“Those two countries have had a history of military and economic cooperation,” an official from the State Department remarked.
“It dates back to the 1980s, when the North Koreans supplied weapons to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. They included artillery, antitank weapons, naval mines, antiaircraft machine guns, mortars, tanks, and surface-to-air missiles. As late as 2010, a Russian-built cargo jet filled with North Korean weapons bound for Tehran was seized at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.”
During a break, Crocker found Anders talking to an aide in the hallway. When the aide left, Crocker asked, “What am I doing here?”
“Background,” Anders replied. “I’ll explain later. In the meantime, select a teammate to go with you and prepare to deploy to China.”
“China? We spent the last hour talking about Iran and North Korea.”
“You’re going to China. I’ll brief you as soon as this meeting is over. You’re leaving tonight.”
Chapter Twelve
Truth exists; only lies are invented.
– Georges Braque
Almost four weeks had gone by since her husband’s disappearance, and Nan Dawkins was starting to wonder if he’d ever return. What surprised her was that her daughter, who was extremely close to her father, seemed to be taking his disappearance in stride. Maybe she appeared more withdrawn than usual, but otherwise she seemed fine.
James almost never left Nan’s mind. She had pored through his personal e-mails, notes, and journals for an answer to the mystery but hadn’t discovered a single clue. She had queried colleagues at work, trainers at the local gym where he occasionally worked out, and neighbors. They all said pretty much same thing: James was a friendly, modest guy who seemed content with his life.
FBI agents had traveled to Geneva and retraced all of his movements. They had coordinated with the local Geneva police and the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service, which had done their own investigations. They had found no evidence of wrongdoing, foul play, or accidental death. James was last seen talking to people from the audience after his speech at the Swissotel Metropole. He hadn’t spoken to anyone after 7 p.m. the night of the third, or used his credit cards. No one at the hotel had seen him leave that night, nor did he return to his room.
So what had happened? The mystery deepened, and it perplexed her.
Priding herself in being a very rational, practical woman, Nan knew there had to be an answer. She tried to lose herself in work and looking after Karen.
But nothing seemed to pull her mind away from James and the mystery. At night, unable to sleep, she’d troll the Internet for possible answers. She learned that an astounding 900,000 people disappeared in the United States every year-approximately 2,300 a day. The majority of them were children and teens. Many of them surfaced later in hospitals, shelters, and morgues. Some were sold into sexual slavery. A portion were men and women running away from their families or escaping severe financial problems.
A number of them, like James, disappeared without explanation and were never found. She read stories of farmers working in fields, or housewives doing the laundry, who seemed to vanish in broad daylight and never return. People speculated that they had accidentally slipped into an alternate universe or some kind of time warp. Nan, though, highly skeptical of things like that, wanted an explanation.
A colleague at work suggested that she consult a psychic friend of hers who sometimes worked as a consultant to the DC police in helping to locate missing people. The psychic worked out of a building on Wisconsin Avenue that also housed a commercial real estate firm. Her office was furnished simply-no crystals hanging from the ceiling or strange pictures on the walls. In fact, she looked like many of the housewives Nan knew in her neighborhood-pretty, midforties, and fit, carefully dressed, with shoulder-length brown hair.
The psychic explained that five years ago she had been working as a sales director at a printing company, and was happily married with two young children, when a neighbor died and she started to sense that he was trying to communicate with her. That’s when she got in touch with and started to develop her psychic abilities. Since then, she’d been helping people contact loved ones on “the other side” and consult with spirit guides.
Nan remained skeptical. The psychic moved from behind her desk, sat across from her, and asked her to concentrate on her missing husband while she consulted people and spirits on the other side.
She closed her eyes, then said out loud, “Have you seen him? Is he there?”
She seemed to be waiting for an answer, and nodded as though she was receiving information. “You’re sure of that?” she asked.
This communication with unseen people or spirits went on for about ten minutes. Then the psychic opened her eyes, looked at Nan, and smiled. “Okay,” she started. “I’m almost certain your husband’s not dead, so that’s a relief. No one on the other side has seen him.”
She said it matter-of-factly, as though she were reporting the weather.
“If he’s not dead, where is he?” Nan asked.
“I’m not sure. He feels far away. I know this sounds strange, but I get the sense that he’s in a cave.”
“A cave?”
“He doesn’t want to be there, but he’s healthy. He’s okay.”
“Do you think this cave is in Switzerland, or somewhere in Europe?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so.”
“Is there any way I can reach him?” Nan asked.
“All you can really do is send him your love and support, psychically,” the psychic instructed. “It will reach him. By the way, he’s doing the same for you.”
Surprisingly, Nan left her session with the psychic feeling relieved. Even though she wasn’t sure what had just happened, she was more convinced than ever that James was still alive.
Sara, the young brunette CIA operative at the wheel of the silver Chinese BYD F3 sedan, turned off the two-lane asphalt road and entered a small dirt parking lot adjacent to the Tumen River. Sitting next to her was Crocker’s blond teammate Davis. Crocker, in the backseat, looked through the rear window and saw the black Chery QQ minicar that had been following them stop ten feet short of the turnoff and cut its lights.
“What happens now?” Crocker asked as he checked his watch.
“We wait for Choi,” she answered. “He’ll signal from the other side of the river before he crosses to let us know all’s clear. That should happen at ten o’clock.”
It was now 1946 hours local time. They were in Liaoning province (the southernmost part of Manchuria) in northeastern China, about sixty miles east of the Chinese city of Dandong. North Korea sat on the other side of the Tumen River, which gurgled to their right.
Crocker and Davis had traveled here under aliases as Canadian trade officials interested in the local mining industry. According to Sara, Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) knew the real purpose of their visit to Liaoning province. Although the Chinese officially supported the Kim regime in North Korea, they would not be unhappy to see it replaced with a less belligerent government.
“When Choi arrives, one of you will get out, go to the trunk, and hand him the bags filled with shrink-wrapped thumb drives,” Sara explained. “He’ll hand you back the information we requested.”