill and then around a curve. Another pair of bored soldiers stood in the middle of the path at the end of the bend.

Ferguson doglegged past them, picking up the road as it made another S down the hill. A squat building sat at the edge of a clearing, overlooking a rushing stream and a waterfall so loud Ferguson could hear it over his breathing. Two large sedans were parked in front of the building. A pair of men in large greatcoats stood near the cars. Ferguson couldn’t tell in the dim light if they were soldiers—they didn’t have rifles—but they stood as still as statues near the second car, as if they expected someone to arrive and inspect them at any moment.

He slipped farther into the woods, approaching the back of the building by walking along the creek. A large terrace opened out from a pair of glass doors; he could see a fire in a massive fireplace at one side of the room.

Ferguson crawled up along the side of the terrace, hugging the wall. There was no cover, but the only light came from inside and most of the patio was in shadow. The inside light and glass would make it difficult to see outside.

Two men in uniform were sitting in chairs facing roughly in his direction. One, he thought, was General Namgung, though he couldn’t get a good enough glimpse to be sure.

Ferguson saw the silver back of a head in the chair closest to the doors; he guessed this was Park. Between the glass and the nearby waterfall, he couldn’t hear a word.

Li appeared behind the men in uniform, looking straight at him. Ferguson stepped back and flattened himself against the wall.

A moment later, the door opened.

Li stepped out, less than eight feet away.

Ferguson froze, trying to think of an excuse to be here that wouldn’t sound ridiculous.

Someone else came from the house. Ferguson saw his back as the two walked away.

“A good night for a walk, Captain Ganji,” said Li in Korean.

“It’s gotten warmer.”

Ganji handed two large envelopes to Li as they walked in the opposite direction. Ferguson eased toward the corner of the terrace, hoping to get down and hide before they turned around. He was about a yard from it when he saw them shake hands and start back in his direction.

He pushed back against the side of the building, hidden by a shadow if anything at all. His mind blanked. He had no excuse, nothing.

He waited to be discovered, holding his breath. But the shadow was darker than he thought, and the two men were so intent on getting out of the cold that they didn’t even glance in his direction.

~ * ~

scaping such a close call gave Ferguson an adrenaline rush, but he couldn’t put the energy to much use; the general and his aide left within a few minutes. Park and Li left the room as well but stayed upstairs in the cottage, their presence announced by a series of lights on the second floor. A pair of younger men, guards, came down into the room near the terrace and warmed their hands by the fire.

Deciding he’d seen all he was going to see, Ferguson made his way back to the guest house. Along the way he stopped at the barn. Sneaking in through the window, he scouted the large room but found nothing more interesting than a stash of heavyweight gear oil in the corner and a burned-out clutch plate that looked to date from the 1950s.

Climbing the gutter back to his room seemed dubious, so Ferguson slipped around to the front. The guards had disappeared, and the open door beckoned. He went up the steps and walked in, but before he could go up the stairs Ha spotted him and called out his name. He was standing near the great room, talking with a friend.