He thought over the emergency signal that had arrived from the North. What possessed those fools? Had they lost all ability to reason? He’d spent years worming his way into this position, and now they wanted to risk it all on a single throw of the dice. He turned away from the window.
Should he refuse to carry out the order? The thought tempted him, but he dismissed it. That would be viewed as disloyalty and Pyongyang had a long arm. Better to risk detection by his colleagues in the South Korean security service than to risk death at the hands of his comrades in the North’s Research Department.
Besides, there was a certain charming subtlety to the mission he’d been ordered to carry out. A careful word here. A thoughtful suggestion there. And all of them would be in character. He’d established his credentials as a hardline anticommunist with years of dedicated service and fierce talk. No one would be surprised by investigation that would certainly ensue if he was successful.
He stopped pacing by his desk. So be it. He’d evaded South Korea’s counterespionage probes for four decades. Let them try again and he would outwit them yet again.
The man called Scorpion picked up the phone. “Get me the minister.”
He would light the fuse.
CHAPTER 2
Opening Round
General Jack McLaren leaned forward and rapped sharply on the divider. “Stop the car right here, Harmon. I want to see what the hell’s going on up ahead.”
His driver grinned back over his shoulder. “Anything you say, General. This is about the end of the line anyways. Looks like a doggone parking lot up there.”
McLaren snorted and popped the car door open — and started to sweat as Seoul’s hot, sticky summer air rolled into the air-conditioned limo. It was worse out on the pavement. Heat waves shimmered and danced along the mass of stalled cars now backed up all along Sejong-Ro — Sejong Street — the wide, multilane boulevard cutting north to south through Seoul.
McLaren shoved his heavy uniform cap squarely on his head and leaned back in through the open door. “Doug, you’d better get on the horn to their high-and-mightinesses and tell ’em I’ll be late … but do it diplomatically, of course.”
His aide nodded and reached for the command phone on the seat beside him.
McLaren turned away and began working his way up the street through the crowds. He frowned. Street vendors along the sidewalks were hastily packing away their goods, and department store clerks swarmed alongside them hurriedly unrolling steel mesh screens to cover display windows showing the latest Western fashions. Other drivers had gotten out of their cars and stood trying to see what had caused the tie-up.
By the time he’d gone just a couple of hundred yards, the reason for the traffic jam was obvious. Several hundred helmeted South Korean riot police had blocked off the whole multilane boulevard. Some were putting up crowd control barricades while others started waving cars off onto some of the smaller east-west roads feeding into Sejong-Ro. Bulky armored cars mounting water cannon and tear gas grenade launchers were parked behind the police line. McLaren could see the walled U.S. embassy compound several hundred feet past the barricades.
It’s like damned clockwork, he thought. It’s September in Seoul, so it must be time for another friggin’ student demonstration. Another few months of tear gas, rocks, and a bunch of puppydog kids yelling their heads off for “democracy” and “economic rights” — things they had heard about but didn’t really understand. There had been three already, all in the week since classes started. Each had been large and well organized, and each had been bigger than the one before.
He squinted up into the dazzling noontime sky. Seoul’s skyscrapers cast giant, gloomy shadows across Sejong Street, but wherever they left an opening, the sun seemed murderously hot. Bad time for a demonstration — “mob weather” they called it. The time when hot, muggy weather and harsh sunlight could drive people crazy, could make them snap without the slightest warning.
McLaren kept walking toward the police line. An officer — a lieutenant by his bars — braced and saluted him. McLaren returned the salute. The officer, of course, knew him on sight.
The lieutenant smiled. “Good morning, General McLaren. How can I be of service?” His English was pretty good, almost accentless.
“Well, for one thing, I’d appreciate it if some of your men here could get my staff car out of that mess back there and through your barricades. I’ve got a meeting with your President and Joint Chiefs up at the Blue House in just a few minutes.”
The lieutenant snapped to attention. “At once, sir.” He turned and snapped a string of orders in Korean that sent two of his troopers jog-trotting down the street toward McLaren’s car. Then he turned back to McLaren. “We will have your vehicle through this obstruction shortly. And, if I might suggest, sir, it would be a good thing to leave this place as soon as possible. We are expecting a… how do you say… a ‘spot of trouble’ presently.”
McLaren looked up the street. “Yeah. I heard there was supposed to be a demonstration today, but my liaison officer told me it was expected further southeast, near the cathedral.”
“It did start there, sir, but the rioters have broken past our barriers and they are marching in this direction. We are most concerned about this disturbance. Several Combat Police have already been injured. One group was isolated, surrounded, stripped of their equipment, and badly beaten.”
McLaren frowned. And how many kids have you guys put in hospitals, today? But it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask that question aloud. Instead he just nodded. “Sounds bad, all right.”
The South Korean officer kept smiling, but his smile seemed a little too fixed, and he kept swallowing. McLaren couldn’t figure out if the officer was more rattled by the presence of Commander Combined Forces-Korea so near a demonstration, or by the demonstration itself.
He eyed the men along the police line carefully. Christ, what a bunch of green kids. They all had their helmet visors up, but their uniforms were soaking up the heat. They hadn’t formed ranks yet. They were just standing around in small groups, talking, and although he couldn’t understand much Korean, their voices made one thing damned clear. These kids were as nervous as a preacher waiting in line at a cathouse.
Then he saw the kicker. The thing he should have seen right away. Half these Combat Police conscripts weren’t carrying their usual riot shields, nightsticks, and tear gas guns. They had very real M16s slung over their shoulders. And friggin’ bayonets, too.
McLaren’s face tightened and he leaned forward to stare right into the police officer’s eyes. He kept his voice low and hard. “Jesus Christ, Lieutenant. Just what the hell is going on here?” He stabbed a finger toward the fully armed troopers. “Riot troops with rifles? What stupid bastard ordered that?”
The Korean stared at McLaren. At an inch over six feet, the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested American general towered over him. Ice-cold gray eyes glared down above a bent, often-broken nose and below the close-cropped white bristles of a regulation military crew cut. The general’s face was the face of a man who’d soldiered in half a dozen of the world’s most godforsaken climates — sun-browned, leathery, square-jawed, and lean. It was the face of a man born to command.
Nervously, the lieutenant licked his lips. “I have my orders, sir. Radicals and communists are marching here from the Myongdong Cathedral. They have declared their intent to assault the Blue House and depose our president.”
“Hell,” said McLaren, “they always say that.”