“I’m with the CIA,” said Wu, showing his credentials. “I’m sorry to make such a production out of this. I couldn’t trust your phone at the motel, and I have to have the report together in a few hours.”
“Which report?” asked Howe.
“Someone on the NSC staff mentioned that you saw UAVs on the airstrip in North Korea.”
Howe nodded. Wu took out a small notepad. He’d written a brief summary of one of the reports Howe had made earlier. They went over it quickly.
“That’s basically what I saw,” said Howe when he finished. “I didn’t get that close to them.”
“But they were definitely there?”
“Yes, sir, they were.”
Wu nodded. He waited as the waitress arrived with his coffee, then took a few sips before continuing.
“The Koreans aren’t known to have any sort of craft like this,” said Wu.
“So I’ve heard.”
“You didn’t take a picture or anything?”
Howe laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how much you know about what I was doing there and what happened.”
“I had to ask.”
“I’m sure of what I saw, but only of what I saw. Whether those aircraft were real airplanes, UAVs, whatever, I don’t know. I talked to someone at NADT who made some guesses about how they’d be powered and that sort of thing. I can have him get in touch with you tomorrow.”
“That’s all right. I think really I have enough.” Wu sipped his coffee. Obviously he had access to any number of experts. “One last question: Would you agree that these aircraft should be secured and examined?”
“Absolutely.”
The CIA analyst nodded, then got up and reached into his pocket for his wallet.
“I got it,” Howe told him. He stayed in the booth for a while, sipping his coffee and looking at a real estate magazine he’d grabbed on the way in. He left the waitress a nice tip and headed back to the motel.
Chapter 17
It was Thursday, and Blitz and the CIA director always met for breakfast. The Korean crisis didn’t change that, but it did make them move up their schedule and change the location of their meeting: Blitz found himself walking up the path to the director’s home at five in the morning, accompanied by an aide and two NSC security escorts, Army Delta troopers in plainclothes on special assignment. He was met at the door by one of the director’s own security people. Inside the kitchen he found the director’s wife, Jean, presiding over a pan of home fries and another of sausage.
“Well, if I had known we would have such a good cook on duty, I would ask to meet here more often,” said Blitz.
Jean gave him a good-natured but tired smile, then asked what sort of omelet he wanted.
“I told you, load him up with cholesterol,” said Jack Anthony, entering from upstairs. He smelled as if he’d just come from the shower, though he was fully dressed and looked considerably more awake than his wife.
“Would you like blue cheese and mushrooms?” asked Jean.
“That would be fantastic,” said Blitz. He’d meant the compliment. This was shaping up as the best meal he’d had in weeks.
Blitz and Anthony had a very complicated relationship. Professionally, the men couldn’t stand each other: They were bitter rivals for power and influence, and they had come to their positions by entirely different paths. Blitz had been in and out of government and academia, and while he was acknowledged as one of the country’s foremost experts on international relations, he had been appointed largely because of his long-term relationship with the President. Anthony, on the other hand, had spent his entire adult life working for the government. Much of that experience had come at the CIA, but he had also worked for the NSA, the Pentagon, and briefly the State Department. He professed to be apolitical, though his congressional connections were strongest with members of the other party.
Personally, though, the two men got along very well. Not only were they baseball fanatics, they were both Yankee fans — a minority in Washington, D.C. Anthony had been a guest speaker for Blitz several times when Blitz was teaching, and had even informally reviewed one of Blitz’s books before it was published, giving him a dozen pages of useful notes.
“Let’s talk for a minute,” said Jack, pointing Blitz toward the nearby family room. The oldest Anthony daughter lived nearby and had recently had a baby; a playpen was set up in the corner of the room. Blitz sat on the sofa next to it, listening as Anthony quickly ran down the important points in a CIA analysis of unaccounted — for North Korean weapons. The report would be delivered as an unofficial memorandum later that morning to the NSC, which would use it to make a recommendation on further Korean operations.
“We’ve now accounted for all but one hundred of the fuel tubes from the reactor,” said the CIA head, focusing on the most important finding.
“A hundred? That’s a hell of a lot to lose.”
“We haven’t lost them, we just haven’t found them yet,” said Anthony. “That’s a big difference. We’re not even one hundred percent sure they’re gone.”
The material had been at Yonbyon, the nuclear facility roughly sixty miles north of the capital. A large number of the fuel rods had been recovered or accounted for, but even a few dozen could present a serious threat. While processing their fuel into a bomb would probably be beyond the capabilities of all but a handful of governments, the material could be used in a so-called dirty weapon, spreading radioactive waste in a high-value site.
“These weren’t used for another bomb?” Blitz asked.
“We haven’t completely ruled that out,” said Anthony. “But we have a handle on the bomb facilities and it seems unlikely.”
“Accounting for the fuel tubes has to have the highest priority,” said Blitz.
“Agreed.”
They broke for breakfast, the conversation turning to the new grandchild. Jane stayed for a few minutes, then excused herself to go take a shower. When she was gone, Anthony and Blitz resumed their discussion of what to do next in North Korea. All of the ballistic missile sites had been secured, and separate teams had already completed preliminary reports on the technology. According to Anthony, there were no surprises: American intelligence had already done a decent job of psyching out the capabilities of the weapons.
The Koreans’ small store of cruise missiles — primitive weapons based on a Russian antiship missile — were all accounted for. Several stores of chemical weapons that had not been listed on reports prior to the coup had been found. As of yet, records to check the inventories had not been located.
“What about the E-bomb?” Blitz asked.
Anthony shook his head. “Still looks like they snookered us on that. Two members of the Korean security police were arrested in Japan last night, and it’s possible one of them was Colonel Howe’s passenger.”
“I doubt that,” said Blitz. “Too low-level.” His main candidate was the head of the DPRK intelligence, who had not been heard from since twelve hours before the coup. “Colonel Howe mentioned seeing some UAVs, or possible UAVs,” added Blitz, remembering his conversation with Howe.
“One of our people checked into that. He’s recommending a check at the site.”
“As a CIA operation?”
“We don’t have the resources at the moment,” admitted Anthony.
“Perhaps we should run a military operation through the NSC,” suggested Blitz.
“Might be an idea, if you can arrange it.” Anthony took a sip of his coffee. “Is Howe going over to NADT?”
“He’s the top candidate,” said Blitz.