The knock on the hotel-room door was not quite loud enough to wake the dead, but it was sufficient to jostle someone with a mild hangover. Ferguson lifted his head and grunted, “Yeah?”
“Robert Christian?”
It was the cover name Ferguson had used to check in. The voice speaking was English with an American accent.
“Yeah?”
“Your uncle wants to talk to you.”
“What time is it?”
“Going on ten o’clock.”
Ferguson groaned and slipped out of bed. “My uncle, huh?” At least his knee felt better. “Where’s he live?”
“Washington.”
He grabbed his Glock and a flash-bang grenade and walked to the door, flipping on the TV as he went. Ferguson had chosen the hotel because it had eyepieces in each room’s door; Ferguson had replaced his with a wireless video camera whose wide-angle lens allowed it to view the entire hallway.
The image on the TV screen showed that there was a man and a woman outside, both dressed in suits, both Western, more than likely American. They didn’t have guns showing, and they didn’t have backup down the hallway, unless they were hiding in the stairway. No headsets, no radios.
The man leaned against the door, apparently in a misguided attempt to peer through the spyglass.
“My uncle hasn’t lived in Washington in twenty years,” said Ferguson. Silently, he slid back the dead bolt and unhooked the chain.
“We’re from the embassy,” said the man, still leaning against the door.
“Which embassy would that be?” asked Ferguson. As he did, he yanked the door open. The man fell inside, helped along by Ferguson, who grabbed his arm and threw him against the bureau. Ferguson kicked the door closed behind him, then knelt on the man’s chest, his pistol pointed at his forehead.
“I’m hoping you’re new,” Ferguson told the CIA officer, who clearly was. “Like maybe you just got off the plane.”
“I’ve been in Korea three months,” managed the man.
“That’s long enough to know better.”
Ferguson quickly searched him; he wasn’t carrying a weapon. His business cards indicated he was Sean Gillespie and a member of the U.S. Commerce Department’s Asian Trade Council, the cover du jour obviously.
“What’s going on in there?” yelled his teammate from the hall, pounding on the door.
“Let her in,” Ferguson said, getting up. “Before I shoot her.”
Gillespie opened the door, and his fellow CIA officer, a thin brunette with thick glasses, came inside, her face flushed. Like Gillespie, she looked about twenty-three going on twelve.
“What is this?” she sputtered, mesmerized by Ferguson’s gun.
“Lock the door and lower your voice,” Ferguson told her. “Then you have about ten seconds to tell me why you’re here blowing my cover.”
The brunette’s cheeks went from red to white.
“Why are you here?” said Ferguson.
“You’re supposed to come right away to the embassy and call home,” said Gillespie. “We were told to bring you.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t say.”
“You’re not on official cover?” asked the brunette.
“Do these boxers look official?” said Ferguson.
Official cover” meant that the officers held positions with the government and had diplomatic passports. It also meant that just about anyone who counted knew they were CIA.
Someone traveling on unofficial cover, like Ferguson, had no visible connection with the Agency or the government. Other officers were supposed to be extremely careful when approaching them, since anyone watching might easily put two and two together and realize the other person was a spy.
Unsure whether the two nuggets had been followed, Ferguson told them to leave without him. They refused; they had their orders after all and insisted on accompanying him to Seoul. After considerable wrangling, he convinced them to meet him on the train to Seoul. Ferguson gave them a head start, then he called The Cube and asked what the hell was going on.
“There you are,” said Corrigan.
“Two bozos from the embassy just woke me up. What’s the story?”
“Oh. Slott needed to talk to you and—”
“So you got Seoul to blow my cover?”
“No.”
“You need to talk to me?”
“Dan does. Listen—”
“I’ll call back.”
Ferguson hung up, looked at his watch. Guns wouldn’t be up for several hours. He decided he’d let him sleep; they weren’t supposed to meet until the afternoon anyway.
Ferguson turned off the phone, gathered his gear in an overnight bag, then left. Outside, he took a cab to a hotel near the science museum, checked in, then strolled downstairs to the coffee shop. When he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he went out on the street and caught another cab at random, waving the first one off, and took it a few blocks to a park they’d scoped out the other day where he had a good view of the surrounding area.
He dialed into Slott’s number but didn’t get an answer, so he called back over to The Cube.
“Where have you been, Ferg?” asked Corrigan.
“Hello to you, too, Jack. Where’s Slott?”
“Seoul called me—”
“Yeah?”
“They were supposed to meet you on the train, and you didn’t show up. They thought you were dead.”
“Tell them I jumped out the window.”
“Hang on. Slott’s standing right here.”
“Ferg, what’s going on?” said Slott when he came on the line.
“I was about to ask you the same question.”
“You found bomb material.”
“Lauren didn’t tell you?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“The tags were hot. All of them the first day, one the second. We didn’t find the material itself. I have an idea where it might be, though. I’ll go back tonight.”
“No. I don’t want you going anywhere until you hear from me.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I really don’t feel like discussing this with you right now.”
“Well maybe you better,” said Ferguson.
“At the moment, I don’t want to do anything that will jeopardize Thera.”
“How is this going to affect her?”
“I understand you contacted her—”
“No, she contacted me. Look, Dan, if you want to second-guess me, fine, but I’m a little cold right now, so why don’t we do it some other time?”
Ferguson glanced around, making sure no one was near.
“I’m not second-guessing you, Ferg,” snapped Slott.
Ferguson, realizing he was feeling a little cranky himself, remembered he’d forgotten to take his morning dose of thyroid-replacement medicine. He reached into his pocket for the small pillbox he carried, and slipped out the three small pills.
Amazing how such a small amount of chemical could have so much control over a person.
Ferguson recounted what had happened, essentially repeating everything he had told Lauren before going to sleep a few hours earlier.
“The tag that went red the second night was the one next to the entrance to the low-level waste area,” added Ferguson. “I want to get a look at it. I’ll bring a gamma meter in, look around, take some soil samples, plant some more tags.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet? How long do you want me to wait?”
“Until I decide what I want you to do.”
Ferguson put his head back on the bench and looked at the thick layer of clouds overhead. He exhaled slowly.
As supervisors went, Slott was generally reasonable; Ferguson couldn’t remember being second-guessed, let alone being jerked around like this.
“This is a bad decision, Dan,” said Ferguson finally. “You’re not thinking this through.”
“Why is this a bad decision?” snapped Slott.
“Because they could move the material.”
“I’m not debating this with you.”
“Does Seoul know about all this?”
“Not yet.”
“You telling them?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I don’t think we should get them involved. They sent a couple of rookie bozos down to Daejeon and blew my cover. I don’t think they can be trusted.”
“That’s not really up to you, is it?” snapped Slott, instantly defensive.
“You sure they don’t know about this already?”
“Good-bye, Ferg.” Slott cut the line.